At the Mountains of Dadness Ch. 3 - Nuclear Family

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**[WARNING: This page contains spoilers for the the third episode of the At the Mountains of Dadness campaign.]**

> *"The gang of four arrive in Oak Ridge, and confront the unspeakable horrors that lie within..." - Episode Description*
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"Chapter 3: Nuclear Family" is the third and final episode of the miniseries *At the Mountains of Dadness*. It is set in 1939 and features the grandparents of the main quest PCs. The campaign follows four employees at on a movie lot struggling to survive while solving the mystery of a missing film crew. It is set in the Call of Cthulhu system.

This episode is only available on the podcast's Patreon. It can also be purchased from the show's official store.

In this episode, the four PCs finally arrive at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, hoping to soon find the missing cast, crew, and film of *The Heart's Greatest Desire.* The Blue Planet crew is pushed to their very limits on the final leg of their journey, and there is no guarantee of making it back to San Dimas alive.

## Character Introduction

The order in which the characters are introduced is slightly different in this episode. This is because Will "had his coffee, and it's the morning, and he's perky". The characters are introduced at the top of the episode as follows:

* Hildy Russet (Will Campos): Hildy is a roving, undercover cub reporter for the San Dimas Defender.
* Stuart "Stud" Stampler (Beth May): Stud is a construction worker from New York City who dreams of being a star on Broadway. Since moving to San Dimas to raise his nephew, Willy Stampler, he has taken up a more practical career in construction work.
* Robert Wilson (Matt Arnold): Robert is a cowardly line producer at Father's Own Studios, but wishes he was a stuntman.
* Meryl Streep (Freddie Wong): A one-time, sexy, Asian superstar of silent cinema - but now, a total has-been.

## (Grand)Dad Facts

* Hildy: Hildy wears a brooch on her lapel that belonged to her grandmother and personal hero, Jeanne Wilcox-Russet. Jeanne was a muckraking investigative journalist who exposed the horrors of the San Dimas meat-packing industry in the 1890s. Jeanne's disgust at the conditions she uncovered at the Happy Hog's Pork Processing Plant inspired her entire family to convert to veganism, a tradition that has survived through five generations of Henry Oak's family. The brooch has a pig with a heart around it to represent Jeanne's love of animals.
* Stud: Stud does not have diphtheria.
* Robert: Robert's girlfriend, Sally, is pregnant, but Robert doesn't know it yet. (Matt says this fact because he "doesn't think Robert's gonna find out at the end of this.")
* Meryl: Meryl will never meet his daughter and has no idea that he will be a father. (Freddie is "hedging his bets" with this fact because he doesn't think Meryl will survive this episode.) Because of this, Glenn Close has no idea that Meryl Streep is his grandfather.
* A bonus fact for all the granddads: Since *The Wizard of Oz* came out in 1939, the players assigned characters from the movie to their PCs. Robert is the Cowardly Lion, Stud is the Scarecrow, Meryl is the Tin Man, and Hildy is Dorothy. The group also decided that this makes Anthony the Wizard.

## Episode Summary

**[WARNING: This summary contains descriptions of intense body horror and gore. Read at your own risk.]**

### The Train

The Blue Planet crew finds themselves in the engine car of the train to Oak Ridge. They have just disconnected this car from the rest of the train, which is filled with crew members for *The Heart's Greatest Desire* and other monochromatic enemies. In the engineer car with the PCs is the engineer himself, who does not seem to be affiliated with the other enemies on the train; he is not drained of color in any way.

The crew has one day left on the train. Anthony reminds the players that they can spend the day reading the manuscript of *The Heart's Greatest Desire*, which Hildy stole from the sleeper car in the previous episode. If players choose to read the script, they have to make three sanity checks, but will then be able to learn one spell of their choice from the Call of Cthulhu Keeper's Handbook.

Hildy wants to know what's in the screenplay because she promised her editor, Julian, for lots of juicy details from the script. She also wants to try making her article a "mixed-media experience" featuring actual pages from the script.

At this point, the crew does a check-in of their sanity points: Hildy has 56, Meryl has 43, Robert has 30, and Stud has 80.

Hildy realizes that, if she reads the script out loud to Stud, he will also be able to learn one spell. Meryl and Robert plan to ensure that they are out of earshot to avoid risking the loss of more sanity points.

The group briefly speaks to the engineer. He's apparently on their side; he's not upset that they detached the rest of the train because he saw the Conductor's monstrous form and knew something was wrong. He chalks it up to California being "a weird, weird place". The engineer introduces himself as Thomas, along with his tank engine. Hildy convinces Thomas to help them by allowing them to stop in Arkansas to pick up supplies before continuing to their final destination of Oak Ridge. She also warns Thomas not to listen to her while she reads aloud to Stud.

Hildy makes a dad joke about psychology using a play on words with Carl Jung and "young", which deals the rest of the group a d4 of sanity loss.

As an apology for attacking Robert with an empty shotgun in the previous episode, Meryl tries to teach Robert meditation to try and regain some sanity points. Anthony also says that if Robert uses the time on the train to sleep well and rest up, he will have advantage on the first few sanity checks he makes in Oak Ridge.

With the other three people in the car out of earshot, Hildy reads *The Heart's Greatest Desire* aloud to Stud:

> *"OVER BLACK:*
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> *[Swelling orchestra music plays as the voice of a narrator comes onto the screen.]*
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> *NARRATOR: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Today, you've come to see the motion picture,* Heart's Greatest Desire*. What IS* Heart's Greatest Desire*? Is it the pitter-patter of your sweetie's heart pounding in her chest when you lock eyes across the bar room? Is it going to the sea with the top rolled down on your sports coupe, and the wind breezing in your hair? Maybe the greatest desire of YOUR heart is to peel back the layers of reality and see into an abyss of cosmic horror, the likes of which no man has ever known, and find understandings that will rend your sanity insane.*
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> *Well, find out as this movie-"* (Will gives up on the bit)
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Stud asks if the script mentions his own dream of "seeing your name in lights up on the big silver screen". As he does, the pages reform and the text morphs in front of their eyes to form Stud's exact words.

Robert and Meryl overhear this first section, so they make a sanity check with Hildy and Stud. Robert and Stud fail, but Hildy and Meryl pass.

To prevent losing any more sanity, Meryl and Robert try to meditate together. Meryl tells Robert that the first step is to close his eyes. Before Meryl can explain anything else, Robert immediately falls asleep.

Hildy and Stud finish Act One of the script. Apparently, the script is too lengthy; there's an excessive amount of prose. Also, every third word is in all-caps, which Hildy argues becomes less effective the more it is used. Every line of dialogue has a parenthetical description of how it should be said - and all of them just say "(spookily)". Hildy and Stud make their second sanity check. Both of them fail; Stud loses 1 sanity point and Hildy loses 3.

Apparently, there are several typos in Act Two. Hildy also complains about a B-story romance that doesn't add anything to the plot. Hildy and Stud agree that "Problems in the third act are *really* problems in the first act." Hildy and Stud make their final sanity check. Stud passes and takes 1d4 of sanity loss; however, Hildy fails and must lose 1d8.

Hildy finds herself lost in the white space between the lines, and the ending is so terrible that she loses 7 sanity points. She makes an intelligence roll and fails, which means that she is spared from full comprehension of what she read. Because of this, she does not undergo a bout of temporary insanity and simply "doesn't get the ending". Both she and Stud are allowed to learn one spell from the Call of Cthulhu spell list.

In another part of the engineering car, both Robert and Meryl only regain a single sanity point from their sleep and meditation, respectively. This leaves Robert with 26 points of sanity. Because Robert slept, he will get advantage on the first three skill checks he makes in Oak Ridge.

### Little Rock, Arkansas

The train arrives in Little Rock. Hildy collects the money that Julian sent her, along with her gun, which is a .38 snub nose pistol.

Meryl tries to charm Thomas into waiting longer at the station so that they have time to buy more supplies. He offers Thomas a pre-signed headshot. Thomas immediately recognizes him and reveals that he has had untoward feelings for Meryl, but quickly pivots and tries to say his wife had those feelings instead. Meryl rolls poorly, but spends 7 luck points to succeed on the roll. Thomas agrees to wait and tells the group that they have one hour before they need to leave.

Meryl and Robert go to purchase guns. Robert wants to buy a big gun, similar to one that his father might have used in the war, because even using a little gun made him feel really strong. Robert gets a .45 revolver and a machete. Meryl gets a .45 automatic, Colt 1911 pistol.

Robert goes to the post office. He takes the engagement ring he wanted to give to Sally, puts it in an envelope, and mails it to her. He adds a note that says:

> *"Hey, Sal. So, this trip's been a little crazier than I thought it would. I'm almost in Tennessee, and I'll be honest... a lot of scary stuff's been going on. And I bought my first gun, so. We'll see how this goes. I just want you to know that I love you. And I want you to have this one way or the other. And if I'm not there to give it to you, just know you'll always be in my heart. Love you. STOP."*
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Meryl gets some breakfast and buys a newspaper. Even all the way in Little Rock, there's a story about how several people burned alive in an editing building in San Dimas. A quote from R. L. Stein says, "Uh, I dunno. Accidents happen." Meryl and Robert take an interest in the state of the Great Depression and foreign affairs. Anthony determines that the sidequest takes place at some point before September 1st, 1939. Meryl and Robert discuss their mutual unease about Hitler, who has not yet invaded Poland. Meryl hypothesizes that there will be a "Great War 2" that will be "better than the first one". Meryl also mentions reading Detective Comics #27, also known as the first Batman comic book. This comment means that the sidequest must take place during or after May 1939.

The players riff about Hildy "accidentally" purchasing 400 copies of Detective Comics #27 and putting them in a bank vault somewhere, meaning that Henry's family is now incredibly rich. They continue to reference this bit as the episode progresses, but it remains unclear whether or not it's actually canon.

Hildy investigates the script for the names of any gods or specific deities. She doesn't find any specific names, but she does see one being referenced several times by different titles such as "The Embodiment of Chaos", "The Heart of Randomness", and "That Which Dies But Does Not Die". It seems like there should be a name there, but Hildy's mind cannot comprehend how the name would even be pronounced in her own head, much less say it out loud. She knows she can make a sanity check to try and decipher the name if she's willing to take that risk.

Stud finds a spell called Dismiss Deity. The complete and exact wording in the spell can be found in the "Spells Used" section of this article. The full language of the spell can be found in the Spells Used section of this page. A brief summary of the spell is as follows:

> This spell is, essentially, exactly what it sounds like: the caster is attempting to banish a deity from their plane of existence. Dismiss Deity spells are specific to the deity you are trying to dismiss; there's not a "one-size-fits-all" dismissal spell. The caster initially has a 5% chance of successfully dispelling the deity. Extra magic points (a mechanic that is vaguely similar to spell slots in D&D 5e) can be used by the caster, along with any other willing members of their party, to increase the likelihood of success. This spell takes approximately 1 minute to cast and requires no special conditions, rituals, or items.
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Anthony makes Beth an offer: Stud can make a sanity check where the penalty is 2d10 lost sanity points. Win or lose, Stud will learn the name of the deity. Beth takes this offer and fails the roll, but miraculously only takes 3 points of sanity loss. Anthony whispers the name of the deity into Beth's ear so the others at the table won't hear it.

Before they leave Little Rock, Hildy casts the spell that she learned. As the group gets back onto the train, Hildy turns to Stud and casts Cure Blindness. (Everyone at the table cheers.) In order to cast the spell, Hildy has to chant in a deep, guttural, arcane language that she doesn't entirely understand. She and Stud begin to vibrate. Robert and Meryl think that Stud's eyes are widening, but soon realize that his glass eyes are being pushed out of his skull as his "slightly deflated, but original and very active" eyes open. Stud retains the cool, reptilian scars across his eyes.

Everyone other than Stud makes a sanity roll with low stakes; what they saw was disturbing, but it wasn't too disgusting and it had a positive outcome. Stud also makes a sanity check because "whatever Stud was imagining in the darkness of blindness was, like, somehow more optimistic than the world he's coming back to." Robert passes. Meryl and Stud fail, which brings Stud to 69 sanity points (nice). With that, the group departs Little Rock and heads towardOak Ridge.

### Oak Ridge

When the party arrives at the Oak Ridge train station, they see a monochrome PA waiting there- assumedly for them. Before they get off the train, Hildy successfully disguises Stud, Robert, and herself as monochrome people. Stud thanks Hildy for giving him his eyesight back. Robert tells Stud that he'll be a great actor, but Stud says that reading the script inspired him to try writing a movie of his own someday.

During this bit, Beth makes a joke about how Willy kills cats, but that in his script, Stud wants to "save the cat" instead. (This is a reference to a common rule in writing, especially for screenplays, that encourages the inclusion of a scene early on in the story that makes the protagonist sympathetic to the audience - for example, a scene where the main character saves a cat.) Because of this joke, all of the writers in the room must take a d3 of sanity loss.

Robert expects the PA waiting for them at the station to look miserable, but she actually looks really excited; the group assumes this is her first gig. As the PCs exit the train, they watch the PA's excitement turn to confusion as she realizes that only the engine car has arrived. The group pretends to be Meryl's retinue, who came ahead of everyone else.

Meryl walks up to the PA and demands for a car to take him to set. The PA tries to ask him where the rest of the crew is, but Meryl feigns ignorance because he's an actor, not a member of the crew. Robert tells the PA that the crew had to stop for lunch and that they're only a couple of hours behind. Meryl doesn't successfully convince the PA - whether that's a result of a telegram that the crew sent ahead or Meryl's poor acting is unclear.

The PA walks toward a payphone to "call this in" to the film set. On the road behind her, there are three taxis from Yellow King Cab Company waiting to take crew members to set. The party decides to split up and take all three cabs to make it harder for the PA to follow them. Meryl goes in the first car, Stud and Robert ride in the second, and Hildy rides in the third. Robert hands his cab driver $500 and successfully convinces him to take them to set.

Meryl passes his own cab driver a pre-signed headshot with a $50 bill on top, but the driver asks for a bigger tip. As this is happening, Meryl sees the PA yelling frantically on the payphone. When she sees Robert and Stud's car pull away, she drops the phone, takes off running toward Meryl's cab, and starts yelling for them not to leave. Meryl pulls out his gun and threatens the driver, which succeeds.

After Meryl's car pulls away, the PA runs up to the driver's window of Hildy's cab and tells the driver not to leave. She also starts trying to get into the backseat with Hildy. Hildy offers the driver $50 to follow the other two cars. The driver accepts the money and takes off, leaving the PA kicking up dust and shaking her fist in the train station parking lot.

### Film Set

The three cabs leave the tiny town around the train station and drive even deeper into the middle of nowhere. Eventually, they come across a three-story tall shed, flanked by smokestacks, in the middle of nowhere. Encircling all of that is a chain link fence.

Robert's cab arrives first. The driver tells him that they were instructed to drop off the film crew outside of the fence and not to go inside. The others arrive and convene by the fence, Meryl still pointing his gun at his cab driver.

Hildy asks if they should tell the cab drivers to get the police. Meryl protests, reminding the group of R. L. Stein's request to keep the cops out of it. Stud agrees and says that he doesn't want the cab drivers to get hurt from being in such a dangerous place. Robert says that if he ever sees R. L. Stein again, he's going to punch him in the face. He says that he doesn't even care about his job anymore - he just wants to help anybody in danger.

Hildy tells one of the cab drivers that they should go back to town, alert the authorities, and tell them to come to the facility. The cab driver asks for money to make the phone calls and Hildy gives it to him. The cab drivers head back toward town, leaving the Blue Planet crew alone in the woods outside the ominously-glowing shed.

They see that the fence has a vehicle checkpoint, but two figures are lying on the ground next to it. Hildy finds a lamppost with a callbox and calls her editor, Julian. She tells him that she's about to infiltrate the film set. She also asks him to publish her story if she doesn't make it out alive. (Out of character, Will and Anthony do a bit about Metal Gear.)

Stud asks Hildy to use the phone after her. He has to make a luck check to make sure no one in the building sees him, but he passes. He tries to call Willy, but Willy doesn't want to pay the long-distance charges. Stud asks the operator to tell Willy that Stud loves him, "despite everything", and that he doesn't think Willy should have kids. The uncomfortable operator does this, then comes back to tell Stud that Willy is weirdly fixated on having children.

The group examines the two figures lying on the ground. They are two dead guards who have had their throats ripped open. Their rifles are on the ground next to them. Everyone except Hildy passes a sanity check at seeing the dead bodies. Robert offers his knife to Stud so he can have a weapon. The guns on the ground are .30-06 bolt action rifles. Meryl and Stud each take one.

The party sees a main entrance on the first floor. There are lights moving inside on every floor of the building. Most of the light seems to be emanating from the top floor, and the light there is multi-colored and flashing. The smokestacks are operational.

Meryl says that they should make a lap around the building and investigate it. Hildy suggests that they find the fuse box and cut the building's power. In the back of the building, they find a fuse box. Robert and Stud point out that they won't be able to see or find the film without the lights, which makes Hildy reconsider cutting the power.

Hildy looks through a window. Inside, she sees a PA running up the stairs with some cups of coffee. He bumps into another PA and tells them that the crew will be filming the end of the movie at any second because "the star is almost here." He also tells them that he got a call from the PA at the train station about Meryl Streep and his retinue; if the PA sees any of them, they should call for security from upstairs. Meryl is devastated that they're filming the end of the movie without him.

Hildy theorizes that, if they cut the power, the film crew won't be able to finish filming the movie. With the group in agreement, they cut the power. The lights on the first two floors go out immediately. The lights on the third floor aren't affected at all.

Hildy tries to recall what she can remember about the end of the movie from reading the script. She remembers that the ending of the movie was a big comedy. The world was possibly coming to an end, but there was just a goofy joke and a laugh about the destruction of mankind by the elder god. She also knows that the ending might be completely different now; the ending was actively being re-written, and she might have read an older draft.

She also remembers that the script mentioned "The Star" appearing, with those words being underlined multiple times. Hildy gets the feeling that "The Star" was not necessarily referring to an actor. She tells the group that she thinks the story in the script is actually happening, and that the film crew is trying to end the world.

The party discusses a game plan for getting through the facility up to the set on the third floor. Meryl laments that it will be hard to move through the first two floors stealthily because he has "one of the most recognizable faces in cinema". Robert finally snaps and tells him that nobody actually knows who he is. Meryl fails a sanity check and loses 2 sanity points.

The group hears the tromp of boots coming down the stairs, likely to investigate the power outage. Hildy tells the group that they need to move away from the power box and use the loss of power to sneak through the building. Robert successfully hides. Stud and Meryl push their rolls by moving back from the building and hiding in the woods. Stud hangs his coat on a branch as a decoy while Meryl throws his voice thirty feet away, but both of them fail.

Hildy rolls a 99 - a critical failure. Five rowdy-looking, monochrome guards exit the building. They're carrying knives and their bodies are already pock-marked with bullets. They instantly find Hildy, whose camera has gone off with a huge flash.

The party enters combat. Two of the guards hold Hildy down, two of them go after Meryl, and one of them goes after Stud.

One of the guards holding Hildy down pulls out a blackjack and deals her 8 damage. She loses over half of her health, which means that she must make a constitution save to avoid receiving a major wound or being knocked unconscious. She passes the save and doesn't pass out. To avoid taking further damage, though, she pretends to be knocked out. Hildy exits initiative. The other guard lets go of Hildy and joins the guy going after Stud.

The guard that originally went after Stud reaches him, attacks him, and deals him 8 damage. Stud loses half of his health. He, like Hildy, remains conscious but pretends to be knocked out.

Meryl takes 6 damage from a guard, which is over half his health, but he doesn't pass out. Just like Hildy and Stud, he pretends to be unconscious.

Robert - the only member of the group who managed to hide - takes out his lighter and lights the forest brush on fire. He manages to avoid hurting himself, and he stands behind the fire so that he isn't lit. He sprints in the other direction from the fire.

Three of the guards grab the "unconscious" PCs and start bringing them back inside the building. The other two guards run toward the fire and look for Robert, but can't find him. With that, the combat ends.

Robert, Stud, and Hildy are carried through the first floor of the building. Hildy considers taking a risk and opening her eyes to look at her friends, but decides not to. Stud hears the guards commenting on the fire and saying they should have gone to the "Los Alamos instillation". (The players realize that this is the beginning of the Manhattan Project.)

Robert explores the first floor, which seems to be where the files and "boring shit" is kept. There is only one PA on this floor, and they're looking at files. Robert easily sneaks past them and makes it to the second floor.

Robert gets to the second floor and tries to quietly close the door behind him. On a successful luck check, the hinges are oiled. Robert silently closes and locks the door. Robert knows there are two guards outside who are still searching for Robert in the burning woods. He can see three guards carrying his apparently comatose friends up to the third floor. One guard is armed with a shotgun and is stationed by the stairs. The guard by the stairs asks if they captured all of the intruders, but one of the other guards tells him that they're still looking for a fourth person outside.

Robert surveys the second floor, which is an open-air office. This is likely where paperwork is processed and the call center is located; there are several small desks next to each other. Robert is on the south end of this floor. He is next to the stairs that lead down to the first floor. On the north side of the room is another staircase that leads upstairs to the third floor. The one guard still on this floor is standing next to the north staircase. There are three rows of desks. As the rows get closer to the guard, Robert will need to get a better success to hide behind them. For all three rows, the guard makes his Spot Hidden rolls with disadvantage.

Robert takes off one of his socks, lights it on fire, and sets it on the staircase. Immediately after he does this, he rolls out of the staircase and hides behind a desk. Robert rolls a 100 to hide - the worst possible roll in the game. The guard immediately sees Robert and grabs him by the scuff of his neck. Robert shoots the guard in the head, gets an extreme success, and fully decapitates him.

Out of character, Will tells Matt to yell "I got the last one!" and pretend to be the guard. Instead, Robert does the exact opposite and yells, "Guys, I'm coming!"

The story cuts back to Stud, Meryl, and Hildy, who are still being carried to the third floor and pretending to be unconscious. Because the guards didn't think to search them, they still have all their weapons. When the guards hear Robert yell, they each drop the person they're carrying and start going back downstairs. Their turn ends as they get to the bottom of the stairs and see Robert with the smoking gun.

Hildy, Stud, and Meryl get to the third floor. They see the director of The Heart's Greatest Desire, Double J Abrams, with a box in the middle of the room. On the sheer white walls are a bunch of holes that are individually numbered and hooked up to computer terminals. There are large, graphite rods sticking out of the holes and glowing. Each rod is tied to a cable, which goes into a camera, which is pointed at the box. The box is glowing, and the group realizes that this is the source of the light they saw from outside.

The camera is rolling. The lead actress in the film is holding the box and awaiting instructions from the director. Double J keeps saying that they need to summon The Star and that something is missing from the scene. At this moment, he sees the three PCs get dropped at the top of the stairs. He sees Meryl and says that he could bring the "little spark" that the scene needs. Double J Abrams begins to walk toward Meryl.

The group also realizes that there is not a typical reel of film behind the camera. There is a seemingly endless amount of film being fed into the camera. Behind it, a dozen PAs are sitting on their knees, arms forward and wrists exposed. Enormous gashes in their wrists are black blood is spilling down their monochrome arms as reels of film are pulled from their veins. All of the celluloid converges in a tangled, bloody braid before the camera devours it. All of the PAs have massive smiles on their faces and are sobbing tears of joy as they look upwards.

Stud considers sprinting across the room to the camera and trying to slash through the film where its being fed into the camera. He notes that the director and the actors are monochrome, while the PAs are sepia-toned and apparently in a trance. From the stairs to the back of the room, the order is as follows: the PCs, the actors, Double J, the camera, the film feeding into the camera, and the twelve PAs.

Stud, Meryl, and Hildy briefly discuss what they should do. They decide to play dumb, let Double J approach, and potentially allow Meryl to get a point-blank shot at him. The three of them decide to hold their turns and wait to see what happens next.

The initiative order starts over. The director straddles Meryl's body, slaps him in the face, and says, "Wake the fuck up. It's time to act." Meryl draws his gun, puts it to Double J's temple, and says, "I got a spark for you right here, bub!" The director yells out for help. One of the guards pursuing Robert turns around and uses his turn to run back up the stairs to the third floor.

The other two guards continue going after Robert. The first guard comes at him with a straight razor, but Robert shoots him in the face and decapitates him. The second guard also attacks with a straight razor, but Robert fails to fight back. Robert takes 7 points of damage, which is over half of his health. He takes a Major Wound - his nose is completely sliced off. He passes the constitution check to remain conscious.

Robert shoots the last guard twice through the ribcage and kills him. He makes a sanity check and fails.

Stud decides to start tap dancing to give Hildy advantage on whatever she does with her turn. He also moves toward the side so that his tap dancing is "less threatening".

Hildy springs forth from the shadows and judo flips the guard down the stairs. He takes damage and is knocked prone at the bottom of the stairs. Hildy lands in a blade pose.

Meryl shoots Double J. The head blasts open and bisects. Two big tendrils emerge from it and his tongue flails in his exposed throat. He's definitely injured, but he's not dead. Meryl tries to shoot him again, but he dodges.

Double J's turn begins. (Out of character, Anthony freaks out when he realizes that Double J Abrams has five attacks.) Double J grabs Meryl with a tentacle and lifts him up. He drags Meryl over to the leading actress and grabs her with his other tentacle. He pushes the two of them together and tells Meryl to "do to her what you did to me" - he wants Meryl to shoot the actress. If Meryl refuses, Double J will spend his remaining four attacks on Meryl. Meryl decides to do what he's told. Stud clarifies that he has stopped tap dancing.

Everyone in the room makes a sanity check. Meryl rolls a 100 - the second critical failure of the episode. Meryl loses 5 points of sanity damage and succeeds on his intelligence check, which gives him a Temporary Insanity. He suffers from a psychosomatic disability: "You have either blindness, deafness, or loss of the use of your limbs." Because of this, Meryl is deaf for the next seven rounds.

Hildy and Stud fail their sanity checks as well. Hildy loses 2 sanity points. Stud loses more than 5 sanity points, but fails his intelligence check and avoids any Temporary Insanity.

Meryl nods at Double J and tries to play along in order to distract him. Meryl succeeds on an acting check, but Double J succeeds on an intelligence check to see through his act. Meryl uses luck points to turn his normal success into a hard success. Meryl puts the gun to his co-star's head and delivers his famous line, to Double J's delight.

Anthony tells the group that Meryl's acting has bought the group one more round. The guard that Hildy judo-flipped gets up and starts heading back upstairs.

Robert wants to burn down the building, but Hildy tells him that it won't catch fire in time before Meryl shoots the actress and opens the portal. Robert instead decides to run up to the guard, shoots him in the head, and kills him. Covered in blood, Robert starts to walk back up the stairs in a daze. He succeeds on his sanity check and only loses 1 sanity point.

Stud tries to run and do a silent-film style knee slide to get to the camera. Stud rolls a 7 - an extreme success - and gets so low on the knee slide that the actress opposite Meryl doesn't even see him. Stud gets to the camera and tries to slice through the film as it goes into the camera. As he lifts his knife, he watches the braid of film pulsate and react like a living being. Stud uses all 58 of his remaining luck points just to get a normal success. Studdoes maximum damage and cuts halfway through the film.

Hildy considers whether she should try to get the mystery box out of the room or shoot the camera. The group recommends she throws the mystery box, which is about the size of a shoebox and has a giant question mark on it, out the window. Hildy counters with the point that Double J is probably going to kill all of them, so they should do whatever they can to stop the ritual. She argues that destroying the camera would cause a bigger problem for him than just throwing the box out of the window.

The group gets the idea to light the celluloid on fire using the flash bulb from Hildy's camera. After some brief research on old-fashioned flash bulbs, the group realizes that Hildy needs to "smash it as you flash it"; this will allow the small explosion in the flash bulb to escape the bulb and start a fire. Hildy succeeds, but the film gets an extreme success and dodges out of the way.

Meryl's turn is the last one before Double J's next turn. Meryl tries to shoot at the spent flash bulb to spark a fire. Double J sees Meryl's hand move and tightens his grip, giving him disadvantage. Meryl's gun has one bullet in the chamber and a magazine. Meryl drops the magazine to distract Double J and uses the last bullet to shoot the flash bulb. Meryl gets a hard success. Double J's roll isn't revealed, but it was likely a success, since Anthony calls Meryl a "lucky piece of shit". Meryl uses this opportunity to shoot at the bulb, but still does so with disadvantage since he isn't directly facing it and it's a small target.

Anthony warns Meryl that, if he pushes the roll, Double J will get to take his attacks no matter what. Meryl decides to push it anyway. He spends the rest of his luck to make his shot a hard success. There's an explosion of light as sparks fly through the air. One spark lands directly on the film strip and the faint sound of screaming can be heard as it ignites. The fire quickly moves through the celluloid and into the veins of the PAs attached to the film. As they catch on fire and start screaming, everyone makes a sanity roll (except for Robert, who is still downstairs). Meryl, Stud, and Hildy all fail. Stud and Hildy not only take maximum damage, but also succeed on their intelligence rolls. Stud is "incapacitated by an emotional outburst that renders him inconsolable" for five rounds. Stud is crying because the film is so beautiful. Hildy is "compelled to get as far away as possible by whatever means available" for ten rounds.

Because Meryl pushed the roll, Double J takes all five attacks on him. The group encourages him to fight back and "go down swinging" because he's almost certainly going to die. Double J rolls a 6 and deals Meryl 3d6 damage. Meryl, who was at 4 HP, takes 11 damage and is immediately downed. Double J leans forward with the two separated halves of his head and smashes them around Meryl's head. From inside, the others hear Meryl's muffled voice delivering his infamous line one last time. Double J keeps smashing Meryl until his head is bashed into a horrible black and white paste. He drops Meryl's lifeless body on the ground.

Double J looks around for more film, sees Hildy trying to run, and grabs her with one of his tentacles. Another tentacle sprouts from his forehead and slashes at her wrists. Hildy tries to dodge, but fails. She considers pushing the roll; if she does, she will take the full 3d6 damage. If she dies, Double J will have to get film from someone else. She figures she would die even if she only took half damage, so she pushes the roll. Hildy has 29 luck points left and uses 23 of them to get a success.

Double J has two more attempts to attack Hildy. He tries to tear her wrists open with his fingernails. Hildy succeeds, but Double J rolls a 5. Hildy pushes the roll, but doesn't succeed. She takes the full 3d6 of damage and Double J knocks her unconscious almost instantly. The last thing she sees before she blacks out is a tentacle whipping across her wrists with the force of a razor blade. He digs into her veins, rips them out, and jams them into the camera.

With Double J's final action, he attempts to finish the ritual. He smooches the actress with his not-face and jams his tentacle tongue all the way down her throat. As she cries with joy, he smashes her head in and black blood goes everywhere. The remaining party members realize that the question mark on the box is a lock. As the white hot beam of light coming from the camera burns away the question mark, a seam appears on the box. On his next turn, Double J will open it.

Robert stumbles up the stairs and sees the state of his friends: Meryl's suit-clad body is lying decapitated on the ground, Stud is sobbing hysterically in the corner, and Hildy is incapacitated as her veins feed into the camera. The moment Robert sees this, he stares at the tentacle creature and has a flashback to the death of his parents. He pulls up his shirt to reveal a scar he's had his entire life. In this moment, he realizes that the strange pock-marks of the scar look like the suction cups on tentacles. Repressed memories of the shipwreck begin to resurface, and he remembers creatures with tentacles dragging people down into the water. One of them had grabbed him, but he somehow managed to escape.

Double J is so distracted by the box that he doesn't notice Robert approaching. Outside, the fire has spread quickly and rages in the forest. Robert sees the two guards he evaded in the forest are burning alive. Robert can't tell what the box is made out of. It's some kind of material that "defies human description"; it feels soft like cardboard, but knocking your nails against it makes a clanging sound like steel.

Robert gets a strong success to pick up the box, which is way heavier than he expected. He considers jumping out of the window and into the flaming forest below, but the flames aren't quite close enough for him to land there. He still decides to jump, with the risk of breaking a limb or two, to attempt to crawl into the forest fire and destroy the box. Robert looks at Stud, says, "I hope this works," and jumps out of the window. He rolls a 3, successfully breaking through the window and only taking 2 points of damage when he lands.

Robert makes a luck roll to see if the box opened when he landed. Unfortunately, it does. As he holds the box in his hand, it cracks open and a beam of light shoots out. Horrible black light spews out from the box, and something begins to crawl out of it. It's chaos incarnate. Robert realizes that the reason all of the actors and crew were so enamored with the randomness of the hairs and imperfections on the film is because it perfectly represents this chaos. In this moment, Robert can see hairs on the fragments of reality in front of him.

Robert makes a sanity check and fails by 1. He rolls a d100 and takes 92 points of sanity damage. The last thing his conscious mind understands as he looks at the box is the absolute, utter certainty that this is the creature that took his parents away from him. It provides him a bit of cold comfort before he loses his mind completely. In his insanity, Robert offers his hand out to the box for a firm handshake. The tendrils reach back, encircle him, and engulf him. The creature absorbs him, destroying whatever remnants remained of Robert Wilson.

Anthony gives Stud the chance to perform one last action at a disadvantage. Stud watches Robert be destroyed. Even through his tears, he realizes that this is his chance as an "understudy" to step up. Even though the rules shouldn't allow Stud to have another action, Anthony allows it. Through the window, Stud sees the face - "if you can even call it that" - of the eldritch being. The only person who knows its name is Stud. The name is: The Doodler.

Stud casts Dismiss Deity. The Doodler has 250 POW (Power). In order to cast this spell, Stud must spend enough of his magic points to match The Doodler's POW. 1 magic point equals 25 POW, so Stud must spend 10 of his 16 magic points to reach 250 POW. This gives an initial 5% chance to banish the deity. Every extra magic point Stud spends adds an additional 5% chance of success. By spending all 6 of his remaining points, Stud now has a 35% chance of banishing The Doodler.

Because of Stud's disadvantage, Beth has to roll under 35 twice for the spell to succeed. The first roll is a 3. The second roll is another 3. The chances of Beth rolling that are 1 in 10,000.

The Doodler reacts with a horrible high pitched squeal as Stud mindlessly recites eldritch incantations. To banish The Doodler, he puts a twist on Meryl's classic line: "Go away, baby, and get your body as far away from me as you can."

The Doodler hisses in irritation as the box begins to grow around it. The box gets bigger and bigger, not just enveloping The Doodler but the ground around it. Everything begins to be sucked into this box, including the building they're in. Stud, succumbing to his Temporary Insanity, doesn't get a chance to escape.

The box opens its maw and starts developing the building floor by floor. As Stud falls into the box, he says, "I did it. I'm a big star. Everybody was lookin' at me, even for just one moment. Man. This is the magic of the silver screen..."

The camera gets sucked in as well, with Hildy still attached to it. Something about the energy reversing back into the camera from The Doodler awakening creates a spark of energy. It travels through Hildy's veins. Her eyes open for just a second. Then, the box slams shut and blinks out of existence. It leaves behind a massive crater where the X-10 Oak Ridge facility once was.

As silence falls over Oak Ridge, the four grandparents - most of them not even knowing they were parents - are either dead or transferred into another plane of reality. Despite this, there is a sense, no matter how dire... that things are gonna be alright.

## Spells Used

This section provides the precise language from the Call of Cthulhu Grimoire for the two spells used in this episode. Below the spell descriptions is an analysis of how both spells were used in the episode. Both of these spells, with these verbatim descriptions, can be found on page 249 of the Call of Cthulhu Keeper's Handbook.

### Cause/Cure Blindness

Cost: 8 magic points (and 2d6 Sanity points for Cause Blindness)

Casting time: 1 day

The target suffers complete and permanent blindness, as if by a stroke. The same spell can reverse blindness if the eyes and optic nerves are essentially intact. The spell costs 8 magic points for either version. A day of ritual is required. For the spell to take effect, the caster must succeed in an opposed POW roll with the target (automatic success if the target is consenting).

### Dismiss Deity

Cost: 1 or more magic points per person.

Casting time: 1 minute plus 1 extra round per participant who donates magic points

A deity who does not want to leave Earth may be dismissed. Every Dismiss spell differs; the caster must know the specific Dismiss spell for the particular deity. First, allot 1 magic point per 25 POW (round down) possessed by the deity. This grants an initial 5% chance to dismiss the god and it opens the way for the deity's dismissal.

[*Cthugha has 210 POW and so 8 magic points are needed to 'open the way' to dismiss this monstrosity.*]

Once the way is prepared, the sacrifice of more magic points can tempt the deity into departure. In this, the second stage, each new magic point sacrificed increases the chance that the deity leaves by 5 percentiles. Sacrificing 10 more magic points adds 50 percentiles to the chance. As with the Call Deity version of the spell, a group of people can assist one another to cast Dismiss Deity.

Roll 1d100 against the total chance for the dismissal. As with Call Deity, the caster is the focus of the spell; other members of the group can contribute magic points. Dismiss Deity costs no Sanity points.

Call Deity spells always require special conditions and rituals; however, the Dismiss portion of the spell can be cast anytime, anywhere.

[*8 magic points opens the way for Cthugha, representing a 5% chance for dismissal. Sacrificing 10 more magic points increases the chances to 55%. To have a 99% (the maximum achievable) chance of dismissing Cthugha, those assembled must sacrifice 8+19 magic points in the two stages, a total of 27 magic points.*]

### Use of Spells in the Episode

Hildy casts Cure Blindness at [00:25:20]. According to the exact language of the spell, it shouldn't be successful because the eyes and optic nerves have to be "essentially intact"; Stud's eyes were completely demolished by the moviola in Chapter 1. Also, technically, casting this spell should take Hildy an entire day, but Stud regains his eyesight instantly.

Stud casts Dismiss Deity at [1:45:07]. Technically, he shouldn't have been able to cast this spell since he was undergoing Temporary Insanity.

These variations of the original spells can hardly come as a surprise to any listener of the podcast; Dungeons and Daddies has never been known for following the rules of their TTRPG of choice. Instead, the show favors dramatic effect and streamlined events over exact rules, which is part of what makes the show so accessible to TTRPG newcomers.

Additionally, The Call of Cthulhu Keeper's Handbook actually encourages Keepers to stray from the exact wording in the Grimoire: "There is no such thing as a definitive spell. The ones listed here are only a guide and starting point for the Keeper to draw upon" (p. 242).