Secret Keeper Guide

The Secret Keepers in this game hold many secrets about items and abilities, most of which direct the player to consult a Secret Keeper in their description.  This is a list of the items with secret functions which the players will need The Secret Keepers to activate.

## 45 Minute Revelations

Forty five minutes after the game starts, Secret Keepers will begin to dole out revelations to certain characters.

Cyndi: You realize that you recognize Aeon Osiris. Your blood runs cold as you remember that day. Aeon was one of the Time Cops who arrested your mother. They were young and fresh-faced then, and now they seem grizzled and haggard, but they were the one who tried to neuralyze your memories.

Heather Hart: You realize that you have been dating an android. There was something familiar about the feel of RJ's touch that you just couldn't place, but it suddenly came to you in a flash. In your home era there had been laws passed against robots appearing too human, but you did once happen to meet a skinjob. It was at an underground party

Mike American: You've envisioned in your mind the schematics provided by Dr. Gelman, and you realize that Kris is one of the androids from Project Prometheus.

Aeon Osiris: Remembering a snippet of your 21st century history, you realize that Kevin Curd will grow up to be one of the greatest monsters of his time, committing heinous atrocities. Normally, your agency would not authorize meddling in the past to prevent documented tragedies. However, the agency is decimated, you are in this era acting on your own reconnaissance, and if your mission is successful you will have rewritten history anyway...

Jennifer: You can sense that there are alien entities in this complex unlike any you have encountered before. You are picking up impressions of an industrious hive mind, of a ravenous creature driven by instinct, and of mind that is cruel, proud, and complex that is now tinged with fear.

## Backstory Timeline

 Shrinking

If a character has been shrunk down to a tiny size, then they are to flip their nametag over to the unseen symbol and create an item card to represent their tiny self. The shrunk player observe others normally, but can only communicate to other characters if their player is holding the card that represents their tiny self. The shrunk player can move this card around in the room, which represents the shrunk player hiding or attempting to get someone to notice them. The shrunk player cannot move from room to room on their own, and needs another player to carry them.

## Phantom Zone (Proximal Extraplanar Region)

A character or object that has been transported to the Phantom Zone can only be perceived by others in the Phantom Zone. Phantom zone items and characters are indicated with a special version of the unseen symbol. Upon a player telling you that their character has 1) gone through the towering arch in Planar Phase Dynamics, 2) been targeted by the Displacer Ray, or 3) used a telepod set to destination #4, provide them with the Phantom Zone card with the instruction to read it and then put it on over their name tag. The card reads as follows:

\*YOU HAVE BEEN TRANSPORTED TO THE PHANTOM ZONE\*

You find yourself in a strange and dreamlike version of the world you know. You can still see and hear objects and creatures in the regular world, but their borders appear hazy and liquid, their sounds distorted and muffled. Glowing clouds of shifting colors drift and swirl in the air around you. You find the ground below you spongy, and it takes a moment to get your balance.

Here in the Phantom Zone, you are unseen to people in the regular world. You cannot pick up or move items located in the regular world, but you can observe other characters' interactions; in other words, you can read placards but in the alien physics of the Phantom Zone reality you can bend and compress them. This allows you to squeeze through doors or ventilation ducts. You can now see items and creatures that are marked with the colorful unseen symbol, and they can see you. Place this colorful unseen symbol over your name tag, and begin your exploration of the Phantom Zone!

## Ventilation Ducts:

As appropriate to any piece of fiction influenced by 80s action and adventure characters can crawl through the ventilation ducts. However the ventilation ducts are very narrow. at the beginning of the game there are only two characters who have the ability to fit through a ventilation duct. Mike American is able to fit through a ventilation duct due to his contortionist ability. Kevin is able to fit through a ventilation duct due to his small size as a child. Additional characters made gain the ability to go through ventilation ducts by miniaturizing themselves with the compression field generator (shrink ray) found in the Micronics department. luckily, all ventilation ducts in the complex are located near ground level, and the openings in the great itself are comparatively wide, allowing characters that have been shrunk with a shrink ray to pass through the grate and travel from one room to another without having to remove the grate. This is an exception to shrunken characters not being able to travel from room to room on their own, because this means of egress does not require being large enough to trigger the door sensor. The ventilation duct system connects the Micronics lab, the atrium, and Raleigh's room.

## Latent Abilities

When a player informs you their character has been killed, ask them if they have a Latent Ability. This latent ability manifests at the time of a character being killed. Instead of being completely unable to effect play, a character with the latent ability that is triggered at death is able to live on in some fashion.

## Latent Ability: Scarab

If a character chose to bond through mimicking the psychic beetles in the xenobiology annex, this latent ability allows them to control the swarm of psychic beetles, which immediately escape from the terrarium.

Communication: The swarm of psychic beetles does not have vocal cords and cannot speak, but it is able to reshape itself in order to spell out messages. In this manner, represented by using a dry erase pad, the character can continue to communicate with the rest of the characters.

Items: By swarming into differently shaped formations, beetles are able to manipulate objects normally.

Movement: The swarm of beetles is able to move around freely through the ventilation ducts. However, the swarm of beetles is not able to trigger the lab door sensor because they are too light.  The beetles are very strong and can lift many times their weight, and so this limitation may be gotten around if the beetles pick up a heavy object and carry it along with them. A character cannot split up their swarm to send it in different directions, attempting to do so causes them to lose psychic connection with the beetles it sent away.

Multiple Swarms: Up to three characters may have a psychic bond with the beetles. When the latent ability is activated for a second or third character, a group of the beetles breaks off from the main swarm and is now under their control.

Combat: While individual Beatles may be stomped and squished, the swarm as a whole cannot be destroyed with any of the weapons in this game. The beetles swarm cannot be restrained by other characters attempting to pin it down, but the Beatles swarm May contribute as one of three characters restraining another character.

## Latent Ability: Labyrinth

Unbeknownst to the player, the VR technology used in the VR game in the cafe ("Challenge of the Labyrinth") also implanted subdermal microtechnology, which has been recording and uploading their brainwaves. As a result, a character with this ability has had a rough approximation of their personality compiled by the computer system in the cafe. With the transmission of those brainwaves so abruptly interrupted, the cafe computer system completes its analysis and activates its AI approximation of the killed character.

The player may now assume the role of this AI, enabling them to communicate with other characters through the display screens and speakers located in the cafe, including the VR station and the men screens, or by downloading themselves into the cafe server robots, all of which are reprogrammed McDonalds animatronics.

Your options are:

- Grimace, a large purple blob beast.

- Hamburglar, a striped scoundrel who steals food.

- Mac Tonight, a man with a huge crescent moon for a head.

- Alfredo, an Italian pizza chef (salvaged prototype, never implemented nationally.)

## Latent Ability: Tether

Due to the strong emotional bond between Cyndi and Jennifer, if either of these two best friends dies then they can choose to remain psychically tethered to the surviving best friend. If so, the dead character can communicate with the living character, and can allow the living character to use any of their abilities.

Limitations: The dead character cannot directly manipulate objects. The dead character is no longer tangible and cannot be targeted by or perceived by anyone but the living friend. They dead character cannot explore independently of the living character.

As a result of this tether, the pair of friends gain an ability they can only use by coordinated effort.

Ability: Dark Command

If Cyndi and Jennifer give a command by speaking in unison, the target must obey. This can compel a character to answer a question, but does not prevent them from lying.

## Glaarvok

Larval Phase

You are being given a new character. Although your new character retains the outward appearance and memories of your old character, you are now playing the parasitic glaarvok larva which has attached itself to your old character's brain stem and taken over their nervous system.  In this larval phase, you retain access to all of your old character abilities. However, you have a new goal: to consume the vast quantities of sugar (4 items' worth) required to fuel the next phase of your transformation. Once you have acquired the needed sugar, inform a Secret Keeper.

Nymph Phase

Appearance: Pallid and Sweating Profusely

An excellent start! High on glucose and with your whole body shuddering and tingling, you have reached the next step on your transformational journey. Your tongue has mutated into a four foot long tentacle, the sharp tip of which injects a paralytic venom. Inconveniently this new mutation does prevent you from using spoken language, as opening your mouth to do so would simply uncoil your hideous new appendage. You'll have to use non-verbal communication to lure your victims away and paralyze them. You must keep them alive, otherwise they won't be fresh later when you need them. The paralyzed bodies of your victims will be too cumbersome and conspicuous to drag around, but you can leave their Body Cards poking out from under the placard for an appropriately large object to represent stashing them under a table, desk, etc. Once you have three paralyzed victims, notify a Secret Keeper for your next phase.

Cocoon Phase

Appearance: An Absolute Ghoul with Oozing Mandibles

Well done you! You're really chasing your peak potential. A set of hideous mandibles is sprouted from your face, your eyes have become multifaceted, can your flesh is sloughing off in long strips. In short, your appearance has become obviously inhuman to anyone that interacts with you.

Those mandibles of yours ain't just for looks. The goo they secrete lets you mashup metallic objects into a quick drying paste which you spin into iron-hard cocoons, both to trap your paralyzed victims and protect yourself when you're ready for your final phase.

You must collect and consume a metallic item card for each use of the cocoon ability. You can use your judgement on what items contain significant metal (honor system.) Write "dissolved fragments of..." in front of each item's name, and leave it on the cocooned person’s body marker. Once you have cocooned three victims, you feel the overwhelming instinct to cocoon yourself settle int your final long metamorphosis into an adult glaarvok. Once you have done this, see a Secret Keeper for a body marker, relax, and relish the satisfaction of having fulfilled all your innate imperatives.

## Instructions for Item Use

### Anachronometer

* Cyndi gives an inconclusive reading, switching back and forth between NORMAL and ANOMALY
* RJ gives off a reading of ANOMALY
* Aeon Osiris gives off a reading of ANOMALY
* All other guests are NORMAL
* If operated in the Phantom Zone.e, RJ = NORMAL, everyone else = ANOMALY

### Ovoid Pod (Telepod)

* If a character activates a telepod, ask them which destination they selected.
* #1 = They are transported to the pod in the Planar Phase Dynamics Lab
* #2 = They are transported to the pod in Raleigh’s Room.
* #3 = They are transported to the pod in the Applied Micronics Lab
* #4 = This pod is out of service.  The player remains in the same room, but is shifted into the Phantom Zone.

### Compression Field Generator

* If set to COMPRESS, have the target switch their card to UNSEEN and
* Write in pencil “miniaturized” on objects
* Give miniaturized people the “unseen” condition
* Creates an object that is “miniaturized” version of the character, which can be carried by another player