the signalwave series part two
Top "Signalwave" Albums to "Liminal Horror" to (2024)
tracking by antenna decay (released February 21, 2024)
Is there a constant beeping in the background, or is it tinnitus? I take my left air pod out, and the beeping stops, but now track two is playing, and I still hear the beeping. I checked my surroundings and removed the air pod again, and I realized it was the album’s heart monitor.
The first two songs are piano and nice and short, but track 3, “found,” is where the album begins to shine. It sounds like a slowed-down oldie with a full band (strings, winds, drums, etc).
Track 4, “slow,” has big Weather Channel vibes (a staple of the genre) with its piano tones, electric guitar riffs, and jazz flute! It also begins what I’m going to call The Trilogy, which, if you put all the single-word song titles together, makes “Slow Days Fading.” The album is also tagged as “Sentimental Transmission.” I recommend that fans of the soft rock bands Chicago and Bread start here, as well as anyone limited to time. The album sounds like a tragic love affair, good times and bad. It felt like the pace of the beeping varied at times.
Track 7, “worn,” is a melody I know from somewhere, and research is still ongoing.
Track 8, “gone,” I recommend to fans of dungeon synth and cottagecore.
The whole time, I was waiting for the beeping to cease or remain in the steady drone of death you see in the movies, but it never came. Which is fine; you live another day.
Many artists will write some micro-fiction, or poetry on their album’s page, and “tracking’s” description is like the gray text box from an adventure:
viewing the memories of a soon-to-be-gone tape.
---
you walk into the attic.
the dust dances in the air around you.
there it sits, in the exact spot where you once stood, sun-bleached.
you feel a sense of familiarity.
you walk into your bedroom.
the smell of your past greets you.
there it lies, as if it were waiting for you, wishing for your return.
you choose to face yourself.
you walk into the living room.
the carpet feels softer than usual.
there it lies, gone in a moment, never to be seen again.
you watch as it all passes.
If you missed the albums in part one, you can find it here.
***
I’ve been battling a bit of scope creep with finishing the next draft of my submission to the Liminal Horror Twisted Classics Jam. When I need a break from the writing and frustrations, and it's too hot to skateboard, I’ll draw the writing.
I drew this after writing, “Her Bible is white, and she holds it in both hands, like a big sandwich.” I wasn’t planning on giving this character a gun. I just wanted to draw a gun and then I put it in the Bible.
***
I ran the Liminal Horror pamphlet adventure The Chair by Zach Hazard Vaupen.
Play reports are so exhausting to write. This will be brief.
Two friends and I met up and played Liminal Horror the last two days for about an hour each session. It was my first time running Liminal Horror, and it was their first time playing. I didn't prep anything and hadn't even read all of the rooms prior, but I invited Bolt Neck Possum to play, who joined the call but just as a listener while working and answering a few questions I had on rules.
They both rolled the same result on the "What Brought You to the House" table: "Greed made you into a fugitive, and you needed a place to lay low."
At one point, Jason went into the air duct, which led to a heated room. He sat in the chair and teleported between the bathroom walls. He lost all control and became an NPC that started to break through the walls.
Peyton heard the thuds and went to investigate and help their friend, but after using the rock hammer to break the drywall, they saw their friend's eyes were solid black and abandoned them.
In the end, Peyton drove off, but curiosity took over, and he turned around to dig up the grave he had seen in the garden.
The Chair is easy to run and incorporate into your ongoing campaign or a great start to a new one. I think it took us 2.5 hours to complete the scenario. If I were to run this again, I would change the NPCs in the house to something else—another type of creature, perhaps, or at least reskinned. The creep factor in this one is easy to achieve, and it has a few things players who like puzzles or problem-solving will enjoy.
If I run Liminal Horror for the same group again, I hope we can continue where we left off.
Thorn: I didn't realize the fallout card for this game wasn't included in the pamphlet pdf, even though I downloaded and read the card a few days before the game and had the card open in a window during the game. So we didn't roll on the new fallouts in The Chair, which is kind of a bummer. I just totally spaced.
Rose: I pulled a few things from Gonin that I used in the sessions. Like starting the players off sitting in a car in the rain. Turning the whole fugitive hook into a heist gone wrong, and using the film to add more to the recent grave in the garden in the adventure.
Other news: I’ve been reading a lot of manga this summer (I recommend Hideout [short and more traditional horror and phsychological] by Masaumi Kakizaki, and Paranoia Street [ a more twisted slice of life and the first story was my favorite in this collection] by Shintaō Kago).
Other news: I've been reading a lot of manga this summer and ( I recommend Hideout [short and more traditional horror and psychological] by Masasumi Kakizaki, and Paranoia Street [a more twisted slice of life about a private detective and his assistant, the first story was my favorite in this collection] by Shintarō Kago).
The night before the game, I watched Gonin. It's a 1995 yakuza film that sparked a trilogy. Beat Takashi is awesome in the movie, as he always is.
