Kicking off “Season 2” of our Cultist campaign tonight.

Kicking off “Season 2” of our Cultist campaign tonight. To get people in the mood, I wrote an opening credit sequence which I’m going to read over “Furnace Room Lullaby” playing in the background.

Close up on half of a hollow metal sphere the size of a fist, as glittering powder is poured into it with a sshhh…

Someone’s hands, the cuffs of a heavy-knit sweater visible, screw the two halves of the sphere together until they click…

A wick is dipped in fluid and inserted into the top of the sphere

A match is struck.

The screen goes dark.

[cue music]

A match appears in the darkness, held by a white-gloved hand which touches it to the wick of a candle…

Shallow focus on a taut catgut thread, stretching away from the candle…

A sharp knife is held up for scrutiny, an eye reflected on its shiny blade…

A painting of a uniformed woman with a scarred face, as the knife cuts into the scar and across the canvas…

A cloaked figure, observed from above as it crosses a cobbled street at night…

Close on the muzzle flash of a flintlock pistol, then a hand clutching a shoulder torn by the shot…

Fade back to the catgut thread as it meets another lit candle, from which several other threads radiate…

Tea is poured from an ornate porcelain kettle, the teacup is lifted to a mustachioed mouth…

Rings glitter on the fingers of a hand that traces words in an ancient language across parchment on a cluttered desk…

Fade into a face wearing a beautiful mask, which is removed to reveal another mask, grotesque and disturbing…

Close on a torso sheathed in shiny eelskin, drawn up to reveal a perfect set of washboard abs…

Brief glimpse of overlapping naked forms contorted in pleasure, or suffering, or both…

Close on a complex knot being tied, the rope tight against a bare body…

The rope fades into the catgut thread as it meets another lit candle, from which several other threads radiate…

Shallow focus as an elaborate rifle scope, an eye staring through it as the trigger is pulled…

A fist wrapped in cloth strikes a face in such slow motion that droplets of blood are visible, suspended in space…

A blueprint is unrolled across a table…

Fade into the back of the head of a woman with long white hair, a strange shape visible coalescing out of the darkness in front of her… her hair flares out in a numbus…

Close on the catgut thread from above as it reaches the last candle; we pull back to a top-down view of the complete sign of Azarax, marked out on the floor.