Eustace Delmont and the Case of the Rambler's Inn 00 - In Which Things Are Stolen and Mysteries Sprout like Mushrooms

Dear reader, what can one really and truly say about Eustace Delmont that the press have not already said? Shall we discuss the time he identified as the Mystery Man upon a certain super-model's yacht (a pun both wicked and delightful)? Should we dive deep into his years spent translating works of Japanese drama into English? How about the time he single-handedly saved the town of Yarsburg from a a flood of negative spiritual energy and became a close friend of Jack Fall in the process? 

No, thinking back over his long and illustrious career as a premier explorer of mysteries and solver of deeds nefarious, you will find no better place to start your investigation into Eustace Delmont than 1995 in the sleepy Gulf Coast town of Maidenstead, Alabama. A quaint and quiet town where Delmont settled for a post-baccalaureate stint in the then exciting world of novel explorations towards applying microcircuitry to long distance communications.  

<<Alright folks, Eustace asked me to edit and type up these tapes for his biography and I agreed. I just did not realize he was going to be quite so...Eustace...about it. I just want to jump in and add some commentary here or there so that you can better understand the context and appreciate that he actually helped a lot of people. In this case, the "stint" was moving back home with his parents while applying for grad schools and then being made by said parents to work at Harley Shack, which was a blatant Radio Shack ripoff and not necessarily a good one. It mostly sold knock-off modems and acted as a quite middling internet provider to the community while Eustace spent most of his time trying to figure out how to sell the junk that Harley kept in his backroom and refused to liquidate.>>

Ralph Harley, Delmont's mentor, specialized in cutting edge applications and saw in Delmont a fellow-pupil of the digital horizon. After a mere few weeks under Harley's tutelage, Delmont was given special access to the the so-called "back room," an archive of technology beyond the understanding of your average Maidensteadian. 

<<No one from Maidenstead calls themselves that and we have lived here for years and are friends with practically everybody>> 

This job afforded Delmont two luxuries. First, he was able to chase his dreams of acquiring rare works of international art. Second, he became an invaluable member of a certain amateur astronomy society. The "tech man," they called Delmont. And it is the latter partnership that acted as the catalyst which forged Eustace Delmont from a simple Maidensteadian to a full blown sleuth. 

<<The "art" that Eustace refers was actually, at this time, collectible action figures from a Tokusatsu series called the Cyano Raiders Mystery Force which was partially Americanized in the late 80s and highly influential on his Toku obsession. A college friend moved to Japan and helped Eustace slowly but surely track down several pieces. His obsession with expensive Japanese collectibles hit a few years before it became "cool" and sometimes had a tendency to make people treat him a bit...oddly. If you were wondering, yes, the Japanese Drama that he translated was actually just the Cyano Rangers hyper battle video about how Dark Cyan transformed into Bright Cyan in order to stop the machinations of Dr. Chartreuse. 

As for the "society" it was definitely an amateur astronomy club though most of the meetings were spent at the Maidenstead Public Library debating Star Trek or playing Dungeons & Dragons. Eustace did help to dig up old pieces of equipment from the "back room" to aid them in their research. This case did lead to some acclaim for Eustace though not quite for the reasons one would hope.>>

The Society had constructed, through support of Delmont, a rather ingenious way to sync up a number of telescope and monitoring stations around the Gulf  of Mexico to better punch through the problem inherent in such tourist destination locations: light pollution. The same garish neon signs in the shape of fish and palm trees and "NOW OPEN" meant the heavenly spheres above were a mere dimness and important astronomical events were at risk to be lost to those who counted Maidenstead and Gulf Shores and Orange Beach as their home. 

On the night of May 14, a boat - the aptly named Archwitch - was launched from Maidenstead as part of an expedition to track a celestial conjunction of The Moon and Jupiter. However, after getting into position three miles off the cost of Florida, the captain was forced to admit defeat because communication with the hub was hampered. Upon further investigation, the foul deed of some miscreant was laid bare: the hub was not merely failing to act, vital components had been stolen!

Thus on Monday, March 15 at 9:15am the phone call that would set a modern hero into motion to achieve his true destiny occurred. Ralph Harley accepted the phone call with the gravity it deserved and knew it was time for Delmont to shine. 

<<Harley mostly asked them if they had sold the parts for soda and suggested the members check their mom's sofa cushion until finally relenting to Eustace's own insistence that this was an important project. Since it ended up spawning three patents, I would argue that it was.>>

And shine is exactly what Eustace Delmont did. 

NEXT TIME ON EUSTACE DELMONT AND THE CASE OF THE RAMBLER'S INN!

Delmont defends justice against the tyranny of front desk staff! Delmont finds a video of compelling evidence! And then Delmont meets the woman of his dreams! Stay tuned!

<<Ah, Eustace. You romantic imbecile. Still, nice to be called "woman of his dreams" I suppose, by the man of my dreams. Might explain our three children together. Oh, and when you read these notes, Eu, you still haven't explained what you are doing on that boat with that woman.>>

Doug's Notes

The Alabama Weird stories are absolutely the most fun I have while writing and being able to gamify them into solo play is just a bonus. After wrapping Gareth's story and thinking about serious it all went, I had a plan to follow that up with another AW tale about Alexander Dumas (aka, Alex the Dumbass) that had a lot of the same action and over the top action but rather than a nearly immortal werewolf it is just a group of three idiots who survive dangerous situations by sheer pluck and strategic retreats (a kind of Alabama take on John Dies at the End). I think I will still play that out, too, but first I wanted to try something completely different. 

Eustace Delmont (a strange play on words on Del Eustace, from my first unchronicled Sinister Semester X playthrough) has no super powers, no real fighting skills, and is absolutely not mopey. It's a friendly geek who gets along with a wide swath of his town. If there is a burning building at the end of this one, he is going to call 911. The idea is to play it out like all the various British and American nu-Golden Age Mysteries I love to watch and read with some of the same pompous, detached tone but then also center it around the notion of Eustace being a goofy ass whose wife lovingly edits his overblown attempt to explain himself in a "classical" sense.

While "Gareth Hendrix and the Bunker Bigfoot" was about being trapped by the past, Eustace Delmont and the Case of the Rambler's Inn is about being trapped by the future. Little asides and toss outs about things that happened during this adventure and after give me a framework to stress about and I like that change even though really it's the same mechanic: you say something and then desperately try to figure out while keeping it interesting. 

For the adventure, it is again Tricube Solo and this time I picked Maidenstead Mysteries as my one-sheet scenario (note: link allows you to get it for "free" by way of preview if you like). I like how it has a slightly different take on the traits - Alert, Brainy, and Charming instead of Brawny, Agile, and Crafty - and that it gives me a chance to play a proper mystery. Mystery as a concept shows up in a lot of my games. This case, the mystery will be the game. 

For the main quest, we got the Gone in the Night (tourist goes missing from haunted room), Labyrinth Hotel (an old hotel that is built like a maze, in this case the "Rambler's Inn"), and Teenage Troublemakers (essentially the Scooby Doo gang complete with dog). The secondary plot is about the dog going missing. The tertiary plot about the owners of the Inn trying to sell it off when the mystery throws a wrench in their plans. All these characters (and what really happened) will be settled live. 

CREDITS AND RESOURCES

The game engine behind the Eustace Delmont series is Tricube Tales, Tricube Tales Solo, and Maidenstead Mysteries, all by Richard Woolcock. 

Addition gameplay elements for this series will be derived from my own personal extended Tricubes framework and other oracle systems mainly including, but not limited to:

• Random Realities by Cesar Capacle
• Book of Random Tables: 1980s -1990s, BORT: Modern, and BORT: Eldritch by Matt & Erin Davids
• Mythic GM Emulator by World Mill Games (mostly for the meaning tables in this case)
• Table Fables: Modern by Madeline Hale

The black and white used in this post was generated using Dall-E 3. The graphic from Maidenstead Mysteries was taken from the game and all rights for it are in the hands of Richard Woolcock and the original illustrators. See graphic or product page for more detail.