Silver Album [Esoterrorists] – Google Docs
The Silver Album [Esoterrorists]
Description: The Silver Album superficially resembles a CD-ROM; and it indeed functions as one. It is, however, considerably heavier than a regular CD, mostly because it is made out of solid platinum. It can still be played on most DVD players, thanks to (hopefully) some extremely clever engineering.
The value of the Silver Album is virtually impossible to calculate. Ostensibly, it is a vanity project; a special, one-of-a-kind music CD created by British rock mega-band Twenty Questions and sold in 2013 to a private investor (and the proceeds donated to charity). The tracks on the Silver Album are reputedly original instrumental music, some of Twenty Questions’ best work, and can never be legally commercially performed in the band members’ lifetimes. Many in the music industry would concede that the album, as it stands, is probably worth the two million dollars paid for it.
Esoterically, however, the Silver Album is unique. The members of Twenty Questions have been Ordo Veritatis Non-Agent Assets since 1982, when OV rescued the band from a pack of drug-borne slaver demons. The band has been quietly researching the use of music chords in stabilizing and healing the membrane ever since, and the Silver Album represents every effect that they’ve ever been able to reliably produce.
Unfortunately, the act of producing the Album was in itself something of a ritual process; it is the Ordo’s position that attempting to mass-produce it, or even make another copy, might end up tearing the membrane further. There are also arguments for destroying the Album outright, on the grounds that it looks too uncomfortably like an actual magical working as it is. Only the fact that tracks of the music, when played, can undeniably and safely strengthen the membrane and aid in veil-outs has kept the OV from simply dropping the Album in a tub of boiling aqua regia.
So when it’s assigned to a specific operation, Ordo operatives can be assured that the situation is dire. Or that it’s at least perceived to be. And that a successful veil-out simply must happen.
Mechanics: playing the Album in the background while conducting a veil-out gives a dedicated pool of four points that can be used only for convincing people that what they had seen wasn’t really what they had seen. These points do not refresh; an Ordo operative will only be assigned the Silver Album once. Also: while the tracks are all instrumental, with enough repetitions someone with a knowledge of British rock could very possibly identify the band from the guitar and drum playing. Caution in use is thus expected.
(The following non-commercial, fan-created material is meant for use with the Esoterrorists RPG. The Esoterrorists is a Trademark of Pelgrane Press Ltd.)