Secret Satan 2016 Results!

I have received my offering. Satan has been very good to me, I can only assume the gifts are tainted in some eldritch way. I managed to send mine out as well, which is amazing given that my target lives on THE FUCKING MOON. There ain't no Worldwide Wormhole delivery service. I had to sell one of my kids* to afford postage.

I will, of course post pictures. I just need to get them from my DMZ'd iPad, run it through anti-virus, reverse engineer any engrams that may be present and get it on this machine for more thorough analysis before release.

* (it's ok, the bad one)

My wife informed me that a giant box of infernal terror landed on our doorstep. After producing the appropriate exorcism equipment, we brought it inside.

Upon opening and allowing our faces to melt a bit, we gazed upon the hideous bounty, hideous because it was wrapped in Wal-Mart bags.

First of all, some things that were loose in the box. I've actually never played Supreme Commander, and I've heard good things. Not bad!

But what's this? A message from Old Scratch himself, and an unsavory one at that!

Horrors of all horrors, it's a first edition copy of Pandemic! I already got rid of this game once! Curse you, Beelzebub!

He claims this is a good game, but I'm not so sure. I'm guessing only time will tell...

What's this devilry? A bag full of minis to a dead game?

Oh, it's just a bag of candy. I'm sure he prefers Halloween as a rule, so the confusion is understandable.

Some other loose items buried in the Wal-Mart bags. Those Star Trek coasters will class up our new home.

One final treasure trove of villainy. The message is not encouraging...

Saints preserve us all! It's an enormous box of Jyhad/Vampire: The Eternal Struggle!

As a perverse punctuation to this pernicious package, there are two more card boxes filled with cards. Almost all of it is Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, though I found some of the Decipher LotR game from fifteen years ago, a couple of Magic cards, and a little bit of Shadowfist. There are literally thousands of cards here.

A dead CCG with thousands of unorganized card, and one that takes a couple of hours to play? That is truly a diabolical curse. Woe is me!

Holy Shit. Secret Satan just came to my house! Not just the delivery of hell fire, Ol' Scratch himself.


The wife, cat, and I are upstairs - enjoying a Friday night Manhattan (confession: my second. The cat took a cheery stem). Then, at 9:05 EST - our alarms go off. The District of Columbia subsidized our purchase of a front porch light with embedded camera. SOMEONE WAS AT OUR DOOR. My wife looks out the window, "that is the craziest looking USPS worker I've ever seen. He has a ponytail! And now, he's leaving. He's gone."

I reply, "Of course he's crazy. It's 9 o'clock at night and he's still making deliveries. He wants to be home, or at a bar. Shit, had he stuck around I would have invited him in for a night cap. Are we expecting anything?"

Wife - "..."

I open the door, and Jesus H. Christ on a Hell Waifer



Satan's note: indicating that my residence does rest on a hill.



And the full haul.



These games are no joke boxes either. They're the real deal. I'm gobsmacked. My wife, and her sense of order in the world, is pissed. Or thirsty. I'll make her another drink.

Speaking of drinking, Satan gave me a Digital Breath Alcohol Tester.

These games are beyond generous. I just started advising a board game club for the college (this professor needs faculty development points), so many of these will make great contributions to the Ivory Tower library. Others, I'll keep for myself and paint with the blood of freshmen. Others will make an appearance with my target for Secret Satan 2017. I may be drunk, or a puss, or both - but I started to tear up when I saw the paperback. Secret Satan gave me a copy of 'The Tyrant's Tomb' by Dave Morris. It's a Heroquest novel. I love Heroquest. I've wanted this book for literally, decades. I'm going to start reading it in a few seconds. Hail Satan!

I have a 60 second video of Satan himself dropping off the goods. Unless it's one of his minions. I don't know. What I do know - he had a hat and a ponytail and a grunt after dropping the goods at the doorstep. He also kept his face conspicuously guarded from the security camera.

You're going to remain a secret ol Scratch. I'm not going to push my luck with the Lord Hades. Your earthly incarnation needs to be investigated no further.

Wow, that is absolutely nuts! Woo hoo!

Wow. That is an insane bounty. Someone is atoning for some really heinous shit.

So, at the stroke of noon on Xmas eve, I heard the USPS man heave a package onto the porch and race back to his truck. Open the door and I find this...



Ouch. It looks like all the imps in Hell had a kick at this box before delivery...and it bears the mark of the highest echelon of Satanic Minion's attention....



Yep. Satan's own Customs & Border Patrol folks ripped this puppy open to see what sort of horror I would dare bring into Trumplandia....

So, knowing that, if it merited CBP attention, it MUST be ugly, I tore right in...into some sort of nesting material...



Plucking that out gave us 3 distinct flavors of item...First, the Literature Layer....



One I've read [Wolfe], one I keep meaning to read [Calvino]; 1 I swear I read a million years ago [Biomega]; and the last....beats the hell out of me. Looks to be a weird sort of DIY RPG...
'
Next up is the "Vid layer"


I *love* Shaw Bros and Hong Kong Kick Flics in general, and I've never seen this one. And, whether Scratch knew it or not, Wicker Man is one of my favorite films of all time. But this is where he gave a little taste of hell... NOTE:



That'd be "Region 2"--I live in Region 1 and, at the moment, don't have a Region-Free player. CURSES! [I'll remedy that soon enough, but this is proof that media geo-fencing is actually a product of Hell....

Finally the games....



First up...a game about selling tulips. I always wondered what this game was about, and now I can find out. Finally, a Wallace game based on a comicbook series I'd never read [rectifying that now....]. Seems cool in general....

All in all, an excellent, and pleasantly surprising, haul. Thank you very much to my OCONUS Satan. I appreciate this load greatly.

And, in honor of SATAN's decision to send the Wicker Man and a game based on comic books, I am temporarily making available the weirdest comicbook I've read in the last year: THE MUPPET WICKER MAN ....

I'll leave that up for a day or so....

Space Ghost is NON-COMPLIANT in package reporting!

Secret Satan wrote: Space Ghost is NON-COMPLIANT in package reporting!

So am I, but that will be rectified tonight.

Oh the holidays. A time to reflect on the year, its ups (decent STAR WARS!), its downs (the end of liberal democracy), and things in between. Much like the year, Secret Satan brings ups and downs, joys and woe. Let's see how we did this year.

JOY! The box is huge, and seems unsoiled from the outside. Big boxes are great, because the let lazy shits like me re-issue them to MY Secret Satan victim. The inside is packed with loot… OR IS IT?



JOY! A wrapped gift! TONS of DOOMTOWN…boxes. Woe: They are empty. Oh you rascal. They fill out the box admirably though. Nestled amongst them, numerous Harry Turtledove books (joy!)



I've never read him—he's apparently a big alternate history guy—I love that stuff. I've started the one about General Lee getting AK-47s. Seems topical! (Woe!)Unwrap the subtly decorated gift (little evil brows on the Santas) and see raw unadulterated JOY:



SADDAM BOX, hnnnnnnggggg. I am wary. I have learned that no Secret Satan is complete without a box-switcheroo. Woe. I am not disappointed. Inside the box are more Turtledove books, and two Euros: INDIGO, by Knizia,*Joy! and… SALMON RUN? With some bad fish art. Hmm.



That looks not good. Looks like someone's uncle owned the game publisher. Looks like they had leftover fish meeples and needed a game to cram them into. Looks like the extra fish meeple money should maybe have gone to a graphic artist. But there's a note from Old Scratch: "You never know what you'll find in the belly of a fish." With some excitement (JOY? Woe?) I crack open a game that looks like REEF ENCOUNTERS inbred relative and

JOY




*which is really good (JOY!) The kids and I played it four or five times already, thank you Satan.

jeb wrote: Oh the holidays. A time to reflect on the year, its ups (decent STAR WARS!), its downs (the end of liberal democracy), and things in between. Much like the year, Secret Satan brings ups and downs, joys and woe. Let's see how we did this year.

I love you, Jeb.

Gawd, Drew's package is worth like a million dollars or something! Did the mysterious delivery man drive off in a Rolls Royce or something? What kind of bar does that set for future Secret Satan participants? Now everyone is going to be like "I hope I get something like what Drew got that time..."

I think that copy of The Swarm was mine...just sayin'...you should play it, it is the AT version of Fucking Reef Encounter. It's true!

Region 2 DVD, ha ha...that's awesome...it's one of those sorry gifts you have to buy something else to get any use of. Cruel!

Box of Jyhad...that is an AWFUL present. Good god what do you do with it, put it next to your Spellfire and Wyvern collections?

Pete- your SS contacted me and there is something of an international incident going with your package. Its delivery is still up in the air, apparently.

Salmon Run is a pretty nondescript deck builder that's worth less than a handful of plays before you go, "You know, there are a lot more interesting deck builders in the world." Although, for most people, I imagine that sentence probably gets uttered as soon as they hear the name of the game or they get a look at the ugly ass cover art.

My SS must be walking his delivery to me. I haven't heard a peep.

It was a cold, miserable evening yesterday when that abominable box darkened my doorstep. With my trusty accomplice, and arrayed guards and wards, we set about breaching the ancient seal on the box. Reaching gingerly inside, I withdrew the first offering of the Prince of Lies. Complete with inmate rape. I rent the paper and found a CD of cultish music, not meant for man's ears.

The second tablet of damnation was rife with pronouncements of fatal shootings and other terrible portents that happened in a distant part of the world. The aged parchment gave way, crumbling at my touch, revealing an unassuming offering: Tears of the Dragon. So, the undead can weep.

“We must stop!” cried my former stalwart companion. “There is nothing but doom and damnation in that box!”

“But it came from Texas! How bad can it be?” I replied, taking hold of the third tablet and rending its shroud to reveal its terrible secrets. My crazed laughter jostled me into life as my eyes lay on the offering, nay, a gift from the ONE! The one true Dragon. Boss Monster!

At this point, my compatriot fled, fearing for his sanity. I did not stop my task set before me, I excitedly moved on; eager to see what the Elder One had in store for me.

My eyes widening and my immortal soul cried out in anguish and succumbed to madness. Dragon Rampage was in my quivering hands. A game I coveted for so long...
I tore haphazardly for the final gift from my Lord Dragon. More Dragons! Princes of the Dragon Throne! Ia!

I know I have given something of myself immeasurable to a being that cares naught but for my, and my species', extinction.

And, I say -

I.

Do.

Not.

Care....

A message to my Secret Santa and the compliance police: I've received a message from customs demanding that I provide additional information on a package thy have for me. First time ever this happened to me for SS, so I can only assume that the contents are so vile that they feel it's necessary. It must ooze evil. Will take some time before I can open it up. Also, if you never hear from me again, you know why...