The Big Guy is the first episode of season 18 of Dimension 20, Mentopolis.
A murder has everyone in Mentopolis on edge - but there may be more to this case than meets the eye.
Introduction[]
"I am so excited to bring to the dome our wonderful cast of gumshoes, settled within the mind of a scientist, here, in the rainy city. How does it rain inside of a brain? That's for you to decide. [...] Oh, a brainstorm. I'm writing it down.
So, without further ado, we'll dive in. We're actually gonna be playing a different game this time. This is my first time in the dome running a non D&D... [...] a non D&D game. Aabria, let me know how I'm doing. We'll be running a sanctioned hack of Kids on Bikes, our amazing system that has been noir-ified. A couple rules, it's a very simple system. All of our heroes have six stats that have been coded to different noir themes. They are: sneak, snoop, sharp, sturdy, savvy, and slick, which, of course, are the traits of any great noir hero. They'll roll different dice for these different skills and abilities they have, and, if they fail on their checks, don't worry, they will get a Moxie token. Moxie tokens may be spent to trigger different abilities, and turn failures into successes, and, when you get a Moxie token, we do something very, very fun with them, which is we get them right into your little carriers, where you need them. [...] There we go. Remember, in this game, if you roll the highest value on any of your dice, the dice explodes, and you get to keep that number and roll again.
Without further ado, we welcome you to Dimension 20: Mentopolis. For your consideration, watching at home, the mind of one Elias Hodge, Junior Researcher at Gobstopper Industries, a retro-futurist conglomerate working on all sorts of amazing, art-deco technology in a gilded, nondescript, past-like past. [...] And what, pray tell, does young Elias, fresh out of university, as a mento-technological researcher working here at Gobstopper Industries, work on? Well, the mind of this young researcher is as frantic and busy as a, say, as a city. That's right, a city with tall cerebral skyscrapers, and the civic structures of Cortex City, where the bigwigs hobnob with each other night and day, and who knows what impulses and urges might shake hands behind closed doors with those higher cognitive functions that would seem to speak for the citizens of Mentopolis, and deep down in the industrial belly of those limbic systems and temporal lobes, and the working class joes down in the cerebellum, ah, this place stays pretty busy, with trains running in and out of Oblongata Station night and day. Well, during the night it's way less, 'cause actually, melatonin, there's different, there's stuff that goes on. You get it. It's a city that's a brain, folks.
We bring you to Mentopolis, a city in a mind, a mind in a city, the hustle and bustle of a nerve-wracked junior scientist at a large corporation, rendered in slick sidewalks, and shadowy figures doing God knows what in the depths of the subconscious. We begin our story, as we often do in tales of dread and mystery... in the shadows. A massive switchboard filled with cables, synaptic firing. We see all of the various cables going to and fro, the Synaptic Switchboard at the heart of Cerebell Pacific, the company that runs- [...] -of Cerebell Pacific, the telecommunications company that keeps all those telephone wires running throughout Mentopolis, so that the people can stay in touch, going to and fro. Footsteps, a swish of fabric, someone turns around. A shadowy figure lunges from the darkness, a knife moving through. We hear, bang bang, shots fired, and a body falls to the ground.
A murder deep in the heart of Mentopolis, but that's not where this story really starts. Where it really starts, why, in the office of one Hunch Curio. I invite you now to picture an office littered with the detritus of a hard-boiled gumshoe. That's right, a real private eye, a brother seamus, a real swingin' dick."
Synopsis[]
Locations[]
- Mentopolis
- Occipital Park
- Cortex City
- Parietal Lobe
- Hunch's Office
- The Daily Observer Headquarters
- City Hall
- Cerebell Pacific
- Synaptic Switchboard
- Parietal Lobe
- The Red Light District
- Temporal Square
- Gobstopper Industries (mentioned)
Featured Characters[]
Prefrontal PIs[]
New[]
- Elias Hodge
- Anna Lysis
- Officer Connell
- Freddy Focus
- Norrell Ojiccle
- Donny Urges
- Libby Longshower
- Joey Sneezes
- Hans Schadenfreude
- Justin Fication
- Ronnie Reptile
- Madame Loathing
- Chief Alexander Tightass
- Deputy Chief Hyper Vigi Lance
- Mark Bition
- Mayor Leon Logic
Mentioned[]
- Don Avaricci
- Elias Hodge
- Mr. Mischief