Contract Revoked - An Appendix Of Secrets

Contract Revoked - An Appendix Of Secrets
Welcome. So even the mighty Cthon has fallen and you survived his terrible challenge. The Great Old Ones will remember your name. Perhaps it's true: old soldiers never die. They just select a higher skill setting. Should you wish explicit directions to the locations of all the secrets hidden within the walls of Contract Revoked, my loyal workgang of grovelling gremlins have drawn up some technical schematics of each map with the various secrets clearly marked. Just click on the appropriate links below for the full page images and description.
~ Prologue ~ Part I ~ Part II ~ Part III ~ Epilogue ~
If that's too much of a giveaway and you'd prefer to experience more of a sense of discovery, here are a few hints on deciphering my cryptic approach to hiding artifacts: I enjoy building secrets. There are many methods available to the Quake architect for confounding the players expectations and I try to use all of them. As in the original game, clues are there for those who can read them, but they take many forms; some are a matter of visual observation, some can be seen and not heard or vice-versa. Some secrets are rather more cerebral, rewarding a deductive analysis of your surroundings. Some are tantalizingly obvious, but require physical skill to aquire. And some are just plain sadistic. Don't be surprised if you feel the temptation to reach for the noclip command, but persevere. A few secrets actually inflict a little pain, but that shouldn't be a deterent to the hardy Quaker you obviously are and the rewards are always worth it. Symmetry. The Greater Servitor races have a particular fascination with the harmonies implicit in geometry and this is expressed in the cities they build. Much of Contract Revoked is conspicuously based on four-fold symmetry. This can sometimes be a giveaway. If you're in an area that follows this pattern in some way, make sure you explore all four directions of the compass. If a there are doors at north, east and west there's a good chance the corresponding position to the south is made of more than bricks and mortar. Dead ends. Getting stuck is one of the most infuriating experiences I can have while shooting from the first person. I once had to execute an entire regiment of my wretched little minions for making that mistake. Great care has been taken to ensure this doesn't happen to the explorer of Contract Revoked. So if you find a location that looks like you could become trapped in it, there probably is a way out. And think what you might find on the way! Rocket jumping. Several of the secrets are accessed through an upper opening or archway, but only one secret in the entire episode actually requires you to use this method of propulsion. Repetition. Occassionally I just can't help myself. If you find a secret via a particular feature and there are identical features elswhere in a map, they probably lead to secrets as well. I'm really far too generous, you know. Switches. The blood red gothic cross that functions as heraldry for the sprawling city in Contract Revoked appears in diminutive form on many rusty switches. These switches are never part of the normal navigation of a map and all are shoot-activated. If you see one, I'd wager a brand new shilling it leads to a secret. If you don't see one, expect to find them in some of the darker areas, often above eye level where stray rockets are less likely to strike. Every map has at least one. Platforms. Thick plates made of rusty iron on the bottom and chequered flagstones on top are found all over the city. Sometimes they are the only solid surface to reach a vital area of a map, but sometimes they are parked in a corner just waiting for an adventurous passenger. A few of these will lead to special storage and are normally switch activated. Telepads. The baroquely decorated copper plates used as polarities for the magical binding of the teleporters are a major feature of transport through Contract Revoked. Any telepad might be the destination for several teleporters; the player may be required to use it more than once and monsters frequently ambush from these points. If there is a telepad in a prominent position, a secret may also exit onto it. Look around, it probably isn't far away. Some of the teleporters within secrets have unusually deep pools of starfluid, so they also emit that dry susurration so familiar to Quake veterans. Standing still and listening can often yield results. Thousand Words. Part II of Contract Revoked has a simple balance of secret items. One of each major powerup - Quad, Pent, Ring and Megahealth - lies in a separate secret awaiting discovery. Collect the set! Biosuits. There aren't any. Even in the deepest areas of watery danger, surfacing is your only means of air supply. So don't bother looking for them. Runes. The four copper runes treasured by the Servitor Races will collectively grant access to a whole new region of the planet. Unfortunately, the selfish bastards are rather reluctant to share them with newcomers. They are a bit harder to track down than ordinary secrets, but one advantage you have is consistency: all the runes are hidden in secrets of a common style, and only the runes are hidden in this way. There is never more than one rune in any map. As in any good Quake episode, secrets should not be required for successful progression through Contract Revoked. However, so many items are contained within them, sometimes single artifacts of great power and sometimes whole caches of equipment, that when you know them all even the dreaded Nightmare! looks enticing. Happy hunting.
Scribblings In The Margin
These are annotations to the story of Contract Revoked and do not provide anything to ease your journey through the darkened city except perhaps some distraction. They are strange tangential digressions recorded by the mind that thinks around the subject as well as through it. They may help. After all, knowledge is power. And a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing....
	Fodrian. The world on which Contract Revoked is set is a remote location indeed. No other inhabited worlds can be found for over three-hundred lightyears of corporeal space. It orbits the binary star named in terrestrial astronomy as Polaris, and its distance from any other civilisation is quite deliberate. Only via the wyrd and intricate alignments of the stargate web can Fodrian be reached and, aside from the Great Old Ones themselves, it is the Servitor Races alone who know the way. It was an age ago when the grand designs of the Shalrathae reached out to Polaris and a plan took form within their labyrinthine minds. Their primary world was dying and it was known to them then that only a matter of centuries might elapse before the emergent races, humanity among them, would make the inevitable reach into the stars. To protect the most potent esoterica from these ambitous but naive races, all material records in whatever form would be passed from world to world and secreted away in the libraries erected on Fodrian. The libraries themselves are cities in their own right, each with its own chief librarian and dedicated to storing knowledge for a particular race, world or era. Perhaps the most infamous of these is the dreaded Libris Vertiginis, although it is by no means the largest. Dwelling permanently within their walls are many of the most revered individuals from the illuminated races. Sharing their dark home is an army of creatures well known for their ferocity and loyalty to those who demonstrate appropriate power. Summoned to Fodrian at various times, they guard the books and artifacts therein as well as patrolling the outer limits of the cities, their gates and even the wilder areas of the planet. Certain other beings are at liberty to visit the libraries whenever their schemes and researches require and even the Great Old Ones have on occasion graced the world with their presence.
	Books. These are the most valued resource on Fodrian and the inhabitants of the planet will die to protect them. Many of the tomes are written by human hand, although their original authors have most likely passed from the realm of the living. Others were driven mad by their discoveries or are unaware of the destination of their work. Many more of these somber volumes are the product of alien acadaemia; some are written on strange parchments of no earthly type, some on flayed skin, still others on bizarre metal alloys of indeterminate age and origin and some lore is even recorded in the medium of vividly colored liquid. There are books no larger than the head of a nail and a particular series of ancient myths is carved onto one-hundred-and-twenty-eight slabs of basalt, each fourteen feet high. Strong light is destructive to a great number of the books and there are those that must be stored in vacuum lest the merest wisp of air render them instantly to dust. Thousands of languages are represented by the collected literature of Fodrian spanning possibly hundreds of worlds and millions of years. All the major races of conciousness have contributed something of their culture to the great libraries and many civilisations that have risen, flourished and turned to ash have left their only legacy in this way. It would be impossible to truly indicate the number of books amongst the libraries and it is held that no mortal creature could hope to read them all. But here are details of some of the ones I discovered while wandering.
	Necronomicon. The most infamous tome to reveal the dark matters of the Great Old Ones and the cosmos at large - at least written by human hand. The original version, titled Kitab Al-Azif and scrawled in a maniacal arabic script, is considered lost to human scholarship. The copies surrepticiously made down the centuries of earthly history have met a variety of fates. Many were condemned as blasphemy and destroyed by the church in the middle ages. Some surfaced in later centuries in academic circles. And a few were removed from earth entirely. Most of those now reside within the Fodrian libraries and adventurously minded individuals still try to lay their hands on them from time to time. Only a handful are permitted to succeed. Abd al-Azrad, author of the original Kitab Al-Azif, is reported to have vanished just a few years after the completion of his magnum opus, swallowed in broad daylight by an invisible daemon. Or so it is said. Rumours of the library-cities suggest that al-Azrad was not killed but transported in that moment to Fodrian so that the Servitor Races might segragate such an abnormally knowledgeable sorceror from his fellow humans. Where and in what form he is imprisoned is a matter not to be dwelt upon.
	Codex Ultra Chaotica. This massive series of densely written tomes is impossible for the uninitiated to decipher, partly because of the unique alphabet in which it appears to be written, but mostly for the lack of any visible grammar, chapter or even word divisions. The entire text is simply a linear stream of symbols and there being but a few of those. The only gaps which do appear divide the sequence into one thousand and one segments. Apparent to anything more than a cursory glance is that each of these bears its own character comprising a different group of recurring symbols, some identical to those in other segments and some unique. No introduction or title is provided for these chapters, if chapters is indeed what they are. They vary considerably in length but no segment is less than about one million symbols. The Codex was written by three successive generations of mon gorgonacean priests, under the explicit guidance of The Many Mouths Of Silence. This aquatic and polymorphic entity has been worshipped and attended by mon gorgonaceans for nearly a millenia and is said to be one of Nyarlathotep's forms. After whispering the substance of the Codex to its followers, the creature departed from the mon gorgonacean homeworld for, it is said, the human colonised world of Panthalassa. What became of it after that is unknown. The Codex Ultra Chaotica was placed in the Fodrian library and is now fiercely guarded by, amongst others, its author priests who returned to Fodrian in their necromorphic reincarnations. It is the only copy in existence.
	Le Carceri. These dark and grandiose illustrations are the work of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, an Italian engraver of the terrestrial 18th century. While influenced primarily by the classical Roman architecture of his homeland, it is the visions depicted in this collection for which he is perhaps best known. Goethe, the German poet and scholar, was so impressed by Piranesi's work that on his first visit to Rome he was slightly disapointed by the reality as it compared to the elaborated fantasy version documented in Piranesi's sketches and engravings. A great number of Piranesi's prints are preserved within the confines of the Fodrian libraries and even a few of his hand drawings are cherished by the races with eyes to appreciate his work. Much of the architecture in Contract Revoked was inspired by these images.
	Liber Trans Sidereus. One of the larger books in terms of physical dimensions, the Liber Trans Sidereus is nearly five feet wide and eight feet high. This is to accomadate the immense amount of detail in the seven hundred or so technical drawings that adorn its lesser-ridged xenovellum pages. These drawings display explicit and dizzyingly complex designs for over a hundred of the major stargates now used by the Servitor Races. Fundamental shapes and symmetries of stargate design as well as sophisticated ornamentation and astro-specific variation are recorded with astounding precision and elegance on the part of the illustrators. Several chapters of the book also deal with the rituals essential for successful navigation of the siderial web and contain involved essays on the prudent location and installation of stargates. Many authors were involved in producing this impressive collection of cosmic lore. Some were human, particularly the draughtsmen, humanity being one of the races most adept at two and three dimensional rendering. Some belonged to the Shalrathae priesthood and even the incredibly insular Shamblers deigned to allow some of their stargate monuments to be depicted.
	Complete Works Of Shakespeare. There are several copies of this excellent compilation scattered around the libraries, being supervised and catagorised differently for various races. At least four copies are from a terrestrial 19th century edition and these play a small but vital role within Contract Revoked. It only goes to show even daemonic alien entities have great taste in literature.

	Crux Illumini. These cruciform lights are fashioned after the heraldic symbol of the ancient city. They are stoked with a resevoir of chemicals synthesized by Shalrathae alchemists and produced in large quantities in the laboratory workshops of Fodrian's catacombs. One substance is prepared and installed in the form of dry powdery bricks. In Fodrian's atmosphere they slowly sublimate, drifting as a fine mist around the interior of the metal frame. The second substance is painted onto a copper backing plate. The mixture of chemical properties generates a weak electric current in much the same way as an acid-cell battery and the vaporous material is drawn to the copper plate, burning brightly on contact. The fuel bricks can last for several terrestrial months, being replaced periodically by the gremlin slaves that perform all menial duties within the library-cities. Being exposed directly to the atmosphere allows dirt and more ambiguous contaminants to build up on the backplate which must be cleaned on these occassions also. Failure to keep the fittings clean causes the light they produce to grow dim over time and some of the neglected areas of the cities suffer from this. Various odours can likewise escape from the unsealed light fixtures into the air. To human senses, the smell is reminiscent of both sugar and sulphur.
	Orbis Illumini. Naked flame must be kept away from the books for obvious reasons. To provide suitable illumination for reading, many of the scholars on Fodrian use these beautiful and rather eerie spheres of light. They are created by the conjuration of minute cross-dimensional singularites that allow tiny quantites of warpfluid to 'leak' into corporeal space whereupon they react to the abrupt dimensional differential by expelling their energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation. The wavelengths of this emmision depends on the location to which the singularity is tied. Some races have a similar visual range as humans and they usually favour golden light. The user can direct the spheres to move around or remain stationary, but how they do this is a secret they will not divulge.
	Organ Guns. Many military devices are employed even within the library-cities to defend against intruders. One of the more basic but effective weapons are these flechette launchers. They are commonly arranged in horizontal rows with their barrels aligned to fire in parallel like the pipes of a church organ, hence the name. The firing mechanism is a spring-released bolt usually driven by steam. The machinery is housed inside the masonry with access from below rather than behind. Gremlin operators must never suffer to let the boiler fires burn low, but they are terribly unreliable little cretins. Many of the Ogre mercenaries employed in the cities have more experience and engineering ability in these matters and often take on this role in artillery. Should the pressure in the resevoirs run down it can seriously inhibit the power of these weapons, but they are always a dangerous hazard to face. Despite the lethal ingenuity of many of the Servitor Races, the design for the organ guns is thought to be of human origin. In fact, the original schematics can be found within one of the books held within the libraries, an impressive work by a 15th terrestrial century scholar.
	Jump Pads. In areas of the libraries designed exclusively for defence, these devices are provided to allow certain species to move rapidly from one area to another, often to gain an advantage over intruders of height or surprise. They employ a directed pulse of anti-gravity particles that propels the user counter to gravitational acceleration for a short distance. They are highly efficient and very reliable, although the other inhabitants of the cities tend to avoid them. During the building of the Fodrian libraries, this technology was a gift to the city engineers from one of the more reclusive and austere Servitor Races.
	Electrode Spires. Copper is a metal valued by the Servitor Races, not only for its use in architectural decoration but also for its electro-chemical properties. Although electricity is not the only means known to them for transporting power, it is particularly useful when used in conjunction with stargate technology. Stargates are devices for generating and maintaining stable quantum-fluid mandalas and an oscillating current of electricity is the most reliable power source for achieving this. Large spires of copper are constructed to draw static electricity as well as major discharges out of the dusty atmosphere of Fodrian and away from the mandala surface. This energy is also stored to act as reserves whenever heavy activity is demanded of the stargates, such as when an entity is summoned from within the cosmic interstice. Energy is then transfered between spires and other devices, usually in the form of electrical arcing. This sort of event is rare and always surrounded by a great deal of reverence and ritual. Many of the spires are innactive, but it is wise nonetheless to keep a safe distance from them in hotter, wetter weather.
	Zinarthroderm.This mould-like super organism weaves its way throughout many regions of the city. Despite it's repulsive appearance, it is not an unwelcome infestation. The Servitor Races actually cultivate this species in vast quantities to use as an architectural material. Its ability to extend dendritic growths into even the hardest stone and the resultant tensile strength are properties valued in the construction of many of the Greater Cities. Normally the organism is cultured off site until it reaches sufficient size and maturity. It is then transported in special solution which inhibits its growth until it can be moulded into the desired location. The introduction of a subsequent layer of stonework seals in and slowly suffocates the organism even as it bonds the masonry together. As it dies, it's body metamorphoses into a skeleton of silicates which negates decomposition. The crucial factor in the use of this organism is atmospheric composition. Oxygen and nitrogen are essential to its metabolism, but it can cope with very wide ranges of either gas. Oxygen in particular stimulates its growth and on worlds were there is and abundance of this chemical, the Zinarthroderm can continue to grow successfully for some time, eventually causing structures to collapse or brickwork to degrade. On one world abandoned aeons ago, the cities were left to rot and as the millenia passed all signs of civilization were ultimately subsumed by an ocean of Zinarthroderm. Such is the reverence accorded this strange creature by some of the architects of the outer worlds that they even use it as a decorative material in their elaborate designs, allowing the entity to grow uninhibited into complex and disturbing forms. In such features, the constant presence of the air extends its life almost indefinately.
	Warp Tunnels. Stargates have long been the primary means of travel between worlds for the Great Old Ones and their Servitor Races. The great libraries were built on Fodrian largely because of the rich tracts of witchspace through which its orbit passes. As with any stargate link, short journeys are experienced almost instantaneously, but a few connections from one side of the planet to the other pass through several seconds of warp. A significant population of the Things that inhabit this otherspace have been observed, gliding and gamboling blasphemously beyond the walls of the tunnel. As for their strange attraction to the warp around Fodrian...who knows?
	Wizards. 'The nethermost caverns', wrote the mad Arab, 'are not for the fathoming of eyes that can see; for their marvels are strange and terrific. Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head. Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For it is of old rumour that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth's pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.' - H. P. Lovecraft, 'The Festival'
	Shamblers. 'Shuffling towards him in the darkness was the gigantic, blasphemous form of a thing not wholly ape and not wholly insect. Its hide hung loosely upon its frame, and its rugose, dead-eyed rudiment of a head swayed drunkenly from side to side. Its forepaws were extended, with talons spread wide, and its whole body was taut with murderous malignity despite its utter lack of facial description.' - H. P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald, 'The Horror In The Museum'
	Adhenoriths ( albino spawn ). In the extensive subterranean cavern networks of Fodrian, many of the Lesser Servitor races have made their homes. These particularly vulgar specimens are an evolutionary variation of the Shoggoths, probably introduced by accident from some neighbouring world. They seek the moist areas below the surface, often lying completely submerged beneath the water. Dwelling in near total darkness they have lost all pigmentation from their loathsome bodies but are covered instead by scabrous growths of the protein-feeding enzymes native to the planet's underworld. These enzymes form a symbiotic relationship with their host Adhenoriths, helping to digest their prey.Yuk.
	Portrait Of Nyarlathotep. As the Messenger and Message of the Great Old Ones, Nyarlathotep has a unique perspective on the vast knowledge stored in the libraries of Fodrian. While the libraries are utilised predominantly by the enlightened races, Nyarlathotep has occassionally arranged for certain key individuals from the races of emergent intelligence to experience this horde of secrets first hand. Fear, wonder and insanity usually follow in equal measure. Nyarlathotep is held in especially high regard by the librarians of Fodrian because it is he who controls the dissemination of terrible lore to the ignorant races of the cosmos. This portrait depicts Nyarlathotep in his aspect as the Black Man of the witches sabbat.

Last Words
I began work on Contract Revoked more than a year ago. At that stage, I had only built a single room for a collaborative mapping project that was my first attempt at single player; it wasn't even a full level. Inspired by that, I intended to make one complete map. Almost as soon as I started, fresh ideas filled my mind and the project spread by neccessity to cover two and then three large maps. During this period my skills at texture creation rapidly developed and I often spent more time on this aspect than the actual map building. A wise man once said that life is what happens in between your plans and real life made itself felt on a number of occasions while work progressed on Contract Revoked. Fortunately the QExpo event gave me the perfect opportunity to get some material out, and the reaction was far more than I expected. I think the reason this episode took so much longer than neccessary to complete is that it has been so enjoyable I haven't really wanted to let go. The emails I recieved from several players inquiring about the progress of the full release reminded me there was still an audience out there. Thanks to those of you who took the time. Thanks also to John Romero for making the 'Lost Entrance' available - it was a real gem to be picked up and polished. And thanks to you for playing. "Let us gather hallucinations from our private minds - Let us witness the illumination of the stars"