YOUR MISSION, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT...
PRE GAME
“Good morning, Dr Edgevarnt.
This is Vladimir Stepanov, reclusive Russian occultist and suspected head of the Vetchney Krug organisation.
​
Our agents have discovered Stepanov is attempting to purchase the Carcosa Diamond - a supposedly powerful artefact believed to have been lost during the last war.
​
Our information leads us to believe that the diamond is to be sold by Margot Lambert in a high-security auction at the infamous Buckland House in Devon, England.
​
Should Stepanov succeed in purchasing the diamond and returning with it to the Russian occult underground, this will give his Order the authority to take control of other groups and carry out their plan of destabilising the
Soviet regime ahead of crucial peace talks.
Your mission, Sandy, should you choose to accept it, is to infiltrate the auction, ensure that the Carcosa Diamond does not leave the country, and discredit Stepanov with his Soviet masters.
As always, should you or any of your team be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.
​
This tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds”
To keep everyone up to speed we sent out 'Previously on Mythos: Impossible' updates like this one:
A key theme of the original Mission: Impossible TV series is the slick way the team are able to work together with total trust.
​
We knew this would be the kind of game that started in at the deep end, with our team about to pull off a heist, so to build up some camaraderie, rapport (and tensions) we ran a series of mini storytelling 'missions' with the players in various groupings and a couple of cocktail evenings on Zoom.
​
Each mini-mission formed part of a trail of breadcrumbs leading towards the elusive Stepanov – the target of their main mission, released to the players as the classic 'this tape will self destruct' video link.
​
The players then had two months to carry out pre-game actions to research and plot their heist. Who exactly was Stepanov? How could they get close to him? Where was Buckland House and could they get floorplans? What sort of security arrangements would be in place? What else was in the auction? Who was Margot Lambert... and what the hell was the Carcosa Diamond?
​
We were then able to slowly feed out the information we needed them to have (how to open the Buckland House safe, the security guards weaknesses, who was running the auction), while advising Dr Edgevarnt and Dr Kaur on how to build the 'replicator' that formed the centrepiece of their heist plan. Roman Matchabelli worked his way into Stepanov's inner circle while his wife Nina prepared a tarot reading designed to tip Stepanov over the edge into reckless bidding (when combined with Ginger Borman's neurochemistry know-how, Devon and Jon's casino trickery and the great Kozani's sleight-of-hand!)
​
Honestly, most of this was just hilarious good fun with people planning everything from cover identities to how to pretend to be a bookcase, building tech and 'tattooing' important information onto themselves :-)
​