The Weekender: Achtung!!! Cthulhu!!!
March 16, 2013 by dignity
Video Sponsors: Infinity - Wayland Games
It's that time of the week again and this time we've got Achtung! Cthulhu on the schedule with all the latest happenings and progress of this monster kickstarter. So guys sit back with your coffee and enjoy the madness as we delve in to the game, and if you're one of our proud Backstagers keep an eye out later today as we have a little mythos treat for all of you...
And don't worry guys if you think we missed out on something, here are all the links to everything we couldn't fit in to chat about:
The Latest in the World of Wargaming:
Warmachine & Hordes Upcoming Releases
http://privateerpress.com/
//www.beastsofwar.com/hordes/warmachine-hordes-deadly-hunters/
//www.beastsofwar.com/hordes/reinforce-skorne-circle-orboros-factions-hordes/
Star Trek: Attack Wing
http://wizkidsgames.com/startrek/
//www.beastsofwar.com/sci-fi-wargaming/herocliz-ffg-team-star-trek-attack-wing/
Forge World Necrons
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/
//www.beastsofwar.com/warhammer-40k/forge-world-search-tomb-worlds-necrons/
Planet Steam Board Game
http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=240&enmi=Planet%20Steam
//www.beastsofwar.com/board-games/conquer-planet-steam-production-trade/
Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport Expansion
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/134342/lords-of-waterdeep-scoundrels-of-skullport
//www.beastsofwar.com/board-games/head-lords-waterdeep-raid-skullport/
Dystopian Wars League of Italian States
http://www.spartangames.co.uk/
//www.beastsofwar.com/dystopian-wars/league-italian-states-rides-wave-dystopian-war-releases/
Heroes of Normanide Kickstarter
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1538673930/heroes-of-normandie
//www.beastsofwar.com/board-games/heroes-normandie-devil-pig-games/
Wargames Factory Apocalypse Survivors
http://www.wargamesfactory.com/
//www.beastsofwar.com/wargames-factory/wargames-factory-preview-male-survivors/
Ramshackle Games Drone Walker
http://www.ramshacklegames.co.uk/
//www.beastsofwar.com/ramshackle-games/ramshackle-games-send-drone-walkers/
Flames of War: Tour of Duty
http://www.flamesofwar.com/
//www.beastsofwar.com/flames-of-war/tour-duty-vietnam-flames-war/
Warmachine Dice
//www.beastsofwar.com/warmachine/privateer-qworkshop-team-faction-dice-sets
Release Watch;
Chaos Daemons Battalion/Battleforce
http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/games-workshop/warhammer-40k/chaos-daemons/chaos-daemons-battalion/battleforce/prod_19912.html
Cygnar Tempest Blazers
http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/privateer-press/warmachine/cygnar/cygnar-tempest-blazers/prod_19725.html
Hordes Gargantuans Soft Cover
http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/privateer-press/hordes/hordes-gargantuans-soft-cover/prod_19726.html
Hordes Gargantuans Hard Cover
http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/privateer-press/hordes/hordes-gargantuans-hard-cover/prod_19728.html
Forum Posts:
Infinity
//www.beastsofwar.com/groups/infinity/forum/topic/the-sphinx-is-a-bitch/
//www.beastsofwar.com/groups/tabletop-nation-general-discussion/forum/topic/starting-infinity-1/
Demons
//www.beastsofwar.com/groups/chaos-demons/forum/topic/new-daemons-codex/
//www.beastsofwar.com/groups/warhammer-fantasy/forum/topic/new-daemons/
Beating Ogre Kingdoms
//www.beastsofwar.com/groups/warhammer-fantasy/forum/topic/beating-oger-kingdoms/
My journey into Dystopian Wars
//www.beastsofwar.com/groups/tabletop-nation-general-discussion/forum/topic/my-journey-into-dystopian-wars/
am I missing something? where is the vid? I only see a screenshot?
nevermind, I was just a little premature, again
Fixed now
Ming the linkless strikes again!
OK how about this for a character
Daniel Fitzgerald – Irish immigrant who moved to mainland Europe in the Mid 30s after been forced from his small, narrow minded village after becoming interested and doing research into the occult, after trying to figure out why people were going missing from the sleepy hollow from where he lived.
Accused of satanism he fled, But when he moved he continued his research, but opened up a carpentry business to keep himself funded, a trade he learned from his father.
His years working a hard trade has made him relatively athletic, and he now stalks the dark corners of the world, armed with his wits, speed, and an impressive array of modified tools and weapons (chisels, carving knives, sharpened screwdrivers) to further uncover the secrets of these strange creatures that stalk the night, creatures that more simple folk call demons and devils, but bit by bit, he will uncover the truth.
Thoughts
One or two lines? Puh-lease, I’m a roleplayer, man! Several paragraphs incoming..
Also, where was the hi-five for Chris? I demand somebody hi-five him as he’s a guy from a company who will soon be re-introducing the world to the Mutant Chronicles RPG 😀
Okay, here goes:
Name: Mechtilde Königsfeld
“I do not pretend to understand the horrors of which you speak, Professor Deadman, but I have seen all that I need to see. I love my country and that is why I must spare it this madness.”
If a GI was asked to describe what they thought a typical German barmaid would look like, they would be describing Mechtilde Königsfeld to a tee. Born in the border town of Regnitzlosau, Mechtilde was practical rather than academic and never strayed far from home. In her teens she worked in several factories and workshops before finding employment at a small riverside inn north of Prex, barely a stones throw from the Czech Republic and the German border. With a bob of blonde hair, blue eyes and a curvy if somewhat plump figure she was a shoe in and her patriotism, coupled with her virtuous but forgiving nature made Mechtilde very popular with the locals as well as the weary travelers returning to Germany. Even before the war started, the inn was frequented by soldiers and investigators who would meet late at night and discuss their secret work in the privacy of one the back rooms.
If Mechtilde had a weakness it was her curiosity and she would sometimes listen at the door to hear the exploits of these brave men. One particularly cold winter, she was still preparing the room for one such meeting when there was a rattle at the door and instead of announcing her presence, she unwisely decided to hide. What Mechtilde overheard disturbed her greatly but it was the cloth-wrapped artifact that haunted her dreams that night and every night thereafter, a chorus of unnatural, almost mechanical whispers that filled the room yet the gathered men seemed quite prepared for. In her exhausted state, she began to imagine that the snippets of conversation she had overheard in the last few months hinted at some larger plot and she wrote down everything that she could remember, supplementing her knowledge with further eavesdropping until her she had enough scraps of information to pieces together a larger and quite terrifying picture. With a very real war occupying the minds of the townsfolk, Mechtilde failed to convince anyone else of the fantastic threat she claimed to have uncovered and was forced to take matters into her own hands. At the next meeting, Mechtilde ushered out the other guests then burned the inn to the ground. Behind the roar of the flames that lit the night sky and the crack of the blackening timbers, she could still hear that chorus of whispering. It was far from over.
Furnished with little more than a bag of tools and her journal of mad scribblings, Mechtilde snatched a handful of documents and a Luger from the staff car parked outside and fled into the woods. If she was going to save Germany, she was going to need to find others who believed her. She was going to need help.
My character: Michelle Lafayette. Before the war, Michelle’s father was a wealthy industrialist with a penchant for research into the arcane. At an early age, Michelle learned to pick the lock of his study and learned all he knows. This knowledge would be enough to send your average French schoolgirl to the assylum but Michelle’s extraordinary strength of mind means she survived, ready to fight for humanity’s survival.
Michelle was 16 when France fell to the Nazis and she immediately recognised that they were servants of darker powers. She works tirelessly for the Resistance, never revealing that she knows more of the Nazis’ deeper motivations but happy to thwart them at every opportunity.
Any resemblance between my character and Michelle of the Resistance from Allo Allo is entirely coincidental 😀
Suddenly it all makes sense. I always suspected that “The Fallen Madonna” caused sanity damage!
Ha! They really weren’t joking when they said it was like the Big Boobies followed you around the room.
Lt. Michael Mulally
An officer of the recently formed Long Range Desert Patrol currently attached to a special research unit investigating reports of Nazi scientists exploring Egyptian tombs in the Valley of the Kings. His background as a Doctoral candidate at Oxford in the field of Archaeology before the War, combined with his desert commando training, made him an ideal choice for this assignment.
Inspector Richard Harrington, Scotland Yard
Harrington has walked the streets of foggy London man and boy as a constable before his promotion in 1934. In all those years it would have been impossible not to have heard and seen the darker secrets of the streets, the hidden dangers just out the corner of the eye, but it was that one investigation, the murder of the Romanian national. Harrington never did know when to leave it alone, and the official investigation left him with too many questions. However, he wished now that he just kept his big nose out. Bringing that killer to justice did nothing to endear him to his superiors, or Special Branch that seemed to know more about what was happening in the streets than anyone realised.
Harrington soon found himself transferred to Scotland Yard and left to investigate all those darker crimes that the Yard usually ignores, with Special Branch still looking over his shoulder, tailing him, and watching his flat. But now the world is at war, Harington sees this as a chance to escape his dark investigations and his unearthly superiors.
Marilyn Baxter
Marilyn was a book-worm, stuck in the back of a library cataloging donations in Chicago. While sorting through a generous estate donation, she found a journal belonging to the recently deceased Sir M. Hatterton which chronicled an unpublished discovery located off the coast of France. Dreaming of leading the life of a dime-store novel heroine, she packed her hat and her mother’s revolver in search of clues to a forgotten mystery.
Ok, I’m not much good at this so here goes. James Druggan, before the war he lived to excess on drugs and alcohol. Became completly addicted to all the substances of the day. From England, and from a well to do family he also has a good education ans excelled in languages and art. He been the oldest son inherites a considerable amount of land and property from his parents.
At the begining of the war he was 22 and had managed to sell all that he had owned to feed his habbit and was now living on the streets with no friends of family to turn to.
After been drafted into the army he is now the perfect infiltration person. Fluent in French and German and because of his lifestyle he has an uncanny resemblance to Zombies. So much so that Zombies do not recodnise him as been different.
He travelles deep into enemy territory, believing he has nothing left to loose and because his brain is nearly half fried anyway he is completly fearless. He will aquire any information and undertake any mission not for his country, but because he will be promised his next “FIX” upon returning successfully.
That’s for starters
Sean McRoth
A Higlander, his grandmother was killed in mysterious circumstances, he started investigating and hunting evil where he could. And was caught by the law that did not understand, and drafted into the army.
He was then spotted by a investigative group in the Brittish Armed Forces, and recruited as a hunter/body guard for the Investigators of the strange and paranormal, 6’2″ Redhaired, Higlander with a short temper (prone to rage), hagis eating muscle bound, takes hunting evil very seriously, but everything else is a a joke to be told.
This won’t count but I couldn’t pass up thinking of a character:-
William “Badger” Harker
William grew up in the rural havens of England, having a mostly uneventful childhood. When he entered his teenage years however he turned to God and religion to guide him and soon he was on the path to priesthood. Throughout the late 1920’s and 30’s he learned much and thought his faith was secure.
One day though as he was studying in the chapel library he saw a door out of the corner of his eye that was never there before. Curiosity taking the better of him he went to it and entered. He remembered nothing in the intervening few hours and woke up the next morning covered in a thin layer of cold sweat in the middle of a field.
William tried to brush this off as a dream but a strange feeling of dread followed him wherever he went. He no longer found comfort in prayer. Soon he was doing things that he would have have even considered before, removing his priestly garments and wandering into the nearby villages to drink and even in some cases fight. It felt like a whole part of him had been removed that night.
Soon the war in Europe began and like all men William was drafted into the army to fight. This was where he earned the nickname ‘Badger’. On one hand it was due to the streaks of white in his black beard and on the other it was because of his tenacious and often volatile nature. William would be sedate one moment and then frenzied and manic the next.
Still, despite his descent into war and bloodshed he still retained a religious intuition and when they took a French town, bombed to hell and back by the Allies they uncovered a vault deep beneath the foundations of a church. As they entered the same feeling William had felt that night years earlier resurfaced. A shadow fell over them and dragged two of Williams men into the darkness, the screaming cut short in a matter of seconds. William pressed on as the shadows formed around him into evil shapes. William shut his eyes.
When he opened them he stood inside an old stone crypt, a wooden chest before his eyes covered in strange runes and markings he had never seen before but felt familiar. Something told him not to open it.
William took the box and stashed it amongst his things, saying the others had died in a collapse underground. Weeks passed until one night he was awoken by his commanding officers and dragged in front of a well dressed is severe looking man. The gentleman asked him questions about his time as a priest, why he joined up, and eeriest of all the box he had not told anyone about.
When all others had left and he was alone with the man it all became clear. He revealed his name was simply ‘R’ and William was invaluable to the future of the war effort. William was unsure if he understood everything but ‘R’ talked of his inner rage being challenged towards those that took away a small portion of his humanity.
Months later William was working with others like him, all with similar experiences and tales to tell. Still the mystery of the box remained but William had a channel for his fury. The shadows became reality and the monsters that stalked his mind were now clear as day. A hidden world that (if he had anything to do with it) would stay hidden.
Urie Tatarov
Urie is a Russian secret service member. he is a lone wolf who is haunted by his child hood. at the age of 7 he lost his father and sister when his fathers fishing boat was dragged into the murky deeps by a large tentacled beast. Urie awoke in a snow bank in Moscow having no rec-election of his real name or where or even when he came from, he wondered freezing in a blizzard until he was rescued and taken in by a sympathetic family who named him Urie. with nothing but the memory the boat he was on being swallowed into the sea and a drive for answers Urie joined the military in 1936 at the age of 18. after showing a unnatural aptitude for espionage and hand to hand(some times tentacle) combat he was recruited into the KGB “special research unit”.Ever since that day he awoke has had a mark left on his right forearm in the shape of three spiraled tentacles and at will can tranasform his limb into a tentacle that he uses to strangle his enemy’s to death absorbing there thoughts and plots.
Well it was a good informative episode guy, thanks. 🙂 I am not really into the whole Chthulu RPG, but I can see how this would be great for those that are. Lots of juicy information there and I liked the fact you can play in lots of different theatres with the additional book. Checked out their Kicks Starter and was pleasantly surprised to find that you can purchase a level to appear in the game as a villain or a hero (and it was quite reasonably priced for this privilege tbh).
Anyway, just for giggles I will try and introduce my old D&D Rogue into the fray. Please welcome Mr…………..
Barry Chuckle
Ok I know there isn’t a rogue in Chthulu and I don’t think Chuckle Vision has been invented yet, so I have to try and come up with something fictional to represent him. First off what trade can he be? Well I guess the closest thing to a rogue would be to be a pick-pocket of sorts, that gains entrance to peoples home via his handy man service. hmmmm don’t think there were such things as handy men in those day. Maybe a chimney sweep instead. 🙂 But as we all know, Barry Chuckle is a terrible workman but very strong, just like my old D&D Rogue. So what do we have so far?
Barry Chuckle the strong and useless chimney sweep thief. His specialist weapon has to be the flue brush (wielded like a Bo).
Barry and Paul were parted whilst carrying out routine maintenance on Mr Spencer’s chimney. after they had completed the task, Paul went off to find a sink to wash his hands. Whilst doing so he overheard a discussion going on behind a door. Not wanting to intrude, he waited patiently waited until he heard a choking noise. Since Paul was a first aide representative in his workplace (in part due to Barrie’s inability to learn any new task other than lifting heavy things and giving things a good banging) he barged in to see Mr Spencer being strangled by a rather filthy robed man. Not wanting to interrupt the murder (due to no infringement with the health and safety act pamphlet 1913) he looked on patiently for the murdering to finish.
Barry at this point was wondering where his brother Paul had got to, as quite some time had past at this stage (not that Barry could tell the time, it was more a case of Barry started to feel bored) so he thought he would go and find his brother. Whilst walking around the house (it was a big house) he heard a scream that sounded like Paul. On turning the corner he saw his brother rubbing his head whilst been attacked by the filthy robed man. “Get the police” Paul shouted to his brother. So with that, Barry turned and ran to get the police. It took Barry several minutes to get home and write the letter to the police asking for assistance as a matter of priority as he scribbled the details down on a piece of paper.
When the police did make contact with Barry, it was with a huge wooden baton around his head for being a stupid fool. The police notified him that both his brother and Mr Spencer’s bodies were not found and no traces of a struggle was evident. Barry was later placed in a prison cell (for several weeks whilst the police force carried out their enquires) where he had to endure a soft mattress, a fully fitted gym, a door to door library service and other mind stimulating daily crafts and arts.
2 months later:
Barry has now been given community service until the disappearance of his brothers mystery has been solved. He is to work closely with the authorities as an undercover agent probing in and out of dark places with another undercover officer to hold up the rear (and tie his shoe laces for him, as velcro has not been invented yet).
To you…….
Karl-Heinz Fechtmann, an architect ordered to demolish an old Jewish settlement, in order to build some pompous Nazi building in it’s place. Within the ruins he discovers old tomes and by studying them he becomes a scholar and conjurer of the eldritch powers.
Dr. Rodrick Wellington Percival Elminster Carington Mycroft Luddington VII.
An English scientist from a long line of aristocrats and nobility. He’s currently found himself (forcibly) employed by the Nazi’s in their ‘Occult Technologies’ division. But he’s not the helpless brainiac they believe him to be. He’s also an agent of MI5 reporting in on their advancements and causing a little bit of chaos where he can…
He’s basically a posh Egon Spengler who was ‘captured’ by the Nazi’s and forced into creating weapons that are not entirely of this world…
Giles Haversham – Owner of a successful Import/Export business that dons his trilby and overcoat, smokes a pack a day from his silver cigarette case which he keeps next to his trusty pistol. Currently smuggling supplies for the allies among his regular cargo shipments to the European mainland and North Africa.
Bertrum Goddard. Victorian investigator who after being mauled by a deep one and making a pact with the Migo has woken up in 1939 and wants to go home
My character concept:
Name: Alexi Frolov
Bio: He was a student at the start of the Revolution,during the 1920’s Alexi was a member of the Red Army fighting in the Russian Civil War. After the war he started to work in the factories because that is what the state ordered, but the first chance he got he rejoined the Red Army, where he saw action against the Japanese in Mongolia in 1932. It was not until ’36 that he was contacted by Stalin to be part of “A project of vital importance to the state”, and that is where he gets his first contact with mythos related stuff, mainly books, from there he becomes a mix of soldier and scholar.
Mary Smith
An Australian girl, mary lived in the suburbs of Melbourne. She lived with her family and two brothers, her father taught her to shoot a rifle at a young age. she went hunting with her dad many times, while her brothers played sport.her father said she was the best shot in all of Australia. At 16 she shoot a animal that she didnt reconigse it was a large thing with many things protruding from it. This creature started her curiosity with strange things, the local library gave her a name cthulu and a country France.
Mary left for France in 1938, she searched fo awnsers in catacombs and libraries and myths. while doing this she met an American man looking for the same thing they became close. they married in 1939. when the nazis attacked a few weeks later he was killed. she joined the ressitance as a sniper. when Mary found the same type of creature on a soilder she had shot. mary’s understanding of the word Cthulu was gone. from that day Mary is trying to find out how the nazis are connected to Cthulu and she is trying to avenge her husband’s death by helping the French ressistance.
Slipping each other sausages, goodness me I think those boiz are all back stagers, not that there’s anything wrong with that xD
I think all three of us are Back Stagers (can’t speak for Chris, I don’t know if he subscribes). Backstaging is the best thing about Beasts of War. You get all the great stuff, plus access to a whole bunch more, plus you feel like you are actually contributing to the material on the site.
Oh wait, you were talking about something else…
Henri Wagner german deserter. Abandoned his post while guarding a small research facility when a being/entity escaped and began dismembering his fellow soldiers and the scientists they were guarding. After witnessing the aftermath of these atrocities he absconded with some mythos-grade weaponry and fled to a nearby village and hid there for a few months, hsunted by the growing feeling that he was being watched. Slowly villagers began to turn up killed in the same fashion as the victims in the research station and Henri again moved on. In the next location he settled in, he stumbled upon and eventually fought and destroyed a small group of cultists, which strangely eased the feeling of being followed. Now he lives as a hermit when he wishes to stay put for a time, or moves from place to place when the need to be around people strikes him, but he does not stay for long.
Henri is haunted by the essence of a dissected elder thing that basically drives him on to destroy their enemies; allowing him some respite after fulfilling his newly encumbered duty. He was chosen by the elder thing, because he alone, felt sufficient compassion and remorse for what he and his fellow soldiers and scientists had done. For a long time, his sense of duty to his nation was in conflict with his sense of duty to his fellow man, but after branding himself a deserter, this conflict has been settled.
Let’s try this one:
Hans-Jürgen Huber
Member of the German Widerstand (Resistance)
Hans-Jürgen was politically active during his youth. When different forces clashed in the streets of Berlin in the 1920s, he was in the middle of it. Among his friends his punch was and is still called “Hammerfaust”.
When the Nazis took over, he decided to take actions and work against them and so joined some of the different organisations which were active.
One of his hobbies besides reading political books and papers was the world of the occult. Just for fun, because it isn’t real, it is?!
When during the war he learned that the Nazis were trying to uncover and use occult powers, he became sceptical whether occult things could be real, but this thought was abandoned short time after. However when a member from the French Resistance, an old friend from mutual years at the university, Pierre Henry contacted him and told him that his suppressed fears could become true, Hans-Jürgen was eager to stop the doing nazis.
Because who knows what the nazis will do with such powers? Nothing good so much is obvious.
Dr. Baptiste Legardien
Baptiste was a young man who came from the campaign to learn how to heal his fellow men and women. While studing, he never hesitated to give all the help he could to the neighbour in his building who couldn’t afford to go to the hospital. He himself only lived from meager ressources.
When the nazis invaded Paris, He did everything in his power to save as many people as he could. He quickly joined the resistance to bring has much help as he could. Unfortunately he was a fragile soul and could not harm anyone, even the ss monsters. Luckily for him and many members of the french resistance, he was very skilled in healing people.
One night, his fellow men brought some victim that they helped escaped from an asylum taken over by the germans. While Baptiste was doing everything he could to save their shattered body, one of them showed strange wound, particularly on his forehead. First thinking the monsters lobotomized him, he found out how truly monstrous the nazis were later that night when a yello most came out of every orifice of the man’s head. Every one who breathed the unreal mist quickly transformed into gruesome monsters, twisting in improbale ways and groing inhuman appendage.
In panic, Baptiste reacted in instinct and run to grab the oil lamp nearby and throw on the first monstrosity. The thing immediatly caught on fire, lashing out at baptiste and striking his left eye. Running in pain, if it could feel such thing, he spread the fire to the other monsters and to the entire building. Baptiste was the only surviving witness.
Such a gruesome scene could have turned any man insane, especially since the wound on his left eyes seems to bring Baptiste unwanted visions, but all this only strenghtened his resolve to save as many souls as possible from the mad plans of the third reich.
Wow that was longer that I had planed. I think I’ll write a abridged version
Dr. baptiste Legardien
A young student in medicine who quickly joined the resistance when the nazis invaded, a surnatural night where victim of the germains treatment tranformed in monsters open Baptiste eyes to what was really going one. Ironically, this cost him his left eye but strenghtened his resolve to save as many souls as possible from the third reich mad plans.
Matsushida Kenji of the Imperial Japanese army. Trained from an early age in the arts of Ninjutsu before being recruited as an officer cadet. He first saw active service in Manchuria where he quickly gained recognition and a ruthless reputation.
He has been promoted to his current rank of Colonel (Taisa) and is now an Military Attache stationed at the Japanese Embassy in Berlin.
He has been sent to Europe to investigate German weapon research facilities by fair means or foul.
Just what is it that the Nazis want to keep so secret even from their allies ?
Doctor Zhao “Jim” Matsu
3rd generation Japanese American. Linguist under the OSS prior to Pearl Harbor.
Assigned to the european front due to make things easier, and due to it being the source of most of the languages he speaks, combined with a hobby interest in photography. Due to various issues certain higher ups tend to have with his heritage, he gets dumped into things that would normally be considered far stranger than would normally be taken seriously.
Darcy sluth
Darcy started life in saskachewan canada oldest brother of 4 and tried to help out as much as possible but when the great depression struck he moved to the big smoke of new york to try and support his family. His quick wit and old values along with his ability to read and predict human nature lead him naturally to a privite detective. This gives a modest life and sends money back as often as he can.
When the war started he saw a way to help out the family and to prevent his brothers being drafted he made a deal with the army. With his dective skills and trusty 6 shooter he was drafted to the spy and espanage department and assigned him to investage special cases to find out spys and stop secrets falling into the wrong hands