Warehouse 23 (
We Know What You Want) is an outgrowth of the
Steve Jackson Games website and the company's online retail arm. It now serves a fair bit of other
goodness as well, such as
Schlock Mercenary and
Ninja Burger. Like the SJG one, the Warehouse is
Illuminati-themed in the
fictional
fnord unpopular culture sense.
The place's main attraction is the Basement: a virtual "exploration" of a top-top secret warehouse containing what must be hundreds of viewer-submitted fnord things the U.S. government/secret government/New World Order would deem necessary to hide from the Great Unwashed. Yes, it's inspired by the one in Raiders of the Lost Ark. There's no browse function but a randomizer and the items are divided into five very rough weirdness levels. A number of the discoveries would naturally be very unpleasantly fatal in a Real World situation.
Sampling!
You open one of the N boxes on this level and find...
- A file showing what is done with all of the batteries that aren't included.
- A video camera. When anything recorded with this camera is played back, all the people in the image are replaced by kangaroos performing the same activities.
- Four human heads. Upon the opening of the box, one of the heads begins counting "One, Two, Three, Four!" and they burst into song. Best barbershop quartet you ever heard. At the end of the second song, the heads look up at you expectantly, and the first head coughs politely.
- A pair of slippers shaped like Godzilla's feet. As the wearer walks, impact-sensitive sound chips will exactly reproduce the sounds of crumbling buildings and screaming Tokyo citizens.
- Happiness.
- A small-format VHS minicam tape. When played, it contains poor-quality video and extremely muffled audio, obviously from a hidden camera. The footage shows several men dressed as Roman soldiers escorting a number of prisoners through crowded streets. The prisoners are each carrying a single timber over their shoulders. The camera follows the procession up a dirty street toward a gate, but after about eight minutes of footage, the camera is jostled and the film ends.
- A small book marked "The Real History." The book is only 25 pages long.
- A yellowed and weathered letter, with your name written on it - in your handwriting. It stipulates it is not to be opened until the Last Day....
- A newsreel from the early 1950's featuring Frank Sinatra. He is seen giving an impassioned speech, urging all Americans to see each other as brothers regardless of race, creed or color. Observant viewers will notice that he blinks rapidly all through the speech. The blinking is Morse code, repeatedly spelling out "TORTURE."
- A Native American dreamcatcher, which works in revese. Anyone who sleeps in the same room with the thing will experience very strange dreams.
- A small vial marked "Anime Serum." If injected, body size will shrink, head and eye size will increase, and the victim's mouth will move out of sync with speech.
- A bag of small, plain fortune cookies. Three have been broken, and spots of blood dot the fortunes, making them illegible. There are nine unbroken cookies left.
Links (and sources):
http://www.warehouse23.com
http://www.warehouse23.com/basement