Funny / The Secret World

• On Solomon Island, you meet Old Joseph, a Wabenaki elder with considerable magical knowledge. You help him discover that the Filth has leaked into the spirit world and corrupted the Wabenaki's ancestor-spirits. Joseph conducts a ritual that will let you enter the spirit world so you can purge the Filth and save the ancestors. Part of this ritual involves gathering some gruesome ingredients (A Wendigo's eyeballs, the ashes of several spectres, strange herbs, and a feather off of a Wabenaki zombie), burning them as incense and inhaling the fumes. This represents the outer limit of Joseph's knowledge - just because he knows how to do the ritual doesn't mean he's ever had to do it before.
  Old Joseph: I don't know what's going to happen! Did you think you would enter the spirit world through the magic of... smoke? [Laughs] You read too many comic books.
• Doctor Bannerman's files, specifically the entry on Madame Roget. Most of the entries up until now have been perfectly formal, with little in the way of sarcasm or rudeness; however, after detailing the fact that Roget suffers from deviant sexual fantasies including "an inappropriate doctor-patient relationship," Bannerman's only diagnosis is "Dy-na-mite!"
• Kirsten Geary's introduction in the Illuminati prologue; given how serious most of the faction heads have been, it's a bit of a surprise, to say the least:
  "I FUCKING LOVE OLD SCHOOL HIP-HOP! DON'T YOU?"
  • About the end of the Transylvania mission: "This report reads better than Twilight slash fiction."
  • At the beginning of "Questions and Answers," Geary informs you that you did good work in Kingsmouth, and off-handedly remarks "High-five." Immediately, you raise your hand for the high-five, a big smile on your face. Naturally, she doesn't return it, leaving you to very sheepishly lower your hand.
  • Taking part in a fun but largely irrelevant side-quest during your ride on the snowmobile will result in you being dubbed "007" by Geary... as part of an intelligence estimate. For good measure, she concludes the email with "GET BACK TO WORK!"
  • After finishing issue 6, you get a very brief mission in which you have to follow the coordinates to an emissary and receive a reward for your hard work. Finishing this mission results in another gloriously sarcastic email from Geary, summed up as "Congratulations, you know how to go from A to B. I'm so fucking proud of you."
  • Following "Into The Filth": "I don't want you to think that this is an endless, thankless task, but keep doing it."
  • Halloween 2013 gives her some doozies:
    (The Rogue Groundskeeper) I completely approve of both drinking at work and also using it to summon and destroy horrible creatures trapped between life and death. Just be glad it doesn't work everywhere or Jersey would be full of screaming banshees.
    (The Organ Smugglers) The only time I've ever woken up in a bathtub was when I made the Sultan of Brunei fill a bathtub with diamonds. I wouldn't recommend it - diamonds are harder than rock salt and they have a way of finding their way into all sorts of cavities. I was nervous in airports for the next 6 months.
    (The Lantern Man) I think the Templars still rent out their chained Rakshasa for cosmetic testing. Imagine a room full of those faces made up like Martha Stewart. Great, I'm due for a skin peel later on, and now all I'm going to think about is Martha Stewart.
  • Her drunk-text in response to completing the new years dungeon:
    Bolon Yok,te What? Did you not get the ocpmay-wide memo about the holiday party/ uGH. i'M ASSming youd did good out there. Which means I didn good. bottoms up!
  • After completing one mission your report fails to deliver:
    The error that the other server returned was: KG_office_party_open_bar_ciao_ciao Unrouteable address (state 16)
• The Illuminati's highest of high-ups, The Pyramidion. The 'All-Seeing Eye' speaks only half the time in lines of relevant dialogue. The other half alternates between bizarre P.A. announcements (if you're in The Labyrinth) or context-relevant memes... like a boss.
  I didn't expect you to pull through that one. Who's awesome? You're awesome. Who is not awesome is whoever leaked the details of this deal to the Templars. He will never have a girlfriend.
  Run, Forrest, Run! [...] Do not lose him, or Christmas is cancelled.
  This place used to be on our list of exotic weekend getaways for the Friday raffle, until Venice decided to shut it all down. In their defense, that was after one hundred and thirty-two accidental deaths, and some mad wizard who tried to use the power of Shambala to get back at his ex-girlfriend and also reduce most of Western Europe to cinders. Bad breakup.
  (ominously) Follow my directions, and tell no one of this. I will destroy you. Just look at all these fucks I give.
  If you continue to be useful, then BFF's forever. Blazers and jeans are only permissible with the proper footwear.
  I spy with my extremely high resolution eye, a force field. The best way through a force field is not.
  Great shot, kid! Now let's blow this thing and go home.
• Dame Julia Beatrix Tyburn. This old lady is funny as hell. Talking with you in a mix of uptightness and rambling. No wonder she became a Ensemble Darkhorse.
• Halfway into "Dawning of an Endless Night," you're searching for information on Beaumont's secret weapon, and Miss Usher, one of the surviving teachers at Innsmouth Academy, tells you that the info might be hidden in a secret vault the Illuminati were rumoured to store all their occult knowledge in. Unfortunately, nobody knows where this vault is hidden... right up until the Headmaster and the surviving student starts volunteering information about it, with Carter even providing exact directions and explaining that most of the seniors knew about it too.
  Usher: Well then, there you are- the "Secret" Illuminati Archives, lost to the ages.
• Another one from the Academy: Hayden Montag casually remarking that the best way to kill a feral Familiar is via "a swift, decapitating blow with a spade," and warning you not to use a fire-axe lest it "rebound from the vertebrae." Naturally, Usher has to ask if he knows this from first-hand experience; his only response: "A teacher is only as good as his tools!"
  • Montag is a fountain of these kind of moments, in no small part due to the fact that he's so direly serious. At one point, after he points out that the protective wards need be refuelled with sacrifices of anima, Usher sarcastically remarks that they could have a sacrificial donation drive, or a bake sale. Without a hint of irony, Montag remarks "Delightful!"
    "As I would tell parents- before I was retired from the reparation committee- you cannot vivisect a ghoul without breaking a few legs!"
    "A thorough investigation will follow, as soon as we have appointed new staff and dissolved their predecessors' corpses."
    (About an Evil Sorcerer) "The Academy had absolutely no truck with his creations! ... Initially. ... During his life."
    "We possess an Illuminati War Golem from the 1600s... purely for reference purposes."
    "No running in the halls! The floors are quite slick with gore."
  • In the intro to "Science and the Arts":
    Montag: It is has been said that there is a skeleton in every closet here at Innsmouth. That is simply not true: they were laid into the very foundation walls. The basement might bleed if you chipped beneath the plaster.
    Carter: That's a figure of speech, right?
    Usher: I'm sorry, Carter.
    Carter: Oh my God, have you ever heard of a white lie?
    • Also:
      Usher: The first time you get bricked in is probably the worst time, eh?
      Montag: From my research? It seems each time begins a claustrophobic eternity anew.
      Usher: Yer' like the world's revenge on sarcasm, d'you know that?
  • From the intro to "The Faculty."
    Montag: We have all seen the reanimated corpses of recently-deceased staff, felt pathos at those once-great minds leaking from vacant orbits...
    Carter: I think I'm going to be sick.
• In Moon Bog, there's a mission to rescue a cat from the center of a Filth-ridden area to return him to his owner. Unfortunately, this gives you the debuff "Merrimac's Revenge", with the tooltip reading "This cat needs his claws trimmed!"
• Säid, an Ancient Egyptian mummy who's reinvented himself as a yuppie. His introduction in "The High Cost Of Dying", in which he casually takes a photo of you with his smartphone.
  "Ever banished a minor deity? Could be downright educational for you, a real opportunity; I should charge for this. (beat) Alright, it's on the house. You're killing me."
  "This fracas is going to cost. Not us, of course; we'll find a way to turn the country's devastation to a loss leader. Too soon? Don't think of me as heartless: it's shriveled to the size of a walnut, but I still have it rattling around here somewhere..."
  "Well then, I thought we might treat ourselves to an ice-lolly after the meeting..."
• When talking about a conversation with a Trade Prince in Egypt, Shani delivers this gem.
  Shani: He told me, if I truly want to understand humanity, I need only read the comments section on YouTube. I hate the Internet.
• The Sentinels have a deeply tragic story as the seven children of the High Priest of Amun, who willingly sacrificed their lives to become the seals that bind the Black Pharaoh in his tomb—a lonely, eternal existence with no one for company but one another and their constantly-reincarnating father, who visits them as often as he's able. However, many of their interactions with each other (in mini-statuette form, in each other's shrines) are very funny. You can certainly tell they're siblings and that they drive each other nuts sometimes.
• The Dragon's report in the aftermath of "Rolls Downhill," in which they discuss the Morninglight: first it talks about the cult's founder and leader, Philip Marquard, who is crafted to be perfect in every way: "Perfect family, perfect dog, perfect teeth." Then it talks about Che Garcia Hansson, the effortlessly sleazy Morninglight cultist quest-giver, who is summarized as "Dead family, dumb dog, rotten teeth."
• Sam Krieg's letter to his agent in "Crime and Punishment." Up until now, Krieg's been too much of a morbid old Jerkass to be especially funny; however, the unsent mail is absolutely hilarious, at least partly because Krieg was evident too pissed off to keep up the "aloof dickhead" act at the time:
  Oh, and thank you for the GPS, Linda: it tried its utmost to steer me into a fiery fucking death.
  • The photo of Krieg and his Loony Fan - which Krieg threw away at the first opportunity. Words cannot express just how utterly furious Krieg looks compared to the fan.
  • When you find and hack into said fan's computer, you'll find he's quite accurate in most of his theories on the various Kingsmouth monsters and mysteries... except that he's convinced that everything ties back to the Soviet Union.
  • Extra point of hilarity that comes only after reading all three factions' respective post-mission comments. Sonnac assumes that the conspiracy theorist died to the fog. Geary, however, knows he went on the run shortly before the Fog rolled in, but the seemingly omniscient Illuminati is having trouble finding him.... because the Dragon got to him first and quietly stashed him in a basement in a monastery.
• One of Harbaburesti's NPCs is a Blajini (a kind of gnome) named Petru, who is constantly giving communist speeches to his fellow Blajini.
• Richard Sonnac, the Templar contact, frequently lays on the snark in his replies after mission reports (paraphrased):
  "This investigation is something you might like to pursue when you have no other priorities. (Beat) By the way, you have other priorities."
  (via text message) I believe this impersonal mode of communication perfectly conveys my lack of surprise at the Illuminati's folly. Who would have thought that stockpiling flesh constructs could possibly backfire?
• Nassir, the Marya demolitions expert with a fondness for American action films. He greets you with an enthusiastic "HIGH FIVE!", and the way he dances in the background of some cutscenes just has to be seen.
  • Pretty much everything Säid and Nassir say to each other in the final mission-chain of Last Train to Cairo is hilarious. Special mention must go to Nassir's comment that Abdul is either dead or waiting for the sequel, which turns out to be true!
• The Frosty Tentacle Topper- given as a freebie to subscribers in December 2012. A top hat strung with long blue tentacles and surrounded by a perpetual rain of snowflakes.
• For once, both Geary and Sonnac have equally hilarious responses - in this case, their "You killed what?" reaction to the Gilded Rage event and it's Golden Golem boss.
  Geary: It's like Paris Hilton and Snoop Lion teamed up to do some geomancy. Shit I'd better make sure her hypnotherapist hasn't been mindfucking her again. As for you, nice work saving the world from Blingzilla.
  Sonnac: Sometimes I feel like a character in a Roald Dahl novel, rather than a crusader fighting to preserve the world from the grasp of indescribable evil.
  • What sells these two messages is the tone of voice that carries through even text form - Sonnac is not at all surprised (although just a little bit exasperated), while Geary is clearly laughing her ass off.
• The League of Monster Hunters' book on local monsters: amongst other things, it includes entries on Headmaster Montag and Ms Usher.
• Inbeda of the House-In-Exile and the Mask of Kan'Ami are always good for a laugh, especially when the Mask starts getting stroppy.
  • During his opening cutscene, Inbeda actually attempts to get you to bathe naked in front of him, even offering to scrub your back - much to your disgust. Quite apart from the fact that Inbeda clearly expects you to take him up on this offer, the real icing on the cake arrives when the Mask decides to change the subject with a loud "Aaaanyway..."
  • Later in the same mission, Inbeda dancing with a mannequin dressed up to look like Kirsten Geary, apparently intending to have sex with it. Again, the player's disgusted reaction is pure gold.
  • The intro to "Brotherly Loathe," Inbeda throws a very dramatic temper tantrum, complete with angry snarls, ominous music, and anime-esque decapitations of unsuspecting mannequins... but it's hilariously undercut by the fact that he's still wearing his tiger-striped bathrobe and fluffy slippers. Plus, the Mask refuses to translate his ranting with anything vaguely approaching enthusiasm.
  • Also, in case you didn't find it earlier, the intro to this mission also features a huge painted mural of Kirsten Geary in a pose the woman herself probably wouldn't be caught dead in - at least while at work, anyway.
  • Inbeda's thoughts on the Jingu Clan.
    If... If I were to make a word for word translation of my master's outburst, your bowels would boil and the walls would bleed. Instead let me just say that Inbeda would be happy to string every member of the Jingu Clan on a single length of barbed wire - in the mouth and out the anus - to form a crude human centipede which he would use as a mount. The samurai and the Oni... they do not get along.
  • "Fierce Competition" delivers one of the funniest moments in all of Tokyo. While trying to decide on whether to claim the bounty on a corpse who wasn't killed by the House-In-Exile, Inbeda observes that the victim was lacerated to death with a single killing blow. There's a pause, and the Mask puts on a very bad American accent and translates, "Looks like this fellow... (Inbeda puts a pair of sunglasses on over the mask) ... didn't make the cut. Yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh!" And Inbeda accuses you of being "culturally ignorant" for not appreciating this!
• Despite the "Nightmares in the Dream Palace" story mission being fairly heavy there is that moment where you participate in a dance-off against Ricky Pagan. It Makes Sense in Context but the contrast between this and the rest of the mission is quite amusing.
  John: Weird Night.
  • There is a mixture of Nightmare Fuel and Black Humor found in John's mockery of the news report from the opening cinematic, especially as he speaks in the same tone as the original reporter:
    Further developments in Tokyo. The military is maintaining a heavily guarded perimeter around the site of last month's terrorist attack. The Japanese government has stated that a totally benevolent cult has released the Black Worm Jism into the Tokyo Subway, ushering in the Dreaming Ones who will tear down the wet tissue walls of our sanity. Although the area has been evacuated there have been eye witness reports of the military systematically killing off civilians. Authorities have denied everything, plucked out their own jellied eyes and begun feasting on the corpses of the innocent.
  • Another funny moment: When John first begins fast-forwarding through the player's memories of Solomon Island, he pauses when he gets to a memory of Che Garcia, expresses surprise that the player has met Che... And then immediately begins fast-forwarding again, apparently wanting to get to the interesting parts.
• During "The Bank Heist", Daimon Kiyota has you steal an important item from, where else, an abandoned bank...and once you're in, he starts giving you some unique instructions, such as tearing off a security bot's arm to access the network, cartwheeling to thwart a laser wall, and his grand scheme of thwarting the pressure plates...moonwalking. At the end of it, he admits to recording the security feed to post on YouTube. Even better, if you work for the Illuminati, Geary is absolutely furious you didn't actually take any money in the process of bank theft, because it reflects poorly on her image as greedy scum.
• While exploring the Clubhouse, a Morninglight-run building that went into lockdown after the Bomb, you come across several notes from those days. One of the writers were convinced that the Tokyo Incident was fake, made up to get marketing information from young people, and the culprits were Facebook. They vowed to find a way to confront them.
  Note: I'm coming for you Zuckerberg, and I'm bringing the fury.
  • Also, the Clubhouse has some rather... interesting rules concerning the swimming pool.
    No swimming with guns from the shooting range.
    Open sores and/or oozing pustules must be covered before entering the pool.
    Avoid drowning if possible. If you are unable to avoid drowning, be advised that your body will be dumped in the harbor.
    The management of the Clubhouse would like to thank you for respecting the rules, and would like to advise that by choosing to use this pool you acknowledge that there may be significant risks to your mental and physical health. ^note  Incidentally, the pool is filled with enormous bubbles of Filth by the time you arrive
  • In another disturbingly hilarious note from the Clubhouse, the management have warned the resident bartenders not to serve alcohol to underage guests - if only to keep their parents from asking unwanted questions. Then, the note goes on to remind the bartenders to always add a little MDMA to the first drink!
• Some clever players have learnt they can perform emotes during cutscenes, naturally they exploited this.
• Ricky Pagan... just Ricky Pagan
• The Golden Week's prizes, rewards and discounted outfits. In the event that you don't want to shell out 1200 points for a gold silk tuxedo and bowtie - downgraded from its normal price of 12000 points - you can try out the High Roller's Valise and end up with things like a velour tracksuit with bling, a gold silk lounge robe, an Elvis-style rhinestone jumpsuit, a stripper's outfit, or a platinum tuxedo. Or, if you're really determined or lucky, a golden golem - or a miniature Jinn in a monocle and top hat.
• When investigating a suspicious agent for the Illuminati, you can read a memo on his laptop about the "new recruits" who all have questionable fashion sense and wander around with blank stares.
• Lilith's indignation at the Morninglight's attempt to kill her.
  "Phillip Marquad tried to kill me?! ME!"
• Playing pin the filth on Lilith. Turns out she doesn't like standing in filth, loudly announcing her disgust and moving when it spreads towards her. Enough strategic kills and the player can have her on the opposite end of the balcony.
• Sometimes, the Apocalyptic Logs written by various dead NPCs border on the hilariously morbid. This one◊, casual as it is, reads rather akin to what would happen if the Orochi Group recruited Dave Strider.
• The frequent sport among players of getting the Ak'ab to charge at top speed into trees. Oddly, this is actually practical as well-if an Ak'ab hits a tree first, they won't finish their dash attack and won't hit you.
• The cutscene for Sarge's first mission in Blue Mountain. He'll be talking at someone you've never seen before who just stands there in awkward silence. He talks about bees and her connection to Gaia. You might think the game loaded the wrong model, until the camera pans back to show your character standing nearby. Apparently being a Heroic Mime is a common trait among bees.
• Fans had long requested similar features to London at the other faction hubs, or at least a bank. The arguments against a bank branch were mostly in-character: As an essentially Templar institution, The Dragon and Illuminati wouldn't let them that close to their HQs. In the most recent update (at the time of writing), bankers were added not just at the other faction hubs, but deep inside each faction's HQ. However, their treatment is less than welcoming. The banker in New York is flanked by four security guards looking inward. The Dragon is more passive-aggressive about it, making the Seoul banker sit on a lawn chair in the temple courtyard, in the perpetual rain, without an umbrella.
• The French tourists in Transylvania. One of them starts talking to you about her protective friend, who can't hear a word being said because she's gutting werewolves with a chainsaw.
  Aurelie: You know what they say about pretty girls and wolves.
  Celine, surrounded by gutted werewolves, chainsaw still revved: What?!
• In the weapon labs of Manticore Omega in Orochi Tower, there's a note made on a whiteboard that using the Egyptian anima infuser would take approximately 10,000 years according to calculations. The next sentence is about how they needed an infused weapon in three weeks. The only occupant of the lab is a single crying scientist in a chair.
  • Also in Manticore Omega, a note on another board mentions that their own anima infuser only seems to work on weapons that shoot flames. They have tested it on the following without success: bullets, bats, swords, and spoons.
  • Most of Orochi's Tower's floors have a safety board revealing that it has been less than a month since the latest incident. Then you get to Manticore, the weapons developer. Days since last incident? Twelve hours.
• Orochi's Zagan Alpha reveals the company's plan to sell synthetic blood to vampires and Dimir family sausages, made of magical creatures, to werewolves. They name the sausages "Lycan Chow" and include pictures of a smiling werewolf holding a bowl of cartoonish green sausages.
• The Zagan fake blood research reveals that while caffeine makes vampires go insane, Aspartame makes them explode.
• The friggin Buzzing seems to be getting in on the Illuminati's field report snark, though it could just be Cassini screwing with you.
  TRANSMIT - initiate the technical support signal - RECEIVE- sweetling!
  Do not chill. Scream and panic! Your sysadmin is going manic! The bottle caps do not lie, we exist outside the Eye. Cue bass, cue penthouse protocol, cue sex, drugs, et al.
  WITNESS- our embrace. Don't be huffy because we hack. The Buzzing appreciates all of you. The world is dying, it's all true!
  • The Buzzing actually seems to be fond of hijacking the player's text messages, since it also does this at the end of the Templars and Dragon campaigns, complete with snarking about their factions:
    TRANSMIT - initiate booster signal - RECEIVE - sweetling!
    Mr Sonnac is sitting tight, drumming along to in the air tonight. Mr Noble, Mr Right, Mr "Quote Some Ancient Knight." Well we can use citations too: "Oogabooga" - the boogeyman is coming through!
    WITNESS - encouragement. Don't be huffy because we hack. The Buzzing appreciates all you do. Now chop-chop, before we drop.

    TRANSMIT - initiate tenderness signal - RECEIVE - sweetling!
    Dragon reports enter the connected carousel: they spin and spin, yang and yin, until routed to some IP - never the same he or she - rinse, repeat, the chaos beat... But today all of Seoul is mystified, their access to you has been denied.
    WITNESS - encouragement. Don't be huffy because we hack. The Buzzing appreciates all you do. Can't we be a ripple too?
• From Legends, in the new Agartha Bazaar, an Illuminati Gofer stands across from the Templar delegation giving them the Italian salute.
• During much of the Issue #16 content, you're infiltrating the Morninglight compound...in an area with no cell phone service and without the knowledge of your superiors. The moment you're back online, it turns out your superiors were asking for help with something in Antarctica all mission, and your handler actually personally goes over to South Africa to tell you how pissed they are. (Except, of course, for Daimon, who guesses at what was going on and finds the frustration of the faction hilarious, once he figures out what's going on - before then, he is spamming "Pickup" into your text messages and eventually making empty(?) threats about killing your family if you don't stop driving him up a wall).
• The last line of the unfortunate Orochi agent's Apocalyptic Log in "The Filth Amendment":
  what a way to go. not with a bang but playing solitaire waiting for the infection to take over
• The 'mission completed' message from the Templars for "The City Before Us" has Sonnac - serious, dignified Sonnac - making a comment about "get[ting] back on track" to stop the Atenists. And then pointing it out.
• The reveal of how Säid got his lucky charm in the first place - his younger self steals it from the player just as they're about to return to the present.
• During the "Appeasing the Flame" sidequest, you bring a Djinn ring to Amir, who is absolutely incensed, and then you get an objective: "Survive Amir's Assault." It turns out that Amir's "assault" is... mostly just him yelling at you for attempted bribery and a single attack that takes off 80% of your health but otherwise doesn't do anything.