From: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org (deltagreen-digest) To: deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Subject: deltagreen-digest V2 #45 Reply-To: Delta Green List Sender: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Errors-To: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Precedence: bulk deltagreen-digest Monday, August 30 1999 Volume 02 : Number 045 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 15:28:37 +0300 From: yanasikt@superonline.com (Tolga Yanasik) Subject: DG: Origins This is a long article and will continue at my later posts. Allthough it seems to be off topic, I hope to tie it to the Mythos and DG at the end :) Many of my notes and URLs that you may learn more about what I've written below is lost in my other house which is nothing more than a heap of rubbles now. Anyway here it starts : The first words of the lost continent is recorded on papyrus or other media forms at about 500 BC. In 1922, English archaeolog Leonard Wooley found out that Sumerian city of Ur is destroyed by a flood. Another English archaeolog George Smith found the Gilgamesh Epopee and claimed the flood that s recorded there is the same with the Flood of Noah. Much before that, around 11.000 BC while the earth living the 4th Ice Age, because of an unexplicable event huge masses of polar ice melt down and sea level raised 120-130 meters. Different cultures told different stories about the sunken lands. Atlantis which lied in the middle of Atlantic Ocean, between the Bahama islands and West Europe coast. Mu, which was in Pacific, extending from the southeast of Japan to the equator. Lemuria, which Madagaskar was a part of it. And, Hyperborea, between Iceland and Greenland. These are legends. But don't forget that Troy was a legend before Heinrich Schliemann found it in western Turkey. When Atlantis sunk at 11.000 BC, very few refugees managed to run away. Ones that sailed west reached Yucatan, others that sailed east reached to North Africa. An American, Edgar Cayce founded the ARE organisation in 1931. His disciples called him the silent prophet. He said that buried under Sphinx, there is the answer to the questions about the origin of humankind. And the answer was to be found before the end of the millenium. Last year, in 1998. Underground tunnels detected between the Keops pyramid and the Sphinx. These tunnels go under the earth to meet other tunnels. Robert Bauval in his book ORion Mystery claims that the three big pyramids align to the three central stars at the Orion Belt. Also the mysterious air shafts in the Khufu Pyramid may aligned to the Orion and Sirius. They were indeed aligned, but to the position of the stars in 10.500 BC. A German engineener, Rudolph Gattenbrick used a robot called Upuaut - -opener of roads in Ancient Egyptian- to clear the 20 cm. dia. shafts in the Queen's room. Upuaut went more than the expected lenght of these shafts and stopped. By a door with brass knobs. Gattenbrink who suggested to open the door with a new robot is fired from his job by Mohammed Bakr, the Ancient Artifacts Manager. Bakr also fired his Security Manager Dr. Zahi Hawass -remember his name- After 3 months Bakr is also fired and gave his place to Nur El-Din. He told the journalists that there is a mafia interested in the pyramids for more than 20 years. Gattenbrink showed his videos to English and French Egyptologists and recieved great interest. Egyptians authorities still insist that there is no doors in the shafts. Then suddenly Dr. Zahi Hawass is brought to charge. He reluctantly admitted what Gattenbrink found out was interesting and they're in contact with a Canadian company. But, until the end of his life Gattenbrink is forbidden to come close to the pyramids.At the same time an American Egyptologists, John Anthony West claimed that Sphinx wasn't builded at 2500BC but about 10.000BC. He also told that the marks on Sphinx happened due to water erosion. Also he made some seismic experiments and claimed he found a room 8 meters below Sphinx and a network of tunnels. Guess what ? Dr. Zahi Hawass forbid West and his team from Giza. What if the refugees from Atlantis reached northern africa buried what they could save under a huge rock and made the rock into a statue ? Whit these doubts on mind, a team of 30 archaeolog, geolog, astronom and geophsyicians initiated a project called the Hermes Project. Of course, Dr. Hawass didn't allowed this. What has all this got to do with Omar Shakti and the Fate, flying polyps and yithians and scarabs, you have to wait a bit to learn :) Cheers, Tolga Yanasik >from Istanbul. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 14:54:32 +0100 From: Barry Hill Subject: Re: DG: RE: Organization vs releving in freedom - SOME SPOLIERS LizardRoi@aol.com writes >In a message dated 99-08-25 13:30:58 EDT, you write: >You shouldn't be proud of anything personally because >everything comes from God, yes: pox, syphilis, earthquakes, disease, senility, the devil, etc, etc. >and besides, you're a sinner because Adam&Eve >fucked up. or because they fucked. \Barry Hill. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 19:33:25 -0500 From: "Shane Ivey" Subject: RE: DG: RE: Consistancy is the hobgoblin... MiB recently laid a whole lot of bad-mouth for one itty-bitty point: <> They are the basis of language and literary criticism, but not of mythology and religion. I tend to side with the anti-hobgoblins here (would that make us gnolls?); the second a player starts feeling absolutely certain that the King in Yellow is, indeed, a physical manifestation of the lake-paddling, tentacle-globbing version of Hast*r, that's the moment I'll start throwing in hints that Hast*r and/or the King are something entirely different. The hints don't have to be true, but nor do they have to be false; my goal will be to keep the players from categorizing and quantifying what should be only barely comprehensible. That's no mean trick when you run games for players who have spent years reading every last little detail of the Cthulhu Mythos and Delta Green. I already know I won't be running that dog-head scenario for my online group; one of them played through it with me the first time, and the others have probably read it already anyway. So I feel obliged, as a Keeper attempting to entertain players with scary scenarios, to keep them guessing. The mutable nature of the Mythos makes this possible. No doubt somebody out there is going to accuse me of cheating by not delineating an internally consistent world-view on which to base my campaign; to which I say, PHPPHHHTTPPT! What the players don't know won't hurt them; it will just make their characters lose SAN and HP at the appropriate times. Besides, it feels a little elegant to think that the ultimate mystery is that it is, indeed, a mystery: the rules of "physics" don't hit the truth of reality; the name-dropping in the Necronomicon doesn't hit the truth; doing the Vulcan mind-meld with Yog-Sothtoth or Azathoth won't even hit the truth; because the truth, mutable and shaped by the powers that we see as the Outer Gods, is beyond our capacity to conceive any more than a shard of it. That's the sense that I got most immediately out of the new Hast*r stuff in COUNTDOWN; it gets Keepers thinking outside the box--the box being "Here are the stats for Cthulhu; here are the stats for Hast*r; here's what an Elder Sign will do for you." So, now when the SANDMAN players start scratching beneath the surface and into the Foulness (tm) below, they won't start jumping too far to conclusions on what it all might or might not mean. <> Somebody's obviously been playing our Terror Trainer... http://www.hecklers.com/terrortrainer/index.html SHANE IVEY This week at www.zealot.com: Liv Tyler in Lord of the Rings... 20 Years in Indie Comics... Universal Soldier 2... and more! Zealot: Sci-Fi and Fantasy Fun ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 22:31:44 EDT From: LizardRoi@aol.com Subject: DG: A foolish consistancy (long) In a message dated 8/28/99 3:07:40 AM Pacific Daylight Time, mib@cyberspace.org writes: << What if piecing together information reveals the inconsistency of reality? Surely this would be cause for a SAN roll. Perhaps a single Investigator is going insane, with the surreal belief and confirmation of others merely being facets of this insanity, without even the knowledge of the players. >> I think perhaps we're having about 3 different conversations on the same theme. No criticism should be inferred, I think we all joined the conversation with different agendas. I blame my intern. I daresay she shall receive a thorough tongue-lashing later. So far, the consensus would appear to be that konsistancy is good, but not necessarily necessary. I will assume that Daniel Harms is at one end of the bell curve and some unnamed unalurker is at the other. I don't think we have many disagreements on the desirability of consistency per se. Though some of us groove over the implications of the apparent chaos to be found at the quantum level, we prefer that ballistics be a precise discipline. I know I do, Magic Bullet notwithstanding. So let's drop the oohaah SAN loss at implications of the chaos at the heart of reality BS. Shit happens, it's apparently random and chaotic at the most primal levels we can conceive and we all have been endowed by our forefathers with the right to put any spin on it we damn well feel like so there. Given. Onward. You have the power. So, the question is: where do you wield it and why? We are leaving the domain of cosmology....there's a signpost up ahead. Your next stop: Esthetics. I don't really care where Leng "is". I'm more interested in how you get there from here. Or from the Severn Valley. Or Lankhmar. And vice-versa of course. In my previous post, I blue-skyed a hypothetical reality where H****r was Nyarly behind the curtain. It is telling that I instinctually manufactured a fundamental change in the Mythos that wouldn't wreck too many scenarios. In the final analysis, does it matter if He Who Must Not Be Paged is really a Toe-Puppet? So long as he is dependably cranky when summoned and continues to support the arts, it doesn't matter what he "is". I don't think any of us would be unduly disoriented at discovering Nyarly is at war with himself. I don't think anyone on this list has a mind so tiny it can't encompass at least seven impossible things before breakfast. Nothing is fundamentally changed but the entry in the Canon, so why bother? Is any value added? I am a devotee of uncertainty. My saurian duties preclude my being the King of Ambiguity, but I am president of the fan club. Nonetheless, I instinctually seek thematic consistantcy. I think it tastes better that way. Let us familiarize ourselves with my cosmology by turning to The Book Of Lizard, Chapter One. Already in progress..... In the Beginning, there wasn't one. That would imply linearity, even of the circular sort. The Tralfamadorians told Billy Pilgrim that humans perceive time like a man strapped to a train car going at a constant speed. His head is in a bucket and his only view of the scenery going by is through a 10 foot pipe mounted perpendicular to the direction of travel. That's about right. Except of course that the map is not the territory, the menu isn't the meal, and some metaphors are juxtapositions of symbols we can understand to describe things we can't. "Everything is connected," he QUIPped. Just so. At some levels of perception, the QUantum Inseparability Phenomenon is a given. We are not necessarily insignificant. If, as Heisenberg states, the observer is an integral part of any quantum event, then a planet full of creative observers is nothing to sneeze at. We may be ludicrously outgunned, but one thing that (apparently) keeps those Mythos mammajammas hanging around is our cunsistent adoption of Fresh tactics. You just never know what those clever monkeys will come up with next. So what is the Ultimate Reality? Depends on your POV. Next question. OK. Howzabout at the "center" of Everything there is a roiling buncha chaos writhing and mewling to jazz fusion. It is Power and Potential but it's not exactly sentient. Therefore, it might just as well be the Mother Of All Black Holes, cuz you're not gonna get an appointment. At that level of reality, we primates are just playing dueling metaphors. We don't know diddly and we couldn't describe it in words if we did. I think that this is still in line with HPL, who used more variations of "indescribable" than anyone I know. And then there is the anthropomorphic face we give to the "will" of this chaos. Enter Nyarlathotep, tapping toes. But, somehow, the image of a dark pharaoh floating at the event horizon of the central singularity playing panpipes just doesn't work for me. MiB, I think we are on the same wavelength re: Nyarlathotep as a quality of reality. Think of Nyarlathotep (in my book) as the embodiment of the Heisenberg Principle. He is the medium, the aether, the network. Avatars are autonomous to the extent that they were summoned. They appear as expected or wished. They "are" what we expect. They have as much power as we can conceive of, or rather, they have limitless power, but can use it only in ways that we can imagine. If they have a plan, it is a general course for chaos, at all levels of perception. In one sense, Nyarlathotep "is" the death wish. The instinctual drive towards extinction. Or rather, relinquishing this delusional construct of order and getting with the program. Nyarlathotep "is" the will of universal chaos, but he doesn't exist in a pure vacuum. A meme is a terrible thing to waste. Astute readers will notice that like some Medieval theologian, I have placed mankind in a prominent, if not central position. So sue me, I'm a fan of humanity, at least when I'm not personally dealing with them. Also, I'm conveniently making a reality where our actions are worth a rat's ass. I can only stomach existential despair for limited periods. Your mileage may vary. So we can beat the Mythos, right? Get real, Grasshopper. No one actually beats the House. But you can get a bitchin' suite out of the deal. The House gives to the high rollers and takes from the tourists, and it always wins on the bottom line. And that's a better deal than the employees get. We can beat the System. I know this. And if we can't, we lose anyway. Tell you what, you hold off on the Endtimes\Ragnorak\Armageddon\Entropy thing for ONE MORE MILLENIUM, and I'll...uh...teach this horse to sing! That's the ticket. The that's the World According To Mark. At least the DG world. It's internally consistandt, yet ambiguous and open-ended. It supports diversity and supplies cohesion. It works for me. Feel free to use what works for you, discard whatever is not to taste. No hard feelings, I'm agnostic after all. At this level of perception it's all opinions and assholes. We've all got 'em and most of them stink. Butt, my doody is clean...uh..I mean...but, my duty is clear. I should address the issue of consistoncy regarding Pagan products. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Shitfire, Pilgrim, you didn't really think I'd have any other stance did you? The only limitations I impose on myself are basic politeness and thematic consystancy. I tend to leave Jean Qualls and Joseph Camp alone. They're not mine, I would feel impolite. And dinking with them isn't really necessary, cool as it might be. Consider: I've seen again and again that when they want to bring in a certain Toe-tapper, some Keepers immediately reach for the Alzis(tm). Now, it's possible that at one level of perception he "is" Nyarly, who is connected to everything and yada yada. So, it doesn't take too much jiggery-pokery to give him an interest in the Case Of The Giant Rat From Carcosa if you keep reminding yourself that Alzis "is" a fundamental aspect of reality. Nonetheless, it's kind of lame. The stomping grounds (thematically) of Stephen Alzis are the NY criminal underworld and it's tentacles, Club Apocalypse and whatever occult goings on The Fate feels like trying. The success of fiction depends on the willing suspension of disbelief. It is the measure of an artist's craft to make the willing suspension of disbelief an effortless, seemingly inevitable process. One of the fundamental tools to achieve this goal is thematic khansistantcy. You are not required to use it, but you should know how. IMHO. So, if you need a Nyarly presence but the explanations for a NY underworld/occult personality being there are getting a little desperate, then take a Fresh approach. Stop trying to trim to fit and make up a new Avatar. You have the power. This doesn't mean I would hesitate to use Pagan principals. I'm writing a story starring Joseph Camp right now (A Day At The Races), but I don't feel any need to change him. So I read what's been written and fill in the gaps with what I feel would be chonsistent with what has heretofore been presented. I also put toilet seats back down and no longer drink from the milk carton. I'm an anarchist, but I'm a polite anarchist. Do what thou wilt, but have a little class, shall be the whole of my Law. A meager philosophy, but mine own. Mark McFadden Loves to hear himself talk. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 23:36:34 -0400 From: Steven Kaye Subject: Re: DG: A foolish consistancy (long) At 10:31 PM -0400 8/28/99, LizardRoi@aol.com wrote: > > So far, the consensus would appear to be that konsistancy is good, but not >necessarily necessary. I will assume that Daniel Harms is at one end of the >bell curve and some unnamed unalurker is at the other. Mr. Devlin can correct me if my assumption's off, but I believe the immediate cause of his rant was someone on Strange Aeons using the subject of Ubbo-Sathla and its connection or lack of same with shoggoths to argue that Lovecraft readers and Call of Cthulhu players and keepers were two different sets of people, with CoC players being the great unwashed. NecronomiCon, at the least, puts this idea to shame. > > So let's drop the oohaah SAN loss at implications of the chaos at the heart >of reality BS. Shit happens, it's apparently random and chaotic at the most >primal levels we can conceive and we all have been endowed by our forefathers >with the right to put any spin on it we damn well feel like so there. Given. >Onward. Stated as baldly as that, sure you don't lose SAN for realizing shit happens. But gross violations of physical laws as we know them should, in my opinion at least, cause some concern. Shooting someone's arm off and seeing it crawl towards you is a Bad Thing, no? Or, for a less-visceral example, finding out that man, the pinnacle of creation, is just one not-particularly advanced race in a series that have lived and died on the planet should cause one to radically alter one's world view. > > Just so. At some levels of perception, the QUantum Inseparability Phenomenon >is a given. We are not necessarily insignificant. If, as Heisenberg states, >the observer is an integral part of any quantum event, then a planet full of >creative observers is nothing to sneeze at. Heh. Of course, we're not the only observers in town. You could have some fun with dueling paradigms here, and the King in Yellow as a meme constantly seeking to reinscribe itself. MiB has mentioned the war against the Chtorr series, with the imposition of an alien ecology. Imagine a war of ideas in the most literal sense - alien schema versus the collective unconscious, each attempting to shift reality in its favor. You're taking this out of traditional CoC and shifting to something like Unknown Armies, but could be fun. Look to Tim Lucas' excellent THROAT SPROCKETS for some fun story ideas. > > Astute readers will notice that like some Medieval theologian, I have placed >mankind in a prominent, if not central position. So sue me, I'm a fan of >humanity, at least when I'm not personally dealing with them. Also, I'm >conveniently making a reality where our actions are worth a rat's ass. I can >only stomach existential despair for limited periods. Your mileage may vary. Chaosium certainly seems to define the Lovecraftian universe as a place where trying to preserve human values is a good thing, even if not always possible. C. J. Henderson's stories, among othes, allow for humanity to temporarily stop the forces of the Mythos, though usually at a terrible cost. > So we can beat the Mythos, right? Get real, Grasshopper. No one actually >beats the House. But you can get a bitchin' suite out of the deal. The House >gives to the high rollers and takes from the tourists, and it always wins on >the bottom line. And that's a better deal than the employees get. > We can beat the System. I know this. And if we can't, we lose anyway. Tell >you what, you hold off on the Endtimes\Ragnorak\Armageddon\Entropy thing for >ONE MORE MILLENIUM, and I'll...uh...teach this horse to sing! That's the >ticket. See, you ARE an existentialist. OK, I promise not to drag up the Sisyphus thread again. > >Mark McFadden >Loves to hear himself talk. Steven Kaye Enjoys listening. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - ---------- Steven Kaye box_nine@ix.NOSPAM.netcom.com "In short, we did all we could to stimulate an official discovery of the ghastly wreck, without making reference to incredible manifestations, or to humane but illegal acts of euthanasia." -- Michael Shea, The Colour Out of Time ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 20:46:07 PDT From: "Christopher D. Nichols" Subject: DG: Hastur/Hobgoblins Well, having posted my thoughts on the Hastur Mythos, I failed to take a simple fact in to consideration. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT I THINK~! After all, I'm just some lame-ass (I fail to even qualify for "roody-poo candy ass" status) jabronie, who is not even qualified to lick the wing-tip of a TSR lawyer, much less disrespect the John Tynes like that. I'm such a jabronie, that I am effectively the Howard Finkle of the DGML. So, thanks to the Man in Black, Davide Mana, Daniel Harms, and everyone else told me what's what. I'll just know my role and shut my damn mouth for a month or so. Yes, the Man in Black could have done this better. Chris Nichols ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 23:59:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Daniel M Harms Subject: Re: DG: RE: Consistancy is the hobgoblin... On Sat, 28 Aug 1999, The Man in Black wrote while wondering why his cell phone dispenses candy: > > but inconsistency shouldn't form its very foundation. The idea behind > > Lovecraft's fiction, if we choose this as our model, is piecing together > > bits of information to form a terrifying picture. If the setting is too > > inconsistent, it merely becomes confusing rather than horrible. Some > > sense of continuity has to be maintained, in the same way that you can't > > have a character living in Spokane one adventure and in New York the > > next without some explanation. > What if piecing together information reveals the inconsistency of reality? > Surely this would be cause for a SAN roll. Perhaps a single Investigator > is going insane, with the surreal belief and confirmation of others merely > being facets of this insanity, without even the knowledge of the players. You could indeed do that, but it wouldn't really be using the traditional Mythos framework. When you get down to it, you can have some inconsistencies within the Mythos, but these aren't really the source of horror. The real inconsistency is between what the character thinks the world is, and what they find it to be. This might be said of a strange, dreamlike scenario a la Dark City, but the Mythos warps our views of reality by making use of our capacity for logic, rather than subverting it. > > Change Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu to Satan and Beelzebub, and the story > > hardly changes one whit. When you get down to it, someone put it in > > because it was cool. > INWO (Illuminati:New World Order) put Servants of Cthulhu in there because > SJG was copying the Illuminatus trilogy and Chaosium. Both the Wilson > novels and INWO were meant as satire, not setting out to add to the > Mythos. This is perfectly proper, in addition to being "cool" (it's > actually Kewl, but I'll let you go this time) Agreed - but I still hold to my point, as you could have written much the same satire with or without them. Who cares whether it's Yog- Sothoth or Satan who TREASONOUS DATA DELETED? I don't think anything changes one way or another. > > But if you've only included the Mythos because you think Cthulhu and the > > Necronomicon are neat, or you're using the CoC monsters listing as a > > Monster Manual, then you may want to re-assess your priorities. > CORRECTION* Cthulhu and Pals were never listed in any edition of T$R and > now WotC's Monster Manual. They only existed in the first edition of > Dieties and Demigods, and were removed for legal reasons. HASTUR~! Correction: I said as a Monster Manual, not from one. ;-) > Now then on to other matters... > I think the primary difficulty is that "Mythos" is a subjective term, like > "Dweeb." > The point being that what little Mythos scholars there are, have yet to > establish criteria for what constitutes the very body of their work. > Definitions are the basis of language and literary criticism, and these > have yet to be agreed upon. The problem comes from trying to decide what's Mythos from the ground up. If half the people out there say Derleth's a Mythos author and the other half don't, what's to do? It's something that's been left undefined for so long that most people use it to mean "Lovecraft- like fiction that I enjoy" rather than anything else. I've defined it for myself, in a top-down fashion. Of course, there are different styles of Mythos fiction (Robert E. Howard vs. HPL vs. Brian Lumley), but I'd like to think that there are some elements in common overall that we should be aware of. > Clearly this is a matter which should be left to myself and my cronies. > This conclusion is based not only on our obvious correctness, but also our > vastly superior firepower. Anyone who wishes to make their opposing > viewpoint known is encouraged to make an appointment with the Gunfondlers' > Proving Grounds desk which is open 24/7. Of course, MiB realizes that the founding member of Run and Hide knows better than to make such a rendezvous, and that he will continue to trumpet his virtues from an undisclosed location. Yrs., Daniel Harms ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 03:24:53 EDT From: LizardRoi@aol.com Subject: Re: DG: A foolish consistancy (long) In a message dated 8/28/99 8:40:41 PM Pacific Daylight Time, box_nine@ix.netcom.com writes: << gross violations of physical laws as we know them should, in my opinion at least, cause some concern. Shooting someone's arm off and seeing it crawl towards you is a Bad Thing, no? Or, for a less-visceral example, finding out that man, the pinnacle of creation, is just one not-particularly advanced race in a series that have lived and died on the planet should cause one to radically alter one's world view.>> The arm crawling at me would entail some shock as it immediately flies in the face of my preconceived observations of cause and effect. But the reality of man's place in the food chain will only shock me if I buy into the pinnacle of creation model. Creationists would probably take a short sharp shock in the genesis, devotees of random chance would probably be more phlegmatic. Mythos creationists would say 'I told you so." My response would probably be along the lines of "Really? This isn't going to cost me anything is it?" << Heh. Of course, we're not the only observers in town. You could have some fun with dueling paradigms here, and the King in Yellow as a meme constantly seeking to reinscribe itself. MiB has mentioned the war against the Chtorr series, with the imposition of an alien ecology. Imagine a war of ideas in the most literal sense - alien schema versus the collective unconscious, each attempting to shift reality in its favor.>> We're on the same page. I also got a lot of inspiration from Leiber's Change war stories. << Chaosium certainly seems to define the Lovecraftian universe as a place where trying to preserve human values is a good thing, even if not always possible. C. J. Henderson's stories, among othes, allow for humanity to temporarily stop the forces of the Mythos, though usually at a terrible cost.>> Anything worth doing has a cost. That's how you know it's worth, doing. In my cosmology, playing the Mythos game by the rules is a mug's game. You will lose and maybe be the medium for balloon art. Cultivate humanity. If nothing else it confuses the Mi-Go. Also, I'll take a cue from Bradbury and postulate that our sense of humor is unique and important. And potentially powerful. But beware of Nyarly as the Primal Iron. Irony is uncomfortably close to humor, and Tricksters are also jokers. Which shouldn't be surprising if Avatars are the product of our fevered yearnings. << < Tell you what, you hold off on the Endtimes\Ragnorak\Armageddon\Entropy thing for ONE MORE MILLENIUM, and I'll...uh...teach this horse to sing! That's > Mea culpa. But I am an optimistic existentialist. I also have unresolved issues with Authority, so making me push a rock 24/7 ad infinitum is not going to be cost-effective. I'll let that rock roll just as soon as you're not looking. Go ahead, send some Furies. A change is as good as a rest. Is that the best you can whip? Do your worst Hades-boy, I saw The Postman AND The Avengers. Hey, you missed a spot. Mark McFadden Mythos defiant ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 02:35:13 -0700 (PDT) From: David Farnell Subject: Re: DG: Spot the Mythos > Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 21:46:42 +0200 > From: Davide Mana > I was browsing the Amazon pages, looking for new > ways to blow my money, > when I stumbled on the following... > Striker Vs. the Third Reich > by Hiroshi Takashige, Ryoji Minagawa (Illustrator) > Viz Communications > Paperback - 160 pages Striker is also known as Spriggan, and there's at least one movie out. Probably only available in Japanese at the moment, as it's pretty recent. It's a sort of "Indiana Jones meets Japanese Teens in Powered Battle Armor," and does indeed include Mythos elements, including the reference to Arkham. The comic was not bad, from what I saw--very cheesey in a typical manga manner, but damn cool battle scenes. Trailers for the movie looked good. Dave is not gonna touch that breasts thread...ur, I mean, is not gonna COMMENT on that breats thread (I hope Junko ain't reading this) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 11:08:21 +0100 From: Barry Hill Subject: Re: DG: Hastur/Hobgoblins IChristopher D. Nichols writes >IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT I THINK~! yes it does! many readers out there have said correctly that the mythos should be a complete mystery to the players - they should not have enough information to be able to say ' this hastur is an avator of nyarly' , and if they do hit them hard and fatally. But two other aspects seem important 1. the keeper should be consistant so he needs to know if hastur is a etc. so that some bright spark doesn't say ' hold on - last year hastur had red wings . ' 2. the keeper has to enjoy him/herself too . for me that means having it all straight in my head so i know what the yellow sign looks like and means [ i will post this important information in the near future- my son has borrowed my scanner ] Actually this wasn't what you meant by your comment but i just wanted to say that . \Barry Hill. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 12:58:16 +0200 From: Davide Mana Subject: Re: DG: Spot the Mythos Cheers. A short "Thanks" note to SuperDave for a vital snippet of informations that will save me some money.... >Striker is also known as Spriggan, I was hoping Takashige had reformed and created a new series. I know "Spriggan" and, if it's indeed "not bad", as Farnell-san noted, it's not so good either, for my standards at least. Never saw the anime. I'll just stick to "Silent Mo:bius" for the time being. Sorry for the waste of bandwidth. Take care. Davide Mana ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 12:52:15 +0200 From: Davide Mana Subject: Re: DG: Hastur/Hobgoblins Greetings. I'm not sure I got the following straight.... Chris wrote >Well, having posted my thoughts on the Hastur Mythos, I failed to take a >simple fact in to consideration. > >IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT I THINK~! Silly! Either everything everyone thinks matters, or nothing anybody thinks matters. So, we're all in the same boat. Your ideas are as good as anybody else's (and in some cases, better ;>) >After all, I'm just some lame-ass (I fail to even qualify for "roody-poo >candy ass" status) jabronie, who is not even qualified to lick the wing-tip >of a TSR lawyer, much less disrespect the John Tynes like that. > >I'm such a jabronie, that I am effectively the Howard Finkle of the DGML. Can you please explain "jabronie"? A quick CV of this Howard Finkle chap would also be appreciated, I'm sure, from non-English-speaking list members. As for qualifications and such.... Thank goodness, thinking it differently does not necessarily imply disrespect. You can respect an author and still disagree with him - or vice versa. I don't know about TSR lawyers (the mind boggles at the concept) and I feel fine this way, thanks. >So, thanks to the Man in Black, Davide Mana, Daniel Harms, and everyone else >told me what's what. I cannot speak for the MiB (are you joking? I wanna reach a confortable old age!), nor for that noted occultist, Mr D. Harms. As far as I'm concerned, should I have a definitive version of what's what, I would not be here, but I'd be busy managing my own, Hubbardesque religious cult. So, take it easy, ok? >I'll just know my role and shut my damn mouth for a month or so. > >Yes, the Man in Black could have done this better. Which might as well mean all of the above is a joke I did not get. Feel free to shower me in popcorn and paper balls while shouting "Dork!" in chorus. I'll respect your opinion, and then ignore it as usual. ;-) Take care. Davide Mana Nobody Does It Better ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 02:21:48 +0900 (JST) From: ft203004@fsinet.or.jp (Jay and Mikiko ) Subject: DG: argh, plus on-topic ><> AAAAAARRRGGHHH!!!! SAN check blown: Lose 10d10 san point for hearing the dreaded 'P' word. Anime in general bites, and pokemon chews rotten natto (not that that in any way affects the flavor). There is no mythos threat so dangerous to humanity as the spread of that cutesy-putsy bullshit. Better your daughter has her brain put in a Mi-Go cannister than to learn speak in those squeaky little voices. Hey Alphonse: Shouldn't we be putting a sanction out on some of those animators for spreading mytho knowledge? Whoops, this post was way off-topic. How about a legitimate question: How do you handle the presence of mythos information that is present in our universe vs. that of the CoC game universe? For example, does Hentai animation exist over in your game world? How about H.P.L.? Can people learn something about the mythos by reading a Stephen King book? (he makes beaucoup mythos references) Jay (who has perhaps been in Tokyo a tad too long) - ------------------------------------------ There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness." Dave Barry, _Twenty-five Things I have Learned in Fifty Years_ - ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 00:02:07 +0300 From: yanasikt@superonline.com (Tolga Yanasik) Subject: DG: link Greets, I've just found this today. http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/#1 This resource will help you to gather scientific data about Azatoth, and crush your players with technology as an all knowing DM. You can even memorize a few phrases from here and then rant like MiB :) Cheers, Tolga ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 22:20:22 -0400 From: Steven Kaye Subject: DG: Reviews of DARK THEATRES? Since there seems to be a lull on the list... Has anyone had a chance to read their copies of DARK THEATRES? Thoughts? And thanks for the review of RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, Chris. Steven - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - ---------- Steven Kaye box_nine@ix.NOSPAM.netcom.com "In short, we did all we could to stimulate an official discovery of the ghastly wreck, without making reference to incredible manifestations, or to humane but illegal acts of euthanasia." -- Michael Shea, The Colour Out of Time ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 23:07:47 EDT From: "Matthew Hobbs" Subject: DG: Different rules systems... Howdy. I was wondering if anyone has had luck or experience shifting Delta Green to another rules system. I'm playing around with some conversions to te D6 system from West End Games, and I think it would be fairly easy. I know GURPS has been done -- anyone else tried something different? I'm kind of stumped on the SAN mechanic, though. I think I might just leave that in, percentile system and all. It's a kludge, but nobody said house rules need to be pretty... - -Matt ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 07:12:41 -0400 (EDT) From: Val_Salvis@webtv.net Subject: Re: DG: Different rules systems... Speaking of the GURPS sysstem, I have had fantastic Success converting DG to it, it has helped since we also play the new GURPS TRAVELLER so we don't have to bring our respective libraries to the gaming table... If you are looking to convert, come on over to Steve Jackson's New Wold Order..LOL! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 09:03:24 -0400 From: "Dan Chapman" Subject: DG: Re: Different rules systems... I ran a short DG campaign using WEG's D6 System, and it's very easy to convert. For SAN, I did Willpower checks (one of the base attributes I was using). If I remember right, I used "current" Willpower and "base" Willpower. Current Willpower dropped when they saw bad nasties, but their base WP remained unchanged (to prevent a few bad rolls from ruining their minds). All in all, I ran it rather number-light. We centered on roleplaying the situation, which my players enjoyed. Frankly, it was sort of a change from their usual gaming habits.... The rest of it's all kind of hazy. Let me know if you want me to wrack my brain some more. HTH. - ----------------------------------- Dan Chapman Network Analyst dchapman@myself.com - -----Original Message----- From: Matthew Hobbs To: deltagreen@nocturne.org Date: Sunday, August 29, 1999 11:11 PM Subject: DG: Different rules systems... >Howdy. I was wondering if anyone has had luck or experience shifting Delta >Green to another rules system. I'm playing around with some conversions to >te D6 system from West End Games, and I think it would be fairly easy. I >know GURPS has been done -- anyone else tried something different? > >I'm kind of stumped on the SAN mechanic, though. I think I might just leave >that in, percentile system and all. It's a kludge, but nobody said house >rules need to be pretty... > >-Matt > >______________________________________________________ >Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com > ------------------------------ End of deltagreen-digest V2 #45 *******************************