From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of SGlancy12@aol.com Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2000 5:09 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Seeking Transcendance Howdy, A. Scott Glancy here for Pagan Publishing. Here's the news. Brent Dragoo is right, Cult of Transcendence has been written. Greg Stoltze is the culprit. But some of the publsihed DG material contradicts the material in Cult of Transcendence. So we have to bring it into alignment with the rest of the DG universe. Plus, two scenarios in the book (not written by Greg stoltze) have to be re-written. Plus, yes, some of the material in Cult of Transcendence is a bit too cartoony. It needs to be narrowed and sharpened to a fine point. Right now some of the material has the subtly of a falling cinder block. Shane is right that there are two DG Chapbooks coming out, a DG WWII novel, Dark Theatres (finally) and The Unspeakable Oath #16/17 (at long last!), but we are planning to either have Cult of Transcendence out the first half of the year, or announce a diffinitive cancellation of the project. We'll let you all know in the next month or so whether its going ahead or if we're just gonna put it down like a sick dog. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of REFLECTING SKIN [reflectingskin@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 1:45 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Some CoC/DG House Rules that seem to help out a little... This thread has been brewing for awhile, so I figured I'd jump right in. First off I've added a few skills and changed a few others. Instead of having to add skill points to individual HtH attacks, there is now a generic HtH skill called Brawling. The base to hits are calculated with the OLD Bases (ie Punch 50 + Brawling = )added to the Brawling skill. I like it because I run a lite combat game and it lets players use their skill points for more useful things (like first aid, library use) as well. Now if you want to make a Martial Arts combat monster this does make it easier, but you know there are so many ways to kill combat oriented characters in DG that I usually don't care. I've added a parallel skill to the Occult Skill (which from what I've seen deals with mostly traditional religious structures and western hermetic magick) called Conspiracy Theory (the occult for the modern day - basically the "what conspiracy buffs think about XXX" skill. Like Occult it can be useful in figuring out certain superficial aspects of the mythos ("the govt has UFOs!") while not letting the players know anything REALLY interesting ("The Mi-Go!")... in practice it tends to make them VERY confused (which is good,IMHO). Also I've divided the Cthulhu Mythos skills into seperate myth cycles, and when a player gains knowledge in those skills I give them a little sheet of what they actually know (well a synopsis of what they know - Im not about to write entire Book of Eibon for them...so you may see things like Kutulu Cult, Zothoqqua Cult, Ghouls, etc...all as seperate skills. AND YES I do take SAN away for each and every point of every one of those skills. I know thats sadistic...sue me. It's Lovecraft, "knowledge=EVIL" . Other than that I also impose what I call the Remember Aleister Crowley Rule (or the YOU AREN'T that BadAss Rule). You see Aleister Crowley is listed in the GOlden Dawn as having an Occult of 87% (I think, but its around there). Crowley's system of Magick is pretty much the basic benchmark event for ALL modern Occult practices. Even so-called "pagan" religions owe much to the old bastard. He wrote dozens of books, travelled the world, studied ridiculous numbers of esoteric magickal systems, and is without a doubt the most influential "magician" EVER (thanks to publishing), his work is required reading for ANY serious student of the Occult (I have a couple "real world" occult order initiations under my belt, trust me they all kowtow to Uncle AL in one way or another whether they admit it or not) and his skill level is 87%. THat leads me to believe that Joseph Campbell had a 90% in mythology, etc... thus no character starts with over a 70% in ANY skill without good reason. Im a big fan of that 50% is professional level rule... Which leads us to SKill mods, Most people I assume apply penalties and mods to skill rolls, I also throw a little staging into the roll for dramatic effect. Make the roll by a higher degree (the highest being critical success) you have a better success...if its a critical success its downright dramatic. Just some thoughts, and rantings well AFTER my bedtime I might add... -The Reverend Doctor Leo -Reflecting Skin Productions ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Carlos Marti Tortes [cmartitortes@altavista.com] Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 11:32 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: GURPS books Hi all, Can the ones of you who play GURPS put a list of books that are interesting to DG? I mean, I am not interested in the rules (think that CoC are enougth in all respects), only in the background material they contain that can be useful (and easily adaptable) to a DG campaign. If it is not too much, can you include how much of the book is backgroung and how much rules? Thanx, Carlos. ______________________________________________________________ Free Internet Access from AltaVista: Get it, share it & win! http://freeaccess.altavista.com/pika/www/initweb.jsp From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of REFLECTING SKIN [reflectingskin@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 1:09 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: GURPS books GURPS MAIN GURPS Compendium 1 + 2 GURPS Special Ops GURPS Hi-Tech (or is it Ultra tech, I can never remember) GURPS Espionage GURPS Horror GURPS Voodoo GURPS Psionics GURPS Magick (Thaumaturgy/Hermetic I wish I could remember the REAL name of this book, its not the normal magic books) Something along those lines...you know I think this has already been a thread once as well. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of shoggoth@thearmy.com Sent: Friday, July 10, 2893 5:44 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: p-103,2 (Sub-zero Hell) As promised months ago , I release part of my writting continuing the P-103 of S. Glancy. I had to translate it to English from my native Spanish. Please forget any gramatical mistakes. Just Enjoy. ObDGML: I think its a 100% playable history! ------------------------------------------------------- Resume of the precedent : The action takes place in the 2001 Antartic campaing of the Oceanographic Investigation Ship Hesperides , and Agent Simon gets into P.103 during a Snowstorm. As Spanish , the K boys see in he an ally. The shoggoth has been "pacified" and used to prolongue the life of the original team. ------------------------------------------------------- Agent Simon feeled his stomach sick. Very sick. As he headed upon the middle of the ciclopean cavern , covered of tiny capillars , transporting fluids over the pulsing red and green organic mass , he could apreciate that the strange little nodes now where transforming in unarticulated hands , legs , feets , and worse , pancreas , hearts... an unsensored head , withouth eyes , or ears , opened its mouth , full of the whiter thees he had seen ever , but without any sound crawling out ... That bizarre scene collided with the calm voice of Her Dorff , who where intructing him. - ..and there are our resources for autoimplants. The Shoggoth matter is of very amazig ductibility. Why only have to feed it with a little piece of the organ we need , and the shoggoth forms multiple duplicates. Of course , not all of them usable. Agent Simon feeled that the sickness of his stomach where expandig to his lungs and hear, and before his brain can act , his mouth fired a dammed ask. - And what do you do with the defective ones? Her Dorff stood and smiled. He where specting the question. He always was one step ahead, damm it. But this time he aswered Simon. - Oh , well , you see.. whe cannot permit us the luxury of waste our resources here , in New Schwaveland. Simon simply got in panic. Not for what he was seeing ,nor for the explanation Her Dorff had gave him. He were scared to the bone by the animal smile of Dorff when he asked him - By the way. I really spect that you enjoyed the Rostbeaf you eated this noon. ---------------------- _____________________________________________ Free email with cool domains at FriendlyEmail http://www.mypad.com/ From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Janusz A. Urbanowicz [alex@bofh.torun.pl] Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 4:39 PM To: DGML Subject: DG: Is it worth something ? Hello I once mentioned that I'm writing a DG related story. I'm writing it both in English and in Polish (and I'll have to synchronize the parts someday), so, I'd like some comments on this short piece (is it understandable at all?) since I'm not born natural English speaker. :-) Alex Here goes I knew this guy, named Simmons or Simmins, back in the DG cowboy days. Over his desk, there was a quotation - framed and hyng on the wall. It said "The Truth will set you free". Once, when I was there, I accidentally knocked it of the wall. Picking it, I found that it was two-sided - the backside said "The Truth will kill you". I wondered, what he was thinking, when he sat there at evenings and afternoons. And sometimes nights. Looking at it. But I don't know. Five years later he shot himself in the head after an op gone bad, gone Rhino as they started to call it then. He left no letter. I know that Alphonse also have seen it, this quotation. I know it, because I saw this thing on his desk. It was a thin notebook, with black cover. I was discussing with A. a preparation for an op, phone rang. Alphonse answered, and after hearing few words his face changed, dramataically. He spoken only two words - 'who?' and 'goodbye'. Then after hearing the answers he put the phone down. He took the notebook from the drawer of his desk, wrote something in it, then tossed it back. On the cover it said "Killed by the truth". -- * | Janusz A. "Alex" Urbanowicz, \ Home: --+~| | http://eris.phys.uni.torun.pl/~alex/ \ Work: `_|/ | "Historii nie można tworzyć. \____ RSA: 512/0xAB425659 | | Można jedynie mieć nadzieję, że się ją przetrwa." - G'Kar, Babylon 5 From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Matt Cowger [mcowger@kc.rr.com] Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 5:08 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: GURPS books ----- Original Message ----- From: Carlos Marti Tortes > Can the ones of you who play GURPS put a list of books that are interesting to DG? I mean, I am not interested in the rules (think that CoC are enougth in all respects Also of interest (in addition to the ones listed) is GURPS Black Ops, which is sort of an 'action hero' Men in Black take on things. Matt C. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of andrew john farrow [afarrow@kirkmoorrd.freeserve.co.uk] Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 6:43 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: GURPS books ----- Original Message ----- From: Carlos Marti Tortes To: Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 5:32 PM Subject: DG: GURPS books > Can the ones of you who play GURPS put a list of books that are interesting to DG? here goes:- HI TECH - DG equipment lists ULTRA TECH - MJ12 / mi-go equipment lists BLACK OPS - cinematic DG SPECIAL OPS - gunfondler DG ILLUMINATI =- how mj12 operates WAREHOUSE 23 - things everyone wants - untill they get them From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Scott Eaker [joneqst@yahoo.com] Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2000 12:54 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: Re: GURPS books ----- Original Message ----- From: andrew john farrow To: Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 6:42 PM Subject: DG: Re: GURPS books > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Carlos Marti Tortes > To: > Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 5:32 PM > Subject: DG: GURPS books > > > > Can the ones of you who play GURPS put a list of books that are > interesting to DG? > > here goes:- > > HI TECH - DG equipment lists > ULTRA TECH - MJ12 / mi-go equipment lists > BLACK OPS - cinematic DG > SPECIAL OPS - gunfondler DG > ILLUMINATI =- how mj12 operates > WAREHOUSE 23 - things everyone wants - untill they get them ULTRA TECH2 would also be helpful (especially if you want your Mi-go to use nanotechnological weapons--nothing scarier than watching your fellow op dissolve into goo...) Scott > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Joseph R. Dietrich [yikes@evansville.net] Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2000 11:17 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: Re: Re: GURPS books > > HI TECH - DG equipment lists > > ULTRA TECH - MJ12 / mi-go equipment lists > > BLACK OPS - cinematic DG > > SPECIAL OPS - gunfondler DG > > ILLUMINATI =- how mj12 operates > > WAREHOUSE 23 - things everyone wants - untill they get them > > ULTRA TECH2 would also be helpful (especially if you want your Mi-go to use > nanotechnological weapons--nothing scarier than watching your fellow op > dissolve into goo...) And I suppose one would have to mention GURPS: Biotech too, for the "wetter" version of Mi-go tech. Joseph R. Dietrich yikes@evansville.net "I go, you go, we all go 'A Mi-go!'" From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Michael Layne [theherald@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2000 3:26 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: GURPS books On Friday, 28 January, 2000 AD, "REFLECTING SKIN" suggested these resources for those who might wish to use the GURPS system to resolve DG operations against Things Man Was Not Meant To Know (TMWNMTK): >GURPS MAIN Technically, this one is called the "Basic Set" by SJG. These are the "House Rules" for the GURPS system. Earlier versions of the Basic Set are sometimes available at slightly below new cost from dealers such as "Dragon's Trove"... >GURPS Compendium 1 + 2 More Advantages, Disadvantages, and Skills for your character, collected in one place, together with specializations and limitations, and such things as a large-scale combat resolution system... >GURPS Special Ops Presently out of print, AFIK, though SJG is apparently working on a new edition! >GURPS Hi-Tech (or is it Ultra tech, I can never remember) GURPS High-Tech (which some insist should have been called GURPS Guns) covers tech (mainly weapons) from the introduction of gunpowder weapons to the present day. GURPS Ultra-Tech is another book, which takes up (more or less) where High-Tech left off, covering technology (not just guns!) from the near future (bionics, gyrojet rocket pistols, vacc suits, etc.) to the far future (neural-induction fields, antimatter pulsar rifles, battlesuits, force screens, etc.). A second tome -- Ultra-Tech 2 -- includes various gadgets (hyperdense blades, gauss shotguns, nanotech, etc.) in a treatment much like UT1. >GURPS Espionage Very nice, but apparently out of print... >GURPS Horror Another valuable one, got into a 2nd Edition but even that is out of print! (I'm looking for a copy -- mine walked off awhile back...) Stats on critters and cultists, hints on running a Horror campaign, info on 3 time periods (the same 3 as covered by CoC!):) Worth the money if you can find it! >GURPS Voodoo >GURPS Psionics >GURPS Magick (Thaumaturgy/Hermetic I wish I could remember the REAL > name of this book, its not the normal magic books) IIRC, it's called GURPS Magic, and deals more with how to set up magic systems than listing spells etc. (There was another book -- GURPS Grimoire -- that was the spell book!) GURPS Warehouse 23 (If this facility turns out to be on SJG property, it could be termed "The Greatest Little Warehouse in Texas"!):) As someone else mentioned, this one is valuable for those odd widgets and artifacts that They have put into storage alongside the Lost Ark... (In fact, there is a section in Warehouse 23 on the Ark of the Covenant! And on the Spear of Cassius, captured UFOs, Martian Fighting Machines, etc...) GURPS Cliffhangers Intended to support GURPS gaming in the "Doc Savage" genre, a lot of the information is specific to the 1930s, but some (such as that for the Arctic and desert) is still very usable, as is the stuff on how to run adventures where the characters are battling Nazis and/or Evil Masterminds! GURPS Biotech For designs of genetically improved Ubermensch, Phoenix Viruses, brain transplants, mutants, more nanites, etc. -- more stuff from secret corporate or government labs, captured UFOs, mad scientists, etc! Be the first to bring on the mutant hamsters or bionic pit-buls, or give your agents weird artificial diseases (or, even worse, reconstruct them all into identical Loni Anderson clones...):) > >Something along those lines...you know I think this has already been a >thread once as well. Probably so, but when has that ever stopped this bunch?:) Michael Layne DGGF#688 theherald@hotmail.com ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Marco S.Subias [MSubias@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2000 3:08 AM To: Delta Green Subject: DG: Looking for Mayan names SPOILER FOR ROGER MOORE SPOILER FOR ROGER MOORE SPOILER FOR ROGER MOORE SPOILER FOR ROGER MOORE SPOILER FOR ROGER MOORE Hello all, while I have a very good background in some aspects modern Latin American history, my knowledge of Pre-Columbian civilizations and most indigenous cultures is pretty limited. I'm going to take my players' pcs to Yucatan, where they will have to deal with something in the backcounty populated by Mayan Indians. I've looked at several pages about Mayan civilization, but unless I want to name every npc and village after a god or major archeological site, I'm at a bit of a loss. Any ideas on where I can dig up some Mayan names for tiny villages not on maps, and a few npcs? Marco From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jonathan Turner [j.turner@irishnews.com] Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2000 3:35 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Grail-hunting Nazis... Hi y'all: Anyone got any good links or sources on the German archaeological expedition to southern France looking for the Holy Grail? Was it supposed to be hidden in a Magyar castle? Thanks Jonathan Turner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of jeff nielsen [jnielsen@forbin.com] Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2000 7:04 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Grail-hunting Nazis... At 09:35 PM 01/30/2000 +0000, you wrote: >Hi y'all: > >Anyone got any good links or sources on the German archaeological >expedition to southern France looking for the Holy Grail? Was it supposed >to be hidden in a Magyar castle? > >Thanks > >Jonathan Turner > > > Well . . . The Magyar were in central Europe, not France. Perhaps the Basque? -Jeff Nielsen- jnielsen@forbin.com -I was in the grocery store. I saw a sign that said "pet supplies." So I did. Then I went outside and saw a sign that said "compact cars"...- - Steven Wright - From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Steven Kaye [box_nine@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2000 7:47 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Grail-hunting Nazis... At 9:35 PM +0000 1/30/00, Jonathan Turner wrote: >Hi y'all: > >Anyone got any good links or sources on the German archaeological >expedition to southern France looking for the Holy Grail? Was it supposed >to be hidden in a Magyar castle? > >Thanks > >Jonathan Turner You might check the archived portion of the Delta Green mailing list - I know Otto Rahn's been discussed before, at any rate. Back from seeing NIGHTMARE ALLEY, and high on life! Steven ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Steven Kaye box_nine@ix.NOSPAM.netcom.com "You've been trying hard not to think about me and you're doing it with considerable success," said someone, where there was no one. John Shirley, CITY COME A-WALKIN' From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of becole@juno.com Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2000 10:26 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Grail-hunting Nazis... On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 19:03:41 -0600 jeff nielsen writes: > At 09:35 PM 01/30/2000 +0000, you wrote: > >Hi y'all: > > > >Anyone got any good links or sources on the German archaeological > >expedition to southern France looking for the Holy Grail? Was it > supposed > >to be hidden in a Magyar castle? > > > >Jonathan Turner > > Well . . . The Magyar were in central Europe, not France. Perhaps > the Basque? With so much GURPS references floating through the list lately I feel this is wierdly relevant: From Gurps WAREHOUSE 23 Re: The Holy Grail "Other stories tell of the cup being brought out of the holy land by Mary Magdalene, who settled in Gaul (nowadays that's France). The relics of the Magdalene are still venerated where she lived (in Versailles)." The book goes on to speculate that perhaps due to the Nazi failure to capture England through Op: Sea Lion they re-focused on the convenient legend of Mary retiring in the French countryside with the Grail. Honestly though, considering that the French went through about three generals and a strategic castration within mere weeks after the Nazis rolled right past the Ardennes leaves me with questions as to the validity of the Grail's location actually being in France, much less Versailles. Given that the Nazis had access to Versailles starting in June of 1940 makes me wonder why they would not have looked there before pinning hopes on England. I think it more likely that (if you believe Hitler cared at all for the occult, or using Special K as filler) whoever was supervising the research / hunt for relics probably took the legend of Joseph of Aramathingie-majig, applied it in support of Der Furher's travel plans through the British Isles, then quickly covered their asses with the other Mary Magdalene legend when they realized that Sir Dowding and the lads were gonna shove their Messerschmitts back up their asses with candles aflame. Either way, I could see a cadre of professors / scientists moving the grail from Versailles to Vichy France before getting it the hell out of the country, but as far as historical proof....I wouldn't hold your breath. I have a feeling that anyone assigned to track the grail down (who survived the Second World War) would not be, er, at liberty to discuss anything about their lives or their work, being as they probably have some ample Swiss-based accounts, and maybe a letter of recommendation from select United States laboratories located in the Southwestern part of the country ;-) ( I won't even speculate on the black bag teams that watch them like hawks, just in case they talk too long with a "stranger" on a park bench) I think you would have better luck looking for the grail at the castle Auuuugggggghhhhhhh. By all means though, you should create your own approach to the Nazi's search, take some maps of Europe/Africa from WWII, and make your PCs chase the clues all the way to the Nile and back; Maybe Rommel found it, maybe Monty stole it back, maybe some GI used it to cook eggs in at the Battle of the Bulge. Maybe it was hidden at the Schloss Adler(and that's the real reason Sir Richard Burton took Clint Eastwood (twin submachine gun justice!) up there). Either way, it could be a good excuse to tweak history for your own ends without hurting the chain of events, and maybe forcing your players to learn something in the process. -B (longing for the day when I can fire two MP-40's and look as cool as Leftenant Schaffer) ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andrew Kenrick [andrew.kenrick7@virgin.net] Sent: Monday, January 31, 2000 12:51 PM To: Delta Green Secure Server Subject: DG: introducing the greys i was looking for some advice regarding running encounters with the greys. i'm about 4 sessions into my campaign and have introduced a plethora of threats from random cultists, to deep ones, to the Special K and MJ12. i've reached the point where i want to introduce my players to the greys but how? i'm quite short of ideas about using them quite innocently to start with. i think i'll expand the adventure "PX poker night" to allow my civilian investigators into it and also thought this was a good time to introduce saucerwatch too. any ideas or suggestions? anything will do... Andrew From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Daniel Allard [daniel.allard@jpl.nasa.gov] Sent: Monday, January 31, 2000 4:32 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: More RW cult stuff A few more choice cult related comments: "Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo & Sara Aldrete (24) - Constanzo, a Cuban-American bisexual cult leader and male model, managed a drug smuggling ring in Matamoros, Mexico. He and Sara Aldrete, his college-student-gone-cult-priestess partner, were very successful in the drug trade because of their habit of ritually sacrificing their competition. Through sacrifice, Constanzo preached, they would be invisible to their enemies. Constanzo himself was fond of wearing necklaces made out of human vertebrae for protection... (A young victim's body) was dismembered and his heart, genitals and spine were used to make a magic stew." This from the (questionably researched) cult site "Cults R' Us" http://www.mayhem.net/Crime/cults1.html Which does contain the classic line from the Jim Jones entry: "He was also endowed with a huge penis which he used repeatedly in the name of Christ." dan From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Daniel Allard [daniel.allard@jpl.nasa.gov] Sent: Monday, January 31, 2000 4:42 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: What would *you* do? Another damned rhetorical question. So let's say you and your buddies *are* A-cell. And let's say that somehow you come into possession of all of the world information given out in all of the published DG supplements. So now you know most of the key information on the backgrounds and activities of all of the major DG groups (ok, you *still* don't know squat about the "Cult of Transcendence", but you hope to get to that one someday...) So now what would you do? Where would you put your resources? What is the worst threat to mankind, really? dan From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of jonno@dtn.ntl.com Sent: Monday, January 31, 2000 4:48 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Dr Harold Shipman Hidy ho! Just thought that a brief summary of the case of Dr Harold Shipman, Britain's most prolific serial killer, might be of interest to the group. This summary follows on from an excellent backgrounder on BBC's Panorama. Check it out at www.bbc.co.uk Shipman was convicted yesterday of killing 15 of his elderly patients, though it is believed he may have actually killed up to 150! Either way, he tops the British serial killer league table. Shipman was a general practitioner in the Hyde area of Manchester. He may have started the killings as long ago as 1984, but as he had most of his victims' bodies cremated, there is very little hard evidence. Shipman used lethal doses of diamorphine to kill off his patients. He was himself convicted of pethadone abuse in the mid-seventies, but managed to persuade another surgery to take him on after he got off with a fine. He would prescribe massive doses of morphine to patients he intended to kill, then give them a lethal injection, confiscate their excess drugs and arrange for the bodies to be cremated. He exhibited bizarre, arrogant behaviour towards relatives. In several cases he practically had them guess what had happened to their loved one - he called one woman and told her that her mother had chest pains. When she asked if the victim had been taken to hospital, he replied: ``There's no point.'' But refused to clarify what he meant. He told another man about his wife's mother: ``Well, how bad do you think it could be?'' Greater Manchester Police seized medical records after the coroner had been alerted to the large number of Shipman's elderly patients who were dying at home, usually seated in a chair, fully clothed. But he had falsified the records to give an inaccurate picture of sick, elderly people suffering from chronic heart disease, hypertension, etc. In reality, most of his victims were healthy, outgoing people who led full lives. One theory is that Shipman, who has consistently denied everything, simply found them irritating, and so disposed of them. He was finally caught after attempting to forge the will of one of his last victims. Her suspicious family alerted the police, and this time he was arrested. Analysis of his surgery computer revealed he had been updating and falsifying patient records. An autopsy also revealed lethal levels of morphine in the dead woman, and so everything began to unravel. In most cases, the reason suspicious victims didn't raise the alarm was because, as one man out it: ``You trust your doctor''. What better villain than Dr Death, eh? Be seeing you, Jonathan From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of jonno@dtn.ntl.com Sent: Monday, January 31, 2000 4:47 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: SV: A useful item for a Green Box? > Michael Layne > DGGF#688 > theherald@hotmail.com > > Who would personally prefer an old 637 boat (a Sturgeon class SSN) -- much > more reliable than an old Russian diesel sub -- to operate out of _his_ > Underground Volcano Base...:) > well, I'd prefer a Star Destroyer, but hey... From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Daniel Allard [daniel.allard@jpl.nasa.gov] Sent: Monday, January 31, 2000 4:54 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Mythos and Science Another question that came up while browsing through DG lore: Would our modern scientists have ever "discovered the mythos" without interference from outside (e.g. mythos) sources? Or is it not possible to reach beyond our own physical world through "normal" scientific discovery? Err, hmm. Maybe a little spoiler space is warranted - Keepers Eyes Only please... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alright. Regarding the Cookbook as the prime example. Without the intervention of the Mi-Go via the Cookbook, would mankind have ever discovered the secrets that the Cookbook contains? My view is that the Cookbook "science" is tainted with mythos magic - ok, to Great Old Ones and Mi-Go and their ilk, mythos magic *is* science, but it's certainly more other-worldly to us. But would human scientists ever have gotten to that point, or are we too restricted by the limited number of dimensions that we are aware of? Will our own drive to forever increase our knowledge destroy us even without the mythos to show us the way? dan From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of andrew john farrow [afarrow@kirkmoorrd.freeserve.co.uk] Sent: Monday, January 31, 2000 6:03 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: introducing the greys ----- Original Message ----- From: Andrew Kenrick To: Delta Green Secure Server Sent: Monday, January 31, 2000 6:51 PM Subject: DG: introducing the greys andrew wrote :-i was looking for some advice regarding running encounters with the greys. here goes - first CON-X sourcebook : nemesis - the greys has been very useful for me in all my campains your post dosnt indicate if your are using * real greys* or mi-go patsies either way my best idea for an intro would be :- * abductee * experiences - begin w/- the kooks and window lickers - and let the investigators narrow the thread down untill they are firmly hooked on the trail you desire , then let them discover as much * truth* as thier san can handle but as w/- althings DG - MJ12 and NRO DELTA should be hounding the investigation every inch / > > yours andrew farrow > > afarrow@kirkmoorrd.freeserve.co.uk > From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2000 8:42 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: Mythos and Science Dan > Would our modern scientists have ever "discovered the > mythos" without interference from outside (e.g. mythos) > sources? Or is it not possible to reach beyond our > own physical world through "normal" scientific discovery? > In my view, Science already has Let me expand on this. Can you comprehend quantum physics? I mean can you really "get a feel" for it? I doubt it. Renormalisation? Vacuum energy? Black holes? These are things that a "sane" human mind cannot encompass. (We do have ways to deal with them, though. I'll explain that later.) The Mythos, as it evolved in Lovecraft's writing, is a symbolic expression of the Otherness of reality. The Universe is alien, and very hard to understand. Real science, in the real world, brings us into contact with the real things that the Mythos merely symbolises. I believe that you are making the mistake of imagining that Science is a product of human nature. This is not so. Science has nothing whatsoever to do with human values, and it is often profoundly disruptive of "sane" human values. Consider the (real, actual) SAN impact on society of, for example, Darwin. Science and the Mythos have the same feel and the same taste. I like to think of Plato's analogy of the cave. We sat in the cave and watched the shadows on the wall: that was our only route to knowledge. Science took us out of the cave - to see what lay outside, to meet the things casting the shadows. And you know, it was not the paradise of flowers we hoped for. Nor is it easy to meet their eyes. Most people know that worse is coming. Hence the flight from rationality - back into the cave. In terms of sanity and survival, they are right. Human life is not based on reason. How to treat this in a DG context? I am not a RPG player, just someone fascinated by the Mythos. (And this is my first posting on this list - so if I violate any etiquette please let me know). I think that scientists with real knowledge of Cosmology, Physics, and Evolutionary Psychology should get a few points by default, but I leave that up to you. One tool I have for thinking about this is based on the way we actually deal with the real-life "Mythos" which is Science. Though we cannot "internalise" quantum reality and understand it instinctively, we have developed mental prosthetics - various types of exotic mathematics and symbolic language. These serve to help us model and predict what will happen, and they work. By this analogy, scientists should be able to develop "mathematics" and "symbolic language" to describe anything, even the most Mythos-soaked experimental results. Mythos "spells" and this hyper-physics should overlap seamlessly. After all, both Science and the Mythos are windows - onto the same insane reality. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jonathan Turner [j.turner@irishnews.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2000 10:36 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Up, up and away... For immediate release: http://www.sikorsky.com/programs/cypher/index.html From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 5:17 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Mythos scientists. Dan, and all .. Personal confession, or boast: I started a PHD in elementary particle physics at Oxford some twenty years back. I didn't finish it, but I really have lived in a rented room, at the top of a shabby house in an ancient University town, studying "Quantum physics and non-Reimannian geometry", and I really did go mad, and think I saw the machinery that lay behind reality. Ever since then "The Dreams In The Witch House" has always seemed the most realistic of HPL's stories. Been there, done that. What you run in DG must be a matter of aesthetics. Our senses and/or our biologically evolved mental equipment would be utterly inadequate for the "comprehension" of Mythos science. But that hardly counts. They are already inadequate now, for the comprehension of real-world Science. We can only push our understanding of real-world Science ahead by using the most elaborate, costly, mental prosthetics - and all sorts of artificial thinking machines to aid us and build our models for us - never mind the obvious panoply of experimental apparatus. Our biologically evolved "sanity" and "Common Sense" are of no use whatsoever. Therefore, it makes aesthetic and symbolic sense if real-world science and Mythos science are in essence the same. However, identity of _essence_ can mask an enormous difference in _degree_. It ought to be possible to map a path from "here" to "there" that involves a hundred times the cost I paid, though it yeild an hundred times the knowledge, and leaves the seeker no longer human. A few ideas re: Mythos scientists: sorry if some or all have already come up: - trained and controlled invocation of "idiot savant" mental states. These are being seriously investigated. The consensus is that we have multiple "minds" and many of them process information with computer-like accuracy and speed. Our consciousness summarises most of the data, discarding the details that have not been relevant (over evolutionary time) to the important "sane" tasks of survival, socialising and sex. Idiot savants lack the filters, and the full blast of their Underminds is always audible to them. - cyborgisation - extreme mental states induced by self-torture and/or drugs. - inSane "training games" designed to break down evolutionarily programmed obstacles to clear thought. It shouldn't be too difficult to smuggle in Mythos entities without falling into the slime-and-tentacles cliches. C.S.Lewis's "macrobes" are an excellent model of how Mythos scientists might at first view them (in "That Hideous Strength" - if this isn't a DG ideas source book it ought to be). Some of the DG stuff about the Majestic research into Mi-Go science - like Detwiller's piece in "Alien Intelligence" - seems to me pretty damn good. > > > > I believe that you are making the mistake of imagining that > > Science is a product of human nature. This is not so. > > Science has nothing whatsoever to do with human values, > > and it is often profoundly disruptive of "sane" human values. > > Consider the (real, actual) SAN impact on society of, for > > example, Darwin. > > Well, I don't *think* I was making that mistake... ;) What I was > trying to determine is, would the limitations of our own senses > prevent us from ever really making any headway with the kind > of science that the Mi-Go are able to control? Is our exposure > to Cookbook knowledge leading us in a direction that we would > never have gone (lacking the senses to even discover other > dimensions)? Or would we have just found it all out someday > anyway? > > dan > > > From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Michael Layne [theherald@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2000 6:13 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Up, up and away... On 1 February, Y2K, Jonathan Turner reported: >For immediate release: > >http://www.sikorsky.com/programs/cypher/index.html > Ah, yes, the Sikorsky Cypher! A most excellent rotary wing RPV, from all I've heard of it -- conveniently sized for easy deployment by field teams... I've been following this little machine ever since the first photos of the mockup appeared in Aviation Leak! (Westland, over in the UK, has developed a similar RPV (the Wisp), but I'm usure as to its current status...) Picture, if you will, a Sikorsky Cypher carried in a pressure-proof housing, roughly cylindrical, sunk into the upper deck of an SSN (in the ballast tank space, much like the Vertical Launch System for the Tomahawk missiles on the Improved Los Angeles class boats), with a hatch offering external access (for maintenance, and for launch and recovery), and various appropriate power leads and fiber-optic data links running back to the crewed portion of the submarine. As the Cypher is VTOL, launch and recovery would not require catapult or arresting gear! (With a suitable buoyant capsule, the Cypher might even be deployable while the boat is running at periscope depth, much like a sub-launched Harpoon or Tomahawk missile...) To control the RPV, and receive recon data, the SSN could run at periscope depth with a whip antenna deployed, or could use a towed communications buoy and run somewhat deeper! An expendable free-floating 2-way buoy, with secure radio transceivers for the abovewater link, and secure UQC (sonarphone) link to and from the submarine, could probably be used, though I would beware of detection (the sonar transmissions would be hard to hide) and low data rates on the sonar end of the link... Of course, you would still have to surface to recover the Cypher (provided it wasn't spotted by the bad guys and shot down (maybe you should include a self-destruct charge for such a contingency...)! This has obvious uses in snooping on Tefelhaus, the Secret Karotechia Volcano Base (see Emerald Hammer) before the DG agents and/or Friendlies come sneaking in aboard their Swimmer Delivery Vehicle, or paddling quietly to the beach with their inflatable rubber boat, to die horribly -- er, to search out the mysteries of the secret base, and blow it up! Yes, _that's_ the ticket! You could even deploy a Cypher from that surplus Juliett sub that has been in the DG news lately!:) As Sikorsky is already talking about the "naval reconnaissance" use of the Cypher, and the USN and Royal Navy have reportedly carried out trials with SSNs using Predator RPVs (launched, admittedly by other units) for recon, the Real World may have already anticipated my idea...:) Teams not yet fortunate enough to have their own submarine could still deploy a Cypher for recon on some of their tougher objectives -- with its small size, it could be carried in a medium truck ("lorry", to you Brits), a trailer, etc., and command and control would not require the elaborate measures posited above to deal with the air/water interface! Again, I would suggest a remote control self-destruct system (a TH3 Thermite grenade would probably do), if only to give indigestion to the monster who grabs and eats this buzzing insect after giving you enough time to spot him on the TV screen... Truly gung-ho teams might even arm the Cypher (with a couple of SMGs or even a small grenade launcher), and use it as a remote-control air-support platform to avoid those long delays in calling in the air-strikes! Better be careful the media doesn't spot it in action, though! "UFO strafes right-wing Militia compound -- film at 11!":) Michael Layne DGGF#688 theherald@hotmail.com "A Dark Young! I'm sure that was a _Dark Young_ there, just before the screen went dark!" "Re-run the tape and we can check -- I don't think I lost enough SAN the first time!" "I _told_ you not to fly it so low, but did you listen? NOOOO!!!!" "Do I just list the Cypher as an "operational loss", or does this count as "hostile fire"?" ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Colin Creitz [cocst6+@pitt.edu] Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2000 7:25 PM To: 'dgrpg@delta-green.com' Subject: DG: Streamlined skills This longish message contains the skill list of the current (first) coherent version of my character sheet. A primitive version of the actual sheet should be available at www.pitt.edu/~cocst6/my_cthulhu90s.ps by the time you read this. Here's a version 0.9 list with starting percentages (comments are preceeded by a // ): Accounting (10%) //might have to go Art (05%)/ Athletics(DEX+STR+CON) //=Climb, Jump, Throw, Swim (, Skate, Fight!) Computer (EDU) //as before, programming/hacking/MS Word Cthulhu Mythos Drive (20%) Electronics (10%) //incl Electric Repair this time Law (05%) Library Use (25%) Listen (25%) //Might be combined with Spot Hidden Locksmith (00%) Martial Arts (25%)/ //All the HtH Skills, together at last Mechanic (20%) Medicine (10%) //incl First Aid, Pharmacy Occult (05%) Other Languages (00%) OL/ OL/ Own Language (EDU X 5) Pilot(00%)/ Psych (05%) //Analysis and Logy this time Science (05%) Science/ Science/ Science/ Spot Hidden (25%) Stealth (10%) //=Conceal, Hide, Sneak WEAPON SKILLS Handgun (20%) Knife (25%) Rifle (25%) Shotgun (30%) Where I have deviated from the starting scores given in Chaosium, it's because I think they suck (EVERYONE knows how to use a computer nowadays, the Athletics score reflects its more varied nature, etc). Also, fire a big automatic gun with Rifle, a little one with Handgun, an automatic shotgun with Shotgun. Easy enough, eh? I guess it isn't necessarily 90s Cthulhu anymore, is it? Didn't they once call it Cthlhu Now? Maybe we should go back to that. ------------------------ Colin Creitz [cocst6@pitt.edu] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of David Farnell [daf@iwa.att.ne.jp] Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2000 10:06 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: Rewlz (was Re: DG: Re: GURPS) From: Colin Creitz > Seriously, though, don't you think that having Carpentry on the sheet is a > little out of hand? Meteorology? Maybe, wouldn't it do to have several > blank skills on the sheet? Just a thought. Agreed, and that's what I didn't like about the DG character sheets. Even if one doesn't follow the heretical philosophy :-) of lumping skills together, it still makes sense to have only the most essential skills printed on the character sheet, and lots of blank lines for players to add other skills as needed. So if a player wants her character to know Carpentry, then she can write in Carpentry. I think it's pretty silly to have skills like Navigation, Land _and_ Navigation, Air/Sea printed on a character sheet, when virtually nobody is going to spend points on them. Assuming one wants to mainly stick to the skills in the books, here's what I think should be printed on the character sheet: Climb, Computer Use, Credit Rating, Cthulhu Mythos, Dodge, Drive Auto, Fast Talk, First Aid, Hide, Jump, Library Use, Listen, Mechanical Repair, Other Language (followed by blanks), Own Language, Persuade, Psychology, Sneak, Spot Hidden, Swim, Throw, and then the combat stuff. And then there should be maybe 20 blank lines for write-in skills. This leaves more space for listing weaponry details (important to some players), a portrait, etc, and prevents the character sheet from being so cluttered up with skills that have no points added to them and will thus almost certainly never be used by the player. I like the idea of combining skills: HTH Combat takes in Fist, Kick, Grapple, Head Butt, and Martial Arts. My plan was to go radical and have player-invented skills like those from Unknown Armies and Over the Edge, such as "Street Fighting," "Notice," "Savvy Advice," and the like. This forces the players to be creative in choosing and defining skills, and makes the action more fun. ("The 3 tough guys are approaching you." "Right, I'm gonna use my 'Smack Your Ass Up' skill on the closest one...") The skills also become more general--"Notice" would cover all the senses. This makes it much easier to decide which skill to use and speeds play. (I mentioned before that some of my players are ABC-impaired--this is understandable, as some of them are Japanese.) Dave From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Colin Creitz [cocst6+@pitt.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 4:05 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Mythos scientists. On Tue, 1 Feb 2000, Jason R. Armstrong wrote: > I mean, the "seeing the machinery of the universe" part sounds > like Philip K. Dick to me. Both his story-themes, and the man's own > personal breakdown in RL. Yet, I never thought I'd hear it (even > anecdotally) in RL at all. After I first came to understand Godel's proof of the incompleteness of logical systems, and again after I first fully comprehended the General Problem Solving algorithm (no, it really isn't), I knew that I saw the world differently afterwards - a less-arrogant Wobbly-Headed Bob, for the Vasquez fans out there. These are just two - Artificial Intelligence (my field) crawls with this sort of paradigm-shattering idea, and they come in all sizes. To every other person in the world, there is no tree branching through the behavior-world manifold (i.e. "behavior space" - the GPS abstraction) - hell, there is no behavior space! The lines separating arithmetic from "higher math" are intact and the problems of the former do not insidiously creep into the latter (Godel). But for me they do. I don't know how much some power of 'free will' can lift me out of the very real (to me) deep pits and powerful attractors that lurk mostly unseen in B-space... maybe the very examination of the concept denies it to the examiner, even if he had it before. Perhaps it rewires the brain in some critical way consequent to the learning process. Time and again, disciplines like mathematics and computer/cognitive science ask us to trade a bit of our naive humanity for a bit of power over the world (sound familiar?). Example: Last year I wrote a computer program that detects patterns - not that matches patterns, that's easy, but one that does automatic discovery, and not on tables, but on data in an unmunged form (paper appeared in Proceedings of AI in Education, 1998, and I'm the third author). In a sense, it 'invents' its own objectives. That would have qulaified, under Clarke's Law, as magic until summer 1998. Because my understanding of the universe runs deep, in this sense, I was able to do that magic. It didn't feel like magic, though. This is how I intuit the way that inherently 'magical' races in CoC approach magic. In summary: "Make your INT roll - OK, you succeed. You come to understand that the concept of grammar can be abstracted off of mere language and come to powerfully describe many complex phenomena in physics and psychology. Roll SAN - you make it, OK, that's just one then. Put down the spell which we'll call 'INFER MORE' [ :) ] on your sheet. Note that it costs you 1d3 MP worth of concentration to cast, and 1 SAN plus any consequences." That story in Alien Intelligence ("Buried in Sand"?) about the researcher working on the Bucket had pretty high resonance for me. > A stupid, perhaps insensitive question. Does this sort of thing > happen a noticeable amount that you know of? This is the first I've > heard, outside of HPL, PKD, and "Pi". It's easy to notice it in people outside your own discipine. I'll take those math professors as examples - you know the type. They are dirt poor teachers, but they enjoy high reputations among the math majors, who have no problems understanding them. It's not that you don't have the math background to understand the subject matter, since you hae no problem following the book's discussion of the same topics. Instead, it's that they've 'gone over the line' many times, and over many lines. Those math majors that do the groupie thing for that professor have crossed many of the same lines, and in effect they live in the same world - that is, a world defined by the same abstractions (I have to be careful with my words here, so as not to suggest that this is a retread of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is basically so much hooey). They have all succumbed to a particular form of 'insanity' voluntarily, and to be honest some of them are more or less cultists at this point. I can think of one inparticular who taught my Adanced Linear Algebra and Matrix Theory class... I consider coming to understand the Godel thing as a 1/1d6 SAN experience, by the way. Try reading Douglas Hofstadter's _Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid_ for an amazingly lucid marginally technical explanation. ------------------------ Colin Creitz [cocst6@pitt.edu] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Colin Creitz [cocst6+@pitt.edu] Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 4:43 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: Mythos scientists. > To every other person in the world, there is no tree branching through the > behavior-world manifold (i.e. "behavior space" - the GPS abstraction) - > hell, there is no behavior space! The lines separating arithmetic from > "higher math" are intact and the problems of the former do not > insidiously creep into the latter (Godel). But for me they do. I don't > know how much some power of 'free will' can lift me out of the very real > (to me) deep pits and powerful attractors that lurk mostly unseen in > B-space... maybe the very examination of the concept denies it to the > examiner, even if he had it before. Perhaps it rewires the brain in some > critical way consequent to the learning process. I can get so unclear when I'm acting under time pressure and distracted (say, be a keyboard that only works 90% of the time)... I mean that whatever brain structures, if such there be, give rise to free will, might be obliterated, altered, or 'wired around' consequent to the learning process which follows careful self-examination, in a way similar to the theory propounded by a contemporary ethicist (whose name, ironically, I cannot remember) which postulates that most persons are goverened by 'thick' principles of ethics which disappear upon careful ethical consideration; thus, only ethicists (amateur and professional) do not have a natural ethical sense! Not a great theory and unfortunately essentially untestable, but very provocative, ne? That last sentence was very Kantian. Sorry. Clear, but very very wordy. ------------------------ Colin Creitz [cocst6@pitt.edu] From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Steven Kaye [box_nine@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 8:05 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Re: Dust explosions At 8:02 PM -0500 2/2/00, John Petherick wrote: [excellent material about dust explosions snipped] For the sadistic Keeper, Mi-Go spores might be similar to lycopodium powder (http://www.teleport.com/~ejbagai/dry.html). You can get lycopodium powder from theatrical supply places - basically, blow it through a tube, have an open flame at the other end, and watch the fun. And apparently, revised cladistics indicate that fungi are more closely related to animals than plants (http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/ibc-tot073099.html). Granted, the Mi-Go may not REALLY be fungi, but if nothing else it gives you an excuse to trot out Robigus. Steven ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Steven Kaye box_nine@ix.NOSPAM.netcom.com "You've been trying hard not to think about me and you're doing it with considerable success," said someone, where there was no one. John Shirley, CITY COME A-WALKIN'