From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 1:00 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Mythos Science 1920/Two countries Whoops. I thought "101" meant "early in time". Now I check a friend and find it means "kindergarden". Two countries divided by a common language . . . sorry guys. The Glove Cleaner From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of jpetheri@cyberbeach.net Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 1:50 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Storytelling: hosed on the Mission 2 Mars On Monday, March 20, 2000 at 01:42:46 AM, LizardRoi@aol.com wrote: > Incidentally, I think Robert E. Howard was a girly-man too Oedipally > conflicted and sexually confused to study martial arts. Which I suppose made > him the Gunfondler of the group. Ba dum ching! Thank you, thank you. Tapes > are for sale from the van out back. > Hmmm. Obviously been watching "Whole Wide World", which happens to be a damn fine movie. Even if a friend of mine thought the best moment was the brief reading of a letter from HPL. The movie portrays R.E. Howard as an aspiring, if somewhat inept, pugilist willing to defend his fair lady's honour. ======================================== John Petherick, CIH e-mail: jpetheri@cyberbeach.net ----------------------------------------------- Did you know ? Cyber Beach has extended its monthly plan to UNLIMITED surfing per month !! Happy Surfing ! http://www.cyberbeach.net ----------------------------------------------- Brought to you by Cyber Beach's BottleMail ! http://www.cyberbeach.net From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Don Juneau [djuneau@io.com] Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 1:28 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Bloody Tongue On Mon, 20 Mar 2000, Jonathan Turner wrote: > There were several rotting bodies found in the latrine under the main > building, apparently, so there is obviously more to this that it initially > appears... Without checking it out myself (getting ready for work), this could be used in different ways. If it's a "fresh" scene, and rotting bodies, mundane explanation (Disseminate At Will) would be previously-killed victims disposed of; DG-type explanations can include various flavours of undead, icky spells or diseases, or the entropic side-effects of a close brush with Carcosa... If all the victims are in about the same state, however, you can throw in that some some it coming/happening, and tried to escape, where no sane person would search. Even more ugly is the combo platter: "We lost contact about three hours ago. When the first deputies arrived, they radioed a description of weeks-dead corpses and a decaying facility... and then they stopped reporting. Aerial photos show skeletal remains and a rusting hulk of a cruiser just inside the gate. The facility itself is crumbling apart, so we have to get in while there's still something to find. The chopper? Yeah, it made it back - on fumes, and rattling like lugnuts in a hubcap. Seems to have run an extra few hundred hours in the fifteen minutes it was over the site... the video we have cuts out after about thirty seconds, because the batteries died. Good luck, you poor bastards..." (Of course, this is the entropic/Carcosa one; showing up in full isolation suits and getting to watch decay and corruption visibly occuring, in the still-pristine confines of the on-site lab, has its own attractions. (Hmmm. Entropic would work the accelerated decrepitude of everything, perhaps, less the "time-acceleration" aspects - instead of batteries draining, they'd instead "decay" into inert lumps, corroding and such as would be applicable; functioning bearings would erode and pit, while the surrounding oil would turn into a gluey, tarry muck. (A biological effect [not necessarily a disease; a spell or side-effect would work just fine] would be similar, but only affect biological processes. The basic "zombie/vampire rotting away" schtick special-effect would go here, but on *everything*: the freshly-opened can of pop surges and greyish-green ooze foams out; mildew and mold flow over every surface, while the air itself fogs with dead cells and decaying bacteria; and don't even *think* of checking the bathrooms... (Rate would be an important aspect. "Hours-in-minutes" sounds [and looks] pretty impressive, but "days-in-hours" or slower might be better - the final reports of the victims, as they notice bodily decay and failure creeping up; coming back into a previously-inspected room to find visible progress in the rotting process just thirty minutes later; and the occasional twinges and discomforts of normal life in such an environment working on the minds of those present... "Am I next?") Jus' making everyone's day a little brighter, Don From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 4:22 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Mythos Science 1920/Two countries In a message dated 00-03-20 16:34:39 EST, you write: << Whoops. I thought "101" meant "early in time". Now I check a friend and find it means "kindergarden". Two countries divided by a common language . . . sorry guys. The Glove Cleaner >> Most introductory college courses in Merka are numbered 101. These courses are the traditional stomping grounds of jocks on scholarships and people getting a mandatory out of the way. So English 101 is the simplest possible college level English course available, and (back in my day when men were men) would be referred to as Bonehead English. One of my musician buddies informs me that at Ohio State in his day, Math 101 was publicly referred to as Math for [Music/Theater/PE] Majors. So it indicates basic introductory material, is not necessarily derogatory but can be. It's a matter of nuance. Of course, I also like the hint of Room 101, which always holds what you fear most. Mark McFadden award-winning author of the runaway bestsellers "Reality for Dummies" , "Hooked on Solipsism" and "Chicken Soup for Your Karma" From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Appelion@aol.com Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 5:15 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: The Club Eco / reading out loud /The Night Land In a message dated 3/16/00 2:04:46 PM, andywrobertson@clara.co.uk writes: >pigeonholing his style as "mediocre." I resent that. Granted, my word selection was poor (happens when you're writing at 3:00AM), what I meant was more like "unexceptional," and the thing with metion/mention was amusing. The intent of my post was to express the belief (purely my opinion, but I also believe that most of our members are intelligent enough to tell that on their own, without my stating that almost every word I write is opinion) that not HPL's style, but rather his subject matter, was what attracted most of his readers. I certainly agree that his style complements his plots well. Xavier From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Appelion@aol.com Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 5:30 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: The Merits of Derleth In a message dated 3/16/00 2:17:42 PM, andywrobertson@clara.co.uk writes: >Makes me wonder - are we deceived? I mean, could things in reality be >even > >_worse_ than we think they are? Or maybe things aren't even this bad, and we got tagged by the Mythos equivalent of con men.... "Buy into our religion or a thousand kids in africa starve to death" Xavier From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Appelion@aol.com Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 5:41 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Wormhole generator In a message dated 3/16/00 3:48:25 PM, theherald@hotmail.com writes: >traditionally addressed as "Igor" -- it is unknown whether >this is a name, nickname, or job title... It's actually an acronym: _I_ntegrated _G_adget _O_perational Assistant and _R_esearcher. Xavier From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Appelion@aol.com Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 5:47 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: More Cookbook stuff? In a message dated 3/16/00 7:29:49 PM, LizardRoi@aol.com writes: >Scare the agent into thinking they've been discovered (or better yet, >betrayed) so they make a break for the spooker. Kill them, take the money. > >Repeat until independently wealthy. Wouldn't robbing liquor stores be faster and easier? Especially as the police are less likely to kill you than the CIA... Xavier From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of jpetheri@cyberbeach.net Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 6:21 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Coming to a Computer near You! I can't remember if this report of a CoC CRPG has made it to the list before or not. http://www.ga-source.com/interviews/cthulhu.shtml ======================================== John Petherick, CIH e-mail: jpetheri@cyberbeach.net ----------------------------------------------- Did you know ? Cyber Beach has extended its monthly plan to UNLIMITED surfing per month !! Happy Surfing ! http://www.cyberbeach.net ----------------------------------------------- Brought to you by Cyber Beach's BottleMail ! http://www.cyberbeach.net From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of jpetheri@cyberbeach.net Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 6:57 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Alternity / Dark Matter / Wizards of the Coast News There was some discussion of the "Dark Matter" modern-day conspiracy setting for the "Alternity" game published by Wizards of the Coast. Well, last Thursday Wizards announced that it is pulling the plug on Alternity because "Sales of supporting material ... are too low to support the cost to design and produce additional material". Apparently core books (Players' and GM's Guides) will continue (for the time being), and products in the pipeline will be released. http://www.wizards.com/alternity/Whats_Happening.asp Our preferred RPG pu(bli)shers won't hang us out to dry, right folks? Fans of Ars Magica will remember the hype and outcome when Wizards bought that system and discovered that it couldn't match the sales figures of CCG's (at least it went to a better home). On a related note, Wizards / TSR is apparently planning to remake 3rd edition into something called an "Open Gaming Engine" using the trademarked "D20" system, which is supposed to be remarkably similar to the Alternity system. Translation - all those piles of paper and cardboard you bought for D&D, AD&D, 2nd Ed., and Edition 2.5 are worthless crap, and you'll have to replace it ALL! http://www.wizards.com/dnd/DnD_DoD_005.asp ======================================== John Petherick, CIH e-mail: jpetheri@cyberbeach.net ----------------------------------------------- Did you know ? Cyber Beach has extended its monthly plan to UNLIMITED surfing per month !! Happy Surfing ! http://www.cyberbeach.net ----------------------------------------------- Brought to you by Cyber Beach's BottleMail ! http://www.cyberbeach.net From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Dan W [minion_of_cthulhu@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 6:49 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Mythos behind pro-gun/anti-gun paranoia? If the recent controversy over gun control in the U.S. were instigated by chaos-loving, pro people-kill-each-other mythos entities and their leave-people-open-for-when-we-come-and-get-them mythos opponents, there might be an explanation as to why both sides seem kinda crazy at times. It could be a simple case of human pawns going at it in an outwardly ordinary conflict, but with roots hidden deep within an eons-spanning alien rivalry . . . or something like that. Frequent contact with extra-dimensional entities and various "things from elsewhere" wouldn't surprise me for some of those people . . . ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Appelion@aol.com Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 7:55 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Thermobaric weapons In a message dated 3/17/00 2:39:55 AM, David.Clements@astro.cf.ac.uk writes: >fire one along a trench and >anyone in it gets burnt. I guess this may be a development of that idea... > Weeeellllll....According to Pallid Pooch's _Crusade Lore_ in the middle ages rockets were often used backwards, spewing exhaust like a flamethrower. The historical provenance thereof is unknown, but I've no reason to doubt this. If anyone knows for sure, please tell me. Xavier From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of LizardRoi@aol.com Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 9:24 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Thermobaric weapons In a message dated 00-03-20 20:58:48 EST, you write: << Weeeellllll....According to Pallid Pooch's _Crusade Lore_ in the middle ages rockets were often used backwards, spewing exhaust like a flamethrower. The historical provenance thereof is unknown, but I've no reason to doubt this. >> They are still popular. The home version is called a Roman candle. All the various fountain and cone fireworks are simply rockets of varying efficiencies aimed at the ground, with various impurities for sparks and colors. And a rocket is a bomb with a "leak". For quick impromptu whizbangs in states where real fireworks are hard to come by, if you break the stand off a a Piccolo Pete\ Screaming Mimi (you know, the "safe and sane" thing that sits on the ground a makes a horrendous whistle shriek when lit) and squeeze the end of the charge in a vice, it makes a pretty good (and loud) rocket that explodes at the end. Great for launching balsa wood V-1s at the next town over. Mark McFadden "Fire! Huh huh huh. Fire!" From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jean-Loup Sabatier [sabatier@saint-etienne.tt.slb.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 2:37 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Thermobaric weapons > << Weeeellllll....According to Pallid Pooch's _Crusade Lore_ in the middle > ages rockets were often used backwards, spewing exhaust like a flamethrower. > The historical provenance thereof is unknown, but I've no reason to doubt > this. >> > > They are still popular. The home version is called a Roman candle. > All the various fountain and cone fireworks are simply rockets of varying > efficiencies aimed at the ground, with various impurities for sparks and > colors. > And a rocket is a bomb with a "leak". Rockets are used for a very very long time in China, as well as flame throwing devices with powder (the "reversed rocket"). Ancient chinese didn't have enough metallurgic skills to make steel good enough for cannons, but they perfectly knew how to make incendiary and/or explosives weapons (Daoist alchemists discovered gun powder). C U Jean-Loup From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jonathan Turner [j.turner@irishnews.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 3:20 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Thermobaric weapons At 10:23 PM 3/20/00 EST, you wrote: > For quick impromptu whizbangs in states where real fireworks are hard to >come by, if you break the stand off a a Piccolo Pete\ Screaming Mimi (you >know, the "safe and sane" thing that sits on the ground a makes a horrendous >whistle shriek when lit) and squeeze the end of the charge in a vice, it >makes a pretty good (and loud) rocket that explodes at the end. > Great for launching balsa wood V-1s at the next town over. > Dear Beavis: You have way too much time on your hands. Next you'll be telling us about how to drunkenly pretend you have your own LAW by launching a firework from a length of drainpipe... and no, I haven't done that, but I know a man who has. JT From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Don Juneau [djuneau@io.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 3:41 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Useful docco? Yet Another Cool-Sounding Resource: "Training Circular 9- 20 is intended to be used as a guide for training and employment by technical escort team personnel. It provides the basic information needed to perform an escort mission and to respond to emergencies involving chemical, biological, etiological, or radioactive materials. "Training Circular 9- 20 describes the responsibilities, emergency procedures, and escort operations of the technical escort team of any military service. It is to be used in conjunction with military and civilian publications, and governs the movement of toxic or hazardous materials by road, rail, air, and sea. Specific data on supplies, equipment, and procedures that are too detailed for this publication require the use of other field manuals and technical manuals (see References)." The current manual for this seems to be restricted on the US Army Doctrine and Training Digital Library listing (as I seem to recall; just saw it on a SpecOps page listing manuals and availability), but there's an obsolete version at: http://leav-err.army.mil/call.html Follow the links to the CALL Database, Military History Institute Sampler, Obsolete Manuals/Circulars/Publications, Training Circulars 1-9, TC9-20 TECHNICAL ESCORT OPERATIONS. Thanx to those touting the MOUT pages, et cetera, for pointing me towards even more nifty things to use for my own diabolical purposes... Don From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Davide Mana [doctor.dee@libero.it] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 3:42 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Alternity / Dark Matter / Wizards of the Coast News Greetings. John wrote <<<< There was some discussion of the "Dark Matter" modern-day conspiracy setting for the "Alternity" game published by Wizards of the Coast. Well, last Thursday Wizards announced that it is pulling the plug on Alternity because "Sales of supporting material ... are too low to support the cost to design and produce additional material". Apparently core books (Players' and GM's Guides) will continue (for the time being), and products in the pipeline will be released. >>>> This one seems to confirm WotC's role as 'The Company that Kills Games': the number of games and campaigns settings that WotC has cancelled surely exceeds the number of new games and settings they created since their inception. I still hate them for fragging SLA Industries before i could get a chance to try it. Maybe the game sucked, maybe not - I just never had the opportunity to check it out. It bugs me. Let's hope at least thety have a sale of the discontinued material at reduced rates. <<<>>> That's just the tip of the iceberg; from the way they put it, they want this D20 System (any relation with the GDW retrofitting of their Twilight 2000 rules?) to become the only system in town. Guys, please go and read the article at the above-mentioned URL. In a nutshell: they want to take the basics of D&D, turn them into a generic game engine (a bit like WEG did with the D6 System) and distribute it under an Open Software-style Licence. This means that you would be able to create and market (and make a buck out of) any RPG stuff you produce as long as it's for the Open Source system, and you do not include the basics, so that gamers still have to buy the core handbook from WotC. Hidden behind an awful lot of babble and the GNU Open Licence, the core concept is pretty totalitarian (and they spell it out) - you end up enlarging the 'D&D network', basically helping WotC to push all other companies (=other game engines) out of the market, or at least severely reducing their breathing space. While there's a lot of good things to be said about Open Licence, these guys are pretty rapacious and do not fear to show it. People should protest in the streets of Seattle against such an idea. The article can also be read as an exercise in selective editing of the facts (file under Disinformation), when the gentleman gives a quick review of the gaming industry and its standards. Go and judge for yourself. I found the whole a quite a bit scary. A final snide consideration. The matter of gaming engines has been long discussed on this list - the classic 'I play DG using ' that springs up once every four months or so. If anything worthwile ever emerged out of those discussions (apart from long lists of useful GURPS books) is the fact that the availability of a lot of systems is a good thing. Not all gamers are equal, and matters of taste, atmosphere, habit or what make one system preferred above others in diferent situations. Having a wide choice helps a lot, and there are some games that suck with engine X and are ripping good fun with engine Y. This at least seems to be the consensus among what could be a representative sampling of the gaming population (that's us, guys). It's interesting now that a company specializing in starting things and then killing them off 'because the market response was not as high as expected' is considering quite the opposite option. Ayway, enough of this ranting. Please go and read the article - the idea of a gaming future dominated by a clone of the D&D system makes a good addition for any Endtimes campaign. Maybe that's why the Great Race of Yith went for the bugs in the end. Take care, gentlemen (and ladies) Davide Mana Torino, Italy doctor.dee@libero.it The Ice Cave - http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/leiber/50/ice_cave.htm From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of David.Clements [David.Clements@astro.cf.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 4:45 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Alternity / Dark Matter / Wizards of the Coast News On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, Davide Mana wrote: > In a nutshell: they want to take the basics of D&D, turn them into a > generic game engine (a bit like WEG did with the D6 System) and distribute > it under an Open Software-style Licence. This means that you would be able > to create and market (and make a buck out of) any RPG stuff you produce as > long as it's for the Open Source system, and you do not include the basics, > so that gamers still have to buy the core handbook from WotC. > Hidden behind an awful lot of babble and the GNU Open Licence, the core > concept is pretty totalitarian (and they spell it out) - you end up > enlarging the 'D&D network', basically helping WotC to push all other > companies (=other game engines) out of the market, or at least severely > reducing their breathing space. > While there's a lot of good things to be said about Open Licence, these > guys are pretty rapacious and do not fear to show it. I don't think I've ever read a more blatant piece of misdirection than that article... WotC espouse the open source movement in software and then suggest that their proposal, that anyone can write a game that, to persue the computing analogy, 'runs on' the D&D system as long as they don't produce products that include that system explicitly. This is the *total opposite* of open source! With Linux anyone can distribute the operating system, with Windows nobody can. What WotC are proposing is *exactly* the closed 'operating system' route where they own the basic core system and you can't change it (at least in a published form). I'm disgusted! Stalman and Raymond should sue them for defamation! Dave From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Janusz A. Urbanowicz [alex@bofh.torun.pl] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 5:06 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Alternity / Dark Matter / Wizards of the Coast News > WotC espouse the open source movement in software and then suggest that > their proposal, that anyone can write a game that, to persue the > computing analogy, 'runs on' the D&D system as long as they don't produce > products that include that system explicitly. This is the *total > opposite* of open source! With Linux anyone can distribute the operating > system, with Windows nobody can. What WotC are proposing is *exactly* the > closed 'operating system' route where they own the basic core system and > you can't change it (at least in a published form). I'm disgusted! Its no Open Source but at least it is more open that other gaming engines (gaming OSes ?) liceses. With most of them you cannot do even this. BTW: anyone knows the legal situation of Twlight: 2000 or Traveler: the New Era ? I know a few ppl who would be interested in publishing this in Poland. Alex -- Janusz A. Urbanowicz | ALEX3-RIPE | SF-Framling | Gdy daję biednym chleb, nazywają mnie świętym. Gdy pytam, dlaczego biedni nie mają chleba, nazywają mnie komunistą. - abp. Helder Camara From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Servant of CTHULHU [darkawakening@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 6:04 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: DG Fiction Does anyone know if there are anymore DG Fiction books planned? I recently bought The Rules of Engagement and have also read Alien Intelligence. I have to congratulate John Tynes of Rules. It was excellent with some nice little crossovers from his story in Alien Intelligence. I have been playing COC for 12 years now but recently purchased the DG sourcebook and I have to say it has brought a new dimension to our little rpg group. Keep up the good work and if there are any DG fans in the UK on this list let me know. Cheers Paul DG UK ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Martin Ostergaard [MAOS@int.tele.dk] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 6:22 AM To: Delta Green Subject: DG: Mainstream mythos Ive found a shining example of how the mythos is infiltrating our society portrayed as cute witless cartoon characters.. break out the guns fellow cowboys, its time for some great old one bashing.. http://www.brunothebandit.com/d/19991130.html -Martin P.S. havent posted in a while (is that cheering I hear?), damned work I say.. cant even follow all the threads Id like on here =( From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jonathan Turner [j.turner@irishnews.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 7:11 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Book review Just a short note on a new book called What If? Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been. Edited by Robert Cowley, the book deals with various time frames, but has several essays related to WWII. It also touches on Greek history, a possible Russian invasion of Japan, and many others. While some of the essays are perhaps a little far out, most are readable and represent a useful exercise. I didn't know that Churchill was hit by a taxi in 1931. There's a little note suggesting what might have happened if he died... Americans facing off against Nazis in South America and so on! No Special K though. Obviously from a DG perspective, there are lots of ideas here for alternative settings, or even what might actually have occured on smaller scales. I really like the idea of Russians in northern Japan, for example. Published by MacMillan, ISBN 0-333-75183-3 Jonathan From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of cd skogsberg [d97skog@dtek.chalmers.se] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 7:12 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Mainstream mythos Martin Ostergaard wrote: > Ive found a shining example of how the mythos is infiltrating our > society portrayed as cute witless cartoon characters.. break out > the guns fellow cowboys, its time for some great old one bashing.. > http://www.brunothebandit.com/d/19991130.html Same with Penny Arcade/The Bench: http://www.penny-arcade.com/devour.shtml http://www.thebench.org/index.php3?strip=1184 /cd -- "Bob Dhole wants to put your brain in a canister." -- Bill Walsh From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Davide Mana [doctor.dee@libero.it] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 7:24 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Trail of the Lloigor Greetings. I'm trying to track down all the available sources of info about the Lloigor. And I'm trying to do this fast (I've a deadline to meet - cheers, Adam!) I've checked the Ice Cave, of course, but the last time we discussed the guys we have been a little.... spare. To define these energy things from Andromeda 'uninspiring' is the understatement of the century. They sort of stand there and like suck up magic points and, yeah, worship Gathanothoa (sp?) and fie the man that should come in contact with them - they'd probably bore him to death. No wonder the Pagan gentlemen did away with the things in DG. Anyway, I've tracked down references in various Chaosium supplements, to wit Tales of the Miskatonic Valley No man's land Mystery of Loch Feinn in CoC 4th These show how much a single badass Lloigor can do (I _love_ Watcher - capital scenario) - I'd like to expand on this, but info is patchy and contradictory. Of course I've checked Master Harm's excellent Mythos book for further data. I know of the Wilson fiction, 'The Return of the Lloigor', but I do not have that handy. Ditto for the 'Illuminatus' trilogy. Am I missing anything? Some scenario or other snippet of info? Did someone out there do something wonderful with the lloigor and never told us? Thanks for the info. Now back to the drawing board. Davide Mana Torino, Italy doctor.dee@libero.it The Ice Cave - http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/leiber/50/ice_cave.htm From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of David Farnell [daf@iwa.att.ne.jp] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 7:55 AM To: Delta Green List Subject: DG: Fiction: ANGEL 4a [This one is big enough that I'll send it in two parts. A gentle reminder--if it's on this list, and especially if it's fiction, be prepared for the occasional nastiness. If any offense is caused, my apologies. --Split Willy] ANGEL (David Farnell, 2000) Four: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin "Keep not thou silent, O God; hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God." She was less than a year out of Quantico. She shouldn't have gotten a case like this. Too much responsibility. Still on probationary status. She was only twenty-three. Too green. "For lo, thine enemies make a tumult, and they that hate thee have lifted up their heads." Wiz kid, they said. She denied it. She was just in a hurry. Driven. Joined the Bureau on the Diversified program, after two years teaching at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Her master's thesis, completed when she was twenty, was the core of a database on religious cults that was being adopted by the FBI. Interpol was taking an interest in it as well. The government was offering a scholarship for her to start a PhD, conducting her research part time. She'd caught a lot of attention. The rumor mill said the boys upstairs were already referring to her as the "cult profiler." "They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and have consulted against thy hidden ones." Her psych evaluation suggested that she had buried issues, related to the death, under mysterious circumstances, of a childhood friend. Circumstances that she knew more about than she was willing to say. And that this somehow related to her almost unhealthy focus on heterodox religious groups, or "cults," particularly those which were "pathological," potentially dangerous to their members or to society. These misgivings, combined with her inexperience, should have kept her off the assignment. Yet, for reasons she did not yet understand, she got it. "As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire, so persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm." She had a reputation in the small-but-growing New Religion Studies circle as a cynic, intolerant, "anti-cult," that she revealed secrets entrusted to her, that she lied and betrayed. But she had her defenders. They pointed out that she did not attack new religions as a whole; she merely focused on those she perceived as dangerous, and hadn't she turned out to be right in the case of the Family Universal and Triumphant? In her thesis research, she had infiltrated several cults and seen them in a way that most academics never could. She had seen things that never would have been revealed to her had her identity been known. Some good things--some beautiful things. Some not. "Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek thy name, O Lord; let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame and _perish_!" She had even presented a paper, speaking out against the blind persecution of cults. But that was not her goal. Encouraging fair treatment was all well and good; ferreting out and exposing corruption and abuse and fraud was better. But even that was only by the way. "That men may know that _thou_, whose Name is not to be spoken, art the most high over _all_ the earth and stars!" The psych guy had almost seen it. She had bigger fish to fry. "Brothers and Sisters, let us pray." She bowed her head, cast down her eyes, ignoring the sweat that ran into them. Summer in Montana could be as hot as Texas. She wore the simple white shift and head-cloth of a Sister of the Brotherhood of the Living God. Millenialist, apocalyptic, syncretic, primarily Christian but picking select bits of the texts and forms of Jewish, Muslim, and Gnostic faiths, along with dark hints of hidden teachings, too dangerous and mind-altering for the uninitiated to withstand. She had looked into the Brotherhood three years ago, and they were in her database, but they had seemed rather conventional in their heterodoxy, comparatively harmless. Something had changed. Their leader, Reverend Thomas Maccabee--formerly Jimmy Fitzwater, a small-time grifter before he "found God"--had always been charismatic, but now he was attracting converts at a much higher rate. He had moved out of California to a compound in the badlands of Montana. He was buying an arsenal and hiring professionals to train the faithful in the arts of guerilla warfare. A reporter who had been writing a story on them had disappeared. In the weeks before he had stopped broadcasting his weekly public-access tirades, his appearance had been changing: thinner, red-eyed, boils on his neck, a scraggly beard, ruining the angelic good looks that had helped win him followers before. And he had made a startling claim, something almost unheard of: Instead of telling his followers that the Messiah was coming soon, or that he himself was the Messiah, Rev. Tom claimed to have the Messiah in his possession. "The Holy One, Maccabee, Hammer of God, found the Blessed Mother one year ago. Though she was slain by the forces of the Evil One, our humble leader saved the Holy Babe and bore Him away to safety. He doubted at first, but God has shown him the signs, as we show you." Deacon Jacob was a big man, with an excellent, booming voice, and led most of the meetings at the compound now that Rev. Tom had gone into seclusion. Jacob had once been one of the "security specialists"--he claimed to be ex-Special Forces, but the file on him showed that he had never finished Basic Training. His attempted sexual assault on a superior officer had landed him in Leavenworth for two years and earned him a dishonorable discharge. Originally a hired hand, he was now one of the Brotherhood's most fervent believers. Two attendants brought out a young woman. Sister Alice had been worshipping alongside Maria only two weeks before. She had been a lively, eager girl of nineteen, but naive, insecure. Then she'd been judged sufficiently pure, and had been taken away, outside the compound, to a secret location. She was to be a Nurse to the Holy Infant. Maria suppressed a gasp of shock. Alice was a palsied wreck. Her dark brown skin now had an unhealthy mottled-yellow cast; her beatific smile showed missing teeth and bleeding gums; her red-rimmed eyes dripped a sticky-looking discharge. Her straightened hair was thinning, her scalp showing through the strands. She had a look of ecstasy about her. She looked like she was dying. Others who had gone to be Nursemaids had never returned. Maria had assumed they were serving in the bed of Rev. Tom; earlier members of the Brotherhood who left had reported on His Holiness' sexual urges. More recently, anyone who left was never heard from again. "See our Sister, Nursemaid to this millenium's Manifestation of God on Earth. See her holy joy. Though she be weakened in body, she is lifted up in spirit! Through the punishment of the flesh comes the strengthening of the pneuma! Sister Alice, have you looked upon the face of God Himself?" "Yes!" Her voice was a shriek. "He is beautiful--beautiful and terrible! He--he takes from me, and I give--I give to him with all my heart!" Her screams became moans at the end, and she collapsed, sobbing. The attendants hurriedly lifted her from the floor and placed her on a pillow on the stage. "Sister Alice! Surely you are one of the Blessed of these, the End Times. Show us a sign, now, to reinforce out faith so that we shall never waver in our devotion!" Weeping now, she raised her face toward the audience. Smiling through her tears, she raised her arms. Darker mottlings formed, then flowed. Blood dripped from a dozen sores on her hands, all along her arms, her face, her throat. Her while shift blossomed with a score of red blooms. "She bleeds!" The audience launched into a frenzy of exclamation. Maria joined in without hesitation, her true thoughts deeply buried beneath her undercover mask. "Do you believe, Brothers and Sisters? Do you _believe_?" "YES!" "_Do_you_believe?_" "_YES!_" *** "You asked to see me, Deacon?" She had been weeding the garden when two of the security men had come to take her to Jacob's office. "Yes, Sister. I noticed your devotion at this morning's meeting. Please, sit." She did. He came around the desk to sit on the front edge. He was before her; the goons were on either side. She didn't like it. She was almost ready to pull out--bugs had been planted, conversations recorded, records photographed, all at great risk. They had more than enough evidence for a warrant. The only thing left was to find out where Rev. Tom was hiding out. She noticed a large, wooden packing crate in the corner. "Sister Dolores, are you willing to sacrifice yourself to help the Living God? Are you willing to share the same holy task as Sister Alice? Are you willing to shoulder that burden, and that honor?" "Yes. Oh, yes, Brother Jacob! Though I am unworthy, I will do any--" "Yes, you are unworthy." He smiled unpleasantly. "Even so, you will serve. You see, Sister _Fed_, you're not the only one who can snoop around." He held out a handful of tiny microphones, bugging devices she'd placed herself, before he threw them in her face. For a crucial second, she hesitated. Talk her way out or fight? His smile decided her--she tried to launch out of the chair, get on her feet and out of the encirclement. Just as she started to move, a hammer blow to her cheek sent her to the floor. Jacob stepped forward and, with a quick snap-kick of a steel-toed boot, smashed her nose to a bloody ruin. The shock rang through her skull ahead of the wave of pain, and she could do nothing but try to cover her face as the blood flooded her sinuses and mouth. She felt something break from another kick, to the ribs. Then a flash of light and the beginning of pain at the back of her skull. *** Two miles away, a man in a car was listening on a headset. The Brotherhood had found all the FBI bugs. He wasn't FBI. He was alone. Among other things, he had a laser set up on a hilltop, bouncing its signal off the window. The criminals in 1986 weren't savvy to that one yet. He heard the beating and cursed. He liked Villanueva--she had a lot of potential. Still, he didn't call her FBI watchers. If they weren't tipped to the situation, that was their problem. He didn't need the complications. He had a job to do. If a sacrifice had to be made, he'd live with it. Keeping her alive would be nice. But it was by the way. He had bigger fish to fry. That's what he told himself. He started the car. (continued in 4b) From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of David Farnell [daf@iwa.att.ne.jp] Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 6:09 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Re: The Club Eco / reading out loud /The Night Land From: > In a message dated 3/16/00 2:04:46 PM, andywrobertson@clara.co.uk writes: > > >pigeonholing his style as "mediocre." > I resent that. Granted, my word selection was poor (happens when you're > writing at 3:00AM), what I meant was more like "unexceptional," and the > thing with metion/mention was amusing. Actually, I think I wrote that bit you quoted, not Andy. :-) Credit where it's due and all. (And I'm afraid "unexceptional" just adds insult to injury.) > The intent of my post was to express > the belief (purely my opinion, but I also believe that most of our members > are intelligent enough to tell that on their own, without my stating that > almost every word I write is opinion) that not HPL's style, but rather his > subject matter, was what attracted most of his readers. I certainly agree > that his style complements his plots well. Never thought it wasn't simply your opinion, old man--but I figured if one person has that opinion, there are probably a few more who share it, and I was just urging those who did to take another look. 'Cause it's worth it. Dave From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of David Farnell [daf@iwa.att.ne.jp] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 8:00 AM To: Delta Green List Subject: DG: Fiction: ANGEL 4b (continued from 4a) She awoke to excruciating pain through her head and body. She was bouncing; it sounded and felt like she was in a truck or a van, on a dirt road. Black--no, a little light coming through a crack. But was it far away, or just in front of her face? Her left cheek pressed against splintery wood. Not much air--she remembered the packing crate. Her arms were behind her back...she felt ropes on her wrists--and a sudden flashback to ten years before had her thrashing like a fish, hyperventilating and screaming in terror. A jab of pain from her ribs and a heavy boot kicking the box brought her back to the awful present. "Shut up, bitch!" Laughter. A different voice now, Jacob's, close to the thin wall of wood separating them: "You know, I wouldn't have minded giving you the ride of your life and then putting a bullet in your head, but this is better, really. I mean, Baby is _hungry_." More laughter, but nervous. There was one security goon in the van with Jacob, unless someone else was being very quiet. Jacob kept on. "There is nothing I hate worse than traitors and spies. You are gonna pay, you fucking little government cunt. Did that hurt when I messed up your pretty little face, bitch? You'll be begging for old Jacob to knock your fucking teeth in, just to get away from Baby. You'll be begging for a good, stiff--" She tuned him out--it was just noise. She didn't know what Baby was, but he'd convinced her that the risk of a fight was worth it. She had to assume that her monitoring team had been given the slip, that there was no rescue on the way, that she would be dead soon, anyway. She started to work on the ropes. The knots were tight, and she didn't have much room to move around, and every movement brought knife-plunging pain, but she ignored all that. Her wrists were covered in sweat. After a little struggle, there was blood, too. With the pain in her face, head, and ribs to occupy her, some ripped skin around her wrists was nothing. The knots were tight, but not expertly tied. She was making a little progress. The lubrication helped. The pain in her wrists got worse, but she didn't fight it--just tuned it out, too. One part of her mind was gnawing on the enigmatic "Baby." The Living God? Was she finally going to reach her goal--perhaps only to die? As if in confirmation, she felt a pressure in her breastbone, as of something lodged in there. A tiny fragment of metal. It was warm, throbbing but not painful. An old, unwanted friend, it came to her sometimes on certain lonely nights when the moon rose huge and yellow over a fantastic, impossible cityscape that faded to the mundane as the moon rose higher. It happened more often near lakes, and in the early summer, tormenting her with hopes and fears unspoken. It throbbed in time with a patient vibrato tone that always lurked, just out of hearing. Now that throbbing matched the tides of pain washing through her, the beating of her heart. It was getting stronger. She struggled harder, and almost without warning, one hand ripped free, shedding bloody skin to the rope. Her arm hit the inside of the crate and she froze, but with all the bouncing, she thought they didn't notice. Almost sobbing in mixed pain and relief, she got her other arm out from under her and went to work on her ankles, She could just barely reach them, but she was small and flexible. She soon had them free, though the broken rib nearly made her scream. The truck stopped. They lifted the crate and carried her out. The changing light showed it was afternoon outside, then she was inside a dark room. The vibration was creeping more deeply into her bones. Through another door. They set her down, none too gently. She could hear the breathing of the two who had carried her, the same goons who were in Jacob's office. Jacob was ahead of her, she thought. There was another person in the room, someone breathing with difficulty, liquid, tubercular. There was a sloppy, gelid cough, and a mustard-gas-victim voice said, "Is it her?" "Yes, Most Holy," Jacob said. He seemed to be kneeling, or even prostrate. "Bring her out." The two security goons got crowbars and pried off the lid. Maria held still until one reached in for her arm. She had the fear of certain death to give her speed. Her right hand grasped the man's elbow joint, digging her thumb into a nerve cluster there, and simultaneously pulled him toward her. Her left hand went straight at his face. In the low light of the room, he couldn't see it coming, so there was no instinctive flinch until her fingers were curling around his ear and her thumb plunging into his eye. He jerked back in reaction, lifting her out of the box, and she was on him like a rabid monkey, biting viciously at his face. She got his nose between her jaws and did her best to tear it off. A clinical part of her mind noticed his right eyeball pop free, and the way his scream reverberated through her aching head by way of her teeth in his nose. He fell over backward, still screaming and thrashing, fists ineffectually hitting her back. She immediately rolled him over on top of her so they couldn't grab her and lift her off. She released his arm, and groped at his belt. Couldn't reach his right side, but--yes, he had a backup weapon in a small-of-the-back holster. She got it free, found the safety with her thumb, and fired off three quick, blind shots around the room to make them duck, then put two into the side of her opponent's chest, muffled contact shots that stopped his thrashing almost instantly. Mouth full of mucus and blood, screaming like a goddess of death, she rolled him off her and saw: target--bang-bang target--bang-bang. Another target--she tried to pull the trigger again, but the slide was locked back. She hurled the gun at the third target and dove on Jacob, who was gurgling and feebly scratching at his shattered chest. She found his gun near his hand, some huge, macho hand cannon she could barely hold with both hands. The shaking was setting in; she staggered to her feet and took aim, swaying drunkenly. "Please, no!" The liquid voice. The man tried to protect his face with empty hands. She didn't pull the trigger. Training. "Raise your hands!" Her voice shocked her--rough, shaking, full of rage. He did. His flinching face was barely recognizable, but it was Thomas Maccabee. The skin--she stopped breathing for a moment when she saw that the skin was hanging in the same melted-looking folds she had seen ten years ago. Keeping the gun trained on him, she quickly scouted out the room. Two doors, opposite each other. She moved to lock them. One of them, the inner one, vibrated as she touched it. "Who else is here? Tell me!" "No one, please, you--you killed them all." "Bullshit! Where are the other guards? Where are the Nursemaids?" "They're all, all in there." He pointed a wasted claw at the inner door. "Soon, I'll join them. We all will." The vibration suddenly strengthened and changed. Pulsing waves beat through her, staggering her, nearly driving her to her knees. It was not a sound, but as it pounded through her exhausted body, her brain tried to interpret it as sound, and she recalled a recording she had listened to in her early studies of world religions. The tape was of a Tibetan Buddhist chant, an atonal, inhuman, multinote sound made deep in the throat. This was a little like that, but combined with the angry cries of a baby. It crashed through her, hitting her from left to right, obviously emanating from the inner room. It terrified her, while hypnotically drawing her. "Make it stop!" "I can't. No one can. The Child is weak now, but He will devour this wicked world. Embrace Him! He is our--" Without thinking, she shot him. The gun was like an artillery piece, the way the slide slammed back and forth. It made her stumble back. In shock, she looked at Maccabbee for signs of life. She'd hit him square in the face with a very large-caliber round. His head was splashed all over the wall. For a moment, she couldn't believe she'd done it--she'd gunned down an unarmed man just because he'd annoyed her. She was supposed to arrest him, take him to trial, uncover his crimes and make him pay. She'd just blasted half his skull off. Fuck. The Child's cries shook her again. She hefted the gun and weaved to the inner door. She unlocked it, paused, took a deep breath, and opened it. *** He'd lost them, of course. You just couldn't follow closely in the Badlands--you could be spotted from too far away. Even the transponder he'd planted on the truck hadn't been working well; the signal would get bounced all over among the rocks and mesas. But now he had a good signal; he was closing in. He only hoped it wasn't too late. Nearly a mile before he reached the bunker, he saw someone ahead of him, walking down the middle of the road. He slowed. It was her. He stopped twenty yards from her, at an angle, passenger side toward her. In one hand, she carried a Desert Eagle, the distinctive slide back, apparently empty. Her face was a mass of blood--she had cuts and a huge bruise over one entire side, and her nose was seriously broken, misshapen and swelling. Her hair was floating wildly around her head, like a kabuki dancer's. She was barefoot, and her formerly white dress was filthy and stained with blood. He stepped out of the car, keeping it between her and him. The gun might just be jammed, still loaded. He called to her: "Special Agent Villanueva! Maria! I'm Agent Jerry Smalls--FBI! We've been looking for you! Please--put away your weapon!" She took notice of him only halfway through his greeting. She stopped walking, looked at him uncomprehendingly. Then she racked the slide home and drew a one-handed bead on him. Oh shit, he thought. Was it loaded? Even from this far away, the opening looked life a fucking train tunnel. Probably a .44 magnum. He doubted the intervening bulk of the car would do any good. "Agent Villanueva--please! You're making me nervous! I'm your friend!" "Who are you? How do you know my name?" Her voice was terrifying--this was one seriously pissed-off woman. The broken nose made her sound like she had a bad cold. "We both work for the FBI, Agent! I've been trying to find you! I'm glad to see you're all right!" He heard his voice shake. His balls were trying to crawl inside his abdomen. "Screw you! Show me your ID!" He began slowly reaching for his coat pocket, then stopped. Oh shit. He'd left his fake FBI badge in the hotel room. Ohhhhh _shit_! He took out his wallet and held it up, open. Maybe it would fool her. But those FBI badges were big, easy to distinguish, and they had special holders. "That's not an FBI ID! Who are you?" He couldn't believe it. He was going to die because he left his goddam fake ID in his other suit. "Uh, actually, I'm with the DIA." "The CIA?" He thought about going with that, but then decided he would take a new policy of honesty when faced with shell-shocked women armed with .44 magnums. "No, the Defense Intelligence Agency." "The _what_?" He sighed. If he had a nickel for every time someone said that.... "Uh, we coordinate--" "I know what you do! What are you doing here? Why did you say you were FBI?" "Uh--well, I lied." "No shit!" "Sorry." She made a noise--she could have been laughing or choking--then she collapsed in the road. He winced at the sound of her skull hitting the pavement. *** The gun had been empty. He had it on the seat beside him. She was in the back, on her side, shivering under a blanket. She needed a hospital. It would have to wait. But he knew she wouldn't have argued if she'd been awake. She was a tough one. She was perfect. He arrived at the bunker. The door was open, the truck still outside. He could feel it, the _thing_ inside. His guts were turning to water. Three billion years of evolution had programmed him to be more afraid of _this_ than anything else in the universe. And he was going to walk right in and try to kill it. Send it away. Whatever. "No." A harsh whisper from the back. "No, you can't." Volume rising. "No, what are you doing?" Almost screaming now. He turned. She was rising and he took her shoulders and helped her up, making shushing sounds. "Calm down, Maria." She stopped, looked at his face. "I know you...." "Yeah, we've met. Anyway, I'm glad you're awake. See, I've got to go in there." His words were matter-of-fact, but his voice trembled. "But I wanted to ask you--did you shoot it? Did you hurt it?" "Wha--I, yes, I emptied the magazine into it. It--it screamed. I hurt it. But I couldn't kill it. I ran." "Obviously. Anyway, that's good news. If you can hurt it, I can kill it. Now, listen. This isn't the first time I've done something like this, but it is the first time without backup. So your job is this: if I don't come out, you get the hell out of here and call this number." He took out a card and wrote a phone number on it. His jaw was clenched so hard, it hurt. "You tell them everything--the truth. They'll decide what to do next. And they'll take care of you. Under no circumstances do you--" he swallowed, his throat dry, "do you go in after me. Got it?" "I can--give me a gun, I can back you up." Her voice was slurred, dreamy. The Tex-Mex border accent was stronger than it had been in years. He was half in love with her already. "No fucking way. Frankly, condition you're in, I don't want you behind me with a loaded weapon. And someone needs to get the report out if things go bad." Talking like a tough guy helped him ignore how terrified he was. He got a tube out of the glove compartment. It was made of twisted, blown glass, which caught and reflected colors in a way that was subtly unsettling. Inside, it contained a chalky white powder. Each end was stopped with a cork. "What's that?" "It's uh--well, I don't know. But the reason you couldn't kill that thing in there is that it's only partly in our world. I think. If that's right, then this stuff will make it vulnerable, for a short time. If it doesn't, call that phone number." He opened the trunk and got out a heavy satchel. He didn't explain that it was full of plastique. If he talked any more, he might stay outside until nightfall. Not a good idea. He went in. She dragged herself into the driver's seat, started the engine. She waited. Every breath was pain--she thought she would black out again. The Child screamed, worse than ever. She gripped the wheel and gritted her teeth until she thought they would break. The man, Smalls, came running out. He almost fell, then vomited. He straightened and ran at the car. "Move over!" Tough guy--just had to be the driver. She moved. They sped out to the gravel road. After half a minute of fast driving, he stopped the car. Checked his watch. The plastique blew right on time. They listened, very quiet and still. The vibration was gone. *** Later, he visited her in the hospital. He had flowers. Her nose was taped up; it felt like a potato sitting on her face. It should be a good conversation starter in the future. She had a chipped front tooth that would need a cap, and she'd have a couple of interesting scars. The pain killers let her breathe. "I've contacted my people. They're cleaning it up, giving you a cover story so you don't have to explain the whole truth to your superiors. We'll go over it before you make your report, so the stories match. Most important thing: I wasn't here." "Who are your people?" "Well." He put the flowers in a vase. "We're from different agencies in the whole alphabet soup mix. We've seen things, like what you saw. We know there's some unimaginably weird shit out there. We call these things the Outsiders. We don$B!G(Bt know what they are--just that they're bad. We have theories, but that's all. We cooperate, running around, putting out fires." "Unsanctioned?" "Yeah." "Fucking cowboy ops. You sure you're not CIA?" Her voice was tight. "They're all cowboy ops these days. Psychotic operas. We _were_ sanctioned once. Something happened in '69, and we got disbanded. A few of us, true believers, stuck with it. All on the QT, of course. We're fragmented, no resources to speak of, no coordination. Flailing about like idiots. But sometimes we stop something, like today." She stared at the wall. "Did you get me that assignment, undercover?" "Not me. A friend. I know--it almost got you killed. Or worse. But it was necessary. You know that better than anyone. And I think you'd do it again." She shuddered, and didn't answer. "We're like a family. The most dysfunctional family there is, I guess, but once you've looked at the Outside, it changes you, and you find out that nobody else understands you. It's a common bond that's stronger than blood or love." She closed her eyes, trying not to hear. "You know I'm right, Villanueva. I've read your reports. This is not your first time, is it? You've been living with it for ten years, no one to talk to--" "Shut up!" They were quiet for nearly ten minutes. Smalls checked his watch--he'd have to leave soon, to avoid the FBI debrief team. Maria said, "OK, I'm in." Smalls took both her hands in his. She turned to look in his eyes. He said, "You always were." (end of Chapter 4) From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Crossingham, Adam [Adam.Crossingham@Octavian1009.E-MAIL.COM] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 8:08 AM To: 'dgrpg@delta-green.com' Subject: DG: RE: Trail of the Lloigor Honourable Correspondent Davide Mana enquires: <<< I'm trying to track down all the available sources of info about the Lloigor. > And I'm trying to do this fast (I've a deadline to meet - cheers, Adam!) > >>> > Try this: http://www.necropress.com/wfrl/mythosdb/mythos.cgi It's a mythos database - it's a start.... HTH ObTBS: Shhhhh! Need to know old chap, need to know - these people don't, right now.... -- Adam Crossingham War in English = Wanting more cows in Sanskrit Home e-mail: tigger@the-wolery.demon.co.uk Any opinions expressed in this email are those of the individual From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Crossingham, Adam [Adam.Crossingham@Octavian1009.E-MAIL.COM] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 9:08 AM To: 'dgrpg@delta-green.com' Subject: DG: RE: Trail of the Lloigor...extra > Davide Mana follows the trail: > <<< Anyway, I've tracked down references in various Chaosium supplements, to wit > Tales of the Miskatonic Valley > No man's land > Mystery of Loch Feinn in CoC 4th >>> > Forgot to add there's also a scenario set around Trieste (I think) in the 'Horror on the Orient Express' campaign pack that features the Lloigor. -- Adam Crossingham War in English = Wanting more cows in Sanskrit Home e-mail: tigger@the-wolery.demon.co.uk Any opinions expressed in this email are those of the individual From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Richard Pace [rpace@idirect.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 12:30 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Alternity / Dark Matter / Wizards of the Coast News "David.Clements" wrote: > Stalman and Raymond should sue them for defamation! This is already a well-beaten dead horse on the newsgroups. There are two different aspects here - the D20 license AND the Open Gaming License. The D20 license is essentially for producing D&D supplemental material without paying for use of a WotC trademark and immediately removing the threat of WotC attempting (rightly or wrongly) to shut down what they perceive as an infringement on their system trademarks. The OGL is Open -- though only open in comparison to SOME approved OS licenses and not to the original Open Source ideal. Dominion Games is striving for a true Open system while WotC is taking a baby step with this. Much of the confusion stems from the unfocused and meandering interview Ryan Dancey gave at a D&D3E site and much WotC bashing that followed. More information is readily available at http://www.opengamingfoundation.org And there's likely to be even more interesting things happening after this weeks GAMA meeting. Richard -- I've added over twenty more images of my artwork to my gallery for your viewing pleasure! - http://webhome.idirect.com/~rpace/ From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Graeme Price [graemep@immagene.mcg.edu] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 9:41 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: DG Fiction Paul (welcome, Paul!) wrote: >Keep up the good work and if there are any DG fans in the UK on this list >let me know. Oops. That's done it! There are indeed several UK based DG-ers on the list (I semi-include myself in this category, despite my current peculiar circumstances...) and they're usually pretty vocal. Funnily enough they've been quiet lately. Too quiet. C'mon guys, say something. Don't make me come back over there with Mr. Rusty.... Later Graeme graemep@immag.mcg.edu From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Abel Lindburg [abel_123@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 9:44 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Alternity / Dark Matter / Wizards of the Coast News Thank you for insight. You obviously feel very strongly about diversity amongst game systems, which I think is part of what makes gaming so interesting. I do find the idea of the Wizards of the Coast making this open system the only game system in town laughable. I also find it amusing that such a desire is considered 'scary'. I also note with wry amusement that I am refusing to see a threat, and yet I vastly enjoy playing dark conspiracy games. hmmm. GURPS has been working for a long time to be *the* system. CORPS has tried to be a generic system as well, however CORPS freely admits it does not work well with 4-color superhero genres. Also, it doesn't have a concept of 'mental balance' (ala Kult) or 'sanity' ala CoC, though it *tries* to offer some solutions which didn't work *for me*. So you add your own custom rules to make sanity work in your generic environment. Now its no longer generic. In my opinion, this is what causes some problems with GURPS -- there is so much tweaking to make it fit into niche genres that when these characters and rules are pulled back into the 'core', the system becomes unwieldly. CORPS, which doesn't have 6 billion resources, doesn't have this problem *yet*. I don't think the system is immune to the same problem. On a side note, I also enjoy both systems, but use CoC and DG rules when playing CoC and DG. Though I must confess to being a system freak, and enjoy playing with system X,Y, and Z to see what can be done with them. By the way, I've got a question: How does the relationship between Wizards and any source publisher compare with the relationship between Chaosium and Pagan Publishing or other source publishers? Maybe I've been in this too long. First, TSR was going to take over the gaming world. Then TSR proved it couldn't balance a checkbook (okay, this might not exactly be true, but the end result is the world was safe from TSR) Disney is out to get us, as is Microsoft. Perhaps I'm all conspiracied out. Perhaps I've made my sanity roll, and mentally blocked the horror around me. Maybe I tweak systems so much, that when I don't have a system I don't like, I do my own. Though I got to try Judge Dredd a while back, and thought it was pretty keen, only to be bummed that I could not get the system. But I digress. Abel "The Price of Freedom is now payable by Visa and Mastercard" Lindburg From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of John Stanley [nytmair@yahoo.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 9:45 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Fiction: ANGEL 4b Just an awesome story, cannot wait until chapter 5!!!!! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jonathan Turner [j.turner@irishnews.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 9:52 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: LLWs Saw a documentary on Discovery last weekend about Less than Lethal weapons. Please bear in mind that there was no date on this show, so it could be a few years old and hence old news to youse guys. There was a show on about the occult history of the Third Reich recently, for example, which I first saw back in 1991... Anyway... while the footage in this LLW show of rioting prisoners getting sting-balled was highly entertaining (they tend to jump in the air like frightened rabbits, then lie on the floor pleading for clemency) the most DG-related subject was sonics. The main company behind this development for the US military is SARA, Inc in California. They have two major designs, one of which is based on a very high speed internal combustion engine. The fuel is injected into a chamber and ignited with a spark plug, the reaction powering a turbine. The turbine creates a sonic wave at a frequency which creates ``bodily discomfort'' - ie nausea and uncontrollable vomiting. So the cops are still gonna need water cannons! The most interesting, but very brief footage, was of three US soldiers in combat gear with a sonic weapon mounted on a tripod. It looked very similar to a Mark-19 automatic grenade launcher, BTW, but the tripod was at waist height. That might suggest field trials... I recall talking to a American I met in Bosnia who told me his brother had been in the 101st or 82nd airborne in Panama. He reckoned it had been used as a testing ground for new technology. In one building they found a car, sliced neatly up the middle, with the passengers dead from surface burns. He thought it was a laser weapon of some kind... Anyway, some of us in the UK have been discussing the merits of nervewhips. Perhaps we aren't that far off something similar here. While sonics cause nausea obviously because they act on the inner ear, what if something was developed to disrupt the electrical activity of certain portions of the brain? Blindness, hallucinations, interrupted respiration. You name it. Any thoughts? Jonathan From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Crossingham, Adam [Adam.Crossingham@Octavian1009.E-MAIL.COM] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 9:45 AM To: 'dgrpg@delta-green.com' Subject: RE: DG: DG Fiction Graeme Price orders the resident Brits: <<< Too quiet. C'mon guys, say something. Don't make me come > back over there with Mr. Rusty.... >>> > [Quiet voice] "Errr..." [Cough!] "Here." -- Adam Crossingham War in English = Wanting more cows in Sanskrit Home e-mail: tigger@the-wolery.demon.co.uk Any opinions expressed in this email are those of the individual From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jonathan Turner [j.turner@irishnews.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 9:55 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: DG Fiction At 10:41 AM 3/21/00 -0500, you wrote: C'mon guys, say something. Don't make me come >back over there with Mr. Rusty.... > Personally, I thought I'd been yadda-yadda-yaddaing like mad... Jonathan From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of box_nine@ix.netcom.com Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 10:03 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Trail of the Lloigor Davide wrote: >No wonder the Pagan gentlemen did away with the things in DG. And brought 'em back in MORTAL COILS The single best scenario I've seen with lloigor is the title adventure from SACRAMENTS OF EVIL, by Fred Behrendts. As you note, most adventures seem content to drop a lloigor in, add local legends of dragons, and that's it. Pagan has the lloigor grow tentacles on a few cultists and that's about it. If you can't do something interesting with a race of fatalistic energy vortices that can use TK, set off explosions, and suck POW like nobody's business, you're not trying, IMHO. Interesting bits from Wilson's story: - They're from Andromeda - They ruled the Earth before mankind, and mankind was their slaves (yeah, I know, take a number) - They thrive in areas of 'negative energy' (never really explained, beyond some pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo about 'uphill processes'), which explains why they've been largely dormant unless they're sucking the POW from local gentry - They seem to be akin to Ghatanothoa - They're all over the planet (Wales, Ceylon, and Rhode Island are the locations I recall being mentioned) - They have a united consciousness (no subconscious for them), which means they have an unblinking, pessimistic and fatalistic view of the universe - They seem to have a plan to...RULE THE WORLD SACRAMENTS adds the fact that some especially unpleasant lloigor ruled as the Dragon Kings in England, and the idea that the lattice structures of a particular type of clay make nice residences for them. I'll double-check the details when I get home. Some quick seeds for speculation: - Negative energy? Given the ultimate triumph of entropy, one has to suspect a link to Hastur-as-portrayed-in-COUNTDOWN - What's the connection between Lloigor (the Derleth entity) and the lloigor? - The Shan (at least some of them) want to destroy the Earth. The lloigor might have other ideas. - Connections with the Colour out of Space, if any? The only clue I recall offhand as to the origins of the Colour is that the specimen in Lovecraft's story shoots off in the direction of Deneb Steven From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jonathan Turner [j.turner@irishnews.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 10:10 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Unconvention This may be slightly off-topic, but probably isn't. Are any UK DG-ers - or indeed those from further afield - planning on going to the Fortean Times Unconvention next month? Jonathan From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jonathan Turner [j.turner@irishnews.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 10:12 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Trail of the Lloigor Sorry for not reading all the posts in this thread, but it just struck me that No Man's Land is a pretty good Lloiger scenario. It might be set in WWI, but it has some pretty good ideas in it. JT From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Mintarr@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 10:29 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Alternity / Dark Matter / Wizards of the Coast News > People should protest in the streets of Seattle against such an idea. > > The article can also be read as an exercise in selective editing of the > facts (file under Disinformation), when the gentleman gives a quick review > of the gaming industry and its standards. > Go and judge for yourself. > I found the whole a quite a bit scary. Okay, lurker speaking up here. Obviously protests in the streets of Seattle are somewhat out of the question (besides, looters would ruin it for us anyway). However, perhaps we as a mailing list could issue a group statement of protest to WotC? Nominate someone to write it up, append the rest of our names to it to show that its not just one person. And of course, mail it to them (email is too easily ignored by companies). Preferably, mail it to several of their executives. Opinions? Joel From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Davide Mana [doctor.dee@libero.it] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 10:24 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Alternity / Dark Matter / Wizards of the Coast News Greetings. I'll keep this one short as I fear the dread OT mark of infamy. Abel wrote >Thank you for insight. You obviously feel very strongly about diversity >amongst game systems, which I think is part of what makes gaming so >interesting. I do find the idea of the Wizards of the Coast making this open >system the only game system in town laughable. I also find it amusing that >such a desire is considered 'scary'. What's scary (for me) is the possible effects that such tactics could have on the market and the gaming scene, independently of the success of the ploy. I too doubt they'll ever make it and become the owners of Roleplaying. But this kind of approach - carried out for a while, before they decide that 'the market response was not....' etc - could strangle small companies. Maybe we do not give a damn about, what....? Hogshead? Guardians of the Order? Ronin? Anyway, it would be bad for the small ones (IMHO and all that) to be killed by a simple, purposeful market manipulation. They might have something good for someone. There is good in variety. I guess the WotC flavour of Open Licence could also help killing fan resources, web-based or otherwise. Why set up a site about my Vietnam-era DG campaign if I can sell the stuff and make a buck as long as I make it D20 compliat? You can buy a copy and convert it back to Basic Roleplaying. This could bring a growth in the quality of the material (wishful thinking - even today we pay big bucks for crap quite often), but would also severely reduce its circulation. Sorry if I talk shop, but in my experience superpredators usually end up damaging their ecosystem so much they starve to death. They do not need to be successful, they just need to try hard enough. Here I stop my second paranoid rant of the day and go setting up the Feng Shui game for tonight. Cheers! Davide Mana Torino, Italy doctor.dee@libero.it The Ice Cave - http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/leiber/50/ice_cave.htm From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jonathan Turner [j.turner@irishnews.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 10:36 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Alternity / Dark Matter / Wizards of the Coast News At 11:29 AM 3/21/00 EST, you wrote: >Okay, lurker speaking up here. Obviously protests in the streets of Seattle >are somewhat out of the question (besides, looters would ruin it for us >anyway). However, perhaps we as a mailing list could issue a group statement >of protest to WotC? Nominate someone to write it up, append the rest of our >names to it to show that its not just one person. And of course, mail it to >them (email is too easily ignored by companies). Preferably, mail it to >several of their executives. Opinions? > Nahhhh... just call ANDREA. A letter is just going to ridiculed round the office and then binned. JT From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jonathan Turner [j.turner@irishnews.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 10:44 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Aurora latest Bits and bobs on everyone's favourite flying black triangle http://space.com/spaceimagined/area51/shadowcraft_mystery_000317.html From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jonathan Turner [j.turner@irishnews.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 10:43 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: DG: Bloody Tongue Update on the Ugandan death cult. Apparently the authorities are now hunting down the rest of them. Death toll includes 78 children. How come nobody ever gets these nutters before the wheels come off? http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/africa/03/20/uganda.cult.03/index.html From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of David.Clements [David.Clements@astro.cf.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 10:37 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Unconvention On Tue, 21 Mar 2000, Jonathan Turner wrote: > This may be slightly off-topic, but probably isn't. Are any UK DG-ers - or > indeed those from further afield - planning on going to the Fortean Times > Unconvention next month? And another UKer (Hi!) might ask the matching question - anybody going to the UK National SF Convention (Eastercon) next month? Dave From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Jonathan Turner [j.turner@irishnews.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 10:47 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Unconvention At 04:37 PM 3/21/00 +0000, you wrote: > >And another UKer (Hi!) might ask the matching question - anybody going to >the UK National SF Convention (Eastercon) next month? Nope, sorry. Should we break out the tea and macaroons for the UK folk? LOL JT From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Daniel Harms [dmharms@acsu.buffalo.edu] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 11:24 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Alternity / Dark Matter / Wizards of the Coast News At 10:30 AM 3/21/2000 -0800, you wrote: >This is already a well-beaten dead horse on the newsgroups. >There are two different aspects here - the D20 license AND the Open Gaming >License. >The D20 license is essentially for producing D&D supplemental material >without paying for use of a WotC trademark and immediately removing the >threat of WotC attempting (rightly or wrongly) to shut down what they >perceive as an infringement on their system trademarks. >The OGL is Open -- though only open in comparison to SOME approved OS >licenses and not to the original Open Source ideal. Dominion Games is striving >for a true Open system while WotC is taking a baby step with this. Perhaps this is a good point - though whether the Open Gaming License is widely used for anything more than the d20 system remains to be seen. >Much of the confusion stems from the unfocused and meandering interview >Ryan Dancey gave at a D&D3E site and much WotC bashing that followed. Only problem with your thesis is this - that unfocused and meandering interview is pretty much all we've got, aside from the licenses themselves, and is the only insight into the rationale behind them. If TSR is getting flak for what TSR's head said, then it's their own fault. Take the following: "The logical conclusion says that reducing the "cost" to other people to publishing and supporting the core D&D game to zero should eventually drive support for all other game systems to the lowest level possible in the market, create customer resistance to the introduction of new systems, and the result of all that "support" redirected to the D&D game will be to steadily increase the number of people who play D&D, thus driving sales of the core books." If anyone can give me a different interpretation of what it means to "drive support for all other game systems to the lowest level possible in the market" other than "bankrupting all other systems but AD&D", I'd like to hear it. Frankly, I can't decide whether to be furious with TSR, or wonder if I should try to sell them an Orbital Mind-Control Laser. Yrs., Daniel Harms dmharms@acsu.buffalo.edu The Internet: Learn what you know. Share what you don't. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Robert Thomas [ThomasR@Cardiff.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 11:52 AM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: Alternity / Dark Matter / Wizards of the Coast News Hello All, > If anyone can give me a different interpretation of what it means to > "drive support for all other game systems to the lowest level possible > in the market" other than "bankrupting all other systems but AD&D", > I'd like to hear it. sounds like the old "we had to destroy the village to save it route." > Frankly, I can't decide whether to be furious with TSR, or wonder if I > should try to sell them an Orbital Mind-Control Laser. still it would in effect make anyone who didn't go along and carried on using alternative game mechanics the "rebels" maybe we'd even get organised into cells or something :-) Rob "Roll on the wandering monster table" YAWN. From: owner-dgrpg@delta-green.com on behalf of Robert Thomas [ThomasR@Cardiff.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 12:02 PM To: dgrpg@delta-green.com Subject: Re: DG: DG Fiction Hello Paul and all, > Paul (welcome, Paul!) wrote: > >Keep up the good work and if there are any DG fans in the UK on this > >list let me know. UK here as well. MiB how's the FAQ is coming along given that we seem to be getting new members at a very quick rate at present. > enough they've been quiet lately. Too quiet. C'mon guys, say > something. Don't make me come back over there with Mr. Rusty.... Yopu need to get yourself written up as an NPC paul thats one of the membership of the list requirements :-) see the cave: http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/leiber/50/ice_cave.htm the DGML NPC depot. later Rob. J.R.E.Thomas. ThomasR@cardiff.ac.uk Our kind. Us people. All of us that started the game with a crooked cue, that wanted so much and got so little, that meant so good and did so bad. Jim Thompson 'The Killer Inside Me' http://n.ethz.ch/student/hankef/DeltaGreen/tshirt.htm