From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of talaphid [isa@zerg.com] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 5:20 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] envisioning colors out of space >> I pictured a sort of vaporous 3-dimensional blank. I figure the brain won't >>settle for nothing and will tend to insert white or gray to fill in that >>visual vacuum. If the color of the colour is one that is not in the visual >>spectrum, the brain will add false color to supply something for the mind to >>wrap around it. >OR: how about that you cant see it, rather you see the abscence of space - you >see a blob where the reality around has been stretched to cover the space where >the COOS is. So where theres a sense of "widescreen stretch" in real life, thats >where the baestie is. Its not that it actually ripples space, rather its the >human brain smudging perception to allow acknowledgement of the endity. No no no no no no no no. The story is told from an individuals point of view, and clearly, he has grasped it. It is a colour, not a transformation effect, and it is simply so alien to his experience that there are no words in his 1920s experience to convey its colourness to us, but it unsettled him for its eerieness. But if your heart is set on the widescreen stretch effect monster, just coin your own colour out of dimension. oh, wait, I just did. HAHA. /me copywrites that, suckah. =p [which is where my neon green remarks come from, go to los vegas some time and you'll think you're amid aliens too] _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Davide Mana [doctor.dee@libero.it] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 4:35 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Book Recommendation Greetings. >I just want to recommend a couple of good fantasy books with a liberal >sprinkling of the Mythos in them : > >"The Shadow of Ararat" and "The Gate of Fire" by Thomas Harlan. > >They are part 1 and 2 in a book-series called "Oath of the Empire". Got the first, read it. Great literature it's not, but it keeps decently afloat thanks to the sheer amount of weird ideas this guy Harlan throws in. All in all, good fun. I liked it enough to use the background information to set a short but highly ballistic campaign using RuneQuest. Finally a good excuse to use the lame European setting of the AvalonHill box! Cheers! Davide Mana Torino, Italy _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Davide Mana [doctor.dee@libero.it] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 4:27 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Dreaded D69 Greetings. Andrew asked >What is the dreaded D69 ? > >Is this yet another bizarly sided die for my >collection to join my D7? D69 - roll one six sided die for tens and a ten-sided die for units. This gives you a range going from 11 to 69, which we found expedient to random generate percentual human stats in our game system. Checks were still done on a D100, with possible bonuses to increase your chances of success above the natural maximum of 69%. Straightforward it was not, which might be one of the reasons we fell back to more standard systems. So, yes, you already have a D69 in your collection. Now, how did you find a D7? Davide Mana Torino, Italy _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Nick Brownlow [stabernide@netscape.net] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 6:43 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: Re: [DG] envisioning colors out of space <> This doesn't sound right to me, simply because what's described in the story isn't white or grey, or some inbetweeny, constantly shifting sort of thing - 'the Colour' is an actual colour - it strikes everybody who sees it as a wholly alien and unnatural colour. Nothing else. Modern thinking on perception tells us such a thing is impossible - that human beings can't experience colour from outside the visual spectrum. The eye simply isn't made in a way that allows it. The Colour should be invisible. This isn't, however, the case, so obviously people who claim to have seen the Colour have been changed in some way. The Colour could be capable of using light as a vector for infection. People who look at the Colour become infected and subsequently 'mutated' - making them capable of seeing the alien. An autopsy on a victim of the Colour should show up a set of extra cones in the victim's retina - perhaps softly glowing with a certain unnatural hue... And just for the record, I've always seen the Colour in my mind's eye as being a dirty yellow. __________________________________________________________________ Your favorite stores, helpful shopping tools and great gift ideas. Experience the convenience of buying online with Shop@Netscape! http://shopnow.netscape.com/ Get your own FREE, personal Netscape Mail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com/ _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andrew James [andrew_jamesdg@yahoo.co.uk] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 7:10 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] Re:Dreaded D69 Davide Mana asked : > Now, how did you find a D7? This is probably of topic .. but politness says i must answer this question. About 4 years ago at GenCon UK (at Loughborough), I had just finished running a very bad Shadowrun Tournament (this adventure was an Astral Quest that should have taken about 4 hours to run, it only took an Hour and a half to run, and that was withh adding an extra scene involving an Aztechnology Assualt Squad, another indication that this was a bad adventure was the 'heated' discussion between the writer of the tournament and one of the DM's that almost resulted in the writer being punched). I was heading back and found a bag of dice lying on the ground after checking the bag to see if there were any identifying marks on it, there wasn't so I handed it in to the RPGA desk, by the end of the convention they hadn't been claimed and so were given to me. When I went through the dice I found a D7 in there. If I get chance I will photobraph said Die, scan it in and email the picutre to you off list Nuge - Sorry I am already sharing the room with someone :( Andrew ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Jon Ward, Aardvark of Fnord [wardjr@aston.ac.uk] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 7:18 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: Re: [DG] envisioning colors out of space I always saw the Colo[u]r to be somewhere between iridescent and interference. Those of you who do DIY may have come across something called "Interference Media". Those of you who did physics A level may have done those calculations which explain how bubbles and oil on water have shifting colours. Of course, those beautiful "blue" morpho butterflies which are actually grey under a microscope are the same. For a better treatment of the subject than I could give, see: http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolors/15.html Anyway, that's how I always saw the Colo[u]r - an interference-like opalesence moving across the surface of things, so you could still see the colours beneath. Of course, when it left, everything was grey, just like the Morpho close up. Jon -- Jonathan Ward || School of Engineering || Aston University || j.r.ward@aston.ac.uk || _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of David A. Farnell [1639556911@jcom.home.ne.jp] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 7:32 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: Re: [DG] envisioning colors out of space From: "Nick Brownlow" >>> Modern thinking on perception tells us such a thing is impossible - that human beings can't experience colour from outside the visual spectrum. The eye simply isn't made in a way that allows it. The Colour should be invisible. <<< One thing I thought of the last time I read it was, what if the witnesses aren't really seeing it with their eyes? Maybe the perception of the Colour is received along a non-visual path (touch, from some kind of vibration? or even a dormant 6th sense?), but expressed in the visual cortex due to a kind of synaesthesia--bad wiring, in other words. >>> An autopsy on a victim of the Colour should show up a set of extra cones in the victim's retina - perhaps softly glowing with a certain unnatural hue... <<< Cool idea, but I wouldn't completely rule out the chance that we've already got these non-working cones. Remember the new type of taste bud that was "discovered" a year or two back (Asian cooks, and some scientists, had known about it for much longer). Maybe it's a leftover from our K'n-Yanni cousins. >>> And just for the record, I've always seen the Colour in my mind's eye as being a dirty yellow. <<< Same here! (Must be all that Chambers I read.) And I agree with Nervy--by using the British spelling, HPL added a tiny additional frisson of *otherness* for American readers. (Not that I think that was his purpose--he just like to spell like a Brit.) I can't help it--when I read "colour" it comes out with a British accent. Sadly, I doubt anyone but an American can experience that effect. Dave getting back to work now _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Jon Capps [jon@monster-net.com] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 8:39 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] envisioning colors out of space talaphid wrote: > In our (blah) scientific view, we have 3 primary colours, 3 secondary > colours which are blends, and blah blah blah, go to art or > physics classes. > In Lovecraft's time, we have red, blue, green, orange, purple, > (et cet), but > why the hell not something alien too? No bands of frequency sort of > determining that, hup, we're out of colours. That's more or less what I'm advocating, but we don't *need* mutated rods or cones or whatever to see these alien colors. T-radiation stimulates some part of the 90% of the brain humans don't use, which deals with interpreting data from the optic nerve. The brain had been throwing out the part of the signal that dealt with EM spectra outside of visible light, but which the eyes still picked up. But now it recognizes at least some of the 'noise' as new, useable signal. This doesn't give the affected person a false-color vision; the newly-realised visible spectrum is not compressed and shifted into the existing range of colors. Instead, *new* primary colors are discovered within the new range of visibility, wholly alien to us because we have had no prior experience with it. The best example I can think of is the Star Trek: TNG episode (Oh, deity, I hope I'm remembering this correctly) in which Geordi's visor is patched into the viewscreen. We see a jumble of information, and Picard asks him how he can interpret that and come up with meaningful data. Geordi's response is that he sees each band of the EM spectrum differently, so for him there are no conflicting signals. In order for the viewscreen to interpret what Geordi's visor picks up for everybody else, it had to convert each band into a false-color image, and overlay them, so they're interfering with each other. Geordi can't explain to Picard how he truly sees EM outside of visible light because Picard has no point of reference. Seeing a color out of space, or any T-rad field effect, is a little like being able to see like Geordi does. It wigs people out because they have no reference point for the experience. Jon Capps. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Khorne [khorne@cyberlink.bc.ca] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 12:06 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] envisioning colors out of space "...the 90% of the brain humans don't use..." Actually, Jon, I heard that this was an urban legend. According to my sources, we actually do use all of our brains, or an awful lot of it. Looking at the White House, I'm not sure what its getting used for, but there you are. ">This doesn't give the affected person a false-color vision; the >newly-realised visible spectrum is not compressed and shifted into the >existing range of colors. Instead, *new* primary colors are discovered >within the new range of visibility, wholly alien to us..." This is the take I've always had. The reason the color is so alien (beyond being a life form that IS a color; my head has been hurting ever since I read that one) is because we don't ever see anything this color. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Khorne [khorne@cyberlink.bc.ca] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 11:46 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] envisioning colors out of space >The story is told from an individuals point of view, and clearly, he has >grasped it. It is a colour, not a transformation effect, and it is simply so >alien to his experience that there are no words in his 1920s experience to >convey its colourness to us, but it unsettled him for its eerieness. So then there ARE words or means of description in the 1990s/ 2000s lexicon to describe a color? I don't think we've progressed that much. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Khorne [khorne@cyberlink.bc.ca] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 11:51 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] envisioning colors out of space ">>Uhm, thanks. Wow. I feel very small now. >Why's that?" Its a very big, over whelming bit you posted. Kinda made me feel little and insignificant.. >No, the fetid air would be the occurances in the text, not the colour >itself. Isn't the passage of the color said to be like the rush of fetid air? Maybe I've got the exact words wrong, but I know there's a similar description in there. >As for "concieved", I think you're cheating with that. The mind can grasp >it -- the investigators most assuredly do -- but you and I are unable to. We can -- we possess the >ability -- but we cannot -- we lack the necessary circumstance to perform >the ability. So basially, we cannot speak about the color because we did not experience the color, then? >As for visualization aide, you can always do a metaphor. Colour is to > as Person is to Al Gore. Now come on. We must give credit where credit is due: Al Gore represents the height of the craft coming out of the Disney animatronics studio. When Walt Disney died, he said "Make me a President", but all he got was a VP. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Khorne [khorne@cyberlink.bc.ca] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 11:44 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] envisioning colors out of space >OR: how about that you cant see it, rather you see the abscence of space - you >see a blob where the reality around has been stretched to cover the space where >the COOS is. So where theres a sense of "widescreen stretch" in real life, thats >where the baestie is. Its not that it actually ripples space, rather its the >human brain smudging perception to allow acknowledgement of the endity. The story "The Color Out of Space" is rather specific that the Color is a visible something, not a heat ripple on reality. I try not to jump too far from the published description. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Khorne [khorne@cyberlink.bc.ca] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 11:59 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: Re: [DG] envisioning colors out of space Maybe colors are perceived using portions of our brain that are normally inactive? There's one of Lovecraft's lesser known stories called "From Beyond". The protagonist invents a machine that energizes certain sections of the human brain and allows the perception of the weirdness around us via eyesight. I've always taken it that the color of the color out of space is a color that has to be perceived using these normally dormant portions of our sensory organs. Perhaps the color IS in the spectrum, but represents such a small part of it (along the lines of the red band of the spectrum being "wider" than the yellow band) that, when combined with the normally dormant portions of our brains, we don't see it. This has to be the best way to mess with people's heads yet: "The colors are every where, man!" Imagine discovering that part of you is a color, and always has been. The creatures described in "the Color Out of Space" are simply beings entirely colored that color, instead of only the tiniest part, as is the case with the sort of mundane life that includes our humble selves. ">And just for the record, I've always seen the Colour in my mind's eye as being a dirty yellow." Sounds good. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Marc J Cassell [nekonube2k@juno.com] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 1:03 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] envisioning colors out of space On Fri, 17 Aug 2001 01:50:56 -0400 "talaphid" writes: > In our (blah) scientific view, we have 3 primary colours, 3 > secondary > colours which are blends, and blah blah blah, go to art or physics > classes. > In Lovecraft's time, we have red, blue, green, orange, purple, (et > cet), but > why the hell not something alien too? No bands of frequency sort of > determining that, hup, we're out of colours. Of course, the whole > perception > of colour has to do with ... forgive me.. cones or rods.. I think > it's > cones.... so perhaps a mutation, and there's poof, more colours. But > anyway... Ok sow we have a definite colour that we can prove can not be seen using our standard EM spectrum. They way I take this is that we must be perceiving an EM band or the like from another domain. (see the Domain physics stuff in the cave) If your doing this right the investigators should get to nosy for there own good and start to wonder why the hell humans (could be not all humans) can detect an EM band from another domain. Then you have the odd collector approach them offering knowledge of a tomb that could solve some of those mysteries. When Alzis shows up shortly afterwards telling them to drop the whole mess, and to ignore the old kook, they should realize that they are pawns between a rock and a hard place with no way out. Watch them squirm. Also since we have accounts that the colour is sentient, at least to a point, what would happen if some research lab was playing with trans-domain physics and was able to make a device that was able to project a line of those unearthly colours? Would the colour's themselves slowly become sentient and begin to prey on the lab staff. Right now your thinking but only MJ, or another super baddie, would have the tech and resources to do something that stupid. Use "The Dreams in the Witchhouse" for inspiration, just an amazing grad student doing some work in the labs after hours, on his own pet project. You get the idea. Iceweb ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Jon Capps [jcapps@monster-net.com] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 9:24 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] Comic book reality and DG The Lizard King wrote: > As the > Endtimes approach, the rules of Reality start getting a bit loosey-goosey > and someone who would usually become the head of a Mythos cult becomes an > archvillain. Normal methodology would be useless as he would carry his > reality about with him, he'd live by comic rules. His head would become > larger in proportion to his body, his eyes bigger, more dominant on his > face. The gloating monologue would become his mode of discourse and his > ingenuity would be, well, superhuman. Imagine the technological > and tactical > brilliance of Lex Luthor as the effects of Nyarlathotep worship. > Or perhaps > the signs of an avatar. If this guy existed, I don't see Alzis liking him at all. He'd be stepping all over Alzis's toes. So, of course, the PC's owe him a favor, and he sets them against this guy, possibly taking the role of the eccentric millionaire backer, supplying equipment/funds, grooming them into the RW superhero type. And, if they were'nt that familiar with Alzis before, things could get really interesting once revelations started being made. There are no good guys, and the party's not strong enough to be good guys on their own. The question boils down to which Bad Guy you'd rather deal with. That would be a fun little campaign, methinks ;) Jon Capps. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of CelticHound [celtichound@foobox.net] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 2:03 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] Those wacky Germans http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20010806/baddog.html [It's a pretty short article.] Here are couple selected quotes: 'Although they look different, dog "breeds" have no more scientific basis than do "races" among humans, said canine researcher James Serpell of the University of Pennsylvania.' and 'That is what happened in Germany, where 49 "foreign breeds" were targeted by the law after a series of highly publicized dog attacks, said Wagner. Local favorites, like German shepherds, were spared. The German law requires sterilization, expensive permits, muzzling, travel certificates and proof that the owner needs of a "dangerous" dog. Dogs must also pass a temperament test.' If I were a satirist, I'd make some comment about Germany expressing the same trait that did for the Jews in WWII. obDG: so why do they do this? -- CH _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of CelticHound [celtichound@foobox.net] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 2:30 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] Aging Universe May Change Laws of Nature http://dsc.discovery.com/news/reu/20010813/universe.html A team of international researchers has made a discovery that might force scientists to rewrite everything they know about physics - that the basic laws of nature may be changing as the universe gets older. -- CH _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Rayburn, Russell E. [RERayburn@cmhmetro.net] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 3:47 PM To: 'deltagreen@revolutionsf.com' Subject: RE: [DG] Those wacky Germans Here's a thought: a) German cultists raise dogs with the help of Mothers Milk. b) German DG type org finds out, takes direct action. Records from the cultists kennel state they've sold some of the puppies to unsuspecting buyers (this assumes the changes from the Milk weren't of the grow-tentacle-and-second-mouth variety). c) To eliminate the ones that got away, entire breeds are either sterilized or euthanized. This assumes the cultists were only involved with some breads not simply mutts. --- http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20010806/baddog.html obDG: so why do they do this? _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of The Lizard King [lizardrex@charter.net] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 7:47 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Those wacky Germans ----- Original Message ----- From: "CelticHound" > If I were a satirist, I'd make some comment about Germany expressing > the same trait that did for the Jews in WWII. First they came for the Pit Bulls. But I did not own a Pit Bull and so did nothing. Then they came for the Beagles. But I did not own a Beagle, and so did nothing. Then they came for the little yappy dogs, but no one besides the owner likes them. And so I did nothing. Then they came for me - and the cat (naturally) did nothing. Mark McFadden They keep messin' with the dogs and I'm gonna have to put the remote down and do somethin' about it. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Shane Ivey [shaneivey@earthlink.net] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 9:04 PM To: DGML Subject: [DG] [Godlike] Pagan plug at RevSF RevSF editor Jeff Quick hit GenCon and had some thoughts on Godlike, if you're interested... http://www.revolutionsf.com/article/227.html - Shane Ivey R E V O L U T I O N s f the revolution in sci-fi http://revolutionsf.com/ _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Greg Muir [gregmuir@adelphia.net] Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2001 4:15 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [KEO] TOME: House of Leaves (was Re: [DG] Too many test posts) > understanding > > his rantings." Bah. I know it ain't real but when the character in the > story > > says it ain't real then what's the bloody point in reading it? > > Yeah, and 'American Beauty' is narrated by a dead guy, so what > was all that > about, huh? > > And 'Rashomon.' What the fuck, can't those people get their > story straight? > > And what was up with the ending of 'Brazil?' It was all a dream? What a > rip-off! > > The sound of someone deliberately missing the point. Not having seen any of those movies, I cannot comment on how effective they were. Having read this book, though, I feel safe in saying that the author tried way too hard to be hip and post-modern in a fashion that was quite at odds with good writing. I've seen abstract art and it sucks. This book was abstract prose. I mean, literally. "Look, now I dribble only a sentence on this page. Now I write backwards and upside down on the following page. 2 pages of blanks! Random quotations of meaningless shit. Can you not see my genius?! I highlight in blue every occurance of the word 'house'. I have more footnotes than the annotated Lovecraft collection! Pay attention to how smart my brain is!" Feh. It's all just a bunch of meaningless crap. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Greg Muir [gregmuir@adelphia.net] Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2001 4:33 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] Book Recommendation > I just want to recommend a couple of good fantasy books with a liberal > sprinkling of the Mythos in them : > > "The Shadow of Ararat" and "The Gate of Fire" by Thomas Harlan. > > They are part 1 and 2 in a book-series called "Oath of the Empire". > > The Mythos do not take a central point in the books and none of the > Mythos Gods are used outright, but there have been Byakhees, a Dhole, > and a couple of hard-to-identify tentacled Things. Oh, and Essential > Salts resurrections , or at least a version of them ... > Not to be a wet blanket but I'd recommend you check the Amazon reviews of these novels, read the negative reviews, and see if the problems brought up there would be things you are annoyed with. While the individual scenes were well-written, character motivations were rather bizzare and the flow of action was at times illogical. I won't go into spoilers but this book, despite the immense promise of its premise, doesn't really deliver the goods. (talking from having read the first one only.) But for a good book recommendation, Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield. While posessing no explicit Mythos elements, this book still kicks total ass. Literary answer to Gladiator, doing it with Greeks rather than Romans, covering the Battle of Thermopylae. Great characterization, great writing, great book. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Greg Muir [gregmuir@adelphia.net] Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2001 4:33 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] Re: [KEO] TOME: House of Leaves > Greg, anybody who writes "Bah" is OK in my book. But see, this is part of > what got me going, really. Yes, the film isn't real (and that's not a > spoiler, BTW, folks--it's revealed very early on, even before we > learn what > the film is about), but it still, through Zampano's bizarre > writings, drives > Johnny mad (this is also revealed right near the beginning). I > can't really > talk about what Johnny keeps sensing behind himself because that > WOULD be a > spoiler, but that combined with other aspects of Johnny's madness tells me > that maybe the film IS real...but it's playing in Carcosa, not our world. Descents into madness are always cool, but it's simply the execution of the madness in this book that bugs me so. It just doesn't strike me as authentic because the writing style is so random and hopelessly pretentious in a slummy sort of way. For me this is a matter of opinion and I say this book just doesn't work. The most that can be done is a salvaging of the concepts here and there. If you want an example of highly trippy stuff, you should read Children of an Elder God, a twist on the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion where everything is given a fairly dark lovecraftian subtext. http://www.thekeep.org/~rpm/eva/coaeg.html > > Imagine a film (or play) that can drive you mad even though it doesn't > exist. And then you find the real thing. Perhaps it didn't even > exist until > people started looking for it. We've already got the King in Yellow. ;) > > Perhaps _The King in Yellow_ doesn't exist until you go mad trying to find > it. Same for the _Necronomicon_. You've got to get completely > obsessed with > it before it'll appear to you, like a blasphemous Grail. [Hey, maybe the > first symptom of that is you start writing your own Necronomicon or KiY. > Watch out Thom! ;-)] This idea is good and can be appropriated for some DG fun, I'm just not sure what is supposed to be going on in the novel itself. I picked it back up recently to see if I could actually finish it and halfway through it's worse than ever. There's a line between parody and excess. It's funny to see a page or two of scholarly analysis of a frightful documentary. After the 200th page of this sort of thing you begin to wonder where the hell the author is going with this. For some reason this is making me think of that band Eiffel 65. Ok, they use a weird voice modulator in their hit song. Ok, that's nice. Then you hear the album and find out that they use that same frickin' gimmick on every damn song. "No longer effective!" you feel like shouting. > > Anyway, this is what appealed to me. The process of _House of Leaves_ > transmuting from 1) experimental novel to 2) actual document about a > non-existent film to 3) document about a real film and then maybe to 4) > visiting the House is another possibility for the mix if a Keeper > is giving > her Players the "Road to Hali" treatment [see DG: Countdown, > "Hastur Mythos" > chapter]. Slowly going from "The movie isn't even real!" to "My God...it's > real!"--with the concommitant destruction of everything we know about > Reality--is where the horror comes in. > I agree. That's really cool. But is the novel going there? So far all I see is dumb. I wouldn't be so upset but for the fact I paid good money for this book that could have gone towards something better. > [Which also annoys the heck out of me, 'cause I was toying around with the > idea of a house with something quite similar about it--not the > same, but not > all that different--as something DG was investigating in a > side-plot of what > I'm writing. Oh well. Maybe I'll decide they were different > enough and still > use it. Assuming I ever finish the novel.] > Or the novel may finish you . . . death by confusion! _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of David A. Farnell [1639556911@jcom.home.ne.jp] Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2001 6:02 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: [KEO] TOME: House of Leaves From: "Greg Muir" > > Assuming I ever finish the novel.] > > > Or the novel may finish you . . . death by confusion! LOL--I meant *my* novel. Still, I guess the warning still applies. Hopefully it'll be less confusing for the reader than it has been for me writing it. Dave PS: I'm reading bits of _Unseen Masters_ now, having just received it. Bruce Ballon, if you're here: Damn good stuff! Thank you! _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of John Petherick [jpetheri@cyberbeach.net] Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2001 11:48 AM To: Delta Green List Subject: [DG] From the CDC First, anthrax in North Dakota. I know, not too exciting. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5032a1.htm Now, far more interesting, especially to the more prurient - botulism from eating improperly fermented beaver. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5032a2.htm ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ John Petherick, CIH ROH jpetheri@cyberbeach.net _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andrew James [andrew_jamesdg@yahoo.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2001 12:27 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] Re:The Black Seal OK, I'll try to get alongto the piss up, but I am on volunteer duty for the RPGA Satuday afternoon and evening, and running a Delta Green Tournament at 1am.. If I ever receive the adventure before I get to GenCon UK. Also as soon as I have the photgraph of the D7 in my computer I will post to this list and ask for anyone who wants me to email them a copyto email me off list and I will send it out as I dont have a web site I can post it onto. Andrew ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of ialdaloboth *genzundheit!* [ialdaloboth@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2001 3:55 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re:The Black Seal speaking of the black seal... are you guys having server problems? I've been trying to get past the front page, and the graphic won't load up... J. Edward _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Jerzy Cichocki [deepone@go2.pl] Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2001 4:09 PM To: talaphid Subject: Re[2]: [DG] More 'Nature' With Mythos Hints czwartek, 16 sierpnia 2001, Talaphid wrote: t> If I recall, Grandfather tells us about an arctic expedition t> that uncovers Cthulhuian entities ... [cut] t> significant climatic change 3 million years ago could be the t> the equivelent of the atomic event at the end of WW2, with the t> change in nature, scope, and circumstance, of course. Perhaps t> a city like that outlined in the story (you'll notice its name t> missing, surely someone here recalls it) is found... [cut] Did you know, that Antarctica was a tropical continent milions years ago? So any mythos cities was built in completely different conditions and races living there could died because of change of climate... George, Warsaw Poland _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Robert Thomas [jre.thomas@ntlworld.com] Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2001 7:55 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] Test Ignore Told you to ignore this _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Jason Middleton [jasonlotus@yahoo.com] Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2001 8:20 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] Armor? I have little doubt that this has been hashed out here repeatedly, but unfortunately, not while I was subscribed, and I can't find anything about it in the Ice Cave... What sort of armors do you allow your players (or, does your GM allow you), what real-world basis do those have, and what statistics do you assign to them? - Jason __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Gil Trevizo [furrylogic@mindspring.com] Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2001 9:10 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Armor? At 06:19 PM 8/19/2001 -0700, Jason Middleton wrote: >What sort of armors do you allow your players (or, does your GM allow you), >what real-world basis do those have, and what statistics do you assign to >them? This has been covered in The 1990's Handbook, but that book is thoroughly out-of-print, so I'll repeat the info. Some of it is outdated however (ie. Level III armor can be worn under regular clothes, though it still is not really concealable), but the stats should still be valid. Body armor is divided into Level I, II, III, and IV. There are grades within these levels (ie. the ever-popular IIA vests), but let's not get into that. It's armorfondling. Level I: 6 Armor Points, -5% to Climb, Dodge, Jump, Swim, Throw and all melee attacks & parries. Nobody really makes or wears "bulletproof" vests that are Level I. Don't take my word for it, but I would figure that some modern flak jackets are Level I. Spot Hidden is needed to notice the vest. Level II: 8 Armor Points, -10% to Climb, Dodge, Jump, Swim, Throw and all melee attacks & parries. This is the most common armor worn by police officers, and is still concealable. The 1990s Handbook doesn't say so, but I would say that IIA and II armor has gotten concealable enought that it would take a Spot Hidden to notice a tailored vest on any but a very small individual. Level III: 10 Armor Points, -20% to Climb, Dodge, Jump, Swim, Throw and all melee attacks & parries. This is where you get into SWAT-type armor, though there are some vests that can be worn under police uniforms for patrol duty. Still, it's not what anyone could call concealable. Level III armor is more than just made of Kevlar or some similar material, but includes "hard" ceramic plates that make the vest less flexible. This level of armor can stop some rifle bullets. Level IV: 12 Armor Points, -30% to Climb, Dodge, Jump, Swim, Throw and all melee attacks & parries. This is bomb disposal level of body armor. Big, bulky, forget concealment. This level of armor can stop some armor-piercing rifle bullets. If you are not using the optional hit location rules (also out of 1990s Handbook and the only really good reason to buy the book if you can find it), then roll 1D6. A result of 1-3 means the bullet hit a body part unprotected by the vest and take normal damage. A result of 4-6 means the bullet struck the body armor, and subtract the damage from the Armor Points of the vest. The 1990s Handbook pretty much leaves it up to the Keeper whether or not these vests are resistant against knife or blade attacks. As for ARMOR armor like chainmail and breastplates and vambraces and so on... hell, I dunno. Anybody got a copy of Runequest? Gil _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Michael Layne [theherald@hotmail.com] Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2001 9:33 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] (DG) Back on the DGML Folks, I've just returned from my Reserve duty as Herald for Ghroth -- er, for the SCA Kingdom of AEthelmearc -- and resubscribed to the new DGML after some two weeks away at Pennsic 30! (Thanks, Davide, for the final chapter of CfB2K -- I enjoyed it!) We were well prepared for Ragnarok at Coopers' Lake Campground, in Butler County, PA. Final total for our army was some 12,337 brave souls (the biggest Pennsic War thus far), counting women and children, but not hand puppets and stuffed animals. The combat arms (though not support personnel, such as myself, of course) wore excellent body armor, and all of our weapons were Y2K compliant! (In fact, they were all Y_1_K compliant...):) Weather was hot and muggy, even for Pennsylvania in this time of the year (temperature indexes reached 117 F at times, our medical people were treating heat-related casualties, and some battles had to be called off due to heat), and I suspect Mythos involvement in some manner, or perhaps an MJ-12 weather control experiment -- especially as the storms which normally roll through Pennsic, drenching everybody and flattening tents, seemed to be almost entirely absent this year. A merchant, Falcon Mews, was offering sanctuary to an indeterminate number of stuffed Cthulhus, some of which went home with Human cultists, thus spreading the Mythos menace. Another merchant was selling hand puppets, but a careful search revealed that Senor Sock had luckily not taken advantage of this opportunity to infiltrate the gathering. Also, we observed a meteor shower which I realized was obviously the cover for an alien landing of some sort... (Of course, the aliens took one look at our warriors in armor, and said, "These people haven't progressed since we visited here 500 years ago!"):) As usual, while onsite, I had no news of happenings in the outside world... Did anything interesting happen while I was helping keep the SCA safe from the terrors of the Mythos? Michael Layne DGGF#688 theherald@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Gil Trevizo [furrylogic@mindspring.com] Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2001 10:00 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] Why Hasn't Alphonse Gone Insane? This question was brought up at the DG game I attended last night. It deals with the aftermath of DG & MJ-12 being made public, part of which seems to have caused Alphonse to wig out, shoot Alzis, and then force the NYPD to shoot him. This brought up the general question of how Alphonse could know all that he must know about the Mythos based on being the center of DG intel and not go balls-to-the-wall bonkers in record time. My first impression is that Al simply categorizes the intel and passes it on those cells who are best qualified to handle it. Got villagers in Panama worshipping a statue of a fish-headed man? Send it to Cell D in Maine. Got a cult of cannibals in Rwanda? Send it to Cell G in New York. Al doesn't really consume the data himself or even look at it to closely. He just passes it on to those who have encountered similar phenomena based on certain "keywords". At best he may know that there are aquatic humanoids known to some as "Deep Ones", but he has no idea that they are part of a vast civilization awaiting the resurfacing of their god that will lay waste to the Earth. The other idea brought up is that Al does know a lot about all this, but that he's just one lucky mofo whose constantly made his SAN roll. This doesn't mean that Al is the sanest among us though, just that he doesn't have to sweat the 1D6 SAN effects now. For Al, SAN penalties are more like 10D6. Al has not gone insane, but when he does, he is going to be quite "enlightened". Finally, I'm wondering now if Al is going insane, but that it's a recent process. Until Reggie died, who knows what Al's role was in DG. He probably saw some nasty shit in WWII, but since then, he could have simply been in administration. His taking on the role of DG leader and central hub of That Which Man Is Not Meant To Know has only been going on for a few years now, and that simply hasn't been enough time for his sanity to degrade to the point where anyone would notice. That is, if anyone will notice when it does... Gil _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of ialdaloboth *genzundheit!* [ialdaloboth@hotmail.com] Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2001 10:12 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] (OT plug - Adventure!) Today, August 20th, 2001, sees the release of an RPG that will, one hopes, be a smashing success. It's name is Adventure! and it's a game about pulp heroes. I managed to sneak a look at an advance copy while I was back in the states, and it's pretty darn cool. You're able to play everything from The Phantom to the original pulp-era Superman (when he leapt over things instead of flying), with lots of places in-between for The Shadow, the Rocketeer, Doc Savage and the like. If you liked that era of writing (and hey, I think we're all Lovecraft fans here... even if he wasn't that kind of pulp) then this is the game for you. J. Edward -- CAMPUS CRUSADE FOR CTHULHU -- Dubai, United Arab Emirates /-----------/---\-----------\ ------------|O O|------------ ------------\VAV/------------ -------------I I------------- "and who knows what depths lay in limitless sand; or what horrors are leashed by a great ebon hand?" - Ialdaloboth _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/