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Messages - Cthuluzord

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331
RPGs / Re: Call of Cthulhu Drinking Game
« on: June 07, 2011, 11:08:07 PM »
I support this whole-heartedly.  Ross, I think I know what the April's Fool game should be.  Tom will have to GM, of course.

332
You'll do great! It's a fun system that can translate to almost anything. If it's your first time running it, just remember it goes story first, then roll.  Players have to tell you what they're doing before they can apply dice to it.

Tell us how it goes.  I love that game and want to see how other people run it.

333
I really didn't do a ton of research. I figured that since regular, sexual breeding is just preprogrammed genetic material in a randomized interaction with other, preprogrammed genetic material, why not just skip the randomized part? I mean, if someone could rewrite things at a genetic level, all that would be needed would be raw materials and incubation, which is a two birds with one stone kinda thing.

Of course, the whole thing makes no sense on an evolutionary scale, is wildly inefficient, and likely biologically impossible, but it's Lovecraft, so who cares?

There is a DG Green Box Generator online somewhere but I've lost the link. It creates a bunch of crazy items of whatever type you tell it to.  Then just tell characters to roll a D20 :-)

Eclipse Phase campaign starts Monday.  I should have Bryson Springs revised in a couple of weeks because SCHOOL IS OUT! I'll post it as soon as it's done.

Until then, here's the full excerpt I wrote for "Altamira: End of the Line."  Thanks again for all the praise, and I'm glad everyone survived the tornados.  I love you guys!


BOX FIVE

Envelope:    Return address of OUI magazine submissions department
      Sent to Ethan Whitehead’s address in Georgia
      Postmark of 11 March 1971
      Handwritten note reading “Property of E. Whitehead Estate”

Rejection:   Mr. Whitehead:

When we contracted your services regarding the Amazon article, we expected the keen and original voice found in “Man-Jesus with the Golden Arm” to be turned on an exciting topic that would interest our distinguished reading audience.  We did NOT desire another piece of fiction (poorly-written at that), nor did we ask for it five months late.  Attempting a Rolling Stone-esque tone is one thing, but this pornographic tripe is better suited to a Tijuana Bible than our gentleman’s magazine.  As you may have guessed, we are declining to publish “Altamira: End of the Road” at this time.  Furthermore, you may expect papers served to your home very soon; the magazine is seeking compensation for the travel expenses and cash advance you so unprofessionally squandered.

Please do not respond to this letter,
The OUI Staff


Napkin:   A handwritten note on a napkin reads: “I’m sorry, but things were too strange.  I’m trying to write it down, but after another night dreaming it over, the words never seem right.  I’m trying.  Here’s what I have so far.  Gimme some more time, will you?”  The note is signed “E.W.”

Altamira: End of the Line:   

They sent me to the jungle to write a violent and cunty article about the Wild West come round the wheel of history again; this time landing itself and me in the Southern position at a frontier town called Altamira.  Sounds good to me, I said.  I’d momentarily grown tired of wrestling with the people in my head and it’s a good plan in such instances to put some new folk in there…filtering out the riff-raff with a nice memory-scrubbing liquor, of course.  Or some fermented agave, depending on local customs…

Apparently the latest military coup wasn’t content with its 15 minutes of dictatorship and them crazy damn Brazilians fancied themselves capable of some man-sized, Romanesque public works.  Seems the psycho bastards are cutting themselves a road through the green hell alongside the river.  Got everyone in on it—government men watching of indigenous tribes and brown proles with bulldozers for 12 hour days of feverish bushwhacking.

They got themselves a goddamned circus in their wake, this nomad encampment called Altamira.  As the road pushes through the humidity and jungle stink and poisonous swarms, the town follows behind, serving the workers with booze and drugs and prostitutes hitchhiking in the earth-moving spoonfuls of American-made CATS.  I don’t know where the fellas get the energy for it, myself.  Getting on the fucking plane to Belem would have killed my fat ass had I not been heavily fortified with a variety of chemicals.

Law has no meaning out in the muddy wilderness.  Men are getting shot and left in the trail.  They’re paving the road to Latin modernity with the bones of barroom shootouts and used rubbers, like any good civilization should.   It’s the last of the wild places where a man’s leisure is as dangerous as his work, and OUI thought ol’ Ethan here was meant to take the snapshot for y’all.

And the plane is coming in over the Basin now, the muddy river cut into the green like a smile on a whore’s face.  I’ve got to meet my guide, Dr. Pascado, and get a bead on the local wildness for a point of contrast.  Then it’s off down the road to a town that’s never in the same place but always two-lanes wide where I hope to meet men intent on fucking and drinking their way into places humanity weren’t meant to tread…

(The prose ends for a number of pages.  What follows is a series of disjointed notes on Whitehead’s preparation to head down river.  He meets an American ex-patriot named Dr. Pascado, his hired guide and translator, and gets travel forms signed from a number of Brazilian officials.  The pair visits a number of brothels and bars in Belem-proper before catching a boat downstream.  On the boat, more alcohol is consumed and the group seems to continue the party once the trip takes them to the road itself.  There are brief sketches and notes on their travel companions.  Nothing of particular interest jumps out until the pair comes upon what is described as ancient ruins…)

Stone Idols dot the road like a roadside attractions.  They even blasted some from the path in their eagerness.  I can see why Friar Carjevel named it Amazon in 1542.  Great granite women with clubs attacking this strapping young lad with such enormous equipment he doesn’t have the room for legs and has to walk on his hands; poor fellar pecker must have crossed the weight limit for pleasure and into pain.  The ladies ain’t having no more, and the bastards so ugly I can’t says I blame them, loyalties be damned.

The ones they aint blasted are remarkably well preserved, except the fella.  His face is all but gone.  Gotta remember to call and get a museum down here before these savages bash their whole history to hell and gravel.

(The pages cease at this point.  The story continues on a different style paper.  The paper is crinkled and water-stained. The handwriting is erratic)

Have to write this down.  I can’t make sense of it.

We saw the smoke of the town a full two days earlier than expected.  The workers must have cut ahead by over ten miles, which might as well be on the Moon in the rainy season.  Me and Pascado were worried that they’d gotten sick of the nomad act and put down roots, which was a short jump to laws and culture and no story for ol’ Whitey

Far fucking from it.  We are no sooner in sight of the tents when these topless women are running at us with drinks in each hand, titties flopping out.  All the men-folk are naked too.  Whole place is an orgy and the sun hadn’t even gone down.  Place is packed too.  Makes me wonder now if anyone was left to actually cut the trees up ahead.  Altamira was too damn horny to move.

Pascado and I dive in for the challenge, for journalism and the US of A and whatnot.  Things get fuzzy but it’s about the best damn time I can remember having.  Men and women trailing off into the woods to make love, music, booze, drugs, etc.  A real love-in.  I lost my partner in the crush as one senorita after another found my lap and we drank in the massive, sweaty tent they set up.

Then the gunfire.

Army men came from the direction of the work camp, firing in the air.  They looked beat to shit.  Some were hauling moaning men in improvised stretchers.  They line us up naked and wasted in front of the tent like the fucking Gestapo, but even then it seems like some of it think its all part of the party.

I’m scared shitless already when their Sgt. or something comes out of the night.  Hard bastard was more scratch than skin; he was bleeding from everywhere.  With these dead eyes, he takes off his shirt and starts walking down the line.  In front of each person, he cuts himself somewhere with this straight razor, looking in their eyes the entire time.  About the fourth one down, he cuts his face.  The girl in front of him, she gives out this moan, and then he’s dragging her by the hair.

The soldiers, they circle up around her in a C-shape, real careful to give us a view.  The ones not doing that form a line and thumb back the hammers.  I’m pissing myself staring down the barrel of a gun, begging in all the languages I know, when I see the girl on the ground.  She’s still naked and STILL hot to trot, writhing around in the mud like a horny dog, feinting toward different men like she can’t decide which one she wants more.

Then el Jefe shouts something, and the guys start beating her to death with the rifle stocks.  I see it all, but el Jefe, he see me…he’s staring straight at us.  And then he’s pointing at folks in the line, and they open up with them goddamn guns each time  The man left of me goes down, the couple to my right, scores more.  Blood was pooling in the tracks left by the bulldozers.
   
All that’s left is me and maybe six others, though I’m too fucking scared to turn for a count.  There’s this errie calm between the beat-up girl’s last breath and the sounds of jungle resuming.  Then there’s the crack of a twig, and a sound like bats, only lots of them.  Next thing I know they are shooting again, this time into the trees, screaming “AMANTE! AMANTE!

Some brute grabs me and runs us down the road, loads us into the back of a flatbed.  The shooting continues even as we haul ass back in the direction we came from.  I see El Jefe light the first of the corpses on fire just as we round the bend.

Pascado was already in the truck when we got loaded in.  Face is cut to shit.  He’s got no answers for me.  What happened?  What the hell happened?

Guess that ol’ boy Conrad was right about the jungle.

(The rest of the page is blank.  The next is in the same erratic hand.  Brownish stains dot the paper.)

Woke up this morning to find Pascado stabbing a soldier with…something.  He held it in his teeth and went at the man like a fucking woodpecker. Brazilians almost wiped themselves out in crossfire trying to hit him on full-auto, despite the surf.  I ended up cutting something off…out of him with a bayonet and tossing him overboard.  Even in the deep water, the piranha made his blood froth.

The survivors threw their own dead to the fish.  Didn’t even hesitate.  It’s all quiet now, except for that thing I sliced off, still flopping around in an ammo box…

Why am I writing this?  The words can’t cut it no more.”

Legal Pads:

(The hundreds of legal pads contain various dates spanning decades.  It appears the author tried to rewrite his Amazonian adventure in novel form nearly a thousand times.  Each manuscript is incomplete, but contains only minor variations from the other handwritten copies.  None get as far as the scene with Pascado in the boat.)

Ammo Box:

(A dented ammunition box covered in Spanish writing is present.  It has been bent by some great impact and the latch is broken.  The inside of the container is thoroughly scratched.)

334
RPGs / Re: Eclipse Phase
« on: May 19, 2011, 05:28:38 PM »
Here’s the initial plot hook for the “No Evil” campaign…
 
“Thought” is a torus habitat in Venusian orbit run by Cognite.  Possibly selected for its distance from Planetary Consortium Oversight, the station is supposedly home to some of the corporation’s most cutting-edge research and development.  The only neighbors within conventional travel range belong to the Morningstar Constellation and couldn’t care less for a company with such an infamous history.  This lack of accountability, combined with Cognite’s leading role in both the development of TITAN-precursor AGI’s and the disastrous Lost project, mean that Thought has been on Firewall’s priority threat list for some time.
 
A crow named Yelena Chikako infiltrated the installation as a low-level lab technician a number of years ago. She has been sending reports via smuggled QE bit transmitter ever since…until last month.
 
All efforts to reach her have proven unsuccessful. Furthermore, Cognite keeps no neutrino receivers or resleeving facilities on the station for security reasons.  Even benign contact with the station through false accounts is impossible until the orbit brings it back within Gerlach Station’s mesh range (not due for a number of days).  Attempts to resleeve Yelena from her latest back-up for questioning have been…unsettling. It is best you see the vid for yourselves.
 
Cognite’s murder of a “corporate spy,” while unfortunate, would not warrant the erasure contingency plans Firewall has filed way for Thought.  Further investigation is necessary before action can be taken. Your mission is to establish contact with Proxy “Tillman” on Gerlach station for briefing on Yelena’s previous intelligence, development of an approach strategy, and deployment. Once on the station, locate Yelena Chikako’s QE transmitter and report in.
 
Find out what is happening in Thought. If exsurgent, TITAN, or other existential threat is detected, make sure no one else finds Thought ever again.

335
RPGs / Re: Eclipse Phase
« on: May 17, 2011, 05:57:23 PM »
Ohhhhhh! I lika me that new MoS rule! We are totally using that.

The less math, the more room for morally ambiguous mysteries and Catch-22-esque PC buggery.

BTW, the campaign is called "No Evil," and the homophone is intended.

336
RPGs / Re: Gencon 2011
« on: May 01, 2011, 12:19:33 PM »
Welp, I just whiffed on all five games I tried to buy tickets for. I hope y'all are friendly; I'll need people to wander around aimlessly with.

My games had yet to sell out as of a few seconds ago. Quick! Sell them out! Go now!

337
RPGs / Re: 30 Days of Synnibarr
« on: April 24, 2011, 01:13:05 PM »
Stop it! Just stop debating this! You're enabling the McKraken's of the world!

These types of discussions are exactly how we got a book full of insta-death magic bags, weremen that bounce lasers back at each other like 7th-grade Earth Science prism experiments, and dwarves that, for some damned reason, can teleport.

You'll drive us all mad with this insane quest, Mckma! Doom! DOOOOOOOOM!

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Totally awesome dude! I am getting crazy psyched for the campaign to start up again. When are you going to start posting these, btw?

340
(Googling the Trail of Median)

Your search terms have found 1 result

http://www.myfakewall.com/w/idealistwatch.com

341
(Googling the Trail of Media)

Your search terms have found 1 result.

INFAMOUS KILLER CAPTURED UNDER MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES
Associated Press
by Leona Shulman

MISSOURI--For the first time since the case opened three decades ago, federal agents have arrested a suspect in the Route 64 Slasher case.

So-called for abandoning the bodies of his victims by the state highway of the same name, the 64 Slasher was first identified in the 1983 after a string of coeds were found dead by roadside clean-up crews. He was responsible for one of the largest non-metahuman manhunts in Missouri's history and remained one of America's most elusive serial killers for years.

Most active in his early years, the Slasher was notorious for his resistance to profiling. Initially, all the victims were young, college-aged women attacked on the way home for holiday break. This pattern informed police investigation until '85 when two elderly victims were discovered. The pair was strangled rather than slashed, male rather than female, and found at the northernmost/southernmost points of the state, dropped in Route 64's drainage ditch right before crossing the border.

"For many years, the 64 Slasher was one of the FBI's greatest shames," said FBI Director Jeff Espinoza on a press conference Sunday. "Just when we'd be looking for a knife, he'd use a gun. When we'd launch awareness campaigns against children accepting rides with strangers, he'd murder some poor housewife. All that remained constant was that same stretch of empty road, mocking us."

By the mid-90's, Missouri State Highway Patrol had caught a number of copycat killers seeking to use the Slasher's reputation as cover. "There were a few years there when we had mobsters driving in as far as New York just to dump a body," said Drowe County District Attorney Budd LaGrass. "It was a prosecutorial nightmare. If we had caught him, trying to figure out which murders were his would have taken decades." Locals began referring to Route 64 as "blood alley."

By the turn of the century, the FBI had all but closed the case. Six years had gone by without a recognizable pattern in victims. It appeared that the 64 Slasher would go down in history as the one that got away.

Until Saturday night. Drowe County Sheriff's Deputies responded to multiple reports of a stalled vehicle in the early hours of the morning. They found the White Ford Ranger...and quite a bit more.

Deputy Kent Draper, one of the first officers at the scene, said, "When we approached the vehicle, both doors were open and the engine was running. After establishing that no one was inside, we heard a sound coming from over a hill southeast of the road. We moved to investigate."

What the officers found was Tillman Green, a resident of Pikeville, MO and employee of the Missouri Department of Corrections, trapped in an inexplicable, transparent ball. "It appeared to be made of a sort of crackling, yellow light" explained Draper. "It was like a bubble of static. The suspect was facing away from us, towards the treeline, screaming and stabbing at the ball with a hunting knife. It had no effect. It appeared to be some sort of forcefield trapping him."

Police claim that the "crackling, yellow light" disappeared as officers crested the hill. Green, suddenly free, saw the police and alledgedly launched into a "screaming, enraged charge." Drowe County Deputies quickly subdued the man with tasers and pepper spray. The woods were searched for the source of the yellow light, but nothing was found.

After his arrest, the Ford Ranger registered to Green was searched. A variety of weapons and a photo album were found inside a toolbox. Prosecutors promise that the photo album contains pictures from the locations of nearly every Route 64 Slasher killing, each taken before police arrived.

After filing papers to fast-track the Green's trial on Monday, Federal Prosecutor Becky Irvine addressed the press on the Drowe County Courthouse steps. "Tillman Green, a once-trusted employee and son of the state of Missouri, was taking pictures of the road crews in his charge as they discovered his bloody handiwork. For years, he abused his position as a transportation officer for probationary work crews in order lure unsuspecting motorists and hitchhikers to their deaths, all for the sake of recording people's reactions to his grotesque displays."

When asked how the prosecution would be proceeding with this evidence, Irvine replied, "Out of respect for the victims' families, the United States of America will be seeking a speedy trial that concludes in the maximum penalty allowed under law."

Though declining an interview, Green's attorney has said that the defense will be seeking a mis-trial on the basis of unsanctioned transhuman vigilantism and supernatural evidence tampering. No more details were provided.

At the formal declaration of the charges on Tuesday, Green seemed visibly agitated, far from the coldly calculating monster suspected of haunting the highways for decades. He was twice warned to retake his seat during the proceedings and eventually had to be physically escorted from the courtroom. Before bailiffs could drag Green back to holding, he was heard screaming, "He tricked me with his long-sleeves! He was actually a robot from space! Never pick up a man without thumbs! He had metal arms and claws! You can't stab a golden robot wanderer out of the West! He will come for you! Come for you all!"

Though many details of the case warrant further investigation, judicial experts agree that the damning nature of the physical evidence and testimony of officers at the scene ensure a conviction.  When questioned about the more alarming details of the arrest, Director Espinoza had this to say: "I'm certainly no expert in the types of things that were mentioned in that initial police report, but I can ensure everyone that Mr. Green's rights were in no way violated by the U.S. government. If he is looking for some explanation as to his capture, I suggest he blame karma."

342
(Googling the Trail of Median)

Your search terms have found 1 result.

HUMAN INTEREST: DOUBLE-AMPUTEE BUILDS GAZEBO, INSPIRES COMMUNITY
Perry County, KS

by Feldman Hungbottom

When Perry Baxter posted an ad at the local hardware store for help building a gazebo in his daughter's backyard, he knew it was anybody's guess who would respond.

"I've seen all types in the last few years," said Baxter, who has been hiring additional help for his home improvement projects since retiring. "Sometimes they don't speak English. Sometimes they show up drunk. I either deal with it or send them down the road. I'd never seen nothing like this though."

What Baxter had never seen before was the man that showed up Friday afternoon in dirty rags, sporting a raggedy beard and backpack. "He looked homeless," Baxter remembered, "but he seemed polite enough and like he needed the money, so I let him in. That's when I noticed his hands."

Rather, what the Puma Springs resident noticed was the man's claws. Baxter says that both of the man's arms were metal prosthetics. When asked, the man, who called himself Norm, would only say that he lost them in the war, that people had died, and he'd rather not talk about.

Embarrassed, Baxter took the man out back and immediately began showing his employee the job site: "The entire time I'm thinking 'What the hell am I going to do with an armless carpenter?' But by then I'd already made a damn fool of myself asking about the poor boy's accident; hell if I was going to turn him away."

But Baxter, and the entire neighborhood of Knolling Street, soon found themselves pleasantly surprised. By the end of Friday afternoon, the ground for the gazebo was cleared, the framing was done, and the concrete set. "The boy was working me to death!" Baxter exclaimed, relating the events of that weekend to a crowd of curious neighbors and this reporter from the finished Gazebo on Sunday. "The fellow was an old hat at building, and he worked them arms of his like he was born with him. I couldn't keep up with him!"

By Saturday, word had gotten out about the armless artisan. Children were crowding around to watch the gazebo go up like a it was a summer afternoon of America's golden years. The pair of men found themselves practically tripping over husbands come to help and wives offering drinks.

"I could tell it made him uncomfortable." said Marisa Baxter, proud owner of the new gazebo. "He'd reach out a pincer for a hammer and find ten folks offering to do the work for him. He kept on reminding everybody that he was the one supposed to get paid for this."

Puma Springs First Presbyterian pastor Harley Lacker was in attendance at the impromtu gazebo-raising festival and attempted to gift the man last week's collections out of gratitude. When asked how the offering went, Reverend Lacker responded "Brother Norm told me that he didn't need the charity. That he was just a man looking for honest work and trying to figure some things out. I took it for pride at first until I saw him checking email on his laptop at lunch break." Baxter joined in, "He had quite the tech set-up in that bag of his, and he could type pretty well for having metal fingers too!"

By the end of Saturday, the community's help saw the gazebo almost entirely finished with only a few finishing touches left to do on Sunday. The congregation secretly planned a potluck for the backyard structure's grand opening, but come the fateful day, the community found themselves without their guest of honor.

"Norm had come to me the night before, asked if we could settle up," Baxter explained remorsefully, "I could tell he was shy around all that attention, and since I was the cause of it all, I couldn't see how I could say no. He was gone by morning."

Still, the deacons and the church kitchen committee had made too much food (again), and there was some work still to be done on Marisa Baxter's gazebo. Despite the disappearance of the mysterious stranger, a picnic sprung up around the work site that lasted well into the evening. An improvised ribbon cutting ceremony was even held as work was completed and what had turned into an all-day block party came to a close.

"It's really amazing," remarked the Reverend, Lacker in a prayer that brought festivities to a close, "what that man's example did for this community. His humbleness, his fearlessness in the face of adversity, has brought this street together in a such a spontaneous, beautiful outpouring of love, on that truly proves that God does work in mysterious ways."



343
(Googling the Trail of Median)

Your search terms have found 1 result

STRANGE BURGLARY AT JEFFERSON MALL
Fort Benjamin, AR

by Rebecca Tomlinsonburg

Police responded to silent alarms at the Jefferson Outlet Mall on Tuesday. Upon further investigation, two stores had been robbed, Shock Shack Electronics and Golden Years Senior Accessories.  Both appear to have been entered through the employee entrances at the back of the outlet mall.

The employee entrance doors, which were steel-reinforced and set in concrete, required key cards to open. Handles were not even included on the outside. Both doors appeared to have had massive holes blown through their locking mechanisms by some unknown force.

"I've not seen anything quite like this before, I'll give him that much," said Police Chief Kyle Bale. "There were no scortch marks, so he couldn't of used an acetylene torch.  No man could have forced his way through that metal with a pry bar, but it seems like the steel around the hole got pushed inward, like some sort of lance or cone that tapered wide at the end was stabbed through."

Police are currently investigating as to what method could have been used to both penetrate the doors and destroy the security cameras, all of which were installed two-stories up on the lampposts in the employee parking lot. Lab technicians from Fort Smith have been called to analyze the scene for any trace evidence more sophisticated police procedures might be able to turn up.

Thankfully, both businesses experienced minimal losses during the break-in.  Shock Shack Electronics reported the theft of a laptop, some cable, a variety of audio/video softwares, and batteries.  Golden Years, an overstock location for a catalogue catering to a number of assisted living facilities, claims only to be missing a number of dialing wands.

Chief Bale added, "It certainly is a unique modus operendi.  I wouldn't be surprised if we see a string of these crimes in the future, but this joker's not going to think himself so clever when he sees his day in court."


344
RPGs / Re: 30 Days of Synnibarr
« on: April 18, 2011, 05:53:40 PM »
Dear god, man! Have you taken leave of your senses? Don't do it!

There's an entire ward at every insane asylum dedicated to those who've tried to comprehend the were-were. That way lies madness! MADNESS!

345
General Chaos / Re: Image Thread
« on: March 29, 2011, 10:51:19 PM »
Hahahaha!

I have that poster in my classroom, only mine says...

"If you text in class...HE will come for you."

If that doesn't work, nothing will.

[spoiler]Trust me: nothing ever will[/spoiler]

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