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Old 01-16-2019, 04:47 AM   #91
Polydamas
 
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Default Re: Major Power Groups Aware of the Occult

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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
What other occult power groups should their be?

What am I forgetting?

I need 'neutral' groups, not associated with a nation-state or religion, but with either the study of magic as a whole or some kind of magic.

Also, maybe some groups associated with a particular Vile Vortex.
Four of the vile vortices are in Polynesia loosely defined (I will ignore the one west of Australia). What were the Polynesians seeking which drew them out from Taiwan all the way to Easter Island?

The libraries of Timbuktu are obviously connected to the Vortices, but their affiliations would be with the cities in North Africa which gave Ibn-Khaldun his model of political change. I don't know the exact situation in Morocco/Algeria/Tunisia and who holds old books and studies old languages there. Apparently there are good classicists in Egypt and all the magical papyri come from there ...

Oman has always been poor, but had a distinct lack of Mongols building pyramids of skulls compared to say Baghdad or Delhi, there might be libraries or traditions there. They have an elderly, childless sultan which would leave room for people dabbling in unconventional rites, and they have strong traditional connections to the UK.
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Old 01-16-2019, 07:02 AM   #92
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Default Re: [MH] Vile Vortices and Supernatural Threats

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I think that Wahabists would be out looking for signs of sin and heresy too denounce and oppose, but I think they would be more likely to notice such things than many.
Oh, indeed, but I think that merely being alert to anything that smacks of doctrinal unorthodoxy does not suffice to make them into a global player in the occult world. They might be a nasty regional threat and occasionally unwitting ally against various occult Islamic groups that are judged to be dangerous, but they are probably not well enough informed about the real state of occult affairs to be anywhere near the equals of the British Crown, the Vatican and such.

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Oddly.
Evangelicals first, the two are not equivalent.
Most Evangelicals would be like the Wahabists above, but some may also be on the look out for more signs that God is signaling the beginning of The End Times.
Quite right, of course.

I shall have to come up with some religious movements and political candidates linked to them in the US that are preaching the End of Times, with rather more plausibility than usual, given how my setting and reality have diverged and how thoroughly awful the 2010s in my setting have been, even compared to reality.

Some occult-aware statisticians are claiming that when the data is analyzed with a view toward discovering the effects of the paranormal, and all the small wars and various hot spots of violence, all disappearances that are not noted or slip between the cracks and all homicides not found to be such or not filed as homicides, are counted, the odds of meeting death by violence may be up to ten times as much in the modern world than it was in the mid-1950s.

And that's against a statistical trend of greatly reduced deaths from warfare in wars involving any of the most populous countries in the world.

Basically, in our real real world, the global violent death has been trending steadily downward for all of human history. While particularly intense wars might represent significant variations from this downward trend and while there are many small blips, e.g. the brief spike in violent crime between 1970-1990 that was observed in the US and some other countries, the general trend is reliably and steadily downward, correlating with any or all of higher economic output, better health, more opportunities, better legal protections of human rights, freer societies, etc.

In the setting, however, instead of the violent crime rate, that rose in the US and elsewhere from 1970-1990, declining again, sharply, after 1990, it kept on rising. And unexplained disappearances rose, almost anywhere that data could be collected, especially after 1995 or so. And while the international history seems to have been more or less identical to the real world until 2010 or so, this does not hold true after that time. The world of the setting has many more hot spots of political and ethnic violence that have flared up after 2010, with a number of civil wars in Africa (e.g. Mali, Malawi, Zimbabwe, etc.) and at least one in South American (Venezuela) that are not happening in our real world.

Not to mention that the situation in Mexico is, in the setting, somehow even worse than in real life, with the temporary reduction in homicide rates that occurred between 2011-2016 not having happened in the setting.

Instead, the rate of violent crime in Mexico has risen steadily and now eclipses many acknowledged war zones, even as authorities persist in claiming that they are merely dealing with criminals. What is actually happening, of course, in the setting, is that there are various supernatural beings and ritual magicians who are involved in the criminal underworld in Mexico, and are fighting each other and the authorities.

To a greater or lesser extent, the same is true of many countries, indeed, most of those that in our world have significant trouble with violent crime. US and other North American homicide rates and the rate of all violent crime is significantly worse than it was during the worst years of the 1980s. This time, however, extremely high rates of urban crime are accompanied by unprecedented rates of violent crime and unexplained disappearances in rural areas across America.

With minor variations, the same thing holds true in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. In general, countries lying in or near Vile Vortices are the worst affected, with Brazil and Pakistan both suffering so much violence that it would be more accurate to speak of insurgency or civil war than high crime rates, except that aside from the official government, the identity and even the number of any other factions is unclear.

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Then there are odd sects like snake handling Pentecostals that may run with an obscure Bible interpretation and wind up who knows where.
Indeed.

Any suggestions for which of them might have evolved into an organisation of occultists, more than just local concern, which matters on either a global scale or at least is a power group worth treating with for organisations with US interests, like the one that the PCs belong to?

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Mormons have some odd basis for their form of Christianity, like the Golden Plates that Joseph Smith used a crystal to read. They would be more likely than most to be looking for new Revelations from God. They are also doing things like trying to baptize** everyone who has ever lived, faith appropriate or not. Something that, in your setting, may have a basis in magic returning.
That's a good point. And there are a lot of Mormons serving in the US armed forces, police, security services, intelligence, etc. It might be that analogously to the Catholic Church, there exist within the LDS a secret network of those in the know about the occult, dedicated to protecting humanity from monsters and evil magic, at least as much of humanity as they can practically manage to cover (focusing first on friends and family, as is natural, then neighbors and the rest of the US).

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More of a case for passing information on to others, I'm reasonably sure that the CIA/FSB/MI6 etc. keep tabs on these groups. Anything that rates as "chatter" will be noticed, and at least tagged as a potential bio-terroism concerns. A lot of odd behavior can be traced to drugs, disease, fungus, etc. and patterns of similar occurrences will be noted.
Of course, most intelligence officers will be actively looking for 'mundane' explanations for anything supernatural and will be predisposed to ignore anything that sounds too outlandish, due to the Facade.

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EDIT: I would add that NGOs and PMCs work together, or at least are in the same areas, often enough that they may be an information source for your leader. He may even have one or two as some sort of an asset.
Oh, for sure.

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That's quite interesting.
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Old 01-16-2019, 07:34 AM   #93
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Default Re: [MH] Vile Vortices and Supernatural Threats

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It would be ironic if one of the strong sources of occult fighters was The Peace Corps.
It would indeed.

How would you envision that working?

Is the organisation itself under the control or influence of individuals aware of the occult, either formally (but secretly) like the Vatican, or more informally and perhaps to a somewhat lesser degree, like the various intelligence and security services of Great Britain, France or Israel?

Or would there exist a network of people who've served with the Peace Corps, seen something they could not reconcile with reality as they believed it to be and reached out to others who might have similar experiences?

Would that network be formal, if secret in purpose, or completely informal?

Or would Peace Corps volunteer alumni simply be more likely to have seen something odd and be more heavily represented among other secret power groups or factions of those who are aware of the occult?
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Old 01-16-2019, 07:52 AM   #94
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Default Re: [MH] Vile Vortices and Supernatural Threats

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How might devout Mormons or members of American Protestant Evangelical movements react to the supernatural?
I'm a "Mormon", or member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and I'm fairly active. The Church's response is hard to guess at. The Devil and those who follow him will be held responsible for much of it, especially monsters, and will have no problem opposing it. We are taught to save the most spiritual experiences for sacred moments and to avoid talking about when the devil shows his power, so keeping things a secret wouldn't be a huge problem. On the other hand, we're not going to go around trying to prove that monsters exist. We won't dispute them, but they're really a side-show to spreading the gospel. The church believes that the Second Coming of Christ is "near", and the whole thing will probably be seen as just another sign of the times.


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And for those influential within the churches, what would they decide needs to be done if they are convinced?
If you convinced church leadership that these monsters existed... I really don't know. I suspect the modern church would turn over the issue to the civil authorities. We are pretty committed to "rendering unto ceasar what is ceasar's". Of course, if church leadership is convinced, it becomes a lot easier to convince certain people in law enforcement to keep an eye out for funny stuff.


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Mormons have some odd basis for their form of Christianity, like the Golden Plates that Joseph Smith used a crystal to read.
Not a crystal, a seer-stone, but moving on.



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They would be more likely than most to be looking for new Revelations from God. They are also doing things like trying to baptize** everyone who has ever lived, faith appropriate or not. Something that, in your setting, may have a basis in magic returning.

The new Revelation part is spot on. And that doesn't require a lot of fanfare. It does mean that the response may be difficult to predict. It will certainly come from the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve.



Quote:
That's a good point. And there are a lot of Mormons serving in the US armed forces, police, security services, intelligence, etc. It might be that analogously to the Catholic Church, there exist within the LDS a secret network of those in the know about the occult, dedicated to protecting humanity from monsters and evil magic, at least as much of humanity as they can practically manage to cover (focusing first on friends and family, as is natural, then neighbors and the rest of the US).

That sounds plausible enough. Civic duty and all that. The network would almost certainly be informal rather than formal though. The Book of Mormon has some very strong negative things to say about secret societies.
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Old 01-16-2019, 08:10 AM   #95
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Default Re: [MH] Vile Vortices and Supernatural Threats

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It would indeed.

How would you envision that working?

Or would Peace Corps volunteer alumni simply be more likely to have seen something odd and be more heavily represented among other secret power groups or factions of those who are aware of the occult?
I was thinking the last, that they given how isolated many of the places they go to are. They've seen things and possibly lost locals that they considered friends.

I can see the Saudis being useful blunt force in the right areas. If you come across a dangerous occult group in the right area send a anonymous email or letter to the right fanatical mullah and expect that they will be attacked.
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Old 01-16-2019, 09:04 AM   #96
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Default Re: Major Power Groups Aware of the Occult

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Four of the vile vortices are in Polynesia loosely defined (I will ignore the one west of Australia). What were the Polynesians seeking which drew them out from Taiwan all the way to Easter Island?
That's an interesting question and it deserves to have a more mystical and significant answer, in setting, than the probable real world one; that if you assign twelve areas to out-of-the-way places, mostly at sea, in the world, you're going to place roughly a third of them in the almost third of the world's ocean area where Polynesians sailed and settled.

I have no idea what it's going to be, of course, but would welcome suggestions.

I have some rough idea that the Vile Vortex around Easter Island, for whatever reason, seems to be producing much less dramatic effects than the other Vile Vortices. J.R. Kessler and Dr. Lapointe have theorized that perhaps one or more of the statues, rock art or petroglyphs there are a form of containment system.

I still haven't any idea whether there is any kind of Polynesian power group that is significant on the worldwide scene in occult circles. Obviously there are some groups of people of Polynesian origin who've become aware of the occult, but I don't know if there are many small groups of friends and family who've each witnessed something independently and started to study the occult, or if there is some kind of occult organisation that links together people from many Polynesian cultures.

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The libraries of Timbuktu are obviously connected to the Vortices, but their affiliations would be with the cities in North Africa which gave Ibn-Khaldun his model of political change. I don't know the exact situation in Morocco/Algeria/Tunisia and who holds old books and studies old languages there.
Just right.

I don't know either, but I shall have to learn.

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Apparently there are good classicists in Egypt and all the magical papyri come from there ...
In a prior campaign set in the same world and continuing in yet another campaign, we found out that a very bad occultist might also have come from the fine educational establishments in Cairo. Of course, Dr. Mahmoud Ganoush is Iranian by birth, not Egyptian, and while he was a professor at Al-Azhar, his activities were certainly not condoned by the university authorities.

By 2018, it appears that Dr. Ganoush, several of his students and a group of unscrupulous magicians connected to him seem to be major players in the chaotic and violent world of Iraqi and Syrian occultism, with influence in some parts of Iran and Turkey as well. Dr. Ganoush is either allied with or has seized control of the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order, as well as having allies or subordinates who appeared to be Malay and who practiced some mystical version of silat, and has at various times supported various factions of ISIS/ISIL against other factions and/or other power groups in the area.

As far as any PCs in prior campaigns have been able to tell, Dr. Ganoush is either an atheist or worships the spirits and other beings he interacts with through his ritual magic. He even claims to have fled Iran due to religious persecution and prior to discovering his nefarious magical activities, a Jewish PC believed that Dr. Ganoush avoided speaking about religion because of his atheistic/agnostic stance and position at a university in an Islamic country.

While Dr. Ganoush is probably fairly indifferent to religious conflicts between Shia, Sunni and the various flavours of sufism that fall under either, many of his allies or pawns are sincerely religious. And many of his enemies, of course, have religious objections to his activities, aside from the fairly reasonable objections that most people have to human sacrifice, torture, blood magic and the binding of spirits of pain and degradation.

Notably, even most of the senior members of ISIS/ISIL who are aware of his existence and suspect some of influence among many occult groups consider him an apostate and a religious abomination. Of course, some of them still accept his help if offered, especially if they face another occult faction which has more power than they can counter.

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Oman has always been poor, but had a distinct lack of Mongols building pyramids of skulls compared to say Baghdad or Delhi, there might be libraries or traditions there. They have an elderly, childless sultan which would leave room for people dabbling in unconventional rites, and they have strong traditional connections to the UK.
Indeed. I believe that I've proposed Oman as having close ties with the Shadow Court and forces from there sometimes being used by that behind-the-scenes conspiracy when they are unable to manipulate British agencies into something.
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Old 01-16-2019, 10:03 AM   #97
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Default Re: [MH] Vile Vortices and Supernatural Threats

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I was thinking the last, that they given how isolated many of the places they go to are. They've seen things and possibly lost locals that they considered friends.
Oh, certainly.

Of course, this applies to a wide variety of people. EMT personnel and other emergency workers and first responders, police and detectives, ER doctors and other personnel, aid workers in general, social workers, mental health professionals, clergy, etc.

Most of them will find a rational explanation, even if they have to edit their memories of what they actually saw, heard, witnessed or experienced the aftermath of, because that's how the Facade (Pyramid #3/97 ' Mask of Humanity' by Christopher R. Rice) works.

The ones who not only remember, but actually start digging around for more anomalies, are usually simply strong-willed exceptions or inveterate nonconformists, but also might be those with some kind of paranormal gift themselves.

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I can see the Saudis being useful blunt force in the right areas. If you come across a dangerous occult group in the right area send a anonymous email or letter to the right fanatical mullah and expect that they will be attacked.
Oh, yes, indeed. As I said, 'unwitting allies'.

But note that the fact that I believe followers of a 'Wahhabi' (comprising equally those who prefer to be called Salafi or muwahhid, as well as those with teachings essentially indistinguishable from such groups) doctrine within Islamic thought to be especially hostile to any supernatural forces or practices should not be read as stating that the royal family, government or the people of Saudi Arabia necessarily all categorically reject evidence of the paranormal or consider manifestations of it automatically inimical to Islam.

There are plenty of moderate and progressive Sunni Muslims in Saudi Arabia, especially, of course, among the educated elite of the Royal Family and those close to them. While the Hanbali school of Salafi 'branch'* and Wahhabi doctrine in general, as well as similar conservative, Islamist interpretations of Islam, are very politically powerful in Saudi Arabia, it's doubtful that much more than half of the people there would agree that they fall into any of these categories.

The majority of Saudis are devout Sunni Muslims, but there is even a significant Shia minority there and the population of guest workers and immigrants means that more or less any variation of the Islamic faith can be found among Saudi citizens and residents. And those who know about and accept the occult are by definition statistical outliers, with the strength of will and the personality to overcome a wide metaphysical consensus that monsters and magic in the modern world is merely superstition.

All of which means that regardless of the influence of conservative ulama and Wahhabi thought in Saudi Arabia, there might very well by smaller groups and factions within their intelligence and security apparatus that are secretly confronting the threat, much as individual small conspiracies are doing in many other nations, and there might also be individuals or organisations who study the occult in secret.

It's just that these will likely not have worldwide influence and will probably be less influential on the global occult stage than the strongly anti-occult conservative strain of Wahhabi and Salafist thought.

*Whether to define various differing interpretations or ways to practice within religions as 'branches', 'movements' or something else is predictably controversial.
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Old 01-16-2019, 11:40 AM   #98
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Default Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and an Occult Threat

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I'm a "Mormon", or member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and I'm fairly active.
Excellent. A primary source!

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The Church's response is hard to guess at. The Devil and those who follow him will be held responsible for much of it, especially monsters, and will have no problem opposing it. We are taught to save the most spiritual experiences for sacred moments and to avoid talking about when the devil shows his power, so keeping things a secret wouldn't be a huge problem. On the other hand, we're not going to go around trying to prove that monsters exist. We won't dispute them, but they're really a side-show to spreading the gospel. The church believes that the Second Coming of Christ is "near", and the whole thing will probably be seen as just another sign of the times.
Very good.

Given the Facade, anyone, LDS or otherwise, who becomes personally convinced of the existence of the supernatural and who manages to retain his memories of such, will still find it extremely hard to convince anyone skeptical enough to require scientific proof or even evidence that couldn't be picked apart by a competent defense attorney.

Basically, the only people you can rely on being able to convince are those who know you personally and think enough of you to take your word that you actually experienced something, as well as perhaps people who'll consider a supernatural explanation, even if not explicitly proven, more rational than all the statistical anomalies, unexplained disappearances, rising crime rates without a convincing underlying narrative, etc.

In essence, someone who thinks that the world isn't becoming worse, more dangerous and more violent year by year merely for some random, inexplicable reason founded in politics, economics or just sheer bad luck, but that there might be an explanation for the changes in the world (since 1990 or so) that modern science isn't ready to address.

Would significant numbers of people influential within the Church fit that description?

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If you convinced church leadership that these monsters existed... I really don't know. I suspect the modern church would turn over the issue to the civil authorities. We are pretty committed to "rendering unto ceasar what is ceasar's". Of course, if church leadership is convinced, it becomes a lot easier to convince certain people in law enforcement to keep an eye out for funny stuff.
I'm thinking that most people in the modern US who find out hope to be able to turn things over to the authorities, but given how the majority of the population just will not accept what paltry evidence the supernatural usually leaves behind, a lot of otherwise law-abiding people are having to hide their reasonable activities of self-defense and the defense of others from the authorities.

I think that there would be a huge temptation to do what I've assumed many policemen and government officials who discover the supernatural, but are unable to convince their superiors do, i.e. try to do what they can to help citizens threatened by the supernatural by sharing information with like-minded people they become aware of and by trying to nudge official policy to what is least harmful for victims and potential victims of the supernatural.

This, of course, if more than one person in a department or agency has become aware, can very quickly start to look a lot like a conspiracy within police departments and government agencies. And legally, these people will often file false statements by not mentioning things authorities would not believe and even cover up things they or others have done, simply because to tell the truth would be to risk being labelled insane, prosecuted or having others, often victims, suffer the same fate.

The question becomes, if the LDS leadership or at least some influential people in leadership positions, become absolutely convinced that supernatural forces are killing thousands of Americans a year, but that authorities are unwilling or unable to do anything about it, would they support technically illegal, in that it is not authorized by the civic authorities, cooperative self-defense activity by Church members who are in positions to make a difference?

Would they take any sort of action, like having members in positions where they might witness supernatural phenomena report on what they see and collect that data?

Would they go so far as to analyze that data and try to inform sympathetic people within various law-enforcement agencies or even extralegal organisations involved in monster hunting, in order to help them defend against threats that were killing Americans?

Would they go all the way toward forming militias that did not disclose to the mundane authorities what kind of threats they were meant to defend against?

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The new Revelation part is spot on. And that doesn't require a lot of fanfare. It does mean that the response may be difficult to predict. It will certainly come from the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve.
I think that the gradual rise in violent deaths that has been going on since the 1980s might on its own qualify as a very clear sign that Something is going on and that it would not be a stretch to imagine that the apocalypse might be near.

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That sounds plausible enough. Civic duty and all that. The network would almost certainly be informal rather than formal though. The Book of Mormon has some very strong negative things to say about secret societies.
Can you give me some advice on how to portray devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who've become aware that monsters and other supernatural threats seem to be killing thousands of Americans every year might go about opposing these threats?

Assuming that the US government officially denied the problem, but that small pockets of occult-aware people within various agencies were aware of it and some of them functioned very much like secret societies or conspiracies in trying to cooperate in defending America.
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Old 01-16-2019, 12:51 PM   #99
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Default Re: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and an Occult Threat

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Basically, the only people you can rely on being able to convince are those who know you personally and think enough of you to take your word that you actually experienced something, as well as perhaps people who'll consider a supernatural explanation, even if not explicitly proven, more rational than all the statistical anomalies, unexplained disappearances, rising crime rates without a convincing underlying narrative, etc.

Would significant numbers of people influential within the Church fit that description?

When faced like something like this, Members of the church are going to pray very hard to know whether nor not this supernatural thing is real. Most of them will be expecting an answer one way or another, and they will be looking for internal signs, not external ones (though external are acceptable). How this goes down is up to how your setting works. Does religion have real mystic power? does the facade actively "fuzz" the mind of those told about it? (that will be interpreted by most members as a no).

The church believes in modern miracles, so members probably have a better chance of many in the US of accepting an eye-witness story. Statistically, we're probably more likely than most to accept a statistical increase in deaths and disappearances as valid. Or rather, as a sign of the wickedness of the last days.


Now, if the church leadership starts telling people in positions to do things about the other side of the facade in private, a fair number of those people are going to believe them. Even without knowing them personally. They'll want two or three witnesses, and they'll do the prayer thing, but ultimately a large segment that can be identified before hand can be reliably brought in.


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I'm thinking that most people in the modern US who find out hope to be able to turn things over to the authorities, but given how the majority of the population just will not accept what paltry evidence the supernatural usually leaves behind, a lot of otherwise law-abiding people are having to hide their reasonable activities of self-defense and the defense of others from the authorities.
Perhaps I misspoke. The church leadership (not members) is likely to saddle the authorities with the task. The church looks over the membership of high placed officers and officials, and then have two general authorities tell them about what's going on, and ask them to have their department take it seriously. A personal request from church headquarters goes a LONG way.

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The question becomes, if the LDS leadership or at least some influential people in leadership positions, become absolutely convinced that supernatural forces are killing thousands of Americans a year, but that authorities are unwilling or unable to do anything about it, would they support technically illegal, in that it is not authorized by the civic authorities, cooperative self-defense activity by Church members who are in positions to make a difference?
Legality is extremely important to the church. We will steadfastly try to work within the system. The trick is if the General Authorities decide something needs to be done, the government of Utah is going to play along. The church rarely uses that power, but they've always had it. Most recently it was used to change the states stance on immigration (particularly religious refuges).

The church has a strong sub-community that are big on self-defense. Enough that I've seen Leadership ask them to tone it down a bit in some very specific contexts. I could see that group taking action, no problem, but they'd try to stay legal... as in not breaking any laws.

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Would they take any sort of action, like having members in positions where they might witness supernatural phenomena report on what they see and collect that data?

Would they go so far as to analyze that data and try to inform sympathetic people within various law-enforcement agencies or even extralegal organisations involved in monster hunting, in order to help them defend against threats that were killing Americans?
Informing members likely to see phenomena about the facade sounds like something that would happen. Having them report back sounds less likely.

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Would they go all the way toward forming militias that did not disclose to the mundane authorities what kind of threats they were meant to defend against?
Not likely. Small towns might, but I don't see them being officially sponsored. They just happen to be very tightly knit because they all talk to each other every week at church. The leadership would certainly be separate and any control would be informal.

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I think that the gradual rise in violent deaths that has been going on since the 1980s might on its own qualify as a very clear sign that Something is going on and that it would not be a stretch to imagine that the apocalypse might be near.
The thing is, we believe the second coming is near, and while we're going to try and mitigate the worst effects, we don't think it can be stopped. You also have phrases like "the preaching of the word had more effect, even than the sword".

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Can you give me some advice on how to portray devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who've become aware that monsters and other supernatural threats seem to be killing thousands of Americans every year might go about opposing these threats?

Assuming that the US government officially denied the problem, but that small pockets of occult-aware people within various agencies were aware of it and some of them functioned very much like secret societies or conspiracies in trying to cooperate in defending America.
They're going to find jobs where they can make a difference and then do those jobs to the best of their ability. They'll file reports as close to the truth as their superiors can stomach. They'll try to be gentle and subtle about the whole thing. You can do a lot with "I saw person X attack person Y in a wild frenzy, despite X being armed". What is unlikely to happen is a registry of names, or a designated way to identify others who are in on things. Emphasis will be on personal relationships and references.

Of course, I could be reading that wrong. It could be that an open membership roll satisfies the "not a secret society" requirement. Or it could just be common knowledge in a different group focused around profession. but the emphasis will be on official law keepers or other sanctioned rolls.
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Old 01-16-2019, 12:56 PM   #100
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Default Re: [MH] Vile Vortices and Supernatural Threats

One last thought from me on the influence of conservative ulama and Wahhabi thought in Saudi Arabia.

This group has sponsored a lot of Madrases, Mosques, hospitals etc. in Pakistan, Indonesia, and North Africa. If they spot unusual activity in several of these areas, and convince the right Royal that there is a problem, they will have access to a lot of oil money to suddenly become a player overnight. If they are willing to access the archeological record in Iraq* they could gain a lot of information rather quickly.


Of course they will likely be the "Kill them all, Allah will know his own" types. When they show up, it will be a race to collect what you can and get out, before they burn it all to the ground.



*That information that survived the U.S. invasion, and subsequent civil war, and Isil invasion.
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