Real-Life Weirdness

[Johnny1A.2]

Ever want to see a bacterium with the naked eye? Well, you can.

Giant Bacteria Discovered, One Centimeter Long

If this holds up, they do appear to be single cells big enough to measure with a ruler and observe with the naked eye.

While this in itself might not have gameable applications, I can think of things implied by it that do, it's certainly set my mind to working.

[thorr-kan]

Farmed from the Paleomythic FB page, some ideas for adventure sites.

First, a travel piece from the Guardian. An interesting location in its own right, near enough to Sherwood Forest for the Robin Hood links, and cave materials 10x older than Stonehenge. Why exactly do your players need access to a ritual site out of deep history?
https://amp.theguardian.com/travel/2...HcCosZAandm3VI

Second, a Welsh castle built above above a cave with archeological finds going back 10K years. What exactly were they defending against? Alternatively, what threat required that deep a redoubt for that long?
https://metro.co.uk/2022/06/17/pembr...vVzSuLy6StVGps

Finally, an offshore cave full of Stone Age art that can only be accessed by SCUBA dive. During its height, sea levels were 135' shallower. It's flooding, and the race is on to document it before its lost forever. If you can't come up with an idea for this site, I cannot help you.
https://phys.org/news/2022-05-unders...2WnMjTcpEoYBu4

[L.J.Steele]

Not weird, per se, just cool

The NASA audio/ringtone library
https://www.nasa.gov/connect/sounds/...eid=f73ef91d8e

[William]

Update on an older weirdness: after suffering from conspiracy theories thrown around by RWNJs like Alex Jones, some jackass has blown up the Georgia Guidestones, and was applauded for it by a Republican candidate for Georgia Governor on Twitter (I'm not linking her). The GA Bureau of Investigation is currently seeking the vandal.

(Required gaming link in addition to it simply updating an old item: successful attack on a Tether to Stone, maybe? In most games a move this overt is either desperate or stupid.)

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by William

Update on an older weirdness: after suffering from conspiracy theories thrown around by RWNJs like Alex Jones, some jackass has blown up the Georgia Guidestones, and was applauded for it by a Republican candidate for Georgia Governor on Twitter (I'm not linking her). The GA Bureau of Investigation is currently seeking the vandal.

(Required gaming link in addition to it simply updating an old item: successful attack on a Tether to Stone, maybe? In most games a move this overt is either desperate or stupid.)

Huh, think I missed those the first time around. They would have made for an interesting thing to come across in a post-apocalyptic campaign, but I guess now you'll have to set the point of divergence prior to 7/6/22 to have them show up - unless you opt to have them put back up (doesn't look like that's in the cards, however, given that after the attack the government (not sure if state or local) opted to simply tear the rest of them down (I'm guessing on account of it no longer being stable, and them not wanting to deal with someone getting flattened after crossing the "do not cross" tape).

Of course, you can find no shortage of people online praising the illegal destruction of a public monument, but that's hardly surprising these days.

[William]

I believe the carver hired to make the stones, or at least their company, has said something about replacing them. Perhaps they'll be publicly replaced, and the government is whisking away two intact but still reasonably powerful monoliths of the original to hide away somewhere. :^)

[L.J.Steele]

Also a cool thread, and not what you think (get your mind out of that gutter!)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cutawayporn/

Some are game useful even!

[Agemegos]

There's a kind of "magic mirror", usually an antique Chinese bronze mirror, that projects an image in its reflection when you shine light on it from a small bright source. I've used them as macguffins in a couple of campaign, many years ago. A very pretty one has recently been found in the basement of a museum in Cincinnati. There's an article with photos on the CNN website.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

There's a kind of "magic mirror", usually an antique Chinese bronze mirror, that projects an image in its reflection when you shine light on it from a small bright source. I've used them as macguffins in a couple of campaign, many years ago. A very pretty one has recently been found in the basement of a museum in Cincinnati. There's an article with photos on the CNN website.

OK, so that is awesome. I'm going to have to incorporate that into something sometime.

[L.J.Steele]

Discussion of Elicitation -- technique used by covert agents to identify their adversaries. Good tradecraft for certain games.

https://reid.com/pdfs/Elicitation.pdf