Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-24-2010, 08:02 AM   #31
trans
 
trans's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Augsburg, Germany
Default Re: Modern Horror/Action/Secret Fantasy in Boston

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
4) Finally, does anyone have any suggestions for a mystery set in Massachusetts in 2010? A monster that would be cool? A conspiracy that might extend there?
This place is supposed to have a ghost, though I don`t remember any other details of the story

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges...(Massachusetts)
trans is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-24-2010, 09:15 AM   #32
Cornelius
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: I'd like to know too...
Default Re: Modern Horror/Action/Secret Fantasy in Boston

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post

Finally, does anyone have any suggestions for a mystery set in Massachusetts in 2010? A monster that would be cool? A conspiracy that might extend there?


I heartily encourage speculation about Scott Brown, possible connections to dark supernatural forces and/or any power groups that would seek to help or hinder him.
Let me have a shot.

One of your students, let's call him John, has gone missing. Normally you wouldn't care (you're their teacher, not their mother), but the guy happens to have borrowed your copy of "Lexicon of early Mazdeism", a rare and expansive book that have a personal importance for you being a gift of your late uncle. Besides the student is among your best.
He hasn't shown up at lesson for nearly a month and his friends don't know where he could have gone. His roommates tell you that he left three weeks ago must have gone back to home, but when you call up at his home, his mother tells you that he hasn't heard by him for a while.

Later the head librarian calls you for what he claim to be a "rather messy affair". The librarian, a really devout man, up to the point of bigotry, proceeds to scold you for allowing one your students into the restricted section to consult some of the "most hideous books ever written".
Of course, you're dumbfounded: what the heck the old bat is talking about? What permission? When you go down to the library, you discover that someone has counterfeited your signature to be allowed to consult books as the "Delomelanichon", the "Pimander", the "Gayat al-Hakim" and the spanish version of the "Necronomicon". And the one who have forged the permission is no one other than your dear student John...

Sensing that something is really amiss, you decide to unravel this mystery. Not only you want to know why one of your more apt students has gone so far to read some old useless grimoires, but you are also afraid for you. In the cuttthroat, backstabbing enviroment of high academia, a scandal could be lethal. And you know that some of the other professors are after your post.

Since you don't know how to act, though, you ask for help to one of your american friends, Richard Lawson. He send you to a privat investigator, which he used in several occasions and that he trust completely. The investigator discover quickly that John didn't have a lot of socail life: his only intersts were ancient religions and politic. He was a staunch repubblican supporter and he was one of the volunteers that helped in the recent elections. The P.I. shows you a photo, thet the boy had framed and kept over his desk at his place. It shows a radiant John alongside with the recently elected Massachusetts governor, Scott Brown...
Cornelius is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-24-2010, 09:41 AM   #33
SonofJohn
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Default Re: Modern Horror/Action/Secret Fantasy in Boston

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post

1) If one studied in either Jerusalem or Tel Aviv and one is an expert on the influences of Zoroastrian mysticism on Judaic, Islamic and Christian mysticism; has written monograms on kabbalah rituals; knows Avestan, Biblical Hebrew, Mishnaic Hebrew, Aramaic, Koine Greek and Classical Arabic; and one is a tenured professor at Harvard; what is one a professor of?

Ancient Middle Eastern Languages? Religious Studies? Something more specific?

And a subquestion, 1a), what precisely should a Hyperspecialisation Perk that has something to do with Zoroastrian influences on Major Monotheistic Religions encompass and be called? How narrow does it need to be?

2) For the above character, what other ancient languages would it be plausible that he would have learned as part of his scholarship? Would it be unreasonably broad to include lore or knowledge of ancient Mesopotamean cultures?
Acient oriental philology would also be a reasonable subject for him to study, linguistically knowlege of mesopotanian culture would fit his selection languages better then the zorastian stuff. He has quite a leaning to ward semitic languages, wich could make him a linguist of semitic languages. I would rule out Theology and Archeology because he seem s to be more in to textes than in to artifacts, niether seems he to believe in what he ist researching, influence contradicts the concept divine of revelation a little.

And if we are in New England allready Lovecraft mentioned Jessidi Kurds in one of his storys(the red hook) as devilworkshippers wich are actually workshiping the zorastian Ahura Mazda who was never broke with his first angel, unlike the judeo christian god....
SonofJohn is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-24-2010, 10:37 AM   #34
quarkstomper
 
quarkstomper's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: The Enchanted Land-O-Cheese
Default Re: Modern Horror/Action/Secret Fantasy in Boston

Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishRover View Post
If you want somethingstrange, here's a starting point: The Great Molasses Flood. (No joke--this is for real!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molasses_Flood
I read about the Great Molasses Flood years and years ago but had forgotten about it. That is a good, weird event.

Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishRover View Post
British soldiers killed on Breed's Hill, trying again to take the hill--when the stars are right. (Or a sorcerer mad at the USA tries to invoke an enemy of America--while standing there--or at the grave of the commander of the British forces. Of course, the Battle Road is also a good place for hauntings.
Also remember, the British technically won that battle, in that they succeeded in taking the hill. They just paid an incredibly high price for it in dead and wounded. But the American forces holding the hill eventually withdrew because they ran out of ammunition. So perhaps the ghosts of Breed's Hill are Americans who refused to retreat and stubbornly held their ground even when their bullets ran out and the Redcoats came up the hill after them...

Another plot possibility: much of present-day Boston, including the Back Bay region, is built on massive landfills that built up the swampy regions and inlets around Old Boston. In the early 1800s, the top of Beacon Hill was cut off and used to fill in a millpond to create what is now Haymarket Square; and later after a major fire swept through the city, the debris and rubble was used as landfill at the waterfront. There's bound to be something buried under the Back Bay that really needs to stay buried but which wants to come back...
quarkstomper is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-24-2010, 02:05 PM   #35
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: Modern Horror/Action/Secret Fantasy in Boston

Quote:
Originally Posted by SonofJohn View Post
Acient oriental philology would also be a reasonable subject for him to study, linguistically knowlege of mesopotanian culture would fit his selection languages better then the zorastian stuff.
True, but the player wanted Zoroastrian, so Zoroastrian he gets. I'm trying to stuff in some more ancient languages, but feeling reluctant to spoil the nice round point value. Which is stupid, since I don't believe in point values, but there you are.

There's just so much adventure potential in Akkadian and Sumerian.

Does anyone have a writeup of the skills and languages required for someone with Language Talent to be able to read ancient magical writings in Mesopotamia?

Quote:
Originally Posted by SonofJohn View Post
He has quite a leaning to ward semitic languages, wich could make him a linguist of semitic languages. I would rule out Theology and Archeology because he seem s to be more in to textes than in to artifacts, niether seems he to believe in what he ist researching, influence contradicts the concept divine of revelation a little.
I believe that the character is agnostic or atheistic. He's a rabbi's son, however, and quite a student of the Torah and Talmud.

I made him a Professor of Religious Anthropology, which I think is a nice fit.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SonofJohn View Post
And if we are in New England allready Lovecraft mentioned Jessidi Kurds in one of his storys(the red hook) as devilworkshippers wich are actually workshiping the zorastian Ahura Mazda who was never broke with his first angel, unlike the judeo christian god....
You are a wonderful human being. My players curse you, but I thank you.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-24-2010, 06:04 PM   #36
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: Modern Horror/Action/Secret Fantasy in Boston

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cornelius View Post
Let me have a shot.
Thanks for that.

As it happens, I've decided that the PI is the one who initially gets involved and he brings the lawyer into it when he needs him to make heads or tail of some legal documents he finds.

Those will be a hand-written valuation of several bronze and flint artifacts by a Professor Charles Eliot Norton in 1888 for a man named William Monaghan (he concludes that although their style is exotic, they appear to be recent fakes), a claim made by Andrew Jackson Borden against the estate of William Monaghan in 1891 for the burial services, records of an auction in 1918, the last will and testament of one Cornelius E. Rawlings (d. 1941) made in 1938 and a single page written in some form of cuniform script.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Last edited by Icelander; 01-25-2010 at 10:43 AM.
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-24-2010, 06:08 PM   #37
rosignol
 
rosignol's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Seattle, Washington, USA
Default Re: Modern Horror/Action/Secret Fantasy in Boston

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
There's just so much adventure potential in Akkadian and Sumerian.
There's also a lot of potential for gratuitous Ghostbusters quotes, which can utterly ruin a mood of tension and suspense, depending on the game.

Alternatively, you could suggest that another PC take the quirk "Learned everything he knows about ancient Sumeria from contemporary cinema" and hope the GM doesn't realize what he's being set up for.
__________________
What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.
― William Lamb Melbourne
rosignol is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-24-2010, 06:11 PM   #38
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: Modern Horror/Action/Secret Fantasy in Boston

Quote:
Originally Posted by rosignol View Post
Alternatively, you could suggest that another PC take the quirk "Learned everything he knows about ancient Sumeria from contemporary cinema" and hope the GM doesn't realize what he's being set up for.
I am the GM. ;)
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-24-2010, 08:52 PM   #39
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: Modern Horror/Action/Secret Fantasy in Boston

Brainstorming encouraged:

In a setting where magic is real, but sporadic, in that mystical forces are strong at some times and weak at others, and hard to learn, it would still end up affecting history. From the fact that the average person doesn't believe in magic, it must be subtle and well hidden.

I want there to be several secret societies aware of magic and the supernatural. All of them have seperate reasons for wanting to keep their knowledge a secret and mystical powers that allow them to do so.

Some of these societies will be composed of other entities than humans.

Does anyone have ideas for important power groups and how they tie into what 'mundanes' believe to be the real power structures? I'm looking particularly for plausibility, as far as conspiracy fiction can be plausible, at least.

Surviving factions of Templars, Teutonic Knights, Knights of St. John, etc. are nice. The Vatican is nearly certainly in the know somehow and that means, according to Ken Hite, that there exists an equal and opposite British conspiracy. ;)

I'd like a group of supremely skilled assassins in there somewhere, just because that's a scary threat for the action-packed sequels.

If there are monsters in the world, we need to account for where they are hiding and such.

I'm thinking of magic having been nearly dormant for the past century or so. The last hooray was during the end of the 19th century. Brief spikes after WWI and during WWII, but most adepts would have been unable to channel any power (and the world thus justified in calling them frauds).

Vampires may or may not exist in numbers. Faeries are likely to have been here once, but have left for another world in which magic does work. The same for many Wilderness-themed monsters.

Basically, most myths originally referred to real things, but might be distorted versions of the 'truth'. All the hokey-pokey of various mystical traditions works under the right conditions, but those conditions might not have been in place all that often during history. And some people can do it and some can not. Most magic rituals that really work are unimaginably ancient and occultists (the one who are in on enough secrets to make their work worthwhile) theorise that perhaps humans learned magic from some other race in a period prior to recorded history and all rituals descend from that knowledge somehow (and humans are thus not able to create new rituals).
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Last edited by Icelander; 01-24-2010 at 08:57 PM.
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-24-2010, 09:54 PM   #40
Ciaran
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Modern Horror/Action/Secret Fantasy in Boston

This setting is GURPS Cabal: Ken Hite has already done all the heavy lifting for you. I'd simply use his work.

That said: if vampires exist and you want your setting to be plausible, they operate under draconian rules of secrecy. They are likely diverting from the massive unregulated US and Chinese blood markets rather than feeding directly. A little googling on this yields fascinating reading btw.

No combination of uneasily coexisting supernatural conspiracies could long remain undiscovered in today's world without some sort of overarching treaty, ruthlessly enforced. In my Cabal campaign, the PCs are those enforcers - supernatural beings charged by the Grand Masters with keeping the Secret and tracking down rogue agents. Stealing an idea from Nightwatch, their 'police' units are divided by the hours of light and darkness: Ordo Lux and Ordo Tenebris, two sides of the same coin charged with the same mission, but serving different Masters.
Ciaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
action!, horror, modern, monster hunters, skill list, urban fantasy

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 01:30 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.