Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas
I am sympathetic with the view that it is bad taste to find some secret occult reason for the holocaust, because the true horror of the holocaust or the Rwandan Genocide is the utter irrationality. Any game set in New Orleans today will have to interact with the effects of hurricane Katrina though.
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Indeed so. And hurricanes in general, past and future ones, for many places around the Gulf Coast.
The effects of such hurricanes include, of course, their effects on the supernatural world. Storms and floods may coincide with fluctations in mana levels. Flooding may fill monster lairs in tombs and crypts, trapping what lives there, or it might cause their inhabitants to seek new living quarters. Wards and seals may be disrupted. Curses ended or activated.
And as
True Detective chillingly noted, times of disaster, refugee crises and a multitude of dead or missing people are times when the predations of monsters, human or otherwise, are easiest for the erstwhile guardians of society to miss. Anything that hunts humans can feast without fear of reprisal during natural disasters and their aftermath, secure in the knowledge that any missing people will be counted as victims of the natural tragedy.
Metaphorically, the otherwordly incursions out of the Vile Vortex represent an oncoming storm. Perhaps some such threats may literally bring with them storms, hurricanes of otherwordly power. That would, at the very least, be a potent fear for an occultist from Galveston and a prophetic vision he would do much to prevent coming to pass.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas
- Excuse for cinematic medicine when one of the monster hunters gets too badly mangled
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That's when we break out the grimoire of
Al-Risalah al-Mawt, the occult medical researches of Zahid al-Talib and the principle of supernatural healing in a setting where the supernatural has a sinister bent and very real costs: "
Only Death can pay for Life".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas
- maybe nature spirits, the loa of pigs, or a radical animal-rights group cum neopagan cult do not approve of these experiments?
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I've only just started my Afro-Caribbean and African-American folk religion studies. Which loas would be particularly concerned with the welfare of swine, or, conversely, mortally offended at the idea of sullying their pigly pure forms with blasphemous science?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas
- maybe a patron of the research has a cryptid with damaged lungs (or lungs which don't react well with our reality) and they are hoping to provide new lungs because feeding it the unspeakable diet it needs to continually regenerate is getting hard to hide? Or create superhuman beings with increased oxygen capacity?
- I like John Dalman's gills idea
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Look, the player of Edward Alvin Smith wants me to reiterate that he is a person, not a cryptid, despite the gills. And that a diet rich in seafood is perfectly natural for the regional cuisine, hardly 'unspeakable', and the essential Nommo oils he requires can be synthesized perfectly well with Alchemy.
As for the creation of
more superhuman beings with increased oxygen capacity, he is intrigued by your ideas and wishes to subscribe to your newsletter, provided you are willing to supply physical copies that are tolerant of occasional splashes of seawater.