Real-Life Weirdness

[L.J.Steele]

Norwegian Penguin Major-General https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/22/...in-norway-army

[L.J.Steele]

Jellyfish in SPAAAACE!

https://mediachomp.com/jellyfish-in-...u3ErJ6DUUBPqQY

As part of NASA’s SLS-1 Mission in 1991, over 2,000 moon jellyfish were launched into space on the space shuttle Columbia. The purpose of the science experiment was to study how the lack of gravity in space effects jellyfish development. They wanted to know whether adult jellyfish would behave differently once back in the gravity of Earth. This was because humans and jellyfish both share a common orientation according to gravity. Anyway, in the early 90s there were close to 60,000 jellyfish orbiting Earth.

[L.J.Steele]

Psychic Capital of the World -- Cassadaga, FL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassadaga,_Florida

[Johnny1A.2]

Want to throw a little surprise at your PCs? How about rivers of... wine?

River Of Wine Flows Through Town In Portugal

Not wine, but on a similar note, how about a literal river of red ink:

River Of Red Ink

[L.J.Steele]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Not wine, but on a similar note, how about a literal river of red ink:

River Of Red Ink

In my youth, I lived downstream from a local book printing factory -- you could tell when they flushed the ink because the river color changed. Robin's egg blue was pretty common.

[L.J.Steele]

America's oldest still operating vigilante society turned social club


https://www.middletownpress.com/jour....php#taboola-2

[Inky]

Not necessarily "weirdness", but here's an amazing contraption that might give some ideas to people playing TL1 or even late TL0 gadgeteers.

Diorite vase | Primitive tools | Unique experiment continues

The "Scientists Against Myths" channel has a number of other things like this, including two other vase projects.

There's no record that they did have a device exactly like this in Ancient Egypt, it's entirely hypothetical except for some tomb paintings showing what might be simplified views of something similar (although, as you can see, it can produce something very much like the Predynastic vases in question, so that's circumstantial evidence). But it's certainly all possible with Bronze Age technology - even Stone Age, if you count Copper Age as Stone Age (the machine contains no metal, but a copper saw was used for building it). Does Copper Age (Chalcolithic) count as TL0 or TL1, by the way?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Inky

Does Copper Age (Chalcolithic) count as TL0 or TL1, by the way?

GURPS Low Tech puts it at the end of TL 0 IIRC (there's a short section that splits TL 0 up into several sections, each of which is arguably as distinct from the one preceding it as TL 1 is from TL 2).

[L.J.Steele]

Police Chief warns Fortune Teller of Local Law

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/14/u...aw-police.html

Could be a plot seed on either end -- police harassing a wainscot-magic practitioner or PCs discover magic when ordered to crack down on the local shops

[dcarson]

https://www.euronews.com/2023/10/16/...-in-disneyland

Conspiracy with a sense of humor?