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Old 12-15-2018, 10:16 PM   #1971
William
 
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Default Re: Real-Life Weirdness

Two more from Imgur, these on the theme of "weapons that would be cool in one or another way, practical or not":

https://imgur.com/gallery/Yp9hZuN A hybrid of a hammer and a nail gun. I don't know either.

https://imgur.com/gallery/e52CH8J A guy with a bad motorcycle accident commissions a writing-etched knife with a handle made from fragments of his own bone. Gotta say, self-necromancy is certainly more morally acceptable than intruding on cemeteries!
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Old 12-19-2018, 11:49 AM   #1972
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A Canadian startup founded by a doctor has announced their new product, described aptly by this article headline, "Smartphone App Measures Wounds, Tracks Healing", thus demonstrating that the much-maligned hitpoint ablation model of injury works just fine in the real world, not just as a gaming aid. The article doesn't mention which rule systems the tracker app supports, though -- though it has to include D&D, right?

Might be a nice background detail for your higher-tech game. McCoy's saltshaker probably has a camera in the objective end to help with the medical scanning. No doubt some enterprising player will think of some alternative uses for that camera during an adventure.
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Old 12-24-2018, 03:58 PM   #1973
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I mean... a lot of Australia falls into this thread just on the general principle of "I could invent an ultra-deadly exotic distant continent on my fantasy world, or I could just crack open some ecology papers from Australia," but this one is the weather:

Australia has hail with spikes on it.


What actually happens when your GM permits the Hail spell to do damage...
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Old 12-28-2018, 09:43 AM   #1974
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Australia gets all the good stuff.

Though in reality, the phenomenon isn't really unique to Australia. Here's an example of spiky hail from a couple of years ago in California. It's a kind of "aggregate hailstone" that forms when multiple hailstones stick together. More unusual than the spherical kind, plus they usually break apart when they hit the ground, so it's harder to notice them.

But luckily, the explorers of the distant, deadly continent will be too preoccupied with dodging the mace heads raining from the sky to analyze the finer scientific points. And of course when it comes to combat spells, clearly it's simply "a wizard did it", and you've got a nice detail to explain why the custome Ice Storm does so much damage.
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Old 12-28-2018, 11:25 AM   #1975
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I've seen pictures of car damage from regular hail. Imagine going out expecting to see dents, only to find pick-axe damage.

Could make for an interesting old-timey murder mystery. The victim was obviously shallowly stabbed numerous times.
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Old 12-28-2018, 01:11 PM   #1976
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I came across this project when I viewed the Orge Kickstarter page. Note that I am not a patron of said project, nor am I endorsing it.

DARTER - A Micro Pen with a hidden secret
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...?ref=discovery

Disclaimers aside, it's a key-chain sized, refillable micropen that includes an emergency sewing kit. It's advertised as an addition to one's Every Day Carry (EDC) kit. But come on, look at that picture. We all know this is a nefarious villain's cover story for micro dart gun. Your Espionage characters should be facing this in the near future.
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Old 01-05-2019, 11:53 AM   #1977
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Let's start off 2019 with a bit of freaky extra-gory cult practices, shall we?

Quote:
Originally Posted by nytimes
Archaeologists in Mexico say they have found the first temple dedicated to a deity called the Flayed Lord, an important god in the Aztec Empire whose worshipers were said to wear the skin of sacrificial victims.

... two stone skulls and a stone torso that had an extra hand hanging off its left arm. Scientists said the extra hand suggested the god was wearing the remains of a sacrificial victim.
Verbal accounts of the religion's activities come at the time of the Spanish invasion from the Aztecs, who were in turn speaking about a group that had existed centuries earlier, so, of course, take with a grain of political/historical salt - but the presence of physical artifacts makes the group's nature plausible. Use for lots of purposes:

* generic reason for a dungeon dive: the group has been legally sentenced to collective execution, and you're here to clear the temple out with prejudicial force / the big sacrificial summoning is happening soon and you need to get in, free a bunch of prisoners, and stop the Evil High Priest and his guardian Boss Fight Monster.

* Iconography of a background cult in your fantasy world with a fertility purpose (as the article suggests): yes, their price is high, but they're effective. Would you rather lose a few healthy virgins selected by lot from the outlying villages, or the entire country to famine and drought? Or: look, they lost the war and they got kicked out of the good farming country. If they're going to survive out here, the local god demands sacrifices...

* Turns out the group is being historically slandered. The skins are just good quality corpses they purchase on the market. They're necromancers or shapeshifters with every right to be there and they offer useful services to buyers.
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Old 01-07-2019, 09:38 AM   #1978
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Inside the New York Public Library’s Last, Secret Apartments:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...ret-apartments

Includes a floor plan of one apartment. Call of Cthulhu anyone?
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Old 01-13-2019, 01:58 AM   #1979
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The plan to make artificial meteor showers
Astro Live Experiences (ALE), is on track to launch its first satellite and begin experiments in space for the first time. If successful, ALE could be on its way to creating meteor shows at special events for crowds of thousands. ...
The idea is to load each satellite with 400 pellets, each one 2cm (less than an inch) in diameter. A few of them would be released at a time to allow for a meteor shower three to 10 seconds long.


So, miniature Rods from God, aimed at population centres? Orbital bombardment for entertainment purposes?
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Old 01-13-2019, 03:35 AM   #1980
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
So, miniature Rods from God, aimed at population centres? Orbital bombardment for entertainment purposes?
Far more practical than actual orbital bombardment. The problem is getting paid for it.
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