Real-Life Weirdness

[Bruno]

And something for modern games in general:

Three Chinese men ...came across a lump of shiny metal in a scrapyard in Bishkek, in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, last year. Attracted by its shiny surface and its “gold sparkle”, they haggled the dealer down to a price of $2,000 (£1,135) for what both sides regarded as a treasure but neither could identify.

It was 274kg of depleted uranium.

[Bruno]

OK, today is a goldmine of weirdness.

"A burglar who broke into a home just east of Fresno rubbed food seasoning over the body of one of two men as they slept in their rooms and then used an 8-inch sausage to whack the other man on the face and head before running out of the house, Fresno County sheriff's deputies said Saturday."

I really don't know what to make of it in a gaming context. Possibly a more surreal magical ritual. Possibly part of some extremely complicated scheme by an Illuminati group.

Possibly an attempt to "bait" two PCs into getting attacked by werewolves?

If nothing else, it's something seriously odd to have happen to your local Weirdness Magnet.

http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/848554.html

[jason taylor]

Emperor Qin Shi Huang rigged a set of crossbows to open fire when his tomb was opened. That's not exactly weird in the sense of impossible. But it is almost to much like Cliffhangers.
I wonder if the trap still works...

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

I wonder if the trap still works...

I'd find that highly unlikely in the real world. Even the terracotta warriors were in pieces (With the exception of one kneeling archer-figure which was relatively intact) and ceramics are much more resistant to aging than wood, metal, and bowstrings.

Of course, in a world were the crossbows could be alchemically preserved...

Also of interest are the 100 rivers of mercury that were said to flow through the tomb. These were probably mostly real, because the soil around the tomb area is quite high in mercury. Whether there were "100" or not of course is debatable.

They still haven't opened the tomb proper, but the whole complex was raided (and set on fire) by a general 5 years after the Emperor's death, so it's not exactly untouched.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

I wonder if the trap still works...

I doubt it still worked a year later, let alone now.

[D-Man]

If you need ammo fir real-life weirdness just check out Coast to Coast AM (the Art Bell/ George Noory show).

If you have never heard of the show, check out the web site at http://www.coasttocoastam.com, and here is some additional information, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_to_Coast_AM.

They talk about everything "weirdness" on this show. Enjoy!!

Dennis

[Blarg]

The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices is full of adventure hooks. After all, everybody knows that [names of fraudulent medical devices or treatments] were really suppressed/sabotaged by the Secret Masters, especially the radioactive ones...

The "Radium Girls" died horrible deaths from exposure to radium used in phosphorescent paint. Many women survived such exposure, however.
What effects will this have on the PCs...err, their descendants?

Civilian Radiation Accidents

[Anaraxes]

Thousands of dead carp are floating belly-up in Clear Lake, littering its shores and fouling the air in what appears to be part of a nationwide die-off.

"There are carp die-offs all over the country," said Lake County Fish and Game warden Lynette Shimek. Newspapers are reporting massive carp kills in lakes in the United States and Canada.

The die-off began about a week ago, she said.

.. But fish officials became suspicious when only carp were affected, Shimek said.

The carcasses must be buried. By law, the landfill cannot accept them.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article...NEWS/810030357

What do the landfill guys know that we don't?

They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky. Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea; but their dead bodies had told their secrets in dreams to the first men, who formed a cult which had never died. This was that cult, and the prisoners said it had always existed and always would exist, hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R'lyeh under the waters, should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway. Some day he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to liberate him.

http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary...lofcthulhu.htm

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/896.html

[William]

Originally Posted by BBC

Although researchers can only speculate that domoic acid caused this historic event, modern toxicologists have conclusively linked the toxin to more recent cases. In 1987 contaminated shellfish poisoned 100 people on Prince Edward Island in Canada, killing three and causing many cases of amnesia. In 1998, 400 disoriented sea lions died along California's central coast — domoic acid was traced back to contaminated fish that swam through a toxic bloom before being eaten by the sea lions.

So... a seaborne poison that can cause amnesia, active in doses as low as what can be consumed in fish that swam through a tainted region.

Picture it: an island without memory. Hundreds of people, living off of the fish, clams, shrimp, and crabs, along with what they can sustainably gather of some seaweed, coconuts, and other plant foods. All of them, in various stages of memory fading out from months past, realizing that the same thing is happening on a regular basis to the entire population, keeping records and engaging in elaborate storytelling rituals to remind themselves who is related to who, and what the laws are.

And if a few outsiders should show up, and stay to observe for a couple of months, and partake of the diet, they find their memory fading too.

A whole society. Hundreds of people.

And one vegetarian.

[RevBob]

Sounds very familiar somehow....