All black birds actually kind of creep me out...

That's really a thing? I thought it was made up by the corporations that create modern holiday/media traditions, from a very dim folk memory of Celtic/Northern shamans/witches having corvid helper spirits...even mynahs? Black guillemots? Black cockatoos? Groove-billed ani (look at their little smiles!)?

I have a great urge to show you cute corvid videos now, 'cause most of my most favourite birds are black, but I won't. ('cept this one. It's albino! Preeeetty birdie.)

Entirely unrelated to the above and purely out of curiousity, have you ever read Blood Meridian?
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:55, Wed 08 Jan 2014.

Well they don't creep me out a lot, but they are creepy.

And never heard of it.

But...but birdies...being creeped out by a tawny frogmouth or a whiskered nightjar I can understand, or those Polynesian birds I forget the name of that secrete toxins from their backs, but aw crows...

Apparently it is Famous Modern American Literature, but I only read it recently. It's the first one Cormac McCarthy, the guy who wrote No Country For Old Men and The Road got published...sort of like a super-distilled Western that's pretty much nothing but preindustrial beauty and raw violence, but it was Judge Holden (who might be the Devil) resembling Thaddeus Whateley that made me wonder. It's a very deep, surprisingly quiet book, just bloody as all Hell. I would recommend it, I think.

@ Stray - The way two of the characters meet early on reminded me so much of (younger) Carl and Jesse, I laughed.

A good friend of mine has highly recommended Blood Meridian to me, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

You would like it (and CB would not) - his use of the English language and his handling of the contrast of beautiful scenery to wretched acts of men is stunning. It's one of those books it's effortless to hear in the mind's ear - some soft and Southern drawl, but educated.

This message was last edited by the player at 04:49, Wed 15 Jan 2014.

Work has gotten slightly crazy so please forgive me if I'm slow in getting posts up ... feel free to puppet CB/Jake as needed

Thanks for the heads-up, CB! We're going to have to find a way to put Jake's investigatin' skills to use without attracting the attention of sundry nasties somehow, methinks...

@Adrian - actually, no-one's shot at Alouette for over an hour now...


Potentially amusing work anecdote for y'all: I'm doing a lot of lab-based stuff at present, and this morning I was peaceably ID'ing the contents of a late Viking/Early Norse midden. The pottery specialist had gone out (the door goes ca-CLUNK, which sort of precludes sneaking) and my end of the building was practically deserted. I continue to work...then something pulls at my sleeve.

me: ??? [brings sleeve up to look at]
*skeletal human hand is resting amicably on my arm*

me: #@%*~ [unhooks articulating wires of human reference skeleton from woolly jumper before disconnected hand falls into what I'm working on]

That is funny. :-)



Say, didn't Evans bring his flame thrower? Wasting a sunlight grenade on Vincent seems like overkill...

To be fair, I probably encourage them (our human ref. skeleton is at least two people) by talking to them...

I thought he did, too, but he seems to be preoccupied with covering the priest in Mad Science silly string o' healing. Apparently vampire blood is too thick to bless its water content and God disapproves of using puddles, too, I checked.

'Course, since he was the thing apparently keeping any other vampires around at bay, it's unlikely any of them would help him if we just left him there. He takes normal damage in sunlight, and half a frikkin' fencepost through the chest is a lot of damage...alternately, there's probably at least one lamp in the bunkhouse and possibly stores in the toolshed on the far side of the barn where y'all could get a supply of oil/kerosene...there might possibly be ghost rock still in the barn somewhere, though according to Milburn the barn has Bad in...

Evans is basing his reaction on the vampires from before, which weren't hurt by his flamethrower. He doesn't think fire will hurt Vincent any more than it did Darla and her groupies, so unless William tells him different, he's handing over the only other weapon he thinks will work.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:29, Tue 21 Jan 2014.

On a plane, real post coming when I am back home. In the mean time, Chicken Police (deputies?)

 http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/..._source=npr&utm_

Made of win. I forsee one small bastion of calm and order in the environs of Blackthorn gone mad, and that is Deputy Chicken's juristriction. Those ex-rampaging Comanches aren't going anywhere.

Y'all may have seen these, but flashes of comedy in surroundings of sheer horror (and occasionally vice versa) feel true to the spirit of The Storm. Some fandoms that should never hybridise:

Pokémon x Lovecraft

Dr.Who x Muppets

(all right, the first one is sort of cute, but the second is the personification of D: )

Leading on from the above and the previous topic of creepy birds...well, I've always thought nightjars are kind of creepy-looking, but I did not know about some of the big South American kinds, and recently stumbled onto the existence of the Great Potoo. If that sounds somewhat Lovecraftian, that is probably because it refers to this. That is not a photomanipulation, that is its actual face.

Also, they do the nightjar thing and are perfectly camoflaged until they're not. My reaction was along the lines of 'aaa aaa aaa aaa aa'.

I'M ALIVE!!!!!!!!

In reply to John Smith (msg # 906):

awesome. You should read up on The Hollow Men thread, as that's where your character was last seen.

I'll get a rough map of the ranch up later so y'all have some idea what buildings/items of potential cover are where.

Trying to catch up. Lots to read.

The priest doesn't actually know what he's doing, by the way: we just wanted to make sure someone went around the back of the house before the squealy person dies a terrible, terrible death, crow distraction notwithstanding.

Since this game is still semi-hibernating and there can be a loooong time between posts, I thought I'd sweep together the PCs' current intelligence here for reference to save forgetting.







John's Info: upstairs is apparently barricaded like someone was expecting to be shot at, but lights remain lit up there.

Say, did we really go through the whole of 2013 without an XP award?

By the way... I think it's awesome that this game has been literally going for years, with much of the group still on.
...and that for William, this is still his first in-game-day! :-)

It was a slow year, I think. I am never not impressed at what this game's survived, though. Also that CB's still alive after everything Blackthorn's put him through.

Also, hold up, I just realised William's parry was lowered by that Wild attack, so he did get bitten in the nose...

[offers William a tin nose] ...er, sorry about that, old thing. Gosh.

I think CB will have horrible nightmares about Blackthorn ... or die horribly in it :)