In reply to George Mogrey (msg # 147):

OOC: My deep apologies for the confusion in/with my posts.  I was trying to explain my understanding of the situation through Theaker.  The narrative was Theaker trying to put the situation into words, done poorly it seems.  What can I do to resolve the confusion or misunderstandings?  I am sorry for my confusing posts.

In reply to James Theaker, Ph.D. (msg # 148):

I think the best course is to revise the two in-character posts, along these lines.

1. James shows George and Thomas the books. They have access to the Books thread, so you don't have to recap for them, unless you choose.

2. Express regret that Bliant and Frank have already gone.

3. Tell what you've written to McTavish. Decide whether to go into Baxter's store to post it OR have George take it to Brewer with a request to drive it into Arkham and post it there. Either way, you figure it should be in McTavish's hands by Saturday.

Then we can get on with whatever you want to do this afternoon. All of the above can be done in a quarter hour or so.

Ah, it is Saturday, chief...if we bribe Brewer a lot to drop everything and drive in right now then the note might get there/Brewer work out who to hand it to at the university before 5pm (unless the address is McTavish's house), but the real post would go to the sorting office and stay there until Monday unless the US does Sunday deliveries.

In reply to George Mogrey (msg # 150):

Sorry, yes. McTavish will have it on Monday then, in case you aren't back by then.

Edited! Apparently I don't know where North is. To be fair I usually don't.

All right gang, if we get up to the cave and there's a large rabbit there we run away, right?

I want to wait for Christine's response before pressing on.

Apologies, I had a couple of bad days. Just put something up.

I don't generally have any truck with Romans, but here is a thing on the internet I found funny, in case it might help any (sound on): https://twitter.com/EvanOutOfT.../1290432773539401729
This message was last edited by the player at 20:04, Thu 06 Aug 2020.

You know, whilst I am decidedly mycophile in most cases, I was just thinking yesterday how horrifying vinegar mothers are, and how I would make considerably more vinegar if it didn't mean dealing with them. I think it's because they're not moored to anything and set off my phobia of gellid wobbling...

Meanwhile, George of all people is looking set for 'Death by attempting to hug the Cthulhu Mythos', and I am here for it.

My feeling is that dying heroically at the end of a Cthulhu adventure is the best outcome a character can hope for.  Drooling in a mental hospital for the rest of your existence just does not make for a good remaining life.
Except if it's a campaign and the character needs to carry on.

One of my fondest memories was driving a Stutz Bearcat into a Cthulhu monster and the gas tank blowing up. What a way to go! Monster died also.

That's the important bit! "They Buried What They Could Find" is a fine epitath indeed.


...that said, there's something to be said for not dying heroically and living out one's days in peace with only a mild tendancy to scream hysterically at the sight of jellyfish.

I had an investigator on here who was a perfect Lovecraft protagonist and just too dense to ever really know what was going on...he was physically stood on the road to Carcossa in the Presence at one point and still thinks Hastur is a tall guy who lives in Peru. He's absoloutely fine, aside from a slightly obsessive attention to stains and personal grooming (couple of incidents with exploding cultists, especially the one that got in his hair).

I am pretty sure you don't strap dynamite to an exploding harpoon, unless you just hate whales. The aim is to blow something important in to make them dead faster and stop struggling, not blow them up. You could theoretically fill the chamber with blasting gel, which in the 1880s is frankly terrifying and would definitely cost you the harpoon (now possibly better described as a pipe bomb on a string), but you'd still have an internal firing pin triggered by the whale pulling away from the line...that is, I'm sure George can easily work out the use of a fuse and caps, but not from that, and he only saw the soggy sticks in the gloom before Theaker wanted a look in anyway.

However, I do think Theaker would be close enough - and have touched the packaging whilst rummaging down to the caps - to tell how badly water-damaged the stuff is without any rolls if he's heard about/handled it before, though. Casual cardboard tube packaging would likely mean half the nitro is in the bottom of the bag and the rest distributed in unstable clumps through the sticks after a few months in a stream, but industrial or military surplus stuff would get a wax coating and might give a halfway reliable boom.

...or he could always just jump up and down a lot and see if he explodes, but it'd be polite to let Christine leave the caves first. Someone has to look after the cats.


edit: this isn't a vexed pedant rant, by the way, I was (am) actually doing that kind of horrified laugh generally reserved for mediaeval European exotic animal care (e.g beating your parrot around the head with an iron bar) or military stupidity (throwing ketchum grenades uphill, sticky bombs etc.). I wouldn't put such incredibly dangerous foolishness out of the realms of possibility, younger whaling crew members being considered an expendable resource and all, but for efficiency vs. payout you'd have to be sailing with Captain Ahab or something. Poor whales.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:09, Thu 13 Aug 2020.

Thanks.

If you seriously wanted to go dynamite fishing for whales it would probably be possible by 1926, since they'd just about got the hang of reliable depth charges* by the end of the war. The challenge at that point would be in finding a particularly unlucky whale to blow up.



*which George might've interacted with, since the "hurl it over the side" kind were quite widely supplied.

I was only trying to whimper about not being able to use the dynamite. In no way was it meant to be a criticism.  I'm enjoying the game, thanks Keeper of the Dark Woods.

Well, George has probably dynamited a stump or two in his time, just helping out a neighbor.

@Theaker - I don't think anyone was implying it was? I was just adding tone clarification for myself because between a dry, flyting sense of humour and a lack of social instincts I can come over as aggressive when I'm amused sometimes and I have no idea when.

It gives me great if morbid joy to picture a teenage George clinging to the railings whilst the captain somewhere up on the bow screams "Fuck this whale in particular!" and sticks it with a harpoon full of blasting gel (which is pretty much barely-stabilised nitroglycerine concentrate with a bit of waterproofing - it's what Nobel made and immediately started giving out prizes for making it less likely for wars to happen with that stuff around, because yikes) so the entire ship just ends up plastered in bits of whale.

It's like that one scene from Dead and Loving It, only on innocent marine mammals: https://youtu.be/6fFnJNC0K0w?t=81


@Keeper - aye, as I said I'm sure he/they can work it out. I'd imagine Henry would do better, though, if he retains sufficient appendages.

In reply to George Mogrey (msg # 165):

I was just making sure my comment was not construed or questioned as criticism, nothing more.

Then...it's a good thing no-one thought it was. [nod]

That said, if anyone ever wants to criticise what I'm doing (or what George is - though I might well just agree with that, depending on how much of a Bad Idea it is or a stubborn geezer he's being) I love to hear it, so long as it's constructive. There's nothing worse than thinking someone's into an action or dynamic in a game and then finding out later they weren't having fun with that at all but just being too shy/polite to mention it, or worse, assumed you were too much of a jerk to have a reasonable grown-up talk with. That's a horrible feeling.

On the theme of commentary... [doublepoint at Christine] someone has high SAN and is smart.

Question: what would George be rolling if he had those blasting caps?

Not that we're planning anything stupid or anything...

I stand by my statement that "they buried what they could find" is a fine epitath. That said, since there weren't any pliers in the satchel, George resorting to crimping proper blasting caps with his back teeth probably wouldn't have gone much better.

At any rate, um...sorry if I just exploded everyone.


Also, only on-topic because weird horror, but I found a thing, and it is surely the Best Thing: https://twitter.com/TheDreamRot

In reply to George Mogrey (msg # 169):

The Dream Rot is great. I've wanted to do a southern gothic scenario for a long time and may take inspiration from it.

I mean, some of them are extremely silly because AI, but dang, me too.

Also, on the theme of Southern Gothic, did you see? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Js5yEsE1k  I have mentally been doing the chipmunk-inna-box thing for days. Season 2 in three weeks!

Im just away for the weekend. I'll get a post up on Monday. It's a friend's birthday.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:16, Sun 30 Aug 2020.