While researching for a project I'm working on for my Patreon short story page, (me? subtlety? never!), I found an interesting item on Wikipedia. The topic was tumulus, aka barrow mounds, and call me crazy but I had no idea people were still building those.
Yet they are. In 2015 a group of enthusiasts built a Long Barrow outside the village of All Cannings, aiming to sell space as a crematoria memorial. Pay a small fee and your relative can stay forever in a purpose-built chalk mound, designed in the traditional style.
Moreover it's not the only company to have colonized this niche in the market. Shortly after the All Cannings experiment - all its spaces were quickly snapped up - the owners of Soulton Hall announced their intention to construct a similar barrow on their property. As with the All Cannings barrow the intent is to provide a spectacular funerary experience, and since Soulton Hall already hosts weddings and provides short term holiday rentals I can picture a unique kind of all-inclusive experience; marriage, wedding anniversaries, death and burial all in the same location.
Frankly it's all a little creepy, in the best folk horror traditions. I can imagine Hammer Horror in its heyday making something memorable with this idea, probably with Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing in the lead. Nigel Kneale would have to write it, of course. Not that I think for a moment this is what the Sacred Stones designers intend, but it's impossible to contemplate something like this without remembering the Wicker Man, or the Stone Tape.
I'm also amazed it took this long for someone to build a new barrow. I'd have thought someone inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th Century or someone in the folk-horror infused 1970s would have had a go. Though possibly someone did but decided not to use it as a public cemetery. It does sound like the perfect Folly, now that I think of it, though traditional Folly-builders preferred Classical motifs.
So what can be done to gamify this?
Night's Black Agents: This is clearly a Node. The only question is who's using it? As a sanctuary almost any kind of vampire could be lurking in those urns. Damned or Supernatural vampires probably positioned the barrow very carefully for mystic architectural purposes; no doubt a ley line flows through the site, or the stars line up perfectly at a certain time of year. It could also be a communications or resupply point, as with the Dracula Dossier's Red Rooms. Alien or Mutant vampires are probably using the site to disguise some other kind of activity; maybe the floor rolls away to reveal some kind of laboratory, or the excavated remains of the alien craft that brought them here so long ago. Or there's always acoustics to play with; the barrow might be designed for its acoustic properties, the better to create an infrasound effect intended to [fill in the blank, but it's not going to be good news]. My go-to would be that the barrow's infrasound helps weaken the barrier between our existence and wherever it is vampires come from, allowing the vampire-thing to possess a human host.
Trail of Cthulhu/Bookhounds: Much depends on when the barrow is built. Assuming a kind of Arts and Crafts project then this could easily be happening in the 1930s, which opens up possibilities for Bookhounds Keepers. Perhaps there's a sociopath out there collecting every book or paper she can to do with Neolithic burial practices, the better to refine her long-term goal of creating a new home for an Entity from beyond the stars. Or perhaps some wealthy scholar is trying to realize the ultimate passion project, but his ideals are being perverted by one of his assistants. Or even the design itself, unintended, pulls something across the void. What would building a barrow in or around London - tricky thought that may be - do for its Megapolisomancy? Could it be part of a larger design to drawn power from the city in order to create [a power store? a special Lever? a place where Megapolisomancers can cast without spending their own power?] What would you have to do to build a barrow like this within London - and would it have to be a traditional barrow, or could you do this with other materials? Bones, say? Even if you do have to use traditional materials that could be a story in itself, as the stones are laboriously transported, in secret, to the construction site. Or maybe the construction site is in plain view - at the Crystal Palace, say, as part of the architectural exhibits.
Esoterrorists: Now here's a question: is the mound intended to weaken the Membrane, or is it something the Ordo built to cover up or bury something it didn't want the rest of the world to see? A funerary burial mound - all spaces already bought and paid for, of course - could be the perfect prison/tomb for something the good guys can't kill but don't want roaming around. Or perhaps this is a mystic interrogation/holding facility for captured Esoterrorists. Cue the ultimate jail break, as their colleagues close in, guns and monsters at the ready. Or if this is intended to weaken the Membrane, then was it built with that purpose in mind or is it being manipulated by outside forces? Maybe one of the burials is actually a kind of Trojan Funeral, intended to sneak something into the mound that will corrupt its mystical energies into something malign. Or, in the best Phil Rickman tradition, the mound could be the plaything of a rich dabbler in mystic arts, intended either to reawaken something foul that once ravaged this site or to channel mystic energies for some hideous purpose.
That's it for this week. Enjoy!
Showing posts with label archaeology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label archaeology. Show all posts
Sunday, 21 May 2017
Sunday, 9 April 2017
Forensic Architecture (Night's Black Agents, Dracula Dossier)
A London-based firm, Forensic Architecture, will give evidence in a German court in a case concerning the shooting death of a victim of the National Socialist Underground terror group.
The dead man, Halit Yozgat, was killed with two shots to the head while working in an internet café he managed. A German espionage agent, Andreas Temme, happened to be in the café at the time, but claims that he paid up and left without noticing that Yozgat had been shot dead, his corpse lying behind the counter.
Forensic Architecture's role will be to demonstrate whether or not Temme's story - that he was there when shots were fired but did not hear them, nor did he notice the blood spatter or the body when he walked out - is credible. The alleged involvement of government agents or authorities in the so-called Bosphorus Serial Murders becomes much more believable if Temme's story is cracked by Forensic Architecture.
So what is forensic architecture, the discipline and the organization?
At its base, forensic science deals with the application of scientific principles in uncovering evidence during the course of an investigation. There are many kinds of forensic disciplines - anthropology, entomology, accounting - but forensic architecture is a new idea.
Eyal Weizman is its creator. An architect by training, Israeli-born Weizman has led the European Research Council funded group Forensic Architecture since 2011. His team of lawyers, filmmakers, architects, scholars, designers and scientists have worked on investigations ranging from the use of arsenic, globally, to the role of the voice in law, shifting sunlight, and Mengele's skull. It tracked the Left-To-Die migrant boat, an incident which led to the death of sixty three people. It's modelled drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. It's studied the Gaza conflict and attacks in Syria.
In its own words:
This is the autopsy of the Urbis.
If you want to see Weizman in action, I recommend the documentary The Architecture of Violence, available on YouTube and prepared by Al Jazeera English. He's also the author of numerous books on forensics, and I'm tempted to seek them out.
But if we were to talk gamification, what role could Forensic Architecture, or a group like it, play?
In Night's Black Agents or Esoterrorists the Forensic Architecture team is an excellent source of player characters. Here you have a group of people from any number of disciplines and all walks of life, working together on some of the most esoteric - and fascinating - examinations of violence and its effect on the wider world. It's a no-brainer.
Moreover it has an extensive history with human rights groups, NGOs and governments all over the planet. Today its people may be in Germany, tomorrow some war zone halfway across the planet, next week unpicking climate change data in the Canadian Arctic. Its people could be anywhere, at any time, and with excellent academic credentials. Player characters dream of that level of access and credibility.
In Dracula Dossier the options get even more interesting. As mentioned last week, the Edom Basic Field Manual posits the option that the characters work for Edom and the Dossier falls into the hands of a group that starts investigating or opposing Edom.
Then one of Edom's prior operations comes under close scrutiny from a suspiciously well-informed Forensic Architecture. According to the media Forensic Architecture was brought on board by relatives of someone who died in that operation. As Keeper, it shouldn't be difficult to find someone who fits that description. If anything you're usually spoilt for choice; civilian casualties are par for the course in the average op, and of course the bodybagged McGuffin doesn't have to be a civilian.
The question then becomes, does Forensic Architecture have the Dossier? If so, is it working on its own behalf, or is it being funded by one of the many Government or NGO factions it's worked with in the past? Its partner list is long and varied; any of them might be the front for a Conspiracy group. Heal The Children is an obvious choice, but as Keeper you can easily design your own fictional partner to infect Forensic Architecture.
Forensic Architecture doesn't have mooks at its disposal, though it's fair to say it knows a lot of people with unusual skill sets if it needs a helping hand. The problem isn't Forensic Architecture's material strength but its political muscle and visibility. If its people vanish in a puff of napalm, that's front page news internationally. If its people drop off the face of the earth, there are many groups out there who will want to know why, making Heat gain potentially intolerable for publicity-shy Edom.
As a Node, a group like Forensic Architecture is probably Level 3 or 4. It has international reach, and its skills and reputation mean it can easily cover up evidence of vampire activity. A Cleaning operation on an international scale; now there's something the Conspiracy would like to have in its pocket.
That's all for now. Enjoy!
The dead man, Halit Yozgat, was killed with two shots to the head while working in an internet café he managed. A German espionage agent, Andreas Temme, happened to be in the café at the time, but claims that he paid up and left without noticing that Yozgat had been shot dead, his corpse lying behind the counter.
Forensic Architecture's role will be to demonstrate whether or not Temme's story - that he was there when shots were fired but did not hear them, nor did he notice the blood spatter or the body when he walked out - is credible. The alleged involvement of government agents or authorities in the so-called Bosphorus Serial Murders becomes much more believable if Temme's story is cracked by Forensic Architecture.
So what is forensic architecture, the discipline and the organization?
At its base, forensic science deals with the application of scientific principles in uncovering evidence during the course of an investigation. There are many kinds of forensic disciplines - anthropology, entomology, accounting - but forensic architecture is a new idea.
Eyal Weizman is its creator. An architect by training, Israeli-born Weizman has led the European Research Council funded group Forensic Architecture since 2011. His team of lawyers, filmmakers, architects, scholars, designers and scientists have worked on investigations ranging from the use of arsenic, globally, to the role of the voice in law, shifting sunlight, and Mengele's skull. It tracked the Left-To-Die migrant boat, an incident which led to the death of sixty three people. It's modelled drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. It's studied the Gaza conflict and attacks in Syria.
In its own words:
Forensic Architecture is ... an emergent field we have developed at Goldsmiths [University, London]. It refers to the production and presentation of architectural evidence - buildings and larger environments, and their media representations.
As contemporary conflicts increasingly take place within urban areas, homes and neighborhoods become targets and most civilian casualties occur within cities and buildings. Urban battlefields have become dense data and media environments, generating information that is shared on social and mainstream media. Many violations, undertaken within cities and buildings, are now caught on camera and are made available almost instantly. The premise of FA is that analyzing IHL [International Humanitarian Law] and HR [Human Rights] violations must involve modelling dynamic events as they unfold in space and time and creating navigable 3D models of environments undergoing conflict, as well as the creation of filmic animations , and interactive cartographies on the urban or architectural scale.Did a missile level that hospital? It can be virtually rebuilt, and the damage tracked in real time through the social media accounts of everyone who was inside at the time. Did a ship full of dying migrants drift through the Med? Its passage, and the passage of every other vessel that might or did in fact come into contact with it, can be traced.
This is the autopsy of the Urbis.
If you want to see Weizman in action, I recommend the documentary The Architecture of Violence, available on YouTube and prepared by Al Jazeera English. He's also the author of numerous books on forensics, and I'm tempted to seek them out.
But if we were to talk gamification, what role could Forensic Architecture, or a group like it, play?
In Night's Black Agents or Esoterrorists the Forensic Architecture team is an excellent source of player characters. Here you have a group of people from any number of disciplines and all walks of life, working together on some of the most esoteric - and fascinating - examinations of violence and its effect on the wider world. It's a no-brainer.
Moreover it has an extensive history with human rights groups, NGOs and governments all over the planet. Today its people may be in Germany, tomorrow some war zone halfway across the planet, next week unpicking climate change data in the Canadian Arctic. Its people could be anywhere, at any time, and with excellent academic credentials. Player characters dream of that level of access and credibility.
In Dracula Dossier the options get even more interesting. As mentioned last week, the Edom Basic Field Manual posits the option that the characters work for Edom and the Dossier falls into the hands of a group that starts investigating or opposing Edom.
Who has the Dossier? Who's trying to break Edom? The answer to that question might change over the course of the campaign as the threat escalates ... Rogues ... a group of burned spies, ex criminals and shady black-ops types who have a grudge against vampires ... Rogues are an excellent starting Opposition, but once the player characters eliminate two or three of the original group ... have a bigger bad guy faction take the Dossier ... Non-State Actors ...So in this version of events, a small group of Rogues - say, trying to investigate the activities of a neo-Nazi group only to discover there are bigger fish to fry - come into possession of the Dossier. They do what they can, but their limited resources and manpower mean they're knocked out of the game quickly. However despite Edom's best efforts the Dossier isn't recovered.
Then one of Edom's prior operations comes under close scrutiny from a suspiciously well-informed Forensic Architecture. According to the media Forensic Architecture was brought on board by relatives of someone who died in that operation. As Keeper, it shouldn't be difficult to find someone who fits that description. If anything you're usually spoilt for choice; civilian casualties are par for the course in the average op, and of course the bodybagged McGuffin doesn't have to be a civilian.
The question then becomes, does Forensic Architecture have the Dossier? If so, is it working on its own behalf, or is it being funded by one of the many Government or NGO factions it's worked with in the past? Its partner list is long and varied; any of them might be the front for a Conspiracy group. Heal The Children is an obvious choice, but as Keeper you can easily design your own fictional partner to infect Forensic Architecture.
Forensic Architecture doesn't have mooks at its disposal, though it's fair to say it knows a lot of people with unusual skill sets if it needs a helping hand. The problem isn't Forensic Architecture's material strength but its political muscle and visibility. If its people vanish in a puff of napalm, that's front page news internationally. If its people drop off the face of the earth, there are many groups out there who will want to know why, making Heat gain potentially intolerable for publicity-shy Edom.
As a Node, a group like Forensic Architecture is probably Level 3 or 4. It has international reach, and its skills and reputation mean it can easily cover up evidence of vampire activity. A Cleaning operation on an international scale; now there's something the Conspiracy would like to have in its pocket.
That's all for now. Enjoy!
Sunday, 11 December 2016
Not Quite Book Review Corner: The Ruins (Scott Smith)
I spent rather more time than I would have liked in hospital during my recent UK trip, but it gave me time to read a book I'd bought to entertain me on the flight: Scott Smith's The Ruins (2006). It was one of three I'd bought, the other two being a Michael Slade and a Jack Higgins. I don't look for aesthetic or intellectual entertainment when I fly; I want something interesting enough to make it worth my while turning pages, and that's it. It's different when you're comfortable, awake and alert, but those three things are not what flying is all about.
The Ruins was an unknown quantity. I didn't recognize the author. I later discovered he's the guy who wrote A Simple Plan (1993), a thriller I very much admire, but at the time the name Scott Smith plucked no forgotten strings of memory. The Ruins is his second, and to date he's only written two. The man does not believe in rushing things along.
He's an MFA Fine Arts who's got a few screenwriting credits behind him, and is currently working on Civil, a TV drama-cum-thriller-cum God Alone Knows in which nation-shattering violence breaks out after a hotly contested election. He seems to prefer obscurity; he's given few interviews and in those interviews he says little about how he works or what he's working on. He likes bookstores. So there's a plus.
The Ruins begins deep in Mexico's tourist heartland. Four Americans meet a German and three Greeks. The German has a problem; he and his brother fell out after the brother met a pretty archaeologist and the brother ran off to join her at some dig out in the boondocks. Now it's almost time for their flight home, and the brother hasn't come back. What, he asks the Americans, do they think he should do?
To them this all seems like a fantastic side adventure with a hint of illicit romance. Besides, going out to see some picturesque antiquities was on their To Do list, even if these particular antiquities seem to be a not very remarkable mine far from the comforts of civilization. So they pack a hearty picnic lunch, rent a taxi, and zoom off to the ruins. Ignoring the taxi driver's Borgo Pass-style warning - 'this place no good. Give me fifteen dollar, I take you somewhere better.' - they get off where they think the footpath to the ruins ought to be. There their problems begin.
The locals in the village nearby are as unfriendly as it is possible to be without actually shooting them. The locals pretend not to understand what they're talking about, and don't encourage them to stay. However by luck and some deductive reasoning they find the right footpath, which has been carefully camouflaged with leaves and brush. Following that path they find a pleasant hilltop covered with greenery and beautiful flowers, surrounded by a wide strip of what seems to be burnt out landscape, not unlike a moat cut out of the jungle. They can see what seems to be a tent at the top of the hill, presumably belonging to the archaeologists.
In short order the locals arrive, and they are not best pleased. Many of them are armed, and more are on the way. The leader seems to be about to let them go, but then one of the Americans accidentally sets foot on the flowery hillside. That contaminating foot is enough, and they're all ordered to climb the hill. No questions, no going back: climb.
Then things really get weird, but to go any further would involve major spoilers.
This, like Smith's previous novel, has also been made into a movie. While I have not seen that movie the trailer gives me no confidence whatsoever, and I'd avoid watching the film before reading the book as it might ruin things for you. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a pretty mixed rating, for what that's worth.
I like smart horror. By that I mean I like the characters to be strong characters who don't do anything dumb for reasons that are transparently plot related. Everyone has to behave in keeping with their character and everyone has to make reasonable decisions. Not necessarily correct decisions - in horror there aren't many of those - but reasonable according to the facts available at the time.
This is very smart horror. Even the locals, who might otherwise be faceless cyphers, are interesting, and behave very much in keeping with a group of people who've found themselves living next door to Satan's Left Buttock. Having found a way to keep the wicked emanations at bay they dedicate their lives to ensuring nobody goes near, and if somebody does, they make sure the unlucky wanderers never get out. Perfectly reasonable, under the circumstances. After all, we know what happens when you rely on the authorities to solve your problem for you.
Seldom have I read anything quite so much in the present tense. The only comparable I have is Andy McNab, and you know how I feel about him. Yet in this everything relentlessly flows from moment to moment, less like a narrative and more like a rising flood, carrying everything before it. Nothing in this novel happens without you silently witnessing it; there are no off-camera segues.
The antagonist is pleasingly Lovecraftian. By that I mean it is unknowable, alien, and malign. You get the sense that it's just biding its time up there on the hillside, waiting for the locals' guard to drop. It voraciously devours everything it can get - birds, animals, insects - and human targets are o-so-tasty, but perhaps a little large and feisty to be swarmed in a frontal assault. So it resorts to trickery and illusion to get the job done, luring them into dangerous situations where they can be picked off one by one.
Narratively it reminds me of John Wyndham and while some of you may be leaping towards a certain novel I'm actually thinking of the criticism levelled by Christopher Priest, who called Wyndham 'the master of the middle-class catastrophe.' The main characters are all nice college kids with money and all the nice things that money can buy. They've had good educations, they're smart, they can handle themselves in most situations and soon they'll be going off into the working world.
Here they are enjoying an exotic vacation. Here they are going off to rescue their friend's brother from a silly romantic misadventure. Here they are climbing a flower-covered hill, threatened with death if they try to come down again.
One of them thinks wistfully about her nice things, left in the hotel back in Cancun. Perhaps the maid will steal them.
It all speaks to a kind of invulnerability middle class Westerners think they enjoy. Nothing can seriously go wrong, not to them. After all, they're on vacation. They're having a good time. They just want to go out for the day, have a picnic, see some scenery and go home again. What's so difficult about that?
The other two books I bought for the trip are long gone. I don't believe in carrying excess baggage, and I brought too much stuff home with me to want to burden myself with even a fraction of a kilo's weight. I don't think the Harris even left Bermuda's airport; I dumped it for someone else to find, and same goes for the Slade. I believe in being a Johnny Appleseed of books, and English pubs are quite good places to spread the love.
I almost took the Smith to Dragonmeet to pass on to some unwitting host. I didn't. I almost passed it on some other way - after all, I had three days in London after Dragonmeet before getting on a plane.
It's with me now, on my desk in front of me.
You don't get rid of the good stuff.
The Ruins was an unknown quantity. I didn't recognize the author. I later discovered he's the guy who wrote A Simple Plan (1993), a thriller I very much admire, but at the time the name Scott Smith plucked no forgotten strings of memory. The Ruins is his second, and to date he's only written two. The man does not believe in rushing things along.
He's an MFA Fine Arts who's got a few screenwriting credits behind him, and is currently working on Civil, a TV drama-cum-thriller-cum God Alone Knows in which nation-shattering violence breaks out after a hotly contested election. He seems to prefer obscurity; he's given few interviews and in those interviews he says little about how he works or what he's working on. He likes bookstores. So there's a plus.
The Ruins begins deep in Mexico's tourist heartland. Four Americans meet a German and three Greeks. The German has a problem; he and his brother fell out after the brother met a pretty archaeologist and the brother ran off to join her at some dig out in the boondocks. Now it's almost time for their flight home, and the brother hasn't come back. What, he asks the Americans, do they think he should do?
To them this all seems like a fantastic side adventure with a hint of illicit romance. Besides, going out to see some picturesque antiquities was on their To Do list, even if these particular antiquities seem to be a not very remarkable mine far from the comforts of civilization. So they pack a hearty picnic lunch, rent a taxi, and zoom off to the ruins. Ignoring the taxi driver's Borgo Pass-style warning - 'this place no good. Give me fifteen dollar, I take you somewhere better.' - they get off where they think the footpath to the ruins ought to be. There their problems begin.
The locals in the village nearby are as unfriendly as it is possible to be without actually shooting them. The locals pretend not to understand what they're talking about, and don't encourage them to stay. However by luck and some deductive reasoning they find the right footpath, which has been carefully camouflaged with leaves and brush. Following that path they find a pleasant hilltop covered with greenery and beautiful flowers, surrounded by a wide strip of what seems to be burnt out landscape, not unlike a moat cut out of the jungle. They can see what seems to be a tent at the top of the hill, presumably belonging to the archaeologists.
In short order the locals arrive, and they are not best pleased. Many of them are armed, and more are on the way. The leader seems to be about to let them go, but then one of the Americans accidentally sets foot on the flowery hillside. That contaminating foot is enough, and they're all ordered to climb the hill. No questions, no going back: climb.
Then things really get weird, but to go any further would involve major spoilers.
This, like Smith's previous novel, has also been made into a movie. While I have not seen that movie the trailer gives me no confidence whatsoever, and I'd avoid watching the film before reading the book as it might ruin things for you. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a pretty mixed rating, for what that's worth.
I like smart horror. By that I mean I like the characters to be strong characters who don't do anything dumb for reasons that are transparently plot related. Everyone has to behave in keeping with their character and everyone has to make reasonable decisions. Not necessarily correct decisions - in horror there aren't many of those - but reasonable according to the facts available at the time.
This is very smart horror. Even the locals, who might otherwise be faceless cyphers, are interesting, and behave very much in keeping with a group of people who've found themselves living next door to Satan's Left Buttock. Having found a way to keep the wicked emanations at bay they dedicate their lives to ensuring nobody goes near, and if somebody does, they make sure the unlucky wanderers never get out. Perfectly reasonable, under the circumstances. After all, we know what happens when you rely on the authorities to solve your problem for you.
Seldom have I read anything quite so much in the present tense. The only comparable I have is Andy McNab, and you know how I feel about him. Yet in this everything relentlessly flows from moment to moment, less like a narrative and more like a rising flood, carrying everything before it. Nothing in this novel happens without you silently witnessing it; there are no off-camera segues.
The antagonist is pleasingly Lovecraftian. By that I mean it is unknowable, alien, and malign. You get the sense that it's just biding its time up there on the hillside, waiting for the locals' guard to drop. It voraciously devours everything it can get - birds, animals, insects - and human targets are o-so-tasty, but perhaps a little large and feisty to be swarmed in a frontal assault. So it resorts to trickery and illusion to get the job done, luring them into dangerous situations where they can be picked off one by one.
Narratively it reminds me of John Wyndham and while some of you may be leaping towards a certain novel I'm actually thinking of the criticism levelled by Christopher Priest, who called Wyndham 'the master of the middle-class catastrophe.' The main characters are all nice college kids with money and all the nice things that money can buy. They've had good educations, they're smart, they can handle themselves in most situations and soon they'll be going off into the working world.
Here they are enjoying an exotic vacation. Here they are going off to rescue their friend's brother from a silly romantic misadventure. Here they are climbing a flower-covered hill, threatened with death if they try to come down again.
One of them thinks wistfully about her nice things, left in the hotel back in Cancun. Perhaps the maid will steal them.
It all speaks to a kind of invulnerability middle class Westerners think they enjoy. Nothing can seriously go wrong, not to them. After all, they're on vacation. They're having a good time. They just want to go out for the day, have a picnic, see some scenery and go home again. What's so difficult about that?
The other two books I bought for the trip are long gone. I don't believe in carrying excess baggage, and I brought too much stuff home with me to want to burden myself with even a fraction of a kilo's weight. I don't think the Harris even left Bermuda's airport; I dumped it for someone else to find, and same goes for the Slade. I believe in being a Johnny Appleseed of books, and English pubs are quite good places to spread the love.
I almost took the Smith to Dragonmeet to pass on to some unwitting host. I didn't. I almost passed it on some other way - after all, I had three days in London after Dragonmeet before getting on a plane.
It's with me now, on my desk in front of me.
You don't get rid of the good stuff.
Tuesday, 9 June 2015
Sounds from the Stone Age (Trail of Cthulhu, Esoterrorists, Nights Black Agents)
Way back in the misty reaches of 2001, Channel Four broadcast a fascinating documentary called Secrets of the Dead: Sounds from the Stone Age. It was followed by a book on the subject by Paul Devereux, Stone Age Soundtracks, which I highly recommend. As this is all about dolmens and stone tombs, and as I've just written a scenario on a related topic now in playtest, I thought I'd talk about these prehistoric monuments, and their potential relevance to an RPG setting.
Devereaux's work explores the theory of archaeoacoustics, which takes as its premise that certain archaeological sites may have been designed specifically for their acoustic properties. Devereux posits that, at some point in the very distant past, prehistoric peoples discovered cave sites with natural acoustic properties, and became fascinated by them. These people may have also discovered the strange effect that infrasound can have on human biology, causing feelings of fear, dread, and possibly inspiring quasi-supernatural events, which they would have interpreted as divine intervention. These explorers established religious sites at these caves, but of course, they were few and far between. Therefore they set out to create more, by establishing stone circles, chamber tombs and other man-made monuments, each with their own special acoustic qualities.
The documentary's well worth watching, but now the concept's been established, let's talk about what it might mean for Trail, Esoterrorists and Night's Black Agents.
In Trail, it could become a fairly conventional horror scenario with an interesting twist: the cultists, misguided archaeologists, or other bunch of interfering busybodies, manage to wake up something that they can't control, by singing at the wrong set of stones at the wrong time of year. It could as easily be a scientific expedition as a bunch of neo-pagans, since the basic theory of archaeoacoustics is already being talked about in the early 1900s.
There is a branch of archaeocoustics that theorizes specific sounds can be replayed from objects under the right circumstances, which TV shows like CSI and X-Files have gone on to claim means that voices from the past can be recorded in stone, and replayed. It wouldn't necessarily have to be stone; one researcher, Richard G. Woodbridge III, thought he could manage a similar effect with oil paintings. Under those circumstances it might be possible to encode a specific item with specific data; a ritual, say, that could be reactivated, and completed, without the person activating it truly knowing what's going on. Nigel Kneale plays with a very similar idea in his television play, The Stone Tape. In this instance the item causing the effect could be anywhere; in a house, on the Underground, in an art gallery or a bus terminal.
In Esoterrorists, the idea of a sound that can be used to evoke something from Beyond fits in very nicely with the concept of the Outer Dark. This time the Esoterrorists have stumbled on a method of evoking ODEs first used millenia ago by prehistoric man, and, in imitation of their forbears, the Esoterrorists are creating new, artificial sound temples. Perhaps Esoterror assets in the local municipal department are planning new public buildings with these sounds encoded, or artists are creating public art installations intended to evoke the Outer Dark. Big cities like London usually have several large scale events happening every year, whether it's an architectural display in one of the parks, or an exhibit at the British Museum; any one, or more, of those could be targeted by Esoterror. The initial threat, of course, could be detected in its early stages at some barrow mound or stone circle elsewhere, say, Ireland. Then through clues at that site the protagonists go on to discover the Esoterrorists' true scheme.
Night's Black Agents has at least two potential Vampire conspiracy types that might be interested in pagan sound temples: the aliens, and the Satanic. The alien race could have established these sound temples long ago, as part of a plan to subjugate the native species. Or perhaps sound is their means of transmitting a sonic vampire entity into a human host, or the means by which primitive humans long ago developed an effective vampire bane. The Satanic vampires might have used the temples as places of worship, a means of getting in touch with their otherworldly masters; a kind of two-way radio set, for the vampire entities trapped here on earth. In any case, the conspiracy would want to preserve the sites that still exist, and create new ones where possible. Why, the characters might wonder, are the vampires so interested in historic preservation societies, and why did that developer trying to build an access road past that old standing stone wind up so spectacularly murdered?
That's it for now! Enjoy.
Devereaux's work explores the theory of archaeoacoustics, which takes as its premise that certain archaeological sites may have been designed specifically for their acoustic properties. Devereux posits that, at some point in the very distant past, prehistoric peoples discovered cave sites with natural acoustic properties, and became fascinated by them. These people may have also discovered the strange effect that infrasound can have on human biology, causing feelings of fear, dread, and possibly inspiring quasi-supernatural events, which they would have interpreted as divine intervention. These explorers established religious sites at these caves, but of course, they were few and far between. Therefore they set out to create more, by establishing stone circles, chamber tombs and other man-made monuments, each with their own special acoustic qualities.
The documentary's well worth watching, but now the concept's been established, let's talk about what it might mean for Trail, Esoterrorists and Night's Black Agents.
In Trail, it could become a fairly conventional horror scenario with an interesting twist: the cultists, misguided archaeologists, or other bunch of interfering busybodies, manage to wake up something that they can't control, by singing at the wrong set of stones at the wrong time of year. It could as easily be a scientific expedition as a bunch of neo-pagans, since the basic theory of archaeoacoustics is already being talked about in the early 1900s.
There is a branch of archaeocoustics that theorizes specific sounds can be replayed from objects under the right circumstances, which TV shows like CSI and X-Files have gone on to claim means that voices from the past can be recorded in stone, and replayed. It wouldn't necessarily have to be stone; one researcher, Richard G. Woodbridge III, thought he could manage a similar effect with oil paintings. Under those circumstances it might be possible to encode a specific item with specific data; a ritual, say, that could be reactivated, and completed, without the person activating it truly knowing what's going on. Nigel Kneale plays with a very similar idea in his television play, The Stone Tape. In this instance the item causing the effect could be anywhere; in a house, on the Underground, in an art gallery or a bus terminal.
In Esoterrorists, the idea of a sound that can be used to evoke something from Beyond fits in very nicely with the concept of the Outer Dark. This time the Esoterrorists have stumbled on a method of evoking ODEs first used millenia ago by prehistoric man, and, in imitation of their forbears, the Esoterrorists are creating new, artificial sound temples. Perhaps Esoterror assets in the local municipal department are planning new public buildings with these sounds encoded, or artists are creating public art installations intended to evoke the Outer Dark. Big cities like London usually have several large scale events happening every year, whether it's an architectural display in one of the parks, or an exhibit at the British Museum; any one, or more, of those could be targeted by Esoterror. The initial threat, of course, could be detected in its early stages at some barrow mound or stone circle elsewhere, say, Ireland. Then through clues at that site the protagonists go on to discover the Esoterrorists' true scheme.
Night's Black Agents has at least two potential Vampire conspiracy types that might be interested in pagan sound temples: the aliens, and the Satanic. The alien race could have established these sound temples long ago, as part of a plan to subjugate the native species. Or perhaps sound is their means of transmitting a sonic vampire entity into a human host, or the means by which primitive humans long ago developed an effective vampire bane. The Satanic vampires might have used the temples as places of worship, a means of getting in touch with their otherworldly masters; a kind of two-way radio set, for the vampire entities trapped here on earth. In any case, the conspiracy would want to preserve the sites that still exist, and create new ones where possible. Why, the characters might wonder, are the vampires so interested in historic preservation societies, and why did that developer trying to build an access road past that old standing stone wind up so spectacularly murdered?
That's it for now! Enjoy.
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