Adventure Gamers - Forums

I like the epilogue, which was new to me. (The older version was slightly different.) Nice touch, that buzzing fly we remember from the real estate office.

I don’t know what the missing point is for. But there’s something we didn’t do. Just for fun and some extra info:

Circulation Desk

>find benson in register
(in the dog-eared register)
Claudia Benson’s name is up near the top of the page. She has checked out several books in the last few weeks: A Historical Overview of Superstitions in the Miskaton Valley Region by J. Arnsworth Frazer; The Righteous Invasion: a History of Indian/Settler Conflicts in the Colonial Period by Warner Greene; Mechanics of Metempsychosis by C. C. H. Horne; and N-Fold Transduction and the Space-Time Barrier: a New Theory in Particle Physics by Lord Wheldrake. Strange; you can’t help but wonder why your real estate agent would have amassed such an esoteric reading list.

[[get books etcetera]]

>read greene
Its full title is The Righteous Invasion: a History of Indian/Settler Conflicts in the Colonial Period by Warner Greene. It’s a slim volume, published by Miskaton Press in 1943. According to the introduction, the book’s purpose is to give an objective account of the social and economic factors which led some of the early American colonies into violent conflict with the tribes of the northeast, concluding with a transitional discussion of how the “Indian policies” which took shape early on evolved into Western Expansionism and the idea of Manifest Destiny. The author, reflecting the more conservative decade in which he wrote, tends to paint a more sympathetic picture of the European side of the issue than would be fashionable today; but all in all it seems an intelligent, thoughtful analysis.

Glancing through the table of contents, you notice that there is a short chapter on the Misquat Indians. Curious, you flip to the page.

The fate of the Misquat tribe, states the author, is an enigma which may never be solved. Diplomatic relationships with the original river valley settlers seemed doomed from the beginning. Documents from the period paint the tribe as aggressively pagan, degenerate savages. Nevertheless, Croseus Verlac managed to hammer out a peace treaty of sorts with the tribal leader, and the two groups led an uneasy coexistence for over a century.

The exact circumstances which led up to the “battle” of Quattac Bend in 1772 are unclear. One document makes mention of an “uprising”, although since as far as is known, the Misquats were never in a subservient relationship to the Anchorhead settlers, the use of this term is more puzzling than revealing. In fact, no evidence has yet been discovered that corroborates the notion that the Misquat Indians initiated any sort of hostility whatsoever.

What is known is this: the Battle of Quattac Bend took place in the dead of night. It was led by Croseus’ descendant, Heinrich Verlac, and “fought” by some twenty town men, who crept through the woods and ambushed the small tribe during one of its holy ceremonies. There are no lists of casualties. Although the diary of one soldier tells of many prisoners being taken, there is no mention of where these prisoners were kept or what was eventually done to them.

No known document makes even the vaguest allusion to the Misquat Indians after 1772. From that date onward, the tribe effectively ceases to exist.

>read horne
According to the author’s foreword, the term “metempsychosis” means the transmigration of souls—that is, the reincarnation of a soul into another body. The book, which was published in 1922, is an examination of various traditions’ explanations of how and why this happens. The author’s tone is very matter-of-fact; it’s unclear whether he is approaching the subject from the standpoint of a mythologist or if he actually believes in reincarnation and is evaluating the various theories based on their “scientific” validity.

Flipping through the book, you find a passage that has been highlighted:

“Among tribes with a strong ancestor-worship tradition, one often discovers the quaint notion that one may be reincarnated as one’s own descendant. Asking such people whether they must share a single body with the spirit of their ancestor (inheritance), or if they themselves are in essence their own grandfather (identity), is generally futile; among primitives, concepts of self-identity are poorly defined at best. Often there exists no word in their native language to express the idea. One can assume, however, that the primitive tribesman’s conception of the situation is probably closer to the latter option; otherwise, over the course of generations one would have to contend with dozens of ancestral spirits fighting for room within a single body. However, the theory of identity also begs the question: how far back does the chain of reincarnation go? One could conceivably be dealing with a tribe of ‘first’ men, present at the day of Creation and renewing themselves over the aeons with each succeeding generation.”

>read wheldrake
This is a very thin volume, more of a tract than a proper book. You notice with some interest that it was published in 1918 by Miskaton University Press, though who “Lord Wheldrake” was you cannot begin to fathom.

Even without a background in physics, you can immediately tell that this is nothing but the purest pseudoscience. The author claims to have made “startling advances” relating to a heretofore unknown medium through which energy can travel. As far as you can tell, he performed no actual experiments; his entire thesis is built on extrapolation from his own creative reasoning. One bit near the middle has been marked with a highlighter:

“Having established the existence of the N-space medium, we can then reasonably posit the existence of a special wave-length capable of traveling through that medium; we will call this form of energy, appropriately enough, N-rays. Due to the fundamentally extradimensional nature of N-space, N-rays cannot logically be located at any one point of the electromagentic spectrum; they instead exist at every point along the spectrum, traveling perpendicular it. Naturally, the practical ramifications of being able to transmit extradimensionally are dwarfed by the theoretical implications…”

Good grief, you can’t help thinking. What drivel.

I think we took a bad at the end of the second day, maybe that was a less rewarding bath?

Karlok - 17 October 2016 04:10 AM

Island of Flesh

Eeewwwwww, what is that????

Karlok - 17 October 2016 04:33 AM

Linda Hamilton…? Handcuffs? Timovieman, over here please.

A Terminator 2 reference. Watch actress Linda Hamilton (playing Sarah Connor) open her handcuffs with a needle at the 51st minute mark, and then her cell door one minute later.

Karlok - 17 October 2016 05:11 AM

The sky splits like a rotted shroud, and the squirming, bubbling chaos of Ialdabaoloth pours through. The earth withers under the unspeakable malevolence of Its great, red-rimmed eye, and all of mankind are engulfed and encysted within the necrotic folds of the Womb of Nehilim.

It is a dark time for everyone.


    *** Mankind’s doom is complete ***

Grim.

Karlok - 17 October 2016 06:53 AM

He’s there. In that body—the body that you just killed. It’s Michael you’re looking at.

You have just killed your husband.

“...why…” he whispers, through a dark bubble of blood.

But you cannot answer. You are too busy screaming.


    *** You have gone utterly mad ***

That’s just brutal…

wilco - 17 October 2016 06:58 AM

Burning him sounds like a good idea

How very Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom of you.

TimovieMan - 16 October 2016 07:22 PM

Karlok - 10 October 2016 07:10 AM

The Womb of Nehilim

WTF?

As if the game wasn’t bleak enough already…

Is this going to be the solution to the endgame?

Called it!

wilco - 17 October 2016 08:10 AM

The missing point could be the bath at the end of the first day?

I’m thinking the same.


Thanks for leading the playthrough, Karlok.

This was one massive game. Very well-written too. Lovecraft would be proud.