u/SorchaSublime

This is something which crosses my mind often, which is that being quite fond of the idea of The Black Citadels being literally just, the shadows of the Citadels, in the same manner as the Death Angels. It just really works for me, that isn't really the point of this post but it was the beginning of this train of thought.

Because an object can cast two shadows.

Conjecturally, is it beyond the realm of possibility that the Citadels of the Archons *also* have shadows in Limbo? Perhaps populated by "Dream Angels"? White Citadels, perhaps, to contrast against Inferno? (and to subtly invoke the gates of horn and ivory)

How do you imagine this would alter the balance of power? As I suppose the institutional layer above the once-mortal Dream Princes, the Dream Angels would represent idealised/mythologised echoes of the Principles of the Archons.

Or perhaps instead of echoing the Citadels, the Limbo shadows are focused on the connective tissue between the Citadels (the paths of Qaballah, correlated with the cards of the Tarot)? Or both, to an extent, however with the Dream Citadels mostly representing the relationship between the Paths which it connects to, as opposed to the Citadel itself.

The Dream-Citadels and their respective Paths could even act as a viable "safe"(-ish, generously) route into the center of the Vortex, with the Dream-Shadow of Keter sitting in the eye of the storm.

I have some ideas for what the Dream-shadows of the Citadels/Dream Angels could be like, but that may have to be its own post, as I would also need to give a significant amount of thought to the Paths and how they'd relate to the Tarot/Tarokka deck (I may imply that Tarokka is more representative of the counterparts to the Dream Paths in Metropolis, while the traditional tarot is more representative of Limbo)

idk, thoughts? My desire to iterate on the cosmology of Kult isnt a critique or an implication that it is lacking, btw. This is just the way I like thinking about settings.

Oh, another interesting train of thought: If the Citadels in Metropolis cast shadows, what exactly is casting those shadows?

I'm endlessly curious about the origin of ideas like this, one of the most compelling things about Lovecraft are the ideas he originated and other, older ideas he brought under one roof.

Aklo is something he inherited from prior works, and supposedly the trail for that begins with Arthur Machens The White People. But the off-hand way they're mentioned in that story feels more like a reference to a pre-existing concept which Machen appreciates. It reminds me of the way in which Lovecraft referenced The King in Yellow.

I guess my question is, if we *are* sure that Machen wholly invented Aklo, what were his inspirations? How did he conceptualise that? And if we aren't sure of that, then from where else might they have been derived?

My interest is mostly just because of how much I enjoy Aklo conceptually. A pseudo-sentient language, inherently corrupting, an undercurrent to all post-babel language which more closely aligns with the fundamental symbolic elements of the cosmos. It's like the perfect Lovecraftian take on the Lingua Adam when done right.

I'd just like to have as firm a grasp on the fundamental basis of the idea as possible.

This is a thought I've had for a wee while. Even though it isn't precedented in his existing filmography, I feel like I'm perpetually waiting for the day that Wes Anderson decides to experiment with horror. I just have a general instinct he would excell with it in a way which might surprise general audiences who have developed a particular view of his work.

Specifically, I would perform actual literal blood sacrifices to induce a Wes Anderson adaptation of, for example, At The Mountains Of Madness. The reasons why the works of Lovecraft are notoriously resistant to adaptation all seem to lean into unique strengths which Anderson has cultivated over the course of his career. Purple prose, a reliance on monolithic imagery, protagonists of a particularly dry academic temperament, these things would get in the way of literally anybody else.

Especially with how he blended live action and stop motion in Asteroid City... idk to some extent this is a wild instinct as he hasn't really touched the horror genre at all to date (unless I'm somehow unaware of a time when he did, let me know if so) but it really feels like a match made in heaven.

He can definitely provoke feelings of dread when he wants to, and I can only feel that the way he'd approach non-euclidean escherian architecture, or animating Horrors like the Dread Shoggoth interposed over live-action footage, would if nothing else be deeply fascinating.

Even if he didn't end up literally adapting Lovecraft (not that he's above adaptation, mind you) I'd kill to see him do work in this general genre. Hell, original work would probably be preferable, but I also can't think of another director who's style is better suited to adapting Lovecraft specifically.

I dwell on solipsism a lot. This partly comes from what I call "proactive agnosticism", which is to say that I was raised atheist and proactively endeavour to change that (mostly through attempting spiritual practices with a sense of suspended incredulity) (and also moderate psychedelics), and a part of the thought experiment for me is questioning my own knowledge of my own existence.

This is kind of something I've been dwelling on my whole life, with varying levels of seriousness. When I was like, 10 years old I think, I spent around a year trying to convince(/gaslight) my best friend at the time into thinking that I didn't actually exist and was his imaginary friend. Now, it didn't work, but considering that the human brain is capable of things like Dissociative Identity Disorder, where a functioning personality and ego is generated as essentially a subroutine within the brain, it's a compelling question. Is it fundamentally impossible that I am a delusion on the part of someone else? My sense of identity functionally being a philosophical zombie, and my experience of "being" essentially being an isolated portion of someone else's inner perception?

Is it impossible that "I" do not in fact think, and therefore am not? And if it isn't impossible, is there any systematic way one could verify that to not be the case?

This is something I've been thinking about a lot, specifically with regards to the Cybermen but there are presumably other villains who could use this principle.

What if the Cybermen took a far more insidious approach to converting a planet than the Doctor knows what to do with?

Scenario: Following some instance of the Cyberwars, on some lonely planet somewhere, the Cybermen are about to be eradicated. As a last ditch effort, they comb through the Cyber-camps until they find a solid philosopher, and perform a specialised conversion to create a Cyber-Philosopher-King who, like Ashad, is less completely mentally converted in order to allow him to engage with human thought processes more adroitly.

The Cyber-Philosopher, after being made command node of the surviving cybermen, posts a missive to the Humans. "We surrender. Despite our alterations, we are still living beings and do not want to be completely eradicated. Please do not subject us to genocide." Obviously, humanity suspects this of being some kind of trap, but it isn't. The Cyber-Philosopher genuinely surrenders and allows himself and the Cybermen to be subject to terms.

However, the human population of the planet are horrifically wounded, and bereft of resources. The Cybermen offer to help, dedicating the surviving cyber-units to menial labour and providing medical expertise under the careful moderation of Humanity, to avoid surreptitious attempts to convert unsuspecting citizens. As a key part of the Cyber-Philosophers plan, there is no such agenda.

However, he and the Cybermen make it clear that they will always provide for anyone who wants to volunteer for conversion.

Fast forward 150 years. Cybermen are now seen as a fundamental and essential societal demographic. The Cyber-philosopher, being immortal, has worked his way into a (seemingly low) position in the planetary civic council. Cyber-technology has revolutionised medical care, with with partial cybernetics now commonplace. The Cyber-philosopher has convinced mankind to allow cyber-conversion as an alternative to the death penalty and euthanasia, assuming certain superficial ethical guidelines are maintained. As the civic council see him as an ally, and are heavily lobbied, they so lobby in return. Cyber-propaganda is a worldwide phenomenon, and the Cybermen arent even the ones making it.

The cyber-workforce has become a cyber-industrial complex. An entire continent is given over to industrial facilities entirely staffed by cyber-men, exporting their goods to the rest of the planet. The choking smog makes the whole landmass lethal, but it had already been devastated during the cyber-wars so humanity lost nothing in the arrangement, or so they thought. By the time they realised the smog and pollution was leaking out to the rest of the planet, they were wholly dependent on the Cyber-industries for basic amenities like food and technology. Practically the entire economy is either composed of Cyber-subsidiaries, or human owned companies which are still dependent on some part of the Cyber-supply chain.

With all of this, the planet has become prosperous. co-operation with the Cybermen has been a boon. This only benefits the top of society though. Through highly oblique machinations across decades, severe social inequality has been engineered by the Cyber-philosopher. Actual treatment beyond what could be provided by a GP is expensive, but Cyber-components from the Cyber-clinic are always free. An eternal seeming economic depression of the lowest classes has given rise to horrific mental health crises, and thus the number of people who volunteer for conversion increases by 0.1% every year.

A tiny fraction, but the Cybermen are immortal. They have all the time in the world. Given another century, the portion of the population which volunteers for conversion every year will rise to 10%. All of the above factors will make it so, even if they don't the world will not be survivable before long anyway.

I genuinely think the Doctor would struggle to figure out what to do about this. Obviously, it *is* an evil plan on the part of the Cyber-philosopher, but even piecing all of that together through centuries of political obfuscation and insinuation would be incredibly difficult. Every advancement the Cybermen make in this fashion is something humanity believes they agreed to of their own accord, which benefits them. If the Doctor did try to "stop" the Cybermen, the political establishment of the planet would rally against him.

Not entirely dissimilar to the Monks I guess, but in that case the monks had fabricated their essential role in human history. The beneficial support of the Cybermen in this case is very real, at least on the surface. And there is no easily appraised agenda with which to prove otherwise.

I don't actually think the Doctor would be *incapable* of dealing with this, but it would be a fascinating challenge.

If you happen to be out of the loop, this thread gives a decent context on what is happening with him as an artist, you can springboard from there to find his press comments. https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1tto7cm/i_watched_tip_toe_so_you_dont_have_to/

EDIT: Just so it's clear what perspective I am coming from on this, I am a trans woman.

TL;DR: Russell is a TERF. He's at the stage of social radicalisation where he's still sitting on the fence (think "I would march with trans people if their rights were *actually* challenged" era JK Rowling) but it's pretty clear that he is consious of the line in the sand on this issue and has picked his side. Fuck him.

I doubt many people here are actually out of the loop, I just wanted to be complete in my thoughts.

So, The Star Beast, huh?

I distinctly remember when the 60th anniversary specials were coming out, I felt uncomfortable with how Rose Noble had been handled, but I dismissed those feelings because I (naively) believed I could trust RTD to have his heart in the right place over this issue. I no longer feel that way. Initially she feels quite good as a character, and the domestic scenes with the extended Noble family were like, fine? I guess? Not groundbreaking but it wasn't handled poorly *at that point of the episode*.

But that ending? Holy shit.

Beyond just the clumsiness of "binary, binary, non binary" as a narrative solution to the problem of Donna's metacrisis being unstable, Rose as a character feels written specifically to incense anti-trans viewers of the show. Taking a trans character and having her take the name of an extremely beloved existing companion, having her gender-specialness be the solution to everything, having her and Donna talk down to The Doctor on the premise of his (supposed) terrestrial patriarchal values in spite of the fact he was a woman literally 48 hours prior?

At the time I just thought he was mildly out of touch and trying to challenge the views of gender-regressives because I gave him the benefit of the doubt. In the context of his current stance, it feels like my initial hunch was correct. Rose Noble is essentially a caricature of a trans woman, constructed with enough fidelity to not immediately piss of trans people and our supporters, but engineered to cynically generate controversy probably for publicity purposes. He did this while casting a black trans woman in the role, presumably knowing that she would take the brunt of online abuse for that. And, once she had fulfilled her purpose, he promptly relegated her to the sidelines. Because of course, actually making a trans woman the main companion of the show would be a bridge too far. Nooo, she can't come along on the Wild Blue Yonder, she'd get in the way of our navel gazing about how strong of a duo Tennant and Tate were.

Everything about RTD 2 has been defined by self-indulgence to the detriment of the show itself, and now knowing where his sympathies lie WRT trans people, the nature of that self indulgence is laid bare. The first trans woman in the show only existed to drive engagement for the show *at the expense of trans women*. I don't know how Yasmin Finney feels about all of this but I can't imagine she feels good. I'd be eager to hear her comment on Russels recent trajectory, but at the same time all that would do is once again direct publicity towards him at her expense, so I very much understand why she probably won't.

TL;DR: Christopher Eccleston becomes more and more objectively correct about RTD by the day. Fuck this snivelling egotistical toad.

The House of Lords is kind of a curious conundrum, isn't it? On the one hand, I think we're all a chorus on how outdated and aristocratic the system for appointing peers is, and how unfair the balance of representation in the other house is.

On the other hand, the argument against just making it another elected house is sound on paper. While the Lords are not nearly as insulated from party politics as they tend to be assumed to be, it's a nice idea. The Lords *do* fulfil an essential function within our legislature, and it would be nice for that function to not be constantly buffeted by electoralism and party politik.

So, what is the ideal balance here? I have an idea, possibly (probably) deeply flawed, but I at least currently think it would be a good idea. Nix the Lords entirely, fire the lot of them and replace the HoL with a new(-ish) *House of Unions*.

Create a new independent body who is responsible for managing peerages, assigning each industry a set quantity of peers proportional to the scale of the industry in the national economy (based on cummulative labour hours worked, not economic output) and then within each industrial bloc assign the associated peerages to the most critical/representative unions within that industry willing to participate.

The union technically holds the peerage, so can assign/recall the actual representatives they send to the House of Unions based on their own internal processes. Also ideally you would reserve a proportion of peerages for non-trade unions, ensuring representation in Parliament for marginalised community advocacy groups. And good luck trying to effectively lobby literally hundreds of unions and advocacy groups without actually offering something which serves the interests of the people they represent.

Unions (and thereby the working class) are given direct and explicit oversight over the workings of the House of Commons. Most of the procedures surrounding the House of Lords, and indeed the hierarchical relationship between the two houses can basically be preserved 1:1, and in the context of a House of Unions I think would actually produce positive outcomes instead of negative, as the dynamic would be naturally re-engineered in the working class's favour.

I'm curious what peoples thoughts on this would be, whether it would fit into a Green manifesto as a more constructive alternative to merely calling for the abolition of the Lords, or if its possibly *too much* and more fitting for a socialistic pressure group like Your Party (if they ever get their act together).

So, Impossible Landscapes was my introduction to Delta Green. I had just finished reading Kult Divinity Lost, and while I loved the occult themes and the abstract psychedelic surrealism of the world overall, I found the puerile edginess of K:DL to be a bit much. I've since found that this problem is actually significantly lesser in the older material, but before that, I found Impossible Landscapes.

Idk man, Impossible Landscapes just felt like the perfection of everything I loved about Kult. It was this mind-bending surrealist psychedelical adventure set to challenge any base assumptions about the nature of the cosmos a player might have, and better yet it didn't seem to proscribe a singlular answer to those questions beyond the existence of Carcosa. Plus, it lacks the edginess which kept turning up my nose when I was reading K:DL. I genuinely think the closest I am now likely to come to running Kult is by incorporating elements of it into the Hastur Mythos, which feels like an endlessly expandable platform for such storytelling whereas Kult, even at its best, feels far more finite than it should in that respect.

So, imagine my disappointment when I discovered how singular Impossible Landscapes was amongst the offerings of Delta Green. I do now love Delta Green, but it was a bitter pill to swallow, realising that nothing else in the DG catalogue really focused on the parts of Impossible Landscapes I found most interesting. You do get hints of it, the worldbuilding surrounding Hypergeometry is endlessly abstract and compelling whenever theyre shown in any detail, but there isn't nearly as much information about diving into that world because the mission statement of Delta Green as an organisation is to do the precise opposite.

This is fine, I'm not complaining about this. I just want to paint a picture of why it was so exciting to find something, anything which felt like it was speaking Impossible Landscapes language.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, or Piranesi, aren't books which directly tie into the Hastur Mythos in any real way, I don't **think** there is consious influence happening here, but the thematic feeling of it all is definitely there. I want to be vague about spoilers, but the way that the supernatural, magick and otherworlds are engaged with by Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell felt very Night Worldian to me at various points. The way that a particular faerie brugh was described at a later point in JS&MrN almost felt like it could have been describing a manor house in the Carcosan suburbs, not even to mention the Kings Roads (or the House from Piranesi for that matter). Even on a mechanical level, the idea of intentionally rendering oneself insane for a magical advantage felt very Hypergeometrical and Delta Green.

So, yeah, I'm just sharing this here in case anyone else had a similar experience with Impossible Landscapes. If you found yourself frustrated by IL's sense of Singularism, you need to read Suzanna Clarke. Unless I missed them somehow, you won't find any explicit KiY references, but it really feels like he would fit into the faeryworlds she portrays.

(Also, while this isn't Delta Green, the actual practical performance of magic in JS&MrN and Piranesi is pretty much perfectly represented by Enlightened Magic for BRP, probably because both Suzanna Clarke and John Sneed have an evident understanding of the same base sources visavi genuine occultism. Just in case you felt a similar sense of inspiration as a GM to me. Hehehe)

Title.

I'm not expecting anything that is precisely equivalent, because the main torment with loving Suzanna Clarke's writing is how singular she is, and while I didn't hate Babel it did make me wary of anything which bills itself as "The Next Jonathan Strange".

But like, aside from having done the best treatment of one of my favourite Wyrd tropes (liminal spaces in Piranesi) I've ever seen, she also *gets* the occult perspective in a way I don't see very often. The tactile descriptions of how magic *feels*, the way that the Impossible and Mad always feels like it is hidden around some corner nobody else can see or a Door Inside of You, waiting to be conjured with the right gestures and words.

She also clearly knows her stuff, well enough to weave the emerald tablets of Hermes Trimegistus into her fictional bibliography near the end of JS&MrN, which also means that the magical realist worldbuilding she performs has a sense of real delibility which is often lacking. Rather than countermanding the real cultural history of mysticism, her work feels like a strong "Yes, and" to that history, introducing new material in the margins to expand that strata of the world and not chopping pieces of it off to make room. And her descriptions of actually transgressing beyond the bounds of material reality, and of embracing Madness have this perfectly psychedelic quality to them, to a iteral extent in places.

Idk, as I said I'm under no illusions about the odds of finding anything which is precisely like her work, but anything which is remotely close (and has at least the same basic supernatural focuses) would be fantastic.

Hello! Just to qualify this, I am coming into things as someone with an actual interest in the occult/spirituality, but another major interest of mine is game design. Something I find fascinating is how many spiritual practices seem to have stemmed from games.

The obvious example is tarot. Originally, tarot cards were just playing cards, but even in their divinatory form the practice has a lot of the qualities of a game, albeit in a more informal manner. Similarly, Ouija boards are very literally a game, being sold by Hasbro. I particularly find Enochian Chess fascinating in this regard.

My question I guess is, what are the key properties of a divinatory game vs their mundane counterparts? Aside from the obvious, ie the object of the game *being* divination, and the importance of symbolic density, but aside from that, are there any key elements worth considering if one was planning to create a new divinatory game?

For context, my intent is to create a psychodramatic/divinatory TTRPG, so if anyone has any particularly relevant insight for those purposes I'd be extra interested. Also, examples of divinatory games I may not have already encountered would be super appreciated, I'm always interested to explore such things.

In general this is a subject I find super interesting. Games are the foremost artistic medium for engaging directly with ones audience, and narrative games in particular are able to touch the spirit of a player in a very unique way.

Regards,

93s 93s 93s

Hi! Although I've considered it before I don't regularly do breathwork (at least not in a principled manner, i do breathing meditation but kind of just make it up as I go), so I'm mostly coming here because it seems like a community most likely to know what the fuck it is I'm doing here, because Google hasn't been particularly helpful.

So, some context: I'm a daily weed smoker. Not ideal ik, I only mention it because there's a chance it's related. I often notice my glottal fry exacerbating as a result of this, so something I do to try and "clear" it a bit is to like...

OK actually this may be hard to explain. Basically isolating like, the vocal "action" which produces exclusively vocal fry/the part of my like, vocal/breathing repertoire where the glottal fry "originates"? I then like, with my throat as closed as possible push as much pressure through my throat (and by extension the vocal fry) for as long as I can handle before intentionally violently coughing.

For a reason I am unaware of, this produces extreme light-headedness to the point that I generally fall to the ground/fall over if I was sitting. It feels like a more extreme version of the light-headedness I get from long holding periods when meditating. It also reminds me of like, the inner experience of "greening out" on weed, minus the aspect of *actually being stoned* (I'm very sober today and the affect is at the most reproducible it has ever been).

Idk, I would just be interested if this is like, an identifiable phenomenon within the auspices of breathwork or if anyone at least knows what is going on. I'm not sure if I should stop doing this.

Thanks :)

No spoilers, this is mostly an observation as someone who was quite into VtM already before this season started, but the choice to not make the older vampires straightforward anachronisms is really refreshing to me.

Like, yea HJ is from the 1920s, but he's kept up with the world that entire time. He immediately knows what an NFT is because he's been farming the sort of idiot who obsesses about that kind of thing for decades. He isn't arbitrarily a stereotype of someone from 100 years ago who somehow doesn't know what the Internet is or whatever.

It's just a choice I find really neat. Unless they've been in torpor for ages there is no real reason a vampire couldn't keep up with the times, so it's nice to see some who managed to.

Tried posting about this on the standard DnD sub-reddit earlier, won't make that mistake again lmao. I'm coming up with all of this in anticipation of going to a new university in September, which I know has an established tabletop society which is good :)

I do quite like the *base system* of 5e, but I'm heavily inclined to tinker, especially with how many 5e players would rather not try something entirely different. A lot of what I'm planning draws on established mechanics from third party sources for 5e specifically (with one major exception).

Any constructive feedback aside from "you should just play another system instead of doing this" (trust me, I've considered it) is highly welcome. I'll cite the sources I'm using as I go.

The most immediate departure is that I'm doing away with the default classes in favour of the Callings from LOTR 5e. I'm *not* running Middle Earth, or even Tolkein-esque fantasy, but I like LOTR 5e as a set of base mechanics and it is fairly convenient for my purposes. It's lower fantasy, the travel mechanics are cool, I like the balance better, Feats (rebranded as "Virtues") every 2 levels is just fun and the lack of default spellcasters makes room for me to import a new magic system.​ plus, only going to level 10 just makes more sense to me given how rare it is to get much past that point anyway.

Other big resources I'm using are Grimhollow and Sandy Petersens Cthulhu Mythos 5e. Advanced Backgrounds and Transformations from the former, Dread, Magic Formulae, Elder Influences and Dreamland Cats from the latter. They all just do a lot to flesh out the experience imo, and unlike variant encumbrance don't involve an undue amount of book-keeping on the players front.

In addition to Exhaustion and Dread, I also have a custom positive counterpart called Focus, which either provides bonuses or allows the negation of Dread and/or Exhaustion (or at 7 levels of Focus, even the effects of being below 0HP).

In terms of player races, the primary option will be Variant Human. The free feat permits a Transformation at Level 1, which covers a lot of the vibes of unusual humanoid races, but aside from that the only other racial options will be warforged (but entirely mute, think less magic bladerunner and more Castle in the Sky) and a literal cat.

I have a unique plan for stat generation to bias players towards weaker starting characters, as opposed to any permutation of 3D6. 2D8, always reroll the first 1 AND/OR the first 8 rolled for a given stat, roll an additional D8 for any stat below 4 a maximum of 2 times and add a D6 to any 1 stat above 10 of your choice.

I'm also using *some* of the new mechanics from 5.5E. Circle magic suits my custom magic system (see below), Bastions fit very nicely into the LOTR 5e gameplay loop, and I like the concept of Weapon Mastery *As A Feat*(/Virtue) as opposed to a level 1 feature for martial classes. I'm however most excited about the magic system I'm using, as it's the most outside-the-box change given that it's the only thing adapted from an outright non-D&D source.

The main inspiration for this is gonna be Ritual Path Magic for GURPS (RPM), although I've heavily adapted it to fit the 5e framework. Fundamentally, spellcasting is now 100% ritual casting based (no spell slots), and Calling agnostic. As per Cthulhu Mythos 5e, anyone who possesses the Formulae to a particular spell can attempt to cast it, although with increased risk. The features of Level 1 Wizard are now packaged within a Virtue, "Thaumic Initiate", permitting more stable casting of basic spells as well as use of Casting Focuses and a Grimoire. Some consequences for unqualified casting of a spell from Formula would include physical/mental harm, levels of exhaustion/dread or even involuntary levels in a Transformation.

More precise/spontaneous spellcasting requires levels in a specialised kind of Class called "Mysteries", which represent a characters connection to certain spiritual/metaphysical Principles. These take the role of Ritual Paths in RPM, more powerful spells will generally have the pre-requisite of Invoking levels in Mysteries, which is also essential for improvising new magic. Levels in Mysteries will also give benefits for interacting with entities/spiritual domains associated with that Mystery.

But yeah, that's everything :) I'm curious what peoples thoughts are, if anyone has worked with individual elements I'm working with and gotten good use out of them.

Also, I'm always open to working more homebrew into this. Im playing with incorporating potion crafting from Obojima for example, although I'll have quite a bit of work on my plate keeping all of this organised as it is lmao