Subj : Re: This echo To : Kay Shapero From : Scott Adams Date : Mon Sep 02 2002 11:24 pm -=> Quoting Kay Shapero to Scott Adams <=- KS>> It's a novel _Green Mansions_ by W.H. Hudson, written in 1904. The KS>> protagonist goes to Venezuela (iirc), meets and falls in love with KS>> Rima the last survivor of a bird-like human race living in the KS>> jungle. SA> Ahhh..sounds like a book someone in the '30s did but i SA> can't recall the title. How did the author explain SA> the origin of this race? KS> Rima had no idea - she was the last one and all she remembered was her KS> mother. Evidence picked up by Abel (the protagonist) during the story KS> suggests they were simply a small tribe who were overrun by another KS> one, with Rima's then-pregnant mother the only one to escape. Lost KS> races were common in pulp fiction of the time; seems you couldn't KS> climb a plateau or wander into the jungle without finding one. :-> Yeah that was common but I prefer authors who at least back up the races with history and such :) Not just to assume poof they are there. KS> Or even fly way up into the air - I do not remember the name, alas, KS> but I once came upon a short story about a pilot who flew his KS> aeroplane higher than anybody before, and had to escape from a KS> high-altitude civilization that lived among the clouds. I recall something like that...it had flaying fish like creatures... KS>> fiction ones, so at one point we had a hard boiled detective KS>> (Cameron, Nicolai's "Bogey clone"), Doc Savage (and the Brain Trust), KS>> The Spirit, a handful of Borribles, a psychic, and (briefly) Lord KS>> Peter Wimsey involved in the same trilogy of adventures. KS>> (What I called the "What I did on my vacation" sequence. SA> hehe..reminds me of the call of cthulu rpg universe. KS> I bought a fair number of CoC supplements, for the ideas, even though KS> I was not using the Mythos. I still do - I bought the massive KS> Antarctica expedition tome, which is full of useful stuff about KS> shipping, weights and costs of expedition supplies and so forth, even KS> though I've no plans of using the scenario itself. (Besides, I KS> already have sent characters to Antarctica - I ran the novella "At The KS> Mountains of Madness" almost straight, but letting them actually meet KS> the star-headed old ones... and bring along some dynamite to make life KS> interesting for the shoggoth. They also had some Very flares...) What KS> I'd *really* like is the 1920's era encyclopedia I saw in a thrift KS> shop years before I took up gaming, but of course I had no idea I was KS> going to want it. You never do think of things like that till too late. I use dto go to libraries and get ideas from various books. I liked the viking/norse riddles for example to use in games. KS>> First there was the trip out, complete with giant demon rat in the KS>> bilges, and Denny Colt (The Spirit) getting his exercise dodging a KS>> wouldbe girlfriend. SA> hehe..so sounds like you insert comedy alot... KS> Oh yeah.. you should have seen the morning joggers exercising their KS> way around the ship... though I'd say Denny thought of it more as KS> trying to escape. The 2 big comedy gmaes paranoia and Toon are great for such things. KS> You'd have loved the Winchester House scenario - heavily inspired by KS> Elizabeth Wolcott's short "Westchester House" scenario in one of the KS> CoC collections. (If you've ever been to the San Francisco Bay Area, KS> check out the real Winchester house. The owner just kept building and KS> adding on all her life, and the result is rather reminiscent of that KS> line in Fiddler on the Roof "One long staircase just going up, another KS> even longer coming down..." I digress.) Weird chanting in the KS> cellars (some workmen found an old liquor cabinet...), weird spectres KS> (actually an art thief) and all sorts of other stuff. There was one KS> room they could only get into by climbing out of a window and inching KS> across the ledge to the next window. Poor Denny was on that one too - KS> he missed his balance roll, fell off, and managed to grab the window KS> ledge on the way down. His less fortunate associate (Cameron, again) KS> missed both rolls and landed in the rosebush. Crunch. Pause for KS> entire room of players to visualize how Will Eisner would have drawn KS> this, and have laughing fit. Continue... I can imagine. I recall a british guy did a mansion like that. He was eccentric and had rooms with no doors. Rooms with false doors to empty cooridors. Rooms can only get through by trapdoor in the floor or a window or in one case only by the ceiling by the fireplace if it was cleaned. SA> Go from a kat to a werewolf...nice .. KS> Well, it's simple - part of the party went to Lloyds, others went to KS> someplace else equally public, and Doc and his friend went for a walk KS> through the park in the fog. Who would *you* have visited with KS> werewolves? :-> hehe...yep..course I don't konw enough of the characters to see honestly. KS>> The trip back was uneventful - I figured the characters were tired KS>> enough. ) SA> ahh...shucks no train robbery ? KS> Nary a one. Cameron was a friend of Lord Peter's brother in law, the KS> policeman (whose name escapes me at the moment) and he gave some of KS> the party a ride out and back. Frankly the way he drives they should KS> have all landed in the ditch, but the dice were being friendly to the KS> party that day. :) KS> Made up for it when they got back home - IIRC the next thing I did was KS> send the lot of them up the Amazon, to lots of insects, THRUSH, a KS> brief encounter with a stranded alien test pilot, and a sort of KS> miniature Shoggoth in an ancient temple... (Which btw is where they KS> figured out how to make Blob-oid monsters unhappy by firing Very KS> flares into them, and why I had no compunction about confronting them KS> with a full sized Shoggoth, later, in Antarctica.) Alien test post....boy what a universe.. SA> 'heh...why always red...I like growing green and yellow eyes SA> myself :) or my favorite purple eyes... KS> Call me a traditionalist. :-> I confuse folks in my games. Its the nice little small white mouse that is cruel and mean and its the big tiger with 8 inch fangs that is as soft was a baby. :) .... When that day comes, I'll be there to push the button - Garibaldi --- Fringe BBS * Origin: EWOG II - RPG HQ - Best in Area! 904-733-1721 (1:112/91) .