The Secret Horror of the Dewey Decimal System

Just some thoughts that came to me after reading Kenneth Hite's "Suppressed Transmission" article entitled "Six Degrees of Sir Francis Bacon" that could be used for a Call of Cthulhu / Delta Green adventure including librarians, ancient horrors, and the secret Kabbalistic and numerological meanings of the Dewey Decimal Classification system (DDC).

Dewey was a psychologist you know. What if he treated people who knew things humanity wasn’t supposed to know? What are the classifications really for? What dread information may be contained in the books we read that he couldn’t risk getting out?

Thoughts of otherdimensional horrors abound (and, perhaps, viral memetics in a Delta Green / CoC Modern setting), especially when used in conjunction with the quotation from H.P. Lovecraft’s story "The Call of Cthulhu":

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Do the DDC numbers contain and entrap certain forms of knowledge, confining them to the printed page? Or is it a mystical system of subconscious manipulation, classifying and keeping apart fields of information that would be dangerous if combined, conditioning us to do the same? And what if the modern trend away from generalization and toward extreme specialization is a side-effect? Or is the DDC protecting us from something even more sinister, a viral memetic being that, similar to the Hounds of Tindalos who travel through corners in space, seeps into the corners of our minds.

And then there’s the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, founded by John H. Vincent--a study group that undertook a four-year program of guided reading for ordinary citizens. Did you know that Vincent was struck by the vision of a world college as described in Sir Francis Bacon’s utopia in The New Atlantis? And of course you know that Sir Francis Bacon was linked to the Rosicrucian Brotherhood, and by association the Templars, and was a Secret Mason. All that secret knowledge ... especially if, as some say, Bacon was actually an incarnation / alias of the Comte de Saint-Germain, among other things.

What does that have to do with anything? Well, guess who was also part of this cozy little cabal ... I mean, circle. That’s right. Melvil Dewey.

What if this circle was actually conducting a controlled experiment to see which bits of knowledge could be safely combined? What happened to those subjects (excuse me, patrons) who did piece together rather terrifying bits of "dissociated knowledge"--what became of them?

And let’s look at that name, "Chautauqua." If that doesn’t sound Lovecraftian, I don’t know what does. Perhaps that’s the name of the being / memetic virus Dewey was trying to bind?

"I had a strict rule, which I think secret services follow, too: No piece of information is superior to any other. Power lies in having them all on file and then finding the connections. There are always connections; you have only to want to find them."
-- Casaubon, in Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

Occult Supers - Shades of a New Campaign

So, following up on my two previous entries, I've got a fair idea of what my next campaign will be.

The setting will be pulpy modified Modern / neo-noir. I've got images of the Gotham City from the most recent film, Batman Begins, and the Batman: The Animated Series cartoon from the 1990s; the latter had advanced science alongside stylish classic cars, dirigibles in the sky, black & white TV, and Chicago-style gangsters from the roaring 20s. Basically, a skillful blend of iconography from a variety of eras. So very beautifully pulpy.

The characters will be occult investigators / monster hunters, perhaps part of the city's law enforcement forces or perhaps members of a company that the city contracts from.

I see shades of Grant Morrison's Invisibles and Doom Patrol, along with James O'Barr's The Crow comic and film. I also see bits of Dark City and Hellblazer.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a sucker for the "monster hunter" genre, and the pulp supers angle will give me a suitably large setting toolbox to play with, allowing for just about any kind of weirdness I can come up with.

I have a fanciful notion to name the city "Neropolis," both for the obvious connotations of madness and corruption (Emperor Nero), and the fact that the Italian word for "black" is nero. But maybe that's being too cute? Probably. So I'll likely go with "Obsidian City" instead, since: (1) Obsidian, as volcanic rock, comes from a place that could be described as "Hell on Earth"; (2) Obsidian's dark color, giving me the atmosphere I want for the game; (3) Obsidian cuts like almost no other substance we know.

As for the system, well, if Dark Pages by Memento Mori Theatricks was out, I'd give it a whirl, since it seems designed specifically for this kind of campaign, but since that's not an option then I'm most certainly going to go with Truth & Justice.

Random Setting Thoughts 1

While not everybody's cup of tea, I really enjoy and prefer "Everything in a Box" / "Kitchen Sink" settings. Perhaps it's simply due to being raised on comics, but I want settings where just about anything can happen.

And that's an important point in itself, as well as an important point of divergence from most EiaB settings. I don't necessarily want to play in / run / create a setting where everything does happen, just one where it seems anything can happen.

One thing I've always loved about the comics is that you can have supernatural monster hunters team up with aliens, mutants, and Arthurian knights, and all of them could go out and slay chupacabras, and it doesn't seem out of place.

I prefer genre blends to playing genres "straight," for lack of a better term. I have always loved pulp stories with their blends of adventure, fantasy, horror, and science fiction, narratives with porous membranes that are made of a bit of everything, difficult to classify but delightful to read.

I want settings that allow for just about any character a player can imagine, so long as the PC can work well with the group.

I want to work with an entire world over the course of a long campaign, moving from place to place, time to time, even planet to planet and dimension to dimension, with the players trying out a variety of characters, allowing for a variety of play styles, tones, and adventures in what is ostensibly the same setting, the same gaming "universe."

Exalted!

Introducing my new Exalted character:


Restless Wave

Baltimore, part 2: The Actual Review

My review of Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire.

Text of the review:

(May contain spoilers--you've been warned.)

If you have read any of Mignola's _Hellboy_ comics, then you have a good idea of the kind of adventure you're in for. If not ...

Baltimore is a delightfully creepy illustrated horror novel, a fantastic old-time pulpy weird story by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden. The creators manage to craft a near-perfect blend of pulp action, ghost stories, horror, fairy tale, and folklore, spiced with allusions to Melville's classic Moby Dick and an allegory of war.

In the world of Baltimore, a dark mirror of our own, WWI was never decided conclusively. A plague has spread across Europe, stripping the land and people of joy, hope, and life. The primary conceit is the gathering of three men who have been summoned by a mutual friend, Lord Baltimore, to a lonely inn during the years after the first World War: Dr. Rose, a former surgeon and opium addict; Demetrius Aischros, a sailor; and Childress, Baltimore's childhood companion. As the men await Baltimore's arrival they share stories with one another concerning their enigmatic friend, their own experiences during the war, and the hellish nightmares they have suffered. As they tell their tales, the reader learns that each of these men has had horrific encounters with dark powers and the unnatural. More, the friends' tales inform the reader of Baltimore's evolution from family man and soldier to a hunter of evil and crusader of light.

Baltimore's nemesis, a vampire whose ilk fed off of dead and dying soldiers during the war, and whom Baltimore mutilated, is particularly creepy, cunning, and menacing. No wispy sexually ambiguous Anne Rice "lonely ones" here; these vampires are hungry and vengeful, vicious predators waging a genocidal war on humanity, and enjoying every moment.

If you're the kind of reader who enjoys Poe, Lovecraft, Hellboy, and weird tales in general, this book is a winner. Go buy it, get reading, and savor Baltimore this Halloween season.

How Many Rules Do You Like in Your Game?

When I run or play a roleplaying game, I look for a system / game engine that is simple, fast, and easy to use. The system shouldn't take over the game, shouldn't require hours of real time to resolve what should only be seconds of game time. The system should support and emulate whatever genre is appropriate to the game being run. The system should blend into the background and bloody well stay there. It's called a *role playing* game for a reason. The role playing, the product of shared imagination of the GM and players, is what it's about. I think that the rules, the system, should be subordinate to the game you want to play.

Let me say that again: the system should be SUBORDINATE to the game you want to play, not vice versa. The system should be easily modifiable to fit the game you want to play; if it isn't, you're using the wrong system. You should not have to modify your game to fit the *system*. If your character wants to perform an action that makes perfect sense given the genre style of the game, then the rules should support that action. If you're using a generic rules set, then the rules system should be simple enough for the GM to make a good intuitive call. It should NOT require a nightmare of rules jockeying.

I DON'T want a system that is, essentially, a set of rules for a miniatures wargame masquerading as an RPG. I don't want an extensive set of rules for strategy and tactics. Don't get me wrong--I enjoy strategy games, though not to the same extent I enjoy RPGs. I simply want them separate from my role playing game, because in 25 years of gaming I've found that the more complex the system the more it overwhelms the role playing game and turns it into a roll playing game. And I definitely do not want that. In any system worth its salt, the GM can fairly easily assign bonuses to the players' rolls for whatever strategies and tactics the players come up with; while a representative sample list is useful, there is no need for an exhaustive list with rules for every strategic and tactical possibility.

To my way of thinking, the SYSTEM is NOT the GAME. The system is a method of task resolution, and that's it. The GAME is the shared imaginative world, the ongoing adventures and improvised narrative that occurs in play.

And the only reason you need an extremely detailed, complex rules system is because either: (a) you really like playing strategy games / miniatures wargames simultaneous to your RPG session, or (b) because the players don't trust the GM.

Baltimore

If you want to read a near-perfect pulpy horror story, then you must read Baltimore by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden. It's got: vampires, were-creatures, references to Ahab and Hans Christian Andersen, and a bit to say about war as well.

And let me tell you, these aren't the B.S. Anne Rice gothy whispy sexually ambiguous "Lonely Ones" type of vampires. Oh no. These are the creepy menacing hungry vampires that haunted Stoker's nightmares.

And take a look at these reviews:

"Baltimore is an old time rootin' tootin' sense of wonder story dragged through a modern blender, then slow baked in hell. I loved it. It was velvet bullet -- speedy and rich in sensation. Go boys, go." -- Joe R. Lansdale

"I have admired Mike Mignola both as an artist and as a tremendous story teller pretty much since his career began. In this collaboration with Christopher Golden it's fair to say he surpasses himself. He and Golden have produced a witty classic of supernatural fiction." -- Michael Moorcock

Go read. Now.