0:11

This is writer and game designer Robin D. Lodz.

0:14

And this is game designer and writer Kenneth Huyck.

0:16

And this is our podcast, Ken and Robin talk

0:18

about stuff. Bandwidth brought to you by Pograin Press.

0:21

Stuff we're here to talk

0:23

about in this episode include...

0:25

Despised medieval occupations. The Straw

0:27

Hat Riot. Very scary zoos.

0:29

And the HODAG. Rejoice

0:48

for the prophecy is fulfilled.

0:50

The definitive edition has arrived.

0:53

Whoa, is that a new Arthmatica?

0:56

Not just new. It's

0:58

the definitive edition. 20

1:00

years in the making, it's a love letter

1:02

to our favorite game. Ooh, it is kind

1:04

of thick. Did they include like every rule

1:06

from every Arthmatica book ever? Almost.

1:09

It's still the fifth edition, but supercharged

1:12

with 20 years of awesomeness. Okay, can

1:14

I still use my old megas when

1:16

I save the tribunal from that

1:18

infernal plot? Of course! Your stories,

1:20

your characters, they're all welcome here.

1:23

Think of this as a grand reunion,

1:25

a homecoming for the wizards we once

1:27

were. This art is gorgeous in a

1:29

layout so much easier to find things.

1:31

I'm ready, ready to delve back into

1:33

mythic Europe to see what new wonders

1:35

await. Ready to weave great

1:38

magics once more. Then

1:40

let us begin a

1:42

new saga, my friend.

1:45

Go to atlas-games.com/backarsmagica now

1:48

to get your crowdfunding reminders.

1:50

And the stories we'll tell will

1:53

echo through the ages. The

2:01

rattle of dice, the thump

2:03

of miniatures, the crunch of

2:05

spelt, hard-fried spelt, and

2:08

the cry of the plague doctor coming through with

2:10

the wagon of the dead welcome

2:12

us into a medively accurate instance

2:15

of the gaming hut. And we're

2:17

not in mom's basement, we're in

2:19

a barn maybe, if we're

2:21

lucky we're in a part of the barbecan, not

2:23

the good part of the castle, we're out in

2:25

the cold part of the castle, and we're sullen

2:28

because we hold Robin a

2:30

despised job. The

2:32

middle ages of place, Robin, I believe I

2:35

can say of intense social

2:37

stratification. Yes. If

2:39

I may generalize about

2:42

an entire continent and a half a

2:44

millennium, I would say intense social

2:47

stratification. Yes, that's a

2:49

strong generalization. And one of

2:51

the many reasons why people do not

2:53

actually want a truly medieval worldview in

2:55

their F20 games. So we're going

2:57

to look at this a bit and

2:59

then tell you not to do it

3:01

and then envision what it would be

3:04

like if you did it which would

3:06

be an argument for not doing it.

3:08

So the early middle ages, like other

3:10

places at other times or even the

3:12

same time, had not only stratification of

3:15

class but had certain people who, you

3:17

know, whatever your birth, you would then

3:19

fall into a worse class if you

3:21

practice certain occupations. And so we're going

3:23

to go through a list

3:26

compiled by the late medievalist

3:28

Jacques Lagoff and look

3:30

at the common themes of

3:32

why certain professions would be disregarded and

3:34

people would look down on them, they'd

3:36

avoid them, they wouldn't want to talk

3:39

to them. And the first one

3:42

is one of the more sort of straddling

3:45

category ones, which is

3:47

innkeepers. And this goes

3:49

to show that people don't like outsiders, they

3:51

don't like travelers, and they don't

3:54

like people who cater to travelers and bring

3:56

them into their world and

3:58

possibly I think also they don't

4:01

actually like their barkeep who they think is

4:03

trying to cheat them. And they also don't

4:05

like places where there might be drunkenness, which

4:07

is at an inn, and they

4:09

don't like places where you'd tell ribbled

4:11

stories like an inn. And

4:14

if they've gotten to the point where

4:16

there are dancers, they don't like those

4:18

either. Right. Because, of course, also the

4:20

Middle Ages is a time of intense

4:22

and socially enforced religious faith and piety.

4:25

And if you are doing things

4:27

that are impious, which a typical

4:29

player character almost certainly is, you

4:31

are looked down upon and shunned.

4:33

The next profession starts another

4:36

category, which is people who

4:38

touch blood. So butchers

4:40

are looked down upon. They are not as

4:42

mired as they would be by foodies today,

4:44

but their work might be necessary. You might

4:46

need them. First of all, you probably don't

4:49

eat meat all that much in the Middle

4:51

Ages unless you're at the very top of

4:53

that social ladder. But you definitely don't want

4:55

to touch a butcher, talk to a

4:57

butcher. He's off in a corner there. And this

4:59

is found in other cultures as well. It's found

5:02

in feudal Japan as well. Yeah. And the other

5:04

thing is that if you are an independent farm

5:06

owner, which is the best kind of thing to

5:08

be assuming you're not a noble, you

5:10

do your own butchering on

5:13

a small scale, like you kill your chickens or

5:15

you kill your pig. But someone

5:17

who works with the cattlemen coming in

5:19

from out of town or the sheep

5:21

herders coming in from the hills, and

5:24

they slaughter a lot, first of all, they're bloody

5:26

and messy and horrible and their place smells. But

5:29

also, once more, we're dealing with

5:31

out of towners. We're dealing with other people.

5:33

And the butcher is seen

5:35

as doing a job that

5:37

someone could do for themselves, but they're just

5:39

lazy, right? Everyone should be owning their own

5:41

cow and killing it in this sort of

5:43

ideal picture of the medieval world. If

5:46

you're dealing with a middleman that

5:48

is inherently suspect. So we've covered

5:50

a couple of occupations that you

5:52

might interact with as an

5:55

adventurer. And now we come

5:57

to the occupations of adventurers.

5:59

So Jean Glurz. Troubadours, wandering

6:01

musicians were looked down upon

6:03

and seen as suspicious because they're

6:06

outsiders, they engage in ribaldry, can't

6:08

trust them, and the distrust of

6:10

performers and entertainers goes way, way

6:12

past the medieval period. So there

6:14

you go Bard, you are not

6:17

beloved for showing up with your

6:19

lute to play music for people.

6:21

Yeah, this is one where we have to

6:23

give some points to the medievalists because they're

6:25

like, bards are trouble, we don't need any

6:28

bards. Hard to argue, hard to argue with.

6:30

Next one on the list, still looked down

6:32

upon today, although I guess possibly elevated in

6:35

certain circles. Montabanks, that's scam artists. Of course

6:37

everybody dislikes people are going to try and

6:39

rip you off. The good medieval

6:41

folks in the village who are distrustful of

6:44

outsiders, I think everybody is a swindler and

6:46

if you're known to be a swindler, well,

6:48

that just makes sense that you're looked down

6:51

upon for that. And the other thing is

6:53

that the way that some of the Mounta

6:55

Bankery worked was things like, you know, the

6:57

ancestor of the three-card Monty, you know, P

6:59

in the Shell type stuff, that's

7:02

basically pattern close

7:04

magic which has a whiff

7:07

of consorting with the supernatural. So even

7:09

if you're honest, you still should be run

7:12

out of town by decent folk. Just there's

7:14

no good side to being a

7:16

Mounta Bank who's trying to swindle people out

7:18

of their money, even if you're saying, no,

7:20

I did it through magic. And that leads

7:23

us to the category of magicians who are

7:25

obviously on the bubble. I mean, it

7:27

gets worse even for them in some cases down through

7:29

the Renaissance because they deal

7:32

with external powers and

7:34

all the promising that you're working

7:36

with the planets doesn't help anybody because you're only

7:38

supposed to be praying to the saints to

7:41

get what you need and not monkeying

7:43

around with the forces of nature. That's

7:45

uncool. Right. So that's your wizard, that's

7:47

your sorcerer, those are player character classes.

7:49

And now we come to the body of

7:52

the magician and that's the alchemist. You're doing

7:54

the same thing the magician is doing except

7:56

with fumes and chemicals and poisons. You're probably

7:58

a poisoner of some kind. And you

8:00

certainly are reading Arabic, which is

8:02

suspicious. Yes. So if you've got

8:05

an alchemist type character in your

8:07

role playing game, you are also

8:09

feared and despised. And then doctors

8:11

and surgeons both come in for

8:13

oblique wheat. And it's again,

8:15

because they are covered in blood

8:17

all the time. And that's disgusting.

8:19

And also going to the

8:22

doctor up until probably the

8:24

mid 19th century was actually worse

8:26

for you than not going to

8:28

the doctor. Yes. And mid 19th

8:30

century is generous. Yeah, right. Yeah.

8:32

Some people say that until the early 20th. But

8:35

yes, doctors were seen as sort

8:37

of, you know, in the same

8:39

way that people often suspiciously view morticians

8:42

and funeral home people. Now

8:45

they're like, oh, they're too close to

8:47

death. Doctors obviously super close to death.

8:49

So a superstitious level over and above

8:51

the they're monkeying with things best

8:53

left to God, they are covered

8:56

in blood and they're milking you

8:58

for money right after they've killed your kid,

9:00

which is also uncool. And then surgeons, if

9:02

anything's worse than a doctor, it's the guy

9:04

who cuts when the doctor tells him to.

9:07

So they're like butchers and you don't even

9:09

get to eat the meat. Yeah. And surgeons

9:11

are also barbers at this time. So not

9:13

only is he unclean and mistakenly took out

9:15

your friend's liver, but he gave you a

9:17

bad haircut. Right. He makes you look like

9:19

a guy in a bowl cut, which medieval

9:21

people all had to put up with

9:23

because there we are. Yeah. And speaking

9:25

of blood, soldiers were looked down

9:27

upon because they are killers. They're

9:29

breaking the commandment. They have had

9:31

blood on them. And also there

9:33

is real reason it's not a

9:35

made up thing for villagers to

9:38

fear armed people roving around, looking

9:40

for a place to stay, i.e.

9:42

your place, looking for some food,

9:44

i.e. your food, possibly looking

9:46

at people in the village to take

9:48

advantage of in various ways. So there

9:50

you go. There's your fighter. There's your

9:53

ranger. There's all of the

9:55

weapon using adventurers are also looked

9:57

down upon by the villagers. So

10:00

it's important to remember these are not knights. Knights

10:03

have a social standing connected to their land

10:05

holding. Usually they are

10:07

born in noble families or very rarely

10:09

raised up from middle class families. People

10:12

don't despise knights. They may not want

10:14

to see them in the sense of,

10:17

oh, that probably means a war is coming, but

10:19

they're not contemptible the way the common

10:21

soldier is. The common soldier is an

10:24

itinerant murderer basically and they kill

10:26

for pay and they are seen

10:28

as bad people. The

10:30

knight is supposed to have all of

10:32

his professional buddy knights and protect you and if

10:35

you need to call for a peasant levy, that's

10:37

one thing, but if he needs to hire a

10:39

bunch of Italians or Burgundians or something and have

10:41

them wander around through our village, that's

10:43

not good and we don't like it. And so

10:46

with the possible, with some exceptions, if

10:48

you're a holy cleric, you

10:50

may get away with being a healer. If

10:53

you're a noble knight, you might get

10:55

away with being a soldier. But

10:57

other than that, we've covered almost every,

11:00

I think every F20 character class. So

11:02

now we get into things that are not

11:05

player characters, but are NPCs, people

11:07

involved in vice, so pimps and

11:10

prostitutes are obviously looked

11:12

down upon as they are in

11:14

almost every society and almost every

11:16

period. But also we now get

11:18

to people who cause bureaucratic trouble

11:20

for you, possibly notaries are

11:23

disliked and they have

11:25

all those fancy documents and signing powers,

11:27

they know how to read, that's suspicious

11:29

and what are they notarizing?

11:31

Probably documents that will result in your

11:34

taxation. Yes, or take your land away.

11:36

And then merchants, just seen as not

11:39

just travelers, bad enough, but

11:41

middlemen, people who don't contribute anything

11:43

to society, they just take money

11:45

very close to usury, Robin, the

11:47

sin of lending money at interest,

11:49

a bad sin, not supposed to

11:52

do it, and merchants are problematic,

11:54

they may not even be Christian

11:57

or they may be the wrong kind of Christian in

11:59

parts of the. east, you'd have

12:01

Armenian merchants, in the west you'd have Jewish

12:03

merchants. Either way, outsiders and

12:05

problem children and people we want to give

12:08

a side eye to, and

12:10

then they go around basically just jacking up

12:12

prices on the common man as far as

12:14

anyone can tell. Right. to

12:18

make an honest living on a farm

12:21

because if you make things, you're also

12:23

suspicious. So if you're a fuller, a

12:25

weaver, a saddler, a dire, if you

12:27

make pastry, if you make shoes, if

12:29

you're a gardener or a painter, if you're

12:32

a fisherman even, you are looked down

12:34

upon or a miller, a tailor. So

12:36

some of these people are people who

12:38

make their living through suspiciously non-land farming

12:40

sort of ways, and others are people

12:43

who you fear might again rip you

12:45

off and therefore you need to distrust

12:47

them. And some of them are covered

12:49

in blood or horrible stakes like Fuller's

12:51

and Fisherman, and so you don't like

12:54

them. And as you say,

12:56

the miller is probably ripping you off. The

12:58

perfumer is definitely involved in basically selling vanity

13:00

to people. That's the worst thing in the

13:02

world. Right. We got more petty

13:04

officials who are disliked, game

13:06

wardens, customs officers, exchange

13:08

brokers. And again, these are

13:11

all people who are engaged in bureaucracy and

13:13

making things work and you don't want that.

13:15

That's all very suspicious. Keeping the boot of

13:17

the man on the neck of the commoner.

13:20

You can't have that. So let's briefly imagine a

13:23

game where everyone wants to do

13:25

this. Everyone wants a

13:27

genuinely medieval worldview, and that means that

13:29

your adventurers truly are outcasts. When you

13:31

come to town, you're not going to

13:34

be welcomed. You're not going to be

13:36

ushered into a magic shop for a

13:38

conversation with the merchant. You're not going

13:40

to be given all the hospitality, the

13:42

tavern where you hang around and discuss

13:45

what dungeon you're going to go to. But instead,

13:47

people are going to avert their eyes when you

13:50

show up. They're not going to want to talk

13:52

to you. And so the result

13:54

of that on the typical adventure

13:56

is that the GM has to

13:58

drop any space. scene

14:00

that occurs as interaction with people

14:03

in civilization and that cuts

14:05

out a lot of plots. And

14:07

so to make stories work is

14:09

one of the reasons that

14:12

people drop the intense class

14:14

stratification and this strong suspicion

14:16

of any outsider or anyone

14:18

who's involved in any profession

14:20

other than being a peasant

14:22

because it just stops stories

14:25

dead and you would have

14:27

to sort of embrace the outlaw nature of

14:29

it and accept the fact that

14:31

you are avoiding this class stratified society

14:33

in order to go adventure somewhere else

14:36

which is something that is found in

14:38

Tecumel where there's this incredibly

14:40

sophisticated setting with all of this

14:42

detail but it's a class society

14:44

so you're down in the dungeon

14:47

underneath that you know looking for traps

14:49

and treasures and stuff you're not actually

14:51

interacting with the society because it's too

14:53

stratified to allow you to do that.

14:55

Now we should note that this stratification

14:58

is the early Middle Ages so it's from say

15:00

600 to say 1100

15:04

at the tail end of it and

15:06

it starts shifting you know not particularly

15:08

ironically once there's enough wealth that suddenly

15:11

having wealth is another way to class

15:13

and so merchants start

15:15

getting good PR pretty early in

15:17

the written text which means amongst

15:19

the people who will eventually set

15:21

the standard the peasants will probably

15:23

stay small-minded and hateful

15:26

for longer but merchants

15:28

are basically accepted by

15:30

the late Crusades doctors

15:32

become book learners and stop dealing with

15:34

all that filthy blood there's a brief

15:37

bubble in the high Middle Ages where you could

15:39

be a magician and not be suspect of hanging

15:41

out with Satan all the time and

15:44

some crafts like blacksmith are always

15:46

respectable too so it's not an

15:49

any crafter is a bad news but

15:52

in the early Middle Ages the way that

15:54

people would historically get out of this situation

15:56

is they would band together with a bunch

15:58

of other outcasts and losers and they

16:00

would go out, usually east if they're in

16:03

Germany, sometimes up into the mountains if they're

16:05

in France, sometimes north if they're in England,

16:07

and then they would start a new town

16:10

and they would start a new system and they'd

16:12

divide up the land. Usually

16:14

they'd have a letter from the king or the duke

16:16

or whoever saying you can do that, but sometimes they'd

16:18

just do it and hope no one minded. They'd

16:21

have to fight off the winds or the

16:23

poles or whoever was already in that land.

16:26

Sometimes no one was in the land because

16:28

we had a population crash when the Roman

16:30

Empire fell so there is vacant land you

16:32

could do this on and that becomes its

16:34

own challenge. So the way to do this

16:36

successfully as an F20 game is

16:38

you're doing all this, you know that if

16:41

you go back to civilization for anything and

16:43

maybe story reasons will make you go back,

16:45

you're going to face the same obliquy that

16:48

you faced previously, but it becomes

16:50

sort of a frontier story, a western, and you're

16:52

out there and now the guy who can cast

16:54

fireball and the guy with the ever sharp sword

16:56

are actually kind of cool because you need them

16:58

to fight off monsters and

17:00

foreigners or the people who

17:03

live there, foreigners, to clear your land for

17:05

your new town. And that

17:07

is a genuine medieval adventure

17:09

that happened in this period and

17:12

was the way out for people

17:14

who found themselves hated or

17:16

squeezed out of the social stratum of

17:18

their old village or their old manor

17:20

house, their old life, and that's the

17:23

story. And in an F20 context, the thing

17:25

that makes the most sense is to build

17:27

your new town near the

17:30

dungeon that you just discovered. There's a

17:32

lot of treasure down there, there's money

17:34

to be had, there's wealth to be

17:37

generated, you need services to serve

17:39

you. If you have enough

17:41

of a start on things you might

17:43

figure out a way to tax other

17:45

adventurers for access to your town or

17:47

you just own the blacksmith's shop and

17:49

the outfitters in the magic store and

17:51

therefore- 10 foot poles, get your 10

17:54

foot poles. Exactly. And it makes

17:56

sense that that would be uninhabited until you

17:58

show up because you've got a- reduce

18:00

the monster content of the dungeon

18:02

by a certain percentage before it's

18:04

safe to get there. It's a

18:07

typical haunted, ravaged land

18:09

around a dungeon and you're now settling

18:11

it and establishing a town. And so

18:13

this can get you to sort of

18:15

deadwood with elves and

18:18

dwarves. Right. And once we're in

18:20

deadwood, we probably have to head

18:23

for an ad. There are no ads on HBO,

18:25

but on the other hand, you don't

18:27

want to hear us start swear-engining. So

18:30

off we go into an ad

18:33

and then another hut. That

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would take great Cthulhu from his tomb.

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coming October 1st on Backerkit. From Pelgrane

19:01

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20:28

The sound of early jazz and

20:30

the sight of people ducking off

20:32

the roadway from cars before, there

20:34

are significant traffic laws tell us

20:36

that we're in the history hut,

20:38

and we're in a 1920s history

20:40

hut. And

20:43

previously, we've covered some weird social

20:45

disturbances on this show, and particularly

20:47

in the history hut. For example,

20:49

in episode 590, we talked about

20:52

Toronto's clown fireman riot. But

20:54

even more inexplicable is the

20:57

1922 New York City straw hat riots. Ken,

21:02

how could straw hats cause a riot?

21:04

How could they indeed? Well,

21:06

in America, starting around the turn

21:09

of the century, you would change

21:11

from your felt hat, your trilby,

21:13

or your fedora, or your derby,

21:15

or whatever, to a straw hat,

21:18

because America is hot and

21:20

sunny. And so, circa

21:22

May 20th would be straw hat day.

21:25

Straw hat day is earlier in the south, it's Easter

21:27

in New Orleans, for example, but right

21:30

around May 20th, maybe no later

21:32

than June 1st, it would

21:34

be straw hat day. And because straw hats

21:36

are now an item of mass consumption, there

21:38

are now stores saying, get

21:40

your straw hat for straw hat day.

21:42

Everyone needs to go to straw hat

21:45

day. Go buy your straw hat. And

21:47

fashions would change slightly every year. So

21:49

you're up to date, new fancy boater.

21:51

Right, you'd have boaters, the Panama hat

21:53

becomes giant after Teddy Roosevelt is photographed

21:55

wearing one in 1906, so

21:57

there's a big boom in the air. different

22:00

kinds of straw hats. But you

22:02

have finally a cheap

22:04

accessible straw hat for urban populations, which

22:06

was not the case before you invented

22:08

a factory that could build straw hats

22:10

and had mass distribution of goods. So

22:12

suddenly everyone can wear a straw hat

22:14

in the city. They want to wear

22:16

a straw hat in the city because

22:19

it's much cooler than a felt hat.

22:21

And so they switch and it becomes

22:23

a celebration in the same way that,

22:25

you know, you're white sale and you're

22:27

buying new sheets because it's not winter

22:29

anymore, that kind of thing. So

22:32

you wear your straw hat all summer and then

22:34

you'd switch back to the felt

22:37

hats on felt hat day. And

22:39

that was historically September 1st and

22:41

then moved slightly as

22:44

the early part of the century was very hot.

22:46

And so in 1908, it's changed

22:49

in most cities, Chicago, of course,

22:51

is your bellwether here, August 31st,

22:53

1908, Mayor Busey postponed

22:55

felt hat day in Chicago to

22:57

the 15th of September by

22:59

proclamation. And every one of the tribune was

23:02

like, this may be the most significant accomplishment

23:04

of his administration. Yes, it's

23:06

a great detail that this had

23:08

to be an official announcement that

23:10

the day would change. So before

23:12

the rioting started, there were more

23:14

benign versions of a

23:16

hat destroying ritual. So in New York

23:18

at the New York Stock Exchange on

23:20

September 15th, stockbrokers would

23:23

on the floor of the exchange in

23:25

a fun little thing that

23:27

would be televised on CNBC if it

23:29

was still happening. They would destroy each

23:31

other's straw hats. But it was

23:33

okay because their colleagues, their friends, they know each

23:36

other and they're all planning to do it. It's

23:38

not an attack or anything like that. Like pinching

23:40

people if they're not wearing green on St. Patrick's

23:42

Day. If you're all at the office, you all

23:44

know each other and that's how it's cool. The

23:47

Cubs, after their first win in September, they would

23:49

destroy their straw hats and the fans would throw

23:51

their own straw hats down onto the field.

23:53

Man, it was a big whoop-de-do. It

23:55

was a jovial thing when

23:58

it was jovial. But... Even

24:00

as early as 1899, if

24:02

you wore your straw hat in late

24:04

September, you were gonna get, best

24:07

case scenario, your hat stolen. Worst case scenario,

24:09

you'd be beaten up in your hat stolen.

24:11

So a British tourist in Philadelphia in 1899

24:13

reports wearing

24:16

a straw hat in late September, according

24:18

to the hotel where he was staying,

24:20

would court danger. So

24:22

there are things in the newspapers scattered

24:25

about that wearing a straw hat after

24:27

Felt Hat Day is in

24:29

danger of having your hat stolen and stomped,

24:31

and maybe you'll be stomped. And

24:33

this shows up in Louisville, Kentucky, New

24:35

York City, Newark. There is a straw

24:37

hat riot on September 15th, 1910 in

24:41

Pittsburgh, that is good nature, Joshua

24:43

gets out of hand. Pittsburgh also

24:45

has a stock exchange, so they

24:47

had the same habit there, and

24:50

it spread and trouble ensued. In

24:52

1920, on September 13th in New York, East

24:56

Side Boys invaded Chinatown, and

24:59

stole all the straw hats and smashed them up. This

25:01

begins, I think, a sort of

25:04

undercurrent that people don't like to talk about,

25:06

because Straw Hat Day seems fun. But

25:08

September, 1922 is a hot month. Everyone's

25:12

wearing their straw hats a little later than they

25:14

maybe should, but the kids are eager

25:16

to start smashing hats, and they jump the

25:18

gun. On September 13th, 1922, the kids in

25:20

Five Points, so

25:23

a pretty terrible slum, begin smashing

25:25

the straw hats of the garment workers who

25:27

are coming off shift, they had like five

25:29

in the afternoon. This goes great,

25:31

they're having a great time, because the garment workers,

25:33

many of them are women, many of them, many,

25:36

many of them are Jews, so it's all right

25:38

if you're a hateful little Irish kid to smash

25:40

up a Jewish guy's hat. But

25:43

they get to the dock workers who are

25:45

also coming off shift a little later, and

25:47

guess what, Robin? Dock workers do not take

25:49

kindly to having a bunch of rabble smashing

25:51

their hats. Yeah, so they have the muscle

25:53

to give their opinion in

25:56

return fist-wise. Exactly, and

25:58

so the... pursuing

26:00

brawl and fracas because in

26:03

Five Points, as I assume in every gang

26:05

neighborhood, you have your little juvenile gang and

26:07

then you have your older teens whose job

26:09

is to sort of, you know, point

26:12

them in the direction that the real gangs want

26:14

them pointed, but are sort of

26:16

watching over them and then you have the

26:18

actual grown-ups who do the bootlegging or whatever.

26:21

And so that mid-rank sees their kids

26:24

getting beaten up by dock workers and

26:26

swarms in to take action and the

26:28

brawl expands on to the Manhattan Bridge

26:31

from Canal Street to Brooklyn and

26:34

that goes until the cops bust up

26:36

the riots and that's the end

26:38

of the day and everyone says, well, that was a

26:40

bad straw hat day, everyone has learned their lesson now,

26:42

but the next day, it breaks out

26:44

again in the Lower East Side and it

26:47

spreads rapidly. Their

26:49

blood is up after the fight. It

26:51

goes as far north as 104th Street, which

26:53

is Italian Harlem. So there's

26:55

another big Jewish neighborhood there. So

26:58

there's inter-ethnic hat snatching. It

27:00

spreads onto the west side. One

27:02

thousand hat nappers are on Amsterdam

27:05

Island and nothing says

27:07

it in the papers, but

27:10

it's Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill. Sugar

27:12

Hill is by then an African-American

27:15

neighborhood and then Hamilton

27:17

Heights is more Italians. And

27:20

so you get the sense

27:22

that there is a degree of inter-ethnic

27:25

gang warfare that's going on on the

27:27

level of hat smashing. Right. So

27:29

that the hat thing creates a pretext for

27:32

people who want to cause violent trouble and

27:34

then it gets out of hand. Some

27:36

of the people who are being attacked and

27:38

having their hats torn off their heads are

27:40

off-duty policemen. Yes. That

27:42

doesn't help either. Right. The cops

27:45

are called when the riots begin and in most

27:47

of the precincts, they say, well, it's felt hat

27:49

day. There's going to be hat snatching. You know,

27:51

pay attention. But once

27:53

they are saying, no, it's real and they start

27:55

coming out and seeing what's happening, the cops are

27:57

wearing their straw hats because it's still hot. and

28:00

their hats get snatched over and over and over

28:02

in one case one cop and

28:05

another security guard basically get

28:07

into a fight because both of their

28:09

hats are snatched and they think the

28:11

other one was involved somehow that's fun

28:13

and there's a cop who chases a

28:15

kid and he trips and he lays

28:17

himself out on the concrete that's not

28:20

good there are two men hospitalized because

28:22

in the Lower East Side at least

28:24

they're using poles with long wires attached

28:26

to them or nails to grab the

28:28

hats especially take them out of moving

28:30

cars and these wires of course

28:32

if you're aiming for a hat it's very easy to

28:34

hit someone in the eye and one

28:36

assumes their parents did not bother to

28:39

say you'll put someone's eye out but someone should

28:41

have because they almost did put someone's eye out

28:43

the guy goes to the hospital he's not permanently

28:45

blinded but it's a near thing another guy is

28:47

basically just beaten within an inch of his life

28:49

nearly kicked to death and winds up in the

28:51

hospital and that's just the two that we have

28:54

records of we have no idea how much there

28:56

was because the New York Times even

28:59

then did not feel this news was

29:01

fit to print and so in troubling

29:03

situation hats are snatched right and according

29:05

to the Tribune youthful marauders were suspiciously

29:08

active in the immediate vicinity of hat

29:10

stores and this notion is that this

29:12

whole thing was started by the hat

29:14

people to sell more felt hats and

29:16

indeed on September 14th the hat stores

29:18

all stayed open late to sell you

29:20

a felt hat so you wouldn't be

29:22

rioted against well we learned in the

29:25

previous segment that hat makers are not

29:27

to be trusted not to be trusted

29:29

that they are that they are a

29:31

problem with their their mercury and their

29:33

whatnot but again there is a possible

29:35

ethnic note to this a lot of

29:37

the hat trade in New York at

29:40

this time was Jewish people Jewish

29:43

immigrants running hat shops and

29:46

so the suspicion

29:48

of shadowy hat companies behind

29:50

hat riots has

29:52

a more than a whiff of anti-Semitism

29:54

to it so who can

29:56

say but certainly there are

29:59

lots of these kids certainly

30:01

on the second day that are also

30:03

not just Irish rabble from the Five

30:05

Points but are also Jewish kids writing

30:07

Italian kids writing because we have the

30:09

lists of various populations that are brought

30:11

in to various precinct houses. In

30:14

some cases they're thrown in jail and

30:16

told to cool off. In some cases

30:18

in one case the cops call their

30:20

parents and say we can't

30:22

legally beat your kids but if you

30:24

come down here you can beat your

30:26

kids in the police station. With our

30:28

fine beating clubs. With our beating club

30:30

can use a real police truncheon and

30:33

so we know that it is

30:36

by now a multi-ethnic explosion of

30:38

hattery or of anti-hattery. So

30:40

this sort of calms it out for a bit. In 1924

30:42

there's another case of a hat theft

30:46

where a guy is chasing the kid

30:48

who stole his hat, he grabs him, the older

30:50

teen comes out of the shadows and fights him

30:53

and while they're fighting the older teen knocks the guy

30:55

down and he breaks his head open on a curb

30:57

and dies. Calvin Coolidge tries to

30:59

lower the temperature in 1925, goes out in

31:01

public wearing

31:03

a straw hat on September 18th, did

31:06

so again on September 19th and when

31:08

they asked him for comment he said

31:11

summer isn't over yet and

31:13

he was in DC so summer's not even over

31:15

in DC until you know November. Right

31:17

so he's just introducing an anarchic idea

31:19

that you just decide whether it's

31:22

hot or cold and wear a hat

31:24

accordingly which of course would remove the

31:26

implicit social permission to engage in violence

31:28

when you see someone wearing a hat

31:31

at the wrong time or actually two

31:33

days prior to the wrong time. We

31:35

know that the hat snatchers were spoiling

31:37

for a fight and didn't wait until

31:39

people had the opportunity to follow the

31:41

rules. Right well Calvin Coolidge is our

31:43

greatest president for so many reasons but

31:46

that's one of them. Sadly he can

31:48

only do so much after Hoover is

31:50

in office another major outbreak of hat

31:52

smashing happens on the Lower East Side

31:54

a thousand hats seen smashed at

31:56

Mulberry and Broome which is again down in

31:58

the Five Points area. And

32:01

then eventually college students have begun going

32:03

hatless by this time and College

32:06

students just go around with no hats and

32:08

everyone's like oh my goodness and this bold

32:10

not wearing a hat at all Sort

32:12

of begins to defuse it and then also

32:14

the boater just goes out of style Because

32:17

the only people keeping it in style were college students

32:19

frankly And so when they stop wearing

32:21

it people are wearing straw

32:23

hats that from a distance look like regular

32:25

hats And so there there's not as much

32:28

urge to smash and grab them Also, I

32:30

assume the depression begins to take people's minds

32:33

off hat day and maybe you move into

32:36

Apple day or something else. So this could be

32:38

just a Complicating factor in

32:40

a call of Cthulhu scenario or

32:42

an early trail scenario Where

32:45

you're trying to investigate something else in New

32:47

York and this is going on and you're

32:49

trying to figure out what's going on But

32:51

that seems odd to introduce

32:53

this thing That's a bold note and

32:56

then have it just be a complete

32:58

red herring So it could be the

33:00

echo of some other, you know ancient

33:02

ritual that's been performed And

33:04

it just sort of changes people's minds that

33:07

switches on the ritual obedience Switch

33:10

and people start well, what do we do? Okay.

33:12

Well, it's September. There's a thing with hats We

33:14

do the half thing so it could be some sort

33:16

of mirrored resonance of

33:19

some deeper darker Ritual being performed

33:21

in the sewers or out in

33:23

Westchester or there could be a

33:25

Martian spaceship crashed under Bullberry Avenue

33:27

that's sending out these hate rays

33:29

like in Quatermass in the pit

33:31

and That's what's working on

33:33

the the problem teens of the time that's what

33:35

started the riots in the Civil War in five

33:37

points and it's what started the hat riot in

33:39

1922 and It's

33:42

just one more of a social outbreak

33:44

that you can track either in your

33:46

trail era You're like there was that was

33:48

exactly where the Civil War draft riots started

33:51

That's where the hat riots started in 22

33:53

and you could probably find other riots in

33:55

five points without too much work And

33:57

then rather than say well, it's a it's

33:59

a horror horrible impoverished rookery, of course there's going

34:01

to be riots, he'd say, it must be a

34:03

Martian spaceship and dig it out and have adventures

34:05

that way. Well, it's time for us to get

34:07

in our spaceship, fly over this commercial and

34:10

into another segment on the other side. Speaking

34:43

of the King in Yellow, like Carcosa,

34:45

Chambers wisely does not restrict the King

34:47

in Yellow to one mythic role. In

34:50

this story, he appears to be

34:52

the personification of both Castane's delusion

34:54

and of secret conspiratorial power.

34:57

In Chambers' other stories, he

34:59

embodies hopelessness, degeneracy, or death

35:02

itself. In all of these

35:04

tales, however, he uses the play as

35:06

his gateway, his seduction, his channel to

35:08

enter the mind of the reader and

35:10

perhaps the mortal universe as well. Although

35:13

this story predates the arrival of

35:15

the Tibetan word tulpa into Western

35:17

occultism, the King in Yellow resembles

35:19

a thought form, as Theosophical occultists

35:21

termed a similar concept in the

35:24

1890s, given shape and malignity by

35:26

the words of the play. The

35:55

correlation of your mind's contents, the

35:57

dark secrets of the Magellanic Cloud,

36:00

and the buzzing from the hillside

36:03

welcome us, if that's the word I want,

36:06

into the mythos hut. And

36:08

Robin, you have challenged me on

36:10

the basis of the list of

36:12

backer categories on the trail of

36:14

Cthulhu second edition backer kit, now

36:16

on backer kit, now crowdfunding, which

36:19

is mythos monsters in order of

36:21

least scary to most scary and

36:23

the most scary is Cthulhu, and

36:25

the least scary, so the

36:27

lowest level of backing, is the

36:29

Zug. And Robin, I

36:31

think that you took that as a

36:34

personal affront having written Dreamhounds of Paris,

36:36

so what's your beef with

36:38

the Zug being unscary? Well, I don't

36:40

have a beef with them because like

36:42

mathematically there would have to be a

36:44

least scary lovecrafting creature, but we can

36:47

as genius role-playing game designer

36:49

podcasters, this is the

36:51

sort of challenge that we can take

36:54

on to make the Zug scarier. So

36:56

we're going to try and find out

36:58

a way or ways to make the

37:01

putatively lowliest Lovecraftian creature genuinely terrifying. And

37:03

the easy, if this was a podcast where it

37:06

just was me and you were my audience, this

37:09

segment would be over very quickly because all I would have

37:11

to say is they're rats. And

37:14

that would terrify you because of course, rats

37:16

are not your friend. They're not, they're not

37:19

anyone's friend Robin. No, well not

37:21

even other rats. So for the

37:23

benefit of Game Masters, I thought

37:25

we would find a way to cook up a scenario

37:27

or scenarios in which the Zug

37:29

is genuinely terrifying. And that

37:32

starts with identifying the properties that the

37:34

Zug has in Lovecraft because of course,

37:36

it's cheating to just go, oh, well

37:39

they're actually star vampires. Yeah, they're actually

37:41

serial killers. We have to make the

37:43

actual Zug as Lovecraft quickly and vaguely

37:45

presented them into an object of terror.

37:48

And to that end, let us quote

37:50

from H.P. Lovecraft doing his part to

37:52

make Zug's scary. This

37:54

is from Dream Quest of Unknown Cadet. In the

37:57

tunnels of that twisted wood, folks

38:00

twine groping boughs, and shine dim

38:02

with the phosphorescence of strange fungi,

38:04

dwell the furtive and

38:06

secretive Zoobs, who know many obscure secrets of

38:08

the dream world, and a few of the

38:11

waking world, since the wood at two places

38:13

touches the lands of men, though it would

38:15

be disastrous to say where. Certain

38:18

unexplained rumors, events and vanishments occur among

38:20

men, where the Zoobs have access, and

38:22

it is well that they cannot travel

38:24

far outside the world of dream. But

38:27

over the nearer parts of the

38:29

dream world, they pass freely, flitting

38:31

small and brown and unseen, and

38:33

bearing back pecan tails to beguile

38:35

the hours around their hearths in

38:37

the forest they love. Most

38:39

of them live in burrows, but some inhabit

38:41

the trunks of the great trees, and although

38:43

they live mostly on fungi, it is muttered

38:46

that they have also a slight

38:48

taste for meat, either physical

38:50

or spiritual, for only many dreamers have

38:52

entered that wood who have not come

38:54

out. So first of all, I see

38:57

where role-playing writers develop the habit of

38:59

just throwing out a lot of vague

39:01

hints about a creature to make it

39:03

seem scary and not coming down and

39:06

giving you enough information. It's from the

39:08

man himself. How to play it. So

39:10

first of all, we take from this

39:12

that the reason that these rat-like creatures

39:15

are scary is they're intelligent. They communicate

39:17

with each other. They have a mythology.

39:19

They're smart. They communicate in a

39:21

fluttering language. That's how they don't meet, forgive

39:23

or they flutter. Yes. And

39:26

they can come a little ways

39:28

into the mortal world at certain

39:30

points. So that implies that there

39:32

are territories that they can

39:34

infest. And also, zoos seem to be

39:36

scary because they do actually seem to

39:38

be luring people in and

39:40

kind of sense like killing and eating

39:42

them. A little bit. They

39:44

may be small, but they're smart and

39:47

they're trouble. So I guess the

39:49

scenario begins with an area that

39:51

turns out to have overlap

39:54

with the dream world. And so the next question

39:56

is, first of all, is this a territory that's

39:58

always connected to the dream world? world, in which

40:00

case there have always been strange

40:02

disappearances and it's kind of a place

40:06

few people go and is inherently

40:08

creepy. Or could it be a

40:10

new place that they have suddenly

40:12

broken into, possibly, because dreamers are

40:14

making it possible. Maybe those dreamers

40:16

are player characters who have been

40:18

to the dream world and now

40:20

they've gone into the city and

40:22

Zoogs are coming up in their basement

40:25

because the dreamers have dreamed them there.

40:27

The notion that Enchanted Wood,

40:29

where the Zoogs live, touches

40:31

the earth, the waking world,

40:33

at two places can

40:36

either be, well, one place is probably

40:38

in England because Lovecraft and the other

40:40

place is probably in New England, also

40:42

because Lovecraft, but maybe Ohio. Lovecraft has

40:45

stuff in Ohio. I like the idea

40:47

of putting the other Zoog entry in

40:49

sort of that Bradbury Midwest where the

40:51

horrors are all dreamy anyway. I think

40:53

that's a fun overlap. But I certainly

40:56

think that you're right. You can

40:58

dream yourself into tangency with the

41:00

Enchanted Wood. Either just, it normally

41:02

stops after a few weeks or

41:04

maybe it, you know, continues

41:07

strongly if the Zoogs are able

41:09

to do their weird little

41:11

ritual to keep another door open. Or

41:13

maybe just the tangent points float around

41:15

the globe like the magnetic poles and

41:17

sometimes they're in England and sometimes they're

41:19

in Ohio and sometimes they're just down

41:21

the road from your campaign by an

41:23

odd coincidence. So wherever that happens, you're

41:25

going to have not only the player

41:27

characters having their dreams in the dream

41:29

land where they theoretically did

41:31

it on purpose, but also GMCs who

41:33

live in the neighborhood are going to

41:35

start having weird dreams or have their

41:37

dreams gone forever because their dream self,

41:40

like an idiot, walked into the Enchanted

41:42

Wood and got eaten by the Zoogs.

41:45

And so there are going to be

41:47

people who don't have dream selves and

41:49

maybe the Zoogs can peek through their eyes or

41:52

maybe the Zoogs can come up through their houses

41:54

and just be invisible to them. And so the

41:56

Zoogs just take over the houses and the

41:59

people just go about their lives. and they

42:01

just can't tell that their house is infested

42:03

with zoos, that'd be pretty scary. I wouldn't

42:05

like that. And since zoos are intelligent, you

42:07

could have a very smart one that decides

42:09

to change their lowly wretched status and

42:12

elevate them by throwing in with

42:14

one of the great old ones.

42:16

So you could have one start

42:18

up a cult that is

42:21

Yogg-Sothoth is the obvious one because that's

42:23

the deity of gates that would allow

42:25

them to keep the gates open more

42:28

easily. And they could be doing

42:31

favors for whatever gods have

42:33

chosen destruction of the earth

42:35

there furthering and acting

42:37

as their sort of eyes

42:40

and ears. In an urban environment or even in

42:42

a farm, you're not suspicious of

42:44

rats skittering around. If you spot, you

42:46

know, you hear a weird

42:48

noise, you look over and, oh, I think that

42:50

was just a rat. And that's still

42:53

unnerving, Ken, I'm sure you'll agree. That

42:55

is you don't immediately think that that rat

42:57

is observing you and shall

43:00

we say ratting on you to

43:02

Yogg-Sothoth or some other entity. They

43:04

might give power to cult leaders

43:06

who think they're in charge when

43:08

really it's the zoos who are

43:11

in charge and thereby become enabled

43:13

to do things in our waking world

43:15

that either they can't go far enough into

43:17

the waking world to do themselves or, you

43:19

know, they need opposable thumbs or the ability

43:21

to hold a conversation with a human. So

43:23

they could have human servitors

43:25

who think they're the human bosses.

43:27

Yep. Or they could have

43:29

the people whose dreams they ate go do their

43:32

errands for them. The other thing

43:34

that the zoos have in the story, they

43:36

have moon wine that is a seed that's

43:38

dropped down from the moon, falls in the

43:40

wood and it grows into a tree and

43:42

they'd make wine from it. And

43:45

that moon wine tends to intoxicate

43:47

people and make them loosen their tongues. And

43:51

it's something that they could be slipping into people's

43:53

food to get them delirious, maybe

43:55

trying to shape their dreams a little

43:57

bit and say, well, if you just

43:59

dreamed us a slightly better opening, that

44:01

would be nice. Or maybe they're just,

44:04

that's how they keep control

44:06

of their human cultists is by giving

44:08

them the dream wine and then their

44:10

dream selves are, you know, I don't

44:12

want to say panned up but let's

44:14

say panned up in the enchanted wood

44:16

or possibly eaten. And that

44:18

dream wine can be another one of their tells as

44:21

they go out, that people are

44:23

drinking this strangely bright orange beverage

44:26

that they don't seem to know

44:28

there's anything wrong with but it

44:30

certainly makes them susceptible to influences

44:32

of all kinds. And if they

44:34

infiltrate some moon wine into the

44:36

meeting place of the player characters,

44:39

you know there's a player character that's going to try it. Yep,

44:42

absolutely, guaranteed. You could even

44:44

have moon wine trafficking, it

44:46

could be an illicit substance

44:48

that people pursue because

44:50

it makes their dreams seem vivid and

44:52

fulfilling and allows them not only to

44:55

dream lucidly but to have the dreams

44:57

they've always wanted and it starts to

44:59

seem like those dreams they have are

45:01

filtering through into the real material world.

45:04

But like a lot of drugs

45:06

you become insensitized to its positive

45:08

effects over time and of course

45:11

it allows the zooks to control

45:13

you and eat your dream self

45:15

or finally, you know, if

45:17

you need a fix, if you need more moon

45:19

wine you know where the forest is that you

45:22

need to go to and they're waiting there to

45:24

drop you into a pit and devour you. And

45:27

zoos also want to eat your kittens. They

45:29

tried to eat a kitten in Ulthar and

45:31

were stopped by the heroic cats of Ulthar

45:34

so maybe that's more spore is

45:36

that the, you know, there used to

45:38

be a stray cat that you don't see on the street

45:40

anymore because the zoos at him and

45:42

that's kind of gross to see something that

45:44

looks basically like a rat chowing down on

45:47

a kitten that seems disgusting on every level.

45:50

And this means that you have an

45:52

ally against the zoos if you can

45:54

awaken best to your defense or go

45:56

to Ulthar yourself in your dreams and

45:58

say zoos are infesting. my lovely

46:00

Ohio hometown, can you help us dream cats?

46:03

And the dream cats will do

46:05

so probably, but they will also charge.

46:07

And for example, the Zuges in the

46:09

war, they demanded that the Zuges keep

46:11

them fed with grouse and pheasant. So,

46:14

you know, the cats have got their own favors

46:16

that they want the player characters to do. And

46:19

you can be suddenly realizing that

46:22

your town in Ohio or wherever

46:25

is really just the sort of, you know,

46:27

chess board between the Zuges and the cats

46:30

and you're a force in their eternal warfare back

46:32

and forth. Yeah, so we all know that cats

46:34

think of humans as mere pawns. Exactly,

46:36

yeah. Even if you think

46:38

they're their friend, they can bite you at

46:40

any moment. Absolutely, but that's cool, Robin. Cats

46:42

are wonderful. Right. And it's not

46:44

just because they emit a bacteria that makes me believe

46:46

that. Yes, I can see that's the toxoplasmosis talking. Well,

46:49

before the infection spreads, it's time for us

46:51

to listen to another commercial and then the

46:53

final segment of this here podcast. Hold

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the presses. Stop typing the

47:08

teletypes. It's time for another

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all on GenCon TV. Satisfy

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your gaming cravings with actual plays

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of tabletop avi cheese. Actual plays

47:58

of strategy games. It's time once

48:00

more to enter the most ambiguous

48:02

of hats. It's

48:27

not where we don't really know what's going on, but there's a

48:30

crankery in one corner, there's a

48:32

weird map in another, but when we

48:34

look out the window we hear the

48:36

cry of the alien big cat screaming

48:38

on the moor, and over in the

48:40

corner there's the great alien and the

48:42

Nordic alien, they're enjoying kombucha together, but

48:44

this time around our journey into the

48:46

Liptony hut takes us into the little

48:48

alcove where we talk about cryptids, and

48:51

the particular cryptid, I think this

48:53

guy is special, because you know

48:55

you're Michaeli and Ben Brey and

48:57

possibly your chupacabra side, there aren't

48:59

a lot of quadrupeds in the

49:01

world of cryptids for some reason,

49:03

so we're going to journey now

49:05

to Wisconsin with a little hint

49:07

over in Michigan earlier on, because

49:09

this is the stomping grounds, the

49:11

four-footed stomping grounds of

49:14

the Hodag, and well

49:16

he's kind of a multi-forum sort of

49:18

creature, kind of a chimera could be

49:20

made of a whole bunch of different

49:22

monsters, can tell us more

49:24

about the Hodag. You mentioned Michigan, the

49:26

first mention of the Hodag in print

49:29

is in an 1870 history of

49:31

Kent County that says an unknown and mysterious

49:34

animal was heard, seen and even fired at

49:36

in the woods near here some years ago,

49:38

and as no other name could be found

49:40

for it, it was called Hodag. I love

49:44

that non-explanatory explanation, that's great.

49:46

Yes, that's the best, and

49:49

the Hodag seems to have begun

49:51

as a sort

49:53

of a folk monster amongst the

49:56

lumberjacks and timber people, timbermen, of

49:59

the... Upper Midwest of Minnesota,

50:01

Wisconsin, Michigan, that area that

50:03

it seems to have bopped

50:05

up. Some people trace it

50:07

to an Ojibwa legend of

50:10

the water panther. I

50:12

see literally no commonalities between them except they

50:15

have four feet. So I'm going to say

50:17

this is just people who want Indians to

50:19

have made up all of our cool legends

50:21

and the American Indians made up many cool

50:23

legends. The Hodag is not one of them. It was made

50:25

up by bored lumberjacks. So over

50:28

the years, there have been numbers of

50:30

sightings and descriptions of Hodags, usually by

50:32

people writing, here are some tall lumberjack

50:34

tails. And so we'll just sort of

50:37

run through what it looks like maybe.

50:40

In one case, the head of

50:42

a frog, the grinning face of a

50:44

giant elephant, thick short legs set off

50:46

by huge claws, the back of a

50:48

dinosaur, and a long tail with spears

50:50

at the end. Other versions say that

50:52

the head has got

50:55

bull horns or stag beetle horns,

50:58

long hair, that the dinosaur

51:00

back has spines in it, set a foot

51:02

and a half apart. The short

51:04

legs are tipped with

51:06

sharp curved claws to indicate

51:09

predator, a spear tip

51:11

tail, sharp glistening fangs, glowing green

51:13

eyes, and a foul odor. The

51:16

Hodag is often described as distressingly ugly

51:18

and sometimes it knows it's ugly and

51:20

that makes it sad and angry. Or

51:24

maybe... The question of whether the Hodag is

51:26

an animal or a sapient being

51:28

is something that's going to come up a

51:30

bit. Or maybe, and this I guess is

51:33

if you're trying to have your Hodag and fun

51:35

ruin it too, it just looks

51:37

like a rhinoceros, maybe with ox horns.

51:39

It's got kind of a piebald color,

51:41

like a Mackinac raincoat and a peculiar

51:43

bony growth on the nose that blocks

51:45

its vision almost entirely. It can only

51:48

see up and so it uses the

51:50

bony growth to knock down trees and

51:52

to dig and to smash things.

51:54

And that weakness has that real sort of

51:56

tall tail element to it. That vibe. Its

51:59

size is the largest. dog size in at

52:01

least one photo of the dog

52:04

size in at least one photo of the dog size in at least

52:06

one photo of the dog size in

52:34

at least one photo of the dog size in at least one photo of

52:36

the dog size in at least one

53:04

photo of the dog size in at least one photo of the

53:06

dog size in at least one photo of

53:34

the dog size in at least one photo of

53:36

the dog size in at least one photo of

53:38

the dog protection.

54:01

And so they brought a cow

54:03

by and the Hodeag smelled

54:05

the cow and chased it and the long jumper

54:07

jumped over the pit and the Hodeag fell in.

54:10

And so they captured this Hodeag and then they

54:13

would exhibit it at the Oneida County Fair every

54:15

year and in the interim he would keep it

54:17

at his house. Right. And

54:20

several sources describe what people actually saw

54:22

at the Oneida County Fair as

54:24

a wooden hair covered puppet and

54:26

Shepard would be doing the whole carnival

54:28

barker thing and describing it but his

54:30

sons would be controlling the puppet with

54:32

wires and was kept in dim lighting

54:35

conditions and onlookers were afforded

54:37

only a brief peek

54:39

at it. So that's sort of a version

54:42

of the carnival creature that you sometimes

54:44

see the, you know, the Iceman who

54:46

we talked about before or if you're

54:48

driving through Arizona you'll see a thing

54:51

called, you know, what is it? What

54:53

is the thing? And you see billboards

54:55

for miles and miles and finally stop

54:57

at this gift shop. So it's in

55:00

that family of puppety roadside slash carnival

55:02

attractions. Yep. So there's

55:04

a lot of various facts about the Hodeag

55:06

that have come out mostly from the researcher

55:08

Shepard but also the guy who helped him,

55:11

I hate to say build the

55:13

puppet Robin because that sounds unkind, the guy

55:15

who helped him with the Hodeag wrote

55:17

his own book and made up his own stuff. There's

55:20

a lot of various Hodeagery out there but

55:22

here's the information that we have. He

55:24

was described as the missing link between the

55:26

Ichthyosaurus and the Myelodon. I love that being

55:29

the pattern as you go into the Oneontic

55:31

County Fair. Pick two prehistoric creatures that are

55:33

fun to say. That are fun to say.

55:35

Myelodon of course the giant ground sloth Ichthyosaurus,

55:37

the sort of super swordfish in the past.

55:39

Yeah, totally on the same evolutionary tree. Absolutely.

55:42

And alive at the same time too. Finally

55:44

we have the connecting branch. And this must

55:46

have been a fun one. King

55:48

Tut in his tomb there was

55:50

a scroll that mentions the Hodeag

55:52

under the name Selblatky so

55:55

it's known in ancient Egypt and I would

55:57

have been hard pressed to find lumber in

55:59

ancient Egypt. much less lumberman, but there we

56:01

are. So blackface sounds like somebody runs a

56:03

deli. Oh, his diet is

56:05

a matter of question. According to some

56:08

sources, he eats only white bulldogs or

56:11

porcupines or beef on the hoof.

56:13

But Shepherd at one point said that it eats

56:15

only water snakes, turtles,

56:18

and close your ears, John

56:20

Cavallik, muskrats. It

56:22

often, as I mentioned, it's awareness of its own

56:25

distressing ugliness, cause it to weep

56:27

loudly for days on end, and

56:29

its weeping sounds horrible, but crystallized

56:31

Hodag tears resemble amber. So is

56:33

there a lot of amber in

56:35

the area? I don't think that

56:37

there's any amber in the area, but I'm not

56:40

the expert on, I mean, you

56:42

know what? In fairness, there's a lot of pine

56:44

trees. Amber is fossilized pine resin. I

56:46

will not say- You only have to find a

56:49

little bit of amber to say that that's the

56:51

track of the Hodag. Right, or have someone with

56:53

an amber necklace. I think my favorite detail is

56:55

that he hates and fears citrus. Yes.

56:58

Is there anything related to an ichthyosaurus

57:00

wood? Right, yeah. Well, I mean, lemon,

57:02

it's the natural enemy and accompaniment of

57:05

all fish. And there is

57:07

a story of someone holding the Hodag

57:09

tears and drinking tea and they

57:11

spill the tea on the Hodag tears and they

57:13

just melt because of the lemon and the tea.

57:16

So I suppose maybe you could, in some

57:18

version of the Hodag, just throw lemon juice

57:20

on him and he vaporizes. To

57:23

prevent this sort of behavior, he will cover

57:25

himself in pitch from spruce or pine trees,

57:29

and then roll around in the leaves to build a warm coat for

57:31

the winter. We've talked

57:33

about the fact that Hodags are oviparous, they

57:36

lay eggs, and according to the Wisconsin

57:38

tourist bureau at

57:40

Rhinelander, Wisconsin, the Hodag is a scratch

57:42

golfer, which that's a

57:45

slogan right there. What

57:47

does that even mean? If you were running for

57:49

office in Wisconsin, put that on your bumper stickers,

57:51

you will win. Right, so there's a book called

57:53

Treasury Folklore by an author named Dee Dee Cheney,

57:55

which claims that the Hodag died out in the

57:57

1930s due to

57:59

the increase in the used use of lemon as

58:01

an ingredient in food. So as soon

58:04

as you could get like, you know, lemons became

58:06

abundant or later you could get real lemon in

58:08

the stores. That was sadly the

58:10

end of the Hodag. Yep. Because people just

58:12

spray it around, heedlessly as you do, going

58:14

into the north woods and spraying everything with

58:16

lemon. If you're looking for D&D stats,

58:19

Cobalt Press' Tome of Beasts

58:22

writes up the Hodag. They give it a

58:24

charge attack, which it can

58:26

further buff up with a special territorial

58:28

display. So I don't

58:30

know what that has to do with being an

58:32

ichthyosaur or being afraid of citrus, but I

58:34

would still not want to tangle with a fifth

58:37

edition Hodag. You don't want a Hodag who

58:39

can also blow out his throat like a bullfrog.

58:41

Yeah. Or a Tuara. Sort

58:43

of a stomping thing. So I think they're drawing on

58:45

the bull part of his, his legendary. You

58:49

can go to the Hodag store

58:51

on Lincoln Street in Rhinelander. Merchandise

58:53

includes a joke book, plastic brick

58:55

sets. There's a company that does

58:58

plastic brick sets of all the different, that's like a

59:00

Lego, not Lego, of all the

59:03

different cryptids. It recently released the

59:05

Flatwood Monster and they have a

59:07

Hodag. There's bobbleheads, there's plush Hodags

59:10

and a wide array of t-shirts. I

59:12

have a bit of a bone to

59:15

pick though, because it seems like the

59:17

design of the Hodag is moving from

59:19

the sort of quadrupedal elephant

59:21

dinosaur myledon into

59:24

a sort of green imp.

59:26

And so he's in the imagination or at

59:28

least in the merch store becoming more of

59:30

a biped. It's like Babar, right? I mean,

59:33

Babar begins as a proper elephant and now

59:35

he gets, you know, feet and arms. That's

59:37

not good. Yeah. So he's being Babarred into

59:39

a green imp on a lot of the

59:42

merch. The bobblehead has both

59:44

designs as if to rub your nose in

59:46

the fact that they're blatantly

59:48

ignoring the Hodag mythology that they're commercially

59:50

exploiting. But anyway, you can get your

59:52

plush Hodags and a wide array of

59:54

t-shirts as well. Are there a couple

59:57

of kids' books about the Hodag? For

59:59

example, the terrible Hodag, which is by an

1:00:02

author named Carolyn Arnold, in which he helps

1:00:04

a humble logger stick it to the man.

1:00:07

So at least in this version,

1:00:09

the Hodag is anti-capitalist. Yeah.

1:00:12

Well, I mean, the Hodag is

1:00:14

at least, I think, sort of primal.

1:00:16

And, you know, he's out there in

1:00:18

the woods. He may be born from

1:00:21

the profanity expressed by lumberjacks, but he's

1:00:24

not anti-lumberjack. Without lumberjacks, he wouldn't exist. It's

1:00:26

a beautiful chain of being. And

1:00:29

nobody likes the man, Robin, especially

1:00:31

not in historically progressive Wisconsin. Bob

1:00:34

Lafflette would, I'm sure, have put the

1:00:36

Hodag as a scratch golfer on his

1:00:38

signs, if he had but known.

1:00:41

So I think the Hodag really best belongs

1:00:43

in the world of F20, where he can be a scary monster

1:00:45

where you can fight. I think he's a little

1:00:48

too cute to be a horror

1:00:50

monster. Unless we do one of

1:00:52

those switch-ups like the

1:00:55

Frogman of Loveland, where it's

1:00:57

a cute urban legend, impy thing on the

1:01:00

surface, but underneath it's some sort of hellish

1:01:02

spawn of Shabdagoroth that lives in the North

1:01:04

Woods. And you're domesticating the

1:01:06

myth, right? And that could explain the

1:01:08

design change in the merch as it's

1:01:11

slowly, as this horrible green imp is

1:01:13

taking over the numinous power of the

1:01:15

Hodag legend and hijacking it to its

1:01:17

own end so that the threat is

1:01:20

not the Hodag, the threat is the

1:01:22

green imp bobblehead that you buy at

1:01:24

the Hodag store. The green imp bobblehead

1:01:26

tulpa that is trying to colonize

1:01:29

the Hodag because no one cares

1:01:31

about green imps. Exactly. It's trying

1:01:33

to de-quadra-plice our blow at Hodag.

1:01:36

Well, on that note, I think

1:01:38

we can walk either

1:01:40

bipedally or quadra-pedally out of this here

1:01:42

podcast, but we'll walk back in a

1:01:44

mere week from today. Well,

1:01:48

having once again been talked about,

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Grab our latest design, How Did the

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when once again, we will talk

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about stuff.