0:10

This is writer and game designer

0:12

Robin D. Laws. And this is

0:15

game designer and writer Kenneth Hite.

0:17

And this is our podcast, Ken

0:19

and Robin, talk about stuff. Manwith

0:22

brought to you by Pelbring Press.

0:24

Stuff we're here to talk about

0:26

in this episode include... The optional

0:29

encounter paradox. Flails! Nicknames of historical

0:31

figures. And the New Jersey Drone Flab.

0:48

Okay, can we've been summoned? I

0:51

mean, invited to attend another

0:53

gloriously gloomy party at Castle

0:55

Slogar. Remember, keep your eyes

0:57

peeled and your reflexes ready.

0:59

The Slogar's festering festivity involves

1:02

more cleavers than confetti. Where

1:04

did everyone disappear to? Did

1:06

they all get ludicrously lost

1:08

in the hedge maze again?

1:10

I think I heard muffled laughter or

1:12

was a sobbing? It's coming from

1:14

behind that door. Oh! Of course,

1:16

it's locked. Just our luck. Hold

1:19

your skeletal horses, Ken. Look at

1:21

the floor. The tiles have markings.

1:23

Just like in that puzzle game

1:25

book I have. Unhappy birthday at

1:27

Castle Slogar! Aha! Found the book!

1:29

How will a book about a

1:31

birthday gone wrong help us find

1:33

a party that might not even

1:35

exist? Well, in unhappy birthday at

1:37

Castle Slogar, things go awfully awry

1:39

during Melissa Slogar's latest, night birthday

1:41

party. Guests are lost and Lord

1:43

Slogar is missing. Sound familiar? Whoa,

1:45

that's eerily similar. Wait, the book has

1:47

a map. But it's blank! How do

1:49

we navigate with that? Patience can. The

1:51

book describes each room in the exquisitely

1:54

eerie obstacles you have to overcome. You

1:56

can even use a special website to

1:58

check your answers. Get hints. then

2:00

veil the map as you

2:02

explore. So we need to

2:04

solve a puzzle in this

2:06

room to get to the

2:08

party in the next room.

2:10

You're catching on now, let's

2:13

see. I remember the four-year

2:15

puzzle involved. And then you

2:17

just want... Look, the password!

2:19

And the door! It's unlocked!

2:21

Now let's go party like

2:23

it's 1899! Hey, can I

2:25

borrow that puzzle game book?

2:27

No way! It's mine! But

2:29

you can get your own

2:31

copy of Unhappy Birthday Castle

2:33

slogan from Atlas Games at

2:35

Atlas dash games.com/B-D-A-Y. Or check

2:37

the link in the show

2:39

notes. So

2:45

time for a quick preamble, this time

2:47

around for a correction, several rightfully distressed

2:50

patron backers pointed out that in our

2:52

gaming hut on exposure damage that I

2:54

misremembered the events of the Empire Strikes

2:56

Back and described Luke as doing something

2:59

cool that should have been a tip-off.

3:01

Should have been a tip-off. Some people

3:03

have been so unkind, Kenneth, that suggests

3:06

that you should have caught this, which

3:08

I think is unsupportable. First of all,

3:10

no one is ever going to put

3:13

me in charge of Star Wars continuity,

3:15

or if you are, you will regret

3:17

it, I promise. But at any way,

3:20

it's Han who uses the lightsaber to

3:22

open up the Tontan, and of course,

3:24

what is it establishing for Han, that

3:27

Han is cool, so that's re-up. Empire

3:29

strikes back and how do you know

3:31

Ken didn't change the timeline? Yeah, yeah,

3:34

yeah You know I have a number

3:36

in mind Ken for when I retire

3:38

and I think I'm enough to lower

3:40

that number at any rate It's time

3:43

to go on with the show The

3:45

rattle of dice the thump of miniatures

3:47

the crunch of dritos in the benevolent

3:50

gaze of Peter Franklin coming alive welcome

3:52

us once more into the gaming hub

3:54

But where we have the big pile

3:57

of folders and dice, we got the

3:59

map, we got the game books, we

4:01

got everything else, but oh look at

4:04

that, there's a little green notebook right

4:06

by the GM's hand and he keeps

4:08

looking at it like he's tempted by

4:11

it because that green notebook contains an

4:13

optional encounter. And the trouble with optional

4:15

encounters, Robin, is... Well, either they're wasted

4:18

space and time, or, as you have

4:20

noted, they are so cool that they're

4:22

not optional because the GM just can't

4:24

help and run them, so that causes

4:27

a problem, a paradox, if you will,

4:29

for designers, and you are here to

4:31

elucidate that very paradox. Right, and that's

4:34

exactly it, that if you make it

4:36

boring... That will be a boring encounter

4:38

that the GM winds up running and

4:41

the GM will be bored and the

4:43

players will be bored. But if you

4:45

make it too interesting, they will use

4:48

it even if they're not supposed to.

4:50

And then if it's playtose feedback, they'll

4:52

say, that was too gnarly. It's like,

4:55

that's because you shouldn't have used it.

4:57

Yeah, that was a meat grinder. You

4:59

know, if you really need a big

5:02

fight here, if you don't need a

5:04

fight, don't use it. And so... I'm

5:06

just sort of noting that this paradox

5:09

exists and I think like many paradoxes

5:11

it is difficult to resolve so can

5:13

how do you resolve it it wouldn't

5:15

be a paradox exactly so I guess

5:18

cope is the question so I guess

5:20

one of the things is to add

5:22

another sentence in your scenario as you're

5:25

designing it, saying really I mean it

5:27

when you say that it's optional. And

5:29

in fact, in a current book of

5:32

scenarios I'm working on, I did exactly

5:34

that. It's to be more emphatic about

5:36

the fact that it's not optional because

5:39

you might or might not want to

5:41

run it. Of course, you want to

5:43

run it. It's a super exciting thing

5:46

that I put in there as a

5:48

possibility, but really you should pay attention

5:50

to pacing and whether you should do

5:53

it or not. Do you just rely

5:55

on the GM to put in the

5:57

optional encounter? Because maybe they won't. I

5:59

think that my, as you have dubbed

6:02

it, Ocean of Clues method of scenario

6:04

design, I think it creates, I hope

6:06

it creates in the GM's, and expectation

6:09

that a lot of these encounters are

6:11

going to be optional. That the whole

6:13

thing is information the GM can use.

6:16

for their mind to know the scenario

6:18

better, but also can weaponize into an

6:20

encounter if need be. And so when

6:23

I... in the Carmilla sanction, I mention

6:25

that there's this odious little dealer in

6:27

the corner of the bar and I

6:30

describe him, you don't have to go

6:32

meet the odious little dealer, but he's

6:34

there in case you want to have

6:37

an encounter with a guy and the

6:39

GM wants to do their horse and

6:41

wells impression and make everyone realize they're

6:43

talking to Harry Lime, you know, whatever

6:46

it is. And the Dracula, Aussie, I

6:48

guess, is our pelian enausaa of you

6:50

solving the question the other way of

6:53

you. And at some level, I guess

6:55

that gets back to. you know the

6:57

whole notion of you know the monster

7:00

manual that that's a bunch of optional

7:02

encounters and you go through it you're

7:04

like oh that's such a cool monster

7:07

I have to put it in even

7:09

though your dungeon maybe shouldn't have you

7:11

know a paraton or a unicorn or

7:14

whatever they it should be you know

7:16

somewhere where quadrupeds would bang their heads

7:18

but it's too bad I'm just gonna

7:21

put a stable down here on level

7:23

18 of the dungeon and everyone's gonna

7:25

have fun fighting unicorns. So that's answer

7:28

number one which is use a less

7:30

structured method of giving story to the

7:32

GMs, where you're giving them all of

7:34

the building blocks and they put them

7:37

together and they do so as, you

7:39

know, pacing requires and also I think

7:41

those are more player-driven in relying on

7:44

players to go and poke things. So

7:46

if it's really not even up to

7:48

you in that case, whether the players

7:51

decide to go and talk to the

7:53

guy in the bar and you've got

7:55

other mechanisms, particularly in next black agents

7:58

that where you mechanic... tell the GM,

8:00

oh now it's time for an encounter,

8:02

because they've done things in this more

8:05

sandboxies by Thriller Universe, which is

8:07

an interesting contradiction in and of itself,

8:09

then trigger the encounter so that it's

8:11

sort of an undeterminate. yet optional set

8:14

of encounters. Yeah, and that's, I mean,

8:16

to some extent, that's how I run

8:18

games now because I have pretty good,

8:21

pretty proactive players and my habit when

8:23

I'm designing a game is to design

8:25

a game that I would like to

8:28

run for players I would like to

8:30

see play. You know, I cheat, I

8:32

guess. I don't design for timorous players as

8:34

much as maybe I should, given that maybe

8:36

there's a bunch of timorous players out there

8:39

and they need a little more of a

8:41

of a funnel going after going after them.

8:43

We can do funnels all day and I

8:45

think that's another way to do the optional

8:47

encounter is to put lots of them up

8:49

at the top of the funnel and then

8:52

squeeze it down and just the notion that

8:54

the player is supposed to be making progress

8:56

toward the goal at the other end of

8:58

the funnel will keep them from rattling around

9:00

to the top of the funnel too much

9:03

and it will be up to the GM

9:05

to present. you know any one of seven

9:07

encounters on their way in and then six

9:09

encounters on the next stage and five on

9:11

the next and four on the next and

9:13

three on the next and two on the

9:15

next until you get down to the final

9:17

single boss fight and at some point you

9:19

know you're starting to do all of them

9:21

but up at the seven and six and

9:23

five maybe they're picking and you're and you're

9:25

able to sort of meet the player halfway

9:28

by you know saying you have to go

9:30

in the funnel that's the show but you've

9:32

got some degree of flexibility both as

9:34

GM and player to determine based on

9:37

table-based interest and things the only trouble

9:39

is that though the word count goes

9:41

up when you start adding stuff to

9:44

a funnel right right the more options

9:46

there are in a scenario the larger

9:48

the word count compared to the playtime

9:51

and also you will have people who

9:53

go well There were five different characters that

9:55

they could have talked to and they only talked

9:57

to two. I feel like I failed. Whereas

9:59

the whole... point is to build in

10:01

options for the players' choices to matter,

10:03

right? It's set up so that the

10:06

players automatically interact with all five people

10:08

in the bar, no matter what, and

10:10

there's no particular benefit or cost to

10:13

the order you do them in, that

10:15

that is basically, it's like a railroad

10:17

apartment of encounters. any choice that they

10:20

have in the matter, they may, to

10:22

speak of, you know, an even bigger

10:24

paradox, players will often feel they had

10:26

no choice when they had many, or

10:29

they may feel that they had abundant

10:31

choice when they had none, but to

10:33

my mind, the point even of a

10:36

more structured encounter is to give the

10:38

players meaningful options to do this or

10:40

not do that, or approach these people

10:43

in one way or not another way.

10:45

So when we step back, there's still

10:47

the even, I guess the bigger problem

10:49

here is just knowing how to convey

10:52

to GM's when to do the big

10:54

tough version of this fight, when to

10:56

do the fight where they get to

10:59

win in a walkover, or when to

11:01

do the thing where they get to

11:03

hide in the corner and the fight

11:06

passes them by. And whether someone is

11:08

choosing or not choosing an option in

11:10

a structured adventure or deciding how to

11:13

handle... and encounter in a less structured

11:15

encounter. I guess part of that is

11:17

sort of giving the GM tools to

11:19

go when, is it okay to have

11:22

a big old fight, when do you

11:24

want to have a smaller fight, when

11:26

do you want to have no fight

11:29

at all? And that sort of falls

11:31

more into kind of general GM pacing,

11:33

but I think often eventually just say,

11:36

pay attention to pacing and how to

11:38

do that, I think we actually rarely...

11:40

I think because we think it's obvious

11:42

that, oh, if everybody's feeling cocky and

11:45

nobody's lost any hit points, make it

11:47

a bigger fight, if somebody's already seriously

11:49

wounded and it will seem weird if

11:52

there's a fight and then there isn't

11:54

repercussions. the fight, you know, tone it

11:56

down or leave it out, but often

11:59

those specific instructions I think are sort

12:01

of lacking from both scenarios and from

12:03

GM advice. Yeah, the notion of, I

12:05

mean, part of it is teaching pacing

12:08

is hard. It's like, you know, teaching

12:10

dancing in words. It's at some level,

12:12

it's a rhythm between the GM and

12:15

the players and the GM has to

12:17

say, we just had a bad fight,

12:19

everyone's broken and bloody and bruised. Is

12:22

the mood of my table that they

12:24

need a respite or is the mood

12:26

of my table angry and bloodthirsty because

12:28

their dander is up and they really

12:31

want to fight something? And you need

12:33

to know that at the table and

12:35

no sort of potted advice or algorithm

12:38

is really going to do that unless

12:40

you've got the experience or the moment

12:42

happens and you feel the rhythm and

12:45

you're like, I think that this is

12:47

what needs to happen, let's make this

12:49

happen. And it's very very hard to

12:52

teach that and you can sort of

12:54

give I guess what you want to

12:56

call first order algorithms like you said

12:58

if everyone's full of beans have a

13:01

fight and cut them down a peg

13:03

if they've been very badly mauled and

13:05

there's no story point to having a

13:08

fight maybe let them recoup or do

13:10

a puzzle or whatever and those are

13:12

sort of the first order algorithm but

13:15

you and I can both think of

13:17

exceptions to even those very first order

13:19

rules that have come up at our

13:21

own tables I'm sure. And so it's

13:24

a harder thing to do. And this

13:26

is why I think, getting back sort

13:28

of to our point, that I gravitate

13:31

as well towards the ocean of clues

13:33

is that by providing a GM a

13:35

buffet, a smorgasboard, a panoply of possible

13:38

things to run that are still guaranteed

13:40

to sort of get everyone pointed towards

13:42

solving the problem or ending the scenario

13:44

that the GM will be able to

13:47

look at them and say I think

13:49

that they don't really they don't have

13:51

the uh... the resources to talk to

13:54

harry lime let's just let them talk

13:56

to the Russians that'll be fun I

13:58

can do my accent everyone will will

14:01

chill and I won't get them tempted

14:03

into a black market deal that's going

14:05

to get everyone into trouble. And in

14:07

a more structured adventure, the issue also

14:10

sort of circles back to the question

14:12

of how cool the encounter is, because

14:14

if the encounter is too cool, whatever

14:17

that means to the GM, whether it's

14:19

too atmospheric or they get to interact

14:21

with something, some other weird supernatural manifestation

14:24

that isn't elsewhere in the thing, that

14:26

that will derail the question of... Do

14:28

I need this fight to how cool

14:31

is this encounter? And then the cool

14:33

encounter wins out over the sort of

14:35

more abstract algorithmic choice of whether this

14:37

is absolutely necessary. Because once you start

14:40

imagining it happening, you can't resist and

14:42

you throw it in. So perhaps the

14:44

answer is to not have... super interesting

14:47

or vivid optional encounters, but to make

14:49

them filler the way that there are

14:51

filler fights in many action movies, especially

14:54

the ones of middling quality. And maybe

14:56

it is only, you know, optional fights

14:58

are only ever goons. They're never, never

15:00

include as a designer the thing that

15:03

is more interesting than any image that's

15:05

in the main thing or less. Another

15:07

way that you can deal with it,

15:10

though, and this is in one of

15:12

the current... adventures I'm working on so

15:14

I hope it works is to say

15:17

if this doesn't work now save it

15:19

for later because I think that can

15:21

be the sort of bridge technique where

15:23

the GM goes well yeah there's the

15:26

dinosaur shows up and starts eating the

15:28

crops I love dinosaurs and all my

15:30

players love dinosaurs but oh you know

15:33

vegetan has his half of his arm

15:35

torn off at this point he can't

15:37

fight a dinosaur now well I'll save

15:40

the dinosaur for later And I think

15:42

maybe that's what gets you back on

15:44

the question. So the question becomes not

15:47

should I have a dinosaur to which

15:49

the answer is always yes, but should

15:51

I have a dinosaur now? Yeah, and

15:53

I guess what you can say is

15:56

in a way to present this, if

15:58

you've got a super cool... thing that

16:00

you're writing as a designer and you

16:03

want to make sure that people know

16:05

it's optional rather than saying this

16:07

dinosaur is optional double exclamation point

16:09

you say put the dinosaur in

16:12

when your players can take it

16:14

and when they've accomplished such and

16:16

so when they have the rocket

16:18

launcher. And here are ways that

16:20

you can signal the dinosaur's arrival.

16:23

First you see his footprint and

16:25

then you see the damage that

16:27

he's done to the crops and

16:29

then you see the poor peasant

16:31

hero who's been battered with his

16:34

big spear and he's like lying there

16:36

and he will tell you about the

16:38

horrible unwinged dragon that attacked and then

16:40

you're like a dinosaur. when the players

16:42

are juiced up and when they're ready

16:45

in a sort of abstract sense to

16:47

fight the dinosaur because it would be

16:49

a shame as you say to leave

16:51

the dinosaur as an optional encounter if

16:54

you go to the fields instead of

16:56

the forest here's a dinosaur that sort

16:58

of spoils everything. Sort of a free-floating

17:00

dinosaur fuel and if there's a threat

17:02

of being sailed by free-floating

17:04

dinosaurs I want that to be optional so

17:07

I'm taking the option to run run run

17:09

run run run into the next hunt. 1968.

17:25

Sinister influences threatened to corrupt America

17:28

from within and without. The federal

17:30

government establishes a new agency for

17:32

overseas covert action. the Bureau of

17:35

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17:37

And within it, the forces of

17:39

Delta Green. In the Morales Connection,

17:42

the new globe-spanning mega campaign for

17:44

the fall of Delta Green, you

17:47

become the mythos hunting agents hidden

17:49

inside the B&DD. Play eight linked

17:51

operations, as separate stand-alone, or linked

17:54

into an epic hunt for an

17:56

infamous target. Escort a sniper carrying a

17:58

death warrant for a... San Warlord,

18:00

surveil a Saigon drug summit, track

18:03

heroin couriers on a flight from

18:05

Hong Kong to LA, investigate the

18:07

disappearance of an archaeologist working the

18:09

Bozoo Kepi ceremonial site, smash a

18:12

Beirut drug deal, ID the actors

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broadcasting the necronomicon from a CIA-backed

18:16

Munich radio station. and wage the

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drug war amid France's May 68

18:21

riots. Designed by Kenneth Hite. Written

18:23

by Gareth Rider Henrihan. The team

18:25

that brought you the Zalajni Quartet

18:27

and the Dracula dossier. The Borellis

18:30

Connection. Gorgeously designed and horrifically illustrated

18:32

by Jen McCleary. A tale of

18:34

sordid intrigue. Cosmic horror. A desperate

18:36

action against the mythos. Now available

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in Titanic Hardback. From specially cleared

18:41

gaming retail stores. And the Pelgrane

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Press. Web Store. Now also at

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the Web Store as an instantly

18:48

available PDF-only purchase. The Sword on

18:50

the Wall. The Glave Guizarm on

18:52

the Rack. And the, uh, the

18:55

D4 on the floor waiting for

18:57

me to step on it like

18:59

it's a Caltropp or something. Tell

19:01

us that we're in the weapons

19:04

hut. And Ken, I've opened up

19:06

the weapons type for the very

19:08

first time because a rare opportunity

19:10

to unfun ruin has come across

19:13

our transom, as it were, because

19:15

I found an article on a

19:17

medievalist.net by a writer named Laura

19:20

Chevalier, which it turned out was

19:22

rather blaggarding the flail. This, of

19:24

course, is our favorite of the

19:26

cool medieval weapons. You can have

19:29

the semi-cool flail that's like also

19:31

an agricultural thing. That's a... a

19:33

club on a game. A big,

19:35

a big nung chuck. Yeah. Or

19:38

the, you know, even more beloved,

19:40

spiky ball on a chain on

19:42

a stick. And he even sort

19:44

of blames role playing games for

19:47

the popularities. Yes, he blames us.

19:49

And first of all, Laura Chevalier,

19:51

if that is... your real name,

19:53

that the flail is primarily a

19:56

product of myth and cultural construction

19:58

more closely tied to representations from

20:00

the 17th to 19th centuries than

20:03

to historical reality. And Ken, you

20:05

saw that and your skepticism of

20:07

skepticism came into play. It did.

20:09

I read that and I said,

20:12

that doesn't seem, that seems awfully

20:14

pat, and it seems awfully pat.

20:16

in a way to flatter the

20:18

author, which is a, I guess

20:21

if you're looking for signs that

20:23

someone is wrong, if their argument

20:25

makes them seem smarter than the

20:27

people they're talking about, that's often

20:30

a sign that they're not correct,

20:32

especially in the history of the

20:34

social sciences. So anyway, I did

20:36

a little digging around afterwards, and

20:39

he does seem to be making

20:41

the same argument that a Smithsonian

20:43

scholar named Paul Sturdavant did on

20:46

the Public Medievalist website, just at

20:48

longer length and with more gratuitous

20:50

slams at D&D. don't like that

20:52

guy, but the best thing about

20:55

Laura Shevelier is that in his

20:57

further reading there is a link

20:59

to an article by Alistair Holdsworth

21:01

and the link to the article

21:04

goes to this very long piece

21:06

from 2024 called Fantastic Flails and

21:08

Where To Find Them, the body

21:10

of evidence for the existence of

21:13

flails in the early and I

21:15

medieval eras, in Western Central and

21:17

Southern Europe. And this is basically

21:19

a complete demolition of Laura Chevalier's

21:22

position at, as I say, extensive

21:24

length and very, very well documented.

21:26

And so, Holdsworth begins, his discussion

21:29

on the flail, my pointing out

21:31

that the agricultural flail has been

21:33

used as a weapon and not

21:35

just by peasants, but by the

21:38

Thessalian cavalry. You can see it

21:40

on coins from Thessaly as early

21:42

as 400 BC. Vigiteus describes the

21:44

plumata. Part of the problem with

21:47

flails, Robin, is that nobody, when

21:49

they have a word that means

21:51

flail, very rarely do they say,

21:53

oh, and this is the kind

21:56

with the chain and the rod.

21:58

and the ball with a spike

22:00

on it. They just say plumba

22:03

or flail. Right, because you're supposed

22:05

to know which it is because you

22:07

possibly just got hit by one. Right.

22:09

And so, for example, our beloved term

22:12

morning star includes just a spiked mace,

22:14

which is great. The Germans, of course,

22:16

do have a word for it. The

22:19

Kettin Morgenstern, the chain morning star, and

22:21

plumb just means it's a lead thing

22:23

you hit someone with, and flail just

22:26

means flail. And so this shows up

22:28

a great deal, and it's confused

22:30

up with the scourge, which is

22:32

a whole different thing. But the

22:34

war flail, the ball and chain

22:37

flail, definitely, absolutely, was introduced into

22:39

Europe by the Huns, or the

22:41

Bulgars, or the Magyars, or all

22:43

of them, and they called that

22:45

weapon the Kistan. And we have...

22:47

Lots of examples of the kistin.

22:50

The ball is often made of

22:52

bone, so sometimes that goes away.

22:54

The chain is usually more often

22:56

a braided rawhide thong, especially in

22:58

early days. But by the early 11th

23:01

century, Poland and the Eastern Holy

23:03

Roman Empire are producing warflails. They're

23:05

building them. We have archaeological evidence

23:07

of it. There is records of

23:09

the Battle of Lecfeld in 955

23:12

AD in which someone uses the

23:14

schlocked geysil, the battle whip, which

23:16

is described as an iron ball

23:18

studded with lead on chains. And

23:21

there have been, according to Oldsworth,

23:23

hundreds of physical finds of flail

23:25

heads discovered dating for the 10th

23:27

to the 13th centuries extending from

23:30

modern day Russia and Ukraine into

23:32

the Baltic states. And this is just

23:34

based on one. the sort of compendium of

23:36

study by a Polish scholar, the flail also

23:39

carried by the Turks, who of course come

23:41

out of the same chunk of Central Asia

23:43

that the Huns, Bulgars, Casars, and Maghars all

23:45

came out of. So the Kisten probably originated

23:48

out there on the step. It is, as

23:50

you might imply, a cavalry weapon to begin

23:52

with. Right. And the advantage of that is

23:54

that it can get behind somebody's shield

23:56

or you can use it to yank

23:58

somebody's shield away. Right. in close quarters

24:00

fighting both of you on horseback is

24:03

an advantage. And of course there's also

24:05

the psychological advantage of it being an

24:07

outlandish scary looking weapon. A sword could

24:10

kill you just as effective as a

24:12

spiky ball, but the spiky ball is

24:14

more demoralizing. Looks messed up. And also

24:17

the flail being a smashing weapon primarily

24:19

works better against chain mail. So if

24:21

you're fighting a guy in chain mail,

24:23

you walk him with a flail, you

24:26

are still delivering a good amount of

24:28

damage to the guy, which you might

24:30

not if you stabbed him with a

24:33

spear, the links would stop it, or

24:35

hit him with a sword. So the

24:37

nature of your opponent means you're going

24:40

to be using more more flails. They

24:42

are recorded repeatedly on battlefields of the

24:44

Crusades, they're present in Byzantine art, the

24:46

flail is especially wielded by the Taurs,

24:49

flail and in some cases those could

24:51

be the sort of the two bar

24:53

flail, the improved agricultural flail, I guess

24:56

you could call it, but in some

24:58

cases... The not quite so agricultural flail.

25:00

Right, and Holdsworth notes extensive references to

25:03

war flails in the matter of France,

25:05

in Wolfram's Villa home, and in other

25:07

12th century chansans. So the flail really

25:09

seems to blow up in the 12th

25:12

century in Western Europe. And this, first

25:14

of all, the Magyars have come into

25:16

France at the tail end of the

25:19

10th century. But also, all those French

25:21

guys grow on Crusades and fight Turks.

25:23

And then they come back, and they've

25:25

fought flails. So ball and chain flails

25:28

begin to be depicted in religious art

25:30

and sculpture in Italy, in Spain, in

25:32

France, from the 12th century up. Three

25:35

particularly clear spiked ball and chain flails

25:37

are in soldiers' hands in a salter

25:39

from Northern Italy in 1175. Now, these

25:42

early depictions do depict the flails in

25:44

the hands of pagans or serrisons or

25:46

demons or demons. and in for example

25:48

the mob working for the Sanhedron that's

25:51

come to arrest Jesus they'd love to

25:53

show those guys with flails but again

25:55

that's because the French have met all

25:58

these guys in Holy Land fighting them

26:00

with flails. So that's why bad guys

26:02

would have flails. Right. Flails are metal

26:05

and scary. So you put them on

26:07

your demons hands. Right. And Oliver, Roland's

26:09

BFF, though it's not mentioned in the

26:11

actual song of Roland, he is depicted

26:14

with a flail in lots of different

26:16

art. After 1250, you see more flails

26:18

depicted in the hands of knights and

26:21

good warriors and physical finds of flail

26:23

heads. There's at least two that he...

26:25

sites, there's one in Wales from this

26:27

period and one in mines in Germany

26:30

for the early 13th century, flails appear

26:32

in the inventory of the Cesar Castle

26:34

in Spain, again late 13th century, and

26:37

many flail heads, he says, look just

26:39

like steel yard weights except they're smaller,

26:41

so when archaeologists find them, they say,

26:44

oh, this is steel yard weight. they

26:46

don't think, oh it's a flail, because

26:48

they're buying into a bunch of chevalery

26:50

nonsense saying that there's no flails. It's

26:53

explicitly described at the Bollandchain warflail, in

26:55

Giles of Rome's, deregimini principle, which was

26:57

written for the King of France, and

27:00

is like, here's everything you need to

27:02

be a king, including Bollandchain war flails,

27:04

and then it does begin to show

27:07

up in tournament equipment. by 1310 when

27:09

it's mentioned in William Herbert's Manor of

27:11

Arming Nights for the tourney. And this

27:13

is Chevroleters like, well, they used it

27:16

in tournament fighting, but they never used

27:18

it on the battlefield. And I want

27:20

you to follow the logic where they

27:23

say, let's use this peasant weapon in

27:25

our tournaments where we're supposed to be

27:27

showing off how great we are. but

27:30

we didn't ever use it on the

27:32

battlefield. I don't think that's how Knights

27:34

think. I don't think that's how anyone

27:36

thinks. Then I followed a site in

27:39

Holsworth to another guy named Voldman, hafted

27:41

weapons in medieval and Renaissance Europe, and

27:43

he adds a check illustration of a

27:46

proper Kettin Morgenstern, Circa 1450. He has

27:48

a Swiss specimen that he says is

27:50

real and not a reproduction. And we

27:52

also have wood cuts designed by the

27:55

Emperor Maximilian, including a warflails as the

27:57

armament of lands. Echtah. And then we

27:59

have another tournament woodcut showing a knight

28:02

using a flail against Philip of Burgundy.

28:04

That's from 1485. Finally, Conrad Kaiser's manual

28:06

at arms Belafortis mentions the ball and

28:09

chain flail, and it's depicted in all

28:11

the illustrations of it. And then finally,

28:13

in honor of friend of the show

28:15

Darcy Ross, there is an image of

28:18

a knight with a war flail fighting

28:20

a giant snail, a knight. from the

28:22

latter part of the 13th century, probably

28:25

from England. And again, Sturtivans, like, oh,

28:27

well, yeah, if you draw a flail

28:29

in a cartoon area, then it's just

28:32

a cartoon weapon and it doesn't exist.

28:34

It's like, well, they're using axes in

28:36

those same cartoons and swords. Why would

28:38

they only use a cartoon weapon sometimes,

28:41

if that's your argument? And the real

28:43

answer is that the snail has a

28:45

shell. Flails are good against armor. So,

28:48

it's an anti-gy, anti-gien snail snail-giant snail-snail-snail-snail-

28:50

Exactly. So in a rare instance we

28:52

have rescued something from the fun ruining

28:54

pile. Everybody who has a favorite mini

28:57

of their player character with a flail

28:59

can now go and bug their GM

29:01

to get a bonus against armor. And

29:04

while they're doing that, we can head

29:06

to the next exciting segment. Five

29:38

fresh new terrors await the

29:40

anti-mythoss agents of your Delta

29:42

Green campaign in Ark Dream's

29:44

dead drops scenario anthology. In

29:46

meridian, desperate youths gather in

29:48

a secret church under an

29:50

inexplicable light in the Missouri

29:52

sky. Their salvation may show

29:55

the agent new meaning in

29:57

madness. In a victim of

29:59

the art. Horrific murders strike

30:01

a quiet Long Island town.

30:03

Unseen powers give awful consequence

30:05

to evils unspoken and barely

30:07

conceived. From the dust sets

30:09

the agents on the trail

30:11

of infant disappearances in Brooklyn.

30:14

Strange events echo by night

30:16

at a construction site. The

30:18

agents must sift superstition and

30:20

rumor from a horror that

30:22

lingers across decades, across centuries.

30:24

In presence, a young woman

30:26

vanishes in Alabama. She reappears

30:28

in a same instant. in

30:30

Vermont. A door of discovery

30:33

opens to secrets more virulent

30:35

than the most appalling proliferations

30:37

of life. In Jack Frost,

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suitable for use with the

30:41

classic 1990s set Delta Green

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the Conspiracy source book, Winter

30:45

Wipes Out in Alabama Town.

30:47

Did the military hold the

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town in quarantine? The characters

30:52

join a sprawling team of

30:54

expert researchers from the blackest

30:56

reaches of government. The infamous

30:58

majestic project at its staggering

31:00

height as the 20th century

31:02

stumbled and died. Deaddrops also

31:04

features crucial background Intel on

31:06

the little-known but pivotal Air

31:09

Force Office of Special Investigations.

31:11

Available as a full-color 228-page

31:13

hardback. 228 pages. Or order

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the PDF at drive-through RPG.

31:17

Remember to rate, review, and

31:19

writhe in terror. Protect this

31:21

podcast from the fatal flail

31:23

of underfunding by joining such

31:25

beloved patrian backers as... Joshua

31:28

Randall! Kelly Fisher! Yuri Horniman!

31:30

And Scott Jones! The

31:36

dictionary is in serried ranks, the

31:38

carved mottos on the wall, and

31:41

the very body of what we

31:43

do, both here and in our

31:45

professional lives, makes up the entrance

31:47

to the word hut. And in

31:49

the word hut, Robin, I believe

31:51

you have a word hut challenge,

31:53

pormois. Yes. So I think we're

31:55

all enjoying these word hut challenge.

31:57

And so this time around, instead

32:00

of slang terms, I thought I

32:02

would present you with the nicknames,

32:04

many but not all of them

32:06

in flattering, of famous historical figures.

32:08

So you've not gone and done

32:10

any additional research on famed nicknames?

32:12

I have not. I was busy

32:14

reading 35-page articles on flails. Yeah,

32:16

I wanted to go on easy

32:19

research stuff, and I told you

32:21

to find every flail. And so...

32:23

A few guidelines here, I haven't

32:25

chosen any that are just the

32:27

immunity of their variations of the

32:29

person's name. That's too easy. Also,

32:31

other nicknames that give it away

32:33

too much. So like the Sage

32:35

of Monticello, that's too easy that

32:38

you know, you just pick who's

32:40

the state we're talking about. So

32:42

we'll see how many of these

32:44

you've run across and can recall.

32:46

So the first one is. The

32:48

asparagus. The asparagus. You know what?

32:50

I'm gonna say no. I'm gonna

32:52

say no. I'm gonna say no,

32:54

I don't know the asparagus. Charles

32:57

de Gaul. Charles de Gaul. He

32:59

had a number of unflattering nicknames.

33:01

He sure did. And this one

33:03

is the generic French unflattering name

33:05

for someone who's too tall for

33:07

everybody else's taste. So it's a

33:09

tall insult. It's the tall poppy,

33:11

poppy, but in France, so it's

33:13

delicious. Yes. And de Gaul was

33:16

waving above the rest of the

33:18

rest of the rest of the

33:20

field for a field for a

33:22

field for a long time. For

33:24

a long time. The devil's favorite.

33:26

The devil's favorite. Oh my goodness,

33:28

that could be anybody really. At

33:30

some level, I'm just going to

33:32

start saying Woodrow Wilson to all

33:34

of these, but that's probably not

33:37

his nickname. That's not actually one

33:39

that. I don't think he had

33:41

that degree of... It also sounds

33:43

a little earlier. Let me give

33:45

you a little bit. A little

33:47

earlier than it was. Yeah, I

33:49

think a devil's favorite would be,

33:51

you know, someone like one of

33:53

Richard II's boyfriends or something. Napoleon.

33:56

I guess the Corsican ogre was

33:58

too close. Yes, the Napoleon also

34:00

has a number of nicknames. Many

34:02

of them grandiose, others of them

34:04

insulting, coming from his enemies. You'll

34:06

also note that there aren't that

34:08

many dictators on this list. You

34:10

have a fun nickname of your

34:12

dictator like Coba. Yes. Everyone's like,

34:15

oh, it's Coba. Uncle Joe, right?

34:17

Things that make you sing cuddly

34:19

instead of monsters. The three bottle

34:21

man. The three bottle man. Well,

34:23

that ought to be Churchill. It

34:25

is the right category. It's William

34:27

Pitt the Younger. That's slightly earlier,

34:29

somewhat earlier, British Prime Minister. But

34:31

also a guy who had to

34:34

save Britain and got no thanks

34:36

for it. Yeah, I guess that

34:38

might be a common reason for

34:40

the drinking reason for the drinking.

34:42

Ah, man, that ought to be

34:44

someone who keeps showing up next

34:46

to their dead wife. It ought

34:48

to be Henry VIII, but it's

34:50

probably not. Well, it's also not

34:53

so much if you're arranging all

34:55

of the deaths of your wife.

34:57

Right. This is Neville Chamberlain. Oh.

34:59

Who was known for his his

35:01

door, his mourn dress as well

35:03

as his door attitude. And also

35:05

he stood next to the body

35:07

that was European defense. Right. And

35:09

here's another one that could be

35:12

Churchill and isn't. His rotundity. Oh.

35:14

That, I think, that's an American

35:16

president and I've run into it.

35:18

It is. But it's not taffed,

35:20

it's an earlier one. That's right.

35:22

It's, I want to say it's

35:24

John Quincy Adams. You're correct. Wow!

35:26

You got one. This one is

35:28

that if you didn't get any,

35:31

it would be too hard. I

35:33

know. We'd still have fun. This

35:35

one should be on your radar,

35:37

but let's see. The cadaver. The

35:39

cadaver. If we're looking at... Maybe

35:41

not Clemon Attley. This is an

35:43

American and within your one of

35:45

your specialties of study. Within my

35:47

ambit. Okay. An American cadaver. Oh,

35:50

you know what? Is it a

35:52

gunfighter? Is it like John Wesley

35:54

Harding or somebody? It's past topic

35:56

of the show. James Jesus Angleton.

35:58

James Jesus Angleton, the cadaver. Okay.

36:00

I get it. Yeah. Very much

36:02

looks like a dead guy. Yeah.

36:04

Mr. Mr. Inertia. That's Am I

36:06

Five Head Roger Hollis. Oh, okay.

36:09

it's typical bureaucratic regions. Well, let's

36:11

switch up from inertia to the

36:13

opposite, the hammer of the Scots.

36:15

Hammer of the Scots. That is,

36:17

I want to say, Edward the

36:19

third. It's Edward the first. Edward

36:21

the first. It's an Edward the

36:23

first. It's an Edward. I knew

36:25

it was an Edward. Yeah. Yeah,

36:27

all the Edwards are essentially the

36:30

same for this purpose. And on

36:32

a similar theme, Haggis Bashir. That

36:34

sounds like it's going to be

36:36

the Duke of York or whoever

36:38

won the Battle of Coloden. for

36:40

more recently annoying the Scots or

36:42

using them as a attempted foil.

36:44

So I guess these are too

36:46

hard, so I feel especially there.

36:49

Here's the thing, right? If if

36:51

you run into them in the

36:53

context, it's that they will stick.

36:55

Right. For example, I know I

36:57

ran into his rotendity about John

36:59

Quincy Adams at some point in

37:01

my youth of reading up about

37:03

all the presidents and it and

37:05

it stuck in there. but angleton

37:08

as the cadaver must have blown

37:10

past me so i feel especially

37:12

guilty about this one so this

37:14

is extra hard but i love

37:16

the name old tomorrow old tomorrow

37:18

yes that's kind of fun so

37:20

i'll just tell you this is

37:22

john a McDonald first prime minister

37:24

of Canada yeah i think that

37:27

we were all pretty sure i

37:29

wasn't gonna get that one yeah

37:31

who is notorious for putting people

37:33

off instead of making a decision

37:35

on the spot. Right. So let

37:37

me give you another Canadian that

37:39

I think you have some shot

37:41

of getting. Guts and gators. Guts

37:43

and gators. And that's G-A-I-T-S-I-T-S-I-T-S-S-I-T-S-S-I-S-I-T-S-S-I-S-T-S-S-I-S-T-S-I-T-S-T-S-A-T-I-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T- When

37:46

you say my favorite Canadian, you

37:48

throw it into a tizzy because

37:50

now I'm picking for a whole

37:52

bunch of hockey players. But surely,

37:54

surely old Gotsam Gators is not

37:56

one of the Fords. Can't be

37:58

Rob Ford, old Gotsam Geez. It's

38:00

not your favorite Canadian. It's Arthur

38:02

Curry, World War One General. My

38:05

actual favorite Canadian. Got some gators.

38:07

Yeah, okay. Yeah, he is my

38:09

favorite Canadian. You're correct. Okay, so

38:11

this one rates a previous rule

38:13

that I mentioned.

38:15

A small can. Small

38:18

cam. Can. C-A-N. Small

38:20

cam. C-A-N. Small cam.

38:22

C-A-N. Small cam. C-A-N.

38:24

Small cam. C-A-N. Small

38:27

cam. C-A-N. C-A-N-C-A-N. are

38:29

the possibly the easiest,

38:31

because it's been too hard.

38:33

The ancient one. The ancient one.

38:36

Palmerston? Lincoln. Lincoln. Oh. His staff

38:38

members nicknamed for him. Because he

38:41

used to tell fun stories about

38:43

how old he was. Yes. The

38:45

phrase maker. The phrase maker. The

38:48

phrase maker. The phrase maker is

38:50

going to be Edmund Burke. You're

38:52

nemesis. Woodrow Wilson. Boo. Boo. Okay,

38:54

so just a few more that

38:57

you might get. The King of

38:59

spades. The King of spades. Isabard

39:01

Kingdom Brunel. Robert E. Lee, who

39:03

was famous demanding his man to

39:06

dig in. Yes, that's that West

39:08

Point engineering training. Yeah, and let's

39:10

go down to Jack the Dripper.

39:12

Oh, Jack the Dripper, that was

39:15

Jackson Pollock. That's right. Jackson Pollock,

39:17

ding, ding, ding, ding. Okay, I'm

39:19

going to take one more arts

39:21

one then. King of the Grumps.

39:23

It was Claude Manet, who I

39:26

guess is grumpy for being mixed

39:28

up with Manet. I guess that's

39:30

what it is, yeah. And then

39:33

old copper nose? That can't be

39:35

Tyco Brie, sadly, because he was

39:37

old silver nose. Whole different guy.

39:40

Old copper nose. You got me.

39:42

Henry VIII? Henry VIII, okay. And

39:44

then finally, old iron pants. Old

39:46

iron pants. Yeah. Old iron pants.

39:49

Iron pants. I feel like that

39:51

should be a general. 19th century

39:53

20th 20th century. Okay, not Bradley

39:56

surely Curtis Lameh. Curtis Lameh. Okay.

39:58

So if you're playing along at

40:00

home and you got more than

40:03

can. Congratulations. Right? About it to

40:05

yourself or let us know. And

40:07

now that we've at least had

40:10

some fun with some cool historical

40:12

nicknames, we can confidently stride into

40:14

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41:46

We're going to head on in

41:48

to that strangest of huts the

41:50

most ill-defined of huts the one

41:52

where there's pseudo archaeology is Butting

41:54

up against alternate historical timelines and

41:56

we're not really sure what's going

41:58

on with the pharmaceuticals in the

42:00

corner, but we look at the

42:02

window, we hear the soothing screaming

42:04

of the alien big cat, and

42:06

then over in the corner, both

42:08

attentive yet also contemptuous, we find

42:10

the Nordic alien and the gray

42:12

alien drinking their cambucia and throwing

42:14

some side eye. Because Ken, we're

42:17

going to talk about the recent

42:19

New Jersey drone flap. So this

42:21

is very much a liptonic event,

42:23

except that it requires no paranormal

42:25

or weird explanation. It's just a...

42:27

bunch of people started seeing a

42:29

lot of drones in New Jersey

42:31

to which a logical person might

42:33

say, yeah, drones, there's a thing

42:35

now, they're commercially available, lots of

42:37

people have them, what's the deal,

42:39

why is this a flap? But

42:41

nonetheless, it became a flap, so

42:43

much though that people started blaming

42:45

aliens for, I guess, going to

42:47

target and possibly Walmart and getting

42:49

a whole bunch of drones and

42:52

flying them around. The weird thing

42:54

is how a layer of weirdness

42:56

was laid on top of something

42:58

that even if it was really

43:00

happening was completely mundane, but can

43:02

it follows a pattern we've seen

43:04

a lot of times in the

43:06

past except the other times something

43:08

weird was supposedly going on. Yeah.

43:10

And again, before we leave the

43:12

drone flap in New Jersey, we

43:14

can say that it is absolutely

43:16

typical of a flap and we're

43:18

going to get to that tournament

43:20

a bit, but it has a...

43:22

you know, sort of a proximate

43:25

cause from things in the media.

43:27

People have been reading about drones

43:29

in Ukraine over and over and

43:31

over, the China balloon scare. If

43:33

you follow some aeronautical news, there

43:35

are lots of drones being sighted

43:37

outside American military bases or trailing

43:39

American ships. And sort of the

43:41

low-eliptonic reading is that these are

43:43

the Chinese are up to something.

43:45

And then during the slightly higher

43:47

electronic setting, we had I believe

43:49

a congressman suggest it was the

43:51

Iranians doing drones at Newark Airport,

43:53

which is wild, and then it

43:55

gets a to, but these don't

43:58

look like any drones I've seen.

44:00

They must be alien craft, and

44:02

that's where we enjoy our kombucha

44:04

with the rest of them, and

44:06

we're fully into the elliptony hut.

44:08

But the paranoia about Chinese technological,

44:10

you know, bypassing of America, the

44:12

legitimate threat from Chinese surveillance, and

44:14

the actual endless news of drones

44:16

killing people and in war in

44:18

Ukraine, has caused a... a sort

44:20

of a substrate of awareness that

44:22

can then bubble up into a

44:24

specific incident. Right, they become numinous

44:26

even though they're Monday. Right, and

44:28

then the other thing that happens

44:30

is during a flap people who

44:33

might in ordinary time say that's

44:35

just an airplane say no no

44:37

no I swear I saw it

44:39

be weird and they turn a

44:41

normal sighting into and electronic sighting

44:43

and that happens over and over

44:45

so the term flap comes from

44:47

air force terminology it was added

44:49

to UFOs by a guy named

44:51

Edward Ruppelt, who was the director

44:53

of Project Grudge, one of the

44:55

first government investigation of UFO programs,

44:57

and then he ran Blue Book

44:59

in the early 50s, and he

45:01

says in Air Force terminology a

45:03

flap is a condition or situation

45:06

or state of being of a

45:08

group of people characterized by an

45:10

advanced degree of confusion that has

45:12

not quite yet reached panic proportions.

45:14

and he being a willing to

45:16

believe but a grounded Air Force

45:18

captain assigned the term flat to

45:20

a big bunch of UFO sightings

45:22

that blows up out of nowhere.

45:24

Right, and it's a descriptor of

45:26

people, of the condition of people

45:28

reporting these things, so it's a

45:30

psychosocial description. Yeah, and then the

45:32

great UFO Skeptic Phil class sort

45:34

of lays out the etiology of

45:36

the standard flap, and this is

45:39

him. Once news coverage leads the

45:41

public to believe that UFOs may

45:43

be in the vicinity, there are

45:45

numerous natural and man-made objects, which,

45:47

especially when seen at night, can

45:49

take on unusual characteristics in the

45:51

minds of hopeful viewers. There you

45:53

reports in turn add to the

45:55

mass excitement, which encourages still more

45:57

observers to watch for UFOs, the

45:59

situation feeds on itself until such

46:01

time as the media lose interest

46:03

in the subject, and then the

46:05

flap quickly runs out of steam,

46:07

as indeed it has. No one's

46:09

talking about New Jersey drones, even

46:11

though I assume there's just as

46:14

many there as there ever were,

46:16

right? Right. And it happened during

46:18

sort of an interregnum, a slow

46:20

news period between... the election of

46:22

the new administration and they're coming

46:24

to power. And now people are

46:26

focused on other fans. They have

46:28

other stuff to think about. But

46:30

there are a number of sort

46:32

of classic flaps that match our

46:34

drone pattern and that maybe by

46:36

looking at we can we can

46:38

put some flesh on the bones

46:40

that Phil class gave us is

46:42

what I'm saying, right? Yes. So

46:44

can you give us some examples

46:47

of some of the... the major

46:49

flaps that fill classes matter. Yeah,

46:51

the classic flap, the one that

46:53

begins all proper UFO books, is

46:55

the 1896, 1897 airship sightings. And

46:57

I don't even know if we've

46:59

done a segment on it, but

47:01

it's great. In California, November, and

47:03

December of 1896, and then in

47:05

the Midwest, in February and April

47:07

of 1897, there's another little lobe

47:09

in Texas at roughly the same

47:11

period. People were seeing airships and

47:13

reports came in that was in

47:15

all the papers and in a

47:17

lot of cases. This was just

47:19

straight up newspaper hoaxes. They've got

47:22

column inches to fill, make up,

47:24

or airship sighting. There was, in

47:26

fact, some evidence of a band

47:28

of telegraphers who were making up

47:30

UFO stories and telegraphing them to

47:32

each other, basically in a sort

47:34

of an early, you know, larp

47:36

situation, and then those would make

47:38

it into the paper if the

47:40

guy ran the telegraph falls around

47:42

the newspaper, which often happened. bit,

47:44

William Randolph Hurst denounces all these

47:46

airships as fake journalism. Yes, you

47:48

know, a situation is dire when

47:50

Hurst is the voice of reason.

47:52

When Hurst is mad about selling

47:55

papers. In 1940... There is a

47:57

series of sightings of what they

47:59

call ghost rockets over Sweden and

48:01

Finland Most general sources give 2,000

48:03

as the number of sightings, but

48:05

it has been pointed out there

48:07

is no central There's no central

48:09

repository of these sightings. The Swedish

48:11

government actually told papers not to

48:13

print direction and no one to

48:15

write down direction and speed and

48:17

time because if it was the

48:19

Russians testing V2s, which is what

48:21

they thought it was, we didn't

48:23

want to give the Russians their

48:25

targeting information. So. 2000 is literally

48:28

a random number of sightings, but

48:30

it's a big number. They seem

48:32

to have peaked in August 9th

48:34

and 11th of 1946, and people

48:36

reported crashes, which they would go

48:38

and investigate and nothing would be

48:40

there, or maybe there would be

48:42

a meteorite that had fallen. The

48:44

reasons for the ghost rockets include

48:46

the Perseid meteor shower, which was

48:48

very big in August of 1946,

48:50

and the fact that the United

48:52

States Air Force began high altitude

48:54

B29 recon flights over Scandinavia that

48:56

year to, of course, check out

48:58

the Russians. and see if they

49:00

were launching V2s without our say

49:03

so. And people in Scandinavia had

49:05

not seen, they hadn't been bombed

49:07

in the war, which Sweden was

49:09

neutral, so. seeing a lot of

49:11

high-altitude planes go over was a

49:13

new thing for them and that

49:15

may have been contrails that they

49:17

were seeing as ghost rockets. So

49:19

next we come to the 1952

49:21

Soxer Attack on Washington which also

49:23

sounds like a drive-in movie. It

49:25

does sound like a drive-in movie.

49:27

It should be a drive-in movie.

49:29

It's one of my favorites and

49:31

the ground is well and truly

49:33

prepared for this one. 1952 is

49:36

a big year for UFOs. According

49:38

to Repel, there are 16,000 items

49:40

in 148 papers in the first

49:42

six months of 1952, and that

49:44

includes a cover story and look

49:46

and a story in life. Cover

49:48

story in that case was Marilyn

49:50

Monroe, which is exactly the priorities

49:52

you should have. And then everyone

49:54

is keyed up for them, and

49:56

then in July 12th and in

49:58

July 29th, there are a series

50:00

of multiple UFO. radar and visual

50:02

sightings over DC. The radar sighting

50:04

makes the news. People are now

50:06

having visual UFO sightings over DC.

50:09

And then another multiple radar encounter

50:11

is on the 29th. Right, and

50:13

the attack part is missing, but

50:15

that's just the sort of hyperbole

50:17

that fuels a flat. Right, yeah.

50:19

Well, I mean, again, it's assumed

50:21

in the conditions of 1952 or

50:23

now that if you've got a

50:25

bunch of lights over the nation's

50:27

strategic center, it's probably not good.

50:29

And that is why it's a

50:31

saucer attack. There is no actual

50:33

assaults reported. No lasers from this

50:35

flying saucer. 87 and 88, there

50:37

is the Gulf Breeze flap. This

50:39

one is interesting because it was

50:41

started just by one guy. Yes,

50:44

and recent enough that I remember

50:46

this being a thing. Having a

50:48

series of UFO sightings and he

50:50

was kidnapped by a blue beam,

50:52

standard abduction story, but also he

50:54

had some photographs of UFOs and

50:56

his back over his backyard, that

50:58

the people who lived in his

51:00

house the next year found a

51:02

big styrofo in his attic. and

51:04

said, this is wild. Yeah, he

51:06

said, the Air Force must have

51:08

snuck in and put that styrofoam

51:10

UFO in my attic. I don't

51:12

know what that is. But the

51:14

hoax photo and the sightings triggered

51:17

mass reports of UFOs. And first

51:19

of all, Gulf Breeze is a

51:21

lovely town. Who wouldn't want to

51:23

go there and look for UFOs?

51:25

Great. And that lasted at least

51:27

until 1991 before the pops began

51:29

to die off in the popcorn

51:31

bag of Gulf Breeze. It was

51:33

a very big deal. And that's

51:35

very long lasting proof. Right. And

51:37

that's also, of course, you know

51:39

that UFOs are part of the

51:41

Zite guys back then because the

51:43

X files debuts not that long

51:45

after. 1989 and 1990, this is

51:47

one of my favorites. This is

51:49

the Belgian triangular UFO flap. There

51:52

is some sightings in November 1989,

51:54

then there is a military radar

51:56

sighting in April 1990 by the

51:58

Belgians, and a hoaxer does a

52:00

cool a very cool photograph of

52:02

a triangular UFO with lights on

52:04

it and this is in April

52:06

of 1990 and there are 143

52:08

reports after that photograph comes out

52:10

because people are like oh I

52:12

saw that triangle light and then

52:14

there's lots and lots of reports

52:16

of those and Some people say

52:18

that it's all just the hoax,

52:20

some people say it's helicopters that

52:22

people saw, military helicopters doing maneuvers,

52:25

and then the best low-eliptony version

52:27

of this is that it's secret

52:29

American planes. The F-17, of course,

52:31

has just debuted. It's a cool

52:33

triangle-looking stealth fighter. It's about to

52:35

sort of have its big debut

52:37

in the Gulf War, but by

52:39

now it's being seen all over

52:41

Europe and flying around and stuff.

52:43

And it's a triangle. So the

52:45

notion is, is America building another

52:47

better triangle plan? And popular mechanics

52:49

and other areas of the popular

52:51

aviation press even sort of hocus

52:53

themselves into believing in a program

52:55

called Aurora, which is supposedly the

52:58

successor to the SR-71. it would

53:00

be a big triangle plane. Now,

53:02

if it's the aurora, it wouldn't

53:04

have been low enough that anyone

53:06

in Belgium could have seen it.

53:08

It would have been very, very

53:10

high and would look like a

53:12

little dot even if you did

53:14

see it. But the notion of

53:16

a secret American triangle plane is

53:18

sort of the low aleptonic explanation

53:20

for the Belgian flap, although I

53:22

think it's just the power of

53:24

that really cool image, which if

53:26

you've looked at UFOs at all,

53:28

you've seen that picture and probably

53:30

thought that is cool. entirely mundane

53:33

apparently if it's happening which is

53:35

it who do we know right

53:37

so the idea of a hoax

53:39

jinning up hysteria and broader awareness

53:41

is not just reminiscent of what

53:43

the Ezra terrorists do in that

53:45

role-playing game it's one of the

53:47

things that I based that on

53:49

literally what they do yes literally

53:51

what they do so that's the

53:53

you know possibly the easiest thing

53:55

to start a Ezra terrorist campaign

53:57

with you might even have like

53:59

a flashback to the parents of

54:01

your characters and you know back

54:03

in the old-time the X files

54:06

days encountering a flap and now

54:08

you are all encountering another one

54:10

and you know that the esotericists

54:12

did some things and they got

54:14

some and if there's enough people

54:16

looking at this guy maybe that

54:18

brings airborne outer dark entities through

54:20

the membrane into our reality. So,

54:22

you know, when a landing occurs,

54:24

there might be something more there

54:26

than just nothing or a meteor.

54:28

And there is a number of

54:30

UFO incidents in the 1960s, obviously,

54:32

which you can, you know, read

54:34

fall of Delta Green, four, but

54:36

one of the best examples is

54:39

the Sussex Flat in late 1967

54:41

in England, and Again, this is

54:43

a classic. Delta Green is there.

54:45

Is this Pisces messing around with

54:47

the mythos? Is this Bigo? Is

54:49

this some other, you know, are

54:51

these the gaseous wraiths coming down

54:53

out of the stratosphere to mess

54:55

with people? What's going on with

54:57

that? And you can have the

54:59

social panic feed it and think,

55:01

are these topas? Is this a,

55:03

you know, is there some sort

55:05

of... other sort of experimentation. It's

55:07

not aliens at all. It's someone

55:09

unleashing Topa Panic, maybe around a

55:11

loiger stone or something like that,

55:14

that is what's giving it the

55:16

power. I think that the Topa

55:18

UFO nexus is the flap. is

55:20

what I'm trying to say here.

55:22

And what better way to explore

55:24

it than follow Delta Green? We've

55:26

all seen the way that coordinated

55:28

drones with lights on them are

55:30

now replacing fireworks and doing extremely

55:32

complicated light in the sky maneuvers.

55:34

So in this is normal now,

55:36

someone who has seen the yellow

55:38

sign can start trying to spread

55:40

carcassin and influence by having the

55:42

yellow sign appear up in the

55:44

sky created by a whole bunch

55:47

of different. drones with yellow lights

55:49

moving in sequence and maybe they

55:51

only you know get into the

55:53

light pattern that creates the yellow

55:55

sign for a matter instance, but

55:57

that's enough time to influence people.

55:59

They might even be doing it,

56:01

first of all, as part of

56:03

a fireworks display, but then after

56:05

that people start to continue to

56:07

see drones. Are they seeing those

56:09

literal drones from that drone fireworks

56:11

display? Or has it become sort

56:13

of a collective memory that is

56:15

beginning to imprint itself and appear

56:17

spontaneously as another case of sort

56:19

of topodrons? And also, I guess,

56:22

if carcosa is a... planet or

56:24

a place as opposed to a

56:26

state of mind, you know, maybe

56:28

they're sending drones out to look

56:30

for us and those drones will

56:32

behave not like earth drones because

56:34

they're from carcosa and they use

56:36

carcass and physics and whatnot. If

56:38

your carcosa is more of that

56:40

sort of a probe, then yeah,

56:42

they'd be sending drones out and

56:44

because they engage in reality rebuilding,

56:46

they're the sort of drones that

56:48

are super saturators for flaps. and

56:50

anyone sees a yellow drone and

56:52

they are now ground zero of

56:55

a bunch of weird social contagions.

56:57

If you want to do Kids

56:59

on Bikes Yellow King, they could

57:01

spot something weird in the sky

57:03

and then go find a crashed

57:05

drone and it has a pallid

57:07

mask on it. Do you put

57:09

it back together? Do you wait

57:11

for its owners to come and

57:13

reclaim it? That could offer a

57:15

whole lot of... improvised opportunities for

57:17

a simple situation that then spirals

57:19

into weird reality horror for a

57:21

bunch of kids. Right. And again,

57:23

Halloween is in another way, it's

57:25

a sort of a super saturator

57:28

event for horror. You could assume,

57:30

you know, things like the, you

57:32

know, Michael Myers is a flap

57:34

in a lot of ways, except

57:36

there's an actual guy running around

57:38

stabbing babysitters. But the notion that

57:40

Everyone is psychically ready for something

57:42

bad to happen because it's Halloween

57:44

and then reports of bad stuff

57:46

starts coming in. Halloween is a

57:48

classic flap and you can insert

57:50

any kind of monster or creature

57:52

or floating light in the sky

57:54

and it will add dimensionality and

57:56

numinousness as you say. for having

57:58

been tied into a pre-existing psychic

58:00

churn. So good luck to the

58:03

people of New Jersey who are

58:05

dealing with whatever happens as this

58:07

continues to resonate and possibly come

58:09

back. Or perhaps we can just

58:11

nostalgia look back on the time

58:13

when it seemed like our or

58:15

New Jersey's biggest problem. And when

58:17

nostalgia starts to overwhelm us, it's

58:19

time for us to close up

58:21

the old podcast for another week,

58:23

but we'll reopen it and be

58:25

our week from today. Stuff

58:28

having once again been talked about,

58:31

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58:42

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58:51

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58:53

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58:59

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59:13

Social. See you next time when

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once again, we will talk about

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stuff.