0:08

This is writer and game designer Robin

0:11

D. Laws. And this is game

0:13

designer and writer Kenneth Hite. And

0:15

this is our podcast. Ken and

0:17

Robin, talk about stuff. Bandwith brought

0:19

to you by Pelgrane Press. Stuff

0:21

we're here to talk about in

0:23

this episode include... A hush-up request.

0:25

Swindler Golden Booz Ernie. A white

0:28

stag shot in Merseyside. And Nos-foratus,

0:30

a cultist production designer. Ah

0:48

Spring, time for planting seeds and

0:50

utter carnage in the garden. Wait,

0:52

what was that last one? You

0:54

heard me Robin, it's time for

0:56

some good old-fashioned garden warfare. Vicious

0:58

gardens is the new card game

1:00

where you combine the joy of

1:03

horticulture with the thrill of being

1:05

a total jerk. Okay, hold on,

1:07

I thought we were talking about

1:09

gardening. We are, because in vicious

1:11

gardens... You're not just planting petunias,

1:13

my friend. You're sabotaging others in

1:15

a cozy cutthroat competition. Okay, that

1:18

sounds a bit intense for my

1:20

usual pansies and peonies. Oh,

1:22

this is way beyond pansies,

1:24

my friend. This is a

1:26

battle for garden domination. You've

1:28

got to sabotage your opponents,

1:30

steal their plants, and choke

1:32

out their prize-winning produce. So

1:34

it's a strategy game, but

1:36

with... plants. You got it,

1:38

because the best gardeners are

1:40

willing to get their hands

1:42

dirty. Okay, I'm strangely into

1:44

this. Where can I join

1:46

in the horticultural havoc? Vicious

1:49

gardens is available now.

1:51

Order yours at Atlas

1:53

dash games.com. Then prepare

1:55

for the meanest, greenest

1:58

garden milieu ever. of

2:00

Dice, the thump of miniatures, the

2:03

crunch of Doritos in the benevolent

2:05

gaze of Peter Frampton, coming alive,

2:07

welcomed us once more into the

2:09

gaming hut, and when we enter

2:12

the gaming hut, well, there's a

2:14

man sitting on the other side

2:16

of the gaming hut table and

2:18

a swivel chair in his back

2:21

to us, and he spins around

2:23

and he's a British character actor

2:25

and he says, have you told

2:28

anyone else about this? That question

2:30

posed to us. by beloved Patrick

2:32

Becker Sikander when the PCs show

2:34

up and reveal something awful to

2:37

the authority and he says, have

2:39

you told anyone else? The obvious

2:41

thing as Sikander knows by now

2:43

is that said higher up is

2:46

the master trader bad guy but

2:48

what if he's just a Percy

2:50

Allen styling empire building jerk? So

2:52

our question Robin is middle management.

2:55

of the bad guys and how

2:57

do we get them into the

2:59

game correct right or in fact

3:01

are they bad guys or just

3:04

other antagonists right yeah can we

3:06

can we use them as tools

3:08

right and so for those who've

3:11

forgotten momentarily who Percy Allen is

3:13

he's a character from the John

3:15

LaCray books he's the the more

3:17

Weasley bureaucratic head of the circus

3:20

who takes over after control. He

3:22

objected or leaves, I've forgotten exactly.

3:24

Also if you watch slow horses,

3:26

every season has either the same

3:29

or a different Weasley antagonist, secondary

3:31

guy within the organization who is

3:33

causing problems for either the Gary

3:35

Goldman character or the Kristen Scott

3:38

Thomas character or, you know, eventually

3:40

generally, generally, both. And often there's

3:42

the Weasley Fool has taken over

3:44

and that's a big element in

3:47

the latest season, the fourth season,

3:49

which I've just started watching. So

3:51

I guess the question is, is

3:53

it a mystery whether your boss is

3:56

the bad guy and do you start

3:58

investigating your boss, but you've possibly... we

4:00

find out is only a weasel? Or

4:03

do you get to figure that out

4:05

relatively quickly and then realize that the

4:08

boss is a secondary antagonist? And I

4:10

guess the question is, you know, which

4:12

of those is, will seem more interesting

4:15

and fresh to your players. Yeah, the

4:17

our boss is a traitor may be

4:19

the oldest and most hackneyed spy plot

4:22

ever. So when you take the information

4:24

to the proper authorities, if the proper

4:26

authorities are suborned by your boss, that

4:29

obviously, you know, put yourself in the

4:31

hands of the bad guys and then

4:33

have to have a throwing escape. If

4:36

it is a alibi, then what you

4:38

have is someone who's going to try

4:40

and muffle you and keep you

4:42

offside because their career is based

4:44

on not... ticking off the actual boss,

4:47

who is, as we've learned, the actual

4:49

trader. And so, the sort of the

4:51

secret is, I suppose, dependent on how

4:54

much bureaucratic factioning you want in your

4:56

organization, be it a spy organization or

4:58

a castle in a fantasy land,

5:00

because to some players anything that

5:02

happens back at HQ is a black

5:05

box and it's only where they reload

5:07

their spider their laser pen and then

5:09

they go back out and have another

5:12

adventure and discovering that you know Miss

5:14

Money Penny is a traitor is boring

5:16

and pointless to the point of

5:18

the story which is going out

5:20

and blowing up volcano villains but if

5:23

the story conversely is more sort of

5:25

night's black agent's conspiracy following clues type

5:27

game, then maybe it becomes valuable that

5:30

the organization that you are, you know,

5:32

getting voices on the tape from is

5:34

riven by factions and that one of

5:37

those factions is trying to, you

5:39

know, shut you aside and another

5:41

of those factions is actually a vampire

5:43

and is trying to kill you. Right.

5:45

I think the thing about putting any

5:48

choice before the players is you have

5:50

to take a step back and ask

5:52

yourself if they follow either choice. Is

5:55

there one of those choices that

5:57

leads to something that will annoy

5:59

them? Are both choices equally interesting and

6:01

fraught? Or is one of them actually

6:03

the correct choice? And then choice B

6:06

is a drag and if they go

6:08

down that road, all the things that

6:11

will happen will be stupid and vexing.

6:13

And I think thinking that your

6:15

boss is the bad guy when

6:17

he isn't investigating him and finding that

6:19

out is a huge example of that

6:22

because it punks the players, it makes

6:24

them, makes the characters seem stupid for

6:26

having pursued this and been wrong. So

6:29

I guess they get sent to Sloughhouse

6:31

and get to start a new

6:33

campaign where they're slowers is. But

6:35

that's still done, that's annoying. And so

6:37

I think the way to do the

6:40

boss is possibly a traitor part is

6:42

to make that part of the premise.

6:44

They know immediately when they have the

6:47

meeting. They, you know, they have their

6:49

assess honesty ability or whatever it's

6:51

called. And if they know right

6:53

away, they can tell, oh, no, he's

6:55

gone over to the other side, which,

6:58

of course, there are, you know, parallels

7:00

in real history and in the news

7:02

for that. And so if they are

7:05

correct in thinking their boss is a

7:07

bad guy, and then the conflict is

7:09

bringing him down, that's great. That's

7:11

super interesting, right? If, on the

7:13

other hand, they immediately realize, well, It

7:16

seems like he's the bad guy and

7:18

there's somebody else in the agency who

7:20

thinks he's a bad guy and is

7:23

trying to take him down, but actually

7:25

he's just a bureaucratic maneuver and if

7:27

he is taken down, that will

7:29

take the agency with it. So

7:31

that in addition to catching the real

7:34

bad guy, we have to protect this

7:36

weasel enough that he doesn't blow up

7:38

the entire organization when this other guy

7:41

comes after him. Now that seems interesting

7:43

and fraught and difficult and difficult in

7:45

a John Liqueuray or Slow Horses

7:47

sort of mode. Again, it doesn't

7:49

fit James Bond, but I don't think

7:52

that's what we're talking about here. But

7:54

I think that... then becomes part of

7:56

the thing. So rather than have a

7:59

premise where one of the possible answers

8:01

takes you down a dumb road, it's

8:03

you know from the outset which

8:05

situation pertains and then how you

8:08

tackle that, you have a number of

8:10

choices and those are your branch points.

8:12

How you go about solving one problem

8:15

or the other problem rather than the

8:17

possibility of confusing one problem for the

8:19

other. This is sort of a flip

8:22

version of those sort of what

8:24

kind of game are we playing

8:26

question at the outset because again if

8:28

you are part of the agency and

8:30

you are you know invested in the

8:33

agency's survival. That means that the plot

8:35

where you have to protect the alibi

8:37

from the real foe becomes juicy and

8:40

important, if you're just murderous freelancers of

8:42

a sort, then you don't care

8:44

if MI-6 goes down. You've revealed

8:46

that Kim Philby is a trader, your

8:48

job is done, you're out of here

8:51

on the next plane to Indonesia. And

8:53

so that sort of figuring out how

8:55

the players will play it is, I

8:58

guess, to flip side to your question

9:00

of... How do the branch points

9:02

work? Because the number of times

9:04

the players have been told this is

9:06

a very important egg and they've smashed

9:09

it open to get at the creamy

9:11

goodness inside and then wandered away is,

9:13

I don't want to say it's one

9:16

to one per egg delivered, but don't

9:18

fill up your carton too fast

9:20

is all I'm saying. Right. What

9:22

will the players actually do with this

9:24

premise is always a big question. And

9:27

so if you are assuming that they're

9:29

going to be invested something... that they're

9:31

not, there are different ways to do

9:34

with that. Because the other problem is

9:36

you can ask your players, do

9:38

you want to play this game?

9:40

And then when they, you know, session

9:42

three, when they're tired and cranky, they

9:45

decide to blow it all up. And

9:47

so you can either not give that

9:49

set of players that, you know, complicated

9:52

problems where they might decide just to

9:54

blow it up instead in favor

9:56

of something where they're just blowing

9:58

things up. you could try to remind

10:00

them and get them back on track

10:03

and say, well, you know, on all

10:05

of your character sheets, there's a section

10:07

called Drive, which tells you why you

10:09

care about the agency and want to

10:11

protect it. So given that, how do

10:13

your drives cost you to not blow

10:16

everything up and then go back and

10:18

protect versus the Alleline? And so

10:20

that is the other super fraud

10:22

question is, you know, not only

10:25

are the choices you're putting before

10:27

the players. Interesting, but do they

10:29

want any of those choices? Right.

10:31

They want a third more

10:33

blowing things up, sort of, choice.

10:36

Because also, you know, the mole hunt,

10:38

the finding out, is my boss a

10:40

trader, or is he, a weasel,

10:42

is, I think, difficult to pull

10:45

off, but which of my bosses

10:47

is the trader, is then, I

10:49

think, a more, as Tinku

10:51

Taylor Sorgel-Swin, a more classic and more

10:54

satisfying structure where you have an

10:56

investigation and you have to eliminate

10:58

all the suspects and it's like

11:00

you really don't want it to be

11:03

George Smiley who's the bad guy, but

11:05

you maybe wouldn't mind if it was

11:07

Percy Allen, but then is that shifting

11:09

your judgment? And so that again gives

11:11

you the one of your bosses as

11:13

a traitor, figure out which one it

11:15

is, becomes I think something that is

11:17

easier to handle than the sort of

11:19

orange or banana choice of... Weasel our

11:21

trader. Yeah, and again, the tone of

11:23

the game, the mode of the game

11:25

that you've been playing will set expectations

11:27

for that. If you've been playing a

11:29

sort of like a Ray-flavored game, then

11:31

being called in and said, we're looking

11:34

for the mole, and this could be

11:36

the vampire mole scenario from the Dracula,

11:38

it could be any other sort of

11:40

thing. We're looking for the mole, is

11:43

a interesting challenge that the players have

11:45

been led to expect by the nature

11:47

of the game that they've been playing.

11:49

If you're doing that in an F20

11:52

game, and they've been out Delven Dungeons,

11:54

and just because they're the people who

11:56

have the best cleric around that the

11:58

king knows, has a... been suborned

12:00

by the necromancer and he takes

12:03

them all up and he says

12:05

now we're going to do palace

12:07

intrigue and you have to figure

12:10

out which of my courtiers is

12:12

in service to the necromancer that

12:14

can be a jarring change even

12:17

if thematically it might make sense

12:19

given that you painted the cortis

12:21

Byzantine and corrupt but the problem

12:24

being that again players have to

12:26

decide they want to play in

12:28

that style. And I really think

12:31

that's the first question to answer

12:33

about whether they care about that

12:35

kind of play at all. And

12:38

if they do, an Allen line

12:40

is almost a mandatory sort of

12:42

a character to have. It's not

12:45

even to some extent a surprise,

12:47

because you have to have someone

12:49

who, as you say, you're rooting

12:52

for being the traitor, but sadly

12:54

they get cleared by your investigation.

12:57

and then they still are impeding

12:59

the investigation because they're still out

13:01

a line and that becomes an

13:04

interesting well if we're in charge

13:06

of the mole hunt can we

13:08

frame him too? I mean yeah

13:11

we have to bring down Hayden

13:13

but we can also take out

13:15

a line with it and maybe

13:18

it won't destroy the agency and

13:20

maybe our good friend Smiley or

13:22

God forbid us will be put

13:25

in charge. Well I think we've

13:27

gone around the question of expectations

13:29

and of interesting branches so it's

13:32

time for us to expect. Some

13:34

other sort of choice awaiting us

13:36

on the other side of this

13:39

year's cycle. A historic city, our

13:41

toes in the Mediterranean. And the

13:43

gobs smacked expressions on our faces

13:46

when we beheld the stunning production

13:48

values of Shadowland Spanish editions of

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Pelgrine Books. Stunning doesn't begin to

13:53

express it. So naturally, we asked

13:55

our publisher Kat Tobin, can we

13:57

have this art? Well now, not

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only we, but you can have

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this art, with the shattered veil

14:04

edition of Fear It Self. Fear

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enhanced with editions in war from

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this premium hardcover revamp. with appallingly

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gorgeous full-color illustrations. Now available to

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not all. Also revamped as part

14:30

of the campaign, the book of

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unremitting horror, more monstrous, more glistening,

14:35

more invasive than ever. Plus a

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brand new third book to match.

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It's the highly anticipated... Ocean game

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expansion! Fresh from the feverish fingers

14:44

of the aforementioned Gar Hanrahan. Based

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on the febrile imaginations of horror

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visionary Dave Alsop. Daire your players

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to uncover the secrets of the

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ocean. To claim their place in

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briny heaven. Journey into a fractured

14:58

modern reality. Correst the covers. Gaze

15:01

hypnotically at the glossy pages. Prepare

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a place of awful glory on

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at Game Found. I can hear

15:26

you already clicking the link in

15:29

the show notes. You know you

15:31

want to... The

15:37

fingerprint files, the old clippings, and

15:40

the wanted posters on the wall

15:42

tell us we're once more sitting

15:44

on a desk with the crime

15:47

blotter. And this time around I

15:49

thought we would look at the

15:51

swashbuckling, but somewhat, the spoiler, there's

15:53

a bummer at the end, which

15:56

we're going to have to do

15:58

some make-em-ups to rectify. But we're

16:00

going to look at the career

16:03

of... 18th century thief Barbara Golden

16:05

Booz Ernie who had quite an

16:07

interesting modus operandi and can you're

16:10

going to take up her story

16:12

with her birth in 1743 in

16:14

Austria. Yeah, she's born in Feldkirk,

16:16

Austria, which is in the very

16:19

western most tippy part of Austria,

16:21

right by Switzerland and Lishtenstein. She's

16:23

born to vagrants, Johan and Anna

16:26

Barbara Ernie. And according to the

16:28

National Biography Dictionary of Lishtenstein, which

16:30

is your best source for her

16:32

life, as far as I can

16:35

tell, she was brought up... to

16:37

do petty crime because her parents

16:39

were petty criminals. And that was

16:41

sort of her life. Once she

16:44

sort of sets out on her

16:46

own, she begins what the dictionary

16:48

calls larger scale thefts by herself

16:50

and with a gang and also

16:53

prostitution because she was apparently very

16:55

beautiful woman. Yes, the golden booze

16:57

in her name is because she

16:59

had strawberry blonde hair. Right, yes.

17:01

And the booze, not to spoil

17:03

it, is a German. slang term

17:06

that means wicked or bad or

17:08

stormy problematic, you add it to

17:10

a thing where you're giving it

17:12

a bad character in this case,

17:14

it basically means golden horror and

17:16

so we shouldn't, you know, maybe... Lean

17:18

on that too much, but there

17:20

we are. That's her life. She's

17:23

up and down the Swiss Rhine

17:25

beginning that career in 1772. She

17:27

has the first of her five

17:29

children. She's imprisoned in Buchlow in

17:31

southern Bavaria in 1778. So she's

17:33

even outside Switzerland now in 1779.

17:35

She marries a vagrant and thirolian

17:37

from the Tyrol, also in Austria,

17:39

also in Austria, named Franz Shindela,

17:41

and... I'm not sure that Franz

17:44

really brings anything to the table

17:46

except another sword to stab inquiring

17:48

guards and captains with, but there he

17:50

is. Right. And he seems to be

17:52

a different person than the mystery accomplice.

17:54

Oh yes. Yeah. I mean, there's no

17:56

indication that Franz is the secret to

17:58

her career. And either... shortly after her

18:01

marriage or even before that she

18:03

has been carrying out what is

18:05

I think a pretty rudimentary con

18:07

game but it is a con

18:09

game so points to her and

18:11

this was she would show up

18:13

at an inn with a big

18:15

chest on her back. And the

18:17

innkeeper would say, oh, you must

18:19

be very strong to have carried

18:21

that big chest all this far.

18:23

And she says, oh, well, you

18:25

know, that's nothing. I have to

18:27

carry it because it's so very

18:29

valuable. I can't even trust it

18:31

to a cart. Right. And she

18:33

would be seen carrying this up

18:35

and down hillsides and mountains and

18:37

led to a reputation for superhuman

18:39

strength. Right. I think when she

18:41

becomes a pair character. Remember to

18:43

give her 18 strength. Exactly. And

18:45

so the innkeeper is very impressed.

18:47

and he says well I will

18:49

of course give you our safest

18:51

room and she would say well

18:53

that's very well and good but

18:55

I can't even have this trunk

18:57

stored where anyone sleeps it has

18:59

to be in your ice room

19:01

or wherever you keep your own

19:03

valuables because it's that important and

19:05

so or other guess value right

19:07

or whatever right there's not that

19:09

many strong rooms in an in

19:11

so the innkeeper would exceed to

19:13

her imperious demand the trunk would

19:15

be stored there she would go

19:17

up to a room the next

19:19

morning innkeeper gets up goes to

19:21

his strong room opens it up

19:23

and sure enough the trunk is

19:25

gone so are all the other

19:27

valuables that were stored there and

19:29

so was the golden-haired lady who

19:31

had been staying by herself elsewhere

19:33

in the inn and so that

19:35

was the mystery of the golden

19:37

booze and the answer as I

19:39

suppose is obvious to us now

19:41

is that inside the trunk was

19:43

someone small and that might have

19:45

been a little person or it

19:47

might have been whatever five children,

19:49

that she impressed into the job

19:51

of sitting in the trunk. I

19:53

don't think that she carried the

19:55

small person all the way from

19:57

end to end. I think she

19:59

would just get seen doing it

20:01

a little bit, and then they

20:03

would sneak out of the trunk

20:05

and walk down with her. But

20:07

anyway. She still has to get

20:09

it out of the end, so

20:11

that's something. And that was her

20:13

MO, and she's arrested for that

20:15

in a town called Eshin in

20:17

northern Liechtenstein and imprisoned and tried

20:19

in Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein,

20:21

and she admits to 17 thefts

20:23

as the Golden Goose. Right, and

20:25

she was quite blatant in... Like

20:27

she didn't base out the inns

20:29

that much. So she would go

20:31

to one end and then she

20:33

would go a little further along

20:35

and go to another end. So

20:37

one of the remarkable things about

20:39

the story is that she racked

20:41

up 17 separate thefts if all

20:44

of these were trunk style thefts.

20:46

I'm not sure they were. Right.

20:48

But because no one else had

20:50

pulled this, she was, you know,

20:52

not all that careful in covering

20:54

her tracks. This is before consumer

20:56

banking as we know it, and

20:58

especially travelers would quite frequently carry

21:00

strong boxes with their valuables in

21:02

it around everywhere they went, and

21:04

even in their homes they would

21:06

have strong boxes. And if you

21:08

were on the road, you would

21:10

have to take it with you.

21:12

So the part of it that's

21:14

weird is that it was big

21:16

enough to put a person in,

21:18

and that she had figured this

21:20

way to use this as a

21:22

scan. But traveling with a trunk

21:24

with valuables, and it is not

21:26

the... remarkable part of this story.

21:28

Unfortunately, though, there's also another very

21:30

18th century thing, which is this

21:32

is the era in Wales and

21:34

England. This was called the Bloody

21:36

Code, where the death penalty was

21:38

expanded to a huge range of

21:40

offenses, including property offenses. So, unfortunately,

21:42

in history, as we know it,

21:44

Barbara Ernie came to a bad

21:46

end. Yes. Having been convicted, the

21:48

prosecutor then had to prepare a

21:50

separate brief explaining why she should

21:52

get the death penalty, because the

21:54

law of Lichtenstein had a death

21:56

penalty on the books. They hadn't

21:58

really used it an awful lot,

22:00

and this was a pretty blatant...

22:02

attack on the commerce of the

22:04

not that big principality and so

22:06

he had to sort of do

22:08

a special law argument that says

22:10

going back to the law of

22:12

Charlemagne so an older bloody code

22:14

to say yep under the law

22:16

of the Charlemagne which means under

22:18

the law of the Holy Roman

22:20

Empire you can execute someone who's

22:22

done this much damage. to trade.

22:24

And so in London they would

22:26

have had her on the gibbet.

22:28

Well in this case it took

22:30

a couple of weeks for the

22:32

for the brief to get written

22:34

but the prince agreed and since

22:36

they had so few executions in

22:38

Luchtenstein he had to import the

22:40

executioner from Bregens in Austria and

22:42

she was taken back to Eshin

22:44

where the crime was occurred and

22:46

stood up and beheaded in public

22:48

in front of several thousand domestic

22:50

and foreign spectators because that It

22:52

must have been the biggest show

22:54

in Listhen's time since forever. Schindler

22:56

is also sentenced to death in

22:58

1793 for one assumes a different

23:00

crime in Oppenzel in Switzerland, but

23:02

he escaped. And no extradition from

23:04

Lishtenstein. He runs to Vedas and

23:06

lives there in Lishtenstein until 1802.

23:08

By 1818, Barbara Ernie has already

23:10

become a character in a ballad.

23:12

The haunting and lovely, I am

23:14

imprisoned in Vedas. And that gets

23:16

published in a book of ballads

23:18

in 1818. So assume, one assumes

23:20

she'd become a... a sort of

23:22

a legend character fairly soon after

23:24

her execution. And indeed, she is

23:27

still a sort of a folk

23:29

legend, I don't say folk hero,

23:31

but sort of Jesse James type

23:33

folk legend in Lishtenstein today because

23:35

again, they produced precious few interesting

23:37

things and she was definitely one

23:39

of them. And she didn't murder

23:41

anybody. I'm like, Jesse James, I

23:43

just stole some stuff. So our

23:45

challenge now, it is a bit

23:47

of a logistical difficulty for us

23:49

to figure out. how she actually

23:51

escaped in true heist movie style

23:53

given that someone was seen to

23:55

be executed by thousands of people

23:57

right so i i guess The

23:59

easiest way to do that in

24:01

your campaign is to have a

24:03

secret magic campaign where all she

24:05

had to do is whip up

24:07

an illusion or supply a humunculus

24:09

or something like that. I wonder

24:11

how else in a more realistic

24:13

campaign we can have a realistic

24:15

stage magic illusion of there having

24:17

been an execution. Well the simplest

24:19

thing is that we have to

24:21

import the executioner. So what you

24:23

do... Oceans 11 style is you,

24:25

you know, suborn or swap out

24:27

your guy for the executioner. And

24:29

so when he shows up, he's

24:31

like, I'm the executioner from Reagan's

24:33

and we're not going to execute

24:35

her in some stupid way like

24:37

you do here, you know, with

24:39

just chopping her off with an

24:41

axe. I mean, he's a sword

24:43

and there has to be a

24:45

big curtain so that I don't

24:47

get blood on myself and all

24:49

these other things and that sets

24:51

up as you say the sort

24:53

of stage illusion of having your

24:55

head choppeded. you know she's ready

24:57

to escape you know with the

24:59

executioner cart where he carries off

25:01

you know the body and you

25:03

know the fake body and the

25:05

fake hand are all shown to

25:07

people and the fake blood sprays

25:09

up the crowd goes wild and

25:11

then she's just smuggled ironically perhaps

25:13

in a trunk in the executioner's

25:15

van and then he goes allegedly

25:17

back to Bregan's but is never

25:19

seen again. And I think, Robin,

25:21

that you'll note that every source

25:23

not published in Liechtenstein says it

25:25

was an executioner from Bregens, but

25:27

the Liechtenstein Dictionary of Biography says

25:29

that it was the Duke's own

25:31

executioner that performed the deed. And

25:33

so if the Duke... doesn't do

25:35

any executing, why does he have

25:37

an executioner, Robin? That's clearly a

25:39

cover-up by Big Lichtenstein to try

25:41

and cover up the fact that

25:43

Golden Booz, Barbara Ernie, just like

25:45

Jesse James, evaded the law and

25:47

lived happily ever after. Right, and

25:49

perhaps would make an excellent secret

25:51

agent for Liechtenstein, which I assume

25:53

also has a shortage of spies

25:55

just as a... has the shortage

25:57

of executions. And who knows, maybe

25:59

they send her to America, which

26:01

has got some interesting things going

26:03

on in 1785. And perhaps she

26:05

has a. Another career that she

26:07

might wind up doing some exciting

26:09

things there as well. Yeah, once

26:12

you get out of Lishtenstein, 75

26:14

is popping. I mean, you got

26:16

Franz Mezmer being investigated in Paris.

26:18

You've got, as you say, America,

26:20

throwing off the shackles, the hated

26:22

British. You've got all manner of

26:24

Illuminati conspiracies going on, plus your

26:26

Jackabins plotting against decent princes, like

26:28

the Prince of Lishtenstein. So who

26:30

can say what she could get

26:32

up to? Frankenstein is running around

26:34

in Switzerland in Switzerland. at roughly

26:36

the same period of time. Well,

26:38

that's another way she could she

26:40

could fake it. She could borrow

26:42

an extra Frankenstein to be beheaded.

26:44

Right. Yeah, or she gets executed

26:46

and then the cart goes right

26:48

to Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory and now

26:50

she's golden Boosenstein and her superhuman

26:52

strength is even super human because

26:54

she's full of vivifying reagent. Yes,

26:56

and the process has been improved

26:58

so she still gets to look

27:00

lovely with her strawberry blonde hair.

27:02

Right, like the bride of Frankenstein

27:04

is hotter than regular Frankenstein, that's

27:06

just how it works. Exactly. Well,

27:08

now that we've sorted all that

27:10

out, let's go see what we

27:12

can figure out about a somewhat

27:14

more recent recent story. Five

27:47

fresh new terrors await the

27:49

anti-mythoss agents of your Delta

27:51

Green campaign in Ark Dream's

27:53

dead drops scenario anthology in

27:55

meridian desperate youths gather at

27:57

a secret church under an

27:59

inexplicable light in the Missouri

28:01

sky. Their salvation may show

28:03

the agent new meaning in

28:05

madness. In a victim of

28:07

the art, horrific murders strike

28:09

a quiet Long Island town.

28:11

Unseen powers give awful consequence

28:13

to evils unspoken and barely

28:15

conceived. From the dust sets

28:17

the agents on the trail

28:19

of infant disappearances. in Brooklyn.

28:21

Strange events echo by night

28:23

at a construction site. The

28:25

agents must sift superstition and

28:27

rumor from a horror that

28:30

lingers across decades, across centuries. In

28:32

presence, a young woman vanishes in

28:34

Alabama. She reappears in a same

28:36

instant in Vermont. A door of

28:39

discovery opens to secrets more virulent

28:41

than the most appalling proliferations of

28:43

life. In Jack Frost, suitable for

28:46

use with the classic 1990s. Delta

28:48

Green the conspiracy source book Winter

28:50

wipes out an Alabama town. Did

28:52

the military hold the town in

28:55

quarantine? The characters join a sprawling

28:57

team of expert researchers from the

28:59

blackest reaches of government. The

29:01

infamous majestic project at its

29:03

staggering height as the 20th

29:06

century stumbled and died. Deaddrops

29:08

also features crucial background Intel

29:10

on the little known but

29:12

pivotal Air Force Office of

29:14

Special Investigations. Available as a

29:16

full-color 228-page hardback. 228 pages.

29:19

Or order the PDF

29:21

at drive-through RPG. Remember

29:23

to rate, review, and

29:25

writhe in terror. Share

29:27

the secret of keeping

29:29

the show going with

29:31

such beloved Patrian backers

29:33

as. Ludovix Chabant. Luke

29:35

Silburn. Mark Kevin Hall.

29:38

Martin Rungfist. And Alexander

29:40

Arabalo. The

29:46

rattle of the teletype, the ping of

29:48

the news alert on the phone, and the

29:50

shouting of the bequeathed anchor, tell us that

29:53

we are once more in a hut that

29:55

has been ripped from the headlines.

29:57

And today, beloved Patrick Becker.

30:00

Travis Johnson points us to a

30:02

story from 2021 that perhaps indicates

30:04

something about the current world that

30:06

we live in, in which the

30:08

police shoot a white stag in

30:10

Merseyside in England. Yeah, I was

30:12

somewhat surprised to find out the

30:14

date on this. I guess some

30:16

of the things in my hopper

30:18

of topics are been there for

30:20

a while, so I always say.

30:22

So this turns out to be

30:24

a chance to flashback to our

30:26

favorite period of history. the pandemic

30:28

right so there's distress all around

30:30

and in mercy side there's a

30:32

creature who is more distressed than

30:34

most because a white stag is

30:36

running through the streets of bootle

30:38

just outside Liverpool more proof that

30:40

England is imaginary than a place

30:42

being called bootle that seems implausible

30:45

to me and you do not

30:47

want a deer running around being

30:49

scared it's a danger to itself

30:51

and to others although the danger

30:53

to itself does play out in

30:55

the story right and so they

30:57

a kind of cornered in an

30:59

industrial estate and they kind of

31:01

got it under control. But how

31:03

much do you have a scared

31:05

wild deer under control? Well, not

31:07

very much. You can stand in

31:09

front of it as long as

31:11

you want. Eventually you're going to get

31:13

a hoof upside the head or a

31:15

antler. They're calling places, trying to get

31:17

somebody to come and find a deer

31:19

rescue place. But first of all, in

31:21

general, regular deer, anywhere you find deer,

31:24

they're not rare. And so bad things

31:26

happen to deer on the regular basis.

31:28

And it can't have helped that again,

31:30

it's the middle of COVID. So people

31:32

from who otherwise would be in a

31:34

rescuing deer willy-nilly are like, sorry, we

31:36

can't come out and rescue this deer.

31:38

Yeah, they called the RSPCA and they

31:40

said, you should let it go back

31:42

to its forest. And they said, it's

31:44

in the middle of bootle. its forest

31:46

is going to be down city streets

31:48

and then the RSPCA said well that

31:50

sounds like a terrible problem don't shoot

31:52

the deer and then they hung up.

31:54

Yes and you know thing happens to

31:56

wild animals attitude is perhaps correct but

31:58

unfortunately they had to be the ones

32:00

who were the bad thing that happened

32:02

right yes so so the deer was

32:04

as it says in the news article

32:06

from Sky News euthanized which of course

32:08

it was not put gently to sleep

32:11

and sent to play in a farm

32:13

upstate Cops shot it and then I

32:15

don't know what they did with the

32:17

deer body and I suppose that is

32:19

where the campaign would Take off right

32:21

you have a enigmatic white stag that

32:23

has appeared at a time of national

32:25

crisis and probability and That's not good

32:27

Before we get into the magic of

32:29

white deer we should fun ruin a

32:31

bit. There is a known condition about

32:33

1% of deer maybe 3% have it's

32:35

called lucism and it means that the

32:37

pigment the around pigment that is normally

32:39

in a red deer has gone away,

32:41

but it's not a complete albino condition

32:43

because their eyes are normal. But deers

32:45

have been known to have this, a

32:47

similar white stag was seen in Scotland

32:49

in 2008, and one was found decapitated

32:51

in Devonshire in October of 2007, and

32:53

people were very ticked off about it.

32:55

Right. So the question is, what does

32:57

the arrival of a white stag and

33:00

be doing things like, you know, chopping

33:02

off the head of this one, Devonshire

33:04

or, you know, basically, you know, arrange

33:06

to have this one shot, I believe.

33:08

Also, before we move on, of course,

33:10

Merseyside in England, they are forehaunted, other

33:12

Merseyside hunts include a flying torso, a

33:14

purple-faced girl who will follow a mom

33:16

who has children or follow a children

33:18

around, or spring hail Jack, but... We

33:20

do not have time for those haunts

33:22

in this segment because there is much

33:24

to be said about stags and white

33:26

stags in particular. So famously, Artemis, the

33:28

goddess of the hunt, turns Action into

33:30

a stag. some versions

33:32

have it as a

33:34

white stag. Of

33:36

course, Achaean is being

33:38

a creeper in

33:40

this story and kind

33:42

of deserves to

33:44

be turned into a

33:47

stag and then

33:49

ripped apart. The deer

33:51

is sacred to

33:53

her, but of course

33:55

she hunts deer

33:57

as well, which is

33:59

quite common for

34:01

hunting deities to have

34:03

the animals that

34:05

they pursue be sacred

34:07

to her, and

34:09

that's part of the

34:11

deal. So this

34:13

white stag could have

34:15

been somebody who

34:17

was up to no

34:19

good and was

34:21

changed by Artemis. Yeah.

34:23

I mean, I'm

34:25

not sure what Artemis

34:27

is doing in

34:29

Merseyside, but you know... Well, if

34:32

you want someone more likely to

34:34

be in Merseyside, Arthur, the Arthurian

34:36

tales are also can full of

34:38

white stags. Yes, because the Celtic

34:40

legend of the white stag, it

34:42

appears when it's telling the hero

34:44

or the audience that things are

34:46

getting weird and creepy. The white

34:48

stag signifies that you have transgressed

34:50

a taboo or trespassed where you

34:52

don't belong, such as when Poole

34:54

enters the other world, the world

34:56

the dead, or when other heroes

34:58

enter the land of enchantment, there's

35:00

a white stag sort of welcoming them

35:02

there or showing up and saying this

35:04

is bad. Arthur, as we mentioned, hunts

35:06

the white stag every Easter. That takes

35:08

place in the Forest of Adventure, which

35:10

is, I guess, good to know that

35:12

you've got a forest just for that.

35:14

Arthur's white stag has a golden chain

35:16

around its neck, and the white stag

35:18

hunt one Easter is what begins the

35:21

quest for the grail, and as they're

35:23

on their white stag hunt every year.

35:25

And the winner of the white stag

35:27

hunt, by the way, gets to kiss

35:29

the most beautiful woman at court, which is

35:31

a nice job if you can get

35:33

it, I guess. But in this one,

35:35

they're like, nope, this is better than

35:37

kisses. This is the holy grail. Keep

35:39

going. And that's what the white stag

35:41

will do for you, I guess. Now,

35:43

Frank Arthurian tales do something a little

35:45

different with the white stag, which is

35:47

that Merlin takes the form of a

35:49

white stag or a giant stag with

35:51

a white forefoot. And so in some

35:53

of these stories, the white

35:55

stag becomes a white forefooted

35:58

stag, which I guess is

36:00

a way of saving

36:02

on the budget for the CGI. At any

36:04

rate, most famously, French Merlin ostentatiously shows up

36:07

at the gates of Rome and calls out

36:09

for the Emperor Julius Caesar,

36:11

who in this version obviously

36:13

their contemporaries, and he tells

36:15

Caesar that the answers to

36:17

his troubling dream can be

36:19

supplied by the wild man

36:21

of the woods. So, Merlin goes

36:23

to all the trouble to turn into

36:26

a stag. He doesn't even, like, have

36:28

the prophecy for Julius Caesar. He just

36:30

has a clue that leads to the other

36:32

guy who has the answer to the prophecy. So,

36:34

this one has a bit of a, you

36:37

know, previously on, where you forgot to watch

36:39

the episode quality to it, but

36:41

the French Arthurian tales are kind

36:43

of like that. In Cretchen Detroit's

36:45

romance poem, Eric in Ane, the

36:47

couple meet cute while Arthur is hunting

36:50

this stag. So the Arthur stag

36:52

kind of just sort of the

36:54

background for a romance. And this

36:56

ties into an idea that in

36:58

courtly medieval iconography, the white stag represents

37:01

love. And I think that might be

37:03

just because this poem is very resonant

37:05

in the French tradition or just again

37:08

white stag is the thing you want

37:10

to draw and have on your tap

37:12

trees and so forth. And you're

37:14

looking for symbols of... romantic love.

37:17

Well, the white stag became that

37:19

for a while. Yeah, other Arthurian

37:21

heroes, Sagrimore and Yavain, both encounter

37:24

the white stag. Yavain, as is

37:26

his habit, gets busy hunting the

37:28

white stag and neglects his wife.

37:30

Percival, apparently. finds the white stag

37:33

and beheads it so I guess

37:35

that's Percival's attitude towards love or

37:37

towards something in the French story

37:39

of florient who is a sort

37:42

of side Arthurian hero the white

37:44

stag carried baby florient out of the

37:46

woods where his mother gave birth to

37:48

him to Morgan le Fay and let

37:50

Morgan le Fay raise him to be

37:52

a superhero and his wife die the

37:54

white stag carries him back to her

37:57

after his death so the white stag

37:59

is doing more Morgan and Merlett are

38:01

obviously out there white-stagging like crazy. In

38:03

another French legend, Melior, the queen of

38:05

Byzantium, she has her pick of all

38:08

the men in the world, but her

38:10

eyes fall on Prince Partnote, who in

38:12

this story is a French prince, and

38:15

she's a wizard, so she uses a

38:17

white heart to attract him. So here

38:19

we're combining the white heart or white

38:22

stag is the symbol of courtly love,

38:24

with the idea of the idea of

38:26

the... being that lures you into the

38:29

other realm. And it's not explicitly a

38:31

realm of fairy, except she's the queen

38:33

of his antium as a wizard. And

38:36

so the white heart lures part note

38:38

to her ship, and then her ship

38:40

deposits him in an empty castle in

38:43

another land. So this is love as

38:45

kidnapping, but it's okay because it's a

38:47

girl wizard. So it seems that's creepy.

38:49

And then Robin, you've also uncovered another

38:52

story. She's a princess, and this is

38:54

a sort of pattern of the princess

38:56

making demands of various suitors. In this

38:59

case, she demands that knights bring her

39:01

the foot of a white-footed stag. So

39:03

be careful, Merlin. Be careful, Merlin. So

39:06

again, the somewhat cavalier attitude toward the

39:08

safety of this stag is in evidence

39:10

there. But obviously, again, it sends the

39:13

knights on a quest and hunting this

39:15

stag in order to prove their worth

39:17

is. When the white stag myth is

39:20

Christianized, we will assume that, oh, yes,

39:22

of course, it becomes a symbol of

39:24

Christ instead of... Romantic love, it becomes

39:27

the love of Jesus for his followers.

39:29

And both, both St. Eustace and St.

39:31

Hubert encounter white stags with crosses shining

39:33

between their antlers, and that's what converts

39:36

them. So the white stag is right

39:38

up in it in the golden legend

39:40

as well as the Arthurian legend. Richard

39:43

II favored the white stag for his

39:45

ambulance? Not a good precedent, I guess.

39:47

That's why it fell rapidly out of

39:50

favor for British royals. used the white

39:52

stag as their emblem because he had

39:54

such a disastrous and terrible rain. Yes,

39:57

don't pick something that gets hunted and

39:59

gets its foot chopped off all the

40:01

time. Arthur Macon refers to one of

40:04

these myths in the white people in

40:06

which a number of other myths are

40:08

recounted and that when the young hunter

40:11

is drawn into Anwin, the realm of

40:13

fairy, the other world, while pursuing a

40:15

white stag, he can't bring himself to

40:18

shoot. So, unlike the police officers of

40:20

mercy side, and... Unlike some fairy stories,

40:22

he's not lost forever. He wakes up

40:24

in the real world, but in Macon's

40:27

version, he's just somewhat changed forever. Now,

40:29

Heinz, a female deer, can get in

40:31

on this as well. In some versions

40:34

of the myth, a hind is featured

40:36

rather than a white stag. And the

40:38

hind can show up and perform these

40:41

mythic duties with or without being specifically

40:43

white. We should also note that the

40:45

white heart is the same as the

40:48

white stag. Heart is just an old-timey

40:50

word for stag, so. Right. And if

40:52

we want to bring in sort of

40:55

a dreamhounds of Paris sort of angle,

40:57

there is a arts group from the

40:59

30s called the White Stag Group. It

41:02

starts in London in 1935, and when

41:04

the war begins, they moved to Dublin

41:06

to, you know, get a London. That

41:08

makes sense. And so two British artists

41:11

then sort of gather a bunch of

41:13

Irish artists around in. And the main

41:15

figures are Basil Rakoshy and Kenneth Hall,

41:18

Hall, the sort of... They're modernists, they're

41:20

interested in psychology, so they're parallel to

41:22

the surrealists. Hall sort of reverse engineers'

41:25

cubism into sort of a way of

41:27

looking at the urban landscape, but Rakashi

41:29

is... very surrealist and weird and could

41:32

possibly be headed into the dreamland. So

41:34

if you're, you know, really into the...

41:36

With a name like Rakasha, you can't

41:39

rule out vampires either. Yes. Transylvania name.

41:41

And so you could, you know, if

41:43

you want to do a variant, either

41:46

vampire story or surrealist in the dreamland

41:48

story, but have it in Dublin. You

41:50

can dig out all of your arts

41:52

newspapers from the 30s. And if you

41:55

thought that the London critics hated surrealism,

41:57

will you read the Irish critics had

41:59

to say about the work of the

42:02

white stag group. So this brings us

42:04

back again to the question of what

42:06

was this stag doing? Did someone arrange

42:09

for it to be shot by the

42:11

police? It may have just shown up

42:13

to... draw somebody into Anwin into the

42:16

fairy realm and then they weren't around

42:18

because it was COVID. People were still

42:20

isolating in September of 21 and that

42:23

might well be what distressed it or

42:25

indeed the police may know in a

42:27

haunted place like Merseyside what it means

42:30

when a white stag shows up and

42:32

their story about calling animal control is

42:34

just a cover. They know that if

42:36

a white spank shows up they've got

42:39

to take care of it or it

42:41

will drag someone off into the other

42:43

realm and they might not come back.

42:46

Yeah, it was it was actually a

42:48

safety measure and maybe you know like

42:50

other safety measures it was more intense

42:53

as you say during the lockdown period

42:55

so by now a white stag might

42:57

show up somewhere and everyone would be

43:00

cool with it but in 2021 they

43:02

can't take any chances because the other

43:04

world was much creepier during that era

43:07

than it is even now and certainly

43:09

more than it was in 2008 where

43:11

when they see a white stag they

43:14

just say well it's in Scotland that's

43:16

probably a good place for it. And

43:18

then they just never told anyone where

43:21

they saw it, which I thought was

43:23

very very smart of the local white

43:25

stag team in Scotland. So yeah, it's

43:27

obviously going to show up, it's going

43:30

to bring you to adventure. It might

43:32

have brought a rakashian hall to Dublin

43:34

and then plunged into an adventure with

43:37

Irish vampires, of which there are many,

43:39

and Irish vampologists, of which there are

43:41

even more. So who can say it's

43:44

a great thing to throw into a

43:46

modern day game? It would certainly make

43:48

news if you see a... white stag

43:51

racing through the streets of any major

43:53

city and it's a way to sort

43:55

of set off your urban fantasy game

43:58

in a good direction, I think, white

44:00

stag, you know, bucking along through the

44:02

streets of Columbus, Ohio, and your group

44:05

of hippies and coffee shop baristas and

44:07

whatnot, follow it, and now you're in

44:09

the fairy realm, and fun starts. Right,

44:11

and you develop all of the fairy

44:14

powers that still somewhat manifest when you

44:16

return to the real world, or it

44:18

could be as simple as a horror

44:21

scenario where people are disappearing, there's a

44:23

white stag out there, and it turns

44:25

out that white stag is... drawing people

44:28

into the realm of fairy, but the

44:30

realm of fairy is a hideous pocket

44:32

dimension where they're devoured and the white

44:35

stag isn't a stag at all when

44:37

you look at it up close. It's

44:39

a devouring creature of the outer dark.

44:42

Because it's got, because it's got red

44:44

ears, that's how you know. Or it

44:46

could, when you look at it close

44:49

up, its face could look somewhat like

44:51

a white mask. It could be. Creature

44:53

from Carcosa luring you there. Right. Rather,

44:55

I would not like to hear it.

44:58

Thank you very much. That sounds very

45:00

scary. Yeah, you don't want him to

45:02

have the power of hern. No. He's

45:05

going to mess with you extra hard

45:07

that way. So with many different possible

45:09

scenario hooks, it's time for us to

45:12

head through this commercial. And surely what

45:14

waits for us there is not Anwin,

45:16

is not a strange other world, but

45:19

something without anything scary or frightening about

45:21

it at all. Hold

45:38

the presses stop typing the teletypes.

45:40

It's time for another card as

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GenCon TV. The best four days

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in gaming. All year long. It's

46:48

time once more to wender way up

46:50

the creepity-com grab stairs. You're going to

46:53

pause on the landing, you're going to

46:55

have a little wave to the portrait

46:57

of the fire salamander. Like all elementals,

46:59

he's friendly, and he's going to give

47:02

us a little wink. And then we're

47:04

going to head on in to the

47:06

parlor of the consulting. I called

47:08

this where this week he set up

47:11

a projector, an old-timey projector, and he's

47:13

going to show us some clips from

47:15

the originalitou. The maker of

47:17

more recent Nosforati, Robert Eggers,

47:20

has been talking about a

47:22

lot, is Alvin Grau, the

47:24

occultist, who worked as production

47:26

designer on the Murnau film.

47:29

And so, once more, we have

47:31

a combo segment in which the

47:33

cinema hut intrudes on another hut,

47:35

this time the parlor of the

47:38

consultant occultist. So, Ken, started on

47:40

the story of Gustav Alvin Rao.

47:42

He's born in 1884 in Leipzig-Shunfeld,

47:45

a district right outside Leipzig. His

47:47

father is a factory worker. He's

47:50

apprenticed eventually to a painter named

47:52

Euggen Brock, and Brock gets him

47:54

into the Dresden Art Academy, where

47:57

he is doing a pretty good

47:59

job. Bob, you know, learning all

48:01

of the things and making a

48:03

bit of a reputation for himself.

48:05

And when World War I comes

48:07

around, he's 30, which is a

48:10

little old to be conscripted into

48:12

frontline. infantry service and also by

48:14

then he's got the room it

48:16

is pretty bad Robin you know

48:18

you just really flares up maybe

48:20

he should be left home oh

48:22

no he can't he winds up

48:24

being sent to the eastern front

48:26

but as a paramedic then as

48:28

an anesthetist and orderly during which

48:30

he performs amputations and this I

48:32

think is where he says I've

48:35

got to get out of this

48:37

job and starts drawing the other

48:39

officers and they say, oh, you're

48:41

an artist, go to the HQ

48:43

and make maps and that's what

48:45

he does for the rest of

48:47

the war. And later, possibly while

48:49

doing publicity for Noes-Farratu, he claims

48:51

to have met the son of

48:53

a vampire in Serbia in the

48:55

Germans are invading Serbia and he

48:57

meets an old farmer and the

49:00

old farmer says, oh you Germans

49:02

are nothing, my dad was a

49:04

vampire. And that's just one of

49:06

those things that happens that happens.

49:08

according to him in the Balkans.

49:10

Right. And I guess it's possible

49:12

if your dad was turned into

49:14

a vampire afterwards because then. Otherwise,

49:16

why aren't you a vampire? Well,

49:18

the Serbian version, the vampire doesn't

49:20

become a vampire until after he's

49:22

been buried wrong, and then he

49:25

comes up out of the grave

49:27

and starts messing with the family,

49:29

and that's when they have to,

49:31

you know, chop his head off.

49:33

Oh, so it's like the word

49:35

a lot. Right, exactly. So lots

49:37

of people are sons of vampires

49:39

in Serbia. Yeah, one imagines, it's

49:41

an ongoing problem. And that's why

49:43

a random draftsman would get to

49:45

meet the son of a vampire

49:47

while invading Serbia while invading Serbia.

49:50

Anyway, the random draftsman then goes

49:52

into the Berlin film industry after

49:54

the war, and he's doing mostly

49:56

paintings and posters and advertisements because

49:58

there's a big need for it

50:00

because the Berlin film industry is

50:02

a million different tiny studios, and

50:04

they all need an edge when

50:06

they're showing their movies. And 1920,

50:08

a lifelong interest in the occult,

50:10

leads him to found the Lisuscenda

50:12

Bruder. brothers who seek the light

50:15

as a little occult group that

50:17

he's in charge of. Which is

50:19

also a great name for a

50:21

cinematographer's guilt. Yes, right. Also in

50:23

1920, he meets F.W. Murnau, the

50:25

director, when designing the posters for

50:27

Murnau's film Durgong Indienacht, in 1921.

50:29

He joins the Ordo Temple Orientalis,

50:31

which is the sort of Golden

50:33

Dawn version, a little more Rosicrucian,

50:35

but more formal and hardcore. His

50:37

OTO name is Frater Positeus. The

50:40

guy who induct him is a

50:42

guy named Heinrich Traker, who has

50:44

taken over the OTO when the

50:46

main guy who founded it has

50:48

a stroke. Traker is an occult

50:50

bookseller from Leipzig, and so I

50:52

wonder maybe if Tranker and Grown

50:54

knew each other back in Leipzig

50:56

when Grows just an art student

50:58

and buying occult books to get

51:00

inspired for his art. In 1921,

51:02

Grau sets up Prana film as

51:05

a partner along with a guy

51:07

named Enrico Deekmund, who is a

51:09

businessman, or says he is a

51:11

businessman. Hollywood is older than Hollywood.

51:13

And unknown investors, at least one

51:15

of them is a noble, a

51:17

baron. But we don't know very

51:19

much about the Prana investors because

51:21

of spoilers Robin. Prana goes horribly

51:23

bankrupt and no one gets their

51:25

money back or wants to be

51:27

involved in it. But also in

51:29

1921, he makes Nosferatu with Murnau.

51:32

He is the producer, he's the

51:34

production designer, he drew the storyboards,

51:36

he does the set and costume

51:38

designs, he conceptualized the look of

51:40

Orlock, he painted the posters and

51:42

ads, and then he also inserted

51:44

the occult elements into the props

51:46

and the script, the classic example,

51:48

being when you see Orlock's contract

51:50

with Knock, it's written partially in

51:52

Anokian, and that is because they

51:54

said we need a contract, I'm

51:57

on it and drew a... a

51:59

cool magic contract. The screenwriter Henry

52:01

Galene was a Rosicrucian, so he's

52:03

on on team occult with Rau,

52:05

and the result was that Nosferatu

52:07

is suffused with occultism and Eerie

52:09

Power and what one reviewer in

52:11

Germany said that was allowed to

52:13

watch them film it is that

52:15

all of the angles and shadows

52:17

are designed for psychological effect. So

52:19

we've got a little William Morgenstern

52:22

going on with Grau as well.

52:24

He's doing that. It's also like

52:26

saying it's an expressionist film. It's

52:28

like saying that. Yeah. Yeah. Also,

52:30

Grau did the original lettering for

52:32

the first German version of the

52:34

intertidal. So if any of you

52:36

out there are extremely enterprising... Fockmakers,

52:38

you could go and create an

52:40

Orlock Nosferatu album. So in 1922,

52:42

Nosferatu is released and it becomes

52:44

a giant hit. Oh, now it

52:47

doesn't. The thing, like so many

52:49

cases around cinema history, a thing

52:51

that is now an acknowledged classic

52:53

thing that has influenced so many

52:55

other films, initially just regular people.

52:57

are uninterested in it and it

52:59

takes generations of fans to back

53:01

project it into legendary status. Also

53:03

Dickman has done his share of

53:05

making things worse by offending the

53:07

guys in charge of UFA who

53:09

are both the biggest production studio

53:12

in Germany and also own the

53:14

biggest chain of theaters in Germany.

53:16

And so they're not allowed to

53:18

show it in any UFA theater.

53:20

So it's already an uphill climb.

53:22

And the fact that it's a

53:24

weird creepy vampire movie probably doesn't

53:26

help. Right. And as a side

53:28

note listeners, if you want to

53:30

sound extra pretentious, say UFA the

53:32

way the Germans said, UFA. UFA.

53:34

Yes. All right. So, 1922 Prana

53:37

film declares bankruptcy. It never makes

53:39

any of its other scheduled films.

53:41

Saptaparna, which is about a magic

53:43

Buddhist plant, Dreams of Hell, which

53:45

explains itself right there, Non-Mortis about

53:47

an invisible wizard, Allah Zanoni in

53:49

the Bulberlinton book, and the Devil

53:51

of the Swamp, which was meant

53:53

to be a cool serial. It

53:55

did have a Paganini script in

53:57

development and Conrad Vyke. the actor,

53:59

producer, took that and made it

54:02

as a vehicle for himself. This

54:04

sounds a lot like a time

54:06

enemy, killed Prana films in order

54:08

to prevent all of these great films

54:10

from coming into being, doesn't it?

54:12

It does sound a little bit

54:14

like a time enemy, or it

54:17

sounds like Enrico Dickman did it

54:19

by being an embezzler and weasel.

54:21

And again, lots of time enemies

54:23

in film production. I'm not saying

54:25

there aren't, but there's even more

54:27

embezzlers and wezzles. just like drinking somebody

54:29

under the table is to find a

54:32

weasel. Is to get an embezzling weasel

54:34

in charge of a film company. Yeah,

54:36

that's true. Yeah, it could all go

54:38

back to the one cause. Anyhow, a

54:40

growl and deepman, growl is not yet...

54:43

alert to the fact that Deatman is

54:45

a weasel, spin-off a new company called

54:47

Pan Films and they make a film

54:49

called Shotten. By this time, Growl is

54:51

beginning to get a little tired of

54:53

working with Deatman and Tranker, his old

54:56

buddy from the OTO, has founded a

54:58

new occult group, the Collegium Pansoficam, this

55:00

is in 1924, becomes the grandmaster

55:02

and sets up Alvin Growl as

55:04

the chairman of the Mother Lodge

55:07

of the Orient Berlin. And the

55:09

Orient, you'll note, is from the

55:11

OTO, so he's trying to sort

55:13

of say that Pensoffia includes the

55:15

OTO, but you don't have to

55:17

do all the hard part, you

55:19

just have to pay dues. And

55:21

that, along with a 10% discount

55:23

from participating occult booksellers, this is

55:26

the first reason to join in

55:28

a cult group I've ever seen

55:30

that works for me. That gets

55:32

a thousand people to join the

55:34

Pensoffian Lodge, which makes it very

55:37

big. The Godpan, it means the

55:39

overstructure. Right. And so Grau initiates

55:41

a guy named Oigen Grosia, he's

55:44

initiated him into the OTO, and

55:46

Grosia, who takes the magic name

55:48

Frater, Gregor, Gorgorgorius, he becomes the

55:50

lodge secretary. Then, maybe because he's

55:53

made connections from Rich Dolts, he

55:55

gets another gig at Ufa, he

55:57

directs the love pirate for Ufa.

56:00

and then set designs the House

56:02

of Lies for Rex film. That's

56:04

his last feature film. And he

56:06

finishes that in July of 25,

56:08

just as Alistair Crowley, everyone's favorite,

56:10

shows up in Thringen, Hohenloiben, to

56:12

Tranker's house. He's basically invited himself

56:14

over because he was thrown out

56:16

of France and Belgium. And he

56:18

says. He asked himself, what other

56:20

occult lodge could I go interfere

56:22

with? that you're saying you're in

56:24

charge of the OTO, Trinker, whereas

56:26

I am Alice or Crowley and

56:28

I'm in charge of the OTO.

56:30

And if I'm in charge of

56:32

the OTO, then I'm also in

56:34

charge of your pan-sofic lodge with

56:36

its thousand members in their sweet

56:38

dues money. and because Crowley is

56:40

impressive and able to talk the

56:42

best occult game ever, while he's

56:44

in the woods in Thringia, he

56:46

will stop and talk to invisible

56:48

spirits and everyone's like, oh my

56:50

goodness. And they say, what's going

56:52

on with that? And someone says,

56:54

well, when you're a level of

56:57

initiate like Crowley, gnomes and elementals

56:59

of dryads come talk to you.

57:01

And you'll know that when you're

57:03

a high enough level. And Grosia,

57:05

who does not believe it then,

57:07

later achieves the level of elemental

57:09

command. And sure enough, gnomes show

57:11

up. So he's turned around on

57:13

the whole Crowley question. But at

57:15

this point, Grosia is on team

57:17

suspicious. Tranker basically knuckles under and

57:19

says, yes, Crowley is obviously better

57:21

for the OTO. He's got more

57:23

press. He's doing a better job.

57:25

He's written the cool book of

57:27

the law. He should run the

57:29

OTO. But. I'm not letting him

57:31

have the pan-sofia. So what began

57:33

is the Hohenleuben Conference, moves to

57:35

Vida just up the road, and

57:37

that's where Trancor's private secretary, Karl

57:39

Germer, lives. Germer, who is Trancor's

57:41

private secretary, Karl Germer, lives, Germer,

57:43

who is Trancor's private secretary despite

57:45

being richer than Trancher, he's Frater

57:47

Saternes, apparently. has been lost? Question

57:49

mark. And the conference ends with

57:52

a communique acknowledging Crowley as the

57:54

teacher of the world and a

57:56

very important figure in Rosicrucianism and

57:58

Theosophy and in the OTO. And

58:00

so in theory now Crowley is

58:02

in charge. Traker immediately renounces the

58:04

communique as does growl and growl

58:06

writes the book of the zero

58:08

hour as an attempt to take

58:10

What's good in the book of

58:12

the law and redact all the

58:14

Crowley nonsense out of it for

58:16

use by the OTO? Tranker then

58:18

petitions the German office of the

58:20

state attorney to expel Crowley from

58:22

Germany, a plan that has worked

58:24

in virtually every good country. But

58:26

Growl's like, well, that's not very

58:28

hospitable. He was a guest in

58:30

your house. He talked all those

58:32

elementals. And so Growl then breaks

58:34

with Tranker. Crowley, meanwhile, starts conspiring

58:36

conspiring with Germer to prosecute, for

58:38

fraud. your wealth. How can you

58:40

stand that? Which is... I get

58:42

these occultes out of here. Alistair

58:44

Crowley said. I love this. I

58:46

love this so much. And also

58:49

they're, you know, condemning each other

58:51

to the abyss and summoning, you

58:53

know, demons and whatnot. It's very,

58:55

it's a cool magic battle. A

58:57

cult infighting. It happens. Right. So

58:59

in 1926, growd demands that Tranker

59:01

resign as the Grand Master of

59:03

Pensopheus. Since Pensofi is supposed to

59:05

Pensoffen Sophie is supposed to be.

59:07

We welcome everyone's. Triker refuses to

59:09

resign as the Grand Master, so

59:11

Grouse says, well, I'm chairman of

59:13

the main lodge in Berlin, and

59:15

I'm dissolving it. And it was

59:17

dissolved in a beautiful ceremony. And

59:19

that sort of spikes Tranker's guns

59:21

a little bit, because Germer takes

59:23

the other two-thirds of the OTO

59:25

out and sets up the Thethelma

59:27

Verlog to publish Crowley and basically

59:29

becomes the real head of the

59:31

OTO in Germany under Crowley. So,

59:33

the sort of the leftovers under

59:35

Grosia start a new group called

59:37

the Fraternity Saturni and Grosia invites

59:39

Grou to run it and Groul

59:41

at this point has said, I

59:44

think I've had enough of running

59:46

an occult group, it's... more headache

59:48

than it's worth. I'm resigning on

59:50

my occult posts. I just wanted

59:52

to wear a cool scarf. He

59:54

just wanted to draw vampires. How

59:56

hard is that? All this politics

59:58

and fighting and nonsense. Right. It's

1:00:00

too annoying. And not even enough

1:00:02

nouns. Right. That just, no one,

1:00:04

not everyone doesn't even get to

1:00:06

see the gnomes. You have to

1:00:08

be secret gnomes. So he's still

1:00:10

on good terms with Grosia. He

1:00:12

contributes several pieces, both art and

1:00:14

prose to the fraternitas. Saternitas, Saturni

1:00:16

journal Saturna Saturna Saturna Saturna Saturna

1:00:18

Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna,

1:00:20

Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna,

1:00:22

Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna,

1:00:24

Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna,

1:00:26

Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna, Saturna,

1:00:28

Saturna, This here in the story,

1:00:30

Ken, is where I start to

1:00:32

look at the dates and go,

1:00:34

oh, no, Alvin Browis is so

1:00:36

dead. He's not going to make

1:00:38

it out of this story. Well,

1:00:41

we none of us make it

1:00:43

out of the story, but he

1:00:45

has a narrower great than most.

1:00:47

Not all of us die in

1:00:49

the 30s. Well, Growd also does

1:00:51

not die in the 30s. The

1:00:53

Gestapo, in 33, there's a law

1:00:55

against secret societies. Then in 37,

1:00:57

there's a new full-on, even occult

1:00:59

groups that support Aryan magic and

1:01:01

vulkish belief are also shut down.

1:01:03

But in between those, in 36,

1:01:05

the Gestapo raids the fraternitas saterni,

1:01:07

siezes Grosia's library, Grosia gets away

1:01:09

to Switzerland. Now, the growl legend

1:01:11

said that he also fled to

1:01:13

Switzerland, but there is a new...

1:01:15

German biography of growl that I

1:01:17

did not read but that other

1:01:19

people have and they say that

1:01:21

in that new biography it turns

1:01:23

out growl basically said you can't

1:01:25

kill me i can draw maps

1:01:27

and they said well we do

1:01:29

have a war coming up yeah

1:01:31

you want you want to see

1:01:33

real magic cartography because photography is

1:01:35

real magic and so growl gets

1:01:38

put into a logistics company and

1:01:40

draws maps for the very much

1:01:42

logistics and it works as a

1:01:44

technical draftsman and that's what his

1:01:46

job is in the war is

1:01:48

he's somewhere drawn maps of rail

1:01:50

lines and figuring out how many

1:01:52

people can fit on a rail

1:01:54

car, hopefully just for the army

1:01:56

going east, not for anybody else.

1:01:58

And then in 1946, after the

1:02:00

war is over, he moves as

1:02:02

close to Switzerland as he can

1:02:04

get, a town called Bierchzel, and

1:02:06

there he just works as a

1:02:08

landscape artist and leaves all of

1:02:10

his nonsense behind, one assumes, in

1:02:12

1971 he dies. And that is

1:02:14

the story of Albin Groul, which

1:02:16

gets super exciting, not when you

1:02:18

think the life of a German

1:02:20

occultist would, but in the 20s.

1:02:22

Right. So if we have trail

1:02:24

of Kufulu characters somewhat early or

1:02:26

called Fulu characters, they can meet

1:02:28

him and get involved with all

1:02:30

of these a cult fussing around

1:02:33

and infighting. I think it's always

1:02:35

better to treat that as sort

1:02:37

of background nonsense. But as various

1:02:39

people have put a real vampire

1:02:41

into the filming of Masperatu, the

1:02:43

shadow of vampire film of the

1:02:45

Willem de Fau. In which Udokir,

1:02:47

a beloved German actor, plays Albengrau.

1:02:49

So when you watch it, keep

1:02:51

an eye out. Yes, and that's

1:02:53

good casting. He actually quite looks

1:02:55

like Udokir. So if you're going

1:02:57

to have Udokir in a vampire.

1:02:59

So anyway, Growl can be a

1:03:01

great source of information or connections

1:03:03

to the occult underground and of

1:03:05

course he can introduce you to

1:03:07

the Serbian son of a vampire.

1:03:09

Yeah, and you know, obviously if

1:03:11

you're making people vampires, Growl having

1:03:13

moved to an obscure mountain town

1:03:15

and never coming out of it

1:03:17

again is I think classic vampire

1:03:19

behavior. And so yeah, he died

1:03:21

in that there was a dead

1:03:23

body that kind of looked like

1:03:25

him, the great artist and makeup

1:03:27

artist and person possible with vampire

1:03:30

powers for flesh crafting. So maybe

1:03:32

Alvin Growe is still around and

1:03:34

still trying to decide, maybe I

1:03:36

don't want to get involved in

1:03:38

things. And the player's job in

1:03:40

a Knights Black Agents campaign is

1:03:42

to carefully see whether or not

1:03:44

he is still part of the

1:03:46

machinations or if he's still neutral,

1:03:48

does he have information they can

1:03:50

use? Does he have a drawing

1:03:52

of a key NPC that you're

1:03:54

hunting down from the headdy days

1:03:56

of Berlin? you know he can

1:03:58

be a resource vampire or he

1:04:00

could in fact have learned his

1:04:02

lesson and when he starts his

1:04:04

new occult group it's not going

1:04:06

to be with a bunch of

1:04:08

captious annoying people he's going to

1:04:10

be carefully recruiting them over the

1:04:12

decades and he's got a new

1:04:14

group of people that are up

1:04:16

on a mountaintop in Switzerland doing

1:04:18

magic that powers his Vampiric plans

1:04:20

whatever they are and even drew

1:04:22

the beautiful maps that are the

1:04:25

handouts exactly yeah well I think

1:04:27

with a possibly vampiric or at

1:04:29

least definitely a cultic cartographer that

1:04:31

we've done our job here And

1:04:33

we can once again pat ourselves

1:04:35

in the back and prepare for

1:04:37

a return a mere week from

1:04:39

today. Stuff that we once again

1:04:41

been talked about is time to

1:04:43

thank our sponsors. Atlas Games. Pelgreen

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1:04:49

as always is by a James

1:04:51

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1:04:53

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when once again we will talk

1:05:24

about stuff.