Real World All Myths Are True

[Amiel]

This thread is for world building and adventure hook ideas; basically plot ideas involved/to be used in running a modern fantasy/urban fantasy game; and developing novel ways to tying in real world myths/rumors/half-truths/conspiracies into something that could ring true in a modern/urban fantasy setting.
Also for the sharing of ideas


Real World Mysteries

Theories
Concerning the Sphinx of Giza

The stones used to carve the Sphinx at Giza originated not from this earth but from the same dark and empty space holding Orion's belt

Flung imbedded in an asteroid and across the eons of antiquity, it is rumored the Sphinx took shape not from mortal imagination but from psychic impressions inexorably transfixing the brain - the artisans involved in the making of the Sphinx freed its image from the asteroid and the debris and devastation its passing created in its wake

Any with psychic potential or awareness standing in front of the Sphinx have their minds bled into, and a strange black oil - later seen on MRI - replaces the body's cerebrospinal fluid. These individuals develop psychic gifts - prophecy, mind-reading, mesmerization, telekinesis.
Curiously, out of these psychically sensitive few, there are a handful whom the Sphinx seems to reject - causing the brain to be rent from the body and contorting the torso and limbs so they look nothing more like over long tendrils

The dreams the psychically gifted have are replaced by the Sphinx with nightmares of twisting mazes and non-euclidean obelisks

Something in the recent past has caused the nose of the Sphinx to break apart from the structure, sending odd-shaped cracks around the face, almost like grasping entwined claws and made what looks curiously like yellow-parched flesh appear visible

This has caused the Sphinx to fall oddly silent

---
Basically a mix between Nylarhotep, the King in Yellow, Orion Correlation Theory, and mythos surrounding the Sphinx.
Of course, it possibly came out a tinge too Lovecraftian for anyone's tastes

Also, there might be a certain amount of horror/supernaturalness/wrongness to it all

[DM Nate]

What the f...

[Amiel]

What the f...

Basically a mix between Nylarhotep, the King in Yellow, Orion Correlation Theory, and mythos surrounding the Sphinx.
Of course, it possibly came out a tinge too Lovecraftian for anyone's tastes

I could have alternate takes, a la Theories

[DM Nate]

I meant more like...what is the point of this thread?

[Amiel]

I meant more like...what is the point of this thread?

World building and adventure hook ideas; basically plot ideas involved/to be used in running a modern fantasy/urban fantasy game
Could be better served existing in the Homebrew forums maybe

Also, for the sharing of ideas

[Synar]

World building and adventure hook ideas; basically plot ideas involved/to be used in running a modern fantasy/urban fantasy game
Could be better served existing in the Homebrew forums maybe

Also, for the sharing of ideas

I beleive that the issue faced by the readers of the thread arises from the fact that there is no introduction, no explanation, no "post these here", no question asked, no requests, no indication of sarcasm or seriousness, no "lets discuss that", no issue showed, ..., and absolutely no context or instructions in your original post.

I mean, your post looks a lot like the kind of post a bot would let (which I assumed you were until I saw you were an ogre-itP). You may want to improve on that, so people stay here and discuss/post things here instead of scratching their head and going somewhere else.

[Amiel]

I beleive that the issue faced by the readers of the thread arises from the fact that there is no introduction, no explanation, no "post these here", no question asked, no requests, no indication of sarcasm or seriousness, no "lets discuss that", no issue showed, ..., and absolutely no context or instructions in your original post.

I mean, your post looks a lot like the kind of post a bot would let (which I assumed you were until I saw you were an ogre-itP). You may want to improve on that, so people stay here and discuss/post things here instead of scratching their head and going somewhere else.

I highly doubt a bot would write something as purple prose as all that :p.

I'll edit something into the first post; cheers

[Grinner]

My favorite source for things such as these is the Rumors section of the Unknown Armies corebook.

Favorites include:

• Every single president of the United States has had a glass eye. The same glass eye.
• The penis of John Dillinger in the Smithsonian’s secret vault is a fake. The genuine article has dark magickal properties and has been grafted onto a chimpanzee which can be controlled via ULF radio waves by the fendish Brazos brothers, two gifted technological adepts, in the service of darker powers.
• Bigfoot has a Social Security Number.
• There are eight insect legs in every bar of chocolate. And it’s some guy’s job to put them in.
• Seven colors in the rainbow. Seven chakras in the Sanskrit texts. Seven varieties of Barbasol shaving cream, if you count the discontinued Wintergreen gel. Do I have to draw you a picture?

I think you can view them all in the book's preview.

[Amiel]

My favorite source for things such as these is the Rumors section of the Unknown Armies corebook.

Favorites include:

• Every single president of the United States has had a glass eye. The same glass eye.
• The penis of John Dillinger in the Smithsonian’s secret vault is a fake. The genuine article has dark magickal properties and has been grafted onto a chimpanzee which can be controlled via ULF radio waves by the fendish Brazos brothers, two gifted technological adepts, in the service of darker powers.
• Bigfoot has a Social Security Number.
• There are eight insect legs in every bar of chocolate. And it’s some guy’s job to put them in.
• Seven colors in the rainbow. Seven chakras in the Sanskrit texts. Seven varieties of Barbasol shaving cream, if you count the discontinued Wintergreen gel. Do I have to draw you a picture?

I think you can view them all in the book's preview.

Mine pretty much as well; there's some really neat ideas in there. I need to break it out again

Similarly, the Secret World trailer has some good ones as well

• The Host were here before us
• There is a city on the moon
• Eleven days are missing
• The Earth is hollow
• There are portals in time and space
• The bees are returning
• The bees are dying
• The Tower of Babel never fell
• The Old Gods are awakening
• Atlantis rises
• The Ark of the Covenant is an engine
• Stonehenge is a beacon
• The Fountain of Youth is poisoned
• Immortal beings walk the earth
• The Planets are aligning
• The End of Days are here
• The Dark Places are crawling
• The Morning Light burns
• The Dreamers whisper
• A blight befalls the Garden of Eden
• We have dug too deep
• Lilith's children are unchained
• Pandora's Box is opening up

[Amiel]

Real World Mysteries

Theories
Concerning the Sphinx of Giza

The stones used to carve the Sphinx at Giza originated not from this earth but from the same dark and empty space holding Orion's belt

Flung imbedded in an asteroid and across the eons of antiquity, it is rumored the Sphinx took shape not from mortal imagination but from psychic impressions inexorably transfixing the brain - the artisans involved in the making of the Sphinx freed its image from the asteroid and the debris and devastation its passing created in its wake

Any with psychic potential or awareness standing in front of the Sphinx have their minds bled into, and a strange black oil - later seen on MRI - replaces the body's cerebrospinal fluid. These individuals develop psychic gifts - prophecy, mind-reading, mesmerization, telekinesis.
Curiously, out of these psychically sensitive few, there are a handful whom the Sphinx seems to reject - causing the brain to be rent from the body and contorting the torso and limbs so they look nothing more like over long tendrils

The dreams the psychically gifted have are replaced by the Sphinx with nightmares of twisting mazes and non-euclidean obelisks

Something in the recent past has caused the nose of the Sphinx to break apart from the structure, sending odd-shaped cracks around the face, almost like grasping entwined claws and made what looks curiously like yellow-parched flesh appear visible

This has caused the Sphinx to fall oddly silent

The obvious question and perhaps the Sphinx's greatest enigma is whom does its countenance depict?

The facial characteristics suggest an ethnicity endemic to the region yet the flaring and singular curvature of its headdress brings to mind the appearance of hair or a hood akin to that of a cobra.

The destruction of the nose through chiseling tools or natural erosion has distorted the face to bearing an emancipated gaunt quality and the semblance of a great ape

[Ravens_cry]

This probably isn't your intention, but there is certain racist undertones to the whole 'Aliens/Gods/Demons built X' myths, since the original basis for the idea was that there is 'obviously' no way the benighted and savage indigenous people could have built X, so it must have been some other, outside agency.

[DM Nate]

This probably isn't your intention, but there is certain racist undertones to the whole 'Aliens/Gods/Demons built X' myths, since the original basis for the idea was that there is 'obviously' no way the benighted and savage indigenous people could have built X, so it must have been some other, outside agency.

I dunno about that. They say that about Stonehenge too, and those people were pure white Celts.

[Ravens_cry]

I dunno about that. They say that about Stonehenge too, and those people were pure white Celts.

Oh, if you go back into Victorian times, the English people could be hella racist about Celts.

[DM Nate]

Oh, if you go back into Victorian times, the English people could be hella racist about Celts.

True, but I thought your concern was in racist undertones nowadays. Plenty of people nowadays still posit alien intervention for Stonehenge.

[Ravens_cry]

True, but I thought your concern was in racist undertones nowadays. Plenty of people nowadays still posit alien intervention for Stonehenge.

I am saying where the stories come from. They go back a ways.

[Beleriphon]

I'll just leave this here:

Spoiler

Show

[Amiel]

This probably isn't your intention, but there is certain racist undertones to the whole 'Aliens/Gods/Demons built X' myths, since the original basis for the idea was that there is 'obviously' no way the benighted and savage indigenous people could have built X, so it must have been some other, outside agency.

Well, this is perhaps similar to the question as to how or where good or evil arose (in say, a D&D/PF game, or any other setting where alignment outsiders or conceptual manifestations exist); did such concepts as good or evil arise as cosmic ideals or did they came about due to mortal doing?

And of course, what is written above is merely a theory, other theories as to its construction or what it represents exist.