Red Moon Roleplaying

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Curse of Strahd 17: Orphanim Jul 26, 2018

Show notes

In Ezekiel, the throne of God is said to be moved around on wheels: “The four wheels had rims and they had spokes, and their rims were full of eyes round about.” These wheels are called the “Orphanim”.

Other texts, such as the first book of Enoch portray these Orphanim as a class of celestial beings, angels, listed alongside the Seraphim and the Cherubim. They are said to never sleep and guard the throne of God with their many eyes.

Campaign: “Curse of Strahd”, Dungeons & Dragons
Music by: Metatron Omega, Flowers for Bodysnatchers & Wordclock

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Curse of Strahd 16: Prometheus Jul 20, 2018

Show notes

The story of Prometheus, the champion who stole fire from the gods to give to humanity, is a story about us as a species. It's about our efforts to improve our existence and not accepting things as they are. It's also a tragic story about overreach and unintended consequences for that ambition. The immortal Prometheus is ultimately punished by the gods and bound to a rock. Every day an eagle would come to eat his liver, only to have it grow back overnight; repeating the process the next day.

The liver was thought to be the seat of human emotions, and similar to Mary Shelley's "Modern Prometheus", Victor Frankenstein, both men suffer greatly for their ambitions.

In Frankenstein one of the final words of the protagonist is to "avoid ambition".
But we wouldn't be human if we did...

Campaign: “Curse of Strahd”, Dungeons & Dragons
Music by: Metatron Omega, Flowers for Bodysnatchers & Wordclock

KULT: Divinity Lost - Oakwood Heights, Act III Jul 16, 2018

Show notes

Zug Island is a man-made island in the river Rouge in the southern part of Detroit. It’s home to a large ironmaking industry with massive blast furnaces. Ore and coal is brought to the island via train and pig iron and coke shipped out. At its peak thousands of people worked there, today only a few hundred, mainly due to automatization and the decline in manufacturing throughout the rust belt.

The ”Zug Island hum” are mysterious cyclical rumblings and vibrations that can be felt as far away eighty kilometers away. It is believed they are emanating from the iron-making facilities, but studies are inconclusive and the city has cancelled further investigations due to the general lack of funds.

Adventure: “Oakwood Heights", KULT: Divinity Lost, Helmgast
Music by: Atrium Carceri
Recorded with Josh and Tallsquall from Encounter Roleplay

Curse of Strahd 15: Traducianism Jul 12, 2018

Show notes

Traducianism is a Christian doctrine about the origins of the soul originally championed by scholars such as Tertullian. It holds that God created Adam’s soul but that all the souls created thereafter are actually generated naturally along with the body and derived from the individual’s parents. This is in opposition to the creationist view on souls which states that God creates each new individual soul.

Traducianists argue that this does not make sense in relation to fundamental tenets such as the original sin. God created all things ”very good” but in order for the original sin to be transferred, the creationist view would require God to create sinful souls. They also argue that God’s creation is supposed to be finished, so how could he still be required to create new souls?

Finally, in Genesis 6 there are stories of offspring with human bodies and demonic souls, resulting from the union of angels and humans. Surely God could not be responsible for having created those demonic souls?

However, the creationist view is held firmly today within the Roman Catholic Church. It is in line with the churches’ stance against abortion and according to “The Catechism of the Catholic Church”, 366, “The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God – it is not ‘ produced’ by the parents”, thus helping the church to, in their view, solidify the personhood and sanctity of each embryo.

Campaign: “Curse of Strahd”, Dungeons & Dragons
Music by: Metatron Omega, Flowers for Bodysnatchers & Wordclock

KULT: Divinity Lost - Oakwood Heights, Act II Jul 10, 2018

Show notes

Oakwood Heights is in the heavily industrialized southwestern part of Detroit. The neighborhood is relatively densely populated but also ranks as the most polluted in all of Michigan. The population has dropped by more than 20% since the year 2000 and is 75% African-American with almost 30% of all residents living below the poverty line.

Most states have regulations regarding how close industries can be to residential areas, but not Michigan. The Marathon Petroleum Company is located right by the neighborhood and long-term residents, unsurprisingly, have higher levels of respiratory diseases and cancer.

In 2010 the Detroit Free Press reported this about the area “For the past six months, a rain of mysterious sparkly dust of unknown origin has landed on their homes and gardens. Odd odors and clouds of dark particles float overhead”.

Adventure: “Oakwood Heights", KULT: Divinity Lost, Helmgast
Music by: Atrium Carceri
Recorded with Josh and Tallsquall from Encounter Roleplay

Curse of Strahd 14: Westinghoused Jul 05, 2018

Show notes

Electrocution is a portmanteau of” electro” and “execution” and was originally coined to describe electrical execution through the electric chair. At the time the “war of currents” between Thomas Edison’s direct current (DC) and George Westinghouse’s alternating current (AC) was at its peak. Edison and anti-AC activist Harold Brown had managed to get AC to be selected for powering the chair and were now portraying it as the “executioner’s current”.

The New York Times, who was generally supportive of Edison, tried to introduce the word “Westinghoused” to describe the execution method and thus discredit AC. The war raged on with DC scoring many propaganda victories like this.

However, AC was ultimately victorious, this after Thomas Edison had ended up sidelined in the new Edison General Electric company and he, and his dogmatic anti-AC stance, no longer kept the war going.

Campaign: “Curse of Strahd”, Dungeons & Dragons
Music by: Metatron Omega, Flowers for Bodysnatchers & Wordclock

Tales from the Loop: Horror Movie Mayhem, Part 2 of 2 Jul 03, 2018

Show notes

Moral panic was widespread fear and social concern of a, usually hitherto unknown, evil that threatened society and, preferably, innocent children. The fear was spread by ”moral entrepreneurs” as well as the mass media.

Often it related to new phenomena that young people enjoyed, such as heavy metal music, roleplaying games or video nasties. Moral panic could also be generated targeting groups that were seen as threats to social norms in a community, outsiders like mods and rockers or the LGBT community.

It’s good that we have gotten past this as a society… now it will never happen again.

Adventure: “Horror Movie Mayhem", Tales from the Loop, Fria Ligan

Music by: Gabrielle De Bourg

KULT: Divinity Lost - Oakwood Heights, Act I Jul 02, 2018

Show notes

We are big fans of the wonderful people over at Encounter Roleplay who stream tremendous amounts of high quality roleplaying goodness every week, both in their own Twitch channel as well as the official DnD-channel. They also produce two top-class podcasts with a fairly similar tone to ours, "Turncloaks" and "Tomes & Tentacles", that we can heartily recommend.

We recently had the opportunity to do a collaboration with Josh and Tallsquall from Encounter Roleplay and our own DM extraordinaire Craig decided to take them to the lovely neighborhood of Oakwood Heights, Detroit in the year 2015. Enjoy!

"It is a grey and cold winter’s day in Detroit, as members of the public prosecutor’s office and police force shepherd the accused Franklin Mills around his crime scenes, located throughout the city. The objective is to attain clarity of what happened on that fateful day back in August, the motive behind the cruel murders, the child who disappeared, and whether Franklin Mills really lost his memory."

Adventure: “Oakwood Heights", KULT: Divinity Lost, Helmgast
Music by: Atrium Carceri

Curse of Strahd 13: Heliophobia Jun 28, 2018

Show notes

In Bram Stoker’s "Dracula" the eponymous Count was weakened by sunlight, but it did not kill him. Trying to trace where the idea of vampires exploding in to a cloud of dust or catching on fire when in sunlight seems to lead to the 1922 movie Nosferatu. In the movie, Count Orlok needs to sleep by day as the sunlight would otherwise kill him.

One theory goes that this element was introduced in order to differentiate the story somewhat from "Dracula" which it quite proudly stole most of it's plot from.

The attempts at differentiating were not enough however and the movie company Prana Film was forced to declare bankruptcy after Florence Stoker, Bram’s widow and holder of the estate, sued the company for copyright infringement and won.

Campaign: “Curse of Strahd”, Dungeons & Dragons
Music by: Metatron Omega, Flowers for Bodysnatchers & Wordclock

Tales from the Loop: Horror Movie Mayhem, Part 1 of 2 Jun 27, 2018

Show notes

We are joined by the talented Gabrielle De Bourg who GM's Hjalmar and Craig through "Horror Movie Mayhem", an adventure she has created for the game "Tales from the Loop" by Free League that is included in the module "Our Friends the Machines & Other Mysteries".

_"It is the summer of 1988, 30 years ago today, and the Parent Teacher Association are about to hold a Culture Festival in the little society of Stenhamra on Mälaröarna to celebrate the fine culture offerings in the area.

But as soon as it has begun, notes are landing in the mailboxes and adults are going door-to-door. Because there is one type of culture that they think is dangerous. Everywhere they are talking about the Video Nasties and how it's making the children violent.

But is there something more hidden behind it all? Come along for an adventure about moral panic, LGBT and paranoia in Simon Stålenhags 80's that never was in this Horror Movie Mayhem."_

Adventure: “Horror Movie Mayhem", Tales from the Loop, Fria Ligan
Music by: Gabrielle De Bourg

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