Adventure seed: “Kozlov’s Endemic Pattern-Layering Syndrome.”

Kozlov’s Endemic Pattern-Layering Syndrome – Google Docs

Kozlov’s Endemic Pattern-Layering Syndrome

(Blame this.)

This unique disease was named after Sergei Kozlov, a minor bureaucratic official working at Naryan-Mar during the Khrushchev regime.  On December 16, 1960 Comrade Kozlov was admitted to a state facility for observation after it was discovered that the pattern on his pajamas had spread to his wrists and ankles – and that removing his pajamas revealed that the same pattern had colonized the rest of his body, albeit at a much slower rate. Over the next four months the condition was studied, meticulously: Koslov’s Pattern spread until it covered the entire body, then began imposing itself on the hospital bed and floor.   Throughout Kozlov continually complained of mild headaches, nervous irritation, and shadow sensations every time somebody touched or otherwise interacted with the Pattern-infected areas.

In April of 1961 two members of the medical team studying Kozlov also came down with his Syndrome, despite the best quarantine protocols known at the time (the hospital had long since been evacuated, with the patients and the staff either sequestered onsite, or relocated to Ilimsk).  All three patients subsequently reported being hyper-aware (and accurately so) of each other’s positions and opinions at all times, as well as the ability to perceive ‘Pattern-Seeds’ supposedly growing in all human brains.  When one patient (surviving records are unclear which) proved the existence of Pattern-Seeds by forcibly infecting a researcher with Kozlov’s Syndrome — at a short distance, and through two layers of glass — offsite Soviet officials responded by remotely flooding the hospital area with yperite, demolishing the entire block with earthmoving equipment and captured POWs, loading the rubble, equipment, and POWs onto a series of cargo containers usually used for transporting plutonium, transporting the containers via ship to Sukhoy-Nos, portaging the ship to the inland test center there, and then detonating the RDS-220 hydrogen bomb directly overhead.

No further outbreaks of Kozlov’s Syndrome have since been reported.  However, in 1985 a KGB internal directive flat-out forbade all personnel from drinking water from the Ust-Ilimsk Reservoir, under any circumstances whatsoever.  The originator of this directive remains classified to this day. As is this entire dossier, really: it only got revealed to the world because it had been misfiled and included into another set of documents that got swept up in the Mitrokhin Archives.  And at that, the person who grabbed it believed that he was duplicating what was essentially disinformation against… somebody?  To be fair, it probably is.

Check it out anyway, of course.

Tweet of the Day, Satan Apparently Set Up A Franchise edition.

I find this all incredibly entertaining, considering that there’s some question whether Lucifer and Satan are even meant to represent the same entity, theologically speaking. It’s a fascinating subject, really. As long as you keep in mind that at any given time any of the people writing about might suddenly go off on a tangent that would allow them to slingshot-orbit Pluto.

…Which has nothing to do with sleazy pulp covers, sorry.

Welp, I’m doing it. I’m downloading the Special Edition Skyrim.

Does anybody know if the mods port over? I mean, it’s a different game and everything, right?  I can’t really check Nexus Mod Manager right now, given that the game is downloading as we speak…

[UPDATE]: Aww, crud, they do not. The difference between 32 bit and 64 bit is apparently enough to destroy SKSE and Sky UI, which means that it may be a while before we see mass migrations of the mods. Bummer…

Adventure Seed: The Hidden Lore.

The Hidden Lore – Google Docs

The Hidden Lore

So the party finds this incantation when they’re looking for something else. Preferably under circumstances where they know that the incantation is not a forgery, a hoax, or anything else. Hand it to them, absolutely casually.

HYOL M’DHAMDL H’RADA FHRAM!

IA! IA! OH!

ABNON-ZAT FHRAM HEHT-A-DA KOO!

IA! IA! OH!

WZTAH MEH-MU HY’R
AMDA MEH-MU T’TR
HY’R AMEH! T’R AMU!
AZO-THOTH AMEH-MU:

HYOL M’DHAMDL H’RADA FHRAM!

IA! IA! OH!

If anybody reads it aloud, stop them after the first word, take that player to another room, tell him You feel an irresistible urge to sing it to the tune of “Old MacDonald,” and then you both go back to the other room and rewind the game to just before the player started to read the text aloud. Then see what happens.

…That’s it.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the first Doctor Who regeneration.

Fascinating article, this: it’s interesting that something that was simply intended to be a novel way to explain a new actor in a lead role would end up permitting the television franchise to survive for a half century. Mind you, I started watching when it was Tom Baker, and I stopped watching when it was no longer Tom Baker. I understand that it was good before, and that it was good after. It’s just that Tom Baker was the Doctor Who that I wanted to watch.  I’ll watch the rest of them in Heaven, or something.

Yellow Peril explains to us why you should communicate with your vendor.

Here.  All that the client had to do here was to dash a quick Hi, thanks for getting that project to us in time for our meeting at such short notice. If you don’t hear back from us in two weeks, give us a call and then there wouldn’t have been a problem*. Because while the customer may be always right, the customer should also always be nice. Niceness, like her brother Politeness, costs nothing.

Moe Lane

*It would have also have lit a fire on the decision-making process on the client’s side, too. If it takes somebody two weeks to get back to you without prodding, they probably would have been able to get back to you within a week. Deadlines can be helpful.