>>37105387
>can you give me any tips or ideas?
The "Unobtanium" steel is of alien origin and the guy who "invented" it has to deal with Mi-Go to get it.

Done.

>>37105387
>'Atlas Shrugged' or 'Fountainhead'
Dear gods, why?!

I would be interested in a CoC adventure where Ayn Rand is a cultist.

>>37105421

Well, /tg/ gets shit done and fast, thanks.

>>37105422

To maximize the horror, of course.

In a quiet unassuming town by the shore, all seems well and fine, until people with fountains for heads begin to turn up.
The party must investigate, and engage in a race against time to stop Cthulhu from asking Atlas such a boring question that titan will shrug, causing devastating earthquakes across the planet it is carrying.

>>37105482
"Who is Randolph Carter?"

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>>37105387
Lovecraftian themes and Objectivist themes are blatantly at odds with each other; you should decide which one is "truer" at the start.

That's all you're getting from me.

>>37105468
>Well, /tg/ gets shit done and fast, thanks.
No prob.

Plenty of plot hooks aside of this one, mind you.

- Who is John Galt? -> Who is the King in Yellow?
- Scientists and people of power who escape the society? -> New organization which tries to develop means against upcoming threat from the stars.


For all it's worth, I suggest to read lore of Cthulhu Tech. Nice place things to borrow plot hooks from.

>>37105519

How so?

>Galt's Gulch is a trap made by Mi-Go, John Galt is a Mi-Go puppet; they wanted to trick the juiciest brains into showing up for their experiments

>>37105387
Pnankotus shrugged
A upsurge of fabulous new inventions are created by a number of prominent thinkers and businessmen. In response, the government issues a series of regulatory measures which aim to limit the impact and spread of these fabulous new technologies if not to out-right confiscate them.The inventors flee in the face of these new measures. The party after some investigation trace them to a secluded valley where they have built a advanced settlement seemingly of alien manufacture and far beyond the normal capabilities of man. Talking to the the inventors, they all share a similar story that they they went through an extended period of mental fugue followed by a sudden resurgence of identity, knowledge and creativity that allowed them to create their new inventions. They have all had their minds exchanged by Yithians. The Government has recognized this and is attempting to suppress their work.

Satisfied, one of the group, John Galt who seemingly has recalled more than most, asks to be taken back to the city so he might speak to the other people of his experiences. Once they he speaks on the radio a sanity blasting diatribe about the insignificance of man, the amorality of the universe and the right of the good and the strong to lead the rest of humanity and their expected support. This induces a mass riot and general anarchy around the city.

Goverment G-men swoop in to take Galt into custody (and the asylum) but fanatical partisans rescue him at the last minute.

>>37105519
> Lovecraftian themes and Objectivist themes are blatantly at odds with each other;
Not really, no.

P.S.
That's about the worst possible reaction image I've ever seen. 5 Mb is enough for a juicy porn movie.

>>37105576
>unfortunately, they got objectivists instead.

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>>37105545
Objectivist
>Individual is the absolute most important unit of society. The will of an individual is the most powerful driving force in a society.
Lovecraft
> The individual is a unit so utterly small as to be nonexistent within the larger unit of human society that is itself so utterly small as to be almost unnoticeable. The will of the individual is appropriately irrelevant.

>>37105448

>Alien accent
>Stranger ideas
>Considered to be rather nasty by most of the people
>Strong willpower
>Has a bunch of weird followers
>Fez hat

Rand would probably be an avatar of Nyarlathotep.

I really don't get the love Ayn Rand gets. Massive hypocrite and all around awful person.

Her racism is almost on par with Lovecraft so I guess they might be a good match.

Still, fuck this idea. Ayn Rand should not be held to such a height anymore. She's made America such an asshole.

>>37105685
Nope. Nyarly is flashy. Rand is just full of puss and poison.

>>37105387
Stephen King - Revival.ebook

>>37105684
It's RPG thread, dummy, not an attempt to coin a new amalgam. We already provided a few ways to make it work.

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>>37105643

>Once they he speaks on the radio a sanity blasting diatribe about the insignificance of man, the amorality of the universe and the right of the good and the strong to lead the rest of humanity and their expected support.

I chuckled. However I think the members of the Great Race are too collectivists to be objectivists. Didn't Lovecraft himself describe their society as "socialist"?

>>37105779
Exactly, this Galt's reaction is a knee jerk both to the Yithians own society and the sudden revelations that he has had, in so far that he becomes massively objectivist opposite to that of the Great Race.

>>37105545
>Objectivism says: the universe is rational and can be objectively understood through logic and empiricism, and there are no gods. Individuals have the power to choose for themselves, and should fight against those who would seek to control them.

>Lovecraft says: the universe is an incomprehensible mad house, populated by insane and dangerous deities. Humanity is an insignificant speck of dust subject to the whims of very powerful gods and aliens, and there is nothing we can or should do about it, so it's probably best to ignore the universe so you don't break your mind.

They would make interesting competing ideas in a story, but yeah, it would be hard to have both be equally true.

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>>37105387
Assuming you want to stick with Rand's protagonists this might work:
>The nations of the earth are slowly falling to the corrupting forces of a Lovecraftian cult.
>The lovecraftian cult preaches the abolisment of the self, or something else that can be compared to the hardcore socialism that rand used as a bogeyman in her novels.
>Set in an America that is the last nation on earth not entirely overtaken by this scourge.
>Plot follows the basic pattern of Atlas shrugged but instead of inventing a magic engine John Galt holds the secret of thwarting the otherworldly invaders.
>It ends with all the people left who have the mental fortitude to resist the call of the old ones going to live in the mountains while the cosmic horrors devour humanity so they can go rebuild a more worthy, objectivitist humanity in a thousand years or so when the old ones return to sleep.

>>37105816
>They would make interesting competing ideas in a story, but yeah, it would be hard to have both be equally true.
They don't have to be equally true. No one ITT asked for that.

>>37105837
The RPG elements would be locating Galt before America falls and the old ones awaken.
Bonus points if you reveal just after the group has seemingly won that it was entirely pointless and they were also devoured.

>>37105387

Business according to Rand goes:

>create something, become to big to fail and let the gouvernment pick up your bill for all of eternity.

I guess in this case it's
>create something, become too big to fail and let the gouvernment deal with the horrors from neighbouring dimensions that stalk the streets now.

Make it a bunch of escalating short stories about people getting scared, getting hurt and ultimately getting killed en masse and slowly reveal that the cause of it all is that thing that's now too big to fail.

>>37105684
I agree with this post.

HOWEVER, that could be exactly the premise. An objectivist capitalist libertarian BioShock character decides that he wants to follow his dreams to become rich or powerful or successful or whatever. He's trying to fulfill his individual wants. They are pretty lofty and difficult to obtain, but his belief in personal empowerment leads him into the occult. He has no problems with summoning and treating with demons and alien gods because he believes that, as an individual, he is powerful enough to handle them. Obviously he isn't and he gets devoured or possessed or whatever.

Rather than agree with objectivism, show that, at least in a Lovecraftian universe, it doesn't really work.

>>37105876
>Bonus points if you reveal just after the group has seemingly won that it was entirely pointless and they were also devoured.
Well that would suck balls.

>>37105720

Because most people are basically selfish, conniving assholes, and Ayn Rand's books are all about her philosophy which is all about how charity - or even expecting basic empathy from you - is stupid evil parasitism and being a selfish, conniving asshole is actually a really good thing. We live in a fiercely capitalist society that idolizes the rich basically solely for being rich and considers the less fortunate to be almost by default disgusting lazy evil parasites, so it's not hard to see how Ayn Rand's philosophy would really speak to people who are all about the benjamins, so to speak.

>>37105908
She sounds like a terrible bitch.

>>37105908
She lived the last part of her life joyfully collecting Welfare and Food Stamps.

Massive hypocrite

>>37105901

> An objectivist capitalist libertarian BioShock character decides that he wants to follow his dreams to become rich or powerful or successful or whatever. He's trying to fulfill his individual wants. They are pretty lofty and difficult to obtain, but his belief in personal empowerment leads him into the occult.

Howard Roark tries to design a building that works as a gateway to the Outer Gods, and the Investigators must stop him. Pity they already used this plot in "Ghostbusters".

>>37105890
Not that I know much about it but I thought Rand was a let them fail and the market will bounce back type. Wasn't she no to subsidies and bailouts?

Both Ayn Rand and Lovecraft's philosophies were based on the existence of objective, Platonic "Truth". They only really vary on how one responds to it. Lovecraft repulses in horror, Rand gets a massive erection.

All you need to do is have the protagonists be Lovecrafts and antagonists be Rands.

>Atlas Shrugged
Someone who has discovered Objective Truth has squirreled away a small parcel of land and is gathering together people to perform a Grand Scientific Action.

A rival conspiracy has constructed the railways to carve the entire continental US with the Elder Sign.

>Fountainhead
A deranged architect is bringing pieces of Carcosa into our world, one apartment at a time. You have to burn them down.

>>37106044

Well, she SAYS the market should dictate stuff, people shouldn't shoulder the burdens of others, people should live with the consequences of their own action - but then she goes at takes social security, Medicaid etc. I think she might have filed for bankruptcy at some point.

Bitch was a raging hypocrite.

>>37106053
>A deranged architect is bringing pieces of Carcosa into our world, one apartment at a time. You have to burn them down.

That is an amazing idea totally independent of the Rand theme and I am going to steal the shit out of it if I ever find an appropriate situation.

>>37106118

You're welcome, Ross Payton.

>>37106080
Got you, just another power fantasy fanfic then?

>>37106012
>"I guess they just don't make them like they used to."
>"No! Nobody EVER made them like this!"

>>37106158

Well, I'd say it was a power fantasy if she was a man. For her it's more of the Gor thing where Men Are Heroic and Women Swoon to Serve Men.

>>37105868
I was just agreeing with the other post. Not everything is an argument.

>>37106185
YES IT IS.

>>37105816

Lovecraft doesn't say that the universe is madness, but rather that the logic it DOES have is way too big for us to properly comprehend based on the logic WE constructed.

Rand and Lovecraft both have objective truth etc. Really the main difference lies in how they respond to that truth, and the role of the individual. Lovecraft's mortal world is a place where the individual is oppressed and put-down - Anthem might be a good fit for that.

>>37105837

How about this:
>the East is falling to Hastur's cult and teaching, obscuring individuality behind masks
>the West is the home to the rising Electric Church of rationality, behind which lurks our good friend Neil Arthur O'Tep.

>>37106247
>Lovecraft doesn't say that the universe is madness, but rather that the logic it DOES have is way too big for us to properly comprehend based on the logic WE constructed.

the logic it MAY have, rather.

>>37106179
So failed sopeboxer who stopped playing her alignment when it got in the way?

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>>37106152
>Ross Payton

>>37106053

>A rival conspiracy has constructed the railways to carve the entire continental US with the Elder Sign.

Wasn't that a plot point in Priest? Or was it Hellboy? Some rich industrialist building giant pentagrams and magical sigils using railways?

>>37106402

Don't know, don't care, it's fucking awesome

>>37106412

There's something like that in Good Omens, where a highway has been shaped into a sigil.

>>37106402
I think Good Omens had somthing like that with roads.

>>37105520
>Implying Objectivists are the good guys
Nice try, fucker.

>>37105653
>Not really, no.

Provide an argument.

>>37105901
>Rather than agree with objectivism, show that, at least in a Lovecraftian universe, it doesn't really work

You replied with this bullshit to post that does exactly that - showing plain and simply why those things don't mesh.

>>37106571
Cultists and Objectivists both revel in hubris.

>>37105387

I bet an Objectivist would see the Colour Out Of Space and figure out a way to capture it/synthesize more and sell it as a dye and paint.

Cue society literally crumbling as everything painted in Objectivique starts being consumed by the star vampire fragments inside it.

>>37106531

Come to think of it it actually could be an interesting moral predicament. Cultists of a philosophy that worships the concepts of greed and sociopathic levels of selfishness, versus the Great Old Ones. The world has been reduced to an objectivist hell in which a rich, powerful few actively prey like wolves upon a weak, ruthlessly-exploited many over whom they rule as masters over slaves. Nyarlathotep watches and grins at this picture of world-wide systematic inhumanity, of people being used and preyed upon like cattle by a small cabal of wealthy, monstrous sociopaths. And all the while, Cthulhu begins to stir from his ageless slumber, and the end draws near...

Man that would be so grimdark.

>>37106667
How does Objectivism cope if someone produces something that damages the consumer? If the state stepped in (as would typically be the case in such things) then surely that would be decried by the various objectivists as interference in laissez faire capitalism?

>>37105387
>"I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a daemoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons—the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown."
The opening paragraph of "Nyarlathotep" is basically a summary of the first few hundred pages of "Atlas Shrugged."

It would be incredibly easy to have the general state of decline and social malaise gripping Rand's setting be the result of a malign otherworldly influence. The whole thing with people saying "Who is John Galt?" all the time without knowing what it meant already had a pretty Lovecraftian feel to it. And instead of John Galt being a mad scientist, have him be a mad explorer who brought back his technology from the ruins in "The Mountains of Madness."

>>37106706
>if you produce something that harms the consumer
You mean like cigarettes?

The idea was that the objectivist would look at the Space-Colour and go "GAP IN THE MARKET MOTHERFUCKER I'M GONNA BE THE EXCLUSIVE OWNER OF BLORANGE" and start selling all the shit they could in the new colour because muh free market muh profit motive etc.

Essentially, the only way that an Objectivist would be happy with something harmful being taken off the market is if the market ITSELF decides it doesn't want it or if the creator decides they don't want to to sell any more.

>>37106706

They consider it the right of producers. It is wrong to stop someone from doing anything that earns them more money, and it is wrong to tell someone that they can't do something with their money, even if it's something horrifyingly immoral.

So yeah, if the state stepped in Objectivists would decry it as interference in proper Laissez Faire Capitalism, because the notion that anything done either with money or in the pursuit of it should be freely allowed and encouraged is basically the entire point of Objectivism.

>>37106675
Or the hellish existence has poisoned humanity so deeply that anything that might have wanted to devour us is put off. The Objectivist nightmare ends up "saving" humanity.

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>>37106779
Wow Objectivism sure sounds great, sign me up for it right now.

>>37106779
>>37106745
What about fraud, though? Would an objectivist support a company selling a harmful product to consumers if it knew the product was harmful but advertised it as safe?

>>37106675
>grimdark
More like grimDERP

>>37106894
Long story short - objectivism doesn't care. As long as you are "free" to do whatever you want and "capitalise", everything is wonderous. Because in this fantastic ideology it's your fault if someone exploits your ass
Think Reagan-era capitalism. Then multiply it by 100. Then add Chinese stance toward safety and environment.
Welcome to Objectivism.

>>37106894
They would talk about how mumble mumble invisible handle of the market mumble free choice of the consumer mumble mumble would fix it.

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>>37106972

>>37105387
>Dagon
If you read Dagon's story, the ocean floor was raised to the surface. Dagon doesn't have to be an underwater encounter, he'd be amphibious, which is probably why he looks like a frog-man.

>>37106981
But Anon, how can you question the allmighty invisible handle of the market, the driving force behind recovery after every economic crisis created by those pesky, wasteful idiots who stop free flow of capital.
It's not like it is governmental intervention that always have to clean free-market mess of deregulated economy... and each time it's government/law/any form of control fault that the economy collapsed in the first place, God forbid to regulate anything!

>>37106981

So you and Galt in this adventure would kill Cthulhu with free market capitalism?

>>37107018
This.

Sometimes I wonder if objectivism wasn't first incarnation of hipsters. I mean you have smug idiots who claim that they know better and ARE better because of this, regardless of amount of evidences you throw against their bullshit.

>>37106894

A company can't sell a harmful product for long, because our perfect market will perfectly adapt and give all the business that would be duped to a company that doesn't engage in fraudulent practices. Everyone will automatically refuse to do business with them, and everything will be perfect.

>>37107038
No, Galt would probably hide somewhere and wait till the world go to hell, after which he will emerge and rebuild his ultra-individualistic, leissez-faire utopia for the chosen few that will worship him as their saviour.
Because objectivism is even stronger than cosmic horros that devours your soul and tear your planet apart. It's this kind of bullshit

>>37107049
The funniest part of objectivism is that it rails against "parasites" a lot, but Ayn Rand relied on government assistance for a large portion of her life.

>>37107052
And in case of the market not being perfect, paper-only simulation - you are crewed. Especially since there is nothing stopping said company in completely free economy from keep doing whatever they please. After all, it's your fault as consumer that a company is frauding you, you entitled bastard.
That's how objectivism works in a nutshell

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>>37107077
Yeah. Personally I'd prefer a utopia where murderous androids burst out of people's stolen skin and murdered anyone who espoused Objectivist beliefs.

>>37107089
But that was for greater cause and doesn't count, Anon. After all, Ayn Rand is the embodiment of all objectivism principles. At least that's what her supporters keep on claiming, which makes it extra funny.

>>37106894
Objectivists do not, strictly speaking, support fraud. However, they do not support government intervention to prevent fraud either.

Generally, an objectivist faced with this dilemma will avoid the question by claiming that in a true free market economy, companies will not defraud their customers. They will say that if you get rid of regulatory barriers to entry for competition, a company's grip on its market share will be too precarious for it to risk the reputational damage of deceptively selling harmful products.

As usual, they assume a perfectly efficient market in which consumers have access to all relevant information, revealing the inherently unrealistic and Utopian nature of objectivism.

>>37107107
And everything is based on mutual trust, don't forget the most important part

>>37107147
Please try to explain that to people whom adhere to objectivism in almost religious way. Because this is even worse than ideological communists, as objectivists always pull "ha! we are superior, since capitalism won!"
Won what?

>>37107147
I always wondered about one thing.

If everything should be deregulated, that means there are no laws forcing companies to inform customers about anything. Hell, to inform anyone about anything.
But for the fraud to be caught by customers or simply revealed, some level of information is required. If a company is not obligated to provide them and there is no way to force such data, you can perpetuate the fraud forever without punishment.
How the hell the "free market" is solving this?

>>37107107

But the Objectivists are already androids.

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>>37107245
IMPOSSIBLE. NO MACHINE COULD BE SO IRRATIONAL AND STILL BE CAPABLE OF INDEPENDENT MOVEMENT.

>>37107238

With, of course, independent companies the consumer pays to analyze each product. duh.

>>37107238
I've got a better one.

Since there are no laws against monopoles in "truly" free market, you can buy out your competition and in no time turn the whole sector of industry or services into strict monopole. Which is against free market logic, but perfectly vible in deregulated economy.

>>37107336

So...objectivists are libertarians?

>>37106402
There was an episode of Supernatural that had rail lines forming a massive devil's trap.

>>37107336
And what if the frauding company is paying said independent companies or outright buys them behind the table? After all, they are not obligated to inform anyone they just buy said company or companies nor it's forbidden to keep perpetuating their fraud by such companies.
What then?

I mean I'm not even an economist and without much effort and with massive hangover I can pick holes in this "grand and perfect" ideology. So what the fuck happend that there are politicians and economist whom use this crap for their actions?!

>>37107311

Sure they can, if they're based on faulty code.

>>37107370
No, they are too cool for that

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>>37107392
Hence the caveat "And remain capable of independent movement."

Basic logic errors tend to interfere with knees.

>>37107386
But Objectivism says that won't happen!

>>37107386
Because they are either stupid or - no matter how ridiculous it will sound - evil. That's why

>>37107370

Yeah, they're a subset of libertarian.

>>37107038

The thing is that Galt wouldn't want to STOP the Apocalype. He's kind of a social darwinist - half the plot of Atlas Shrugged is that he decided most people deserve to die for not doing enough to fight socialism or just didn't subscribe to his philosophy. He knew the apocalypse was coming and just let it happen.

>>37107337

Didn't you know? Cartels and monopolies can't form under anarcho-capitalism, because CERTAINLY the lack of regulation will drive down the barrier to entry, causing things like deep water oil drilling corps and fully capable and staffed hospitals to just crop up like mushrooms.

>>37107370

Self-identify as such, but espouse anti-libertarian principles.

>>37107427
And it won't happen, because...? You know, each statement requires at least some argumentation to really work. Even if the argument is wrong or blaised, it's still required.

>>37106158
Ayn Rand was pretty much the Perfect Lionheart of her day.

>>37107431
Sad to agree. Objectivism is a philosophy that quite literally declares that HELPING PEOPLE is wrong and that one should do everything in one's power to stomp down everyone else and steal their gold.

You really can't get much more evil than that.

>>37107448

Because in a perfectly free market, an honest rating company will spring up to compete with the crooked one, and will drive it out of business.

>>37105387
Imagine how great a game BioShock Infinite could've been if, instead of the retarded universe jumping, Elizabeth opened a tear and an Elder Thing came through.

>>37107448
No, Anon, you're missing the point. The argument is that they are right because they are right.

>>37107480
Much like how in a perfect vacuum with infinite friction, an objectivist will be unheard pleading for assistance.

>>37107443
Yeah, we all know how it works. After all, chain discount shops and supermarkets are what makes people to open their own shops and become shopkeepers. Surely they will create healthy competition to the ungodly monopolies and cartels!

I never understand if it's being naive or just plain stupid that after centuries of trying this shit IRL there are still people who believe in fully deregulated economy as a solution to all problems. And I'm talking about average John Doe, not some owner of established company who could profit on it.

>>37107465

Well, their logic is basically that of trickle-down economics; that by helping YOURSELF you inadvertently help themselves. The businessmen or financier (ideally) creates job for people in their pursuit of profit.

>>37107501

An objectivist never pleads for assistance! They solve their problem through hard work and creativity, or they silently perish for the good of all mankind.

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>>37105482
but Atlas carries the sky!

>>37107528
>I never understand if it's being naive or just plain stupid that after centuries of trying this shit IRL there are still people who believe in fully deregulated economy as a solution to all problems.

It's religion. The ideology is right, reality is wrong. And besides, we've never FULLY deregulated the market, which is the magical point where everything works out perfectly forever and ever.

What worries me is not the politicians who espouse it because they stand to gain; they're feckless sociopaths which will tack in whatever direction doesn't end with them in front of a firing squad. It's the ones that genuinely believe this shit, all the way down to the black roots of their Randian I-am-an-island heart.

>>37106433
Apparently some people think it may be true of the m25 in real life.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/27/m25_curse/

Not that I would put accidentally imbuing the roads with malevolent arcane force past the highways agency.

>>37107529
This also always bugged me.
I mean... does it mean that if you are a millionaire, you automatically buy 200 cars? Even if you buy 20, that's still not enough. Instead you could give your employers a rise, so they would be more loyal to you and could afford more stuff, improving not only your company (you gained more customers), but also other companies (they too gained more customers). Ford build his empire on that.
Instead it's still 19th century bullshit that you must pay your employees dimes, so they will work themselves into death and you are rich, selling your product to other rich people and eliminating potential customers. But hey, you are rich, right, so screw everyone else, you don't need their money.

>>37107586
It's England. It doesn't need to be anymore cursed.

>>37107600
Yep. Until you reach the tipping point where rich people no longer buy anything because of their mountains of crap.

Coincidentally, this is also the point where either A.) Regulation happens or B.) Violence along ideological lines.

Basically, Google and IBM are plotting to conquer the world with a very literal army if things don't turn out how they want.

>>37105684
While yes, this is true, there is a way to mix the ideas.

>>37105387
My stab at a scenario framework:

>Similar to the Innsmouth scenario in that you have a town (non-seaside) secretly run by a cult with everyone working frantically to get access some vague notion of paradise.
>In this case, the struggle for paradise is a struggle for individual excellence
>One must elevate one's self by acquiring as huge a mass of wealth and servants as you can.
>Most in the town to know about this struggle, as learning of it is another sign of "excellence"

>Every few years, when one of the wealthy men of the town becomes indisputably worthy among his peers (and they're glad to be rid of him as a result) he proceeds to the main temple to enter paradise.
>He and a vast entourage of servants, laden with as much wealth (converted to gold) as they can carry, enter the forbidden inner sanctum
>when the doors close, they and all the gold are devoured, because the entire town exists only as a mechanism to creating worthy food for a dark god of greed.

>>37107528
>I never understand if it's being naive or just plain stupid that after centuries of trying this shit IRL there are still people who believe in fully deregulated economy as a solution to all problems. And I'm talking about average John Doe, not some owner of established company who could profit on it.
It's fairly simple, really. People see the world as it is and do not like it. They look at the way we manage our economy, and they see it has brought them bad results. Then along comes someone with a very different way of managing the economy, and these dissatisfied people assume it will bring about very different, and thus better, results for them.

>>37107672
>Most in the town DON'T know about this struggle

>>37107573
But each time the regulations are lowered or are keep low, it end up with serious mess that takes a lot of time to repair AND direct government or even multinational intervention to put things back on track.
Saying that it's because there is no truly deregulated market is like blaming number eight for the fact it smells like colour pink

>>37105653
>5 Mb is enough for a juicy porn movie
What fucking shitty resolution MP4 videos are you watching for a movie to be 5mb?

>>37107543

Not according to Rand.

>>37107683
So... they are both naive and stupid, getting caught in demagogic bullshit.
Which is sad.

>>37107480
And how will you know in the first place which one is croocked and which one is honest? Plus why should you pay anyone for giving you basic customer information?

>>37107708
it would be a great title though, to be fair.

>>37107443
>espouse anti-libertarian principles
like what?

>>37107089
I've always liked their universal conviction that they would be in top positions in said objective system contrary to all available evidence.

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>>37107794

"Cthulhu Shrugged"?

>>37107857
I like Rand but I don't think that. I'd be in the best position in socialism, not anything where my skill and ability matters.

>>37107923

I'm curious as to what Rand thought of people born to the rich elite, and would, thusly, have no need to accomplish anything.

>>37108008

People born to advantage are born to people who already succeeded. So long as they keep working hard, they'll be exceptional.

Several key characters in Atlas Shrugged are born to wealthy families. One of them affects the "idle rich" thing but is actually secretly working for Galt by undermining the Southern American economy by crippling his family's copper mining concerns.

>>37108081
Except that there's no way to judge a person who is BORN at the cap of human achievement as "exceptional".
They need only be "mediocre" to maintain their parent's level of wealth and power.

Even a case like Mitt Romney, who gives away his (financial) inheritance, can't give away advantages like his family name's enormous influence.

All you can judge is accomplishments relative to the starting point. That is why we HAVE concepts like upward and downward mobility.

>>37107386
A person's sense of "barrier to entry" and "healthy competition" are massively skewed when that person starts out with a ton of wealth.

>>37107528
>>37107573
>>37107683

What's more, because the economy will NEVER be fully deregulated (because that would be madness), Objectivists will forever believe that they're right.

>>37105720
Because selfish people like having their selfishness validated.

Plot for Ayn Rand/Cthulhu cross-over:

All the selfish greedy douchebags who think they are irreplaceable decide to do the ultimate "Go Galt" and step through a one-way gate to an alien world.
Life on Earth continues exactly as normal and they are not missed.
The End.

>>37108508

But anon, Lovecraft aren't supposed to have happy endings.

>>37108548

*Lovecraft stories

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>>37108548
>But anon, Lovecraft aren't supposed to have happy endings.

I suppose I'm imaging an unhappy end on the alien world for the Galt-ers.

P.S. To anyone who really does buy Rand's sociopathic garbage: call my bluff!
Go Galt, and see how much the world misses you.
There's a wonderful old saying, "The graveyards are filled with indispensable men."

>>37108548
Dunwich Horror.

An essential part of the way things work in Lovecraft stuff is that trying to control Mythos critters and occult powers always, always backfires. Because the Mythos stuff simply is what it is (and what it is is generally inscrutable), and doesn't care about your ideology.

An Objectivist would run facefirst into this wall at full speed, because their champions are all about trying to exploit everything they can.

So basically, you'd have many objectivists, but with varying levels of intelligence, and, using that, you could tier up a long story. You run into the dumb ones first; the ones that, as earlier posts suggested, try to bottle and monetize the color out of space. These meet their ends quickly in localized disasters that mentally scar the player characters but don't change the world.

At the far extreme is the ultrasmart pure avatar of objectivism, who has grown to be the puppetmaster behind many things, because he uses the occult only sparingly and indirectly, knowing that to do otherwise will destroy him. This is the guy who does the classic recruitment attempt once the party reaches him, using the argument that he's actually suppressing the bad stuff (killing off humanity is bad for business) and that the best scenario is where HE is the one in charge. It's the mythos, therefore he's automatically wrong about being able to control it... but the argument may convince some player characters.

>>37105684
Cthulhu would be an objectivist.

>>37106053
>A rival conspiracy has constructed the railways to carve the entire continental US with the Elder Sign.

I like it. What cities should be connected to show this?

I'd presume it would be some kind of special rail way. Connects a few large cities, but then what tips off the players is that large expense is being spent to connect small towns that just make no sense.

But what cities?

>>37106455
Good Omens had it being the M25 around London. The shape of it was the Single Odegra of the priesthood of the lost continent of Mu. The effect of all that frustration and resentment churning around it everyday polluted the cosmic atmosphere for thousands of miles.

Crowly was very proud of it.

>>37107130
>Ayn Rand is the embodiment of all objectivism principles

The only people I have ever heard suggest that are people who are critical of her writings. I've never heard a supporter claim she is a saint.

Like her positions and philosophy? Sure, I've seen that. But the typical position is that supporters know very little about her as a person and care even less. Only detractors tend to look into such things.

>>37107337
This is actually, in my opinion, the best critique of completely free market philosophy.

Although in todays market what would actually happen is that the large company would buy up smaller companies and continue to allow them to run under their own name. Thus creating the false perception that there is competition in the market, when in reality it is one large company competing against itself.

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>>37108828

>But what cities?

At least one major metropolis that can be used as the sacrifice for the Old Ones, and many smaller towns and settlements for a boost.

>>37105448

She looks kind of like a fish-people in that pic.

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>>37105387
You could throw a bit of Gatica in there as well. Once the "rules free high achievers" leave to create their "paradise," you start getting time-traveling horrors from the future terrorizing already mentally unstable individuals who no one will believe. Meanwhile, the citizens of the "paradise" start perfecting each generation, then quickly deviate from anything that could be considered human. Many generations later, when they couldn't even be called transhuman, they develop time-travel. It quickly becomes a sport to see how much trauma you can cause a puny mon-keigh without significantly altering the time-line.

>>37107370
>>37107443
>Libertarian
>Anti-libertarian

The problem is that anarcho-capaitalists, tea partiers, conservative republicans who like weed, Noam Chomsky, crazy mountian men who want everyone to stay away, FLDS compound survivalists, and 14 year old outcasts who read Rynd all self-identify with the term. As such, it has lost all pretense of having a true meaning, and has become as much of a convenient non-word for whipping up soupport as "sjw" on these boards.

>>37108257

Oh, I agree. And yet in this regard Objectivism borrows from Social Darwinism - those who have money are those who deserve to have it.

>>37107671
>Google and IBM are plotting to conquer the world with a very literal army if things don't turn out how they want.
You know, as long as it's Google, they might actually be good moral Confucian leaders.... or as close as we've ever had

>>37109051

Are we going for the star version of the Elder sign or the branch version?

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>>37109553

Let's go with the star version.
I looked up a map of the continental US with the major cities on and I worked out a decent route would go like this:
Topmost "point" at Bismarck, North Dakota.
First line goes south-east to Montgomery, Alabama.
Next line goes north-west to Boise, Idaho.
Then west to Columbus, Ohio
Southwest to Phoenix, Arizona
Then northeast back to North Dakota
The end result would come a little squashed and should put the middle "eye" around the Nebraska/Kansas border.

>>37107238
A truly free market can only exist at 100% transparency.
I think most objectivists acknowledge this but don't give any answers on how to achieve it.

>>37105387
As far as Atlas Shrugged, I'd think the campaign would be focused on trying to figure out why people are checking out of the system.

The investigators notice that people 'in the know' or who would be in a position to see large elements of society are going gulch.

The investigation would likely see this as sinister, but in reality it would be people becoming aware of the 'mythos' taking over the government/world and trying to find a safe spot to hide while the rest sorts itself out.

>>37109827

I think it makes more sense that the Gulch IS the cult. I mean, that's practically what Galt's Gulch is already. Little isolated community with very clearly defined roles, you're not allowed to be a member of the community if you're not a member of the ideology at the risk of tainting their ideological purity and the classic "I'm technically not your leader - but I'm clearly your leader" thing going on with Galt himself.

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>>37109728

Like this?

(Also, I tough we were making the Sigil of the Gateway instead of the Elder Sign, should have paid more attention here. My mistake.)

>>37109989

Yeah, that looks good. So in the event of Mythos Emergency, Nebraska is the safest place in the world?

>>37110049

Even Cthulhu can't be arsed with Nebraska.

>>37109766

Well that's because when you get down to it, at the end of the day, the basic philosophy of objectivism is "lol stupid poors i got mine nigga"

>>37110176

It really doesn't stand up under it's own weight - it's a symptom of its time. It only existed and got support to because it was so anti-communist and the time period it came out.

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>>37110049

If it is the Elder Sign? Sure.
If it is the Sigil of the Gateway? Then no, I don't think so.

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>>37110257

Also, the Yellow Railways.

>>37110257

What does Sigil of the Gateway do?

>>37110257
>>37110380

>Rail Wars in Call of Cthulhu, racing to draw sigils before the rival conglomerate

Yes please.

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>>37110385

It opens a way passageway trough time and space, if I remember correctly. It requires some rites to be activated, I think.

So, if the Sigils center is Nebraska, the whole Nebraska will transform into a portal to another world when the Sigil is activated by the cultists (or by the clumsy investigators).

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>>37110475

Damn, I realized that I forgot one line! No wonder nothing happened after the ritual.

>>37107720
Sad is the right word.

Most of them aren't bad people. Stupid =/= Evil.

They just want change because they are so lowly that it seems only up is left.

Or thats my personal experience at least.

But then you encounter the real assholes. Holy Lord when you meet the real assholes you have to take a step back in awe. Not at them, fuck no. But at the common goodness of the common man and how so many have held back from jamming an apple corer in their eye. Its inspiring it really is.

>>37110475

So in the event of Shit Happens, you activate the Elder Sign Network to set up a defensible position in Nebraska. If that's not tenable, activate GTFO Protocols and take Nebraska somewhere.. else.

>>37110571
What about the line over water? Do you think maybe they might consider making a bridge to keep the circle.. circular? If you're pulling a stunt off of this size, a bridge wouldn't be to much of a stretch.

>>37110678

>What about the line over water? Do you think maybe they might consider making a bridge to keep the circle.. circular? If you're pulling a stunt off of this size, a bridge wouldn't be to much of a stretch.

Well, I guess they could just claim that they want to build a Wisconsin-Michigan line over the lake, but it would gain much attention. Of course that could be a reason why our investigators start to investigate this at the first place? Still, it would be a big and costly project.

>>37110824

Yeah but in symbols like this you really don't want to risk shit like improper design on your magic circle. You need that shit PRECISE or else it doesn't work - or goes horribly wrong. Best case scenario it fizzles, worst case scenario.. is a REALLY worst case scenario.

It's worth the expense and the risk.

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I tried to make it a bit prettier.

>What do you mean "We could modify it a bit and add Colorado Spring to the network?" Do you really think this has anything to do with transporting things?
>Well now that you mention it it certainly has a lot to do with transporting things, but not from Colorado Spings.

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>>37110936

That is actually more reasonable, now the Objectivist Cult has no need for a giant bridges.

>Well now that you mention it it certainly has a lot to do with transporting things, but not from Colorado Spings.

So, I guess this is a cult comedy?

>>37110936

>Where's there a little circuit at the Four Corners?
>.. tourism.

>>37110936
>SLC
>Albuquerque
>Shreveport
>Las Cruces
>Springfield
>St. Paul
>Bismarck
>Lubbock
>dead empty area in Western Kansas / East Colorado is the center

I like it. It builds its own story nicely.

>>37111146
>>37111193
>>37111222

I like how some of the little circles fall on interesting things.

You've got the Four Corners, a little circuit through Midland and Odessa. But then you've got that one up north with almost nothing there.

What do you think we could put there?

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>>37110936
Fixed the small-seconday-star-thingy. Fuck Jefferson city, that line must be parallel to the other on.

>But Boss, if we don't make it go to Jefferson City, we're going to loose quite a few investors.

>>37111344
Forgot the top circle, also going to make it touch Four Corners again.

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>>37111288

The secret cult hideout?
A repair station for trains that is haunted by some sort of creatures from the Beyond?
An acient Indian burial ground?
An acient pre-human ruins that lead to the underground warrens of the Serpent Men?
A dark forest that is full of ghouls?

>>37111444

>An acient

Ancient, I meant to say.

>>37111444

Well it's not far from Cedar Rapids, the "City of Five Seasons" - and whose early prosperity was founded on meatpacking.

There's horror potential there.

>>37107814

Sorry, took a nap.

Anarcho-capitalism is anti-libertarian, as libertarianism at its base is about maximizing the freedoms of PERSONS, not megacorps, nor any one given person. As demonstrated by five minutes of gentle questioning, anarcho-capitalism quickly becomes a tyranny of the dollar. Cartels and monopolies come to dominate the market and eventually the society as nature abhors a vacuum, and a power vacuum is no different. The solution most in line with libertarian ideals, if we're cherry-picking paradigms, would be a government that regulates in such a manner to create a level playing field in which to operate and to minimize barrier to entry, and not a single bit more.

>>37109465

At the risk of getting fedora: it's much like "Christian", in that the meaning has been largely diluted by those who self-identifying as such carrying entirely disparate views (some of which run entirely contrary to the core tenets), save possibly one or two which are universally held. In libertarianism's case, that core tenet would be "FREEDOM GOOD."

>>37111507

>meatpacking

Well I can see where this is going.

>>37111558

Indeed. It also got hard-fucked by floods in 2008 so our conspiracy might have moved in there to begin contracting for repairing transport infrastructure and setting up the circuit.

>>37111539
So basically, you're a libertarian who wants the state in charge of business?

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>>37111414
>>37111507
Added Cedar Rapids to the network.

>>37111595

>2008

That actually reminds me, when is our railroad of doom constructed? I subconsciously assumed that all of this happens in 20's or 30's because of Lovecraft, or at 50's because of Rand. But I guess all of this can work on a modern-day setting as well.

And since we are at the topic of time, how long would a construction of a railroad of this magnitude took?

>>37111753

A long time. That railroad sigil crosses several dozen rivers which need to be bridged. At least a decade to get it all done, more if it's a modern-day thing because the US exported all their Chinese slave labor jobs back to China.

>>37109519
My money is on Cylons.

>>37111753We're talking fifteen years at the very least, 20+ realistically.

>>37111619

I'd like to keep this from straying too /pol/, but: government exists to do those public acts which individuals can't and corporations won't. In this scenario, they're in charge of the business ENVIRONMENT, ensuring it is as fair as possible for the maximum number of persons possible, and that barriers to entry to the market are a low as possible while maintaining some level of standards. That's it. They stay out of the micro level shit unless a company is threatening to imbalance or upset the above system. It also continues to maintain a monopoly on violence and legal sanction, as if the government lacks it, someone else has it, and in a modern economy that someone is typically he with the most resources.

>>37111753

Setting it in a historical period makes more sense than modern day. The railways were way more important back then.

>>37111900

Railways are still hugely important; the US has the world's largest rail network by a pretty wide margin, last I checked.

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>>37111792

>Chinese slave labor

Ah, the Chinese people, one of the many, many things that Lovecraft was afraid of. Maybe some of the oriental railroad workers were actually cultists of the Bloated Lady?

>>37111792
>>37111805

So, I guess the investigators come along at the last stages of the plan, ruining everything at the last moment before the Sigil is completed.

What kind of rituals this Sigil needs to be activated? What exactly happens when it is activated?

>>37111943

Lovecraft was kind of a milquetoast racist anyway. It's difficult to espouse racial separation when you're married to a Jewess, y'dig?

>>37110824
It WOULD be a big costly project, had the newest steel alloy not been invented.

>>37112011
A lot of books of the time classified jews as a lowly flavor of white, honestly. I'm not sure if there are any texts that claim jews to be colored folks that predate the internet.

>>37111943
>What kind of rituals this Sigil needs to be activated?
Killing everyone in Bismark, SLC, Las Cruces, Shreveport and Springfield is probably step one.

What exactly happens when it is activated?
I like this. >>37110475
Now the question is which horro is on the other side waiting to be released?

>>37111851
>ensuring it is as fair as possible for the maximum number of persons possible
A principle of libertarianism is that majority rule isn't the be and end all of fairness. When you support the majority over what is just, you're no longer on the side of fair.

>>37111943

The "center" is prime cattle grazing country and the dead ass middle of nowhere. Could have increasing numbers of cattle mutilations as they finish cutting the right-of-way for the rail lines, but before the beds and rails go in.

The final activation requires timed sacrifices in the exact center of the three circles. This then causes everything living in the central quadrilateral to have their life force burned as fuel, which opens a portal to the Far Realm in Colby, KS.

>>37111919

The US adopted the plane to do a lot of their passenger and cargo shipping.

They still have a huge network - which is mostly bulk cargo and the rails themselves are falling the fuck apart.

This conspiracy could be posed as a "revitalization" or something.

>>37111943

>China
What if this is a modern day thing with a Chinese-owned firm coming in to set up shop in America? They're beginning to slow their growth in the same way Japan and Korea did before them - pricing themselves out of the market.

>What kind of rituals does the Sigil need?
I'm seeing some kind of "special train" that needs to trace out the whole thing. Like, something like a huge abbatoir-train that is basically painting the symbol in slaughtered cattle.
>What happens when it's activated?
Well, two options.
1) America goes somewhere.
2) Something comes to America.

I also like the idea that because of the sheer SIZE of the spell, stuff just gets weird around sites where the lines cross over. Like, in Bismarck, ND, people start seeing eyeless dopplegangers behind themselves..

>>37112160
Maybe increasing fuel costs makes rail travel more economical than flying, and it gets fancy again.

What I'm saying is throw some Snowpiercer in there.

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>>37112079

>Now the question is which horro is on the other side waiting to be released?

That is a pretty big summoning circle, so I guess that whatever it is it is really, really big. Maybe even Azathoth? If I remember correctly the Serpent Men summoned him once and caused the extinction of dinosaurs.

>>37112141

>The final activation requires timed sacrifices in the exact center of the three circles. This then causes everything living in the central quadrilateral to have their life force burned as fuel, which opens a portal to the Far Realm in Colby, KS.

I hope the citizens of Colby enjoy their new, non-euclidean train station.

Non-euclidean reminds me, do the tracks have some unnatural effects on the trains that use it? Short trips take days and long trips only few hours, things like that?

>>37112278
You mean like throwing some luddites with axes into the fry? Or some capitalistic cartel controlling everything in set region?

>>37112302

>Tindalos Railways: Our Trains Run On Time

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>>37112251

>>37105908
There are some good ideas in Rand but they get fucked up by her flawed logic. Rational self interest works if it's actually rational, which very few people are. Thy treat it as an excuse to "I'm better and deserve more than everyone else because I'm willing to take it" instead of thinking in the long term and realizing that the whole world would better of if people actually helped each other.

>>37112315
Depends on if the Objectivists are on the same side as the cultists.

>Free train ride for everyone
>("everyone" = parasites)
>thisrideneverends.jpg

>>37105901
Huh. I didn't even realize it until now but I think the comic I started writing last year is basically a version of this story. Weird.

>>37112302

The citizens of Colby are the epicenter of the blood sacrifice. They stopped having the ability to care well before that half-transit hub, half-sentient hate-driven monster from beyond the starts extruded a three dimensional polyp into our reality.

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I like the whole railroad star thing. It reminds me of this.

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>>37112389

>thisrideneverends.jpg

Mr. Bones was the leader of the Train-Cult all along?!

(I never considered myself to be a train otaku, but this thread is making me to reconsider my position on that subject.)

>>37112251
Speaking of Bismark, the city is obviously central in the ritual.
Now, is everything coming from Bismark, or is everyhing going to Bismark?

>>37112550

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismarck,_North_Dakota

> In 1872 the future capital city was founded at what was then called Missouri Crossing, so named because the Lewis and Clark Expedition crossed the river there. The new town was called Edwinton, after Edwin Ferry Johnson (1803–1872), engineer-in-chief for the Northern Pacific Railway. In 1873, however, the Northern Pacific Railway renamed the city Bismarck, in honor of German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, in hopes of attracting German investment.
>Edwin Ferry Johnson (1803–1872), engineer-in-chief for the Northern Pacific Railway.

This thing is writing itself for us.

>>37112550

>why_not_both.jpg

On a more serious topic, it strikes me as a good place to "start". Like, when I was imagining where to draw the points of the Elder Sign on the map, I spotted it as one of the larger and most northern cities on there. So maybe that's the main point of the conspiracy, the origination of the project.

On another topic, what if deliberately CRASHING trains is part of the ritual? Using tragedy and loss of life to charge the points of the circle by essentially slamming two trains into each other. It would take advantage of the repeated circular motif.

>>37112601

Oh god, it spans generations.

>>37106779
>>37107018
>>any others
But the government make the money they want to have and if it was doing a bad job then the market would make a better government.
Not to mention regulators make trust for companies so they get more business right?

>>37112605
I like it. There a 27 points where two or more lines cross, and we'll have train crashing at every one of them.
Bismark Central Station? That's gonna be a massacre.

>>37112623

Few ideas...

- E.F. Johnson was the original founder of the Train-Cult.
- One of the German investors brought a copy of "Unaussprechlichen Kulten" to the town, and it ended into the coal-black hands of the Train-Cult.

Also, I think we need to name this cult. The Train-Cult sounds little bit silly don't you think?

>>37112079
>killing everyone in Las Cruces
Finally.

>>37112714
A train cult with an insane agenda... how about The Loco Motives.

>>37112714

Well they're probably going to have this really boring and official sounding name, right? Like Ferry Johnson Transamerican. Maybe in the modern day it's like "FJT" or something.

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>>37112787
I like it but it's a tad bit on the corny side.

>>37105387
Think Objectivism as Human Mythos

>>37112913

It kind of makes sense as a defense mechanism against the Mythos, insisting our own importance, denying the existence of the inexplicable, asserting ourselves as the deserving dominant of reality.

>>37107771
I love computer games but I don't buy many for this very reason.

>>37107480
probably not. honesty slides crooked over time, as the original honest people are replaced. it's likely that if the crooked company was first, they would maintain dominance as they could propagandize the honest out of business. keep in mind that the crooked company will 'cheat' and use underhanded methods, while the honest will not (they are honest)

the crooked people will probably win. look at the current corporate landscape, for instance. darwinian survival at all cost behavior dominates almost absolutely.

So at the time of the sacrifice, if all goes according to plan, the head of the corporation building these trains, along with numerous scientists and experts on the occult will be riding the train into Colby to be caught in the brief gateway and harvest their new interdimensional supernatural resources?

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>>37105387

How about John Galt wants to build his own Shining Trapezohedron, just because he wants to. Lovecraft himself tries to stop him, difficult, because he agrees with most of Galt's arguments, but not all.

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>>37112913
>you have foolishly read a copy of Atlas Shrugged's original, unabridged manuscript!
>roll for SAN loss

>>37105448
>Implying Rand isn't the thing that should not be.

>>37114118
Shouldn't she be Abdul Alhazred?

>>37112353
Even her own characters don't truly think in any long terms - there is only "now" and "I".

>>37112768
This.
So much this

>>37113661
>Roll 5d10 for SAN loss

>>37113118
And this is another point when Objectivism fails. Namely, it tries to combine fierce social darwinism with assumption that there is and must be such thing like honest bussiness. It never even bothers to ponder for a while what if there is no such thing like being fair. Or that by it's own rules it suggest you to play dirty, because all that matters is your and your own, personal profit, with "it's not cheating unless you get caught" mindset

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>>37105684
Objectivism in Lovecraft
>Individual is the absolute most important unit of society. The will of an individual is supposedly the most powerful force in society.
>Human society itself is so utterly small as to be unnoticeable.

Those two things are not at all exclusionary.

>/tg/ is one of the few boards that least understands WHAT NOT TO DO in terms of economics

I love you guys more and more every day.

>>37107077
See
>>37105837

>>37112714
If the train cult is going to have a legitimate front then somthing along the lines of "The transcontinental union for the enlightenment of the american people". If they are entirely secret then I'd probably go with somthing sinister and latin sounding.

>>37119321

They should probably have a 'real' name for outsiders and a cult name for the inner circle.

>>37105837
>Putting objectivists as the good guys
>Placing them as saviours of humanity
>Making their effort count
>And their leader is still unsuferable Marty Stu

You just failed cosmic horror forever

>>37119321

Yeah, I think they NEED that legit front (or perhaps SEVERAL legit front companies working together) and then an Inner Circle that knows The Big Secret Plan.

>>37105387
You could work in that Ayn Rand is literally praised in the satanic bible.

>>37124085
But why not using real name of railway company? I mean... they ARE railway company, right? Then why creating some front if you are using one in the first place to summon edritch horrors via specific railway placement?

>>37119321
>>37124085
>>37125128
This reminds me when we were preparing for exam about vertebrates' reproduction and after few days of intense learning we reach the point of idiocy when we started to wonder how the hell stork are born if they have so long legs and beaks... it took us about a minute to recall that birds lay eggs

>>37106053

Actually, the forefather of TVTropes, Fraiser's "The Golden Bought" was a major influence on Lovecraft's writing.

>>37125128
>>37125164

Oh we established that a while back, dude.

>>37125128

The railway company is the front for the cult.

No-one goes into a bank asking for a business loan to carve arcane sigils across the continent and summon an elder horror. Though you could probably get tax exempt status by arguing it's religious.

The question IS what is the cult BEHIND the railway company called?

I think for that you need to ask what they're doing the carving for. Since we're going more for the Gateway Sigil rather than the Elder Sign, it makes sense that they're summoning something Big. I think the reason it centers of the big empty nothing space in the middle of America is because the thing they're summoning needs a lot of physical space.

So they probably work for something like Shub-Niggurath, or maybe Nyarlathotep who's looking to bring in a form that's less Avatar and more real-deal.

>>37106571
Its a hegelian mediation mate. A Lovecraftian universe interacts with an Objectivist worldview, which is reflected back into the lovecraftian universe because it doesn't work within itself. You could also have some abiguity if individuals can succeed in the lovecraftian universe, or if they're just being tricked and manipulated. It doesn't have to be blatent.

It would make for an intresting game.

For the name of the cult, it could reference their construction materials. The Order of Iron or something like that.

Alternatively, you could go for something that plays off of the word "Sleeper", which would have a fun dual meaning in this context.

>>37125633
But does it really need a name? That's my point. It doesn't. I always find it extremely cliche and hardly fitting for Cthulhu Mythos to give a name to every single cult. What for? So you feeble mind can get a better hold over this?

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>>37125633

>Since we're going more for the Gateway Sigil rather than the Elder Sign, it makes sense that they're summoning something Big.

Either that, or they are trying to summon many lesser creatures instead of a one big fish. Or maybe they are trying to create a stable dimensional portal that would last a really long time?

Maybe someone has made a deal with the Mi-Go and they are trying to transform Earth into a colony? Maybe all the train tracks are made from Tok'l-metal that they provide to the Leader of the cult.

>>37125862

But the Mi-go don't need a portal. They're already present on Earth and have enough infrastructure to do bulk mining operation.

What about a time-portal? It could be a Yithian escape route.

>>37125847

Groups tend to be assigned names, either by themselves or others. In a horror game, atmosphere is super-important so having an imposing or sinister name can create that. Your counterpoint to that would of course be that leaving it un-named could have the same or greater effect - and I'd agree. But a group this large and well-connected, having lasted so long will have AT SOME POINT developed a shorthand way to communicate among themselves about who and what they are. Some way for them to tell "this business is Cult Run, this one isn't."

It doesn't HAVE to be a super-scary name, of course. It might just be a little symbol on their marketing materials - a little yellow circle, for instance. Or there might be an email list for the "Sunday Golf Society" or something like that might help.

>>37105387
ok, so is that photoshop or the same person?

>>37125979

Neither.

The left is H.P Lovecraft, horror writer.
The right is Ayn Rand, writer horror.

>>37125971
No, using sinister or imposing name just makes them ridiculous and cheesy as fuck. They don't need such name for anything, then why should they call themselves? Why not use your railway company, with it's name and internal structure as the way the cult works? Not only you already have all the names and ranking system, BUT you have also a very good cover story, because no-one will accidently slip anything about "High Priest of Some Shitty Deity".
I wonder how you can play Call of Cthulhu without realising such obvious things. You can have a perfectly concilled cult that would be extra hard to find out and then even try to destroy instead of some bunch of lunatics in colurful pajamas that can be taken down with emptying your Tommy gun. Now try to stop a company that not only is perfectly valid as a company, but also you have no real means to identify who is just an employee and who is a cultist.
If that's not horror and suspense for you, then you are playing the game for tentacle rape.

>>37107245
>not Randroids

>>37126031

I never said that it HAD to be a Doomy Order of Great Doom calibre name, just that the inner circle should have some way of identifying themselves to each other.

The thing is that an operation this size is bound to fail - too many people, too many leak-risks. Best if it's just people in key positions - chief engineers, financiers, government transport planning officials. Bob in Accounting doesn't need to know, so he wouldn't. Of an enterprise potentially employing hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions, a few as a dozen might understand its true purpose.

THOSE PEOPLE need to communicate, co-ordinate and plan. Yes, the company itself is a great shell for the cult. Now, if the cult is overtly a cult - then there is by definition mystical and religious elements to it. You might not like it, but if it doesn't have that it's not a cult. They need to have shared beliefs, some sort of goal and some sort of internal structure within the Inner Circle. And they are Doing Grand Magics. Yes, this might borrow from business terminology - but that's just the wallpaper we're putting on a cult-framework.

To bring this back to Atlas Shrugged, what if the founders of the cult met in college like how Galt, Dacosta and the pirate guy whose name I forget all met in a philosophy module? That's an innocent sounding cover for the inner circle too - it's a "class reunion" when they go and meet in a cellar to chant about Cthulhu.

Turns out that the famous "invisible hand of the free marked" is really something very nasty, and the objectivist cult is trying to summon it.

>>37126308
>the inner circle should have some way of identifying themselves to each other.
Again and again - what for? Seriously, what for?

It's bond to fail if you play it your way - a cult with cultists, everyone doing shady bussiness and generally massive conspiracy.
Do you remember Cube? The original, from '97. The whole thing went to the point where nobody anymore have any control or knowledge what is really going on, yet the "conspiracy" was still running.
Scary as fuck.

In your version, there is some coherent, understandable and logical explaination. More - it's something you can easily grasp your mind about, without much effort. Where is cosmic horror in that? You insist there need to be some "they", the ones in control. But what if there is no control? What if nobody any longer knows nor CARES what's going on? They are just doing their anonymous, bureaucratic job. And you are bound to fail when trying to stop it, because there is nothing really to stop.

So bringing it back to Atlas Shrugged, you have your parasites that just keep perpetuation some stupid endevour for the sake of doing their job in mindless way.

>>37126308
I do like >>37125971 "Sunday Golf Society".

They didn't even choose it themselves: back when the conspiracy was only twelve guys and a book, they used to gather every sunday and hang out, read the thing, and brainstorm the first ideas. In times, some of them got a girlfriend, some got married and they settled that, as far as anyone other than them was concerned, they were gathering to play golf, because Bartholomew's father owned a golf course.
Eventually, one of their wives came up with the name "Sunday Golf Society" as a joke, and it stuck.

Today, more than a century later, no original member remains, the gatherings aren't on Sunday anymore, but the name remains, because it's just a good excuse.

>How come the bigheads of Ferry Johnson Transamerican, the Mayor of Bismark, and the Governor of Oklahoma know each other so well?
>I heard they used to be part of a golf club or something back in college.

Also the investigator's face the first time they care to open a letter marked "Sunday Golf Society", while such envelopes had been found on desks and shelves since the very beginning.

>>37126511
And this is EXACTLY the reason why I'm so against naming cults. Because if the names aren't cheesy, they end up exactly like that... which is cheesy in different kind of way.
Name of the cult would be pointless for cultists, unless they are bunch of amatours. Amatours don't cover half of America with Sigil. And if the name is given by the outsiders, why should they bother if their own cover is good/near perfect?

>>37126511

Or even better
>"How do the chief execution of Ferry Johnson TransAm, the Mayor of Bismarck and the Governor of Oklahoma know each other so well?"
>They don't.
>But their fathers...

>>37126627
>More like grandfathers.
>And uncle.
>And friend of the family.

>>37126429

>Cube was scary as fuck
>yet the conspiracy was still running

Because Cube was scary in SPITE of the conspiracy. It was scary because of the uncertain environment and the interpersonal tensions of the survivors. It managed tension very well - long, uneasy periods and then SUDDEN SHOCK with gore that, at the time, was pretty extreme.

>What if no-one care's what's going on any more?
At that point there's no cult and nothing for the investigators to fight - hundreds of thousands of people are the "enemy".

Now, I like the idea of a company existing and pursuing the agenda as a semi-autonomous super-organism. Perhaps that can be worked into there as one of the component companies that work a part of this conspiracy. Say there's a mining company in Alberqueque that exists only on paper. It has offices, it produces paper work and revenue, files taxes on time - the mine even produces metal. But at no point has any human touched a pick, their office buildings are empty..

>>37126700

It would have to have some people to pass a basic tax inspection. But at no point does anything these people work on actually go anywhere.

>>37126700
I wasn't talking about inside as scary place. I was talking about the whole Cube as an object and bureaucratic mess around it. That's what is REALLY scary - a massive project that went completely out of control and nobody even knows what it is or what purpouse does it serve... yet it keeps on running. This is what was really scary in that film.

>At that point there's no cult and nothing for the investigators to fight - hundreds of thousands of people are the "enemy".
Exactly. Showing how your investigation is meaningless and how you, or your group are powerless agains even your own world and other human beings, not to mention eldritch horrors.

>But at no point has any human touched a pick, their office buildings are empty..
Then from where all the stuff comes? Especially the ore? There is a difference between genuine cover story and going into Derpington area of bullshit.

>>37126912

Ehh, I've seen Cube 1 and 2 and the conspiracy aspects always were the parts that left me cold on the whole thing. The worldbuilding seemed like a distraction more than it was a benefit.

>Your investigation is meaningless!
Work's great for a CoC STORY but not a CoC GAME. Readers might be okay with an anti-climax, players will punch you in the face.

>Where does the stuff come from?
The point is that the COMPANY has become separate from the people involved in it and that It doesn't need Us. So it might have some human agents involved for a cover but their actions are purely removed from the actual output of the company. They go down to mine copper, but the company ships iron. They file TPS reports that get read by no-one.

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>>37126912

>Exactly. Showing how your investigation is meaningless and how you, or your group are powerless agains even your own world and other human beings, not to mention eldritch horrors.

This idea leads to interesting conclusions. Either investigators let the cult complete the train project, or they have to kill every important possible cult-member, even if they might actually be innocent. Or, knowing the players, they find a third way to solve the situation that we haven't think of.

>Then from where all the stuff comes? Especially the ore?

Alien.

>>37127006

Aliens, I meant. Like, the Deep Ones or the Mi-Go.

>>37126981
Then don't play with Pathfinder crowd and people will apriciate the genuine story instead crying they couldn't kill the evil cultists? I mean seriously, have your players been ever surprised their effort in CoC turned out into completely meaningless and (most likely) only get their PCs killed?
You are probably the first person im my life that is talking about CoC players punching anyone for anti-climax. And I'm with this system since '96

>>37126981
And by the way, I was specifically referring to the first film. Nice you've notice.

>>37127006
Please tell me how killing employees of big railway company by small group of individuals will stop said company from finishing it's projects.
Or for that matter, the competitors, when the evil company will have to get back from some area, but the same project will be picked by other, completely oblivious and innocent firm.
This is exactly this kind of scenario where PCs will fail, unless they will pull some trully heroic shit a la Old Henderson.

>>37127060

Yeah, I've played plenty of Call of Cthulhu as well. Even some Trail of Cthulhu and one game of Cthulhu Dark. I'm aware of Lovecraft's love of anti-climax.

It's not a "lel inferior plebs" classist thing. It's a format thing. The relationship between readers and a text is completely different from that of players and a game-narrative and treating them as identical isn't a good idea. Agency is super-important here. They should pay a hard price for victory, sure - maybe set it up so that defeating the cultist fucks a bunch of people because they lose their job, sure. Because most games of Call of Cthulhu DON'T end with "by the way, everything you did was futile nyarlathotep eats the universe and fucks your mum". They end with a wounded, deranged and diminished group of investigators JUST managing to avert disaster, bottle the menace etc.

Go look up a Trail of Cthulhu campaign called The Final Revelation. It's a series of frame narratives that are all downer endings. There's really interesting material and imagery in them - but at the end of the day, every player I know who's played it (including AP's I've heard of it) end the same way: "Why were we even here?" If you deny player agency by basically going "this thing absolutely can't be beat, this problem absolutely can't be solved," you're going to end up with a group of people who feel like you've been wasting their time.

That's not a Pathfinder thing or any particular system thing. It's part of the format's interactive nature; players have the ability to make an impact, in some way. That's hugely important to the experience of play. Ignore it at your risk.

>>37127114

>Please tell me how killing employees of big railway company by small group of individuals will stop said company from finishing it's projects.

Uh, I guess the players could also just bomb railways and sabotage the project in general? I don't know, I am not playing investigator currently.

> the same project will be picked by other, completely oblivious and innocent firm.

But the problem is, most of the railways do not make any sense if they are "just" railways. They end up in the middle of nowhere and have no major cities near them, because they are not designed for commercial but magical purposes. So the next company would not construct those lines, thus not creating a giant sigil.

>>37127156
It's not about being classist either. Certain people play certain game with certain expectations. You don't play CoC for heroic feeling and being competent save-the-day-get-the-babe guy. It's simply not this kind of game - here you would be glad to survive till the end of the scenario.
So "victory" is purely arbitrary, since in most cases that means "world will be destroyed on Monday, not Saturday". While your PC is institutionalised. And no, most games certainly not end this way, but they end with inability to affect the events. PCs usually end up with choice of admitting that and backing or trying to prevent the bad stuff, which will get them killed.
Averting the disaster? Are you kidding? It would take a truly incompetent enemies to stop their schemes.

So... you are saying that it's a game fault that it's just depressing and people want to feel like heroes? Then we are returning to my initial line - don't play with Pathfinder crowd. It's not about some beef against Pathfinder, but it's about CoC NOT being heroic fantasy or empowered fantasy for that matter. The entire game is ALL about being weak and unable to prevent the evil, but still trying, because that's what you do as a human being - irrationally trying to prevent stuff that will happen regardless of your actions.

If players feel it's not their thing - why did they play CoC in the first place? To have a happy/bittersweet ending? In CoC?

>>37127210
But the project is already ordered and the money is already on the table. It's the bureaucratic mess I'm constantly referring to. It doesn't matter if that makes any sense. If you get a job to build acording to a project, you just do that, not ask questions if that makes sense. The best example - road outside my window. The company was paid to dig a ditch on the side with trees without cutting them, while on the other side there was already dig ditch and no trees. So they filled it with earth, because that's what the project asked them to do. Stupid? Yes. Wasteful? Yes. But that's what the project and contract said. People don't ask questions - they want their part of the job done and getting paid for that.

>>37127289

But Lovecraft himself had a rather happy ending in "The Dunwich Horror" and in "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", didn't he? Only few deaths, no-one ended up into the asylum and the villain was killed.

>>37127344

I actually like this idea about bureaucratic horror, tough it moves closer to Kafka than Rand.

>>37127370
Wow! He had a happy ending two times! It's like saying Norway is African nation, because 4% of society are immigrants from Africa.

>>37127386
But you can easily adopt it for Lovecraftian horror, as nothing covers grand and incomprehensible conspiracies better than vast bureaucracy. And making the conspiracy impossible to prevent or stop.

>>37127370
Villain. Not the actuall evil behind the whole thing. So the tool was broken, but the operator remained.

>>37127289

What part of saying "victory should be possible, but at a hard price" makes you infer "CoC should be heroic fantasy"? At this point, I'm starting to think you're deliberately misreading this.

If NO chance of victory is possible, if it is IMPOSSIBLE to avert the disaster even a little, if player input is meaningless, then why do you even need to invite six people to sit around a table with you? Just sit alone and cackle.

This is not a comment on Lovecraft or saying there should be a happy ending. It's about having to make certain changes to horror as a whole in order to adapt Lovecraft (or any horror) to the medium of gaming.

>>37127581
It's plain and simple. Victory is by basic rule impossible. Just like that. And players are aware of that too.
Yet they keep playing. And have no problems with anti-climaxes or dying like animals. It is you who came with the whole "players will punch you" stuff.
If you can't apriciate and participate in dark storytelling of 7 people sitting around the table - maybe CoC is not for you? And I mean it without any hint of insult or irony.

>It's about having to make certain changes to horror as a whole in order to adapt Lovecraft (or any horror) to the medium of gaming
And it's already done since '81. It is you who want to turn it into "you can win if you try hard enough". No, you can't. Learning that is the basic lesson about playing CoC. Which is the reason why it's not game for everyone without any classist bullshit. For the same reason certain people play RTS and other play FPS and other JRPG - they enjoy different things.
Some enjoy winning and killing cultists. Other enjoy atmosphere and the investigation part, even if they know that the whole thing will end up in asylum at best.

>>37127706

>You can't win
>Basic of CoC

That's why all those published CoC adventures include ways of, say, vanquishing cultists, banishing their summoned spirits, closing their portals...

Wait, are you trying to define victory as, like "kill Azathoth"? Because yeah that would be retarded.

>>37127415
Maybe have several cults in charge of different collections of companies. Each cult is trying to get its own mark carved upon the landscape for their own reasons. Shit just went global.

>>37127828
No, I'm trying to say that there is no such thing as victory. Your goals - stopping the cult, preventing something evil from emerging, destroying insanity-inducting objects etc are All. Bound. To. Fail. All of them. Always. If not by inadequate preparations then by inadequate means and if not by those two, then RNG will cetrainly screw you.
It's a GREAT surprise when you actually "win", which means going with some zany scheme (read - "let's try to stop the cult, even if it's too late and we are company or two short to do that") and survive it with maimed body and SAN reduced to single digit. That's the closest of "win" CoC is - when by dumb luck you succeed and cheer the uncheerable

>>37127950

>I'm not trying to say victory is impossible.
>>37127706
>Victory is by basic rule impossible.
>"Victory" is purely arbitrary.
>>37127060
>their efforts turned out into completely meaningless

>>37128096
>I'm gonna nit-pick, because some dude didn't agree you should be always able to "win" CoC scenario.
>Because I have nothing better to do with my time.

>>37127706

>Some enjoy winning and killing cultists.

So what if some people enjoy their CoC like this?
We are talking about an evil cult-corporation building a gigantic summoning circle out of railways to summon a gigantic octopus-monster from the Outer Darkness, and players possibly, maybe, perhaps 'winning the game' (or even stopping the cult while dying/going insane) is the most unrealistic part of this all?

>>37128096
>Can't see the difference between impossible, arbitrary and dumb luck.
>Acts smug about it.

>>37128122
>>37128207

Dude says in one post that it's impossible and in another that it's not impossible.

That's not nitpicking, that's a straight up contradiction.

>>37128124

There's a certain subset of GM that likes to say NO to players against all reason. It's a variant of the Tomb of Horrors GM.

>>37128124
Yes.

Within the very concept of this scenario the most unlikely part is PCs stopping the whole thing. It's simply waaay above their reach. After all you have 3-6 people against interstate construction company that can pull a lot of strings to get rid of anyone, one way and another, while STILL acting within boundaries of law. So the concept of few average Joes stoping conspiracy this big in setting that is based on "average Joe, his civilisation and his dog are meaningless" rule is simply ridiculous. They are bound to fail.
Even if they manage to pull some Elliot Ness court bullshit and get "evil cultists" sentenced for tax evasion, that would take a very specific investigators, very specific situation and extremely high surivality rate to reach the court alive and sane.

>>37128293

>can't stop it, tax evasion is the only way

Bitch have you never heard of a bomb.

>>37128286
Jesus, you gonna cling to this, aren't you?
Then let's put this in dumbed down version, so you will finally shut up.
Basic rule says - you can't win.
There are many reasons why you can't and all or some of them will finally get your PC.
The only way you can win is by blind luck.
Thus the "win" is by rules impossible, but by chance it's achievable.
BUT since it's by chance and not your direct or indirect actions, it's valid to say that winning is impossible - because you won't win by your actions, only by random chance.
If you still can't see a difference and why the impossible part is valid, I'm speechless.

>>37128340
And you gonna bomb what? Trans-state railway? With hundreds of bombs? And few different offices of said company? And kill all their workers?
Do I need to remember that your PC is average Joe or even without it this "bomb them" plan is ridiculous?
A bomb is good when you have to dispose of your "standard" cult, sitting in single house, with less than 20 people involved. And we are talking about massive construction company, employing thousands of workers. It's like you were proposing using a dude with single hammer to get down the whole country.

>>37128351

>Basic rule says - you can't win.

Well then, then I can save everyones time and just set my game to the post-apocalyptic wasteland that was created by the Old Ones when the Train-Gate opened a way to them.

I seriously don't understand your view on this, but you have naturally all rights to direct your own games as you wish. I, for one, shall let my players to punch the Deep Ones when they have earned it.

Hey guise,

when you play in Waterdeep, how long does it take you usually to take over the entire city?

Have you ever played a Rogue Trader who didn't conquer the Imperium?

Has your decker ever failed to become the Matrix and rule all corporations?

You are having a retarded discussion and you should feel bad.

>>37128449
Oh, now I get it.
You play a continous world. I don't. In your games, every scenario is connected and if something fails in one of them then the world is screwed in all future scenarios.
In my games, continuity lasts as long as PCs are alive. Which means that if they fail, the world goes to hell, but they are no longer there... so new PCs and new scenario.
In short - different basic attitude toward world and it's continuity.

>>37128449
On the other hand, this implies survivality rate is WAY too high for my standards, since PCs under your GMing survive multiple scenarios and actually manage to acomplish something.

>>37105653
>>37106561
Of course they're incompatible, objectivism holds individual human achievement as its highest value, and Lovecraft says that nothing anyone does matters because we're all just specks on the universe's taint and if Azathoth so much as sneezes we'll have never existed before you can say f'taghn.

>>37128496

I am actually only one of the victory-anons (I guess there are two of us in this thread?) but you guessed correctly. I like to set all of my stories into a same "world" or a "timeline". Destroying world would be rather counter-productive for my modern-day games (but it also opens a possibility of post-apocalyptic game).

>>37128563
>>37128563
But this means that unless you have a valid fail-safe mechanism for every single scenario, you are easening on your players. AND if you have a guaranteed way to prevent the shit without players success, that also creates false feeling of security for them, as no matter how bad they screw, they will remain alive and the world will be saved.
Kind of counter-productive for cosmic horror scenario.

>>37128604

Well, I don't usually do "end-of-the-world" scenarios. I have, thus far, done only low-level games like "the Serpent Men are trying to kidnap a woman to continue their race" and "by accident the Soviets have bore a hole to the sleeping place of a lesser Old One". None of my games had the stakes this high. I mean, we are summoning something really big here.

>>37128718
Well, most of my games have stakes that could take resources of small country to achieve or topple over, so... yeah, pretty much different level and type of scenario.

>>37128496

The Train Conspiracy is of a scale and scope, both of time and space, that it should be a full campaign rather than a single session. If that's what you mean by continuous.

>>37128563
Yeah, sorry, I was taking a bath and listening to an audiobook of The Atrocity Archives.

>>37128718
>>37128798

I prefer my scenarios relatively small, but with potential to escalate. The Train Conspiracy can be taken in most ways - you can focus on the Conspiracy setting up an individual crash to activate a point on the glyph or a larger scope thing about the WHOLE sigil.

>>37128399

Sacred geometry, motherfucker. They need to construct things EXACT to get that sigil right and it's super-easy to put a wrench in something that exact.

As for the size - that's actually a point AGAINST the conspiracy. The bigger the conspiracy, the more likely it is to leak, schism etc. The huge multi-state initiative is more likely to get whistleblowers, defectors etc than a local-scale scheme with similar methods.

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>>37129464
So now you have clearance for OGRE REALITY...

>>37129464

>As for the size - that's actually a point AGAINST the conspiracy. The bigger the conspiracy, the more likely it is to leak, schism etc. The huge multi-state initiative is more likely to get whistleblowers, defectors etc than a local-scale scheme with similar methods.

Of course our conspiracy is so out of this world (quiet literally) that even if the knowledge of it leaks the authorities will probably find it difficult to accept the premise of the whole thing.

"They are constructing a gigantic magical symbol that will cause the end of the world!"
"Uh, I am not sure if there is any law against that. I mean, mmmh, it is their property after all."

But the stockholders would probably complain if they are not cultists themselves.

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>>37129632

*very literally

Once again, a typo.

>>37129632

There are still the planned train crashes etc. If nothing else, I'm still thinking this makes more sense as multiple companies in cahoots and there's probably some law against such anti-competition things.

>>37105908
In the US, that is. Remember that a shitload of westerners aren't from aggressively capitalist societies, which leaves the Randian philosophy of, well, even the wealthy, as alien concepts. Damn, even people like Ingmar Kamprad (the founder of Ikea), albeit very much capitalists, would still find her Objectivist thoughts laughable.

What the cultists are trying to summon seems obvious: the Dreamlands. They realized their ideology didn't work in reality, so they decided to turn at least some of the world into a place where they could decide what reality was.

Also, have it so that the giant sigil is part of the larger general rail network, with the sigil differentiated from the rest of the rail net by an infusion of a special alloy into the specific tracks that form it.

>>37131155

"Call of Cthulhu: The Dream Train"?
Well, the Dreamlands is relatively 'safe' place comparing it to, for example, Yuggoth. That also would explain why the cultists aren't raving madmen, they are not (necessarily) under the control of the Old Ones.

>>37131351

The problem the cultists will have is that any one individual does not in fact have all that much influence on a given area of the Dreamlands, and that they're going to create a portal other things can use to enter reality.

Or, alternatively, the cultists can exert as much control over the Dreamlands as they think, in which case they need to be stopped before they turn reality into a literally nightmarish objectivist dystopia.