unreality

Pretty mindbending stuff, I approve The LSD section reminds me of a book I read by Aldous Huxley about exploring the "deep psychology" of the mind using psychedelics (in that case, mescalin)... he described the mind as a "valve" that was receiving a massive incoming stream of data (in the holographic analogy, this would be all the frequencies in the superhologram or at least some large subset) but had to pick out the "frequencies" that were evolutionarily relevant to survival... ignoring the massive input of other information. [The further theory on this being that psychedelics and other methods "open" the valve so to speak, allowing an input of more frequencies than were originally evolutionarily relevant to living/surviving]

Yeah, the lack of goal was definitely something that in retrospect crippled it. Thanks for your input! Part of my idea was leaving a lot of the options up to you guys by giving an environment and then handing over the reins, so to speak, giving the player absolute freedom as to what they would do. But I should've added some more structure maybe, at least in terms of giving them in-game goals and short-term/long-term objectives. Thanks!

It was interesting to see it unfold (nothing at all like previous murder mysteries), though my only regret was that I wasn't able to be more active once my semester started up again (and I noticed the same lull in activity from almost everyone else) which kept me from organizing it better and kept others from maybe getting more involved. I was thinking of hosting another one, set in the desert (around some kind of Egyptian plotline), but hosting it in the summer so people (including myself, I was more guilty of inactivity than anyone else) have the time and inclination to really get into. Another thing would be I would flesh out each character more (Maybe have fewer characters, set from the beginning, instead of just having open signups and seeing who signs up) and have a much more fleshed out back story and plot and have more twists and turns ready. And then either have the day/night system more structured, merge it into a single phase system (without alternating day/night) or drop that part of it altogether. I know I was lacking in some organization and fleshing out this game, and could've helped tie things together better, but: I'm _very_ interesting in hearing what you liked and didn't like... features you thought were lacking, features you thought were good, features you think I should add. etc. The second one (if it happens - next summer) I'll start writing for it like a month in advance or something, crafting something really complex and interconnected with just a few characters, maybe 5-7. Anyway yea, let me hear some constructive feedback (lay on the negative too, I wont bite!)

Oh, right! dawh was Charles Norway, still wandering the mountains, mad as a ferret, in search of sanctuary... pretty much just Mordock, Willem, yourself (it was Fabricius' intention to never return - perhaps that could've come into play with designating rations and saving lives on the way down but as it turns out that didn't come into play. As for Nischal, well the "villain" (in some sense) got what was coming... or did he?)

Also, the 'disease meant to enlighten the world' can be interpreted in many ways. But probably physically best analogous to the lichen itself. But if the members of sanctuary ever had a plan to distribute such an idea/organism around the world, they lost all motivation/connection with the outside world (and their agents planted there such as John the Savage) centuries ago and became entirely self-absorbed, due to the lichen.

In a Nutshell: * Nischal was the murderer * Dr Fabricius is the actual http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Fabricius, and gave the residents of sanctuary eternal life. The anagrams were actually a message for him: Cherubim said: sir, no fury. That is an anagram for Dr. Hieronymus Fabricius God retorts: A pathogenic hit us. That is an anagram for 'Do Not Go Up The Right Staircase'. * There is no Yeti. John the Savage thought he could control it but it turns out that hundreds of years of eating psychedelic lichen had messed with his mind, and he in fact WAS the yeti. He thought he could control the "magical beast" with a "magical ice crystal" but in actuality he acted out what he wanted the yeti to do. Without knowing it - until he arrived back in sanctuary once more (near the end of the game) and realized the truth (since everyone in sanctuary gets their sustenance entirely from the lichen).

Yep, it's over...you've gotten back to the base camp at the last day that the rescue team was waiting. As you stumble (mad and hallucinating and muttering things about the snow-rampaged mountain) into the fuzzy camp of glowing orange lights and strange faces and strange smells, you collapse to your knees, surrounded by the stars and the sun and the moon wheeling around in an endless dance. At first you cause quite the stir, but as time rolls on, your frothing words become mere legends. Terrors of the ice, phantasms of the unreachable reaches, frigid myths of where humanity dare not go.

No but imagine being on the receiving end of that by accident

The deeper you go into the caves, as the avalanches roar down above, crushing any remnants of familiarity on the mountainface, including those left behind to their frosty fate, the deeper you traverse into what appears to be some kind of organic tunneled system, spiraling through the mountain's core. Eventually you find yourself twisting down over a large clear-ish air pocket in the ice chutes. Inside you can see the harsh white glow of the outside world filtering down into a murky cavern, soaked at the bottom with ice cold water. Some recognize it as a cavern trap they had once been trapped in. Knowing to not go down there, the group avoids the slope into the trap as they skirt around in the tunnels, passing by an especially hot area of the tunnel where it's merged into the wet rock as the ice is melted by the nearby volcanic spring. Onward the tunnel continues, getting progressively colder again. You start to hear once more the roaring sound of the ongoing snow stampede, coming down the cliffs like a frozen waterfall of epic proportions. You avoid a pocket of tunnels which appears to be some kind of nest and/or incubation site... perhaps wisely. Onward. A light ahead. A rocky overhang over the tunnel entrance, tucked around the back side of the mountain near the starting point, protecting a tiny little tunnel hole from the elements, including the avalanche. You emerge, facing a massive scene of elemental destruction. But you have no choice - the avalanche must have caved in the system from its weak points in the ice and snow is beginning to rush down the tunnels, flushing out the innards, the real guts of the mountain. You run out fearfully, hearts pounding, bashing brutally into the bright daylight, struggling onward as the snow leaps you from the clifftops above, flying off like a continual assault. Finally the wall of this phenomenon is breached... at last... you emerge near the bottom of the hill, near where this perilous trek began and with a lower body count than on the way up.

I agree that legalization is better than decriminalization and that's the only solution for the gang problem, but nevertheless like I said, it will take steps to move toward legalization. A stepping stone along the way is decriminalization

Despite the idealistic scenario of what should & should not be, I think the best step in the right direction is to start decriminalizing, but not legalizing. Decriminalization is just a shift in legal and public attitude - starting with the legal, most importantly. So it's not legal as in Pot Corporation can start selling brownies en masse, but at least decriminalized in the sense that if little Johnny is caught by the police, his future isn't ruined or restricted. It would save a lot of law enforcement money and energy spent going after petty "criminals" whose only crime is toking up or similar. People that get sent to jail as innocent people come out hardened by our sh*tty prison system which throws 18-year old soft-drug dealers in with murderers. Legalizing is a pretty extreme step and I think would be too much rapid change, for our country at least. But decriminalization doesn't make it legal, just makes there be little or no penalty. Maybe a civic fine. Marijuana already is decriminalized in quite a few places, ie Ann Arbor. And California.

Definitely very slowly moving... I think we've essentially reached the finale. I don't have time tonight but if you'd like, I can try to conclude it tomorrow?

This game has been mostly player-driven, I'm waiting for some kind of decision. I haven't heard much. If you want to get rid of the beaurocracy and move faster, feel free to break away and do exploring of your own but I can't make group decisions for the group

sxephil is a dumb@ss, albeit sometimes he can be pretty funny. I didn't watch the video but I can guess what the reasons are, I've seen them a thousand times. Like anything, there are pros and cons. But 100% REGARDLESS of your personal opinion, habit or aversion to something like marijuana, there is no doubt that it is wrongly illegal, or at the least the supposed severity of punishment (which thankfully isn't reality) is too great. The government's responsibility isn't to monitor the personal health choices of its citizens - if you think that's what it has in mind, you're misguided. Smoking cigarettes should be illegal, alcohol should be illegal, McDonald's should be even more illegal than those things. At the very least you have to be consistent - either the government should make our health choices for us and force us to use organic toothpaste, shop at Whole Foods, never smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol, and other health decisions, giving you no responsibility or freedom. Or, my position, those are YOUR choices. The ironic thing is that most stoners I know do those things (in the area of organic toothpaste and shopping at Whole Foods, not drinking or smoking cigs very much, etc) and are probably more healthy than your average Joe who scoffs at marijuana use while eating McDonalds on the toilet and drinking himself to death every weekend.

which tunnel do you guys want to explore?

Yes in theory but after the snow settles, you'll be quite buried and you'll have to get out. It's a bit risky but then again there's lichen sustenance in the caves and oxygen from the mysterious tunnels

SLOBS

well it's just beginning - you have a chance

It's too late... the entire sancutary starts sliding down the cliff-face in a rumbling lurch of stone, snow and bodies... this momentum builds and collides and collects, picking up speed as it approaches free fall, tearing apart the icy cliff in its descent... an avalanche of massive proportions in the making...

Meanwhile, you feel somewhat of a tremble in the mountain.....

The lower cave is coated in lichen and not much else... other than some voraciously gnawed bones, possibly Vick's. However, someone makes an accidental discovery by leaning on a sensitive part of the back wall and it caves open, leading to another narrow dark tunnel chewing its way into the mountain. Combined with the top cave, there are three such passages (possibly natural, although they appear as if they were bored out by some massive worm or snake). This day is slightly better than previous though - you can see from here to the peak, and the cluster of ancient buildings clinging to the cliff-face directly beneath the peak. It'd be possible to head there during the day period, since many of you are still rejuvenated and have most of your warmth from the hot lake below.

JINNI

as of midnight last night, it's now day

I know break's over and things are getting busy but maybe if we can get everyone together we can get the game into the endgame and see it through? i wouldn't want to see it just drizzle away due to inactivity