Alexis Kennedy's Cultist Simulator

Fallen London
561

Thanks for this, it was doing my head in. I was quite sure that I’d been able to generate more than one +2 Lantern Lore from The Cleansing Dawn in the past, only to find myself stumped in this game - it would be this game. The Tree of Lights dream was the culprit.

  1. Yep, Skintwisters currently are nerfed to only destroy Evidence with the same 70% success rate as a Raw Prophet, Voiceless Dead or Caligine, and with the same 9% chance of a Follower wipeout. Too risky IMO. They are still flawless con-artists.

Other thoughts:

  1. Only Knock, Moth, and Forge Followers can pull items from the stop-gap Inventory vault, and only Exalted K/M/F Followers can do so flawlessly. Winning with a non-K/M/F Cult might be possible with crazy luck, but I’m disinclined to try.

  2. The current game must be more beatable – though duller – if you don’t activate Obsession until you’re closing in on Aspect:36 in your chosen Ambition.

  3. Caligines are to be avoided until further notice. They always rebel, so you flip straight to a 30% chance of ‘A Breach!’, and then a 50% chance it will grab a Mortal to try killing them.

  4. I got the paranoid impression that when searching for a Mortal victim, ‘A Breach!’ works from the perimeter of the screen inwards looking for cards to pull, and kept my Exalteds corralled within other Mortal cards. I am a highly rational being with no superstitions at all.

I’ve now beaten the game naturally, days after most people inclined to try have probably done so.

The Luminously Cursed Adventures of an Occasional Idiot: part III
(spoilers for length, and also for the identity of the Baldomerian, I guess)

[spoiler]That recently-stolen Kingskin Bodhran must be hexed: firstly, Rose, Victor and Renira vanish in quick succession, leaving me just Saliba and Elridge to kidnap mind-fodder. Once I lose those two, I’ll have to turn on my own Followers, and after a while they will probably notice.

Secondly, a Hint breaches its resummoning again, just as I was going to pack it off to the Bureau, ensuring no-one there dared look in a mirror for weeks. I am forced to send them Leo, while the breached Hint selects…Count Jannings!

The Count sensibly starts hanging out at tea dances a-whirl with the human gaze, but the Hint gets the drop on him from a chandelier. Everyone who’s taught me a language, and isn’t Dr. al-Adim, has now been murdered by Lantern-things – though curiously, there is no record of them ever being buried. Ysabet has a surprising number of Continental aunts and uncles, it seems.

Incessant thieving makes us Notorious, Notoriety breeds Tentative Evidence, and Raw Prophets/Voiceless Dead are the only biddable Summoned who have Moth and can thus dispose of Evidence (Caligines are are too risky to Summon at present IMO). I’d rather not risk Ysabet – my only surviving human Moth Follower – on Evidence runs, so I Summon away like the sorceror’s apprentice I am. Breaches are possible.

Neville – it would be him – puts me on the spot by stealing the Frangiclave, a +12 Knock tool. A Key To Everything is as close as I’m going to get to in-game permission to cheat; I keep it as a back-up plan. In addition to the Frangiclave I now have +12 Edge Furious Sliver, +12 Forge Carcass Spark, and that bloody +12 Heart Kingskin Bodhran. Are they germane to my plans? No, and moreover, Clovette has taken to drumming as a hobby. Saliba leaves one evening and never comes back. I can’t blame him.

Another Summoning breach! This particular Hint fixates on Elridge, just as I was going to upgrade him to a Disciple, and bizarrely, the destructive Edge power of an Escaped Summoning combines with any Edge possessed by its victim, in a single slot. Elridge’s +2 Edge and the Hint’s +8 Edge combine to give +10 Edge, which is currently rated as Certain Death (the Maid has +12 Edge/+12 Winter but she’s not actually any deadlier than this odd scenario).

FNORD: a word that describes my feelings exactly. My last available kidnapper dies, passing no remarks:

After a brief second career as a wood-zombie, Elridge is planted out next to Count Jannings and Mme Bechet, in what is becoming a regrettable little grove. I take up topiary as a cover story.

Gods’ elbows! A Breach again. But this Voiceless Dead wants me for lunch, which is vaguely flattering – and far more convenient. I’ve let my Obsession:Enlightenment level slip to 3, I’m in the mood to obliterate something, and Today’s Special is a brisk exorcism served on the sharp end of the Geminiad. Fuelled by the sense that I want to see everything, Enid and Neville have now stolen +12 Tools in every Principle, apart from Secret Histories (which may not have one) and bloody Lantern:

Finally Enid steals a highish-level Lantern Tool, a Wildering Mirror at Lantern 8, giving me a potential win state if I use the Rite Intercalate with the Baldomerian – who in this game, I’ve yet to actually meet – in the Follower slot. But I cannot (I think) raise said Baldomerian with any standard Ritual, equipped only with a +2 Secret Histories Paradoxical Curio, a +8 Lantern Hint, +8 ad lower Lantern Lore, 2 +8 Lantern Ingredients, a +8 Lantern Tool and the tiny +2 Lantern Influence obtainable at the White Door, which now feels like a personal assessment of my worth from the Watchman.

It will be necessary to perform the Rite Intercalate twice.

Oh no. Oh, Neville and Enid. It’s not Clifton who has to go before me, though the poor devout fellow is willing – but without him, who’ll be left to spread the gospel of Light? He has the makings of a proper Seer, which is more than you or I ever will. And though I could use one, I don’t trust the Hinter one bit. Faithless Edge-contaminated things, and having already died once, I suspect they’re not keen on an encore.

As I ponder how to break this, my need for Conversation returns with a vengeance. Tristan and Violet go into the Cupboard of No Return, and finally, Clovette is invited to give me a private concert on her Bodhran. It is not a merciful concert, but it is a short one, and I am once again at Obsession:Lantern:6

I toss a coin. Neville.

Hello, Teresa. We haven’t met before but I’ve read every word of your books. I suppose you know why you’re here.

And that is roughly that, Inspector. Somewhere out there are Pope Clifton and Cat Caro, brewing up some fever-dream of Catholicism and cartomancy; I’m sure it’ll be a grand success, such rubbish always is. And somewhere out there is Enid, armed with the Frangiclave in loving memory of Neville, giving her a Knock of 22, at which point one is basically a neutrino with consciousness. ‘Master criminal’ doesn’t really describe what she has become – and Zachary, I think she likes you.[/spoiler]

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Note: Winter followers also bring back items from the stop-gap Inventory vault, but they also get both Corpses and Notoriety, which are both Reputations and serve to generate Evidence against you. The other 3 Inventory-Cults are still better, but at least there’s a theoretical 4th option now.

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Ere I am, J.H. A ghost in the machine ^_^

She also sometimes forgets to eat.

Here’s a screenshot of Auclair assisting in a necromantic ritual.
.


edited by Anne Auclair on 3/23/2018

564

[quote=Anne Auclair]Ere I am, J.H. A ghost in the machine ^_^

She also sometimes forgets to eat.

Here’s a screenshot of Auclair assisting in a necromantic ritual.
.


edited by Anne Auclair on 3/23/2018[/quote]

All they need is love.

565

Groundbreaking, world-shattering news out today:

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CONGRATULATIONS ALEXIS AND LOTTIE!!!

566

D’awwwww

567

More art ^_^

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I wonder if those worms are edible.

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yes more

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[quote=Anne Auclair]More art ^_^

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I wonder if those worms are edible.[/quote]I have eaten
the worms
that were in
the pyxis

and which
you had labelled
‘for Rite
Intercalate’

Forgive them
I was delicious
so warm
and so real

570

And the creepiest card design yet award goes to…

Tarot Three is the Empress, representing fertility, growth, and the creation of new life.

The card is again rife with symbolism. The tree and the bees are lifted from Celtic and druid symbolism. A yew tree decays, hollows, and a new tree sprouts from the trunk. As a result, the yew has traditionally been considered to be a symbol of death and rebirth. Bees are also affiliated with brightness, prosperity, the sweetness of life, and the Sun.

A ring is loop, never-ending. It symbolizes that life never truly ends, just continues to change from one form to another. An unending cycle of death and rebirth.

Malachite is also a powerful symbol of life and transformation. It is regarded as a protection stone, drawing out and absorbing negative energy and as a result bringing positive change to those who use it. It also is said to ease birthing pains, playing back into the fertility of the Empress card. Also note that the tree is totally green here. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Ring-Yew is an animate, living tree made of malachite.

From the card alone, I’d say the Malachite is a God-From-Stone, who remains.

Of course, none of this means that the Malachite isn’t dangerous. It is still an Hour after all, a living manifestation of primal desires too strong for mortals. Yew trees are also poisonous, meaning they’re just as affiliated with death and funerals as they are with rebirth. Again we’ve got traces of human faces on the bark of the tree. That, combined with the fact she likes to raise the corpses of the dead into Burgeoning Risen, leads me to believe she’s responsible for the people-trees that comprise the Wood beneath the House.

And then we’ve got that arm. At first it looks like a pale, blood drained corpse has been stuffed into the tree, but upon closer examination I noticed the surface is of the arm is cracked and made of stone. Perhaps it’s made of marble, another symbol of purity and immortality. The question is what is it doing there? Is it being birthed from the tree? Has the tree sprung up and encapsulated it, making it the original Malachite? So many questions.

Also, look at the wall behind the tree (which is significant on it’s own since the House has no walls). The symbols of the Heart, Moth, and Grail have been drawn on it with honey, and the arm seems to be pointing to them. Perhaps this indicates some form of relationship between the Ring-Yew and these other Hours which makes sense as she seems to intersect the underlying principles of each of them (enduring life, shedding of the self/transformation, and birth).

Note Winter and Forge are absent however. Likely because Winter is finality and death, and the Forge is fire and transformation through violent destruction, neither are things that mix with an immortal tree.

571

I don’t agree, I think the tree’s bright, warm colors make it feel rather friendly and reassuring.

That wall is even more puzzling, given that Illopoly tells us &quotAs any student of the Histories knows, the Wood has no walls.&quot So why is there a wall there?

I think the wall might symbolize the world. First, the world is actually partly defined by the barriers separating it from everything else (it’s skin, its walls). Second, the Woods is the closest place to the world, as its the first area you traverse in dream. Third, the Grail, the Heart and the Moth are each deeply involved in the world in some way (the Moth is the Hour of cutting away the world’s accumulations, but that requires a world in the first place).

572

&quotshe is succulent; she is renewed; she encompasseth&quot

seems about right in regards to the Empress tarot

573

A stone tree, laden with dripping hives and fallen pieces of comb. What bees might live upon a tree so unusual? From what flowers might they drink? What honey might such nectar produce?

574

Here are all the items in the Adept’s Build, on the age old belief that you can learn a great deal about the gods from their objects of power.

[spoiler]Ingredients

Refulgin, Lantern 4
A white so pure that it remains visible even in utter darkness.

Glassfinger Toxin, Lantern 8
‘What is without, within.’ A poison sacred to the votaries of the Meniscate.

Ichor Vitreous, Lantern 12
A pale and watchful fluid that can be gathered, sometimes, when the Door-in-the-Eye is opened.

Piebald Pigment, Moth 4
From the crushed wings of rare lepidopterans. ‘Painting black, or painting white, this is the stuff that’ll see you right.’

Leathy, Moth 8
A dark and syrupy liquor favoured in unnamed forest villages. ‘The gontue and the eye, and now we begin! Forget your name, forget your skin.’

Holiest Hemolymph, Moth 12
Faint traces of an enigmatic substance spilt in the commission of an ancient crime, tightl sealed in a glass ampoule. ‘Who will remember the barber’s son?’

Byzantine Tinct, Knock 4
The profound purple worn in only Histories, where Tyrian dye was not rich enough for emperors. It is difficult to bar entry to one wearing this colour.

Sthenic Venom, Knock 8
From time to time, the Mother of Ants has also been called the Daughter of Venoms. This substance opens the body in uncountable places.

Azoth, Knock 12
Store this only in containers of a pure element, and never permit it to grow warm. Perhaps it isn’t the final solvent that the alchemists sought. But it will do, for our purposes.

Bitterblack Salts, Forge 4
No ordinary chemist could produce these dark-gleaming crystals – not without the touch of the Forge.

Xanthotic Essence, Forge 8
In certain operations of the Forge, sunlight is said to overcome moonlight, as we pass from the Meniscate to the Madrugad. This essence was mercury, once, but now it’s the rich gold of a summer afternoon. Pretty.

Iotic Essence, Forge 12
In the later operations of the Forge, the Madrugad yields to the true Forge of Days, and the essence begins to redden. Some day, perhaps, it will not, but for now we have this.

Martensite Paste, Edge 4
The sacred chrism of the sword. Also an attractive silver-green.

Labhitic Grains, Edge 8
Labhites are the youngest of the Lionsmith’s servants. When rendered to powder, they retain their potency but not their beauty.

Skaptodon Fang, Edge 12
It is rare for the Lionsmith to make skaptodons, now; but they are difficult to kill, and they live a very long time.

Greydawn Oil, Winter 4
The precise colours of the hours when one cannot sleep.

Wolf-Snow, Winter 8
Far too cold ever to melt in anything but the hottest noonday sun. It will, very gradually, consume human flesh.

Watch-Worms, Winter 12
A tiny pot of stunted, desiccated larval remnants from the First Worm War, rank with the power that inhabits dead Hours.

Vital Pigment, Grail 4
It is not usual for a red this red to survive the death of the body.

Amaranthine Nectar, Grail 8
One of the Flowermaker’s many gifts. In a brighter age, it might have bestowed immortality. In this blighted History, it is still an unparalleled sweetness.

Writhing Caul, Grail 12
Lay your had on these tattered folds and feel their warmth; leave your hand upon it, and it will explore the possibilities of embrace.

Rose-Pearl Dust, Heart 4
Pearls are sacred to the Witch-and-Sister, especially those of this colour. They have been used in protective rites, among others.

Witch-Kissed Oil, Heart 8
The formula remains unchanged since the days Hecate was worshipped at the crossways.

True Blood of St Januarius, Heart 12
The Thunderskin protected the one they called Januarius, against perils from every past. To this day his blood keeps dancing.

Tools

Noonstone, Lantern 4
Noon, the saying goes, is not what it was.

Wildering Mirror, Lantern 8
A multiplicity of vistas! A bewilderment of views! Gaze upon me, and rejoince in the dissolution of your senses!

Watchman’s Glass, Lantern 12
This is the mirror into which one does not look twice.

Winged Doll, Moth 4
In an attic above a skeleton house there was a window. Beside the window there was a box there was a bandage. In the bandage was a twist of clotted hair. In the hair was wound a doll, because the window had never been opened.

Dappled Mask, Moth 8
In the forest where the moon couldn’t go, the boughs of the trees were woven together like bandages or lovers. The moon might change herself to an ant or a bird or to her sister, but the forest would not yield to her penetrations, no matter her caresses. One day we came with our scissors, and we severed the braches until the moon and the blood dappled the rotting leaves on the forest floor.

Alakapurine Shears, Moth 12
In the North there is a city of great wealth where dwelt a protector of the world. One day he fell silent. These shears were used to take from him first his hair and then his fingers and then what remained.

Icon of St Agnes, Knock 4
St Agnes of Bohemia was renowned for her pious dedication to the mortification of the flesh. This icon makes for grisly viewing.

Consecrated Lintel, Knock 8
This is the skull of a door through which power has passed.

Franglclave, Knock 12
There are keys that open doors; then there are keys that destroy them.

Cinnabar Amulet, Forge 4
Scarlet is the colour of heat. Mercury holds one key to an ultimate dissolution.

Malleus Imperative, Forge 8
A tiny ear-bone, blackened by intense heat. Applied correctly, it can crack stone.

Carcass Spark, Forge 12
A remnant of a greater radiance, glowing softly as decay, just possibly, a mote of the divided Sun.

Meteoric Bullet, Edge 4
Taenite-iron bullets are occasionally dug from the skeletons of unusual beasts, across Europe, the Middle East and India. Someone has been hunting monsters.

Bledde’s Blade, Edge 8
A cut from this blade will not cease bleeding until the wound is healed. One account has it that Bledde was a knife-collecting surgeon-highwayman in eighteenth-century Toulouse. Another claims Bledde is only the bastardisation of an Arabic word for ‘mosquito.’

Furious Silver, Edge 12
When the Lionsmith turned against the Colonel, he crushed his own sword in his fist. Each tiniest fragment of that weapon still thrills with rage.

Bone Flute, Winter 4
Its sound will cease.

Elagabaline Manacle, Winter 8
It does not relinquish its grip.

Division Bell, Winter 12
First, its voice, and after, nothing.

Stained Gloves, Grail 4
What uses have these known? What lessons might they teach my hands?

Hallowed Polos, Grail 8
The ring-crown of a savage mother, stained with essence, woven with scraps of hair and blessed with flecks of skin.

Chalice Murmurous, Grail 12
On those nights when we drink from the chalice, we are not certain, afterwards, what we have done. But, we may [be] assured, it what always has been done, and if we do not remember, our children will, in their redmost dreams.

Marruvine Idol, Heart 4
The Marruvil would make little wooden idols to placate the witch-twins they feared in their lake. The lake is almost dry now, but the idols and the witch-twins yet remain, yet shadowed with the aspect of the Heart.

Wakeful Tympanum, Heart 8
In the grove where they flayed the thunder, they rattled their instruments to rouse the frenzy. The power still clings, like scent.

Kingskin Bodhrán, Heart 12
In the deep forests, the monarch gave up the last thing they had to give, and so the tool was shaped to keep their land forever safe. Then, of course, an empire stole it, as empires do.

Paradoxical Curio, Histories 4
Sometimes, it is hard to be sure if an arrow slew the Empress Herodias or the Empress Eudokia. Sometimes, it is possible that an ormolu clock was stolen in the sack of Vienna even as it rested safe in the vaults of Rome.

Whispering Amulet, Moth 2 Grail 2
It knows what I desire; or I imagine that it does.[/spoiler]
edited by Anne Auclair on 3/30/2018

575

[quote=Anne Auclair]Here are all the items in the Adept’s Build, on the age old belief that you can learn a great deal about the gods from their objects of power.[/quote]1) There’s also a Histories 8 tool:

Atlas of Dreams
The shape of the world changes in each past, but the shape of the Mansus is reflected in all of them. One cannot map the Mansus, but one can make an attempt to map its reflections.

  1. The CultSim discord has already compiled most of the game text (Tools, Ingredients, Influences, Followers, Summoned spirits, etc):
    [color=#0000ee]https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m7hD4Dn1sSz8I3p9Vi6pfELyWFEsBDLEt0p6hsh_1g0/edit?usp=sharing[/color]
    I figure that reinventing the wheel isn’t the greatest idea, and other people have already went through the work of collating game info.
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Finally, had to wade through a lot of intense conversations while waiting for Neville to find the key ingredient.

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Oh wow what an infodump.

Sounds like the work of the Flowermaker.

Speaking of whom, sounds like he/she’ll be playing a role in the game starting the Explorer’s Build:

[table][tr][td]Vanderschaaf Collection[/table]
[table][tr][td]A cramped little museum in a provincial town, long closed to the public since an outbreak of peculiar rapture in the room where they keep the pressed flowers. Only those with access to rare knowledge would ever consider the place, with its close-warded store-room of ill-omened treasures.
[/table]
An outbreak of rapture? What could that mean? Reminds me of the Crowned Growth and its rivers of joy-pus.

Thoughts on a couple of those items Anne helpfully listed:

Sthenic Venom- This is another callback to Medusa. Stheno was one of the three original gorgons along with her sister Medusa. &quotDaughter of Venoms&quot is likely another Amphisbaena reference. In one legend she was born of Medusa’s blood, and in another Medusa’s blood was both a deadly venom and a cure-all.

Xanthatic and Iotic Essences- The closest I could find to Meniscate is a translation to &quotresembling a crescent&quot. Since we’re talking about the moon here, Mesicate is probably some term for nighttime. Madrugad is a play on the word &quotMadrugada&quot, which means &quotearly morning&quot. Sounds like we’re talking about transitions between different times of day, fitting that the Forge of Day is referenced in the transformation. But what could &quotyield to the true Forge&quot mean? As Hour 20, it’s time of day is pretty late at night for the early morning to &quotyield to it&quot.

Also is it just me, or does Mansus sound a bit like Meniscate and Mandrugada merged together?

Labhitic Grains- Again we have the Lionsmith referenced in regard to youth and beauty. It plays into his contrast with the Colonel. The Colonel is old and covered in scars and his strength comes from his experience, while Lionsmith is young and his power comes from his strength strength, and he wants to be seamless/scarless, which would probably make him a lot more beautiful to look at then the Colonel.

It might be a coincidence, but Vexpont brought up Mater Matura the god of grain earlier and now here we’ve got grains.

Amaranthine Nectar- Flowermaker is finally referenced directly in the game here, and it’s with the Red Grail. Fitting, since the Flowermaker seems to be in the business of gifts, delicacies, and desires, things that play right into the endless lusting of the Grail. The most interesting line here is that if this were another history, it would give people immortality. Not only does this mean that the power of the occult seems to wax and wane depending on the history we’re in, it makes this history sound pretty sucky.

Bledde’s Blade- More Arabic referenced with the Edge. From Victory of Crowns we know that the Colonel is involved in running assassin cults. It seems to much of a coincidence now that our own world’s Hassassim of the Middle East were run by the &quotOld Man of the Mountain&quot.

Furious Sliver- And here’s the last piece of the puzzle regarding the Colonel and Lionsmith’s relationship. The Lionsmith originally knelt before the Colonel, but the Colonel did something that angered the Lionsmith so much he’s now rebelling against him, hence the Rite of the Rebel Striving.

Kingskin Bohdran- A Bohdran is an Irish drum. Since it was &quotstolen by an empire&quot, that means it was either taken by England or perhaps even the Romans, who considered an invasion of Ireland during the time they were in Europe.

Whispering Amulet- &quotIt knows what I desire&quot. Flowermaker again. Certainly seems to be an ally of the Grail.
[table][tr][td]
[/table]

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[quote=Vavakx Nonexus][quote=Anne Auclair]Here are all the items in the Adept’s Build, on the age old belief that you can learn a great deal about the gods from their objects of power.[/quote]1) There’s also a Histories 8 tool:

Atlas of Dreams
The shape of the world changes in each past, but the shape of the Mansus is reflected in all of them. One cannot map the Mansus, but one can make an attempt to map its reflections.

  1. The CultSim discord has already compiled most of the game text (Tools, Ingredients, Influences, Followers, Summoned spirits, etc):
    [color=#0000ee]https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m7hD4Dn1sSz8I3p9Vi6pfELyWFEsBDLEt0p6hsh_1g0/edit?usp=sharing[/color]
    I figure that reinventing the wheel isn’t the greatest idea, and other people have already went through the work of collating game info.[/quote]
    Way to make me feel redundant :P

reads the lore fragments

[spoiler]What the hell, the Forge of Days is a God-From-Light?! Well, that would explain why the Caligane description refers to the Forge as &quotthe Glory’s fire.&quot And the Forge’s specialty is &quotunmerciful change,&quot as opposed to merely hunger.

Why is the Watchman assumed to be a God-From-Blood if he isn’t a God-From-Light? He could be Stone (he remains in the Mansus) or Flesh (he remembers his great Sorrow).

The Sister-and-Witch is Heart and Grail. The Witch and Sister is Moth and maybe Heart. The Witch Twins together might have a little bit of Knock as well, what with their book and all. I wouldn’t be surprised btw if they had their fingers in a lot more pies, being the goddesses of unifications and crossways and the like.

I’m a little surprised the Sun-in-Rags has been unreservedly classified in the Discord Doc. as a God-From-Blood. His description, blood and light, has been pretty ambiguous from the start and he is heavily implied to be a fragment of the Divided Sun. Take the Flowermaker, a God-From-Light who is associated with the Grail through its greed.[/spoiler]

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[quote=Edward Warren]
Kingskin Bohdran- A Bohdran is an Irish drum. Since it was &quotstolen by an empire&quot, that means it was either taken by England or perhaps even the Romans, who considered an invasion of Ireland during the time they were in Europe.[/quote]
There was also the Holy Roman Empire, founded Christmas Day of 800 and formally existing until 1806 (in our history anyway). It wouldn’t be hard to imagine Rudolph II wanting that particular Bohdran for his cabinet of curiosities. Not hard at all.

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I scrolled down really fast and that picture almost made me jump out of my chair holy shit.

Looks like Red Grail-o-vision.