I’m proud of this thread and everyone in it.
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
I’m proud of this thread and everyone in it.[/quote]
Yeah, this thread actually got a fair amount of play fairly quickly. That’s why I like it here. There are a lot of guys that like to lift but also like to geek out, it’s awesome.
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
That’s kind of interesting. It does seem like the most interesting aspects of the skinwalkers in come from the Southwest and Central America. The Choctaw have some pretty interesting tales, the little dude that lives in the woods and throws rocks being my favorite but not much on shapeshifting.[/quote]
The entire Four Corners region is a huge hotspot. Anyone ever heard of Skinwalker Ranch?
[/quote]
Then of course there’s also Sasquatch/Genoskwa lore, which I can completely enthralled in. Both dated and current accounts.[/quote]
It is not anything to be too interested in. Those active allegedly murder someone very close to them — generally sibling, but also a parent or child, or sometimes close childhood friend – to get their supposed “powers.”
And there have been people arrested for murder who were allegedly seeking the same.
So, they are either homicidal nuts or homicidal witches. Either is a bad deal.
As an aside, skinwalkers are typically alleged to be hairy, which is unusual for Navajo/Zuni, etc.
And I do very serious and level-headed Navajo and others really believe in this stuff. While my tribe is primarily Roman Catholic (or fire-breathing Bible Church) and we run a ski resort and a bunch of casinos (and have a college education rate exceeding average white folk), those tribes are still largely pagan of an animist nature, where they do all sorts of pagan rituals dancing around in bear skins, etc.
They take it very seriously, and skin-walkers are essentially their priests who “go bad.”
Being rumored to be a skin-walker will, to this day, get you beat up and shunned out of the area.
As a final aside, my Navajo buddy told me skinwalkers cannot come inside your house without an invitation. I wondered if this was inspired from European vampire myths, or they have some sort of common origin.
[quote]thethirdruffian wrote:
It is not anything to be too interested in. Those active allegedly murder someone very close to them — generally sibling, but also a parent or child, or sometimes close childhood friend – to get their supposed “powers.”
And there have been people arrested for murder who were allegedly seeking the same.
So, they are either homicidal nuts or homicidal witches. Either is a bad deal.
As an aside, skinwalkers are typically alleged to be hairy, which is unusual for Navajo/Zuni, etc.
And I do very serious and level-headed Navajo and others really believe in this stuff. While my tribe is primarily Roman Catholic (or fire-breathing Bible Church) and we run a ski resort and a bunch of casinos (and have a college education rate exceeding average white folk), those tribes are still largely pagan of an animist nature, where they do all sorts of pagan rituals dancing around in bear skins, etc.
They take it very seriously, and skin-walkers are essentially their priests who “go bad.”
Being rumored to be a skin-walker will, to this day, get you beat up and shunned out of the area.
As a final aside, my Navajo buddy told me skinwalkers cannot come inside your house without an invitation. I wondered if this was inspired from European vampire myths, or they have some sort of common origin.
[/quote]
Yeah I’ve heard stories detailing that they need to be invited although that seems to be a common motif for most supernatural entities. You have to plenty much allow them into your dominion.
I’m honestly surprised that they’re shunned. Everything I’ve seen typically leads to them being outsiders and scum. Heard some stuff about them being employed as mercenaries. Know anything about that?
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
I’m honestly surprised that they’re shunned. Everything I’ve seen typically leads to them being outsiders and scum.
[/quote]
Yes, they are reportedly scum. Hence why they are shunned and outsiders.
[quote]
Heard some stuff about them being employed as mercenaries. Know anything about that?[/quote]
My only knowledge of them is a regional motorcycle “club” that is full of purported skinwalkers. The bottom rocker is something animal-related, if I recall.
Regardless of the merits of the skinwalker allegation, I am pretty sure they are active in the meth and illegal alien trade, along with the usual robbing, stealing, killing, and generally being dickweeds that only fight in packs.
I am sure they’d be happy to be employed as anything nasty.
Or perhaps purport to be so employed and take your money and blackmail you for life.
[quote]thethirdruffian wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
That’s kind of interesting. It does seem like the most interesting aspects of the skinwalkers in come from the Southwest and Central America. The Choctaw have some pretty interesting tales, the little dude that lives in the woods and throws rocks being my favorite but not much on shapeshifting.[/quote]
The entire Four Corners region is a huge hotspot. Anyone ever heard of Skinwalker Ranch?
Then of course there’s also Sasquatch/Genoskwa lore, which I can completely enthralled in. Both dated and current accounts.[/quote]
It is not anything to be too interested in. Those active allegedly murder someone very close to them — generally sibling, but also a parent or child, or sometimes close childhood friend – to get their supposed “powers.”
And there have been people arrested for murder who were allegedly seeking the same.
So, they are either homicidal nuts or homicidal witches. Either is a bad deal.
As an aside, skinwalkers are typically alleged to be hairy, which is unusual for Navajo/Zuni, etc.
And I do very serious and level-headed Navajo and others really believe in this stuff. While my tribe is primarily Roman Catholic (or fire-breathing Bible Church) and we run a ski resort and a bunch of casinos (and have a college education rate exceeding average white folk), those tribes are still largely pagan of an animist nature, where they do all sorts of pagan rituals dancing around in bear skins, etc.
They take it very seriously, and skin-walkers are essentially their priests who “go bad.”
Being rumored to be a skin-walker will, to this day, get you beat up and shunned out of the area.
As a final aside, my Navajo buddy told me skinwalkers cannot come inside your house without an invitation. I wondered if this was inspired from European vampire myths, or they have some sort of common origin.
[/quote]
I guess whenever you said that, I assumed that it was a relatively small fringe of a fringe that believed that. And mostly the ones that truly believed it were either mentally disturbed or on drugs. That’s crazy that an otherwise logical person would still hold to something like that. Although many people around here may say the same thing about me and my Christian belief’s but that is a whole other story. So this is mostly Navajo/Zuni? Is this a widely held belief or is it mostly a small regional thing?
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
I guess whenever you said that, I assumed that it was a relatively small fringe of a fringe that believed that. And mostly the ones that truly believed it were either mentally disturbed or on drugs.
[/quote]
There are odd things in this corner desert SW.
The Lincoln County Wars.
Some of the most serious Zuni v. Spanard and Apache vs. everyone fights were here.
Entire Pueblo Peoples that either packed up and left or went out into the desert to die. (Probably the hanta virus that periodically kills thousands — it’s still around.)
All that stuff leaves a deep cultural memory.
And, well, in Christianity (and Judaism as I am learning) people that mess with things that they should not, often get power in this world of mysterious kinds. I don’t see the belief in witchcraft contrary to belief in the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. Indeed, He warns against that sort of thing, and they make the occasional appearance (Endor, Balaam, Pharoah’s magi, etc.)
Long story short, I’m an engineer and a geologist, and while I think drugs are a more likely explaination, I’m not going to dismiss the concept off hand.
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
So this is mostly Navajo/Zuni? Is this a widely held belief or is it mostly a small regional thing?[/quote]
Not qualified to say. I just know my corner of NM.
It is common to believe in the old “gods” among the Zuni and somewhat so among the Navajo.
It is also common to smoke meth.
[quote]thethirdruffian wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
So this is mostly Navajo/Zuni? Is this a widely held belief or is it mostly a small regional thing?[/quote]
Not qualified to say. I just know my corner of NM.
It is common to believe in the old “gods” among the Zuni and somewhat so among the Navajo.
It is also common to smoke meth.[/quote]
Hmm… I know that some of my older relatives had places that they would not farm because around here because of Indian burial grounds and not wanting to bring on the bad juju. My grandparents well is placed much further out than it normally would have been because there was supposedly an Indian grave there was something superstitious about it. I asked once what it was but all my Grandma could remember was that there was something different about this death and he was supposedly an outcast of some type. We were definitely an area heavy with activity at some point. Recently when the creek bottoms have been turned up for farming, we have picked up over 300 arrowheads whole or partial or varying sizes. Kind of amazing to think about the potential age of what you are holding.
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
[quote]nsimmons wrote:
… very difficult to read, it is a literal translation maintaining the iambic pentameter of a poem…
[/quote]
!
Well, no wonder!
Perhaps dactylic hexameter? with spondees, of course?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dactylic_hexameter[/quote]
dohh, you caught me!
I couldn’t remember what it was called. I knew there meter in it.
The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. Totally awesome. Its about royalty from a parallel world visiting “our world” and others. Action galore
The Malazan book of the Fallen has a really rich mythos. It was written by an anthropologist, so thew cultures and myths feel really well fleshed out.
I also love the Warhammer 40K mythos more than i could love a human baby, so there’s that. I will add a further tick into the Robert E. Howard column as well.
[quote]Yogi wrote:
you and I need to start a book club. We like pretty much exactly the same shit[/quote]
I feel like I’ve already read all the good books. I could use some ideas.
And actually, I didn’t realize there was a final Culture novel I hadn’t read. So I’ll read that. And the other one of his you suggested that I can’t remember offhand.
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]Yogi wrote:
you and I need to start a book club. We like pretty much exactly the same shit[/quote]
I feel like I’ve already read all the good books. I could use some ideas.
And actually, I didn’t realize there was a final Culture novel I hadn’t read. So I’ll read that. And the other one of his you suggested that I can’t remember offhand.[/quote]
yeah definitely read The Algebraist. He’s got another really good one called Transitions.
Apparently China Mieville writes really good messed up sci-fi too which you’d probably like. It sounds like the sort of thing I’d like so I think you’d probably like it too.
SCP has some pretty cool lore, guys.
Great Thread Spar4tee:
So good in I think I need to post 3 times. 
I’ve always liked Greek and Egyptian myth but later came to also like Hindu and Norse myth.
Time to really nerd out with rpgs, dnd and now Pathfinder has always had some really cool stuff.
(…forgot not sure if I can make these live links I’m used to sites that do that for you)
http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Portal:Religion
http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Category:Creatures_by_type
http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Portal:History
http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Portal:Geography
http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Humans
Anyways, the above 5 links give a good primer on that setting. To which there is actual novels as well. I really like the different ethnicities of humans.
Whitewolf also did a great job with Vampires, Werewolves, Angels, Modern day Mages and even superheros with Aberrant. I read the Vampire Clan novels and some of them were amazing…others not so much.
[quote]msw1959 wrote:
The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. Totally awesome. Its about royalty from a parallel world visiting “our world” and others. Action galore[/quote]
I’ve read the Corwin cycle and it was great. I have the Merlin cycle but never managed to get around to reading it as I heard it isn’t as good.
Amber would so make an awesome movie or tv series.
Now who would be Corwin?
[quote]Legalsteel wrote:
I also love the Warhammer 40K mythos more than i could love a human baby, so there’s that.[/quote]
This post is for you. 
Can you say epic times one hundred thousand billion!
Yes? Good…times that by infinity!
Good…you’re almost there.
40K and regular Warhammer are both cool. 40K is still better as it is so epic. What…a door that is a mile tall? Why…why not fuck face?
Where to start…Adeptus Astartes…the Space Marines.
You know you’re badass when:
7ft tall or so - check
Are you mostly muscle and weigh around 1000 lbs? - check
Steel bones - check
spit acid - check
immune to pain - check
know no fear - check
two hearts - check
all kinds of other awesome crap - check
If that’s not enough they also wear strength enhancing power armour that is capable of surviving in space and underwater and carry a bolter.
Bolter is the main weapon of space marines, basically a mega heavy duty machine gun(50+ lbs if memory serves) that fires mini mass reactive warheads that explode inside the target.
If that isn’t enough they have all kinds of different special rounds. I like hellfire rounds that are filled with mutagenic acid…you know when regular acid isn’t enough.
But it’s not all space marines the bad guys…oh wait space marines…I guess they are sorta the good guys…you know if there were good guys in 40K.
Oh yeah the bad guys, Daemons, Tyranids, Chaos Marines(okay these guys are forsure bad), Eldar etc. etc.
Vid:
This is a mash up of Warhammer and Warhammer 40000 video game trailer set to Sons of Odin. It’s 8 years old but I still love it.
How did I forget this:
Ignore crappy first 30 seconds.