Unreal Worlds: Travel Slacker Edition

So this weekend has been kind of a bear. I’m back in the states for a few days for a wedding, and have what is — in my opinion — a pretty kick ass post on the Culper Ring and a few other key figures in early American espionage brewing, in support of a larger sub-series on less-than-entirely modern Night’s Black Agents setting design.

But because I’m still super jetlagged (and about to become jetlagged again moving 6 time zones back the other direction) it’s not done. And I’m sorry. Especially because instead of something that could be useful to your game, you’re getting this whiny plea for extra time.

But rest assured, dear reader, that I haven’t forgotten you. There’s more to come from the Illuminerdy later this week, maybe even something that will allow you to forgive me this trespass on your already thin patience.

In the interim, I offer you the following brief idea:

One of the world’s oldest undeciphered languages is just beginning to be decoded thanks to the help of modern computers and new imaging hardware. Limited fragments of the now-readable text describe a culture based on brutal slavery and managed starvation. A little like the relationship between humanity and the extraterrestrial Anunnaki as conceived by Zechariah Sitchin.

This could be used to underpin a game of modern archaeological adventure as further texts describe hidden treasures or temples to forgotten Mesopotamian gods, who — conveniently — seem in contemporary discoveries to have been Lovecraftian aquatic hybrids. Dagon in the Iranian desert, anyone?

That said, we’ve already explored the possibility that the modern CIA is being driven by ancient prophecy discovered in the Middle East — just add your version of 007 or an Impossible Mission Force and call it a day.

Kennon “the Universe” Bauman is a professional analyst and lapsed historian, currently living in the heart of Illuminati territory in Europe. He blames any errors in this article on the bartender in the United business lounge at Dulles International Airport. You can find Kennon’s bite-sized musings on Twitter @theUniverseGM.