2012 Armageddon & Masque of the Red Death?

[Twin Agate Dragons]

I was just thinking about the 'impending' disaster of 2012 and how it might fit in with the Masque.

First off it's important to think what changes would happen between the 1890s and now that would be shaped by the Red Death. I can't think of any right now, but I'll get back to it.

So anyway, what does the Red Death and 2012 have in common. Well for starters, the theory is that either humanity will cease to exist or everything will be thrown into chaos. Here's my take; the gates of Hell swing wide open and agents of evil sweep over the world. Mass suicide, homicide, pagan rituals and other acts of depravity occur world over. No part of Earth is untouched.

The Red Death is seething with joy as water runs red. It then makes it impossible for the gateway between hell and Earth to be closed. I'm guessing a blend between Monte Cooks World of Darkness and Masque would be good for roleplaying opportunities.

[alhoon]

I would go for 2000 apocalypse, and signs starting from about the late 70s. That way you also have a clock ticking and impeding doom but also an unsuspecting humanity and history you know and you can work with.
Everything the PCs do would delay the disaster or make it a bit lighter when it arrives but not stop it. Every failure would influence the world badly and bring the disaster one step closer.

[HuManBing]

You could even go for a doomsday belief at 1900 or 1901.

Thomas Hardy was a notable pessimist at the turn of the century. Many of his poems show a lack of faith that humanity, in moving away from the false comforts of religion, can find anything better to supplant it as a guiding light in science. Shortly before his death, he did experience a resurgence of hope, but then World War I broke out and he relapsed.

Roundabout that time, previously unquestioned colonial empires were cracking (if maybe not actually collapsing quite yet). America was no longer a trifling bastard patchwork nation of outcasts - it had ousted Spain from its overseas holdings and was fast becoming a major economic power.

Another millennia-old empire was fast coming to an end: China, long the lynchpin Rome of the East, was decaying amid ineffectual Qing Imperial rule and the arrival of outclassingly powerful European guns, traders, and opium. The Boxer Rebellion pits indignant young Chinese against foreign colonialists - the Qing dynasty's inability to deal with them leads to its own downfall. A mere eleven years later, the Empire would be ashes in the wind. It would take only half a century more for a new harbinger of the Red Death to arise - an idealistic firebrand named Mao, empowered with the greatest number of followers any ruler had ever known.

Korea had opened up to the west awhile beforehand, choosing a strange foreign monotheistic religion to distinguish itself from feuding neighbors Japan and China. Japan was nearing the end of its dramatic modernization phase that would force the West to acknowledge it as a first-world nation, regardless of the color of its skin.

In Russia, Tsar Nikolas II is just a few years into his rule, resolutely refusing political reform and with tragic consequences in future. (And quite possibly, in October 1917, a completely different political vector of the "Red Death" under the Bolsheviks.)



Last but not least, the crocus did not bloom.

[Sorti]

As i got it MotRD was perfectly ready for a doomsday scenario, but a manmade one more than a Hellgate:London one. I think there is somewhere in the setting a phrase like "The minions of the Red Death are already at work on a century-old plan to corrupt humanity, and now it's closing to fruition; unless they are stopped, the 20th Century will be a century of war, blood, hate and strife like humanity has never seen!" (any parallelism with real life is purely fictional )

[MadStepDad]

I'm actually working this angle right now during my MASQUE of the RED DEATH MILLENIUM game (over on the Gothic Earth board). The 13 stanzas of Hyksosa will actually culminate in the 2012 armaggedon. Makes it more realisitic for the players too! As for what happened between the MoTRD boxed set and now, look no further than HPMikael (sp?)'s work on the Fan Fiction board. He extended the history up until now and it's very good.

peace,

MSD

[High Priest Mikhal]

As for what happened between the MoTRD boxed set and now, look no further than HPMikael (sp?)'s work on the Fan Fiction board. He extended the history up until now and it's very good.

Thank you, MSD. I always appreciate a compliment. And in case anyone is wondering, yes. I do have plans for 2012 in the Gothic Journals. My older calculations for the Red Death gaining access to the T-Veronica Virus' full power was off (and has been corrected in the Bios'). It's 2012, more specifically the Winter Solstice of 2012. That would mean all the secrets of psionics are unlocked to the Red Death. It will be interesting to see where the story goes after that (even as I write it I let it develop organically, so I'm never sure where a story will go as it winds its way to a set point).

[Rotipher of the FoS]

FWIW, I wouldn't much care for a combination of "gateway to Hell opens" and the alleged 2012 Doomsday hype. Supposedly it's the Maya who'd predicted a cataclysm for 2012, and they didn't even know what Hell (a Christian concept) was, so why would they predict anything that involved such a place? Something more in tune with Meso-American folklore would be much more appropriate, IMO.

Of course, the hype over 2012 ignores the fact that the Maya'd predicted the world would undergo a drastic upheaval roughly every 50 years or so, meaning we've already dodged so many end-of-the-world bullets that freaking out over yet another one seems pretty pointless. But, hey, if it makes for a MotRD game campaign, or a good premise for a fantasy cyberpunk RPG or stupid action movie, why not get some entertainment out of it?

[Sorti]

Of course, the hype over 2012 ignores the fact that the Maya'd predicted the world would undergo a drastic upheaval roughly every 50 years or so

Mmmh, this would mean in 1962, but in 1962 nothing catastrophic happ-

July 2 – The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.

OMG!!

[Twin Agate Dragons]

Lots of ideas here. I'll take them all in stride.

[High Priest Mikhal]

Of course, the hype over 2012 ignores the fact that the Maya'd predicted the world would undergo a drastic upheaval roughly every 50 years or so, meaning we've already dodged so many end-of-the-world bullets that freaking out over yet another one seems pretty pointless.

I actually agree wholly with Rotipher. I remember the hype about how the world would end when 2000 rolled around (Y2K, Armageddon, etc.). I doubt the world will end this time, either.

a good premise for a fantasy cyberpunk RPG

Is that a Shadowrun reference?

[ScS of the Fraternity]

The end doesn't have to be a sudden single catastrophe. I always pictured the end of the world coming from a variety of crises, each of which on their own may have been survivable, but when taken together bring society to its knees.

Perhaps a disease starts the process. A plague of mild lethality spreads across the world. Like the SARs outbreak, it starts as a phenomenon confined to certain ethnic groups. This in turn fuels xenophobic resentment. The ineffective reaction of weak governments only fuels the discord.
[Perhaps the disease was deliberately spread by agents of evil, for this exact purpose]

The plague causes economic chaos as nations close their borders to travellers and imports. Economic chaos usually leads to demagogue-like leaders. More and more people turn to extremist parties, including fundamental religious leaders, neo-fascists, and even Marxist organizations. Neighbours beings to distrust neighbours as once unified communities break down on lines of class, race, religion and politics. Crime increases and people fear to leave their homes at night.

Climate change (either natural or man-made) wreaks havoc on food and fuel production. States and provinces within the same country refuse to aid each other. Even worse, the plague forces cities to quarantine themselves against the infected outside world.

The sun begins a period of intense sunspot activity; hindering radio communications. With the economy collapsing, there are few people willing to maintain fibre-optic communication lines. A few major media giants strangle the internet, television and phone systems. Isolated from one another, the communities of this darkening world mutate into weird and alien societies. Without the ability to communicate, and the economic base to support it, the scientific community withers away.

The old nation states have collapsed, leaving a crazy-quilt of city states and ungoverned badlands. The ultra-rich form tiny neo-feudalist states, while religious fundamentalists wage a ceaseless inquisition to purify their culture of corrupt foreign influence. Superstition and propaganda take the place of logic and reason. In a few short, desperate years, civilization has been felled.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

a good premise for a fantasy cyberpunk RPG

Is that a Shadowrun reference?

You ka, chummer!

[Twin Agate Dragons]

The end doesn't have to be a sudden single catastrophe. I always pictured the end of the world coming from a variety of crises, each of which on their own may have been survivable, but when taken together bring society to its knees.

<snip>

Very insightful. Hadn't thought about all these possibilities, they seem totally plausible and realistic. Many thanks ScS.

[William Blackmoor]

And you might consider, that the mayan 2012 prophecy doesn't necessarily predicts the end of 'the world', but the end of 'a world'. The 'clock' just sets back to zero (and maybe starts to tick again).
So maybe in Gothic Earth this might lead to the 'End of the Read Death's hidden reign' opening the possibilities of the 'Beginning of the Red Death's open Reign' or the 'A World without the Red Death's Influence'.

Best wishes
William

[MadStepDad]

2012 isn't the end of the world, Mayans insist

MEXICO CITY — Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.

Or is it?

Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."

It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House.

At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared.

"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."

Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.

A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.

But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"

It may sound all too much like other doomsday scenarios of recent decades — the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect or "Planet X." But this one has some grains of archaeological basis.

One of them is Monument Six.

Found at an obscure ruin in southern Mexico during highway construction in the 1960s, the stone tablet almost didn't survive; the site was largely paved over and parts of the tablet were looted.

It's unique in that the remaining parts contain the equivalent of the date 2012. The inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation.

However — shades of Indiana Jones — erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible.

Archaeologist Guillermo Bernal of Mexico's National Autonomous University interprets the last eroded glyphs as maybe saying, "He will descend from the sky."

Spooky, perhaps, but Bernal notes there are other inscriptions at Mayan sites for dates far beyond 2012 — including one that roughly translates into the year 4772.

And anyway, Mayas in the drought-stricken Yucatan peninsula have bigger worries than 2012.

"If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea," said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. "That the world is going to end? They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain."

The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy

Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and the 13th Baktun ends around Dec. 21, 2012.

"It's a special anniversary of creation," said David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin. "The Maya never said the world is going to end, they never said anything bad would happen necessarily, they're just recording this future anniversary on Monument Six."

Bernal suggests that apocalypse is "a very Western, Christian" concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are "exhausted."

If it were all mythology, perhaps it could be written off.

But some say the Maya knew another secret: the Earth's axis wobbles, slightly changing the alignment of the stars every year. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon.

That will happen on Dec. 21, 2012, when the sun appears to rise in the same spot where the bright center of galaxy sets.

Another spooky coincidence?

"The question I would ask these guys is, so what?" says Phil Plait, an astronomer who runs the "Bad Astronomy" blog. He says the alignment doesn't fall precisely in 2012, and distant stars exert no force that could harm Earth.

"They're really super-duper trying to find anything astronomical they can to fit that date of 2012," Plait said.

But author John Major Jenkins says his two-decade study of Mayan ruins indicate the Maya were aware of the alignment and attached great importance to it.

"If we want to honor and respect how the Maya think about this, then we would say that the Maya viewed 2012, as all cycle endings, as a time of transformation and renewal," said Jenkins.

As the Internet gained popularity in the 1990s, so did word of the "fateful" date, and some began worrying about 2012 disasters the Mayas never dreamed of.

Author Lawrence Joseph says a peak in explosive storms on the surface of the sun could knock out North America's power grid for years, triggering food shortages, water scarcity — a collapse of civilization. Solar peaks occur about every 11 years, but Joseph says there's evidence the 2012 peak could be "a lulu."

While pressing governments to install protection for power grids, Joseph counsels readers not to "use 2012 as an excuse to not live in a healthy, responsible fashion. I mean, don't let the credit cards go up."

Another History Channel program titled "Decoding the Past: Doomsday 2012: End of Days" says a galactic alignment or magnetic disturbances could somehow trigger a "pole shift."

"The entire mantle of the earth would shift in a matter of days, perhaps hours, changing the position of the north and south poles, causing worldwide disaster," a narrator proclaims. "Earthquakes would rock every continent, massive tsunamis would inundate coastal cities. It would be the ultimate planetary catastrophe."

The idea apparently originates with a 19th century Frenchman, Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, a priest-turned-archaeologist who got it from his study of ancient Mayan and Aztec texts.

Scientists say that, at best, the poles might change location by one degree over a million years, with no sign that it would start in 2012.

While long discredited, Brasseur de Bourbourg proves one thing: Westerners have been trying for more than a century to pin doomsday scenarios on the Maya. And while fascinated by ancient lore, advocates seldom examine more recent experiences with apocalypse predictions.

"No one who's writing in now seems to remember that the last time we thought the world was going to end, it didn't," says Martin, the astronomy webmaster. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of memory that things were fine the last time around."