[UA] Gaston's cryptophage

[Gaston Phillips]

on 6/27/01 6:16 AM, Dylan Craig at wytchfynder at hotmail.com wrote:

> Cryptophage, cryptophage. Lie-eater? That word just won't get out of my head.
> 
> So, Gaston, do you have something you want to share with us? I'm halfway
> through
> a Cryptophage NPC for my game but I figured seeing as you're the concept's
> progenitor, you might have something even cooler cooked up already.
> 
Not really - the name came to me first, and I hadn't thought about the
character much.  Since I don't actually _play_  UA, I get to do things like,
you know.  Drop a cool name and then never follow up on it.

I pictured it as something like... The Corinthian(?) from sandman, for some
reason.  The dude with the mouths where his eyes should be.  I'm not sure if
I mean that I actually want him to have mouths for eyes, or just that I want
him to be a really creepy serial killer, or else just a being called "The
Something" - which is always neat and a bit spooky.

But The Cryptophage is basically, as his name suggests, a being who eats
secrets and lies.  Normal people don't have much to worry about, but if you
live in the Occult Underworld, he's a boogeyman and a half - he'll tear the
secrets from your skull and leave you bleeding from the ears.  Or, if your
existance is a secret - if there's something at the core of your essence
that's a secret, he may eat more than that.

Something about him should be scarier than the sleepers.  Since, like, no
matter how quiet or secretive you are, he'll still hear - or, rather, the
quieter and more secretive you are, the louder you are to him.

Foucault's Pendulum tells us that the potency of a secret is inversely
proportional to the number of people who know it.  I'm not sure if it also
says that the potency chould be directly proportional to the number of
people who want to.  So, for instance, say there's, like, 100 people who
know the ritual of immortality.  There are still billions more who want to,
making that secret awfully potent.

Basically, I dunno who or what the Cryptophage is.  But it sounds really
cool, dunnit?

gaston


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