[UA] Golem Family Reunion

Tue Apr 16 07:28:20 PDT 2002

I missed the original thread so I'm starting here. Please note that I'm referring to Golems from Jewish tradition more so than the 'game' Golems. Please keep that in mind.

At 12:00 AM 4/16/02, you wrote:
>At 08:57 PM 15/04/02 -0400, WingedCoyote at aol.com wrote:
>
>>Hmm. Golem conspiracy. Good idea, but the hints seem too obvious. Okay if nobody's read the book, I suppose.
>
>Rather than Spanish, the letter could be written in Judezmo, which was a dialect of Spanish used by Spanish Jews (much like Jews of 
You mean Ladino.

>German origin speak Yiddish).  I'm not sure how much Judezmo varies from the "standard" modern Castillian dialect, but if it's as much as Yiddish varies from German, you may need to find an interpreter for some words (no easy task for a dialect that's been dead for five centuries).
It's Hebrew written with spanish letters and there are many speakers of it in this generation. Not dead.

>Rather than have a letter signed "Ein Sof", make it part of a fax from a law firm.  The fax turns up when one of the PCs use a "handy coincidence"- type effect; the intern at the firm whose job it is to handle faxes mistypes a digit or two, accidentally sending it to the PC's fax machine.
>
>The fax discusses an upcoming reunion of the Emmett family.  ("Emmett", BTW, is fairly close to "emeth".  There's a legend that golems have the word "emeth" carved on their forehead; by striking off the first letter and changing this to "meth" you kill the golem.)
Emes means truth and is one of the means to create a Golem (reference the Maharal of Prague). Mase means corpse. Removing the first letter from Emes makes it Mase, which 'deactivates' the Golem. 

>You don't need to make the fax seem sinister at all; the PCs will know that it's significant, having cast the aforementioned effect.  Also, the more cluey PCs will want to know why a family with a German surname uses a 500-year-old dialect of Spanish to communicate.
>
>If the PCs decide to investigate the gathering, they'll have to do so in disguise; all of the attendees do, indeed, bear a family resemblance.  They're all tall, square-jawed and solidly built, although hair, skin and eye colour do vary a bit; although they appear to be related, they come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.  Whilst most appear to be of European origin, some are Middle Eastern, one or two are Indian (ie, from India) and a handful are black African.  Furthermore, they're all men, and none of them touch their drinks, nor get up to use the restroom.
>
>The meeting hall is laid out in a "round table" arrangement.  A series of random Emmetts get up to speak (in Hebrew) on various topics.  (Hebrew is their common tongue, though attendees will sometimes talk to each other in other languages between speeches.)  Topics could include:
According to all sources on Golems (reference Talmud) a Golem can not speak. 

>* Several US Emmetts have been harassed by a particular investigation company.  (Research will prove this company to ultimately be owned by Alex Abel.)
>
>* York would have become a major centre for European Jewry, had the gentiles in York not slaughtered the city's Jews in the 12th Century.  As we enter the 21st Century, signs and portents point towards a similar massacre happening in _New_ York in the _22nd_ Century.  How valid are these fears, and what should be done about them?
>
>* One particularly screwy golem (there's always one in every family) has gotten hold of a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  If there really _is_ a conspiracy of Jewish leaders intent on world domination, he reasons, then it would be in the Emmetts' interests to seek them out and ally with them.
>
>Part way through one of the speeches, a large Chinese man walks through the door and sits down near the back.  Everyone in the room (except the apparent "head" of the family) turns around and stares at him.  He shrugs and says (in heavily accented English), "Sorry, my flight was delayed."
>
>The head of the family (none other than Ein Sof himself, although under an assumed name), again speaking in Hebrew, introduces the newcomer as a "cousin" from China.  The other Emmetts look confused.
>
>In very poor Hebrew (which some of the Emmetts have difficulty understanding), the newcomer explains that his "father" was a Rhadinite rabbi in Kaifeng, China, and that he was "born" as the Japanese took hold in his country in WWII.  The Chinese man thought that he was unique, until Ein Sof contacted him to tell him that others like him existed.
>
>For the rest of the meeting, the Emmetts focus almost exclusively on their Chinese "cousin", realising that the ritual used to create them may not have been lost after all.  Now, they may have a means to rapidly increase their numbers and carry out their plans more effectively.
>
>
>
>David M Jacobs
>dmjacobs at zipworld.com.au
>http://www.zipworld.com.au/~dmjacobs/
>ICQ UIN: 17027598
>
>"'Kevin,' David interrupted, 'what the Germans should have done
>was show the Russians a dead cat and ask them to explain it.'
>
>"'That would have stopped the Soviet offensive right there,' I said.
>"Zhukov would still be trying to account for the cat's death.'"
>
>— from Valis, by Philip K Dick
>
>
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