[UA] Stolze & Tynes as GMCs

[Stuart Kenny]

I'm just starting a UA campaign and wanted to share an idea I had.

I personally hate having too much "secret" information laid out in
canon.  I bought Conspiracy X a couple of years ago, cracked it open and
started reading.  The first chapter laid out everything from the truth
about the grays to who shot JFK.  I put the book down and haven't looked
at it again.  The entire conspiracy is known to everyone that bought the
core rule book.  Sure your character may not know it all, but it isn't
very fun to strive to learn something that the players already know.

UA is much better,  no one knows which archetypes have ascended, what
the Comte is really up to, etc.  But it can go further...

Anyway, my idea is this:

I have two unseen GMCs named Greg Stolze and John Tynes that publish a
sporadic newsletter called "The Unknown Armies".

The Unknown Armies is typically 3 or 4 pages in length (although at
least one issue reached 29 pages), double sided, full of typos and
spelling mistakes, and apparently "published" on a mechanical typewriter
using carbon paper.  The newsletter contains various articles about
different cabals, dukes, adapts, the clergy, etc.  Basically, if you
could put together the entire run you would have the information from
the entire published UA books less the rules, stats and list of
playtesters.

Many (perhaps most) of the major players in the occult underground have
a least one or two issues.  The various issues appear to be mailed out
from different locations across the US.  Many a duke has claimed that an
issue or two has unexpectedly arrived in his mailbox, sometimes it even
arrives while they are travailing or "between addresses".  All that is
known about Stolze and Tynes is that their names appear on the bylines.

While little is actually known about them, there are numerous theories.

One is that they are a pair of powerful adapts trying to spread the
truth of the cosmos like Mak Attax is spreading magic.

Another is that they are a pair of ghost writer revenants, revealing
secrets of those that have pissed them off.

Another is that they don't exist, that in fact various people have used
these pen names and printing techniques to conceal their identities when
spreading information for a variety of motives.

One fairly common theory (in some parts) is that they are just a couple
of nuts.  They made up this whole idea of the Invisible Clergy, 333
archetypes, etc.  Then gullible members of the occult underground bought
into this delusion and have used it as a framework to explain all of the
weird mojo instead of trying to find out what's really going on.

One truly bazaar theory is that they are the most powerful adapts in the
world and are using their writings as part of a elaborate scheme to
shape the world, or at least the magical aspects of it.  They they
created the clergy and retroactively inserted them into history since
the dawn of time.  That as they issue more newsletters, the cosmos
reforms itself such that their new ideas become part of what the world
is and has always been.


Basically, what I'm trying to do is to distance myself a bit from canon
by providing an alternate explanation of the cosmos.  While the universe
as explained in the books is _probably_ right, you can't trust anything,
even if it was written by Stolze & Tynes.



Stuart


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