158
votes
Why would nature spirits be naked?
Bears don't wear pants. Squirrels don't wear shirts. The trees don't wear hats. Why would a physical embodiment of the natural world wear clothes? Clothes are a construct of human society, and spirits ...
- 14.8k
112
votes
Great Old Ones Limited, or Why does Cthulhu need a Company?
It IS a front because if you openly state as the firm's mission and vision to summon a destroyer of worlds your business isn't going very far.
Aside from that, there are some things that dark cults ...
- 142k
93
votes
Accepted
Great Old Ones Limited, or Why does Cthulhu need a Company?
Have YOU ever tried setting up classic rituals? Everything's going well with everyone in their matching robes and masks, and just as the Grand Priest is finishing the ritual to summon a Great Old One ...
- 17.3k
52
votes
Accepted
How could the lottery and gambling work with accurate fortune tellers?
Maximize the impact of the fortune-tellings on the outcome of the draw
Don't use a normal random-number generator to draw the number. Instead use a cryptographic hash function (like SHA-1), to ...
- 903
50
votes
Accepted
Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?
Brains aren't computers
We often talk about brains as though they are computers, but while it's often a useful shorthand, it's not accurate. A little inaccuracy can save a ton of explanation, but it ...
- 15.4k
46
votes
Great Old Ones Limited, or Why does Cthulhu need a Company?
What a legitimate company with innocent employees is good for is what all legitimate companies do anyways : running a business, gathering property, gaining licenses, managing property...
While most ...
- 43.3k
44
votes
Great Old Ones Limited, or Why does Cthulhu need a Company?
Magic is granted by the great old ones in exchange for making sacrifices to them, the catch is you can't just abduct and kill people they need to be sacrificed willingly, as it turns out depressed ...
- 4,880
44
votes
Accepted
Summoning A Technology Based Demon
There are two kinds of summoning, when you really get down to it. There's the summoning where the summoned wants to be summoned, and there is the summoning where the summoned is compelled to be ...
- 133k
36
votes
Would a weaponized priesthood violate separation of church and state?
It doesn't have to.
The First Amendment states (and this is my only knowledge of the separation between church and state):
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or ...
- 66.3k
36
votes
Accepted
Why do people prefer metropolitan areas, considering monsters and villains?
Fortifications.
(Source here).
In worlds where cities are regularly attacked (Angel Grove being the best example, I think), the silly thing is not that people still live in cities. The silly thing ...
- 306k
33
votes
Why would nature spirits be naked?
Because they’re nature spirits.
Clothes are manufactured, in their earliest incarnation using the pelts of dead animals and various bits of dead plant. Why in the world would a nature spirit clad ...
- 66.5k
32
votes
Accepted
Believing in non-existent beings
"There's no point believing in things that exist" - Terry Pratchett.
Belief has always come first. Humans believe in all kinds of things that don't exist, then they act as if they did exist. We seem ...
- 15k
31
votes
Why would a government support organizations with completely opposing goals?
A Government Is Not A Single Unified Entity, Particularly Elected Governments
Government priorities change over time, often swinging back and forth between different ends of a particular country's ...
- 12k
30
votes
Believing in non-existent beings
Look at the real world. We have stories about werewolves, vampires, zombies, yeti, leprachauns and hundreds of other beings that don't actually exist. If things start existing because people believe ...
- 13.9k
30
votes
Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?
The thing about a brain is, it's already got a daemon in it. After all, what are we but tenuous wisps of information inhabiting a physical substrate?
If a daemon wanted to inhabit a brain it would ...
- 6,449
28
votes
Accepted
Why would nature spirits be naked?
The nature spirits are just that- spirits! They have no fixed material form, and instead appear as an idealized, natural version of whatever entity is encountering them. To a human, they appear to be ...
- 596
27
votes
Great Old Ones Limited, or Why does Cthulhu need a Company?
Because the Great Old Ones looked upon Earth, did their job and investigated the planet/plane they are going to invade/contact, and (correctly) identified the dominant life form - not Formicidae, ...
- 14.7k
26
votes
Great Old Ones Limited, or Why does Cthulhu need a Company?
Let's start with a controversial real world example.
In the 1930s, the woes of Germany and the oppressive demands placed upon it by the Treaty of Versailles means that a new radical war veteran with ...
- 54.2k
26
votes
Why would nature spirits be naked?
I can think of some options off the bat:
No concept of a nudity taboo, if nudity is a non-issue in nymph society then cloths are going to be ignored as unnecessary and or strange.
No need for shelter,...
- 51k
23
votes
Great Old Ones Limited, or Why does Cthulhu need a Company?
The ritual might require a very large number of participants. But not all of these participants might have to know they are participating. For example, if your ancient prophecy requires that everyone ...
- 49.1k
23
votes
Why do people prefer metropolitan areas, considering monsters and villains?
My answer is in two parts.
Part I — a Frame Challenge
If you review my answer to Routine monster attacks and city economy, what you'll discover is that your monsters can't attack with any ...
- 132k
22
votes
Accepted
Possible downsides of not dealing with the souls of the dead
It could give Dark Magic users an upper hand
Dark mages are dangerous sorcerers who prey on human souls to power their spells, but they are generally limited by the number of souls they can harvest. ...
- 106k
21
votes
Why do people prefer metropolitan areas, considering monsters and villains?
To summarize your question, it's basically 'Why does New York still exist in the Marvel universe?'
Questions like these have two kinds of answers - the Watsonian answer and the Doylists answer, or an ...
- 40.4k
19
votes
How to cut off a (unaware and unwilling) city (not an island city) from the rest of the world for a short period of time? (about 12 hours)
Take over the target city's radio and television stations. Broadcast an airborne bio weapons alert, then shut down the power, phone and internet. Tell the citizens that the city is quarantined and ...
- 69.3k
19
votes
Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?
Human brains are not - and let me be completely clear here, not even a little bit - like computers.
(And before anyone complains, I'm not the one that tagged this as neuroscience!)
Computer hardware ...
- 7,365
19
votes
Possible downsides of not dealing with the souls of the dead
The souls of the dead are taken to the recycling plant to be reused into another life. It's the basic principle of reincarnation.
Of course if you stop collecting the souls of the dead you will soon ...
- 301k
17
votes
Summoning A Technology Based Demon
You need a trigger word.
Right now, I can summon a big red round demon with the trigger phrase "hey Siri." My parents summon a materialistic demon with the trigger word "Alexa."
Your demon bots (...
- 20.4k
17
votes
Why are extra-dimensional monsters harmed by electricity but not physical blows?
Electromagnetism is Mirrored Across Dimensions
This is at odds with how we understand actual additional dimensions to work, but so are extradimensional horrors, so we can roll with it.
If you shoot a ...
- 33.7k
16
votes
How to explain no increase in suicides after proof of a happy afterlife?
1) There's so little information coming in from the spirit world that lots of people think it is a hoax, especially since you can't pick a specific spirit. Also, how much do they remember of their ...
- 32.1k
16
votes
Would a weaponized priesthood violate separation of church and state?
I'm only going to be able to speak for the Catholic side of this.
Under current Church law, priests cannot officially work with law enforcement in this manner without being defrocked.
Contrary to ...
- 3,766
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible