tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post4133792347938393594..comments2024-03-25T00:18:14.319-07:00Comments on Against The Wicked City: Early modern corpse medicineJoseph Manolahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05387275537008858939noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-11943725532064572122022-07-23T15:36:29.647-07:002022-07-23T15:36:29.647-07:00It That Wakes, meanwhile, strikes terror into the ...It That Wakes, meanwhile, strikes terror into the hearts of parents of small children everywhere.Jacobnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-15101875807095348562022-06-25T00:30:40.098-07:002022-06-25T00:30:40.098-07:00On the Doctrine of Sympathy, there's also the ...On the Doctrine of Sympathy, there's also the old traditional belief that a murder victim's wounds will bleed afresh when the murderer draws near. Handy way to shift the blame if you've got access to illusion magic, a hand pump, or a pig's bladder and a hollow straw. Not that my PCs have ever tried it. Nope. Skerpleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06393779599461560431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-31182751172429251502022-06-23T10:03:31.425-07:002022-06-23T10:03:31.425-07:00I think I'd feel relatively safe paying little...I think I'd feel relatively safe paying little attention to It that Wakes Not. Apart from giving it the occasional stroke and scratch behind the ears. It that Thinks it's Dinnertime, on the other hand...Lesternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-26157275835260755032022-06-22T03:16:41.869-07:002022-06-22T03:16:41.869-07:00You're a professional gardener? That's so ...You're a professional gardener? That's so cool! Most of us bloggers just sit at desks all day...<br /><br />Indeed - one wonders how the process really worked. Probably they just weren't actually very good at keeping their skull-moss planters fully shielded from the sun!Joseph Manolahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05387275537008858939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-84658625141976477752022-06-22T03:13:55.838-07:002022-06-22T03:13:55.838-07:00Hm! My university library has a copy, so I might g...Hm! My university library has a copy, so I might give it a read and report back!Joseph Manolahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05387275537008858939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-37280027436893259312022-06-22T03:11:56.023-07:002022-06-22T03:11:56.023-07:00I dunno. It That Sleeps and It That Sleeps Not bot...I dunno. It That Sleeps and It That Sleeps Not both sound pretty creepy, but It That Wakes Not just sounds like my cat on a warm day. <br /><br />Cults as tragic but comprehensible responses to cruel realities rings terribly true to me - a kind of metaphor for the way that sufficiently intense violence distorts everything around it. Almost no-one *wants* to waste their life chanting in a dark temple. But people do what they have to in order to get by.Joseph Manolahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05387275537008858939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-8176457266689976182022-06-22T03:04:23.013-07:002022-06-22T03:04:23.013-07:00Historically there was a lot of tension between do...Historically there was a lot of tension between doctors and clergymen for precisely these reasons - doctors were always being suspected of being reductive materialists, seeking purely physical cures and causes for human suffering. The force of Browne's 1643 'Religio Medici' ('religion of a doctor') comes from the fact that doctors were traditionally thought to *have* no religion. And the avidity with which doctors sought out corpses to cut up - first for corpse medicine, later for anatomical study - put them at odds with popular religious cultures which taught that the dead should be left in peace, and if possible kept intact for their resurrection on the day of judgement. Clashes between corpse-hungry doctors and furious clergy determined to protect the sanctity of their churchyards could make for good adventure fodder!Joseph Manolahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05387275537008858939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-80430692309670441952022-06-22T02:56:56.200-07:002022-06-22T02:56:56.200-07:00Glad to hear it! And you're no longer appearin...Glad to hear it! And you're no longer appearing as 'Unknown', which is a plus!Joseph Manolahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05387275537008858939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-92158323521667701372022-06-22T01:48:02.046-07:002022-06-22T01:48:02.046-07:00As a professional gardener, I am having my doubts ...As a professional gardener, I am having my doubts about the ability to grow moss by moonlight. But that's of course the least of the issues here.Yorahttp://spriggans-den.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-90020745805239730702022-06-21T18:52:14.147-07:002022-06-21T18:52:14.147-07:00Worldcat has a real problem finding this book anyw...Worldcat has a real problem finding this book anywhere (apparently the closest library with a copy to me, a person living in the Mid-Atlantic States, is in London), but I did find that Suggs has another book that might contain things of gaming interest: The Smoke of the Soul - Medicine, Physiology, and Religion in Early Modern EnglandStephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17718188146918003275noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-35825397714733412352022-06-21T18:47:26.703-07:002022-06-21T18:47:26.703-07:00And there's its other logical opposite, It tha...And there's its other logical opposite, It that Wakes Not, which is also equally scary.Stephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17718188146918003275noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-34173336369251542772022-06-21T14:37:17.084-07:002022-06-21T14:37:17.084-07:00I love this. It's a very scalable explanation ...I love this. It's a very scalable explanation for cultism. And to think I tied myself in knots to cook up a wfrp scenario where the demonologists had credible motives. Thank you :-)<br /><br />ps the great thing about It that Sleeps Not is that its logical opposite, It that Sleeps, is 100% as scary. So thank you also for the spark of a dark vs dark cosmology that might be fun to play with.Lesternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-74879283289795823652022-06-21T13:54:05.293-07:002022-06-21T13:54:05.293-07:00I must admit I've always wondered: what did he...I must admit I've always wondered: what did he THINK "mummy brown" was? (although I suppose he could have been confused by the mineral origin of "caput mortuum")<br /><br />Love the article by the way, I had run into some of this before but by no means all.Lesternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-22665695269298139972022-06-21T10:56:21.737-07:002022-06-21T10:56:21.737-07:00[quote] In a region plagued by witches, different ...[quote] In a region plagued by witches, different families might compete fiercely for bits of each person executed (and agitate constantly for more executions), seeing such corpse-talismans as their best hope for protecting their families from dark sorcery. [/quote]<br /><br />I like this one because ot explains how families fearful of covens of dark sorcerers themselves turn into covens of dark sorcerers. "Look, we wish we didn't know about the Ones Beneath and had never heard of It that Sleeps Not. But we do know them, and they know us, so put on the sigil and start chanting, because now we're committed."Charleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07308961452731842972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-38441221990877858732022-06-20T14:41:29.337-07:002022-06-20T14:41:29.337-07:00In any setting with a pseudo-Christian or pseudo-C...In any setting with a pseudo-Christian or pseudo-Catholic Church, I can imagine there would be a lot of tension between them and doctors. In some areas, Priests accuse physicians of being little better than tomb robbers or Necromancers, while more liberal ones Priests simply say that they spread superstitious nonsense and that everyone knows the best way to ensure good health is to make offerings to the Church. <br /><br />Then again, such folklore and superstition existed alongside religion for years, so perhaps not. Yami Bakurahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17266174008401745128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-85635350448330387282022-06-20T13:32:42.971-07:002022-06-20T13:32:42.971-07:00That'd fit. Sugg cites Spanish conquistadores ...That'd fit. Sugg cites Spanish conquistadores extracting human fat from their dead enemies, and Dutch surgeons doing the same to dead Spanish soldiers in the Netherlands, presumably due to a belief in its healing or protective properties.Joseph Manolahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05387275537008858939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-45923737115109526872022-06-20T13:30:47.955-07:002022-06-20T13:30:47.955-07:00Indeed - and there were other cases, too, like the...Indeed - and there were other cases, too, like the Italian Boy murder in London. Fears of being 'burked' clearly bled into older fears about murderous and cannibalistic 'black doctors' among the folklore of the Victorian poor - heightened by the fact that the bodies of paupers who died in Victorian workhouses really were confiscated for anatomy on an industrial scale, leading to persistent suspicions that they were being deliberately murdered by the authorities so that the surgeons could get their bodies more quickly...Joseph Manolahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05387275537008858939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-31932654869835957562022-06-20T13:18:52.848-07:002022-06-20T13:18:52.848-07:00It was! Burne-Jones famously buried his Mummy Brow...It was! Burne-Jones famously buried his Mummy Brown paint in his back garden when he discovered it was made out of ground-up dead people!Joseph Manolahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05387275537008858939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-73984954481683715622022-06-20T05:52:23.883-07:002022-06-20T05:52:23.883-07:00Landsknechts alledgedly beliefed that grease made ...Landsknechts alledgedly beliefed that grease made from human fat, offers magic protection against bullets.Klaus Gerkenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04364552750137989056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-20845187057256631962022-06-20T03:59:21.754-07:002022-06-20T03:59:21.754-07:00Excellent stuff, really wonderfully put together. ...Excellent stuff, really wonderfully put together. Don't forget the very real medical murderers of Nineteenth Century Scotland (although they were for anatomy rather than medicine, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders)Timmy TrashPandahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16744903841901062516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-392427526916288536.post-59537934355833850982022-06-20T02:08:05.043-07:002022-06-20T02:08:05.043-07:00It still weirds me out that actual Egyptian mumies...It still weirds me out that actual Egyptian mumies were grinded out for paint : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_brownJean-François Lebretonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07310676119910035535noreply@blogger.com