Carrie found the meaning of "cloak of insanity!" For everyone's reference, I will post it out here. So that we can all be enlightened about the true interprestation of the article I was talkikng about last entry. She says:
It's clearly a reference to this Dungeons and Dragons prop (?) that I found after an exhaustive Google search. Note the similarity to snow. Also note the phrase "Mad with insanity", and "having strange obsessions for the dead" as one of the signs of late-stage insanity:
I am also really fond of "yell at sleeping or deaf creature." I love the idea of very serious Dungeons and Dragons players, and one of them is saying "You roll a five. Your Orc yells at a sleeping Magus." And the other player is all like "What? I meant to slay a Banshee!" And he rolls again and the leader says "Eighteen. Your orc yells at a rock. Twelve. You stab the rock." It's almost irrisitably funny. That article would have been better if the writer had been wearing a cloak of insanity.
So now that I have this dream journal, I realize that all but one of my dreams over the past week or so have included maimed/harmed/engangered young girls. I'm clearly experiencing some sort of anxiety about childhood. Just like psychoanalytic theory would say I should. Damn those Freudians. I hate when they're right.
The other obvious feature is that I am way too aware of narrative strategies for my own good -- I can't even dream without it being like I'm reading a book! I guess that's why I'm planning to get a doctoral degree in Reading.
Another key that I have perhaps become somewhat overinvolved in the theoritical strategies I'm learning in class: last night we watched a couple episodes of Lost (which I am still loving a whole lot) and at one particularly scary moment, instead of going "Aaa!" or "What's going to happen?!" I screamed "Oh god! [Character] is the Abject Other! Watch out!"
It's clearly a reference to this Dungeons and Dragons prop (?) that I found after an exhaustive Google search. Note the similarity to snow. Also note the phrase "Mad with insanity", and "having strange obsessions for the dead" as one of the signs of late-stage insanity:
Insanity, Cloak of This particular cloak is usually white or off-white and is made of a medium weighted material. It's hood is smooth and rounder then most others, and is very confortable to the touch. While worn, it slowly drives the wearer mad with insanity. This may cause alignment changes for the character which may be irreversible (DMs call, for both insanity and alignment).
At first, there will seem to be no effect, but every ten minutes the wearer must roll an intelligence check, and if failed their character must either mumble random phrases or do a random action (which may put them in to harms way).
After three hours of wearing the cloak, signs of insanity can reach much further. The time limit between checks is taken down to 2 minutes, and they are done with a -2 penality. A days worth of wearing (24 hours) will be insanity beyond control for the character at which time the player may have to fail his worth and turn his/her PC over as an NPC (good insane role-players may keep their characters, DMs judgement, as always, is in place here).
Characters will randomly mumble phrases at all chances, will shout random phrases, yell at sleeping or deaf creature, yell at nonliving objects, do random things (like throwing random object, or stabbing random object with their weapon), have strange obsessions for the dead, have strange and sudden outbursts of crying or lustful actions (towards both the same and opposite sex), and many other things a interesting DM/player may wish to throw in there.
I am also really fond of "yell at sleeping or deaf creature." I love the idea of very serious Dungeons and Dragons players, and one of them is saying "You roll a five. Your Orc yells at a sleeping Magus." And the other player is all like "What? I meant to slay a Banshee!" And he rolls again and the leader says "Eighteen. Your orc yells at a rock. Twelve. You stab the rock." It's almost irrisitably funny. That article would have been better if the writer had been wearing a cloak of insanity.
So now that I have this dream journal, I realize that all but one of my dreams over the past week or so have included maimed/harmed/engangered young girls. I'm clearly experiencing some sort of anxiety about childhood. Just like psychoanalytic theory would say I should. Damn those Freudians. I hate when they're right.
The other obvious feature is that I am way too aware of narrative strategies for my own good -- I can't even dream without it being like I'm reading a book! I guess that's why I'm planning to get a doctoral degree in Reading.
Another key that I have perhaps become somewhat overinvolved in the theoritical strategies I'm learning in class: last night we watched a couple episodes of Lost (which I am still loving a whole lot) and at one particularly scary moment, instead of going "Aaa!" or "What's going to happen?!" I screamed "Oh god! [Character] is the Abject Other! Watch out!"
Labels: anger, nerd power, reading, web, writing
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