:) "Ordinances" is right up there with something being a "mute point", a firearm having a "breach", or (for y'all) having a "School Principle" :)
]]>Codename: BAT SIGNAL Classification: Summoning Ritual (failed) Description: An attempt to summon entities powerful enough to change the fundamental constants of the universe and thus forestall all of the CASE NIGHTMARE eventualities. Named for Alien Space Bats, of course.
]]>GLITTER RAINBOW is currently sealed for the following reasons: Cost of breeding Colors from Space was too high, the effects were too slow.
Sealed by order of HMG
]]>Classification: Wearable peripheral – heads-up display
Deployment: During an attempted infiltration of the Laundry’s Gibraltar facility (see file PHAROS ROCK) in October 2015, three highly modified V2 Explorer-model Google Glass units were recovered from the bodies of the attackers. One unit was damaged during the attack, and another was rendered unusable after insufficiently cautious access attempts resulted in the summoning of a class-four entity and the loss of seven OCCULUS personnel, two middle managers and 412 square feet of open-plan office.
The third unit was eventually cracked, and most of its internal storage was found to be taken up by the MAGI app suite. As well as providing real-time, heads-up AR overlay of the local thaum field, MAGI pairs a sophisticated motion-tracking and shape-recognition algorithm with a comprehensive database of pre-programmed invocations.
When bluetoothed to a (sufficiently warded) smartphone or other mobile processor slab, a MAGI-enabled Glass headset enables the quick, silent deployment of highly complex magical effects with little more than a Freemasonish finger-wriggle… and without the risk of K-syndrome that usually accompany such ad hoc invocations.
Note on operation: Successful use of MAGI system is dependent on the operator’s ability to deftly and precisely perform the requisite somatic components. At least one of the PHAROS ROCK attackers is believed to have accidentally self-immolated as the result of a ‘fat finger’ error.
Additional note: As of the end of the Google Glass beta test in January 2015, something in the region of two hundred V2 Explorer units remained unaccounted for.
]]>Name: SABRE PSYCHEDELIC (discontinued) Description: Trepanning knife Notes: For the love of Fenris, people, stop trying to use this. It doesn't work. Yes, it's upsetting when a friend or colleague gets possessed, seeing the tiny glowing worms swimming in their eyeballs. And yes, we've all read that passage in Dee's Commentary on Inventio Fortunata, where he exorcises a possessed boy by cutting a hole in his skull and letting the worms drain out of his head. But nobody's been able to make it work since Dee, and frankly I think Dee was on one of his fibbing days when he wrote this. It just makes you spend a lot of time hanging around a nameless horror's meatpuppet while it actively tries to kill you. And there's the cleanliness aspect; cutting a hole in someone's head is considerably bloodier than the woodcuts suggest.
Face it, people: there are no simple cures for possession. Have we forgotten the ice-cream scoop incident already?
Updated notes 5/7/05: Let me reiterate for the hard of thinking: THIS DOES NOT WORK. Not even if someone gets a clever idea of enticing the worms out of the head by offering fresh brains near the trepanning hole. Conference Room C is closed until we can decontaminate it, and [REDACTED] is getting reviewed for his improper use of new recruits.
]]>Designation: BUZZWORD SALAD Purpose: Informavore defense Deployment:
BUZZWORD SALAD relies on the metabolism of the informavore: it feeds on free energy (nucleons with non-maximal binding energy, strained nitrogen bonds, etc) and the life-energy of dying sapients - see NECROVORE (not NECROPHILE!).
By flooding the surroundings of the informavore with suitable material (policies of the [REDACTED] party, new age marketing, vendor promises etc) it is possible to force it to ingest an object with physical presence but a negative information content. This stalls its feeding, and allows for easy banishment.
Note: do NOT deploy BUZZWORD SALAD in the presence of a possessing entity - BUZZWORD SALAD lowers the protective barriers around a sentient brain to the point where contact is unnecessary to spread the possession - briefly exponential expansion of possession can result, with tragic results exemplified by the [REDACTED] party conference.
]]>Classification: Mobile signals intelligence: resonant transdimensional decryption
Deployment: Although the Turing-Lovecraft Theorem implies encryption schemes like RSA can be cracked easily under various summoning algebras, this has been difficult to achieve in practice: extradimensional super-human intelligences clever enough to factor inconceivably huge numbers enjoy escaping containment and filleting the souls off innocent bystanders a lot more than doing mathematical party tricks.
OUI-class devices sneak around this issue by letting other universes do the hard work. After a signal has been intercepted (usually by conventional means), OUIs use a Shannon entropic resonance cantrip to find near-parallel realities where the message (or one a bit like it) has already been successfully decrypted, or was never properly coded in the first place. The deciphered message is then imprinted on some pattern-bearing medium in our reality, such as TV static, tea leaves, or preferably human brain tissue. Indeed, early OUI models used the operator’s language centres as the readout, although standard OUI-GAs now go for flash drives. This is mainly to reduce errors in transcription, but it also helps limit the (worryingly high) risk of transmitting a possession attempt, summoning script, or other trans-dimensional Trojan.
Field-operational OUI-GAs consist of “black boxes” about the size of a power strip. These contain a small LED display, a processor, and an ambiguously labelled bank of connectors for Ethernet cables, radio antennae, mobiles, laser microphones and other signal pickups. Output is spelt out one character at a time to prevent malicious transmission of self-executing incantations; the complete decrypt can be read normally after screening by OFCUT or other security utilities.
Operators should be aware OUIs have a frustratingly low signal-to-noise ratio; they often pass messages that are corrupted, incomplete, or only loosely related to their “originals”. Common sense and skepticism are essential when interpreting OUI decrypts, and users are advised to forward intercepts to GCHQ for verification whenever time allows.
Variant models
OUI-RD (R&D): Research unit built to assess the odds of CASE NIGHTMARE RAINBOW events by estimating how many nearby universes support sentient life, or at least how many still bother to send encrypted messages. Although the statistics are good, it has so far been unable to distinguish between, say, an Elder God’s homecoming party and run-of-the-mill extinction events like global nuclear war or asteroid impact. Upgrades are planned to capture messages describing the end of the (parallel) world in more detail.
OUI-PE (Psychoclastic / Exorcising): Psychiatric model used as a last resort for difficult exorcisms. This variant weakens possessing entities by using a mind-linked OUI to rapidly overwrite parts of the victim’s brain with random decrypts. OUI-PEs have serious side effects: at best, subjects are left with symptoms resembling severe Krantzenberg Syndrome, and complete erasure of the patient’s personality (or its replacement by a new one) is a possibility. Use of OUI-PEs for non-medical applications is strictly prohibited.
]]>Classification K-Syndrome Neoplasm Therapeutic regime
Deployment TURQUOISE PILLBOX is one of a number of spinoffs under the Australian CSIRO's Special Research Section's program TURQUOISE PLOUGHSARE.
TURQUOISE PLOUGHSHARE is a project to apply metaphysical, demonological and computational techniques to issues not directly connected to saving the world from the tentacled horrors from other dimensions.
TURQUOISE PILLBOX was originally developed as a protective measure against K-syndrome, for which it is only moderately successful, but has been expanded to provide an effective oncological treatment regime.
Biopsy-obtained samples of neoplasmic (cancerous) tissue are obtained from the patient, along with healthy cells. The healthy cells are rendered "unpalatable" to the entities responsible for K-syndrome, while the cancerous ones are tagged as "come and eat me" using techniques thought to originate from DEEP SEVEN. Standard similarity and contagion techniques are then used to make the whole patient's body have similar characteristics. The Class 1 entities prefer the cancerous ones and tend to leave most of the healthy ones alone, thereby not only producing remission of cancer, but providing some limited protection against K-syndrome.
TURQUISE PILLBOX has been deployed successfully to treat operatives in various organisations exposed to high levels of radiation, or at greater than normal risk of K-syndrome, extending their useful lifetime. Nulka Squadron SASR, UK Artists Rifles, and Occult Assault Unit USAF have TURQOISE PILLBOX in their inventories now.
Development continues, with preliminary results indicating possible future effectiveness against PHANG and other organisms.
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES USE THIS ON BLUE HADES PATIENTS as it makes the whole of the patients' body vulnerable. It is surmised that this is a development of a DEEP SEVEN war agent.
]]>NAME: GREEN GLASS
Classification: Environmentally-Friendly Recycling and Manufacturing
Description: GREEN GLASS employs SCORPION STARE with custom optics enabling it to see (and thus transform) carbon dioxide, providing a range of materials depending on the exact amount of heat produced many of which have useful applications. Used en masse the resulting heat can also power a turbine producing electricity.
Speculation about the relationship between GREEN GLASS and the LIZARD ENERGY program is discouraged.
]]>Classification Unconventional weaponry level 3: Samedi Class
Deployment Should the need ever arise for the building or repair of a containment grid akin to the “Wall of Pain” (See CODICIL BLACK SKULL), The Bokor's Pistol will allow for the establishment of such a perimeter without the need for a trained sorcerer. A Bokor's Pistol is very similar in form and function to a Taser or stun gun. Aside from the standard components, it's body contains a small computer programmed to rapidly iterate the theorems of an obedience geas, while each ammunition cartridge holds an occult capacitor containing a single Feeder in the Night. Upon using The Bokor's Pistol to convert the local cultists into Residual Human Resources, all an agent need do is recite the proper Enochian command (all staff are required to memorize such before a weapon will be issued), and the RHR will take up position as a Watcher.
However, even after disregarding the legal and ethical concerns of murder and the hijacking of human remains, this project was discontinued when Q Division discovered that no sane agent would carry on their person a device holding a Feeder, regardless of how well contained it was. Currently, anyone attempting to requisition a Bokor's Pistol is forced to resit all Laundry Occult Health and Safety courses.
]]>I'll be closing comments tomorrow morning, and come back with a list of winners (assuming they're eligible) at the weekend.
]]>NAME
Colloquially known in Occult circles as “The Twins”, although those who know about these artefacts are not usually allowed free roam. The left “twin” has a complex nomenclature due to its lengthy travels along trading routes and is usually referred to by the name of the culture it currently resides in. Most recently known as “Loki's Tooth” or “The Lambton Worm's Tooth[1]”.
The right twin has only ever had a single name: Aurora's Heart.
CLASSIFICATION
Yin/Yang pairing of negating powers. Extremely dangerous and now held by [REDACTED] to prevent misuse. Class IX objects, although upper limits are not known for either of them.
DEPLOYMENT
Loki's Tooth
This artefact has had a raft of sagas, poems, histories and irresponsibilities ascribed to its history. In folklore and magic a stone with a hole in it is considered lucky, and is worn around the neck. This stone has three and breaks causality with ease due to its paradoxical nature (although, traditionally, it has also been worn around the neck with the flat side to the chest by a silver chain).
While Schroedinger imagined two states, this little piece of canine enables a third.
In practical effects the artefact is linked to Loki for good reason: the effects scale toward causality breaking dependent on the mind that holds it. The limitations appear to be the subject's own boundaries of what is-or-is-not possible (probability is rendered useless by this artefact – it is “made rock” / certain, part of the Loki attribution) and their self-interest.
The first part of the effect is related to probability: it can make the 0.001% probability a certainty.
However, there are major drawbacks:
Selfish use tends towards the overtly Djinn in terms of results. e.g. in AD 1609 it was reported that a man wearing this bought some tulips and sought wealth. The result was the largest stock market bubble prior to the 20th century.
This hints towards the actual issue with this artefact: given any probability it will seek to make real that with the smallest chance.
Secondly, the Mind of the user effects the reality of the artefact if there are no other conscious minds within twenty to fifty miles of the subject who hold different opinions and warps the possibility of the artefact and the Universe.
This second effect is far more dangerous and has been used by authoritarian despots: notably in the CCCP when Stalin gained control of this artefact. The tell-tale-sign was giant pineapples.
WARNING: TOUCHING THIS ARTEFACT WITH BARE FLESH ATTUNES IT TO YOUR MIND UNTIL YOU DIE.
Tools are provided[2] to prevent this – note: they have to be at the very least silver.
Aurora's Heart
[REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED]
Not much is known about this artefact, apart from the legend surrounding it.
Aurora, daughter of Dawn, had her heart broken and [REDACTED].
The artefact is safe to handle, however using light sources near it (such as the flash on cameras) will show a world without any light at all, even in brightly lit rooms or outside areas where the Sun is still giving full visibility[2].
[2]NAME
Silver Pick or Holy Pick or Wary-man's Pick
CLASSIFICATION
Tool for handling Unholy / Magical objects which activate on contact with organic and/or conscious matter. Also used for turning pages of magical tomes. Notably, on one particular expedition to Egypt, used to kill an undead horror while being used as a hairpin by the indomitable Miss. Elsa Fotheringay, although she professed that it had had more usage fending off unwanted hands in the local Bazaar.
Silver. Sharp. Small.
Useful.
DEPLOYMENT
Made from one of the nails that shoe'd Richard I the Lionheart's warhorse from the battle of Arsuf. Metallurgical analysis shows that the core is iron plated with silver. The small “D” is understood to be either an intentional part of the creation of the tool (“Q(uoniam) D(eus)”, although the Q side has been disfigured over time) or a satirical slight in reference to the King's execution of prisoners at Acre. (“Q(uadantenus) D(eus)”).
Used to pick things up that if you touched them your flesh rots away, you end up cursed, the item would activate etc.
NAME
Buddha's Box or The Sun Cage
CLASSIFICATION
Artefact that references at least four mythologies in its creation. Clasp in Mayan style with Third Eye Buddhist reference. Main motif is a twelve sided star (c.f. Eight sided Chaos stars) with central Sun: either references twelve tribes / houses of Israel with G_D at the centre or other Sun worshipping cults. The twelve houses and thirteenth are also referenced but details of these are [REDACTED].
Made with an unknown lacquered wood or shell of a now extinct Chelonii. At some point modern Satanists / Crowley occultists got hold of it and lined it with cheap purple felt (no doubt in reference to the “royal” colour). This is not considered aesthetically pleasing, and their workmanship was lax, but has no effect on the Ward. Analysis shows that the cultists who lined it with felt also stored small amounts of cannabis in it; we assume their paranoia outweighed the actual chance that mundane police would scry for small amounts of pot.
DEPLOYMENT
You put things in it you want to stay hidden and unable to interact with the world. Its third eye on the clasp breaks attempts to scry or divinate the contents and the markings denote the dedication to the Light that created it. Class IX ward; the only draw-back being the small size.
[1] But the worm got fat an' grewed an' grewed, An' grewed an aaful size; He'd greet big teeth, a greet big gob, An greet big goggly eyes. An' when at neets he craaled aboot Te pick up bits o' news, If he felt dry upon the road, He'd milk a dozen coos.
[2]
THE ONES that disappeared are back,
The Phoebe and the Crow,
Precisely as in March is heard
The curtness of the Jay—
Be this an Autumn or a Spring?
My wisdom loses way,
One side of me the nuts are ripe—
The other side is May.
Name: Temporal Adjustment Realigning Deadlines for Improved Service (TARDIS) Classification: Cheating Description: It can look like whatever the hell it wants, it's still not going to win, okay?
]]>Potential winners to be checked for eligibility in a couple of days. Thanks for participating!
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