The Theory And Practice of the MacGuffin: Part One

"Say, what's this bird, this falcon, that everybody's all steamed up about?"
"Supposing I wouldn't tell you anything about it? Would you do something wild and unpredictable?"
"I might."
"It's a black figure, as you know, smooth and shiny; of a bird, a hawk or falcon, about that high . . . here."
"What makes it so important?"
"I don't know. They wouldn't tell me."
-- Sam Spade and Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, dir.)

Every so often, we like to drift from the specific to the general in this column, providing not just fantods and fripperies
for your campaign but a look, if you will, at fantodology, or at least at fantod aesthetics. With this installment, we
approach the generally specific, or the specifically generic: the MacGuffin, which can be any sort of thing, as long as
it's the right sort of anything for your game. And now that I've toppled through your office doorway with that cryptic
utterance, let the chase begin!

"In regard to the tune, we have a name in the studio, and we call it the 'MacGuffin.' It is the mechanical element that
usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is most always the necklace and in spy stories it is most always the
papers. We just try to be a little more original. The only thing that really matters is that, in the picture, the plans,
documents, or secrets must be of vital importance to the characters. To me, the narrator, they’re of no importance
whatsoever."
-- Alfred Hitchcock, in a 1939 lecture at Columbia University

Alfred Hitchcock coined the term, borrowing it from a Scottish joke: A man in a railway carriage asks the other fellow:
"Say, what's that in your bag?" Replies the Scot: "'Tis a MacGuffin." "What's a MacGuffin?" "'Tis a device tae trap
lions i'th'Highlands." "But there are no lions in the Highlands." "Then, 'tis nae MacGuffin." The point of the joke is that
it's none of the fellow's business what's in the bag; Hitchcock uses the term because it's none of our business what the
blueprints in The 39 Steps build, or what the code in The Lady Vanishes says, or what secrets "George Kaplan" hides in
North by Northwest. The ideal MacGuffin, narratively, exists solely to propel the story. It can be an object of desire, or
an object of fear, or both. (The "scary MacGuffin" is often called the "Great Whatsit," after the contents of the
briefcase in Kiss Me Deadly.) It also ideally exerts a continuous propulsive influence, one that can last for the whole
length of the narrative: one scenario, many scenarios, or the whole campaign, in our art form. Thus, a MacGuffin must
therefore either be some combination of remote, hidden, and guarded; or a team of bad guys (with a deep bench) must
already be hot on its trail, so that if the heroes find it, they have to run instead of figuring out what it does.

"It is enough to stagger the imagination of a wizard! We call it a Cosmic Cube -- and it well may be the most potent
device in all the world!"
"You must guard it well! If it should fall into the hands of a madman like the Red Skull --"
-- A.I.M scientist and Count Royale in Tales of Suspense #79, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

And what does a MacGuffin do? In its pure form, nothing but drive the story -- its only use is to endanger or attract
(or both) the heroes. It may not be valuable in itself: the "dingus" in The Maltese Falcon isn't even the real McCoy,
although it's a swell MacGuffin. It may never get revealed, a la the briefcases in Ronin and Pulp Fiction. In gaming,
over more than one scenario, that seems unfair; players will want to look in the silver briefcase after all those car
chases, regardless of what Robert de Niro says. Generally a McGuffin offers its possessor one of: knowledge, wealth,
or power. The power might be political, theological, magical, or just capital-P Power like the Steamball in Steamboy.
These results are pretty fungible: traditionally, knowledge will get you power, and power will get you wealth, or vice
versa. At the very least, selling the MacGuffin to a museum or a creepy private collector will earn everybody riches
beyond imagining.

Sometimes a MacGuffin (like the letters of transit in Casablanca) merely offers an escape from the plot conflict,
although such escape can still require the heroes to solve the mystery stirred up by the MacGuffin's passage (as in The
Maltese Falcon) or deliver it to the right authorities (as in North by Northwest) or to the right location in time or space

file:///D|/To%20Update%20Torrents/GURPs%20to%20OCR/pyramid_2008/0523.html[11/13/2008 18:56:00]
 (as in Repo Man). Occasionally, by contrast, a MacGuffin (especially one with a cool or useful power) serves to tempt
the heroes to involve themselves further conflict, as with the demon-killing Colt revolver in Supernatural. If the
MacGuffin has powers in and of itself, they should be thematically appropriate to the form of the MacGuffin, to its
backstory, and to the genre of the game or story. The Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark is a box, so
opening it triggers its power; its backstory is Biblical, so its powers involve divine wrath; the genre is pulp adventure,
so its powers are big and showy and kill Nazis.

"Gilgamesh, you came here exhausted and worn out.

What can I give you so you can return to your land?
I will disclose to you a thing that is hidden, Gilgamesh,
I will tell you.
There is a plant . . . like a boxthorn,
Whose thorns will prick your hand like a rose.
If your hands reach that plant you will become a young man again."
-- Sin-liqe-unnini, Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI

Indeed, the First MacGuffin Ever had specific thematic powers: the Flower of Youth from the Epic of Gilgamesh plays
on the connections between flowers and spring, and therefore youth. By contrast, Helen of Troy, the MacGuffin for the
Iliad, doesn't do much except mope; she might as well be glowing in a briefcase somewhere. The Golden Fleece from
the Argonautika is the same sort of thing; no doubt it looks very nice on the castle wall, but it's not going to melt any
Nazis. But that said, the mere antiquity and awesomeness of such MacGuffins is often its own reward; how hard would
it be to get a bunch of player characters to team up and chase down the Golden Fleece if you suddenly drop it into
your campaign world? And you can always add powers post-hoc; Cato the Elder decided that the Golden Fleece gave
its holder the right to rule as king, and no doubt other wonderful consequences could follow, from vast golden wealth
to command of all things born under or governed by Aries the Ram. And some MacGuffins have lots of power but no
set form. The Sampo, from the Finnish Kalevala, provides wealth and food and salt and fertility and light and who
knows what else, but it's only in Lonnrot's retcon that it became a Grist-mill instead of a Shield or a Coin or a Tree or
an Astrolabe or a Pot.

"These are facts, historical facts. Not schoolbook history, not Mr. Wells' history, but history, nevertheless."
-- Kasper Gutman in The Maltese Falcon (dir. John Huston)

That great medieval MacGuffin, the Holy Grail, is the same sort of thing: it provides food and drink and holiness and
health to the land and resurrection and salvation, and it's a Cup or a Dish or a Stone or a Cauldron (or a Bloodline) or
a Crystal. Whatever it is, it's one of the Four Arthurian MacGuffins, or as they're called in the original, the Hallows:
the others being the Sword Excalibur, the Spear Dolorous, and the . . . well, the fourth one is kind of murky. It might
be a Dish (which also might be the Grail), or a Cauldron (of Annwn, or Hell), or a Stone (as in "Sword and the"), or a
Chair (the Siege Perilous), depending on the version of the story you read. The overlap with the Four Treasures of
Ireland (the Stone of Destiny, the Sword of Nuada, the Cauldron of Dagda, and the Spear of Lugh) is interesting,
although adding the Thirteen Treasures of Britain (Whetstone, Sword, Cauldron, Spear . . . and Dish, Crock, Hamper,
Knife, Halter, Horn, Chariot, Coat, and Chessboard) just gets silly. Not to mention the Three Sacred Treasures of
Japan: the Sword of Susano-o, the Necklace of Amaterasu, and the Eight-Hand Mirror. And don't forget the Ten
MacGuffins of Heracles, which include two classic MacGuffins (the Apples of the Hesperides and the Amazon Girdle
of Hippolyta) along with six monster MacGuffins to capture (Stag, Boar, Bull, Cattle, Mares, Hound) and two
MacGuffins cut out of his kills (the Skin of the Nemean Lion, and the Immortal Head of the Hydra).

"There, the Rod was shattered, and its parts scattered, but the enchantments of the item were such that nothing could
actually destroy it, so if its sections are recovered and put together in the correct order, the possessor will wield a
weapon of surpassing power."
-- Gary Gygax, AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide

Sets of MacGuffins are common in the various folk traditions from which we (and George Lucas) draw our tales,
although the multi-part MacGuffin (such as the Rod of Seven Parts, or the Deck of Many Things) or multiple similar
MacGuffins (Rings of Power, Silmarils, Crystal Skulls) are more literary than folkloric. (Unless you count each Stone

file:///D|/To%20Update%20Torrents/GURPs%20to%20OCR/pyramid_2008/0523.html[11/13/2008 18:56:00]
 in the Necklace of Amaterasu, or of the Brisingamen Necklace of Freya, of course.) More usual in folklore is the
"serial MacGuffin," from the fairy tale model: You need a Key to get into a castle, but you need a Bird to get the Key,
but you need a Rope to catch the Bird, etc. Another variant is the "series MacGuffin" such as the Kerchief and Comb
from the Baba Yaga stories: the heroes hurl them down to make a river and a forest, respectively; each MacGuffin
must be expended in the right order for the story to come out well.

"The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something; for the box might even be
empty. No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is."
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

There are no shortage of possible forms a MacGuffin can take, although not all of them are as multivalent as the Grail
and the Sampo. (We've left the "secret plan/code/identity/microdot" sort of modern MacGuffin well behind by now,
but it's easy enough to go back that direction if you like.) To the many examples already given, we might add: Armor,
Axe, Bell, Belt, Book, Boots, Bow (with or without MacGuffinly Arrows), Bowl, Brazier, Candle (in a Hand or a
Menorah or a Lamp), Canoe, Carpet (flying or visionary), Chain, Chest, Cloak (feathered and otherwise), Dagger,
Disk, Elixir, Eye, Hammer, Head, Helmet (such as the Tarnhelm, which makes its wearer invisible), Lute (or Harp, or
Lyre, or Kantele), Mask, Orb, Sandals (winged or kingly), Scabbard (to amp up a swordly MacGuffin), Scepter, Scroll,
Seal (of Solomon, although a Selkie-Skin makes a nice MacGuffin as well), Ship, Shoes, Staff, Statue (Idol or
Dingus), Tablets (in or out of an Ark), Throne (conveying wisdom, flight, or rulership), Trident, and Wand. Plus
another ten or thirty Swords, Stones, and Rings, all from genuine legend and folklore, and this without even cracking
the pages of the Dungeon Master's Guide.

Add to all of this MacGuffins that are places (such as the Fountain of Youth, the Garden of Eden, the Kingdom of
Prester John) or people (or MacGuffins turned into people, like Dawn in Buffy) or animals like half of Heracles' roster.
Immobile MacGuffins present their own challenges: once the heroes have killed all the guards, destroyed all the
defenses, and left a trail a mile wide to El Dorado or the Hollow Earth, how exactly do they plan to keep it safe from
meddling Nazis, or keep the outside world safe from it? There had better be a handy volcano or vibratory barrier . . .
Meanwhile, living MacGuffins can move around, or have their own ideas about when and how -- or whether -- to
unleash their mighty powers. (Such people tend to stop being MacGuffins once the heroes begin interacting with them;
they're either villains or allies, or both.) Finally, consider meta-MacGuffins such as a map to another MacGuffin, or a
MacGuffin that detects MacGuffins. Some MacGuffins are already made out of MacGuffins; the Spear of Destiny and
the Iron Crown of the Lombards are both supposed to contain one of the Three Nails of Christ (a rare multiple
MacGuffin from authentic legend). And some MacGuffins, like the Rheingold, can be made into other MacGuffins,
like the Ring of the Nibelungs. In short, the MacGuffin can be anything you want . . . as long as your players, and
maybe the Nazis, want it more.

NEXT: Worked Examples and the MacGuffins of Mars!

file:///D|/To%20Update%20Torrents/GURPs%20to%20OCR/pyramid_2008/0523.html[11/13/2008 18:56:00]
 The Theory And Practice of the MacGuffin: Part Two
"In effect, the function of a MacGuffin is like the 'meaning' of a poem -- which T.S. Eliot compared to the bone thrown
by a burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind while the poem goes about its own, deeper business."
-- Ken Mogg, The Alfred Hitchcock Story

Welcome back, to Dingus Studies 101 -- Topic: the MacGuffin. For those of you who came in late, the "MacGuffin" is
the object of desire (or the object of fear) that pulls, or drives, the characters through the plot. It's the "39 Steps," the
Lost Ark, the glowing briefcase, the "Rabbit's Foot," the Black Bird. Last time, we looked at the general theory of the
MacGuffin, and riffled idly through some historical examples. This time, we'll aim for parahistorical ones. In this
installment, the aim is to demonstrate the fine art of MacGuffin carving; for three typical (not to say stereotypical)
settings, we'll look at the sorts of MacGuffins that you might plant a map to, or stash in a convenient trunk, or fall
through the PCs' door cradling in your arms.

"Our worlds are in danger. To save them and the galaxy we must find the four Cyber Planet Keys before the
Decepticons can use them for evil. It is our mission. Hot Shot, Jetfire, Landmine, Vector Prime, Scattershot, Optimus
Prime . . . Transform and roll out."
-- Optimus Prime, in Transformers: Cybertron (Manabu Ono, dir.)

Assume a solar system. No, assume the Solar System, not the one that whirls dustily around us but the one that shines
in our dreams -- decaying canals on Mars, dinosaur swamps on Venus, the whole nine yards. Call it Etheria, or
Lucifer-5; you know the one I'm talking about. What ancient relics do its fedora-clad exo-archaeologists hunt? (And
you know its exo-archaeologists wear fedoras and hunt relics.) The biggest interplanetary MacGuffin might simply be
the Whatsit that destroyed the "lost fifth planet," the Asteroidal Dynamite, either in blueprint (carefully carved into
primordial nickel-iridium) or actual form, whatever that might be. (A Tuning Fork of the Gods? A mysterious cone
suitable for tapping zero-point energy in unrestricted amount?) Or perhaps each world has its own MacGuffin: an
enviable solution for setting up "serial MacGuffin" tales (or "plot coupon tours" as they're called in computer game
design). Then, the only problem is deciding what counts as a world for MacGuffin purposes: is the Earth a world?
How about the Moon? The Sun? Does Pluto count, or should there be a "Planet X" MacGuffin orbiting out in the cold
deeps? Just to get things going, let's say there's Eight of the Big Birds out there. And to give us some kind of
framework, let's riff on the Eight Trigrams of the I Ching for their natures. It's up to you whether there's any overt
connection in your game world, or whether this is just a design shortcut. (If you pick seven or ten things, you can use
the Classical planets, or the sephiroth of the Kabbalah, respectively, in such roles.) So the Eight MacGuffins of the
Planets are:

Ultimate Mercury: A compound born in the volatile, solar-sleeted hell of Mercury's daylight surface. It creates
a perfectly smooth molecular polymer that, well, let's just say it would revolutionize space warfare. Or kill all
life on Earth. Or provide free power for everyone. Or at least make us all fabulously wealthy. This is the kind of
thing you transport in a glowing briefcase. (Xun, the Gentle)
The Fountain of Joy: Somewhere deep in Venus' worst jungle, amid rampaging packs of quasisaurs and below
Brimstone Falls, is a fountain of pure, carbonated elixir. If you drink it, you will achieve your heart's desire. No
one has ever returned from seeking it. (Dui, the Joyous)
The Telluric Claw: An alien artifact, vaguely gun-shaped, that can wrench and twist the crust and mantle of
worlds, as with an invisible taloned hand. It may have sunk Mu, or ripped the Moon out of the Pacific, if those
aren't the same thing. It's hidden on the Moon. (Li, the Clinging)
The Syrtis Lattice: An artifact made of petrified Martian wood, supposedly woven by the first Canal-Priests of
Mars. Some scholars believe that the planet's canal system recapitulates the Lattice, which has been lost for
millennia. According to legend, whoever comprehends the Lattice can compel all Martians to obey him. (Zhen,
the Arousing)
The Jovian Grail: A mysterious artifact suspended in the vortex of the Great Red Spot; it may have been the
trigger for planetary formation, or it might be the seed to turn Jupiter into a second Sun. Also called "Jupiter's
Mill" (or the "Jovian Sampo" by Finnish exo-archaeologists), as it may be spinning the Red Spot up from

file:///D|/To%20Update%20Torrents/GURPs%20to%20OCR/pyramid_2008/0613.5.html[11/13/2008 18:56:39]
 nothing. (Qian, the Creative)
The Ring-Eater: Is it a giant alien or a robotic doomsday machine . . . or both? It's out in Saturn's rings, and it
is devouring them. And it lays eggs of ice and diamond. Eggs MacGuffin, need I add? (Kan, the Abysmal)
The Bergenholm Helix: The last-gasp invention of a dying dictatorship (Atlantis? South-Polar Mars? The
Nazis?), the Bergenholm Helix completely cancels inertia. The sole prototype for this incredible dingus was
rocketed to a remote laboratory (or refuge, or temple, or bio-dome) on Uranus' fog-shrouded moon Miranda.
(Gen, the Still)
The Nemesis Ark: When it opens, comets rain down on the inner planets, destroying moons, blasting away
atmospheres, and killing off whole biospheres. Who built it? How does it work? No one knows. It sits on Planet
X, the hidden Tenth Planet. And it waits. (Kun, the Receptive)

Note, by the way, that this only sort of follows the traditional correspondences of the trigrams; you could build just as
satisfying a group of eight by taking the trigrams' reflections as the key attribute: Qian, the Sky (Uranus); Dui, the
Marsh (Venus); Li, the Fire (Mars or Io); Zhen, the Thunder (Jupiter); Xun, the Forest (Moon); Kan, the Ocean
(Europa or Neptune); Gen, the Mountain (Ceres or another asteroid, or Olympus Mons on Mars); Kun, the Earth
(Earth, or if "Earth" means soil or dust then Mercury). Maybe they're terraforming gadgets, or elementals bound in
mathematics and metal, or crystals for empowering your chakras for astral star travel. That's seldom the important
thing, with your proper MacGuffin. So, in short: Figure out how many MacGuffins you need to build, then come up
with a handy hook on which to build them. Or come up with your hook and populate MacGuffins to suit. Then make
up what they do, if need be, and how they came to do that. Note that some of the items above hint at other, better-
known pre-existing MacGuffins -- that's just fine, as long as you don't put both the eidolon and its model in the same
adventure.

"'The only thing I don't understand,' said City Commissioner of Streets Druff, 'is why anyone would go to such lengths.
To put a twenty-four-hour tail on me, we never close.'"
-- Stanley Elkin, The MacGuffin

Let's drop it down a few orders of magnitude, to a city. If you're running an urban-centric campaign, you may not want
the PCs to go running away to India every time they hear a rumor about some mystical rocks, or scarpering off to
Istanbul with the fat man. Your urban MacGuffin must be intimately, unavoidably, tied to the city. Leaving aside the
traditional folder full of blackmail photos, or the "second set of books" for the mob/mayor/megacorp, let's look at some
possibilities. If you only need one dingus, I suggest tying it to the genius loci, the "spirit of the place" -- Vulcan in
Birmingham (Alabama, that is), Ceres in Chicago, the Queen of Angels in L.A., the Sacred Cod in Boston, Dick
Whittington's Cat in London, and so forth. This can be an idol, an object, a key, or a human (or animal) avatar
somewhere in the city; in a supernatural campaign, it could convey rulership or power over the city or some major part
thereof. Take Tallinn in Estonia: Vana Toomas ("Old Thomas"), a copper statue of a landsknecht (or a city guard), has
sat atop the Town Hall weathervane since 1530. The original statue was damaged in a 1944 Soviet bombardment, and
is now in the Town Hall museum. The MacGuffin might be that statue, or the "real" original Old Tom (removed in
1944 by a secret brotherhood, no doubt, and hidden), or the key (or map) to the oubliette where the original Old Tom
is secreted; or the genius loci might be incarnated in a modern Tallinn policeman, in which case he might be the
MacGuffin, or it might be some device (Longsword? Slingshot? Whistle?) which allows that policeman to remember
his ancient heritage and powers.

If you need more than one MacGuffin, again, tie it to the city's geography and history if possible. New York might
have one MacGuffin for each borough -- a Mantle of the original wampum used to purchase Manhattan, the Cable-Tie
used to measure out the cornerstone of the Brooklyn Bridge, the first home run Baseball hit in Yankee Stadium in the
Bronx (by Babe Ruth in 1923), the occulted Trylon from the 1939 World's Fair in Queens, and the Steam-Throttle
from the Nautilus of 1817, the first Staten Island Ferry. If they need powers other than symbolic or commanding, you
can apply the five classical Elements to these MacGuffins, as we saw with the planets: Air (Baseball), Fire (Trylon),
Water (Cable-Tie), Earth (Mantle), Aether (Steam-Throttle). Or go with more modern, urban Elements: Water, Gas,
Electricity, Data, and Concrete, for example. Then the five "controlling" MacGuffins might be a Hydrant, a Stop-
Cock, a Transformer, a Relay, and a Jack-Hammer. Tie them to specific figures in the city's history (Edison or Tesla
for New York, Charles Insull for Chicago, William Mulholland for L.A.) or to legendary elementals updated for the
modern city.

file:///D|/To%20Update%20Torrents/GURPs%20to%20OCR/pyramid_2008/0613.5.html[11/13/2008 18:56:39]
 "Haven't you ever wanted to see the interior? . . . A hundred miles inland lies the wreck of our entire civilization,
waiting to be plundered. . . . A year never passes without someone bringing some great prize out -- but it is so large . .
. that whole cities are lost in it. There was an arch of gold at the entrance to St. Louis -- no one knows what became of
it. Denver, the Mile High City, was nested in silver mines; no one can find them now."
-- Gene Wolfe, "Seven American Nights"

One last set of Worked Examples. We've made up MacGuffins from whole cloth, and we've researched historical or
technical arcana and turned the results into MacGuffins. For the final set, we take existing MacGuffins and repurpose
them for a new setting, only occasionally inventing powers to fit a specific story or historical niche. As noted last time,
there are thirteen legendary Treasures of Britain, a Welsh poetic tradition of the 14th or 15th century. But another
legendary country has a still better claim on the number thirteen, and this wondrous land is our final setting. It is
America, as far from us as the Welsh triadeers were from Arthur, which is to say the 31st century -- the tenth after the
Fall, and only a few centuries out of the Dark Ages. It is an America slowly recovered, and slowly rediscovered, by its
proud scholars and adventurers. What MacGuffins do they seek? What rumors do they scoff at as they attempt to
uncover the lost learning of the ancients? The old libraries are confused and burnt; much lore was transferred to the
Net-God, Gugul, just before the Fall, and taken with him up into Heaven. But here's what the new old MacGuffins, the
Thirteen Treasures of America, might be.

The Green Glass Grail: The obvious place to start. It contained an elixir of pure enchantment and great
spiritual power; it may lie somewhere in the lost city of Atlanta.
The Sword of Patton: Whoever carries it can never be defeated in battle, and can know the mind of all
enemies. It was lost when Patton was killed by treachery in the land of the Nautsii demons. (If your campaign
has gunpowder -- or better yet, blasters -- then it might be the Pistol of Patton. Pearl-handled, of course.)
The Coat of Stonewall: Wearing this coat makes a man invulnerable to fear and to wounds, but legend has it
that its geas will someday inevitably doom the wearer's side in battle.
The White Stone of Washington: No man may be true king of America without dwelling over it. Every lie told
on it shrinks it imperceptibly. Legend says it was once the center of the tallest obelisk in the world.
The Glass Bird: By gazing into this, or by releasing it to fly to Heaven and read the words sewn into the Web
there, one may learn anything known by any other person in America. Its name may be Avatar, or Browser.
The Phials of Jayefkay: Always full of powders that guarantee virility and love, in any quality or quantity
desired. "Open the phials!" cried the love-god's acolytes after he was slain by Damajjio, the jealous husband of a
goddess he had seduced. But they were stolen by the basement spirits and hidden away.
Apples of the West: Planted by Johnny Appleseed in the time of the Fathers, they grant love, or eternal youth,
or perfect growing weather, or the ability to talk to animals.
The Cash Guitar: A jongleur or bard who plays this instrument will draw wealth to himself irresistibly. It has
been associated with all the legendary singers and poets of the Fathers' time; it may only be obtained by
bargaining with -- or beating -- the Devil.
The Mercury 49: A chariot that only the most perfect can drive; it is faster and more beautiful than any other. If
the unworthy drive it, it will kill them. In the various tales, it has many strange number-names (The Old 97, The
Apollo 13, etc.), and it may be a flying craft rather than a conventional chariot.
Babe Ruth's Staff: Guarantees victory in any personal or athletic contest. (If your post-Fall America still plays
baseball, it can even still be a Bat.)
The Lincoln Casket: A chest containing the radiance of the god himself. Those who find and open it can
receive the direct powers of the Fathers.
The Freedom Ring: It belonged to King Martin, who used it to free the American people from slavery; it
cracked during the struggle, and he died of it. Some sages say it was a bell, not a ring; either way it may grant
divine eloquence, or be a sonic weapon, or both.
And last, but not least, The Big Rush Candy Mountain: Guarded by four terrifying giants, this legendary
mountain holds all the secrets of the Fathers and an entrance to Heaven through two wonderful golden arches.

I'd tell you more, but a man just fell dead in my office holding a mysterious statue of a savage bronze eagle . . .

file:///D|/To%20Update%20Torrents/GURPs%20to%20OCR/pyramid_2008/0613.5.html[11/13/2008 18:56:39]