The Clockwork Mansion

Village Square => Jayhawk HQ => Topic started by: Eboreg on August 22, 2014, 09:30:28 PM

Title: 2014/08/22 [PF #330] - Didn't do the research
Post by: Eboreg on August 22, 2014, 09:30:28 PM
Whoever this adventurer/lawman/bounty hunter is, she needs to go back to the training academy if she actually believes that. Also, I would expect people hunting down 'Cubi to have a bit more magic on their side to help in identification. At least her gun safety is competent enough. Some may complain at intimidation by pointing the gun directly at Dorcan but nothing I've seen seems to go against that. And her finger is off the trigger, that's the important thing that most people forget. However, it doesn't matter anyways since there is no way that Dorcan is going to be significantly injured by that puny little 9mm(?) so he can just grab the gun, unload it, and say "Run".
Title: Re: 2014/08/22 [PF #330] - Didn't do the research
Post by: Tapewolf on August 23, 2014, 09:14:40 AM
The bounty huntress' rather inaccurate take on 'Cubi is actually based on beliefs from medieval Europe, as documented in 'The Discoverie of Witchcraft' (1584) by Reginald Scot.  Book 4 deals with incubi and succubi.  Chapter 2 has the information she is relaying, which cites the Malleus Maleficarum as its source.

Chapter 5 has this gem:

"YOU shall read in the legend, how in the night time Incubus came to a ladies bed side, and made hot loove unto hir : whereat she being offended, cried out so lowd, that companie came and found him under hir bed in the likenesse of the holie bishop Sylvanus, which holie man was much defamed therebie, untill at the length this infamie was purged by the confession of a divell made at S. Jeroms toombe.  Oh excellent peece of witchcraft or cousening wrought by Sylvanus!"

...not least because I had no idea the phrase 'made hot love' goes back so many centuries.
Title: Re: 2014/08/22 [PF #330] - Didn't do the research
Post by: Eboreg on August 23, 2014, 12:48:14 PM
Quote from: Tapewolf on August 23, 2014, 09:14:40 AM
"It was totally a incubus disguised as a bishop and not the bishop himself"

Cool story bro.
Title: Re: 2014/08/22 [PF #330] - Didn't do the research
Post by: Tapewolf on August 23, 2014, 03:14:22 PM
Quote from: Eboreg on August 23, 2014, 12:48:14 PM
Cool story bro.

It is worth mentioning that Scot's work was aimed at proving witchcraft did not exist - the section about 'Cubi goes into detail as to how aspects of the myth are at best a disease, and at worst, an excuse for questionable pregnancies and wayward bishops.

Later chapters explain how to juggle and perform sleight-of-hand tricks, to reassure the gullible that they are in fact merely tricks and not an invocation of the powers of darkness.
Title: Re: 2014/08/22 [PF #330] - Didn't do the research
Post by: mithril on August 24, 2014, 11:34:03 PM
well, to be fair, when you have a shapeshifter issues of gender get much more fluid.. so i could totally see belief that cubi are genderless and just take on whatever gender gets them the best result arising in the being population. it's not like Cubi don't use their shapeshifting to deceive beings after all. and when the nature of a particular group is not well known, what little is known tends to end up the basis for very weird assumptions.

this also seem to poke a bit of fun at the DMFA fan forums.. until Mrs. Williams finally came out and cleared the waters about cubi gender and how far shapeshifting goes, there were plenty of people who assumed that cubi were effectively whatever gender they wanted to be.