The Brass Goggles Occult Society...The Esoteric Order of the Brazen Dawn...

[lady sakara]

Or real today occult matters.


have a google for Hellfire club....

[rovingjack]

so what you're saying is... um, get fake. (as opposed to get real) 

Actually I've been thinking of the X-mens hellfire club recently because I'm trying to learn a game called Shogi, it's the japanese version of chess (sorta), but there are differant versions that have differant numbers of peices, up to 55 named peices I think. So instead of the black rook, and white queen and such there could be the Wood General and the Blue dragon.

[Capt_Zaphod]

Personally ... I'm a fan of Pendulum use.  I have a nice brass one.

[clockwork creation]

ooo i have a nice rough rouck crystal on

[lady sakara]

the xmen hellfire club is roughly based in the real stories of the victorian hellfire club.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellfire_Club

I was hoping this 'society' would utilise occult ideas and suchlike that are not what is used today...think more hellboy occultism than pier side tarot tents (did you know tarot was invented as a game firstly not as a form of divination? ..there are ways to use a standard card deck to divinate...its more perception of what card means)

[groomporter]

Some of the Regency-era hellfire clubs activities seem a bit exaggerated. The members seem to have been bored, wealthy men, and the mock religious rituals they are said to have experimented with may have been more of an excuse for kinky sex, except by a couple members who may have been believers. At least that was the opinion of a biographer of "old Q", the Duke of Queensbury.  http://www.amazon.com/Old-Rake-Piccadilly-Biography-Queensbury/dp/B000HL5GSS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231025589&sr=8-4 I seem to remember one anecdote in the book where one of the members dressed a monkey in a devil costume and had it released into the room where they were holding a drunken "black mass" at a key moment, causing pandemonium for several minutes.

Of course that could be a plot, or character idea -An wealthy person who experiments with arcane rituals for the thrill of it and got more "thrills" than he expected...

[groomporter]

To be honest, I've wondered if exaggerated rumors about the hellfire clubs' activities aren't part of the reason that the black mass and satanism has remained a part of popular culture long after the influence of witchcraft trials.

[groomporter]

Speaking of books On Her Majesty's Occult Services it's not steampunk, but a fun read with a lot of examples of technology-powered occult tools, for example, the main character has a Palm Pilot programed with spells to use as needed.

http://www.amazon.com/Her-Majestys-Occult-Service/dp/0739481126/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t

[groomporter]

the main character has a Palm Pilot programed with spells to use as needed.

How about a babbage engine programmed to run numerically encoded incantations?

[clockwork creation]

ooooo i like that

[HettyB]

On the subject of tarot cards as punch cards...

A long time ago there was a short story I read where the protagonist would perform tarot card like readings using cards meant for computers.  They weren't exactly punch cards but she still used them for divination purposes.  Wish I could remember the title of the story, the anthology it was printed in or the author's name.

[groomporter]

How about a large ornate wooden Rolodex-type file to quick-reference spells? Apparently the Rolodex was inspired by an earlier version called a Wheeldex trademarked in 1932.

Or a variation on the babbage engine idea, (or punch-cards tarot I think was mentioned above) that runs off of a perforated paper roll like a player piano. Edwin Votey constructed a prototype piano-player system in 1895.

Oh I know!! A wind-up "time bomb spell" hidden in an enemy's flat, or hotel room, and run by a "spell engine" that uses a program on a perforated brass disk similar to a disk music box like the one pictured below?

[Mlle A. Aurantia]

A rolodex book of shadows! Marvelous!

And of course this thread will bounce from reality to fantasy and back. That is what much of this forum is. We almost need a separate set of forums for all of the societies, especially as I suspect more will be forming soon.

I wish I could speak Klingon. I've used the Tengwar (Tolkein's Elvish, one of them.) before. It's beautiful, but difficult to move to other languages in. My French prof and I spent a day arguing with both languages before just giving up. The strange part was that he managed to write that little chart from the appendixes by memory, as if he had tried it once long ago. Ah, geeks. We never truly die.

[lady sakara]

i love all the ancient mystical devices Lara Croft seems to find and use...hence my little costume side project i hope to have finished by the spring 

or the things they used in Hellboy - like the device he has to re-animate the dead.
i could just see that hanging off the chatelaine of some lady occultist belt...

[groomporter]

Of course on the SteamPagan thread I referenced earlier I believe there was discussion of clockwork voodoo dolls that were programmed to kill themselves and therefore the chosen victim.

[Lady Anne]

I wonder how automatons could fit into this?  You load in a player piano roll, or a stack of cams, and the automaton performs your spells for you, drawing things out in chalk, lighting candles, repeating spells off of wax canister recordings.

[groomporter]

- like the device he has to re-animate the dead.
i could just see that hanging off the chatelaine of some lady occultist belt...

Oh just the thought of an occultist's chatelaine... Of course it would have to include a tiny grimoire kind of like a small "book of Hours" also called "girdle books" worn from a Renaissance lady's belt.

Let's see...
vial of holy water
crucifix
pentacle
belt grimoire
There's a key chain tarot deck on the market:
https://www.usgamesinc.com/product.php?productid=644&cat=8&page=1

Speaking of them U.S. games also sells blank tarot card sets to design your own
https://www.usgamesinc.com/product.php?productid=471&cat=8&page=2

[groomporter]

I wonder how automatons could fit into this?  You load in a player piano roll, or a stack of cams

That's why I really like the disk music box idea. They were designed so you could change disks for different songs (i.e. spells), and the brass disks would hold up to multiple uses so much better than a paper roll.

-Of course that could be a funny plot device -say there's a tear in the paper roll creating an unexpected result... "I'm sorry Jeeves... I'll try to change your horse ears back to human form as soon as soon as the next full moon comes around, but for the time being I hope your wife enjoys your other, equine... um... assets  "

[Gazongola]

I suppose this old Pagan should join as well.

[Mlle A. Aurantia]

I dare someone to build the Hellraiser puzzle box. I give extra kudos to the person who plants a music box in the middle to trigger when it's solved. Maybe the process of solving it could be the "winding up?"

Muahahahaaaaaaa. . .

[Capt_Zaphod]

I dare someone to build the Hellraiser puzzle box. I give extra kudos to the person who plants a music box in the middle to trigger when it's solved. Maybe the process of solving it could be the "winding up?"

Muahahahaaaaaaa. . .

Solve it by winding up?  Sounds like a jack-in-the-box.
Hrmmm ... get yourself:

• a "Screamin" brand puzzlebox storage holder
• a NECA Pinhead Bobble Head toy
• a black sock
• a big spring

and turn it into a "Pinhead in the box". 

All around the cobbler's bench,
The monkey chased the weasel.

The monkey thought't was all in fun,
Pop! "I'll tear your soul apart!"

[groomporter]

No music box, but there are facsimile Hellraiser puzzle boxes for sale, some even have moving parts. they even have  a "Rubik's cube" puzzle box
http://www.hellraiserpuzzlebox.com/boxes.html

[groomporter]

So... does the Esoteric Order of the Brazen Dawn have it's own meeting place?

-Perhaps with a tower that has windows and fixtures arranged to align with the sun on equinoxes and solstices, or other astronomical occurrences?

-A basement ritual chamber with a special ventilation to remove the occasional noxious smells such as brimstone or other infernal odors.

A walled backyard for outdoor ceremonies/bonfires?

Of course a reference library goes without speaking...

-Crematorium for disposing of "things" that have materialized and won't go away and must be exterminated.

[clockwork creation]

we would need some tanks of water to keep the murmaids in

[James Harrison]

I'd say we'd need some sort of immense vault (or series of same) below the meeting place too, for keeping records and evidence of the preternatural and occult.