RE: [DL] Need a nightmare to run someone through...

["Matthew M. DeForrest" <mmdeforrest@worldnet.att.net>]

> -----Original Message-----
> Mild spoilers
>
>
>
> So. . . what you have is a purty gambler who is afraid of immortality.
>
> Take a page from the Greeks - they had a legend about someone who wished
> for eternal life, but didn't ask for eternal youth. . .

The reference, for those enquiring minds who want to know, is from Ovid's
_Metamorphosis_ (Not Kafka's -- although there's a story looking to be
worked into Deadlands as a nightmare or as a scenario).  The Sybil promised
Apollo she would go to bed with him if he granted her immortality.  He
granted her immortality and then refused to do the deed.  Apollo then said
fair enough and pointed out her mistake.  She aged and became shriveled to
the point she was the size of a cricket.  Eliot's _The Waste Land_ begins
with a quote from the story, in which a bunch of schoolboys in Rome were
taunting her by rapping on the jar she was kept in, asking her what she most
wished for.  Her answer?  "I want to die."

As a nightmare adventure seed, if it isn't too late, have the characters
play through an adventure, in which they are in search of a relic.  When
they find it, it's the jar of the Sybil.  When your harrowed gambler takes
the jar, have the Sybil sigh and say, "Finally! Another to take my
place...." and die.  No matter what, the jar always returns to the gambler.
Soon thereafter, they meet someone trained in the classics who can tell the
story.

Hope this is of help.

Matt