One of my previous jobs exposed me to a lot of different religious websites. Most of these were perfectly respectable websites by perfectly respectful people, but there were a few I came across that were… well, a good ways down the road to crazyland.
One of the websites I came across—and I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to discern whether this falls into the Reasonable or Crazy category—is that of Texe Marrs, an end-times preacher who talks a lot about the Illumati, the JFK assassination, the Mark of the Beast, and the many ways those topics all supposedly tie together.
Why do I bring this up on a blog dedicated to gaming, you ask? Well, because Marrs’ latest insane manifesto book , Mysterious Monuments: Encyclopedia of Secret Illuminati Designs, Masonic Architecture, and Occult Places, might as well be a sourcebook for Unknown Armies. Here’s the back-cover blurb:
A sinister and curious Architectural Colossus is exploding across planet earth. Are mysterious monuments part of a Grand Design? Are the Illuminati elite using satanic architecture and magic to seduce men’s minds and catapult humanity into a New Order of the Ages?
Gee, I hope so, because that sounds awesome.
Take a look at its list of contents and tell me this doesn’t sound like a list of adventure seed locations from a typical horror/investigation/conspiracy RPG. Among the topics covered:
- The Georgia Guidestones, whose mysterious builders left frightening messages in granite demanding that some six billion inhabitants of planet earth be eliminated to achieve “perpetual balance with nature.” (page 21)
- The Great American Pyramid, newly erected in Memphis, Tennessee—was it dedicated to the Devil by the Illuminati millionaire who oversaw its construction? (pages 28 and 29)
- The odd “Stonehenge” structure in California which serves as the entrance to an Apple Computer Corp. facility. Questions: Why is Apple’s logo an image of an apple with a bite taken out of it? And why did the company’s founders price their first product, the Apple 1 computer, at exactly $666? (Page 56)
- Astana, Kazakhstan, gleaming new occult City of the Illuminati. Is this city slated to become the antichrist’s futuristic, new capital and global headquarters? (pages 64-67)
- Sandusky, Ohio, a city laid out in the form of a Masonic square and compass, home to the company that operates “The Beast,” the world’s largest wooden rollercoaster, which boasts three 6-car trains, numerologically 666. (page 124)
(Sandusky, Ohio, eh? Who knew?)
Honestly, that would work just great as a list of plot seeds for a game of World of Darkness (any of them), Call of Cthulhu, Conspiracy X or anything written by Ken Hite.
Unfortunately, there are at least two things keeping me from picking it up, as much as I love this stuff:
- It’s $35 plus shipping and handling (hey, Marrs is even using RPG rulebook pricing!).
- That $35 plus shipping and handling would be funding a lot of Crazy, and I don’t think I want that on my conscience.
I’m willing to bet that this particular book doesn’t come with the “hey kids, remember this isn’t real” disclaimer that a lot of horror RPGs did (and some still do). So I think for now I’ll stick to buying my occult-conspiracy RPG books from people who don’t actually believe their contents to be true….
by 
Amazing! Seriously, you should add that to your Amazon wishlist.
Anyway, my heart is hoping it’s the same guy. ,
If you want to know the glory of Texe without funding his crazy, that *very book* is (or was recently) on the shelves at Barnes & Nobles for your perusing pleasure. I know it pleased *me* — especially when I found out that cast members of Seinfeld (whose ethnicity is not lost on Texe Marrs) were making occult Illuminati hand gestures on the cover of TV Guide. Wait, that was his first book. But this one’s there too.