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  • File :1243942009.jpg-(158 KB, 1775x1125, antarctica-iceberg-lagoon-matthew-gibbon(...).jpg)
    158 KB Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)07:26 No.4742975  
    Alright /tg/, I just had an idea inspired by Yahoo's referring to Antarctica as "the white continent". It reminded me of Africa's old moniker "the dark continent", and it got me thinking about all the awesome Victorian legends that sprung up around the Western colonization of Africa. Now that the West is colonizing Antarctica, let us, gentlemen, create some similarly styled legends about the Land of Ice.

    Impossibly ancient underground temples are a given, as are shoggoths. Giant polar bears that raised a stranded geologist's son as their own? Huge cubes of ice filled with skeletons that animate and walk through ice? Curse of the Ice Mummies? I know you can do better, so c'mon gents, think like a Victorian!
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)07:31 No.4743004
    There are dark and dangerous things beneath the ice - an entire society of outcast sorcerers who survive through use of their magic in black temples. Stumbling into one is to become fuel for their rituals.

    There are entire societies of snow ghosts in Antarctica - get lost in the snow and they come for you, to live in their thriving community.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)07:35 No.4743026
    >>4743004
    Don't forget Abominable Snowmen!
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)07:58 No.4743169
    The ice is sentient, and it hates us.

    It will claim those it can, cracking and reforming to engulf those who venture into the endless white expanse. The blizzards whisper maddening thoughts in an endless night, while something massive and sinister lives beneath the ice
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)07:59 No.4743176
    polar bears are at the other end of the world I'm afraid

    GIANT PENGUINS
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:01 No.4743183
         File :1243944082.jpg-(59 KB, 314x500, 51F2GE9NQXL.jpg)
    59 KB
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:02 No.4743191
    >>4743169
    I like this. But it can't be ALL the ice, or we'd never get a foothold. Maybe just the central expanse?

    Also, frozen Jörmungandr that is slowly defrosting because of global warming.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:02 No.4743196
    >>4743176
    I know. Legends aren't meant to be accurate. There were plenty of stories of tigers in Africa, too.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:03 No.4743197
    I hear tell of pools of water on the ice sheet, so filled with clear brine, that they do not freeze no matter how cold it gets. They appear to be just water, which must mean they are above freezing, drinkable perhaps.. but if you touch the serene crystal surface of a chilling pong, you are instantly frozen.

    Many a waylaid traveler has stumbled into such pools in a blizzard, or been tricked into them due to their complete transparency.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:06 No.4743213
    >>4743169
    I meant for it to be somewhat like ents, the capability is there in all the ice, but it is dormant, the central ice is still alive, but it requires great effort to raise the ice near the edge. smaller activites, just well timed icefalls, or the cracking of thin ice.
    >>4743197

    Oh woops, i meant pond not pong :P
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:15 No.4743255
    >>4743213
    "The ice it...it just came alive and swallowed him!"

    Cue Snow Predators.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:17 No.4743267
    >>4743176

    this
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:35 No.4743360
    A sailor i knew was on a journey there many years ago, didn't like to talk about it much. But I loosened him up in the usual way, and the warming rum fire of memories thawed his tongue enough for him to say that which he had held no words for.

    He seemed as cold as distant as that very land as he spoke, he seemed to gaze right through me and out onto a bitter expanse. The antarctic wasteland is incoceivably vast, a man could wander for weeks on end, and see nothing.

    Though the vista from one endless horizon to the other is entirely of ice, there is not a drop of water, no rain or river, no friendly stream, it is a desert. As dry and desolate as anywhere. it is as lonely a place as exists. You will lose your way before you ever find it, and you will lose your mind before that.

    He stared then into his shotglass, as if seeing the endless plain on the surface of the drink. A grim determination over took him, with the look of a man entering battle, he finished it in one movement and poured another.

    "I can't speak for the others, no one can speak for them now, but I can tell you one thing for certain" He stared into me now, his words chilling my bones. "the ice does not want us there."
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:37 No.4743367
    I remember those words so clearly, although it is many years gone now, but the rest of the conversation is just a blur of imagery and fear.

    He spoke of the storms clouds that rose up like moving mountains, boiling with a vengance that seemed to charge down directly at the little party. He said the air at night was charges with electricity, and lights would dance across the ground and through the air as freely as they danced across the sky. Auroras. He seemed to think the auroras were hunting him, or playing with him like a cat and a broken bird.

    His companions disapeared, taken by the endless searing white, or in a dance of colours in the night. Between the dancing of the auroras and the singing of the winds and the ice sculpted into gargoyles, he spoke as if the whole land where composed of something other, as if the angry spirit of the place were tormenting his ever step.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:38 No.4743372
    I have never seen a man so tortured by is demons, and the more he spoke the less sense it seemed to make. As the night drew on I could make no sense of his words, they were in English, but the way they arranged them.. and the names he gave to things.. It was as if he had been in another world entirely.

    There seems to be an untold mythos in that land, and a all encompassing pathos too. I can not assemble all the details now, nor could i have ever painted a clear picture from his ramblings. But I know one thing as sure as the surging sea, I would never travel to that cold foreboding hell.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:45 No.4743402
    >>4743169
    >>4743197
    >>4743360
    >>4743367
    >>4743372

    Thats all I've got for tonight, anyone else got something to add?
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:47 No.4743409
    The very deep did rot: O Christ!
    That ever this should be!
    Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
    Upon the slimy sea.

    About, about, in reel and rout
    The death-fires danced at night;
    The water, like a witch's oils,
    Burnt green, and blue and white.

    And some in dreams assured were
    Of the spirit that plagued us so:
    Nine fathom deep he had followed us
    From the land of mist and snow.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:49 No.4743420
    >>4743360
    >>4743367
    >>4743372
    You are awesome.

    >>4743409
    Greatest poem ever written.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:51 No.4743428
    This is a the best thread I've seen on /tg/ in weeks
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)08:55 No.4743443
    >>4743428
    OP here. Why is that? Original content?

    Also, there needs to be something The Thing. Stories about companions disappearing, then reappearing out of the snow a few days later, acting strangely and smiling all too much. Bad things happen.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:00 No.4743465
    >>4743443

    yeah, proper original content, not just regurgitated tripe. How often do you get an actually original scenario, fleshed out with fluff from a good writefag?

    I'd play this for sure.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:04 No.4743485
    >>4742975
    >ice filled with skeletons that animate

    Even better. Antarctican equivalent of the African elephant graveyard: mammoth graveyards. And despite being apparently extinct, new skeletons appear every so often...together with human skeletons.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:08 No.4743500
    How about the legendary Giant Glacial Shrimp? We've all seen the picture, I just can't find it.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:08 No.4743503
    >>4743485


    were there ever mammoths in Antarctica?
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:15 No.4743537
    >>4743503
    Were there ever lost children raised by apes? Who cares, it's a legend! A folk-tale! The taller the better!
    >> BowlerHatMan !!hZDPsoEDBxR 06/02/09(Tue)09:17 No.4743560
    Somewhere under the ice, the survivors of Atlantis created a self-sustaining city, its population numbering in the hundreds of millions. Their technology is unfathomably sophisticated, having had eons of relative peace and an imperative to improve quality of life in increasingly difficult circumstances with limited resources. Through genetic engineering they became strong, agile, and absurdly intelligent. Through isolation, they no longer feel kinship to humans. We are to them what mosquitoes are to us... but global climate change is destroying their bug net, and it's only a matter of time until they rise from the ice and take care of some pest control.
    >> Matters of the Goodings case, exhibit one: Dr. Baron von Evilsatan 06/02/09(Tue)09:19 No.4743568
    "Oh, really, Goodings, now you're being ridiculous."

    "Damnit, Charles, you know it's right! Think about it! Not one other nation of savages has ever embraced our arrival like this before. Everywhere we've gone we've had to teach them the superiority of English civilisation before they'll listen to reason and work under us. Even the Subcontinent cares less for us!"

    "No, no, I refuse to listen. I've always listened to you before, even when you've been spouting nonsense, because occasionally you stumble onto something big. But this... this is just preposterous! If there was something there, we would have seen it by now!"

    "Ha! We've barely mapped an eighth the continent, and near all of that coastal. The 'British Eye' can barely see beyond our townships! Anything could be out there."

    "Nonsense."

    "What, you think the savages came to us because they were drawn to our superior culture? Hardly. Look at the migration patterns. Every time a savage village heard of our arrival, they all packed up to a man, and moved here! They left behind their mossyards, their fishscoops, their ancestral homes, everything of value to them they couldn't carry with them. That's not something one does for anything other than desperation, even for the glories of civilised life!"

    "Please, Goodings, they're savages. They aren't the same as us at all."

    "They're close enough. Look at them. It's not just our colony, not even ours and the French, but every single colony and township established across the entire coastline! If it were us, perhaps, but do you really see a village of ten thousand abandoning everythign their own to live under the Portuguese? For heaven's sake, Charles, they're not in it for what we think!"
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:19 No.4743575
    There were plenty of legends about Africa that had a 'promised land' kind of theme as well. Needs some of those, but i'm far too tired to think of anything good.
    >> Dr. Baron von Evilsatan 06/02/09(Tue)09:20 No.4743577
    "Not this again. If they were afraid of something, why have they never said a peep on the topic? Not so much as a whisper? They have said nothing, because there is nothing!"

    "Oh, really? Is a grown man reduced to tears when asked about 'nothing'? Does an interview with a family about 'nothing' have them abandon their every possession and flee in the night? Did 'nothing' cause Sir Henry to scrawl that warning across the walls of my city manor?"

    "Pfah, Sir Henry. Fool Henry, more's the like."

    "I'm telling you, Charles, they come to us because they are afraid! They come to us not because of our machines, our civilisation, our culture, our heritage, but our superior weaponry! They ally themselves at the cost of near-slavery to the strongest civilisation they can find! There is something so terrible, so fearsome, out there somewhere that these people are slaving their lives to buy passage on a smoking deathtrap for the chance to escape it!"

    "Now that's it, Goodings, I've had enough! As a man of science, as once you were, it is my duty to prove to you with evidence what my words cannot, and that is that you're mad! I'll lead an expedition to True South itself if that's what it takes to make you realise your folly!"
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:21 No.4743583
    >>4743560
    This is good, but it needs to have more of a lost city feel. Like explorers looking for a lost city of gold in Africa only to find out its still inhabited by violent natives/violent vines controlled by natives/ghosts of natives etc.

    Work that into the "ice ghosts" idea posted earlier. The Atlanteans survived...for a time. Then something sinister killed them all at once, and their tortured, hoary souls haunt the ruins (that are still full of treasure/oil/insert valuable substance).
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:22 No.4743588
    >>4743575
    Like Garden of Eden kinda thing? Make the Earth hollow to fit in with the Victorian theme, have the entrance to Shambala be in the heart of the icy wastes.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:24 No.4743603
    >>4743588
    Yeah, perfect.
    >> Matters of the Goodings case, exhibit two: Dr. Baron von Evilsatan 06/02/09(Tue)09:27 No.4743615
    MADAM IT IS WITH GREAT REGRET THAT I MUST INFORM YOU OF THE FATE OF YOUR SON STOP

    THE LATE LORD HUBERT GOODINGS SIX MONTHS AGO LED AN EXPEDITION INTO THE HEART OF ANTARCTICA STOP

    THIS EXPEDITION WAS PLANNED WITH A DURATION OF ONE MONTH STOP

    NOT ONE MEMBER OF THE EXPEDITION HAS BEEN SEEN SINCE STOP

    NO EVIDENCE OF THEIR EXISTENCE BEYOND THEIR STOP IN THE VILLAGE OF NOUVEAU ROQUEFORT HAS BEEN FOUND BY ANY SEARCH PARTY WE HAVE EMPLOYED STOP

    THOSE FAMILIAR WITH SUCH EXPEDITIONS BELIEVE THEIR SUPPLIES CANNOT HAVE POSSIBLY LASTED THIS LONG STOP

    MESSRS THURMAN AND ROACH OF THE FIRM OF THE SAME NAME MUST INFORM YOU THAT HE HAS BEEN DECLARED LEGALLY DEAD STOP

    PLEASE CONTACT US IMMEDIATELY THAT WE MAY FACILITATE THE DISPOSAL OF HIS ESTATE STOP
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:30 No.4743627
    Snow Ladies. Japanese mythological monsters who look like ghostly women. They seduce men and drain the heat out of them.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:31 No.4743636
    >>4743575
    To add to this point, you would have colonists turning up expecting paradise and finding a malaria infested swamp.

    So....groups of desperate pilgrims eking out a living in extensive ice caves? Horrific mortality rates, cannibalism etc etc or something?
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:35 No.4743661
    >>4743636
    You mean antarctic morlocks?
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:36 No.4743666
         File :1243949788.jpg-(264 KB, 550x733, 1232841886788.jpg)
    264 KB
    >>4743627
    You forgot your pic.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:46 No.4743708
    “Rupert, you’ve had too much to drink. I know it’s cold, but-“

    “I’m TELLING you. It was…it was the biggest God-blessed penguin I’ve ever seen. Nearly a cable tall, at least!”

    “And yet you claim this isn’t the greatest find of your…admittedly tragic expedition?”

    “Alright chap. You’ve drug it out of me. We were six weeks into that God-awful place. Nothing but white everywhere you looked, had to keep a line tied to each of us so we wouldn’t lose each other because damned if we all weren’t lost. Six weeks Henry! They said it couldn’t be done! And then…oh yes, we made it. We made it out of the white wasteland, and into the clear! An entire inland ocean with coasts of icy cliffs a mile high!”

    “And that’s where you saw this…penguin?”
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:47 No.4743710
    “Damnit Henry, I’ve only had two pints. And it wasn’t just one. We thought they were normal penguins, we practically ran towards them hoping for meat. From the distance…Lord, they looked normal. It wasn’t until we got closer that we realized how bloody HUGE they were! A hundred- no, TWO hundred feet tall, eating fish the size of whales! It was all we could do to not piss ourselves as we hoofed it towards the nearest glacier-valley.”

    “And this is-“

    “I’m getting to that! We got lost in the icy maze of clear blue walls and tunnels. By the time we found it, we were so deep we couldn’t see the sun, Lord knows how long we’d been wandering or how we got out. But there it was, clear as the ice around it. Black marble. Cut into pillars and blocks. They were broken, but they were definitely hewn by human hands, I swear upon my grave! Further down the tunnel, the ice on the walls began to be replaced by more of the cut stone, until we found ourselves in a massive room. All around us, the walls…my GOD Henry, the walls! Absolutely covered in blue gems! We uhh…we tried to retrieve a few for…scientific inspection…”

    “Scientific inspection. Of course.”
    >> OP btw 06/02/09(Tue)09:47 No.4743716
    “No living creature had disturbed those ruins for as long as our great Empire has existed, Henry. Noone would have missed a few trinkets.”

    “And yet they cost all but three of you your lives.”

    “The floor gave way. There was nothing
    malicious to it.”

    Henry looked down at the red-faced man over his thin spectacles. “Of course not. And I believe you. And we’ll organize another expedition…as soon as you hand over those jewels for…scientific inspection. Isn’t that right, Rupert?”
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:48 No.4743719
    >>4743615
    I like this, thought I'd just pipe up as you hadn't had any appreciation.

    An expedition like that could have a real "heart of darkness" j conrad type feel. The natives look at you suspiciously, some try and tell you what's going on, they're killed under mysterious circumstances. Of course I wouldn't expect it to turn out to be a rogue british officer behind it all but you get the idea.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:50 No.4743732
    >>4743627
    Eskimo legendary creatures include a polar bear with ten arms. And legendary creatures don't mind if they're on the wrong pole.

    That'll be one hell of a bear hug.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:51 No.4743738
    >>4743719
    Even better; make it a rogue British officer, who's covering up something horrifying and monumental he's discovered, and doesn't want ANYONE else to know about it.
    >> Matters of the Goodings case, exhibit three: Dr. Baron von Evilsatan 06/02/09(Tue)09:52 No.4743748
    "And where did you meet this survivor?"

    "At Glastonbury Common, in a home for the irrevocably insane."

    "That's over a hundred kilometres from anywhere the expedition could have possibly reached after they vanished!"

    "Exactly. And he hadn't sought me out to tell me his tale; rather, I had to prise it from him with great difficulty. Were he a charlatan I'd have found him on my doorstep with a cartload of convenietly-priced relics of the expedition and a map to the vast alebit cursed treasure they found."

    "Still...

    Regardless, what did he say?"

    "Very little. What few rational words I could prise out of him were adrift in a sea of babble about the cold and the fire. The man was quite mad."

    "And those words..?"

    "It seems the expedition reached their goal after all. They found... something. It blinded much of the expedition, and did something else to many of the rest. I never did find out, any attempt to elicit such information resulted in his violent self-harm and under hypnosis led to him entering the catatonic state he's yet to leave. Before that, he told me of his escape with just six of the original eighty, and of a similar chain of events on their return that led to him being the sole survivor."

    "Little wonder he's so traumatised."

    "My dear, you don't know the half of it. I never did find out exactly what happened to the other survivors, but evidently those with sight had to leave the poor blinded beggars behind to die."

    "Good Lord, that's awful!"

    "Not really. There are far more unpleasant things in this land. Just ask the survivor."
    >> Dr. Baron von Evilsatan 06/02/09(Tue)09:53 No.4743755
    "You brought him here?"

    "Indeed. He's standing in the hall."

    "...there's nobody in the hall. Nothing even from this land other than the ice sculpture."

    "Quite."

    "...you mean he's inside the sculpture?!"

    "Not at all. He IS the sculpture."

    "You said you talked to him! How? A block of ice!"

    "He wasn't always like this. At first, the arm, just below where he amputated. Then it spread, and spread, and spread."

    "What, and transformed him into ice?"

    "Not quite ice. For one, ice isn't contagious."

    "I'm afraid I don't quite take your meaning. you mean... ice that spreads?"

    "Oh, yes. My mistake was to touch it. He wasn't wrong to be afraid. No medicine helps, and not even amputation can stop the spread."

    "That! Your arm! You... you weren't lying!"

    "Unfortunately, no. I'm quite beyond saving now. I've accepted it, although I do rather wish it wasn't so cold."

    "Oh?"

    "It isn't ice. For one, ice isn't contagious. For another, ice warms. This, does not. Coal fizzles out. Iron ore is quenched. Hot baths slowly freeze. My every effort to heat it only seems to make it colder."

    "...did you try cooling it?"

    "Of course."

    "And?"

    "It didn't work."

    "So there's nothing that can be done to help you?"

    "Well, one thing."

    "What can I do to help?"

    "I'm just so cold. I long for the warmth of another human, if only to ease the bitter chill for an instant."

    "Sir Henry! How dare you!"

    "You WILL help me. You WILL hold me!"

    "Sir Henry! Stop!"

    "HOLD ME!"
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:56 No.4743769
         File :1243951003.jpg-(56 KB, 800x470, 800px-Epic_Crayfish.jpg)
    56 KB
    >>4743500
    You rang?
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)09:58 No.4743775
         File :1243951084.jpg-(1.01 MB, 1712x1156, corp1120.jpg)
    1.01 MB
    >>4743197
    >pools of water on the ice sheet, so filled with clear brine

    Brine is salt water. Pools of water on ice sheets is fresh water because it's from melted ice.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)10:00 No.4743789
    How about this: the crew finds a huge technologically advanced but rusted particle accelerator. Inside they discover radioactive lifeforms which pass through solid matter like ghosts.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)10:01 No.4743793
    >>4743769
    Yeah, that's the one.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)10:03 No.4743800
    >>4743769
    "Goddamn that giant shrimp, that's the forth time today."
    "No-one's impressed you know."
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)10:04 No.4743805
    >>4743789
    Seems a bit too...modern, but I'll think about it. I like the idea of the rusted particle accelerator, with American ID tags. Noone has any record of building it or anything like it, yet it seems to have been there for centuries, completely forgotten.

    Some sort of time warp phenomenon, like the spaceship in Sphere. "Wait...this language... it's in English!"
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)10:06 No.4743814
    >>4743800
    Then you should see the whale that filters those by the million as sustenance.

    Tectonic plates my ass. It's just the damn whale going out for a swim.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)10:07 No.4743829
    I'm thinking monoliths made of ice that emit a droning noise and powerful winds that keep explorers away from the heart of the continent. Possibly also giant, maneating silverfish?
    >> Part one of Three A Gentleman of Scottish Descent 06/02/09(Tue)10:09 No.4743836
    Forgive me if this story is not up to snuff, I wrote it on the spot.


    The hoarfrost coated his beard in crystalline sheets as he stared out across the bleak landscape. The land was dark, impossibly dark, as if to draw the very light of one’s soul over that precipice of life and into that endless abyss of death. “You know this land?” asked the Helmsman as he turned inquiringly to the pale-faced bulk staring out the open door. “I do,” he returned in his thick Scottish drawl as he closed the heavy wooden door. “And it knows me,” he continued, staring blankly out of the porthole, a hint of malice on his face. He slowly brushed aside the side of his coat, and checked the cartridges of his revolver. He backed away from the porthole, sufficiently assured that whatever he was looking for was not visible through the overcast fog that permeated the land. “Something awry?” chirped the scientist, who had remained silent, ghost-like throughout the exchange. Sighing heavily, the Scotsman replied “No, no, just reminiscing” as he returned to his seat beside the bespectacled geologist. He fell slowly into sleep.
    >> Part Two of Three A Gentleman of Scottish Descent 06/02/09(Tue)10:10 No.4743843
    >>4743836
    ------------------------
    The hoarfrost coated his beard in crystalline sheets as he stared out across the bleak landscape. The land was dark, so much darker then, and so much colder. He picked up the severed end of the rope that was meant to bind him to the others. “The others,” he thought “They’re gone now”. He fell to his knees, the banshee’s keen of the wind growing louder as if to mock that human pride that had so told them that they could master the land. He drew his pistol and fired wildly into the frozen air.
    >> Part Three of Three A Gentleman of Scottish Descent 06/02/09(Tue)10:11 No.4743851
    >>4743843
    ------------------------
    The hoarfrost coated his beard in crystalline sheets as he stared out across the bleak landscape. He was alone again, as he had been ten years before. The great ship Intrepid, along with that doomed expedition to Point McCullough ten years before were gone, too far gone. The wind, a banshee, laughed maniacally at his frailty. He drew his revolver from beneath his coat and pressed the barrel to his forehead. As the ominous shapes that danced in the fog drew closer, he pulled the trigger.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)10:12 No.4743857
    Giant hot oases deep in the ice.

    With.

    DINOSAURS.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)10:13 No.4743867
    >>4743769
    ARR, THE GREAT WHITE SHRIMP! TOOK ME LEG ON THAT FATEFUL EXPIDITION, AND YOU, ISHMAEL, WILL ACCOMPANY ON THE NEXT! I'LL HAVE MY LEG BACK YOU THRICE-DAMNED CRUSTACEAN!

    SPLIT YOUR LUNGS WITH BLOOD AND AURORA AUSTRALIS! WHITE CRAB! HOLY SLAB!
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)10:14 No.4743871
    >>4743857
    See >>4743588


    Journey to the Center of the Earth meets The Thing.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)10:20 No.4743900
    Also, another trope that HAS to be filled:

    "Collins? Is that you? Man, I thought I was done for!"
    "Please stand back Hardy."
    He still took a hesitant step towards me.
    "Aha, and you missed me too, right?"
    "Hardy, please just don't move any closer."
    "What, you don't want to give your old pal a hug? Whats wrong with you man?"
    "I have Hardy's ID-chip in my hip pocket. I took it from his skinned, frozen corpse. You aren't Hardy".
    I waited a split second just to try and gain some appreciation of what I was dealing with from the snarl that took over his face, before I blasted it to pieces with my sidearm. There wasn't any blood inside of him, or even any organs. Oh the contents of his head splattered over the compound wall behind him, but it wasn't blood. It was white. The whole sack that used to be Hardy was filled with snow.

    I waved what was left of my squad past, and by god I watched that headless snow... THING carefully.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)10:28 No.4743940
    >>4743805
    Different anon here: How about a rusted, seemingly ancient duplicate of the LHC, buried in the ice, complete with CERN instructions and all? Remember that the LHC is absolutely huge, being 27 km in circumference and varying from 50 to 175 metres underground.
    >> NuBlackAnon !!z6ldXGL61Wm 06/02/09(Tue)10:32 No.4743957
    >>4743710
    Oddly enough, less than a million years ago there were giant penguins, a bit bigger than a large man, but something drove them to extinction.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)10:43 No.4744007
    >>4743957
    Hence the giant penguins and mammoths to go along with the "Journey to the Center of the Earth- IN ANTARCTICA!" theme.
    >> GTVA Colossus !moot/UIi/o 06/02/09(Tue)10:49 No.4744036
    "Harvey, I'm... I'm warm."
    "What? Oh crap, you're hypothermic! We need to-"
    "No, no, it's not that frozen too-numb warmth. The blizzard is a little cool, but that's it. What's going on?"
    "I'm beginning to feel it too. This is insane. We're in an Antarctic blizzard and I'm beginning to sweat."

    Harvey lifted his goggles and shook some of the rapidly melting frost from his beard. He caught some of the snow being driven past him on his glove and touched it to his lips. He started, then turned to his companion.

    "David, this isn't snow."
    "What?"
    "It isn't snow. It's... it's fucking diced potato."
    "What?! Then that means..."
    "Yes. We're on a film set."
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)10:51 No.4744053
         File :1243954308.jpg-(29 KB, 264x351, 1183667355957.jpg)
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    >>4744036
    MIND = BLOWN
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:03 No.4744105
    >>4744036
    Goddamnit.

    And then Big O appears.

    IT'S SHOWTIME
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:06 No.4744125
    >>4743900
    same anon, continuing for additional tropes and continuity:
    "Ok Collins, judging from the corridor designations, we should be in sight of an exit lock within the next 600 metres."
    I stayed silent, not reacting to Farison's banter. I knew he could read the map equally as well as I could, and hence the entire point of allowing him to platform himself like this was simply so I could have my hands, and mind free for other things. And right now the latter was registering the soft scraping sound on the opposite side of the concrete wall to our right, that had been following us for the last 7 rooms at least. What sat somewhat worse in my mind was that according to the map there hadn't been any chambers on the opposite side of said wall for the past 3.

    I thought back on what became of Hardy. It had been getting steadily colder as the internal heating finally surrendered in a losing war with the encroaching cold, so all of my compatriots were far too covered up to perform any kind of test on them to discover, discretely, if they were like him underneath their skin. A prick, a small cut, is all he would have needed, but with them wrapped up like they were now he wouldn't accomplish that with anything short of a machete and one hell of a swing.

    They passed a small alcove in the corridor where station members could perform maintenance on the various fuses and valves that were bound to suffer wear and tear in hostile conditions like this. The once blinking green status lights had given up even being aggravated and red. The entire box sat in a void.

    Collin's, had he taken the time, would have realised that this was not a result of the box being non-functional. The entire box was in fact absent, in its place a makeshift barricade of crates and and furniture to keep out the invading cold. In fact, he could probably have inferred this from the fact that the lights were still functional in this corridor. But had he done so, he would have died.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:06 No.4744127
    >>Now that the West is colonizing Antarctica,

    lolwut

    >>polar bears in antartica

    LOLWUT

    That being said thread has potential

    I'd like some legends about promised land in the vein of "when the ice will melt and our great old cities destroyed, our plains turned to deserts, we'll thrive in the newly made grasses of the south"
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:14 No.4744164
    >>4744127
    >lolwut

    At any given time there are over 4000 people living in Antarctica right now. That counts as a colony.

    >LOLWUT
    That's intentional. Both for mindfuckedness and for "lol, you're drunk bro, no polar bears here" factor.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:16 No.4744176
    The discoverers stumble on psionic Tyrannosaur humanoids. Their highly advanced empire has withstood millions of years, isolated thanks to huge icebeds. They are incredibly interested in these monkeymen that seemingly populate the world outside their iceworld.

    They warn the explorers about strange energy shifts they felt coming from Mars...
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:17 No.4744180
    >>4744176
    Suddenly, Barsoom!
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:18 No.4744192
    >>4744164

    Nay, some scientists not doing productive things (I mean, science is fine, but it's not growing crops) are not "colonies" for me. But it's semanthics.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:21 No.4744212
    >>4744180
    Next campaign is attacking Mars from Tyrannosaur spaceships, while wielding psychic dino technology, teslaguns and phosphor grenades?
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:25 No.4744240
    >>4744176
    That would make an awesome campaign ending.

    Althrough I'd pump up the ancient idea by having like only 12 Tyrannosaurs living. They could be served by genetic engineered animals.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:26 No.4744249
    >>4744212
    And capturing- err, rescuing beautiful maidens from the dreaded Rykors.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:28 No.4744264
    Alright gents, I really need to sleep. I've let my cat keep me awake long enough.

    Please please PLEASE keep this bumped? I want to read all your ideas when I get back!
    >> NuBlackAnon !!z6ldXGL61Wm 06/02/09(Tue)11:31 No.4744288
    >>4744127
    Argentina tried to colonize Antarctica, it failed though, too cold to live for families, though some kid was born there. The big deal is the untapped resources, though some UN treaty says no mining till 2050 or so.
    >> Iconoclast !3wiX97whk2 06/02/09(Tue)11:32 No.4744293
    I like dinosaurs.

    I am willing to draw some humanoids within a few hours.

    Keep thinking people.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:34 No.4744306
    >>4744125
    The creature barrelled out behind me, taking out Yakov and winding Farison. Did I just refer to myself in the third person earlier? Hell, I don't know whether I'm the same person anymore.

    Regardless, Yakov was toast. Utterly shredded. That thing, it was made of like, jagged ice you know? I mean you don't see it for real outside of manmade ice or cartoons, but this stuff was covered in razor sharp edges. And it was just all sort of interlocking, mangled into some semblance, of, I don't know, an insect or something. It had eyes, in hindsight I don't even understand how, but it had them. And they never looked away from my as it reached over one spindly limb to stab straight through Farison as he hobbled away.

    Farison I wasn't too upset about. He had the map, but we could see the lock up ahead. Yakov was one of my best though, and that creature just went straight through him. I think it would be sufficient to say I could be sure he wasn't one of them, considering how much blood came out of him.

    The rest of us broke into a fast retreat, still looking behind us at that incomprehensible thing that should even be able to fit in the space it was occupying. And then, the lights above it went out. And they kept going out. Darkness chased us down that corridor. We put a couple of bullets down that way and all we could ascertain from that was that something was moving in the darkness and we sure as hell weren't going to stop it with bullets.

    Lorenz, Wong, Hart and I all crammed out through the exit lock. I took that moment to explain to my remaining companions that it was extremely unlikely this would stop it. I was right, although I guess I had sort of expected it to contort its way out of the hatch after us rather than fucking pass through the ice like there was nothing there. It made a decent pace out in the open, but only slightly more so than us. I think in hindsight it was made for hunting us indoors and wasn't coping so well out there.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:34 No.4744311
         File :1243956881.jpg-(49 KB, 433x600, tserver.jpg)
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    >>4744176

    Pshaw, the chances of anything coming from Mars are million to one!
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:35 No.4744318
    >>4744306
    And then, I spotted the monolith. I was relatively certain that it was at least 200 metres closer than when we had entered the facility. The chopper pilot assured me over the radio however that it was still far enough away that its magnetic effects would be at safe levels for an extraction.

    I pulled out my flare gun. Decisions, decisions. I shot our pursuer with it. The burst of concussion and flames sent icy shrapnel flying outward, and what was left of the beast collapsed inward, twitching, and became still. I still hadn't sorted out one problem. I pulled out my knife.
    >> From the Office of the British South Atlantic company 06/02/09(Tue)11:39 No.4744339
    >>4743615

    SCIENTIFIC PARTY TO ARRIVE ** JULY STOP
    INVESTIGATE DISAPPEARANCE OF GOODINGS PARTY STOP
    TWO AGENTS OF HOME OFFICE EMBEDDED STOP
    CODENAMES TIKTOK STOP SCARECROW STOP
    AGENTS ACT WITH FULL ATHOURITY OF CROWN STOP
    DO NOT DETAIN OR GAINSAY STOP
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:41 No.4744354
    >>4744311
    But stilll they cooo~ooome *BADADA BADADA* *DUN- DUN-DUUUNNNN* *BADADA BADADA* *DUN- DUN-DUUUNNNN* *BADADA BADADA* *DUN- DUN-DUUUNNNN* *BADA~BADABADABADABADA**
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:42 No.4744361
    >>4743409
    Awesome Poem.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:45 No.4744382
    not shoggoths,SNOWGOTHS!
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:51 No.4744420
    >>4744318
    I guess once again it was a rather fortuitous decision. Because then I saw them. Riding on the wind. They were obviously from whatever lineage produced the horror I just disposed of, but developed with somewhat different goals in mind. They were somewhat like silverfish really. But a fair bit larger, didn't have legs so much as flaps. What really stood out was their teeth, it was like two overlapping push powered lawn mowers. But once again, all this anatomy was made of ice. I guess they were significantly more fragile than their predeccessor though, it looks like one of the helicopters occupants got a shot off, before they reached it, and that was enough to utterly disintegrate one of them. But not all of them. One of them shredded straight through the chopper with its teeth, like what I'd seen happen to Yakov. Most of it didn't survive out the other side, though I guess I still don't know if those things were alive to begin with. That left one. And that one was pretty clearly gunning for us. I tried to draw on it, but precision shooting was impossible in my current gear, anything I'd successfully shot in it so far was either stationary or presenting a huge target. And that was how Lorenz went down. I didn't let it get away with that though, a single shot through its large, bloodstained meatgrinders was enough to send it to pieces.

    But this unfortunately left us with a bit of a problem. No chopper, just Wong, Hart and I, and no long range radio contact either, thanks to that monolith.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:52 No.4744430
    >>4743267
    I prefer SWARMS OF PUFFINS.

    "Sure, they LOOK cute, being all fuzzy and bird-like...
    But the fur, it hides their true nature.
    Have you ever seen a puffin's feet? They've got wicked sharp claws, two to three inches long and sharper than an irishman's tongue. They use them, you see, to carve footholds in the ice, before they get older and learn to slide like the other adults.
    You may think that shuffing tuft of white on the horizon is just another snow drift, but it could just as easily be a swarm of puffin.
    They'll climb over and shred you to bits, pecking at stray ribbons of flesh like blood-soaked worms.
    Yea, they're cute alright."
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:53 No.4744433
         File :1243958015.jpg-(24 KB, 300x382, milodon.jpg)
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    Giant sloths!
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)11:57 No.4744450
    FROZEN IN THE ANTARCTIC ICE. TWO ANCIENT KILLERS ONCE LOCKED IN COMBAT, NOT THAWED OUT BY EXPLORERS AND NOW FREE TO ROAM THE OCEANS.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa7ck5mcd1o
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)12:02 No.4744479
    >>4744450

    FUCK I NEED TO SEE THAT MOVIE
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)12:11 No.4744522
    >>4744420
    Can I get some feedback on this? Or am I fitting into that category of "Not so good as to acknowledge, but not so bad to tell to GTFO"?

    Continuing: We'd been trudging away from the Monolith for an hour, trying to get some signal. I was fully aware the damnable mountain of ice and symbols was probably tailing us, but we could walk faster than it could. Or at least, thats what I had desperately hoped. The monoliths normal 600Hz Square wave tone had been changing subtly in the last few minutes. I think I was the only person out of our trio who had noticed this, although in hindsight I expect Hart also had some idea.
    "So I guess we managed to ditch them then?" he said, trying to initiate some conversation to keep us sane after what we'd just witnessed. "Yeah, I guess. We must be too far away from the Monolith now."
    "Seriously, when we get out of here, we're going to joke about all this right? Rather than stay silent and slowly go mad, we're going to pantomime those things with garden tools while shouting 'DON'T RUN WITH SCISSORS FOLKS' right?"

    Wong gave him a sideways glance. I couldn't tell what he thought, his hood was drawn up too tight.

    A collossal, indistinct shadow passed above us. Or rather it seemed that way. It occurred to me that the quantity of light coming from the sky hadn't actually changed.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)12:11 No.4744529
         File :1243959116.jpg-(9 KB, 320x137, avpdude.jpg)
    9 KB
    Hey--hey guys! I got an awesome idea for Antarctica!
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)12:19 No.4744557
    >>4744522
    Don't worry, it's pretty cool.

    Keep going.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)12:30 No.4744604
    >>4744522
    A meaty tower burst from beneath the ice. And another. These things must have stood at least the height of a small building. And on the sides facing us, there were suckers and spines. With this I understood their horrifying origin. And from that I could be sure that there were six more of them that we hadn't seen yet.

    We started to sprint as best we could towards the nearest outcrop, given our current state, which was very poor indeed. I guess we sprinted towards it because we were seeking virtually anything out on that great plain, but some of it came from the suggestion that when fighting something from beneath the ground, such a feature is the best place to avoid it. Seems like a stupid idea now since those tentacles would have been tall enough to drag us over the side even at the top. But fortunately for us, there was a cave entrance of sorts at the bottom, which I made for, and since I was the informal leader at this point, the other two followed like white sheep in that white wasteland. One of whom was whiter than the other it seems. A tentacle roiled up out of a cloud of snow and whipped across Hart, a blow that would have broken the neck of a mortal man. As it was it was enough to completely ruin the day of a bag of animate snow wearing a dead mans skin. Snow came out of Hart's hood like foam packing being emptied out of a cardboard box. I often wonder why this creature took the life of one of its own, when that gargantuan mollusc could clearly see our forms through the ice well enough. And I think that provides the answer. We were beyond the range of the monolith, as I had surmised, so it had summoned something not entirely under its control. Something with no concept of friend or foe, something so ancient it knew of nothing that was not fit to be a morsel of food for its gaping maw.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)12:41 No.4744654
    >>4744604
    Wong made it through into the cave a couple of paces after me. It occurred to me that we had just doomed ourselves. With the threat of predation immediately outside, we would be forced to stay in here until the Monolith, in its ponderous progress, came with range of our cave, and then we would be besieged by whatever hordes of ice, snow, and skin it took the unfathomable entity to ensure that there was nothing with a heartbeat left as far as it could percieve.

    Wong agreed, all we had gained was the ability to choose our own death. Given the options of going outside and being dragged into unfathomable darkness, and staying inside starving until finally recieving release at the blades of something out of a kaleidoscope, we chose option 3.

    We scrawled our goodbye notes with a pencil and pad that Wong had in his backpack, ate a supper, not that the term was truly accurate, of dehydrated apple and oatmeal, before finally sharing a hug. Then I unholstered my pistol.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)13:01 No.4744792
    >>4744654
    Wong mumbled some sort of clumsy prayer. I felt somewhat insulted because suddenly I was the executioner due to my unreligious status, Wong wished to go to his death with no mans blood on his hands if possible. I pulled the trigger, and Wong's skull offered no resistance to what I had set in motion. He slumped back, most of the back of his head now held in place by the hood of his jacket.

    I contemplated a few seconds. Was it worth it to see what would happen next? Perhaps for a few short seconds I could gain a look at the tantalising inscriptions of the monoliths... But no. It wouldn't happen. Whatever monstrous retinue the monolith had in store for me would have intercepted me long before I could discern from it any more than I had already, and regardless, even for me there were things I suspected I could die a better person for being ignorant of. Procrastinating, I added a postscript to the note, recording as many of the symbols I had spied on its surface so far. They were difficult to draw all right. Not because of their inherent complexity but rather because the calligraphy angles were all wrong, I constantly had to rotate the page to record even the most simple glyphs. It clearly wasn't a script meant for any human hand's comfort.

    My self-doubt reached an end. If I waited any longer I might as well not have committed to this in the first place. I was beginning to hear the hum of the monolith at the edge of my hearing as I sat in silence. Now or never.

    I point the pistol at my forehead, and my fingers tightened on the trigger. And I guess... I guess I didn't have the nerve for it. I would have to have been suffering from hypothermia quite badly at that stage. I sure as hell don't remember an awful lot after that.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)13:10 No.4744873
    >>4744792
    Apparently they found me hunched over a long range radio with the remains of an earlier team in that same cave. The monolith was nowhere to be seen. Seismic activity suggested nothing of the Collossus that had waited with hungry jaws outside our sanctuary. However enough evidence remained that my story was considered relatively sound, though not safe for the general populace you see. Couldn't go scaring off investors could we. The refrozen ice sections where the tentacles had broken through, a chopper with a hole in it like it had been taken down by a flurry of glass shards, and blood spatters over the walls of the station, all correlated with what I told them. They wrapped me in blankets, noting my low temperature, and sent me back to the coast.

    People have asked why I didn't just leave the Antarctic after what I had seen, distance myself from it as much as possible. And certainly I have never taken another frontier job since then, I've stayed at the coastal settlements. However something about returning to warmer climates just didn't seem agreeable after all I'd been through. I feel remarkably lucky for how well I came out of that encounter, despite losing virtually everyone I had known the last 3 years in the event, I came out with only some mild frostbite at the tips of my right hand, it seems like it just wants to return to this gripping position sometimes, and I guess this ones probably Psychological, but it always feels like my forehead has really tight skin for some reason.

    But nonetheless, I wouldn't dream of leaving Antarctica. Its just so pleasant here. I don't know why everyone spends so much of their wages on running heaters in their quarters these days.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)13:13 No.4744915
    >>4744873
    Well that concludes it. Thoughts? I can clarify some things despite writing this off the top of my head, but I felt I left it about the right balance of known vs. unknown.

    Because, you know you can ruin things by making stuff utterly obvious.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)13:15 No.4744936
    HEART OF WHITENESS
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)13:17 No.4744948
    >>4744915
    Was good trip!
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)13:25 No.4744999
    I don't think we should go with dinosaurs; instead, we should have mammoths, saber-tooth cats, short-faced bears, gigantic walruses, wooly rhinos; giant mammalian megafauna, all frozen in ice. Of course, they're in suspended animation, and if you break into their frozen prisons they may be none too happy to meet you, and heaven help the explorers who excavate them, still in ice, and bring them back to the base camp to thaw.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)13:26 No.4745014
    >>4744264
    Bump for the benefit of this gentleman/lady
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)13:31 No.4745053
    Come on /tg/ there must be more to the topic than what we've covered.

    Also, icy slush is surely superior to quicksand with regards to being fucking terrifying and eating people. You freeze AND drown AND get buried.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)13:41 No.4745135
    We found Higgins.

    The southern end of the encampment is a treacherous mass of shifting ice- what was stable one day could be a cavern the next. So everyone watches their feet- and with the wind like daggers and the blinding glare it's painful to look up anyway. All eyes were on the floor- and we found a pair of eyes underneath.

    Higgins was down there, caught in the space between ice and water, filled with a sliver of air and the jagged, bladed underside of the ice shelf. His suit was covered in rips and gouges, rigor mortis or ice had locked his limbs into place, and the expression on what remained of his shredded face was one of absolute and perfect terror. Nevertheless, we finally had our body- some strange current had washed him under the ice and into this little niche.

    And then the eye moved.

    And then some force dragged Higgins back into the darkness.

    It was only later that we realized- chance hadn't brought him to us, but some living force. Saving him for later.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)13:47 No.4745181
    >>4743560

    With so long knowing only peace, though, they'd be fucked in a war against us.
    >> Part the First Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)13:51 No.4745209
    "I tell you Rankin, this is going to be our greatest adventure yet!"

    Rankin nodded dully, not looking up from his book.

    "We'll find that lost city, and we'll be more than the seven-day's wonder of London when we return, I can promise you that! I can practically feel the weight of the medals already!"

    Rankin sighed. They were only a month departed from England, and the earl was acting as though they'd already come home with a hold full of treasure. One would think that nasty business in Africa would have calmed him down, but he was as irrepressible as ever.

    "By God, I imagine the Atlanteans will throw us a parade for freeing them from the ice! How famous would that be, eh?"

    He kept on reading. He was sure, from long experience, that if he opened his mouth it would be to comment on Earl Beckett's apparent need for something useful to do, which would put his lordship in a dreadfully sullen mood and, even worse, result in a pay cut.

    "You know, I've heard of strange beasts that live on that continent. Flightless birds that walk upright, whales that burst from the ground to drag men to watery graves, even creatures made all of ice with snow for blood! I'll be counting on your steady aim if we should meet such a beast."

    "Always ready to serve, m'lord." He hadn't really registered what the earl had said, merely detected a change in his tone of voice. Wait, had he said "whales"?

    "Ah, we've a bright future ahead of use, Rankin, just you wait!"

    Rankin kept reading.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)13:54 No.4745227
    Tekeli-Li!
    Tekeli-Li!
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)13:56 No.4745240
    A forest, under the ice able to thrive due to the trapped heat from the ice and tiny holes letting in oxygen and letting out carbon dioxide. Something inhabits it, something massive, and it doesn't appreaciate the intruders...
    >> Part the Second Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)14:03 No.4745272
    >>4745209
    "Well well, look what the cat coughed up."

    "Very funny, Riley. You try running around outside in your skivvies one of these days, see how you look afterwards."

    "I keep telling you, man, you gotta lay off the betting. These guys have a nasty sense of humor."

    "I'm getting that about them. So what is it you wanted to show me?"

    "Ah, right, I'd almost forgot. One of the maintenance teams was out repairing a nav beacon earlier, and they came across this."

    "A book?"

    "Specifically, a very old book. A first edition of the Pickwick Papers, written by Charles Dickens."

    "That's pretty old. And they found this just lying around on the ice?"

    "Actually, they found it in the ice. But that's not the crazy part. Check out what they found scrawled in the margins."

    "That's...geez, are those Chinese letters or something?"

    "Nope. They don't match any known language on Earth. And do you want to know what the really insane part of it is?"

    "What?"

    "I think I understand them."
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)14:06 No.4745291
    We got the survey station some time during the summer thaw. We hadn't heard from the station since we'd boarded the icebreaker and were a bit anxious. There were two tons of supplies, equipment and vital building material to fortify the location with before Winter hit again on our supply train. The Foreman said they might of been knocked out of communication by a late blizzard.

    When we got to the station we found the storage cabins, the snow insulated sleeping quarters and work areas. They were aligned in a hexagon around the center of the camp, where the radio tower had been put up and packed with ice and snow to keep it steady in the winds.

    There wasn't anyone there. Just the wind and the glaring whiteout of the arctic. There hadn't been a major weather blowthrough since march according to the notes we found in the work area.

    BUt they had had to re-place the radio tower positioning several times since that time. Apparently something had been shorting the power connects in the ground.

    We did find some tracks in the snow. Not really tracks, but it makes ME feel better to say they were tracks. More like heel-drag marks.

    They lead to the antenna. Someone had dug a hole into the snow-packing around the base of the antenna. It lead to the center of the tower.

    There was a hole directly under the tower. The cables for the power hook ups lead down there.

    The foreman says we're going down there tomorrow.

    I'm wondering if I can get back to the icebreaker before he notices I'm gone.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)14:47 No.4745558
    bamp for win
    >> Or is it just a big hunk of ice? Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)15:45 No.4745964
    A massive iceberg, almost the size of an island itself, floats on the freezing waters of Antarctica. It seems to move sluggishly across the frozen waters, not drifting with the tides, but with a malevolent purpose.

    Is it
    a) A massive island-turtle, its shell frozen over, in a constant state of near-hibernation, perhaps worshipped by nomad iceberg-dwelling tribes?

    b) The camoflaged steamship of a hermit engineer-prince, a la Nemo, who is less than impressed to find others encroaching on 'his' white continent?

    c) The frozen grave of an eldritch horror, its unfrozen tendrils paddling limply in the water below, seizing whatever sustenance it can while unable to free itself?

    It's up to the unfortunate passengers of the RMS Olympic to find out.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)16:01 No.4746096
    An old viking ship got trapped in the ice centuries ago - now the ghosts of its crew are hungry for the rape and pillage their leader promised, and are perfectly willing to get it from any unwary explorers that show up.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)18:57 No.4747792
    I GIVE THEE LIFE
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)19:28 No.4748091
    Aw, noone has any more ideas/writefaggotry?
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)19:37 No.4748170
    Antarctica is the final result of Project Habbakuk.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)21:41 No.4749347
    NEUSCHWABLAND
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)21:47 No.4749398
    There is a society just like ours in the frozen wastes.

    They don't need the warm clothing we are forced to layer on in order to live on the ice - yet they look, sound, feel, and appear in every sense of the word, human.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)21:55 No.4749482
    Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)22:00 No.4749506
    >>4749482

    There once was a man from Nantucket
    Who sailed far down south in a bucket
    Once the enormous glaciers gave way
    Exposing vile monsters to the light of day
    He paddled back, telling Antarctica to "Suck it."
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)22:03 No.4749524
         File :1243994600.png-(49 KB, 334x473, limericks.png)
    49 KB
    >>4749506

    That is not a limerick.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)22:04 No.4749538
    >>4749524

    It follows the format just fine. It's not a -good- limerick, but it is a limerick.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)22:58 No.4749953
    Bump for awesome.
    >> The matters of the Goodings case, exhibit four: Dr. Baron von Evilsatan 06/02/09(Tue)23:12 No.4750098
    "I ask you again, prisoner, why it is that you killed these people!"

    "And I tell you again, they had to die."

    "They had to die? What had Sir Henry ever done to any man? A harmless and pleasant man of science! What had his servants to do with it? Twenty natives, killed simply because they were there!"

    "Exactly."

    "You won't leave this room with nonsense like that. Answer my questions properly or I dre say we can find some encouragement."

    "They had to die because they were there. It pained me greatly to kill so many, even natives, but I couldn't take the chance they had become infected."

    "Infected? With what, that the doctor becomes the butcher?"

    "Infected with ice."

    "Ice?"

    "Real ice. Not the pale imitation you see out the doors, but true ice. It chills, and chills alone. Nothing can induce it to heat, nothing. Everything it touches bar the sky itself it freezes, and not into ice, but true ice. I simply couldn't take the risk that he and everyone he contacted would die peacefully enough in the White Continent, and if any left, the consequences would be little short of cataclysmic. The world would freeze, and nowhere bar the North Pole, and perhaps a few select glaciers, would be safe!"
    >> Dr. Baron von Evilsatan 06/02/09(Tue)23:13 No.4750104
    "Safe? How safe?"

    "They are ice, fake ice. It is the one thing the true ice cannot freeze into itself, because it's already frozen."

    "So that's why you took the bodies away into the continent!"

    "Somewhat. I also wanted to see whether there was a cure, a protection, left in the temple the expedition found."

    "The temple? What temple?"

    "The memorial the Llhuc made for their dead."

    "Pfah. The Llhuc, a temple? They're scarcely able to build an outhouse without our help."

    "Not the modern Llhuc, the ancient Llhuc. There is, right on the dot of True South, a hole in the ice. Follow it down, and see what they have done. A vast cavern, filled from end to end with ice-victims. Those on the fringes, harsh and barbaric, who fought to avoid that fate. Those near the centre, well-kept and calm, sitting as though they had accepted their end and knew it was for the best. More tellingly, underneath them, hard land, and frozen plants. It didn't take much to figure out what had happened."

    "This ice again?"

    "For the first time. They found it here, ten thousand years ago, in the ice. A vast machine, whose nature was completely beyond them. Their mistake was to open it, and unleash what was held inside."
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)23:13 No.4750105
    FALCON... BUUUUUUUMP
    >> Dr. Baron von Evilsatan 06/02/09(Tue)23:14 No.4750107
    "The ice?"

    "Quite. It was devastating at first, killing thousands of their people, as more and more turned. They saw little enough they could do to stop it. Eventually, in desperation, they turned to the artifact they found, and over a hundred years, as the ice flowed closer and closer to the ocean, kept trying to use it. Eventually, they did, and froze all the air and the water for hundreds of kilometres around."

    "You're saying that the pole... no, the entire CONTINENT, is artificial?!"

    "Indeed. You'll remember many years ago, when a science expedition had crippling device problems the moment they went too ar inland? They were no problems, they really had gone from hundred-year ice to ten-thousand-year ice in a matter of footsteps. Antarctica is nothing more than a defensive barrier against the most dangerous substance ever known to man or beast. There is no greater testament than the bodies in the cavern, for while there are tens of thousands of hostile ice bodies, there are ten times more who chose to die. Once they froze the continent, they had to fight back the ice casualties to stop them reaching the ocean. The war was a horror, for every infected body would infect anyone to move it, and yet the Llhuc had no choice. Every year more would go to move the bodies ,making it further and further until they died, and every year more would go, and push the bodies of the last year. Hundreds of thousands, it cost them, and all knew it would kill them in the most unpleasant way. Yet they did not stop, because they so feared that a future man would return and find these bodies, and just one would be all it took. They devastated their race to safeguard the world, and took on the name of that which had brought them ruin in shame. They were a race as powerful as our own, and yet they chose to live in utter uncivilised brutality out of shame and repentance for what they had unleashed and so barely contained."
    >> Dr. Baron von Evilsatan 06/02/09(Tue)23:14 No.4750112
    "If it is for their dead, wouldn't it be a tomb?"

    "Hardly. It was just the best place for the bodies. The temple exists to hide away the cure."

    "A cure to ice? You said it was uncurable."

    "And so it is. The cure, the coldfire, scared these people more than the ice ever did. They willingly sacrificed near their entire race and ran the risk of losing the world to avoid using the coldfire, and hid it away in a buried cavern in the centre of the most deadly place in all the world. How could we control what the ancient Llhuc couldn't? No, we will fight the ice with more traditional methods."

    "Fight the... we?"

    "Oh, yes, there are a few of us. Not that many, but a respectable number of capable individuals who would rather our world was not consumed by ice."

    "You! You're the ones who've been doing the killings, arraging the disappearances! You led the Goodings expedition astray, and killed the survivors! You burned the coal stores of Oxbury, to delay the ships long enough to steal the bodies they found!"
    >> Dr. Baron von Evilsatan 06/02/09(Tue)23:15 No.4750114
    "Yes, and some rather more unpleasant things. It isn't nice, to save the world, but when that is your goal there is little you cannot justify."

    "You can't win! I'll tell the world about you monsters!"

    "You shan't be telling anyone but my associates, who about now should have finished off the last of your officers."

    "What?"

    "Oh, dear. Why did you think I would tell you all this? Surely you don't believe I meant to tell you the truth that you may spread it, and tell all the greatest fools of the worlds how to end it? No, I've kept your attention here long enough to escape. At any other time I'd accept the consequences of my actions, but until the world is safe from the ice I don't have that luxury."

    "You killed my men? You BASTARD!"

    "Yes, I dare say I am. I was considering asking you to join us, since you've got a good attitiude and a better head, but you don't have the right moral flexibility to deal with the complexities at hand."

    "I'll never join you!"

    "Hence, no invitation. Evening, Major. It was a pleasure."
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)23:24 No.4750188
    >>4750114
    Excellent.
    >> Dr. Joseph Stanford, PhD. 06/02/09(Tue)23:30 No.4750252
    It's so cold. I can barely move even as I feel the parasite spreading through my extremities.
    I try to crawl closer to the dying embers of the fire, but it's too late for that.
    There's nothing left for me to do but succumb to fate. In spite of all I've done to get here, to the bottom of the world, I can only writhe in agony as my lifeblood turns to slush.
    Nothing left. Except...
    The knife.
    I slowly free it from the sheath at my hip. The verdigris has started to cover it, but it will suffice.
    I drag the edge across my throat, and the skin peels back, but blood doesn't come forth.
    I fear I'm too late.
    Even as my vision fades, and all sensation becomes a hazy, distant reality, my body slowly rises to standing position.
    My body- no longer mine, I should say; I'm too far detached to claim this corpse as my own- slowly shambles through the thick snow toward the encampment.
    As my consciousness reaches it's final stages of dissipation, I can only pray to God the others escape my fate.
    >> Matters of the Goodings case, exhibit five: Dr. Baron von Evilsatan 06/02/09(Tue)23:31 No.4750259
    SHIP RETURNS FROM SOUTHERN SEA

    THE CHAINTICLEER IS PLEASED TO REPORT ON THE FIRST SAFE RETURN OF A VESSEL FROM THE ANTARCTIC COLONY SINCE THE OXBURY COAL FIRES. THE DUNNET, AN ALL-ENGLISH CREWED SHIP, HAS AVOIDED COMPLETELY THE DISASTROUS ERRORS THAT HAVE CLAIMED THE LAST THREE VESSELS TO DEPART. ITS CARGO CONSISTED OF SEVERAL DOZEN RETURNED EXPATRIOTS, CERTAIN MECHANICAL APPARATUS IN NEED OF REPAIR, A GOODLY AMOUNT OF LLHUC TRIBAL GOODS, AND THE BODY OF THE LATE RENOWNED ADVENTURER, SIR MORGAN STANLEY.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)23:55 No.4750513
    >>4750259
    >AND THE BODY OF THE LATE RENOWNED ADVENTURER, SIR MORGAN STANLEY.

    I shat ice brixs.
    >> Anonymous 06/02/09(Tue)23:57 No.4750523
    >>4750114
    fucking WIN.
    >> Dr. Baron von Evilsatan 06/03/09(Wed)00:28 No.4750798
    There's just not that much variety in cold- or ice-based themes.
    >> Anonymous 06/03/09(Wed)01:11 No.4751091
    >>4742975

    That glacier looks like a cunt. I'd fuck it.
    >> Anonymous 06/03/09(Wed)01:15 No.4751124
    Seriously, Neuschwabenland.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwabenland
    The White Continent safeguards the white race.
    >> Anonymous 06/03/09(Wed)01:19 No.4751153
    bitches don't know about my antarctic hotspring oases

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schirmacher_Oasis
    >> Anonymous 06/03/09(Wed)01:48 No.4751315
    Remember when that international team of scientists was sent to investigate a mysterious mountain range deep in the heart of Antarctica that defy all known earthly geological laws?

    Good times.
    >> Anonymous 06/03/09(Wed)01:59 No.4751399
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7668070.stm

    The Antarctic "Ghost Peaks" are in fact GHOSTS.
    Mountains have souls.
    These mountains died many years ago, but they left their task unfulfilled, and must persist until they have completed their duty; the acts of ghost mountains are not unknown in human history, like this:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident
    >> Anonymous 06/03/09(Wed)02:18 No.4751518
    Bump for ghost butte
    >> Anonymous 06/03/09(Wed)02:21 No.4751531
    Yeah, archivan.
    >> Anonymous 06/03/09(Wed)02:26 No.4751554
    My memories of The Thing are replenished and my faith in namefaggery not always being horrible restored. God bless you Dr. Baron von Evilsatan!
    >> Adeptus Munitorum Magus O'Grady 06/03/09(Wed)03:45 No.4752084
    Kadath. Kadath in the Cold Waste. Somewhere on the White Continent lie the Pnakotic Manuscripts. Beware.
    >> Anonymous 06/03/09(Wed)04:51 No.4752579
    They swarm the fire for its warmth, but it only enhances their potent rage against the living when they realise that there is no heat on this earth that can defeat the infinite chill that now resides in their bones.
    >> Anonymous 06/03/09(Wed)05:21 No.4752835
    Oh fuck yes.

    Someone, continue.
    >> Anonymous 06/03/09(Wed)05:35 No.4752984
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo

    an awesome myth that can be used for antarctica
    >> Anonymous 06/03/09(Wed)05:37 No.4752996
    On an unrelated note, it was on the newspaper today that you can see penguin poop from space.

    Almost as interesting as it is irrelevant.
    >> Anonymous 06/03/09(Wed)05:45 No.4753068
    Legends say the great priests of olde sealed away the Other One in the most inhospitable, most desolate place imaginable, thousands of miles away from any human civilization, the frozen North. No one would ever find its resting place, no one would ever hear its beckoning call.

    Or so I thought.



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