ZEITGEIST Lighthouse Powers (spoilers)

[mdusty]

I'm trying to understand exactly what the lighthouses do. I found what the wayfarer's lantern does with each of the oils, but I could've sworn that I read somewhere that the lighthouses made people compliant with a type of mind control or was that something else? None of the oils mention anything about mind control from what I'm seeing.

 

[arkwright]

My Zeitvice document has more information. Basically, Book 9 states that the lighthouses will mind-control the world into obeying the Ob's commands. But in Book 10, the world is far from controlled, and indeed its noted in newspapers that some Ob revolutionaries were arrested.

 

[mdusty]

ah ok. I must not have the most up to date version of Zeitvice, it only goes as far as book 8. Is there an updated version? I use that document all the time for running Zeitgeist.

 

[arkwright]

It's mentioned in Book 7, Planes, Planes, Planes: Lighthouses (not sure if that link will work.)
The public version is the most current. I might go back and add Book 9 (and some other thoughts I've had since starting a new Zeit game) soon.

 

[RangerWickett]

I'm trying to understand exactly what the lighthouses do. I found what the wayfarer's lantern does with each of the oils, but I could've sworn that I read somewhere that the lighthouses made people compliant with a type of mind control or was that something else? None of the oils mention anything about mind control from what I'm seeing.

In adventure 7, at the glacial rift, the two Ob researchers have lanterns that pacify people and make them susceptible to suggestion. They use planarite oil retrieved from meteorites that came from other worlds, which the Ob (off-screen) make a large quantity of using techniques the party doesn't get a look at.

Then in adventure 9, the various lighthouses around the world have two roles. One is to provide a 'soft landing' for the planar change so that continents don't get ripped apart or monsters burst out of old seals and such. The other is to use that pacification oil to calm people down and make them pliant. This works pretty well, and prevents people from panicking when the stars vanish, and makes them at least willing to listen to Nicodemus and the Ob. It's not compulsion, though. Indeed, 'making people susceptible to suggestion' sorta backfires in Drakr, because Grandis Komanov's cult figures out how to trick people into believing the world is ending and that it's necessary to join with them in a very cooperative orgy of destruction.

The Ob's efforts in Ber weren't as well-planned or thorough, so they didn't have many people in positions of influence to try to take over. They foolishly tried to seize power, which backfired, but Ob cell secrecy still worked well enough that Bruse Shantus didn't know that those localized coup attempts were ordered by Nicodemus.

All this changes in adventure 13, by which point Nicodemus has the Ob lighthouses switch from "make people cooperative" to "full on brainwash them."