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 Forum index » Archive » Archive: General » ARG: Sable & Shuck
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Seej
Unfettered


Joined: 30 Nov 2004
Posts: 614

 Beginners look here

Hoo, man - I got to this by following the link (http://www.thisisnotatypo.com) in Vice magazine and I've spent a couple of days catching up. There seems to be some redundancy between posts and some really long threads that take us noobs ages to wade through so I figured it'd be a good idea to summarise things here and save everyone else the arduous task of trawling through all the hundreds of existing posts to glean the relevant information.

First up, this whole game is a promo for Stella Artois lager based around a series of print ads currently running in lifestyle/hipster/whatever mags in the UK.

Now, a little background - Stella means 'Star' and the logo of the beer is a horn and a star - see the label at http://www.beerlabels.com/labels/labels.pl/2414/stella_artois_lager.html. It was first brewed back in 1366 AD in a place called Leuven in Belgium. All these facts are repeatedly hinted at throughtout the game, e.g. the fake newspaper The Hornchurch Star (see, they got both 'Horn' and 'Star' in there).

You can get a full list of in-game links on the thread in this forum.

The basic premise of the game is that a guy called Jon Harker (Dracula reference) stumbled across the site of a company called Sable and Shuck who trade your soul for a variety of luxury items. He then went missing but has left us clues across the game-sites to help find him. He appears to be looking for a way to defeat The Man In Black (some sort of demonic representative of Sable and Shuck as seen in the Stella Adverts).

His sister Brigid (or someone who says she's his sister) is now looking for him and has offered £10,946 Sterling for whoever can tell her the correct location of Jon. She may or may not be one of the good guys.

The Fibonacci numbers crop up an awful lot. The sequence starts at 1 and each subsequent number is the sum of the two numbers preceeding it giving us:
1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 33 54 etc.
The amount of money offered is the 21st Fibonacci number (and 21 is itself a Fibonacci number). The number 21 seems to crop up particularly frequently.

The main locations for Sable and Shuck are:
Latitude: 50 45N, Longitude: 004 46E, Elevation: 417 feet (this is Leuven in Belgium where they make the beer, remember).
Latitude: 48 06N, Longitude: 098 54W, Elevation: 1450 feet (this is near Devil's Lake in North Dakota).
A nice site to check these is http://www.mapquest.com/maps/latlong.adp, just remember that West and South are negative numbers and you need to type zero in the fields for the seconds (click the link, you'll understand)

There's also a ton of infernal references and here's a little primer:

Faust; original guy who sold his soul for mad cash action, hence the term 'Faustian Pact'.

Christopher Marlowe; wrote the book Dr. Faustus back in C17 and lived in Hoxton, London.

Goethe; did a play about Faust.

Den Horen; means 'The Horn' in, uh, Belgian (Flemish? I dunno) - both satanic undertones and refers to the Stella Logo. Also the name of a guy who won the Hornchurch lottery.

Butterflys; said to be free souls - look out for The Man In Black's collection of them.

Shuck; name used to refer to the dog of Satan and also sometimes for the big S himself.

Hooookay, that ought to get you off to a running start. Next I suggest you check out all the assosciated sites, read them carefully and try making contact. There's quite a bit of Flash-based goodness if you poke around but I'd rather keep this thread free of spoilers (it is for beginners after all and I don't want to ruin the surprises).

Lastly, those of you who've been playing longer than me; did I miss out any pertinent points that won't spoil things for newcomers?

PostPosted: Thu Dec 09, 2004 7:12 pm
Last edited by Seej on Wed Dec 22, 2004 11:49 pm; edited 2 times in total
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cryurchin
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Joined: 16 Nov 2004
Posts: 76

not off hand...nothing plot wise anyway. this is good though man, think its gonna help a lot of people.

PostPosted: Thu Dec 09, 2004 8:21 pm
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SuperJerms
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Joined: 21 Aug 2004
Posts: 537
Location: indiana

There is now a wiki available for all your S+S needs. http://deaddrop.us/wiki/index.php/Sable_Shuck_Wiki_Guide

Check it out, and let's make it great!
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2004 5:27 am
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Seej
Unfettered


Joined: 30 Nov 2004
Posts: 614

And when you get to check how much your soul is worth:

Spoiler (Rollover to View):

The derivative of your soul always seems to be the value of your soul divided by the Golden Ratio (1.61803399) and rounded to the nearest number. Look, just Google it if you don't believe me. Wink


And surely that's enough spoilers for everyone.

PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2004 8:53 pm
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Inge
Guest


crossword

Hai,

Did anyone solved the crossword puzzel at the Hornchurch Star?

I haven't finished it yet, but have a feeling it's got some clues...

Greetings Inge

PostPosted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 7:15 pm
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cryurchin
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Joined: 16 Nov 2004
Posts: 76

page 4 of the locked topic if i remember correctly

PostPosted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 8:26 pm
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simonjp
Boot

Joined: 09 Nov 2004
Posts: 55
Location: London

Only posting here to bring this up to the top for newbies! Moderators, maybe it would be worth 'sticking' this?

PostPosted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:03 am
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Slithy
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Joined: 28 Nov 2004
Posts: 108
Location: Lying in a burned out basement, with the full moon in my eyes.

To anyone new to the Sable and Shuck ARG,

I'd like to mention that we have a Sable + Shuck Wiki Guide that's chocked full of interesting facts and speculation about what we've discovered so far. Please stop by and take a look at it.

The Wiki is open to anyone who would like to add to it or modify it. So, once you've familiarized yourself with whats going on in-game, please feel free to create a user account and add your two cents.

~Slithy
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 3:07 am
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drauh
Boot

Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 25
Location: Ann Arbor, MI

Re: crossword

Inge wrote:
Hai,

Did anyone solved the crossword puzzel at the Hornchurch Star?

I haven't finished it yet, but have a feeling it's got some clues...

Greetings Inge


look here
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 11:03 pm
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tjozero
Greenhorn

Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 3

ive pretty much solved the crossword, but it isn't giving me any clues... just wasted the better part of an hour.

PostPosted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 4:22 pm
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Seej
Unfettered


Joined: 30 Nov 2004
Posts: 614

No, there are some clues there. You need to read Jon's journal first though. Of course, that means you need to find Jon's journal.......

PostPosted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 11:52 pm
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Valfreya
Boot

Joined: 07 Jan 2005
Posts: 23
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Welcome beginner! Very Happy

This post is my version of "what I wish someone would have told me" when I stumbled onto this place not so long ago.

1: If you are new not only to this game, but to Alternate Reality Gaming (ARG) in general this site holds a lot of information you will find very useful in playing the game/s.

2: Please see this Glossary.
ARG-players have - like almost all other communities - their own special words and phrases. Look them up. If you find a "ARG-related word" you don't see in the glossary, just post a "wtf does that mean" in the glossary, and people will actually help you! Friendly folks those ARG-players, really.

3: There are also helpfull things to read here.

4: I strongly recommend that you browse this forum for at least a few hours over a few days.
There is a LOT of information and not much can be skipped really...
So - read it all... even the topics that are locked, extremely long threads and what looks unimportant, too.

5: Before posting anything you think is new information, please use the search-field (icon placed in top right corner of the page) to see if this is "old news". These games are not meant to be "played and won" in just a few hours anyway, so there's no need to hurry.

I hope this helps, and that you will have a blast playing!

/Maria Wink
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 14, 2005 12:01 am
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ArtherEld
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Joined: 09 Jan 2005
Posts: 85

Test results

Just for the helluvit (and in anticipation of syzygy) I decided to look around at other ARGs. Checked this one out and gave them my email and stuff. Thought this game was pretty far along for me to even try getting involved but I was bored and this ARG looks pretty nice (not turning my back on syzygy though).

So I got my password from S&S and decided to do their test. I'm not too pleased with my results. I decided to lie on a couple questions and actually did worse than I thought. So I clicked on "RE-ASSESS", answered everything honestly and got bad results but better than before.

Is there anyone who are pleased with the results?
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What don't we do."


PostPosted: Wed Jan 19, 2005 8:10 am
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Valfreya
Boot

Joined: 07 Jan 2005
Posts: 23
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

ArtherEld wrote:
Test results

Just for the... (and the rest)


Trout

This has been mentioned more than once in different threads, so use the search-button, and your question will be answered.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 19, 2005 11:25 am
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rowan
Unfictologist

Joined: 12 Apr 2004
Posts: 1966

Valfreya wrote:
This has been mentioned more than once in different threads, so use the search-button, and your question will be answered.


I've decided I'm going to make my mission here to trout the trouters who either don't provide links or provide explicit instructions for the search function (like for above saying "search for 'fridge' in sable + shuck") - because I know I've said before that it is good form to show how the post was a trout instead of just slapping a gif on the page.

I really didn't want to clog up this thread with silly posts (since it's suppose to be an information and not a question thread), but right now I'm thinking there is just no way around it.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 19, 2005 11:43 am
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