Post by Catsmate on Apr 14, 2016 13:14:56 GMT
Another quick BBC inspired idea. [Arachnophobes should not click on the link]
Natural History Museum of Helsinki is in a century old former military school in central Helsinki, and houses a vast array of biological specimens within it's 8,000m2 of floorspace; preserved animals, skeletons, fossils, mineral samples, bones and so on. The usual sort of thing found in natural history museums worldwide.
But this museum is also houses some living animals; for half a century the building has been home to a thriving colony of an unusual interloper, Loxosceles laeta, the Chilean recluse spider.
The Chilean recluse is one of the larger recluse spiders, up to 40mm in size, and is coloured brown with a black line on its thorax ans six eyes. It's a hemotoxic spider injecting a venom that causes tissue necrosis and can be fatal (less than 5% of bites). There is no demonstrably effective antivenom nor any proven treatment regime. However the spider isn't aggressive and rarely bites until cornered and in contact with the skin.
OK, so far it's just an interesting story (and a reason to avoid the museum, though the spiders have only provably bitten one person) but it got me thinking about museums as adventure locations. They've appeared quite a few times in Doctor Who, as locations from where artefacts are stolen (by an antagonist or a companion), places to find useful equipment, or places for the MacGuffin to be stored. They've even been used as the setting for an adventure, albeit mixed with slave revolts or Cybermen.
But what if the museum had acquired some interlopers? Maybe an artefact stored there is actually an alien egg, a miniature spacecraft or ruptures time and space, leading to something nasty colonising the building, and possibly spreading to the visitors? Alien parasites or pests, self-replicating robots or weird gaseous entities perhaps.
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?
Natural History Museum of Helsinki is in a century old former military school in central Helsinki, and houses a vast array of biological specimens within it's 8,000m2 of floorspace; preserved animals, skeletons, fossils, mineral samples, bones and so on. The usual sort of thing found in natural history museums worldwide.
But this museum is also houses some living animals; for half a century the building has been home to a thriving colony of an unusual interloper, Loxosceles laeta, the Chilean recluse spider.
The Chilean recluse is one of the larger recluse spiders, up to 40mm in size, and is coloured brown with a black line on its thorax ans six eyes. It's a hemotoxic spider injecting a venom that causes tissue necrosis and can be fatal (less than 5% of bites). There is no demonstrably effective antivenom nor any proven treatment regime. However the spider isn't aggressive and rarely bites until cornered and in contact with the skin.
OK, so far it's just an interesting story (and a reason to avoid the museum, though the spiders have only provably bitten one person) but it got me thinking about museums as adventure locations. They've appeared quite a few times in Doctor Who, as locations from where artefacts are stolen (by an antagonist or a companion), places to find useful equipment, or places for the MacGuffin to be stored. They've even been used as the setting for an adventure, albeit mixed with slave revolts or Cybermen.
But what if the museum had acquired some interlopers? Maybe an artefact stored there is actually an alien egg, a miniature spacecraft or ruptures time and space, leading to something nasty colonising the building, and possibly spreading to the visitors? Alien parasites or pests, self-replicating robots or weird gaseous entities perhaps.
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?
