So this came up in a game last night. Hastur was the ancient one making all cultists flying creatures. One of the players cast Denying the Ancient one which takes away the special bonuses provided the worshipers of the ancient ones and at the time there were cultists in the sky. We played this as the cultists couldn't leave the sky while the spell was in effect but it brought on many jokes about cultists falling out of the sky to their deaths.

I wanted to post this to make sure we played that correctly and because it was slightly amusing.

Any game that has an actual context (Risk, Arkham) rather than "rules for rules' sake" (Such as Sorry! or Uno) is bound to have absolute idiocies crop up in the most serious of moments.

While I was reading your message, I had thought to myself "Hm... Denying and Hastur would strand Cultists in the air!". Got to the part where we apparently agreed. So, I personally think that you're "they're stranded" solution is correct. If it helps, they fell into very tall trees and couldn't get down. That's why they stayed there.

I think my favorite mechanical absurdity was when playing the 7th Sea pnp RPG (Designed by the same game designer!). As a GM, a friend of mine drank from a pool of poisoned water. To wrist slap/fire across the bow of his carelessness, I asked him to roll a 1d10 for damage. The way those rules go, he rolled "Critical + Reroll". By the time his character spat out the water, he had taken worse damage than the ambush that would occur later that game.

That's how I'd play it. Once cast, the Cultists would be black-bordered monsters who are in the Sky space. And since black-bordered monsters have no mechanic to move from the sky, they're stuck there until next turn.

Leafwhistle said:

The solution sounds fine. And good comment about the "context" of Arkham, too.

But Hastur isn't giving the byakhee the power to fly, so no falling out of the air. It's just that the byakhee and their riders have momentarily forgotten their purpose and have left the festival for a while, perhaps to go joyriding or something less nefarious than circling above Arkham looking for lunch or a funtime killing (or more likely being killed.)

This probably hasn't come up before because the byakhee festival riders aren't usually worth of being denied at the cost of one's Sanity. It's usually easier just to defeat them.

And you haven't seen absurdity until your bank loan comes due and the portly, bald headed banker finds Michael McGlen in the Plateau of Leng and takes his Tommygun away. Say what?

I still like driving to and from Devil Reef in the oddly amphibious Patrol Wagon. Not to mention surviving its plummet from off the top of the Kingsport Head. "Go go, Gadget Car!"

Wendy Adams starting with nothing but what she was able to beg off of people that week...

Which once included an elephant gun.

Leafwhistle said:

"Please sir, may I have some more? Buckshot?"

I've said this one before, but we had Amanda Sharpe starting with a tommy gun. She very quickly picked up whiskey and a motorcycle. My son and I had visions of drunken sorority girls racing around Arkham on a motorcycle with automatic weapons. Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

Nghtflame7 said:

Oh I get it. She has the tommy gun slung across her back, sunglasses on in the middle of the night, takes a swig of whiskey straight from the bottle and mounts the motorcycle, with her blouse "strategically unbuttoned" while the intro guitar riff to the song "Bad to the bone" is playing in the background.

back to the post at hand.

I'd handle this in one of two ways.

1 The Cultists simply plumett to the ground die and are returned to the cup. (the easiest way to deal with a paradoxical situation in the game is to remove it from the game)

2 The cultists are moved from the sky to the outskirts and follow the normal outskirts / Terror Level rules (the cultists land the outskirts of the town)

a third option might be to put the cultists in street areas determined by the first player.

in my opinion leaving them in the sky is not in the spirit of the game or the game mechanics, but whatever you do decide do it and move on with the game quicky. thats the most important part, have fun.