Kenneth Hite

"This is the very model of a Kenneth Hite conspiracy, Mixed up between the Reptoids and the Manichaean heresy, It starts with lost Lemuria and filters through the chaff a bit, But soon involves a visit from a brazen head named Baphomet; The Prieuré de Sion and the Masons are pedestrian, Until you add the Airships and their crews ultraterrestrian... ...In short, from El Dorado to the bottom of the Thera sea, This is the very model of a Kenneth Hite conspiracy."

- Kenneth Hite

Kenneth Hite is an author and role-playing game designer. He has written the pulp-themed investigation RPG Trail of Cthulhu and the post-apocalyptic, just-post-WWII setting Day After Ragnarok (for the Hero System and Savage Worlds), as well as authoring such core GURPS sourcebooks as the latest editions of GURPS Horror and GURPS Infinite Worlds (and writing or contributing to several others). He has also written material for Mage: The Ascension, Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Requiem, Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game), Deadlands, and Last Unicorn Games' version of the Star Trek RPG (for which he was also line editor).

He is an expert on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft (and associated writers), and has written several books on the subject, including Cthulhu 101, an introduction to the mythos, and a trio of illustrated "children's books:" Where the Deep Ones Are, The Antarctic Express, and Cliffourd the Big Red God.

From 1998 to 2008, he wrote the column "Suppressed Transmission" for Steve Jackson Games' paid-access web magazine Pyramid. This column, though ostensibly about RPG settings and gamemastering advice, turned out to be a wild ride through High Weirdness. It focused on four genres: conspiracy, secret history, horror, and Alternate History. Hite generally picked a topic per column to explore through these lenses, ranging from seeming mundanities like Coca-Cola and chocolate, to mythological beasts, to historical oddities, to strange people of history, to Shakespearian meanderings, to full conspiracy theory weirdness. An early article, "Six Flags Over Roswell", showed one of his most effective frameworks: take one strange happening (here, the supposed Roswell UFO crash) and ring a half-dozen variations on it into true bizzarity. One of Hite's key concepts for writing these columns (and other writing) is a technique he calls "bisociation": intentionally holding two contradictory notions in mind simultaneously (as a creativity exercise, not a pathology). Some of the "Suppressed Transmisson" columns were collected into two volumes by Steve Jackson Games, Suppressed Transmission: The First Broadcast and Suppressed Transmission 2, and and are available both in print and as downloadable ebooks. Sadly, the rest of the columns were taken offline when Steve Jackson Games retired the Pyramid subscription site's archives to relaunch Pyramid as a monthly PDF magazine, and there are no current plans to re-issue these.

He also writes the game review column "Out of the Box." Hite has a LiveJournal at http://princeofcairo.livejournal.com/.

"If there is another, more polite question, however, that one is often, "How do you manage to write this stuff?" or, occasionally, "Where do you get your ideas?" (These two questions are often subsumed into a meta-question such as "Are you on drugs?" The answer to this meta-question is "Sadly, no.")"
 * Ancient Astronauts
 * Ancient Conspiracy
 * Alternate History
 * Alternate Universe - Hite wrote GURPS Alternate Earths and GURPS Alternate Earths 2 for that game's third edition before being core writer on GURPS Infinite Worlds. Likewise, many of the worlds created in "Suppressed Transmission" would have details for dropping it into the Infinite Worlds setting.
 * April Fools' Day - The first "Suppressed Transmission" column of April would generally be a song or poem parody.
 * Conspiracy Theory
 * Cosmic Horror
 * Space Elves - As the various races of possibly space alien, possibly fae Ultraterrestrials.
 * Stupid Jetpack Hitler - One of Hite's go-to conspiracies is the supposed Nazi stronghold of Neuschwabenland, a region of Antarctica where the last remnants of the Third Reich went to build flying saucers and plot their comeback.
 * The Knights Templar
 * Major-General Song: See the page quote.
 * What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?

- Kenneth Hite, "Suppressed Transmission: The Secret of My Success"


 * Zeppelins from Another World - Formulated "Hite's Law", stating that any historical change used to create an Alternate History will tend towards filling the skies with airships.
 * Hite takes this to its logical conclusion, pointing out that this implies that The Twenties and The Thirties were actually those of an alternate history...