Anatomy of a Horror Setting #4-2: Arcanis Visicius Domini

Most of the questions, suggestions, and considerations that were a part of devising the setting for a modern magical horror still apply in the horror fantasy setting. The fantasy setting conventions and norms provide extra help as well as disadvantages to crafting the horror of the setting. Even some magic that was discounted is back on the proverbial table. The disconnect that the fantasy genre has with the modern, rational world immediately opens up avenues of horror that would be unwieldy or impractical in the modern magical horror setting. That disconnect also negates the impact of breaking the rational, which is often a major factor in supernatural horrors. In its place is the horror of the inevitable, the persistent threat looming overhead, lurking in every corner.

Magic of any great power or import should be kept out of the hands of the protagonists. This can be achieved by the requirements of magic or by maintaining strict moral lines. Material components and magical knowledge availability is limited not only by the environment but also by the greed for power of the magical caste, the wizards. Magic is nothing more than power in the setting and power is always jealously guarded. Corrupting power and the mad grab for it will direct much of the morality of the spell casters or the magic most commonly used. Beyond that magic can divided into direct black and white moral lines because the fantasy setting is more accepting of such mythos rules. Black magic will have evil requirements as well as evil results.

At the level of specifics fireballs and lightning bolts called down from the sky are fair horror fantasy game. Curses and geasa of terrifying kinds and results can be wonderful plot underliners giving the story a real mythological feel. Geasa is the plural of geas--a kind of magical obligation or prohibition like a taboo. In some cases the person is incapable of breaking the geas because they’re magically compelled. In other cases there are dire consequences to breaking the geas. As a facet of the setting curse bringing and geas infliction lead to other considerations and implications from the level of daily life all the way up to politics. The ever-popular zombie has its fantasy counterpart but requires a different touch. A matter of scale comes into play for this and other magic.

Music: Killed by Love by Alice Cooper and Welcome to the Machine by Motley Crue.

Or get MP3s.

Now at Amazon.COM NOT CA. Buy these at Amazon.com Click Images to Buy

Or get MP3s.

Anatomy of a Horror Setting #2-18: Something Came Over Me

No matter what setting it happens in one of the most frightening things that can happen to a person is for them to be possessed. People innately need to feel in control, if of nothing more, than at least their own bodies and their actions. This is merely the first level of this insidious invasion. Invasion is actually the next level. Not only do the possessed have the vital loss of control, but also it is lost to something else, some invader--making it worse than mere mind control. At the next level there is a divergence that happens with two different kinds of torment possible. On the one hand the possessed person blacks out and does not know what happened when the invading force is in control. The other hand is that the possessed person helplessly watches everything that the invader is doing.

Fear of the unknown is one of the greatest fears. The imagination comes up with all sorts of vivid, frightening images. It sees endless actions and consequences as terrible, depraved, and terrifying as the imaginer is capable of thinking. The blacked out possessed suffers not only the indignity and shame of their uncontrolled actions, and the inability to stop it. They learn piece by horrible piece what happened, and have the looming dread of what is yet unlearned. By contrast the suffering is immediate for the possessed that witnesses it all. That awareness brings with it greater guilt that they cannot stop it. These aware ones may even know what will happen just before it does. Either they are tapped into the consciousness of their possessor or it gleefully tells them what horrors await.

There are two ways that possessions happen in a magical horror setting. Possession spells allow someone’s consciousness to inhabit and control the body of another person. The tightest control comes form the magic being the possessor so that they can make sure everything goes as planned. A trusted bodyguard is required while the caster’s body is bereft of its intelligence. If the needs are less stringent the magic user may use an agent to be the controlling force of the possession. These agents can be other humans or summoned beings willing to entrust their bodies to others. The other way to possession comes from incorporeal beings that are naturally able to possess other beings. Brushes with the mind of an unnatural possessor are always an added terror.

Mood: impulsive.
Music: Public Animal #9 by Alice Cooper and Mr. Brownstone by Guns N' Roses.

Buy these at Amazon.ca Click Images to Buy

Anatomy of a Horror Setting #14: A Terrifying Example of Complexity and Control

The following is an exercise in pulling together the last two articles of this series along with a smattering of ideas from the rest of the series in one sprawling, spiralling example of horror. It all begins with an average man named Doug. Doug lives an ordinary life. He works a nine to five job while his wife Cynthia works from home and watches their children Melissa and Jake. One night Doug brings home a friend from work, Aaron. Aaron is quiet, polite, and unassuming. Doug and Aaron spend most of their time in the basement where Doug has a small shop set up in which to tinker around with things. Everybody likes Aaron--he's the perfect guest. Within a week Aaron is there every night. Within two weeks he almost never leaves.

Aaron is a powerful and amoral psychic. The first night that the children are out of the house--at a cousin's birthday party--he uses his hypnotic suggestion to convince Doug to stay in the basement. Then he goes to Cynthia in the illusory guise of Doug and tells her Aaron has left and they have some alone time. Going forward Aaron replaces Doug in the night with Cynthia a few times before his next move. He replaces Doug--who merrily works on things in the basement--with all of the family, in his disguise. This part of the first stage of his plan culminates in Aaron convincing the wife and children that he is Doug and Doug is Aaron. The real Doug continues to go to work unaware that anything is wrong. To cover himself and his treachery Aaron begins a new stage in his plan.

Aaron cajoles, convinces, and controls Cynthia to break off contact with her friends and family and has the kids pulled out of the public school system. He alienates Doug's family, and Doug's reclusion except for work pushes his friends away. Then the next-door neighbour mysteriously commits suicide. The house won't sell--stories come out about it being haunted. The house whose lot backs onto the haunted house becomes empty next. Next another neighbour is sent to jail for hiring out, via an intermediary, the murder of another neighbour. Aaron has taken over Doug's entire private life and has no further interference because of the buffer of vacant unsellable homes completely encircling his. Aaron has his own little kingdom, and the kicker is Doug never knew Aaron before that first night.

Mood: sprightly.
Music: Rock & Roll Saviors by Twisted Sister and Never Say Never by Twisted Sister.

Buy these at Amazon.ca Click Images to Buy

Anatomy of a Horror Setting #13: Spying; Influence; Abuse

Welcome to the thirteenth topic in this series, brought to you on the thirteenth day. I would like to stress that though I make comparisons below I am not equating any of these things, or viewing them as being the same level of terrible, whether they be real or fictional.

There are ties between knowledge and power, power and control, and control and abuse of another. It can all be one vicious circle, or a tangled knot where all of these elements bleed together into one. Today, this very instant, people are using the usually annoying, sometimes costly to the target, technical tools of spyware and adware to enforce their control over spouses, significant others, and children whom they are also abusing in physical, sexual, and other psychological manners. They are also using tracking means such as GPS units, medical implants such as RFID chips, and other physical media of the same type. This is frightening stuff, terrible abuses, of not only the people, but also the technology of the modern world, tainting it with such hideous connotations.

These additional forms of control and abuse are easier to spot than other signs, especially after criminal investigation is begun. Enter the psychic to once more hide and obfuscate these heinous acts. A psychic with the right powers can perform these same intrusions of privacy and forms of indirect manipulation. As well, the psychic can subject the victim to more direct methods. Both of these can also be done with much less to actually no evidence. Take the venerable hypnosis as an example. It's amusing to convince galactic militants that the robots they seek aren't the ones standing to the left. It's entirely a nightmare to be incapable of speaking of the torment inflicted upon oneself, or to have criminal investigators unable to see the bruises and scars.

From a control point of view there are several psychic options. The victim can have their mind read for imagined transgressions--the cornerstone of abuse excuses--while the psychic was absent, or to determine plans to escape, or to patrol for impure or improper thoughts. Similarly, remote viewing can be used to monitor and check in on the victim. Changing gears, abusers will often distance their victim from family and friends. What better way to do that than false emotion transmission, altered memories of slights or grievous betrayals, or memory blocks that prevent the person from remembering the victim? Worse yet perhaps, these same techniques can be used to alienate the victim from loved ones, or to not remember them, leaving the victim truly alone with their abuser.

Mood: content.
Music: Laughing in the Hiding Bush by Bruce Dickinson and More Than a Feeling by Boston.

Buy these at Amazon.ca Click Images to Buy