Anatomy of a Horror Setting #4-6: Give Three Knocks

The Victorian era embraced the mystical even as rational thought, science, and industrialisation gripped Britain, the empire upon which, near the end of that time, the sun never set. This was especially apparent in the love affair with mediums and séances. Previous discussions have considered the impact of speaking with the dead on a horror setting, but the methods of communication were not covered. Séances with or without a proper spirit medium present have a unique flavour. There is a particular phenomena that is associated with séances and mediums that doesn’t see a lot of coverage elsewhere. That would be ectoplasm, oft exteriorised by mediums and the foundation upon which a ghost may build limbs or a body with which to exert itself on the physical world.

Among the options for the setting there is an allowance for different expressions of the physicality of ectoplasm. Historically speaking comparisons have been made to gauze, and less interestingly mucus. There is a suggestion that apparitions are indistinguishable from the living in non-contact situations, the realisation arrived at only with the dissipation of the ghost or similar impossibility for a living person. This distinction and the scientific definition of ectoplasm as the outer part of a cell’s cytoplasm supports the option of ectoplasm that is fleshier, like the gelatinous extrusion of fat and other material from cooking meat. This meatier ectoplasm will come out of the medium through the skin rather than being excreted through the mucus membranes and it will be more substantial.

Along side ectoplasm’s highly visual physical manifestation of the spirit world there are the psychokinetic displays associated with séances. The simplest is the request that the spirit summoned show its presence by rapping or knocking on the table around which the participants are seated or some other object in the room. The sound can also simply manifest in the air. The spirit can answer yes and no questions by knocking using one knock for yes and two for no. More complex questions can be asked using a Ouija or Spirit Board. Less helpful to the séance but more exciting are the poltergeist-like outbursts, and being fiction there can be straight up voices and even pyrokinetic displays. It is also common that called spirits may not be truthful, the one asked to appear, or a devil instead.

Mood: C.H.U.D.-tastic.
Music: When Two Worlds Collide by Iron Maiden and Love At First Bite by Wolf.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #4-5: Brave New Horrors

There is another popular time setting for fantasy stories. It borders somewhat on the modern, but only as a matter context--it’s a matter of scale. It is also a time setting that is conducive to horror. This makes it only fitting that it is a good time period within which to set up horror fantasy works. It is the Victorian horror fantasy period. The Victorian Age is the same as the Industrial Age within enough leeway for the purposes of creating a setting. Any discrepancy is lost due to the fictional aspects dealing with technology in the setting. Even the fantasy elements will pull the setting away from true. There is still some need to watch for anachronisms though. Any anachronisms should be on purpose and fill a horror need, or be part of one of the fantasy tropes.

The Victorian era has an automatic built-in horror meme. It was a time rife with the exploration of not only the physical world, and the mechanical world, but also the spiritual world. It was a high time for mediumship. Séances came into fashion in a big way--it actually peaks late in the period so real, historical time, gets manipulated as part of the fantasy requirement. This same era also believes extensively in the fae, faeries, and the Seelie Court--as far as existing settings in this time period are concerned. Again, this is another built-in source of possible horror. Monsters and unholy creatures are never out of style in any horror setting and will tend toward the fantasy aesthetic more than a modern approach. Magic also tends the same way as the monstrous and infernal.

The Industrial Revolution brought about several kinds of horror from the mundane, to the science-fictional. This makes for an exceptional number of elements and variants that enhance the setting options available even as it further blurs the genre lines. The time period was one of exploration in many senses. The usual focus of these settings is the British Empire, whether the location is in Britain, or abroad in such places as North America, Africa, India, Australia or elsewhere. The British explored all over the place--as did the French and Spanish--and claimed whatever places they could. On the home front the exploration was in science and mechanics. Machines hardly imagined before became reality and made massive changes to the world.

Music: All the Money in the World by Black Lab and Inside The Machine by Bruce Dickinson.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #2-10: Who Do? You Do.

Any discussion of magic in a horror setting must eventually set upon the one kind of magic that is intrinsically horrific. This particular type of magic isn’t its own school, but more of a subset. It is a small discipline within the framework of invocation magic. This kind of magic is commonly known as Voodoo, which shouldn’t be confused with the religion commonly known as Santeria or other real voodoo beliefs in the real world. Horror voodoo works within a few different veins. Four examples include spirit mounting, curses, voodoo dolls, and zombies. With the exception of spirit mounting voodoo is particularly physical component oriented as far as the casting of spells go. Parts of it also slip into the school of necromancy and others the realm of psychic ability

Spirit mounting is essentially a person allows a spirit to possess them. The spirits range from the possessive’s ancestors, to their gods. This is not very horror oriented, due to the willingness of the possessed, and the goodness of the spirits that are called. Spirit mounting is in line with the Mediumship psychic ability. Alternatively it may be linked to necromancy when they are human spirits. Curses can similarly be more akin to psychic-styled attacks depending on the focus. Symptoms of a plague or disease based curse may be psychosomatic, as can curses of bad luck. They can also be frighteningly real and defy logic and modern medicine. A psychological curse may be beaten by force of will, magic cannot. You don’t need to believe in magic/the supernatural, it believes in you.

Voodoo dolls, referred to as poppets rather than puppets, are common to magic in horror. They require bits and pieces of the person to be affected to be a part of the doll or otherwise attached to it somehow. They were a part of some mystical traditions prior to the creation of voodoo--some tribal, others European. A voodoo doll is always a focus upon which spells are cast, even if such further rituals besides its creation only require concentration and puncturing of the doll with sharp objects or burning it with hot irons. Then there are the zombies of voodoo, which generally are not actually walking corpses, but instead, people held in a state between life and death. Or they may just be the living dominated by magic. Voodoo zombies are always created with the use of mystical powders.

Mood: exhausted.
Music: Wake The Dead by Alice Cooper and Twist My Sister by Murderdolls.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #19: Dead Men Tell All

The old saw that dead men tell no tales takes on a sense of irony in a world with ghosts, mediums, and necromancers. For people that can communicate with those beyond the grave there is almost nothing that cannot be learned. The only catch is in finding a source of information, and convincing it to help. The type of information needed from the dead can be anything from book-style knowledge to more know-how knowledge depending upon at least three factors. The first question the author needs to ask is how much the setting and mood is going to allow. The second is about the scope, especially in the sense of how far back can information be gained, how old are the oldest ghosts? The third is a little more mechanical, how can the information be passed on to the living?

From the standpoint of being just another source of information spirits and those no longer amongst the living can negatively impact the horrific mood. Unlike other sources though they can also keep or strengthen the mood in other ways. For starters the knowledge can come at a price. It can even be a high price. There are a number of examples. A spirit may need to be found in a place that is guarded or otherwise patrolled. The timing of the visit can be an added difficulty. Ghostly manifestations can be harrowing and escalate up to violent even without interference from a psychic. A medium may have to turn over some control of their body to an otherworldly entity even just to have it speak. Such an endeavour has its own inherent dangers.

Finding the keeper of a required bit of information can run the gamut from tracking down a name and asking around in the spiritual or astral realm, to finding a resting place, to dealing with forces best not meddled with. That is if there is someone or something left to know it. How long can a spirit hang around? How long does a ghostly echo last for? Some things may be lost to antiquity no matter how powerful the seeker. That is unless the dictated setting allows otherwise. That begs a few questions. How do the non-living sustain themselves? Do they change and grow, becoming more powerful, frightening, and dangerous? Is there a point where they no longer truck with mortals or just give up on the living and refuse to speak to them?

Then there are the mechanical concerns of such beings from beyond imparting their knowledge. Some ghosts may be able to speak to anyone. Some may not be able to speak but can intimate things by repeating a scene over and over or by psychic means such as empathic transmission. Others yet may be able to speak through a medium, or control such a psychic like a puppet due to the link they create. Those with that ability may be able to pass on more than words. They could complete tasks to which the host is unaccustomed. Even more than moving up to training they could enhance the host, or otherwise act symbiotically. Then there are those things that can take control of anyone they wish unchecked by anything but an exorcism.

Mood: verbose.
Music: Stay With Me Tonight by Quiet Riot and Borley Rectory by Llewellyn.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #18: Not Alone

Another factor in the creation of a psychic setting lies beyond the confrontations of psychic versus normal person and psychic versus psychic. It's almost cheating to neglect this facet. Without it, a key psychic ability if not a whole type of psychic character is forfeit. What is it? In two words, spirit world. The power? In one word, Mediumship. There is less to be considered with respect to the ability of the Medium than there is to be defined for a setting's spirit world. It starts with even asking if there is a spirit world, and more importantly are spirits allowed to roam about and interact with the non-psychic living. There need not be spirits to have ghosts and hauntings. There need only be phenomena with a scientific basis even if they are thus far not understood phenomena.

As far as hauntings and ghosts go the reasoning behind them can be anything from echoes of the past, to lingering personalised energies, to spirits, to entities that are not human derived. Moving past the assumption that the cause of a haunting is intelligent there are a few questions to be asked. Does the ghost recall everything that it knew in life, or the life of the person it is emulating? Even if it is an emulation it may not be for a nefarious purpose per se. It could be the only way in which the being or entity can interact with the physical world. The emulation of a previous--or even currently living--person could be unintentional or forced upon it. This is not to say that the purpose of impersonating some other being cannot be intentional and malicious.

The next question is does the ghost know a lot of other things? It need not be psychic to know enough to seem to actually be psychic in different fashions. This is of course dependent on a few factors, notably speed of movement. Another factor is the ghostly community, if such a thing exists. Also, while a spirit isn't limited by the time constraints of the living such as jobs and relationships it may be limited by energy constraints. That so, it may still have lots of time to investigate what it needs to know to impart to others. It may aid a loved one, a stranger--especially helping to solve its murder--or a medium or other psychic. Then there is the consideration of ghosts with abilities similar to that of psychics. Only some ghosts may have such insights or it could be all of them.

Mood: creepy.
Music: Tier by Rammstein and I Got A Line On You by Kim Mitchell.

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