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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Fire Bad. Fire BAD!

As far as something that could befall anyone, maybe even at any time, fire tops the chart of things to be afraid of, and with good reason. As a useful thing fire is a powerful tool. In fact we have to consider not just the fire but also the heat, so rather than imagine speaking of just crackling to shooting flames imagine the whole kit and caboodle. It's when fire gets out of hand or is misused that this great and useful tool becomes an object of abject terror.

Fire is a great destroyer. Not only can it wipe away the physical but it can do harm on a more "spiritual" level. Consider the huge demoralizing affect it can have from just a house fire. All that time fixing or maintaining the house is gone, all the memories that the contents of the house had are blotted out, and all the memories of the place itself are supplanted (these last too temporarily, but still). Beyond the scars to the psyche this is not to mention the scars that may result to the body if the fire alarm doesn't rouse you soon enough, or the children have to be rescued from the flames before the firemen arrive, for example.

Now, imagine the same loss on a larger scale, like the fire that tore through old Chicago. On the other hand the scale need not be increased to heighten the horror. For that, all that is required is a simple thing called motive. The fear of something happening accidentally or as part of an unforeseeable result of something only goes so far. It has to go only so far; otherwise we would be crushed by such fear. When the cause is purposeful, and motivated by hate or greed or, put simply, the wills of men then there is a whole new added dimension of fear.

Speaking of the wills of men. What of that step beyond the norm to those in fiction who can will fire into existence and wield it at their whim? Is that not some kind of ultimate crystallization of the power of fire as a force of fear in the form of a person? Does that not speak of great horror in the making? It sometimes may not seem so when such power is frequently bandied about and given a comic-bookish quality. That seeming may be very contrary to the idea itself though. Someone should do something about that.

Mood: frantic.
Music: Die With Your Boots On by Iron Maiden and The Hand That Feeds by Nine Inch Nails.

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