The Modern Witch Conspiracy

The surface has been brushed for period piece settings and stories with evil satanic witches. What though of the modern day? Has the ghastly horror witch gone the way of the dodo? The answer is a resounding no. They are certainly about and still practicing their nefarious ways. They do have their work cut out for them in some fashion though. Their brand of wickedness pales in comparison to the likes of serial killers, mass genocide in foreign lands--though honestly those kinds of atrocities have always gone on, if not as efficiently bloody as now--and the general moral slide of society with a total disregard for the value of courtesy, freedom, humanity and life not seen in centuries. Where then is the place for witch when the Adversary seems to be doing fine without lifting an apparent finger?

As with everything that slides into the present and looks to the future the ways and the wants of the witch have become more complex. Things are subtler now than ever. Part of it has as much to do with the witch hunters as it does the witches and their master. Staying covert went from a matter of privacy to one of downright survival. As would prove later to be beyond prescient the greatest lie the Devil ever told was that he did not exist. Thus too was it for his witches. The witch scare died down, past some unknown point, but likely earlier than now expected, the bulk of the victims of the stake were left to the innocent and the witches' own chosen scapegoats. Beyond that need for discretion was the need to find ever new, ingenious, and complicated ways to waylay and corrupt a populace that was continually growing savvier and more educated by the decade.

That formerly mentioned moral slide may have occurred all on its own, but the levels that it reaches and the ways that people are led, or driven, to act on the worst impulses that it represent can, and is, tweaked by the slyest of witches. There is a new, more ambitious, agenda at work. It is hard to nail down what it is precisely, but it is insidious, widespread, and broken down into a vast array of cogs that work as a monumental mechanism of evil the likes of which hasn't been seen before. Trying to chip away at those cogs is hard work and there are multiple redundancies. There are whispers and innuendo in certain circles about the nature of the witches' endeavours. The most frightening hypothesis put forward about this Machiavellian project is that even the attempts to derail it at every turn are pushing it toward its nefarious goal.

Mood: sly.

Music: Everything Louder Than Everything Else by Meat Loaf and Pure Evil by Iced Earth.

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Facets, Contradictions, and Allegiances

Depth is always one of the elements I strive for when considering characters in role-playing games. Of course this carries over to writing any kind of characters for any story or script. I don't always do it for short stories or novels but I have created characters using role-playing terms and conventions as if I wanted to use them in a game and then used that familiarity with the character to write their part within the story. I recently read a review of a role-playing game and it sparked me to write a note about character diversity. By that I mean the details, the nitty-gritty that differentiate one character from another even though they fit the same social circle, economic strata, and have the same education. What makes one engineer different from another on the same team?

Character diversity can be made by allowing players to select the following. A home country. Political affiliations or leaning toward particular ideals. Additionally there are points where the character differs from the ideas espoused by the party or their group. An immigrant could grow into a new national identity, change politics or move toward a political sub-faction. They could be a part of a guild or association, and from there variegate into a guild-faction. In the context of the game I made the notes for I asked questions like: Is the character part of one nation's military? What is their view of their allies? What is their view of their enemies? Is there competition between units in the same military? Service branch rivalries? How do they compete with other nation's units even when in a united goal?

All of this asks and answers essential questions like what is my character's role in group X, what is it contributing to the local corner of the world, to the country, to the world at large? How does their beliefs shape their style and methodology to their work, job, military service? It speaks to the measure of their character and reveals or further asks how they will deal with situations under stress. When given time. When researching new skills, including magic in applicable settings. When collaborating with others on such skills. Further differentiation might come from another role-playing game approach where a character has their social face and their private face. Not everyone projects their true self all of the time. Even what they do and do not share about themselves could be an important detail.

Mood: disciplined.

Music: Disciples Of The Lie by Iced Earth and Book Of Thel by Bruce Dickinson.

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Nothing But Time

The game changing nature of powerful healing at accelerated rates presented two factors upon which the differences were built. The first was the change in risk aversion factors. The second was the effect on the time scale. The shortened time makes for altered pacing. In the fantasy setting this is especially true because of the otherwise limited state of medicine and lack of pain medication. While quickening the plot pacing changes the game or the story one way, shifting things in the other direction has alternate effects. Longevity has its own way of changing the game in a setting. Long lives, immortality, and the changes caused by continued healing and durability are one possibility. The other is less fantastical but no less powerful and involves controlled cross-generation planning.

Many fantasy settings have long lived elves and other inhuman beings. They have immortal wizards both of the perpetual living and living dead kinds. The same is true of settings with vampires of enough intelligence to keep a lower profile and out live generation upon generation of mortals. It is not often enough that the immensity of possibilities this creates is touched upon. These beings can achieve singularly what others cannot. They can plan according to the long view of things, adapting as they go, patiently manipulating events in tiny increments over a vastly extended time. This affords them a lot of power. Beyond that it allows them to cultivate great experience and with it wisdom. This experience and wisdom is stronger for being first hand.

Magic, supernatural biology, or the science and futuristic equivalents of those, are not strictly necessary to take advantage of this game-changing element. Family groups, organisations, secret societies and sects, and some tightly focused societies can do so as well. For them it requires more discipline due to the larger number of members required. It also requires all parties being able to understand the plan not only to fulfill their parts of it, but also to the greater degree of being able to pass on the knowledge and impart the importance of the actions that go into it. If any later generation fails in understanding or implementation, even in gradual degrees from one generation to the next, then the plans and their benefits diminish, fail, or outright disappear.

Mood: fluid.

Music: The Edge Of Darkness by Iron Maiden and Ride Thru The Storm by Desperado/Dee Snider.

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Goal in the Bottom of the Ninth

It is time for a bit of a change in gears. The next few weeks or so the focus will shift toward role-playing games again. This is not to say--as is frequently said here--that what will be discussed is any less relevant to plotting a novel or writing a screenplay. All of these items, and all narratives really, share certain things in common such as plot, settings, and types of characters. This definition of character is as far as their place in the setting, in the society they were born into, and/or the society they adopt as their own. It informs and involves their profession. The other definitions of character are almost exclusive of this and need not change significantly from setting to setting. Only the actions they bring about change, not the motives behind them in the different settings.

The quantities that will be discussed involve modifications or elements of certain settings that change the nature of the game. They change the way plots and conflicts are resolved over the long term across multiple encounters. From role-playing games to stories these game-changers affect the timeframe under which the story progresses. They affect the level of tension in the story. At the same time they bring to the story different things in place of the lost tension. When conflict is altered it has a ripple effect that carries over beyond how combat is done. At the military level some of these changes will affect the strategic planning and materiel management. Others will have an effect on the motives behind going to war and the willingness to do so.

Much of the way a society handles itself and the traditions they involve themselves in come about because of their militaristic habits. At the least, military inventions and procedures trickle down because of the required innovation to constantly one-up the enemy and the sense of duty and efficiency required by any good army. Those two are just such a potent combination. At the same time that combination is pretty rigid and doesn't allow for much variation so of course it can only be one part of the necessary equation to create a society, or number of societies. The variations, the differences, from one group to another group are where a lot of friction comes and where conflict is developed. So it is that next week begins with the first look at one of these game-changing elements.

Mood: mellow.

Music: Paint It, Black by The Rolling Stones and Chariots of Pumpkins by John Carpenter.

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Arches Better than Stereos

Stereotypes may be overused, misused, and maligned. However when there is enough about them that is true why wouldn't they still be of use? The answer is that they would. However, they may do their work under the auspices of the different closely related word, archetype. What is the difference between the two? Well it is a matter of degree in the amount of thinking put into using the qualities being ascribed to the group/person who is a stereotypical or archetypal representation of others. A stereotype is shallow, possibly inaccurate, often negative or deprecating, and at the worst clichéd. The last of these really makes a mess of stereotypes, and into which archetypes are much less prone to fall. In other words shallow clichés are bad, deeply thought out archetypes are good.

The use of archetypes falls into two different camps as far as this discussion. The first is obviously archetypal characters. In horror these can be archetypal monsters. There are vampires, werewolves, zombies, constructs (like Frankenstein's monster), devils, and ghosts. These are in addition to normal people archetypes such as the gentle giant, the strong silent type, the loveable rogue, star crossed lovers, traitors, manipulators, abusers, and such. There is some crossover with types like the reluctant monster who, human or inhuman, is driven, or more likely provoked, to do evil and wreak havoc by others who figure him or her for the stereotypical monster. The part to remember of course is to maintain the character as an archetype and not stereotype it.

The other camp of archetypes are the archetypal conflicts, or plots. There are considered to be four of them with variations possible, but not held separate. These plots can even be combined in the same story line--perhaps even best used in pairs. They are defined as man versus himself, man versus man, man versus nature--the fourth is sometimes questioned whether it counts--and man versus society. Society doesn’t actually act on its own but via proxies, hence the debate. A lot of variations come from man versus man with the opposition being inhuman, such as supernatural beings and technological human approximations ranging from artificial intelligences to robots of myriad kinds. Of course the supernatural may take the place of nature, and technology of society.

Mood: relaxed.

Music: Chains Of Misery by Iron Maiden and Molly's Chambers by Kings of Leon.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #3-3: Do You Feel Cyber, Punk?

An easy pairing for near future science fiction horror begins with the cyberpunk genre. Cyberpunk deals with technology that is more advanced than today and focused in two main directions. The Internet, computer software, and artificial intelligence play an important role. This is followed a close second by human augmentation that is commonly in the form of cybernetics, and military hardware. The technological level of sophistication depends on how many years in the future the story takes place. Another factor common to the genre is that most settings involve massive, global corporations that control just about everything between them, even the governments that are supposed to be running the world’s countries. These companies are great motivators of plot in the stories.

The protagonists in cyberpunk are the punk part of the equation. They battle against the monolithic corporations and work outside of the often-corrupt law. Keeping with the dark dystopian mood that permeates the genre these protagonists are not always the most moral of characters. To the common people they are indistinguishable from the criminal element. The heroes of the setting are aware of the true nature of their society and unwilling to leave things the way that they are. They end up fighting, incapacitating, and often killing people in authority even as they do the antagonists. They steal information Robin-hood style. It is not uncommon for them to work with and for criminals, and tread the fine line between doing what they’re paid for and what is right.

Horror is as natural a fit with cyberpunk as it is with modern settings, in some ways perhaps more so. The powerful cyborgs, the futuristic weapons, the surveillance society, and the great scientific achievements all make for a world--human emotions and intentions aside--that is strongly grounded in reality, practical, and logical. The power available to even a single person with the right connections lends to a sense of security unfelt any time before. What better place and milieu is there to shatter with the illogical, the incomprehensible, and the supernatural? Powerful technologies versus the supernatural have a long history hearkening back to the spectacular but ineffective lightning cannons in the Gojira movies. Cyberpunk brings this to the more intimate, personal, horror level.

Mood: roguish.
Music: Wilderness by Brian May and Pork and Beans by Weezer.

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