Guess what he threw at the cops! Or, fishing for inspiration for my horror game

BLOT: (10 Feb 2013 - 11:51:50 PM)

Guess what he threw at the cops! Or, fishing for inspiration for my horror game

I had two adventures planned in my Victorian horror GURPS campaign. The first involved a group of Jewish mystics raising up a golem to kill a well-off group of men who were campaigning against Jewish influence in London (and starting to advocate that Britain maybe consider its own pogroms). The second involved a night circus that went missing and, when found, the animals have been replaced by clockwork versions of themselves: steampunk lions and tigers and bears, oh my, if you will. However, the golem story morphed, for a couple of reasons—largely in tribute to one of the Big Finish Jago and Litefoot stories that are possibly the inspiration to the overall feel of this campaign¹ (if any of my players click that link, now, they will go "Ohhhh")—into a story about gang violence and a group of men who have come back as wooden mannequins with a mean streak. The danger is up, the creepiness is way up, and the night circus story is dead in the water because, let's face it, it's the same story. Clockwork lions and woodwork men are different beasts, but the same sort of beast. I need some new ideas to bring my night circus home, and so I've been browsing around, poking in corners, trying to get an idea. The internet was weird tonight, and though neither of these are new things, they will definitely act as food for the horror mind.

From Police: Hackensack man stabbed himself, threw his skin and intestines at officers².

Two officers kicked in the door and saw Carter in a corner, holding a knife in his hand, police said. Carter, ignoring the officers' orders to drop the knife, stood up and stabbed himself in the abdomen, legs and neck, they said. Carter yelled at the officers and took an aggressive stance, and the officers used pepper spray in a bid to subdue him, but it had no effect, Heinemann said. Police said Carter then cut off pieces of his skin and intestines and threw them at the officers.

And then this photo, from CBSNews.com's "Cancer in 1800s: 23 Rare Photos (Graphic)". Jane Todd Crawford, 33, suffering from a severe ovarian tumor. Click the blurred out picture below to see the unblurred one, and the description (warning, it, and the other images in that gallery, ain't happy, and I really really mean this).

And while neither of those will directly show up in a game, I'm kind of seeing how they might inspire something that will show up in the game. Yippee.

Notes

1: Other reasons it morphed include (a) the group of well-off men being killed was sort of used to alert the players to a literally underground cult, (b) kind of hard to bring out horror in the golem since technically it is a force of good, and (c) having a group of baddies has interesting possibilities not quite explored in this campaign outside of groups only about as big as the party (being three members).

2: Can't help but notice that was on my birthday, last year. Let's see what weirdness the Universe has to celebrate it this year!

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: February 2013