So I love the setting and aesthetic of the videogame Hunt: Showdown.
I also really enjoy running horror themed games.
Lately I have been toying with the idea of doing my own take on the premise of Hunt, and idea that I've simply been letting simmer on the back on my mind to see if it might happen to coalesce into something cool and/or interesting sooner or later.
One of these days I ended up editing together a map for it based on the national park of Death Valley:
Rules-wise Luke Gearing's Violence serves as a good base and starting point to start pondering off of, so that base is quite nicely covered.
And today I ended up digging a bit deeper into the lore of Hunt and mining it for ideas as to how to frame the game now that I already had a map for it. The vague idea I've had since putting together the map has been to take the idea of "this area is full of weird and scary shit, so sane people don't go there but you can make money by going in".
Very Stalker-esque, but more of a focus on the occult than on the truly bizarre "reality breaking down" thing that Stalker and Roadside Picnic do.
Very Stalker-esque, but more of a focus on the occult than on the truly bizarre "reality breaking down" thing that Stalker and Roadside Picnic do.
So, here I will now present the first draft.
What Happened to Death Valley
Miners.
Miners happened to Death Valley.
Something was dug up from within the mines.
Something that with it, brought a plague.
Plague that would go on to inflict slow and wasting deaths on first the mine workers, then those in town, and spread from there with doctors and wild animals until a full blown epidemic began to rear it's head.
Some weeks after the first deaths from this new affliction had occurred, a new threat emerged. Those that had died of the plague would no longer stay dead, instead clawing their way up from the ground they were buried in. Returning as violent and single minded echoes of the men and women they once were.
Through medical examinations of the walking dead, a thick black phlegm was found where blood would circulate in a healthy and normal person.
Similar black mucus had been observed in those infected with the plague prior to their inevitable deaths.
As time went on and the epidemic reached it's peak, more monstrosities would begin to appear within Death Valley.
Those dead of the infection would walk once more as twisted mockeries of their former selves, one more horrid than the last. Some no longer even recognisable as the humans they previously were. Reduced to unnatural monsters.
By this point the epidemic had to be acknowledged.
The states of both Nevada and California have since put up a bounty on anyone and -thing, be they a man, a woman, a child, or an animal that comes from Death Valley for the area had now come to truly and fully embody it's name.
This plague was no plague at all, but the work of an otherworldly entity. A Demon of some kind. The type that would bring woe to ancient civilisations in the past, and that was now allegedly rearing it's head on the border between Nevada and California.
This man came with not only apparent knowledge of the adversary, but confidence and a proposition of a plan.
An association of hunters with natural resilience to the forces of evil that now ravaged the lands, backed by him and his research on the subject of this unseen force of death would be allowed entry and return to and from Death Valley where they would search for where this demon had first breached from the realm of Hell to the realm of the living in order to seal such wound and keep further evil from escaping to our lives.
Manage this, and what remains of the forces of evil within Death Valley could be, given enough time, culled and weeded out.
The types that orchestrate serial disappearances and killings, only caught when they forget to practice enough care. The types that had sought out to, and succeeded in confirming the existence of Hell or at least something comparable beyond the realm of the living.
The types that were all brought together by the discovery of one. A discovery that had allowed them to forcibly construct folks resistant to the type of Evil that had overcome Death Valley. A blood ritual and an injection distilled through means better left unmentioned that would drain all warmth from a man, but through which anyone could be made resistant and thus able to venture within the valley if only they were strong or desperate enough to bear the many side effects.
While less organised and thus lacking clear leadership or chain of command, it is whispered that the penultimate goal of these practitioners is to wrestle unto their control the evil that currently inhabits Death Valley.
At this point in time Death Valley was one of the main American sources of borax, a crystalline solid that among it's many uses was sought after as a flux used in welding iron and steel.
The valley floor housed two prominent borax works operating off of the rich deposits found within the "Devil's Golf Course", now rendered inoperable due to the spreading epidemic.
The Pacific Coast Borax Company had began exploiting it's vast wealth to search for a solution to keep the deposits exploited and the borax works in operation.
The temporary solutions and countermeasures they had managed to arrive at were naught but amateur's meddlings compared to those available to members of the Supernatural Hunters Association or their competition, but with the wealth afforded by the PCB the inefficiency in their methods could be patched over by money and quantity.
Protected by charms and effigies handed out in sealed boxes, PCB commissioned hunters could be seen setting foot into Death Valley with ease of entry and exit from the area guaranteed by the company they represented.
The efforts of these men and women would center around purging those taken by the epidemic around the borax mines and processing works, escorting workers in for short amounts of time when the risk of infection had been lowered enough, and keeping the mines operational even if their yield would not be able to hold a candle to their output prior to the outbreak that had swept over Death Valley.
Miners happened to Death Valley.
Something was dug up from within the mines.
Something that with it, brought a plague.
Plague that would go on to inflict slow and wasting deaths on first the mine workers, then those in town, and spread from there with doctors and wild animals until a full blown epidemic began to rear it's head.
Some weeks after the first deaths from this new affliction had occurred, a new threat emerged. Those that had died of the plague would no longer stay dead, instead clawing their way up from the ground they were buried in. Returning as violent and single minded echoes of the men and women they once were.
Through medical examinations of the walking dead, a thick black phlegm was found where blood would circulate in a healthy and normal person.
Similar black mucus had been observed in those infected with the plague prior to their inevitable deaths.
As time went on and the epidemic reached it's peak, more monstrosities would begin to appear within Death Valley.
Those dead of the infection would walk once more as twisted mockeries of their former selves, one more horrid than the last. Some no longer even recognisable as the humans they previously were. Reduced to unnatural monsters.
By this point the epidemic had to be acknowledged.
The states of both Nevada and California have since put up a bounty on anyone and -thing, be they a man, a woman, a child, or an animal that comes from Death Valley for the area had now come to truly and fully embody it's name.
Rise of Factions
Supernatural Hunters Association
With the public acknowledgement of what had come to transpire within Death Valley, one man stood forth to offer a different explanation.This plague was no plague at all, but the work of an otherworldly entity. A Demon of some kind. The type that would bring woe to ancient civilisations in the past, and that was now allegedly rearing it's head on the border between Nevada and California.
This man came with not only apparent knowledge of the adversary, but confidence and a proposition of a plan.
An association of hunters with natural resilience to the forces of evil that now ravaged the lands, backed by him and his research on the subject of this unseen force of death would be allowed entry and return to and from Death Valley where they would search for where this demon had first breached from the realm of Hell to the realm of the living in order to seal such wound and keep further evil from escaping to our lives.
Manage this, and what remains of the forces of evil within Death Valley could be, given enough time, culled and weeded out.
Occult Practitioners
While less public, another group of individuals were also now fixing their attention to the valley. A loosely bound band of occult researchers, scholars and practitioners. And murderers.The types that orchestrate serial disappearances and killings, only caught when they forget to practice enough care. The types that had sought out to, and succeeded in confirming the existence of Hell or at least something comparable beyond the realm of the living.
The types that were all brought together by the discovery of one. A discovery that had allowed them to forcibly construct folks resistant to the type of Evil that had overcome Death Valley. A blood ritual and an injection distilled through means better left unmentioned that would drain all warmth from a man, but through which anyone could be made resistant and thus able to venture within the valley if only they were strong or desperate enough to bear the many side effects.
While less organised and thus lacking clear leadership or chain of command, it is whispered that the penultimate goal of these practitioners is to wrestle unto their control the evil that currently inhabits Death Valley.
Pacific Coast Borax Company
While the SHA and the practitioners of the occult arts were in a race to containing or controlling the source of the Death Valley epidemic, one more notable force had it's eyes set on not the valley itself, but rather what could yet be reaped from within it.At this point in time Death Valley was one of the main American sources of borax, a crystalline solid that among it's many uses was sought after as a flux used in welding iron and steel.
The valley floor housed two prominent borax works operating off of the rich deposits found within the "Devil's Golf Course", now rendered inoperable due to the spreading epidemic.
The Pacific Coast Borax Company had began exploiting it's vast wealth to search for a solution to keep the deposits exploited and the borax works in operation.
The temporary solutions and countermeasures they had managed to arrive at were naught but amateur's meddlings compared to those available to members of the Supernatural Hunters Association or their competition, but with the wealth afforded by the PCB the inefficiency in their methods could be patched over by money and quantity.
Protected by charms and effigies handed out in sealed boxes, PCB commissioned hunters could be seen setting foot into Death Valley with ease of entry and exit from the area guaranteed by the company they represented.
The efforts of these men and women would center around purging those taken by the epidemic around the borax mines and processing works, escorting workers in for short amounts of time when the risk of infection had been lowered enough, and keeping the mines operational even if their yield would not be able to hold a candle to their output prior to the outbreak that had swept over Death Valley.
No comments:
Post a Comment