Fin de Siecle Lovecraftiana

Much of my scholarship and teaching centers on the Decadent literature of the fin de siecle. While the "weird tales" of the 20th century have been mined extensively for use in RPGs, the work of the Decadent and Aesthetic movements is still ripe for adaptation. Here are a few off-the-cuff gaming ideas that riff off some classics of literary Decadence:

Joris-Karl Huysmans’s A Rebours: the novel takes place within one location–a decadent aesthete’s house; with a li‚ttle twisting, we get a dining room made to look like a ship’s cabin (what if it allows for real transportation through time/space?), monstrous plants, an organ that creates alchemical potions depending on what notes and chords are played, a library that mixes the sacred and the profane (enjoy sorting through the Latin pornography to find that grimoire, suckers), a funerary banquet for the host’s lost virility (or is that a ritual to summon Shub-Niggurath?), more enchanted paintings of Salome than you can handle, a bejeweled tortoise as vaunted treasure.

Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray: Where is Basil Hallward? There are rumors of his demise to be investigated; these rumors take the characters to high-society dinners, exhibitions of the Royal Academy, East End opium dens, and low theaters alike. Characters to meet and interrogate: Lord Henry and his Yellow Book (Yellow Book/Yellow Sign?), Sybil Vane (who seems possessed when performing on stage...work in some Hastur/King in Yellow here), the debased chemist Alan Campbell (whose suicide will happen right as the characters need him most, but was he laying the groundwork for Herbert West?), and of course Dorian himself (what if Dorian’s portrait isn’t merely the barometer of the state of his soul, but something that absorbs his evil nature and take on a life of its own?).

Oscar Wilde’s Salome: Not the events of the play itself, but rather the events surrounding the play. The Lord Chamberlain’s office denies the play’s performance not on the grounds that it contains biblical themes, but rather because they know the performance is a really a series of ritualized motions and incantations to let loose something otherwordly and monstrous. Of course, those degenerate French fail to see the metaphysical horrors at work and have authorized the play’s performance. How to stop it? Bonus game of "guess which is the avatar of Nyarlathotep": Lord Alfred Douglas (he did seem to have an uncanny power over Wilde), Sarah Bernhardt (another of Wilde’s great muses), or Wilde himself (what was it exactly that he learned amidst the stacks at Oxford)? Vatican involvement–what if the head of John the Baptist is kept somewhere as a relic...a relic that can speak and still has a horrible prophecy to deliver?

Irish Horror Renaissance?

In the latter half of the Victorian era, the authors who were at the forefront of the resurgence of Gothic literature tended to be written by the Anglo-Irish: Bram Stoker's Dracula is a key example, as are Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla and Uncle Silas. Indeed, the literary critic Terry Eagleton identifies this strain as the "Irish Gothic" and argues that such fictions were a way to grapple with the haunted history of the Protestant Ascendancy, Ireland's political colonization, and the horrors of the potato famine.

Based on The Canal (2014) and The Hallow (2015), I'm tempted to argue that we're in the midst of a similarly rich period in which Irish filmmakers reinvigorate the tired cliches of the horror film. Both films are good examples of the "Irish Gothic," as each addresses contemporary Irish fears in fictional form while breathing new life into the conventions that define the horror genre.

Ivan Kavanagh's The Canal deals with a heady cocktail of infidelity, work-stress, the difficulties of single parent homes, and the specter of domestic violence.

Corin Hardy's The Hallow, on the other hand, deals with fears about the Irish economy, issues of conservation, and the tension between the beliefs of the past and the shambles of modernity.

Both come highly recommended.

Horror Movie Double Features

Elsewhere I've posted a series of double feature suggestions should you be in the market for some horror movies this October. I've collected them here if you're in need of recommendations.

How to Make Your Own Soundtrack for Horror Games

Playing music in the background while gaming is a tricky proposition: if the music is too engaging on its own merits, it can distract you from the game; if the music doesn't fit the game, it works against the atmosphere you're trying to create; if the music is too obvious, it cheapens the effect you're going for, etc.  

In horror games, music can be especially problematic: you don't want the music to be more scary than your game, you don't want to play something too light that spoils the mood, and you don't want to rely on "Tubular Bells" again.

The solution that avoids all those pitfalls is to DIY your own horrorific ambient soundtrack.  It sounds like a lot to ask, doesn't it?  "I have to make my own adventures, draw my own maps, learn the rules of the game, and now I have to make music too?"  

You're going to be surprised by how easy this is.

1) Download Audacity, a free audio editing program here.  Install the program.

2) Start Audacity.  File-->Open--> and load any music mp3 you've already got on your computer.  Seriously, it doesn't matter if your source file is Carly Rae Jepsen or Rammstein, this process will make it into a long, creepy ambient track.

3) Effect-->Change Speed--> and reduce speed by about 90% or so.  It will take a while to apply the change, as this makes the track significantly longer.

4) File-->Export the file as a mp3 at the bitrate of your choice.  You're done.

The end result will be a slow, eerie track full of ominous rumblings, unexpected noisome growls, and Cthulhoid mutterings.  If there was a pronounced beat in the original file, it will now likely be at a dragging, funereal tempo that sounds like footsteps through an abandoned slaughterhouse.  

Play your new soundtrack at a low volume in the background for your next Call of Cthulhu or Don't Rest Your Head game and marvel at your ingenuity. 

As an example of what the end product might sound like, here's one I made from a Combichrist song.

As another example, here's another one made from a Smiths song.