Weird Idea #2 - Vocalizing Choruses

Michael Hartstein’s “When a Choir Sings, The World Stops and Listens.”

I'm here again with a Weird Idea nobody asked for. Once more it's based on music. I was recently pointed at some strange music group called A Room Full of Teeth and decided to give them a listen on Spotify. I loved it. It's Fantastically Weird, being all vocalizing with maybe some synthesized chords in the background once in a while, but mostly just the voice doing weird stuff, like Tibetan throat singing and Yodeling. 

So I'm listening and my imagination starts running, GM brain activating. This sounds sufficiently creepy to be something to put on when in a strange different place: 

A haunted mausoleum, where all the corpses start singing nonsense, filling everyone with dread, destroying sanity room by room, forcing steel checks, whatever your system. If you fail, the haunt takes control and you join the song ... forever.

A eerie fairy forest where the voices are heard, but not found. (Or what would happen if you did find them?) Some strange type of fairy music magic that tries to capture you, plays with you, for some incomprehensible reason. What do you need to do to escape? Sing a counter-song? Hit the right notes? Hide from any sound? What happens if you emerge from the captivity? Can you even still stand sounds? Have years passed, or just mere seconds? Did your voice change or get stolen?

Inside the dream of a bard or minstrel or other music mage. All the voices are different aspects of their inner self, vying for control, sensing around. Some might even be the spells themselves, in a "Vancian" way. Or is this how a bard finds their special songs, transported via musical trance to a place where songs are real and need to be captured, or understood, or translated to sheet music. The amount of success with which this is done defines the strength of the musical spell?

Anyway. This was this edition's weird ideas.

The Hermit and his Wild Dog (Lore)

 TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with themes of anti-semitism at it was often the case in the medieval times. This author clearly portrays the anti-semitism as wrong and evil, and the root/cause of the problems these characters might bring.

X-CARD MATERIAL: Obviously, this would be X-Card material at the gaming table, and before beginning a session or arc in which this might feature, I would ask if these things and themes are fitting or not for the group and tone we want to portray.

The Hermit and his Wild Dog.

Once a respected member of the community surrounding the keep, this man and his family enjoyed a quiet life, but once Count Leopold de Chouxchaude — the then master of the Keep —found out that there were Jews living in his village he became incensed, especially after his wife had a miscarriage. Blaming it on the family they were driven out of the community by the guards.

"An Old Beggar"
David Teniers II (1610-1690)

Taking it in stride, persecution seeming to be part of their heritage, they settled in the woods, where they built a cottage and lived from what the land brought them. The couple had children who grew up healthy and innocent of the evils outside the forest.

Then, after the harvest failing for the second year in a row, the people remembered them, and with the lack of reason that desperation and fear brings, a mob was formed. The mob went and looked for the family, finding the cabin in the woods. They locked the doors and burned it down, thinking their job done. They did not know that the father was out, checking the traps. When he came back, he saw what happened, and he broke.

I sadly have no credit I could find for this picture.

He buried his family and ripped his clothes, in the way of his people. He now wanders the woods, followed by a mean looking, black dog. Bitterness took hold in him and he wants nothing to do with people. What he doesn’t know is that the dog, who came to him in his need, is not in fact just a dog, but a force of chaos, that becomes a vessel for the man’s vengeance when the man is asleep. The man in question does not know about this.

Story Seed: The Anchorage of Amontillado

DISCLAIMER: This contains grim and dark material, which is unusual for me (I mean, I made a game where kids play Carebears, for crying out loud.). If you do not like grim and dark material, you should skip this post.

I’ve been reading up on hermits lately, because it’s an NPC trope I like and I’ve got some hermits in the Dreamwoods that I want to flesh out. I went to Wikipedia, looked up Hermits and got reading. While not applicable to my setting right now, I came upon a strange idea that spoke to me and gave me an idea for a horror story/ horror game idea. Now, I myself don’t like to play horror. Reading it, sure, fine, but playing it (or even sometimes watching it) is a bit much for me, but I thought some of the readers might like it.

Anchorages, according to Wikipedia are a specific kind of religious hermits that seek seclusion in a drastic way. They get sealed in to something ranging from a cottage to a single cell. Sometimes outside of society but mostly in the city, sometimes built against the church. Sometimes the sealing-in happens by bricking up the door. The anchorage gets their food and other essentials delivered by people and gets to devote their entire life to prayer and devotion. They might be called upon to give advice or being asked to pray for something by people, but otherwise they don’t really have a social life. They can come from any station, clergy or not, and often are people who have nothing to lose, like elderly people, or widows, but not always.

Now, I think you understand the title of this post by now, being a not very subtle reference to the Poem: The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe. Let me tell you this story seed.

1) In the town of Amontillado (do feel free to change it up to any town in your current world that fits for the story) a certain young widow has taken the vow of the Anchorage. She takes place in a cell built against the church and is bricked in. People provide food and she gets her time to devote herself to her Lord.

2) People come to ask for her prayers, which she gladly does. In time she starts giving advice as well. The people appreciate it and they start to love her greatly. She starts receiving visions, which she records in her cell and sometimes shares. Specifically when it’s about the person coming to ask for advice.

3) People come more and more and listen to her advice and teachings. They believe to be in the presence of a living saint. There might even be some miracles that happen because of her. Finding lost livestock, healing of sickness, etc.

4) At one point a local noble or other person of import comes to her for prayer. He asks her to pray for forgiveness for him as he has killed his wife and buried her secretly. Overflowing in divine grace, she prays for his forgiveness, and becomes concerned for him.

5) A year later he comes to her again, and asks for the same thing. He had remarried and in a bout of jealous rage, killed his wife again. Again, she forgives, but is concerned and asks him to change his ways.

6) A year after that, the same thing happens again. He got married again, but oops, he got angry again and killed another wife. “Please pray for my forgiveness.” But this time she refuses. The lord will not forgive the unrepentant. He must first change his ways.

7) A young woman comes to her, asking her to pray a blessing over her upcoming marriage. It is with the local noble. The Anchorage warns her not to do it, that he is not a good man, but has evil in his heart. The young woman takes the advice to heart and breaks off the engagement. She is never seen again.

8) The local noble, furious about the Anchorage, starts spreading lies about her. That she’s a witch, and that her visions and miracles are witchcraft, given to her by the devil himself. He starts spreading rumors that he’s seen her talking to a snake. That she’s in her cell naked. That at the night of the full moon she escapes in the form of a bat to go dance naked in the moonlight in a witches cabal.

9) People start doubting her, and many things that would be normal are seen as suspicious now. The food is dwindling, people start spreading rumors, exaggerating former rumors, etc. In the end, they brick up even her windows and let her starve to death.

10) Recently, a big crash was heard, and the sealed door has burst open. Her ghostly appearance has been seen, taking vengeance upon the people, sometimes accompanied by the ghosts of the killed wives. The target? The noble and his household specifically, and the town in general.

You could start at the end and have a ghost-haunted town to have an adventure in, but you could also use this as an impending doom, starting from the top, kind of like Dungeon World and its fronts.