(10/07) A Dark and Restless Tide - (A D20 Dark*Matter Story Hour)

HeapThaumaturgist · Mar 23, 2004

Static in the Key of E ...

It was cold. So cold. The smoke made it hard to breathe. Sam coughed and shook his head. Hot. It had to be hot, because the kitchen was on fire. And the dining room. He felt so cold, though, and it was too hard to move from the floor.

“It will pass …”

The voice was a vibration just behind his eyes. It made him want to sneeze, or scream, or both.

“They are moving toward the back of the house.”

This voice was separate. Was it himself? No. Movement by a window. Dark. Dark clothes. A hat.
Something moved across his neck, cradling, supporting. It was cold … or maybe hot? Firm. Hard. Metallic. A long, flexible, metal finger. Then another. And one more, moving along the base of his skull. No. In. Pulling out. There was no pain, but the impossibility and discomfort of it made him cry out. It was pulling out of his brain, out of his skull, out of his body with a sick slerking sound.

“You. Drive.”

The other man in the room walked towards him, pulled him to his feet.

“Yes.” Sam said. He wasn't sure why, but the man was right. They must escape. He reached in his pocket and fished his car keys out.

The sickness was gone, the weakness, the fever. For the first time in a week he felt fine. He was strong. And it was hot. The room was on fire.

Eyas · Mar 23, 2004

<rushes in to find a seat as the show starts>Yay! This promisies to be good

Mark Causey · Mar 24, 2004

Well, seeing as I basically inspired my GM to start a modern Spycraft/Cthulhu campaign here in Raleigh because of OldDrewID's d20 Medallions, and now we got a Dark*Matter game going on here, I'm kinda scared to be living here @_@

Nahh, the stories are just getting started! Bring it on!

HeapThaumaturgist · Mar 24, 2004

adamantineangel said:
Well, seeing as I basically inspired my GM to start a modern Spycraft/Cthulhu campaign here in Raleigh because of OldDrewID's d20 Medallions, and now we got a Dark*Matter game going on here, I'm kinda scared to be living here @_@

Nahh, the stories are just getting started! Bring it on!

Very odd.

I've been using the North Carolina "area" for my D20 Modern games because I've been up there a few times and my players haven't. I vacation in the Maggie Valley area from time to time. Of course I've got things all changed around, have grown the area in some ways to fit in things I need.

The area is ripe with mountainous rural areas where you could hide all kinds of interesting horrors.

"Static in the Key of E" is set in Chapel Hill, nominally. Some of it is real, some not ... as much as I can pull from web pages and maps, anyway.

Hope you're not too disappointed with what I do to your home town.

--fje

jonrog1 · Mar 24, 2004

Hmm, and Jo from our Dark*Matter game is from North Carolina ... what is it about that state?

Mark Causey · Mar 24, 2004

HeapThaumaturgist said:
Hope you're not too disappointed with what I do to your home town.

Like I said, bring it on

Raleigh needs some remodeling...

If you need anything from a local, just gimme a nudge!

dragoonm · Mar 25, 2004

adamantineangel said:
Like I said, bring it on Raleigh needs some remodeling...

If you need anything from a local, just gimme a nudge!

As another local of Raleigh, will be glad to help with area info as well.

Mike

ledded · Mar 29, 2004

Wow man, glad you're back on the boards with a new SH.

Talk about hitting the ground running... love what you've hit the gates with so far.

And it's not just North Carolina, I think the South in general is in love with a lot of the creepy stuff; the area we are in is just ripe with ghost stories and legends going way back. We grew up on spooky stories and strange wives tales from the rural areas.

As a quick tangent, here is one of my little known favorites that even predates the influx of europeans: in Birmingham, there is a large area which encompasses quite a bit of the town immediately south of downtown called Shades Valley; it's a large valley between 2 small mountain ranges.

The name comes from an old Muskogee word (that's Creek indian to ya'll who ain't in the know

) that originally means 'Shades of Death Valley' or 'Valley of the Shades'. You see, the original inhabitants believed the entire area where several thousand people live now was haunted with the ghosts of the dead, particularly those who died in violent incidents or horrible accidents. Alabama is literally covered in areas with remains of several tribes and tons of archeological sites abound in most every town, especially near creeks and rivers. But one of the larger rivers in the state runs through this area and there are almost no archeological evidence of there ever being very much permanent habitation in the area.

Sorry for the hijack

HeapThaumaturgist · Mar 29, 2004

ledded said:
Wow man, glad you're back on the boards with a new SH.

...

The name comes from an old Muskogee word (that's Creek indian to ya'll who ain't in the know ) that originally means 'Shades of Death Valley' or 'Valley of the Shades'.

...

Sorry for the hijack

Interesting. I'm not all that familiar with the northern part of the state, since I'm from L.A. down by the Florida panhandle and we lived in Wisconsin before that.

What's even more interesting is that I'm about 1/4 Muskogee. My grandmother was full blooded. I've got few racial features, though, other than my size (6'8" in my socks). A great grandfather of mine (Muskogee) was apparently 7' +. I'm also about 1/6 Cherokee, on my dad's side.

I've been looking around for an interesting ghost story from my people to include in the tale somewhere. Mwa ha ha ha.

On another note, I appologize for the wait, I was hoping to play a session a week ago but three of my players live together and have various things that have kept them from being able to attend. This next friday I'll hopefully have three of the (six) players together and we'll play an interlude ... something high-octane to get them into the mechanics of the system as much as the intrigue of the setting.

Looking forward to a good story-hour.

--fje

ledded · Mar 29, 2004

HeapThaumaturgist said:
Interesting. I'm not all that familiar with the northern part of the state, since I'm from L.A. down by the Florida panhandle and we lived in Wisconsin before that.

Down by the Redneck Riviera

HeapThaumaturgist said:
What's even more interesting is that I'm about 1/4 Muskogee. My grandmother was full blooded. I've got few racial features, though, other than my size (6'8" in my socks). A great grandfather of mine (Muskogee) was apparently 7' +. I'm also about 1/6 Cherokee, on my dad's side.

I'm 1/8 Muskogee myself, and grew up mostly around the Talladega area (where almost every river, creek, mountain, town, etc has an indian name). I don't have the height though. I do remember reading before about this phenomena... the indian chief Tuscaloosa (namesake of the city) was rumored to be extremely tall, so tall that his feet drug the ground when riding a horse given to him by european settlers.

HeapThaumaturgist said:
I've been looking around for an interesting ghost story from my people to include in the tale somewhere. Mwa ha ha ha.

<snip>

I've got some various sources and stuff from books, plus some really cool stories told to me by my grandmother, though those are local legend kinda stuff from my area. I'd be happy to email you some if you'd like.

For a good game example, stay tuned to the current Medallions Story hour episode... there are some nice cherokee legend tie-ins with the current episode being written.