Non-supernatural horror

[The Shaman]

*snip*

What you're describing is, right now, in this world, science fiction - it may not be strictly supernatural, but it is, at best, tenuously natural. Weird science which may or may not be possible in fifty or a hundred or ten thousand years don't really match up with the sort of mundane, plausible horrors one might find in a world more like our own than not.

War.

The encounter I referred to earlier, the one that gives me the willies thinking about it? It's a group of mercenaries returning from the Thirty Years War.

I distilled the horrors of the war into these men, made them physical embodiments of the depravity.

They call themselves The Dead (Les Morts).

I was inspired by the lyric, "No-one move a muscle as the dead come home," from Shriekback's "Nemesis."

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Coldwyn:
The iGuyver also allows time travell to freak out guys in the stone age.

Ha! (Though I think they'd call it the MacGuyver...)

 

[Umbran]

We now know that- assuming the stories of their existence are true- it's really just a case of sophisticated and unsuspected pharmacology.

Um, no.

Wade Davis wrote a couple of books over 20 years ago, asserting that there is a pharmacological explanation. That explanation has never been suitably verified by others, and Davis' conclusions have been questioned by the pharmacological community.

So, I don't think we "know" that if they existed they were pharmacologically induced. We have one story that some find plausible - that isn't knowledge. Belief in an unproven science-based story is not much better than belief in the supernatural explanation.

That being said, the movie was still kinda fun.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What you're describing is, right now, in this world, science fiction - it may not be strictly supernatural, but it is, at best, tenuously natural. Weird science which may or may not be possible in fifty or a hundred or ten thousand years don't really match up with the sort of mundane, plausible horrors one might find in a world more like our own than not.

Again, it depends upon precisely which aspect of my post you're talking about. Hatian Zombie-creating techniques are hundreds of years old, zombie androids are a possible future tech that may never be realized...or even possible.

In between lie things like using parasites, diseases or other drugs to create zombies. For all we know, those could be the tech of later on this afternoon.

A viable mutation is just mother nature at work. 99.9%+ fail, but those that do survive, thrive. And with man mucking about in the process- intentionally and carelessly- who knows which way those odds have shifted.

Animal-men fall under that umbrella. Some scientists theorize that, had it not been for an extinction level event or two, Earth would be dominated by sentient bipedal reptillians between 4-7' in height. Assuming an isolated and untouched environment with sufficient resources- a cave system, an island, whatever- some animal population may just have had enough protection to evolve parallel to us. Highly improbable, yes, but not violative of any natural law...actually, merely an application of known science.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Um, no. <snip good points>

Well, I'm pretty sure it wasn't magic!

That being said, the movie was still kinda fun

Except for the nail through the scrotum scene- still one of the scariest scenes I've ever seen on the screen!

Oh yeah, lets add THAT to the list of non-supernatural horror: the threat of bodily mutailtion, esp. of one's Joy Department.

 

[Tonguez]

Anyway this discussion of lobotomized zombi - which in a real world twist gives us the zombi-like lobotomized mental patient - got me thinking about the Apathetics from the movie Zardoz which led to the possibility of eternals (or Psychics) as horror antagonist.

so
- Lobotomized mental patient zombi
- Humans with latent pyschic powers (Carrie)
- Dinosaurs

(yeah I threw in Dinosaurs too, they are real world animals so fit a mundane description, a velociraptor may have survived somewhere)

 

[karlindel]

I think whether or not some scientific horrors count depends on whether you focus on the term "non-supernatural" or "mundane" in the OP. Animal men (and the like) created by science, mutation, etc. are non-supernatural, but I would not consider them mundane.

Of course, what counts as mundane will depend on the setting. In a space opera setting, aliens might be considered mundane, although they likely would not be in a modern setting.

I think most of the things that I have used have already been mentioned. The real key to horror is getting into the right mood. If the players don't let themselves get into the mood, then there is no horror.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The real key to horror is getting into the right mood. If the players don't let themselves get into the mood, then there is no horror.

Amen!

 

[Job]

Hello TS,

I cheated and looked in the book "Nightmares of Mine" by Ken Hite for a couple of additional ideas. Here are a couple of items (non-supernatural) that resonated with me:

1. The grotesque - maimings, mutations, deformities, and even birthmarks... The grotesque can also show up in twisted trees, stunted animals, or other signs of unnatural decay.

2. The Bad Place - the geographic focus of evil... things tend toward abnormality--doors shut for no reason, trees move without wind, mysterious sights and sounds [and shadows - my addition] lurk at the corners of the eye... the haunted house, the cemetary, the dark woods...

3. The Omen - horror never comes without a warning; the whippoorwills chirping at the lake, the raven cawing overhead, the gypsy prophesy, the sound of wolves baying at the moon...

I develop horror in my games by constantly hinting at the inevitable coming of some unstoppable aberration. It's coming and the players must believe that they can only delay it, not stop it. As mentioned by someone above, war, IMO, can be the ultimate horror.

J.