課件成果coc模組短小call of cthulhu film noir setting niteside dreams

1、A Film Noir Setting For Call Of CthulhuItwastwothirtyinthemorning,and tworaining. IntheCityit wasalwaysthirty in the morning and raining.Kim,TheNightMayorContents1.Mean Streets - Establishing the Background2.Hard Boiled - Old and New Carreers for Investigators.3.Shots in the Night - Notes on Violenc

2、e4.More Things That Are Dreamt Of - Mythos and Non-Mythos Magic5.Headshots - a few NPCs6.Filing Cabinet - some Adventure Ideas7.Dealer's Choiche - Optional approaches and miscellaneous notes8.Slang - a thorough Dictionary of Hard Boiled Slang9.The Rap - Bibliography, Suggested Readings, Inspirat

3、ional Movies and MusicAWordofExplanationThis is an unofficial, alternate setting for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu RPG.It somehow strips off part of Lovecraft's supernatural horror from the proceedingsand replaces it with the style and mood of film noir and hard-boiled stories. A liberal dash o

4、f weird-menace flavour was added to season the whole.The actual work on niteside dreams (a title inspired byFrank Bellknap Lonemoir of his friendship withlovecraft "HPL, A Dreamer on the Nightside") started aftera highly constructive discussion (as usual) on the Strange Aeons mailing list,

5、 about the possibility of mixing gamesystems and setting one-shot games in the universe portrayed in the movie "Cast a Deadly Spell": fast, sharp, horrific and yet tongue-in-cheek. One thing led to another and we started typing. Soon, matters such as the development of a sound set of alter

6、nate rules gave way to extensive discussion on the background setting.The overall results should not displease estimators of theProvidence Gentleman's opus, as film noir sensibility was not far from his overall worldview.But sure, with the addition of a dry, hard-boiled sense of humour and the t

7、wists of a magically changed reality, it makes for a different adventure atmosphere.For starters, we decided to develop niteside dreams as aquick-and-dirty plug-in kind of thing, so that anyone owning a copy of the Call of Cthulhu rulesbook and a few other easy to get and inexpensive essentials can

8、start and play and have fun (hopefully). A lenghtier and more detailed version soon surfaced through discussion, thanks to the many suggestionsthat were made about the setting in particular.For the time being, this pages will feature the complete set ofCall of Cthulhu adaptations and background info

9、rmation on the game world we developed from the original core of notes.Time permitting, we plan to add a full lenght, stand-alone version of this game andsetting, using The Window, a high quality, freely distributed, free-form game system, as our engine of choice.Most probably, many will find this s

10、etting ideal for non-canonical one-offs (and we strongly recommend it for the April Fool's Night Game, or for something different on Halloween's Night), while we hope that a few others mightfeel like giving a try to a longer, more articulate campaign play.Simple things can breed terror. A lo

11、nely road, a cloud masking the moon, the cry of a cat, or the eyes of a bent old man. meaningless things, but sometimes charged with weird menace.Hugh B. Cave, Modern Neroniteside dreams takes place in a post-war, 1940s/1950s parallel world in which magic is a commonplacepractice, existing side by s

12、ide with science and technology, and commanding a similar status.Here we will define the basic traits of this world, that serve as a background for the adventures, wherethey deviate more drastically from the '40s-'50s we know; this is followed by a few practical tricks to help said backgroun

13、d come alive.Magic &OriginsSocietyMagic has always been an elemet of human culture, from the most ancient sciamanic rituals performed bycavep to the fringe magic pratictioners surviving the in the superstitious shadows of the Illuministrevolution.Magic became better-known in the late 1800's

14、as enlightened students of the occult began tosistematically study esoteric tomes and form Occult circles and Societies. From dark practice to quaint entertainment to serious scholarly pursuit, the field evolved through the romanthic nineteenth century, to emerge as an established set of facts and p

15、ractices at the dawn of the new century.By 1920 a populist magic revival was under way, spurred on by organisations such as the Golden Dawn,the Freemasons, etc.Reaction to the Great War and the horrendous waste of life probably made humathe orthodox Church, which denounced magic as a tool of the Dev

16、il.less inclined to trustReligious schisms, sects, cults and suchlike flourished in the 1920 - 1940 period, whilst the power of theChurch (and other orthodox religions such as Islam, Bhuddism) was slowly but greatly eroded.Things reached a balance when the Catholic Church relented in its attack agai

17、nst magic. Currently thereare still quite a few excomunicated spells (all the necromancy ones, to start with), while the Church accepts and even tacitally support things like healing spells and the like. A radical Christian sect centered in the Salem area still opposes any form of magic as the work

18、of the Devil - and a few other groups of thiskind exist in the world. A magic-orientedbranch of the Church is also active, commonly knownas "The Church of Our Lord Spellcaster". Finally, magic-based pagan religions are much morewidespread and influential than they used to be - you can'

19、t call them "ignorant natives" anymore, after all.In everyday life a 50-50 mix of old-school Christians (chiefly older people) and new-age believers(children of the Bright Young Things era) who embraced the new ways had to learn to cohexist and face the future.And those surviving 1920'

20、s characters can sit around and talk about the good old days when you rarely saw a spell, nowadays you have to be careful who you shout at in case you get cursed for real, it was much simpler when an Elder Sign and a .45 was all you needed.The War YearsIt was logical to assume that some kind of magi

21、c application would be devised during the war years, firstin Britain (to face the onslaught of the Axis forces) and later in the United States.Detection magic can be used as a quickly deployed and often more precise substitute for radar. Also, youcan equip aircraft with precision targetting systems

22、by simply putting a medium on board.Similar applications of simpe magical effects were used during the war in place of mine detectors, toenhance the nightsight ability of snipers, and for many small scale support activities.For all practical purposes, the mundane/magic alternative currently dominati

23、ng the '40s society was firstestablished and became a standard through the wartime.But it was as thesoured that the magical heavyweights entered the field.Nazis were evil.So their magic was the worst possible in terms of morals and style, and was finally deployed as on the Eastern front in the f

24、ace of relentless Russian opposition: vast undead armies, powered by mass human sacrifices (a.k.a. Final Solution) that were fully known and comprehended only after the end of the.In the last few years mighty stranges have been told by some veterans, tales that would have the Naziparty backed by som

25、e Great Evil Entity, and the highest ranks of the Regime as sort of priests of someunnamable cult. No proof has so far emerged to support these stories.The mass destruction Unique Deadly Spell used to end the war by smithing the Japanese cities ofHiroshima and Nagasaki, and later became the "De

26、terrent" instrumental in mantaining the Balance of Power finally showed that the Allies could play the same game of the Axis, if for higher moral reasons (?)Moral alibis apart, something is weighting heavily on the conscience of a nation.The use of magic made by the Nazis and against the Japane

27、se targets left a black stain on the popularityof spellcasting. Necromancy and Dead magic, already seen by many as against morals, were fully rejected by all the major western nations. Due to the high strategic importance of some magical practices, however, the citizens of the two Power Blocks are c

28、urrently subject to a heavy campaign to rehestablish magic as a friendly, positive force.NowNow, in 1940s, man places his faith in a mix of science and sorcery. Since magic has only becomepopular in the last 20 years there are no established magical marketplaces being exploited by big business (othe

29、r than those markets such as zombies exploited by organised crime figures who needed a new source of income). Charlatans are many, miracles are still big news, every businessman wants an edge over his competitors and the law of supply and demand means that there are plenty of mugs out there to be fl

30、eeced. Real sorcerors are most respected by those in the know, and it still holds true that 'it is not whatyouknow it is who you know'.Industry is getting back to peace-time production after many years of war effort, and a few interestingsolutions are being dreamed up by enterprising tycoons

31、.Industries mass-producing cheap, short-lived, one shot magical gadgents are a new, fresh field ofemployment and money-making. Imagine long benches with people sitting and "imprinting" with a few magic points an amulet after the other.The expenditure of magic points leaves the workers exau

32、sted but otherwise undamaged. They'll only needto sleep and recuperate. And is a perfect reason for the deserted city streets at night (a classical noir cliche'). Cue to huge dormitory districts in the suburbs, and soul-less masses like those seen in "Metropolis".The industrial pro

33、cess also has another side: if zombies make great bodyguards, how do they performwhen it comes to line-production? Unless you need a very delicate manipulation (zombies being clumsy), a factory full of undead is the best you could wish: no vacations, no unions, no problems with overtime.You can now

34、also imagine a zombie import racket - the advantages over illegal immigrants are obvious.So: humans working in magical-manifacturing factories, and zombies working on mundane production lines.But there are some obstacles in the way of this dream-image.The Governments of many nations had to face a su

35、dden surge of magical practices, creating new laws andnew Departments deling with the growing field of magical crimes and misdemeanors - even if the field grew much faster than the legislator's attempts to handle it, and much of what they know about it all was hype.First attempts were generally

36、botched and inefective at best: the Magical Restriction Act of '21 simply meant that a lot of people made a lot of money selling not only bootlegger booze but also and chiefly lucky charms and love potions during Prohibition. The Act was revoked in the early '30, but by that time a lot of th

37、e original bootleggers had emplyed part of their fat income to become virgins again, starting respected carreers in politics and in the stock exchage. As a result, a common set of laws for Magic is still long to come, and the many gray areas are being exploited by the crooked and the mean.The Zombie

38、 Question is a classical exhample.The reason why zombies are problematic is not that they may have rights -it's that it's necromantic practice. And a good number of people who might accept glowing lampposts and anti-aging amulets still object to shambling hordes of the walking dead. If there

39、 was one kind of magic that Congress would pass laws against, it would be necromancy. (And if there was one kind of magic that would turn into a thriving underground trade.)Developed, first world countries have strict laws against zombie creation(not to mention necromancy in general, & demonolog

40、y etc.) These laws are strictly enforced with severe penalties, which drives up the prices for the illegal trade, which would make it an attractive market for organized crime. This basically means lots of opportunities for corruption ofand government officials, too. Meanwhile, things are much more l

41、oose inthe underdeveloped third world countries. They may or may not have laws officially on the books to appease the developed nations, but such laws, if they exist, are much more loosely enforced. (Just bribe the right official.)Plans for the creations of a specifically trained Law Enforcement Age

42、ncy (Dead Enforcement Agency, orDEA) is underway, but is facing a serious oppositions from the high-ups in the ATF that have so far taken care of this side of the business.The situation, by the way, is handled in a totally different way by the Eastern Block: in a mandatorilymaterialistic country, go

43、od citizens can serve the party even after their death (however, there's no afterlife, right?).In the USSR we have finally a perfect home for our zombie workers.Heck, they might even send a zombie to the Moon, one of these days!And the classic Deighton line "I was shaded by two STASI zombie

44、s" assumes a totally different meaning.In the western world the employment of zombies other than by crime syndicates is certainly frownedupon - it smells either of Nazi revival (which is bad) or of Communism (which is worse - cue to MacCarthy-like investigations and witch-hunts). Even so, the o

45、ption is being explored by highly influential ( string-pulling) industries, limiting their use to a few factories, working zombies in nightshifts as an experimental evaluation of the resource.And the question of sentient undead - if any - rights is still open.Establishingthe BackgroundMake Your Own

46、Standard Noir City SettingNoir can be regarded as an urban genre, or even better an indoor genre. We will not explore here thereasons (economical? artistic?) thet led the pioneers of treto use chiefly urban interiors as a settingfor their movies, but will use this general attitude to better establis

47、h the setting mood in our games.Fist off, a few Standard City DistrictsThe Waterfront: docks and warehouses, shacks where night-guards spend their time reading sports-papers and listening to late-nite radio while the night rolls by.The place is wet, cold, foggy.A siren can cut the silence once in a

48、while.Dock-workers arrive early and sometimes stay late, wearing rough plaid or leather jackets in the cold or tank-tops in the heat, talking in grunts, wary of strangers. Anyone down on his luck and strong enough can join their ranks, but it will take time to join their tribe.town: small streets ru

49、nning at strange angles, filled with exposed merchandise that from the shops spills on the pavements. People arguing loud in foreign tongues, kids running and playing, beatyful and dangerous women in short "Suzy Wong" dresses walk by, while huge crates to and from laundries are loaded on o

50、ld lorries.At night, large areas are deserted.Behind closed doors, in clubs and restaurants, rich western thrillseekers will get more than what they bargained for.Women disappear in this place, never to be seen again. And anything can be found. For a price.The Business District: is where PIs will pr

51、obably have their offices, on sidestreets, with windows facing brickwalls. The streets are busy, cabs crowding them together with black big-shor limos.Not all the business carried out in this district is legit, of course. Somebodyowns a fair share of the Mayor, while the Chief of theis still availab

52、lefor cheap. Developers feud for land and influence, and for making more money. Sometimes someonejumps from one of the scy-scrapers.Sometimes somebody helps him doing it.On the Beach: a few idle rich prefer the sound of the sea to the whisper of money coupling in their safes, and wooden bungalows ar

53、e here to provide'em some distraction. The music is loud and popular, parties and barbeques frequent. Writers, and character actors live here, together with a few climbers looking for the right catch, and some of those guys that make a habit of sneaking in the back to take a look at the garbage.

54、 You never know where a string to pull can be found.Quality Street: this is where the rich and powerful come to pet their dogs and their wives, where local politicos keep their golfclubs and bottles. Each villa has a name, a gravelly path and an imposing door behind which lurks a butler that might n

55、ot be the murderer, not this time. Some of them have conservatories, pools, stables, depandances where the handyman lives with his wife.Few cars go along these streets, but when they do often it's fast, and following a none too straight path.The Suburbs: being the place where the working man liv

56、es, the suburbs are often deserted - as the majority is at work by day and fast asleep by night. A few kids playing stickball in the street during the day, maybe, a few shopkeepers standing on the doors of their shops, the occasional cab, but little else is seen on the streets. And by night the stre

57、ets are truly deserted and menacing. The only light comes from a few lampposts and the all-nite cafe where the workers on ther way to or from their shift stop for a donut and a cup of tar.Other Elements of StyleDampen the lights.Set every scene you can at night, and indoors.If you can't have a d

58、eserted street, fill it with a faceless crowd.Name-DroppingFoods: Coca-Cola, Campbell's, Kellogs, Nestlé, Kraft, Del MonteSmoking Items: Camel, Lucky Strike, Huptmann, Coronas Major, Gitanes, RonsonWeapons: Smith & Wesson, Colt, Remington, Purdie, Brochadt-Luger, Mauser, BodeoMagazines:

59、 Cosmopolitan, Vogue, National Geographic, Harper's Bazaar, The New Yorker, HouseBeautiful, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Astounding Stories, Reader's Digest, The Beano, Weird TalesWriting Implements: Parker, Aurora, Waterman, FabrianoToilet: Gilette, Aqua Vellv, Procter & Gamble White/Ivory Soap, Roger & Gallet, Jurgens Lotion,Noxzema, Prep, Avon, CoppertonePerfumes: My Sin, Shali