Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Gothic Horror => Topic started by: tikitang on November 02, 2021, 10:00:45 PM
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INTRODUCTION!
As part of a two-decade long exploration into weird and gothic fiction, I've lately been reading a lot of Welsh mystic Arthur Machen (http://"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Machen").
(https://mikeduran.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/arthur-machen.jpg)
Arthur Machen (1863-1947)
In particular I have been enjoying what are sometimes called the Dyson Chronicles, a small collection of short stories from the 1890s where the "hero", Mr. Dyson -- an independently wealthy flâneur, amateur writer, and even more amateur detective -- "psychogeographically" intuits his way through the streets of London (and occassionally rural Wales), "solving" occult mysteries of sinister suggestion.
These are seminal late-Victorian weird tales which went on to influence several authors in later decades, including H.P. Lovecraft and especially Robert E. Howard, who wrote a good number of his own horror tales directly inspired by certain components of Dyson's adventures.
Three of the Dyson Chronicles (namely: The Shining Pyramid, The Red Hand and The Novel of the Black Seal) address one of Machen's favourite themes of rural folklore and questionable 19th century ethnology: the so-called "Little People" -- supposed pre-Celtic inhabitants of Britain, "Turanians", who have since those ancient times biologically degenerated into stunted, semi-reptilian, goblin-esque creatures -- the supposed real-world source behind legends of fairies, elves and similar beings of Northern European myth.
In The Shining Pyramid, Dyson and his old friend Vaughan search the wilds of the English/Welsh border in search of a missing girl. What they discover is rather horrifying, but what is more so is their lack of attempt to do anything about it.
This project is my attempt to 'game' the story, to try and achieve the outcome that should have been sought by the protagonists!
THE PROJECT!
The basic premise of the project is this:
Victorian gentlemen will travel to 1890s rural Wales to search for a missing girl. They will discover she has been captured and is being prepared for ritual sacrifice by a horde of 'Little People' (or as Robert E. Howard called them: 'Children of the Night', 'Worms of the Earth' and 'People of the Dark').
As with any wargaming project, rules, scenery and miniatures are required.
For rules, I plan to use what has become my favourite set of skirmish rules: FUTURESHOCK! While originally designed for apocalyptic gang wars in a dystopian near future setting, Futureshock can easily be adapted to more or less anything, especially thanks to the ongoing supplements which have added a host of extra content. For scenery, I already have some generic rural terrain which I originally purchased for use in The Silver Bayonet, but which would work perfectly well for this setting.
But what about the miniatures? Last week I discovered Highgate Miniatures (https://highgateminiatures.blogspot.com/) and I fell in love with these ones in particular, known as Gentlemen Adventurers:
(https://static.wixstatic.com/media/b42229_e7029cbeb44b4313b5996793b471458b~mv2.jpeg)
The obvious choice for The Little People was Conquest Games (https://www.conquest-games.co.uk/) 'Svartalfar' from the Myths of Albion range:
(https://conquestgames.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/109-svartalfar.jpg)
Finally, for the captured girl, I couldn't think of anything better than Pulp Figures' Cringing Captives (https://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=7132):
(https://www.northstarfigures.com/images/2/img7132.jpg)
So there you have it. I will update this thread when I have more to show, and hopefully, eventually, I'll get some games underway and share the results!
In the meantime, you should all read some Machen, if you haven't already!
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I’m completely unfamiliar with Machen’s work, but the ideas for the game seem very well thought out and achievable. I’ll be very interested to see updates!
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Cobbling together an original game and setting from various sources is something I love myself, so I'm definitely on board to watch this develop. 8)
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Arthur Machen is one of my favourite authors,The Great God Pan* a favourite novella,which be watching this,sounds very cool :)
*Lucky to own the old Chaosium reprints.
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This looks like a splendid well thought out plan. I am really looking forward to seeing more of this. I think I have a Machen book somewhere, I'm going to have a look for it now! :-* :-*
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Sounds like great fun and quite imaginative. Look forward to updates.
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This is very interesting. I live just up and the next valley over from the village Machen and not far from Caerleon South Wales where he was born. The woods here are dark and steep (I’m an ex-forester and tree surgeon so spent a fair bit of time in them) and I could easily believe the land inspired such tales. You can see why the Romans didn’t ever want to descend into them and moved about and built their forts on the tops of hills and ridge lines (I know that’s common sense for a fort) as you get the idea that at that time if you went down into the steep, narrow, heavily wooded little valleys you might not come back.
I love the little people miniatures - suitably menacing. I’d also propose Copplestone Castings 18mm Picts for the Barbarically Fantasy line as I believe they would be a suitable size.
Can’t wait to see your progress (it’s got me thinking about all those sets of Advanced Heroquest dungeons I have hoarded).
BALM
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Well, it's taken me a while, but I have made some progress!
I now have the "objective marker" painted up -- the sacrificial victim of The Little People:
(https://i.ibb.co/VWG9Jfj/machen-victim-front.jpg)
(https://i.ibb.co/fnyKW47/machen-victim-rear.jpg)
It will be the job of the Victorian Gentlemen to rescue this poor lass from a fate worse than death...
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This sounds a fascinating project, I look forward to seeing more.
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More you shall have, though due to extremely limited painting time, it will be coming in dribs and drabs.
I've painted up the first of the Little People horde:
(https://i.ibb.co/5Rz6wZq/little-person.jpg)
(https://i.ibb.co/WcB5rNy/little-person-and-victim.jpg)
Machen doesn't go into great detail about the appearance of the Little People, as they are barely seen by his protagonists (only in the vaguest sense). He does drop some hints, but not much.
Robert E. Howard, on the other hand, goes into great detail in his own stories, The Little People, The Children of the Night, Worms of the Earth and People of the Dark -- all of which are directly inspired by Machen's own tales. It is mostly from these tales on which I based the colour scheme.
It was a man of a sort, but so low in the stage of life that its distorted humanness was more horrible than its bestiality.
...a square inhuman face with flabby writhing lips that bared yellow fangs, flat spreading nostrils and great yellow slant eyes. I knew the creature must be able to see in the dark as well as a cat. Centuries of skulking in dim caverns had lent the race terrible and inhuman attributes. But the most repellent feature was its skin: scaly, yellow and mottled, like the hide of a serpent. A loincloth made of a real snake's skin girt its lean loins, and its taloned hands gripped a short stone-tipped spear...
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Hmm … if the jaw was a bit bigger on those little guys …
(https://c.tenor.com/nRQqtpaCO90AAAAC/gary-busey.gif)
Dan
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Looking good so far! That yellow works really well for the Howard description. It's kind of a classic pulp/S&S trope, isn't it - mammalian creatures that are somehow reptilian. Moorcock echoes it with the Olab in Sailor on the Seas of Fate.
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Looking good so far! That yellow works really well for the Howard description.
Thank you.
It's kind of a classic pulp/S&S trope, isn't it - mammalian creatures that are somehow reptilian.
In Machen's The Novel of the Black Seal (https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0601861h.html) (which is a part of the greater narrative The Three Imposters), he says the Little People possess the means (whether magical or by some kind of primitive science, it's not entirely clear) to take on reptilian traits:
Never since then have I written those words; never will I write the phrases which tell how man can be reduced to the slime from which he came, and be forced to put on the flesh of the reptile and the snake.
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Loving it! Great concept.
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An update, but sadly no new painted miniatures to show, as I've been rather busy working on other projects (at my usual woefully glacial pace, thanks to not being able to paint, ever, except during coffee breaks while at work).
This is just to say that, while this project was almost at the point of quiet abandonment (as the idea of forcing different rulesets to work in a way they weren't really designed to was becoming mentally burdensome to me) I have now decided to resurrect it, not as a dungeon crawl, but as a skirmish wargame, using what has now become my favourite ruleset, FUTURESHOCK!
Originally conceived as an apocalyptic gang war game set in a dystopian future, Futureshock is both incredibly simple and incredibly versatile. As such, I'm going to use it to play a skirmish battle where the Victorian gentlemen will try to rescue the captured girl from Machen's The Shining Pyramid, and face off against a horde of 'Little People' in the open countryside instead of the cramped tunnels of an underground cave system, as I had originally imagined.
As I'm still working on other projects, it may be a while before I have a more noteworthy update than this, but I wanted to put this change of plan on the record before too long!
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Best of luck with that, any plan is better than no plan at all. And that's a drag about your painting situation I like to paint at night when it's all quiet. It relaxes me. Looking forward to seeing where you go with this but I like the general idea.
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Excellent start . I love Machen and his stories. We visited Carleon and his birthplace in a holiday a fee years ago. As some of the commenters suggested: there are probably still little people around :)
Copplestone Picts (15mm) are what I imagined them, but your vision of them is also cool. Love the skintone!
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I am starting to regret not going for the Copplestone Picts!
I might have to grab some and see how they compare.
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I got the futue shock rules after reading this , wonderful great set of simple rules, thank you and hope to see a game from you soon.
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O.M.F.G. I ALMOST SPIT MY TEA ON MY SCREEN... what are these...gary-loks or mor-buseys or perhaps hob-garys...what about busey-men or harvest-garys
(https://c.tenor.com/nRQqtpaCO90AAAAC/gary-busey.gif)
Dan
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Did you ever get any further with this Tikitang? Between this thread, this older one from Bullshott (https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=61997.msg743768#msg743768) and my childhood love of Alan Garner books I'm contemplating a similar sort of project...
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Thanks for your interest, but alas not!
This turned out to be just another of many failed projects I've found myself unable to fully realise.
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many failed projects I've found myself unable to fully realise.
I think that's part of being a wargamer! Got a fair number of those myself...
Thanks for the response anyway :)