10 in Ten, Country Fried Edition

"Country fried, baptized in gravy
Can't wash off what the good Lord made ya
No matter how far that highway goes
An old dirt road'll get you home..."

So the Crew has left the confines of whatever city they call home and are out and about in the fresh invigorating air of the countryside. Or a paranoid schizophrenic Children of the Corn horror fest. Or if they are lucky, something in between. The American Wilderness has always presented Europeans with a feeling of dread. And Native Americans have a long history of cannibalism, Big Foots, and little men in the woods. And damn near every one of Grimm's fairy tales takes place deep in the woods. For a reason, the woods are a creepy place. Dark, full of vision blocking trees, and viscous man-eating beasts (some of who are actual beasts and some of which are men) and far from any civilized help, there is a reason the Greek god of the woods in Pan. As in an unreasoning fear that overtakes one in the woods, AKA panic. And for city folks, the long horizons and lack of people is off-putting. Combine all that with American Midwestern and Southern values and culture and you have more than a Run, you can have a game. And based upon rednblack's query over on the Shadowgrid forum boards, what the hell is happening out there in the tulies is a question for many GM's. So Mr. Black is back with a 10 in Ten on backwoods adventures, the Country Fried Edition...

1. So the local Sheriff has been going power hungry. Well not power so much as money hungry. Sheriffs are not elected any more, they are part of a corporate law enforcement contract, AKA Knight Errant/Lone Star/Hard Corps. And those contracts specify civil forfeiture as part and parcel of the Sheriffs job. And the Sheriff is bucking for promotion/trying to save his job/just following orders. But the locals have had enough. And the Williams family has been hard hit, with both their trucks being impounded just for parking in their front yard. Now they want the Crew to get back their trucks and take the Sheriff down a peg...
2. The Crew is going cross-country, when they stop in Shelbyville to repair and refuel. The local yokels notice all the keen gear the Crew is driving/carrying, and makes the Crew an offer: free fuel and repairs in exchange for playing ringers in the annual Urban Brawl/Combat Biker homecoming extravaganza against next door neighbor and heated rival Springfield.
3. Things have gotten hot down in the backwoods.

   

   Worth killing for? Mr. Black says, "Hell yes!"

   The Likkle Splick, a diner in Shelbyville, has been feuding with Springfield's own Nadine's Diner for years. This time some out-of-town media has claimed Nadine's red-eye gravy is the best, and them is fightin' words 'round here. So the Likkle Splick is hiring their own out-of-towners, the Crew, to get the recipe so they can break it down and adopt it to their own. The pay won't be the best, but the Crew can count on all the chicken-fried steak and garbage plates of real meat they can stuff down their craws.
4. Or perhaps something is off in Shelbyville. Like drugs. Who know the backwoods would make a great distribution center for a drug empire. And the locals don't take kindly to strangers, especially those going back to the big city (and federal levels of law enforcement.) And now they want the Crew to stick around, permanent-like. You can run the locals as a small gang or Mafia soldiers. Or they could be country boys with hunting rifles, sniping from rooftops and from behind trees.Of go full Fury Road-monster trucks flying the Stars and Bars and full of freaks with guns, flying out of the trees to cut off the Crew.
5. Of course, the above could go the other way.

   

   Were you expecting a Charger jumping a creek?

   A crew could pick up a little smuggling job to enrich their cross-country run. If they are successful, this could become regular work. It is up to the GM whether this sideline is just paperwork or a full nights work. Or maybe after a few "milk" runs, the sheriff comes in. He is, of course, in the pocket of another drug cartel. This could end up Justified (the criminal element, not the Marshals department), Season 4 Archer, or just maybe, full Dukes of Hazzard mode. Just like most runners, the Dukes..

   Been in trouble with the law,

   Since the day they was born...

6. Mr. Johnson needs a bodyguard detail. Perhaps it is the Draco Foundation or the Atlantean Group that is hiring. Or the University of Washington, the University of Chicago or Marshall College is doing the hiring. Or perhaps the PCC or the Sioux Nation is paying. Whoever it is, the Crew is wanted for an expedition into the Great North American Wilderness looking for a "lost tribe" said to be living upon especially magical land. You can play this up as a "pinkskin" tribe hiding out, ala Amazonian tribal people, or the Sentinelese. Basically take any movie about explorers going up river, and put in in North America. Think Apocalypse Now/The Emerald Forest.

   

   In the ruins of Old Detroit...

7. You could also slide the above run. Here Mr. Johnson is planning a jaunt into country for telesma. He needs the Crew to watch his back while he goes through some old growth areas. He is not too worried about rival corporations, rival telesma hunters, local constabulary or meta-flora/fauna. Nope, he informs the Crew, there is a much bigger danger out there. The remnants. Those who just stayed behind after civilization moved on. This is a much darker version of the above, with dread, lots of perception checks and jump scares. For flavor, try Southern Comfort/Deliverance, or you can go the whole The Hills Have Eyes/Cannibal Holocaust/House of 1000 Corpses/any Rob Zombie movie route. Or Mr. Black assumes Green Inferno...
8. Speaking of rural horror, the Crew could always pull up in a deserted small town. They need gas/electricity to keep going. But the pumps are dry/the power is off. They keep catching glimpses of movement. As you build the paranoia, darkness starts to fall. And then the locals come out. Maybe they're ghouls. Maybe they're vampires. Maybe they're cannibalistic clowns. Or maybe they are good old boys, out to make someone squeal...
9. Need more horror? What is Mr. Black saying, of course you do!* So the locals are scared. And eventually the Crew notices that there aren't a lot of kids about. Finally the locals muster up the courage to ask the Crew for help. Their kids are going missing. and just last week a brother and sister went into the woods and haven't been seen since.

   

   Yum, yum get me some...

   When the Crew goes out to the woods, they find something terrible. Bones, lots of kids bones. Is it a Wendigo? More cannibalistic clowns? Better yet, they find a house, deep in the woods. And it appears to be made of pastry. Specifically, gingerbread. Is the Crew in time to save the siblings from an insane mage/hag/Black Annis who is fattening them up?
10. Use the above as a template for converting any fairy tale/Disney cartoon into something dark in the hinterlands. "Please help me! My daughter left this morning to take food to her grandmother and hasn't returned!" "Please help us! The mayor's daughter has magical powers and has turned the whole town into ice!" "Help me! My daughter married last year and I haven't heard from her since. Why yes, her husband's beard is so black it appears blue in certain light." "Please help us! Our town is being terrorized by a huge dark lion and packs of hyenas! They have destroyed everything in the area and now are hunting us in our homes!" "Please help us! A strange man came into town, played a strange tune, and all of our children followed him out of town! Please save them!" "Please help me! My son won't leave the local lake. Why yes, it is full of mermaids and giant were-squids!" 
11. EXTRA BONUS!! Does number 10 not sound scary/fun/scary fun enough? Lets go through the examples. The first is Red Riding Hood. This is your chance to throw a metric buttload of werewolves at your players. Throw The Howling/The Village/Skinwalkers/Wild Country/Dog Soldiers into a blender and enjoy.And remember the An American Werewolf in London starts in the sticks...do you dare to run a game where one of the characters is bitten, returns to the big city and slowly transformed into a form-changing serial killer? Not a shapeshifter, but a missing-time, waking up in sheets covered in blood and crapping out body parts murderous wolfen cannibal? Look at AAWIL of course, but also The Wolf. And who could miss a chance to rip on Frozen? Throw that chick-flick stuff to the curb, and think teen-aged blood mage uncontrollably manifesting ice spells and summoning ice spirits. Does your Crew have the mojo and the magic to stop her? And do it before her even more powerful repressed sister shows up? The third is of course Bluebeard, a classic tale based on a real person who murdered hundreds of children and enacted months-long miracle plays to gain satanic wealth and power, and maybe the love of Joan of Arc. Yes, really. It is perhaps the primogenitor of castle/house/cabin in the woods where people go and don't come out. Need a hook? One of the character's Dependent's sister/aunt has gone missing. "Honey, I am really worried about my sister. Can you get your little band of friends to go and take a look?" The fourth is everyone's favorite, Hamlet..err, Simba the White Lion...err, The Lion King. What group of players can resist saving a small town from a pack of carnivores? And bring a little The Ghost and the Darkness to it, which is based again on reality(loosely, because, Hollywood), and a little The Brotherhood of the Wolf, which is also based on real events (loosely, because cool narrative/conspiracy trumps reality**). And read Peter Capstick's Death in the Long Grass, which has a chapter on wolf packs attacking entire Russian villages (and is one of Mr. Black's favorite books ever), or here, here, here, or here. And of course the Pied Piper of Hamelin is really a wizard/shaman using spells (or an Adept with social powers and a flute foci) to steal children (perhaps to sell to the hag of Hansel and Gretel?) for his own sick purposes. Being Shadowrun, he is extorting towns for cash and needs to be stopped. Hope the crew brought ear plugs. And lastly, Disney's Little Mermaid, in reverse. Mr. Black double dares you to fill a large lake with selkies, mermaids, sirens and/or merrows, along with krakens/werekrakens, and have Mr. Johnson hire your crew to exterminate them all to save local menfolk from the evil beasts. Mr. Black triple-dog dares you!

* As the great Kenneth Hite says, it is not if your campaign is a horror campaign, but when it becomes a horror campaign.
** Any movie based on real events that somehow combines secret history, conspiracy, Kung Fu, Native American badasses, super sexy French women and Monica Bellucci, wild crazy gypsies, flintlocks, a deadly monster, bits of Sherlock Holmes, and is filmed with bravura style and great cinematography is bound to be one of Mr. Black's favorites, and is consumed in a yearly viewing ritual.