John Carpenter may not be the first filmmaker that comes to mind as the creator of the dystopian future genre, but he came damned close. Films from his golden era set the tone for everything Shadowrun, including the addition of magic. Mr. Black will take you through 6 of his groundbreaking and iconic films, and illustrate what a GM can take from them and add to his or her game.
Spoilers ahead, let’s dig in, in chronological order: Last time we did Escape from New York. This time we cover The Thing. So buckle in, check your flamethrower fuel, and let’s visit a classic.
Let’s start with the setting. A science base at the bottom of the world. In true horror style, it is isolated, and cut off from the world. It is a harsh, deadly environment, with no place to go, and there is no place to escape from what is about to happen. Let’s put it this way: DocWagon ain’t showing up to save anyone anytime soon.
No one is showing up anytime soon..
Sounds like a great place for a Big Ten Corp to set up a research station that they don’t want anyone to interfere with. And you can use this in your game. Pick a place close enough for the Crew to get there, but far enough away that help can’t show up. Choose a place isolated from civilization, and all its support*. No Matrix, no hospital, no police, no contacts coming to rescue them. The gear they have fits in the single carryon they could bring with them. The small Cessna C753 seaplane that brought them in has left.
No one is showing up here either... The fuel cells on the YNT Delfins that transported them are dry. The sled dogs can’t be trusted. Cut them off. This is smarts over warez time.
The key horror of The Thing is body horror. This is the complete loss of control of our very physical being, and that control given to an uncaring alien force with the the ability to warp our human frame to its desires. Body horror is right up Shadowrun’s wheelhouse. Between uncaring corporations doing vile experiments, the inhumanity of cyberware, the attack on metahumanity by shape shifting AI’s and spirits, and the possession capabilities of some of them, body horror is at the base of Shadowrun’s burgeoning transhumanity. Use it!
I am still a man! Please put the improved flamethrower away! Use words that cause unease in your audience. Words like moist, crevice, orifice, secrete, and squirt. Remember, you cannot gross out the characters at your table, only your players. Use language that makes them cringe. If you are lucky, they will translate their emotional distress to their characters via roleplaying.
Moist, secreting orifices, coming right at you... Invest in that unease. It is hard, but with a little work, and maybe some time with a thesaurus, it can be done. Channel those scenes where the creature possesses people, and warps itself. Describe all the inhuman details to your players. Never give them generalities. Don’t say, “The scientist’ head falls off, legs appear and it walks away.” Compare that with, “Paul’s head suddenly crooks to the side, at an unnatural angle. His mouth opens, and a high pitched sound comes from it. Then the head, Paul’s head, slides down his lab coat. You can hear bones crack, and cartilage pop. His neck stretches and parts, like a candy bar of caramel and nougat, stringy and moist, but red like blood. Long thin moist tendrils extend from Paul’s neck, whipping around with an inhuman intelligence. Paul’s lab coat is smeared with a bubbly pink mucus, as the last strands of his neck give way, and his head hits the floor with a wet plop. Thin crab-like legs extend from the orifices of Paul’s head, and it scurries off, towards the one way out of this room…”
Hi! My name is Paul’s head... Note how I kept mentioning “Paul’s” head. This is an example of using proper nouns to create immersion. By using his name, we are emphasizing his humanity, even as it is brutally taken from him. You need to make the NPC’s human to the players. No one cares when nameless mooks die. Kill 1, kill 100, they are just fodder and statistics. You need your players to empathize with the NPC’s before you kill them. Give them names. Give them traits. Give them hopes and dreams. After all, if Paul, the microbiologist with a girlfriend back in Seattle, who kindly shared his sesame krill treats with Blue Dawg the soy-allergic Troll decker can be possessed, by this thing, then no one is safe…
One of us is going to betray you. Can you guess which one? This use of proper nouns also aids creating paranoia. If you have 10 nameless faceless mooks and Paul, not only is it easy to guess who the thing is, but there is no tension when mooks betray you. Because only people you trust can betray you, and it awfully hard to trust “nameless person in a lab coat #2”. So spend some time with them. Think about Alien. We get to know them all quite well before the horror starts. Mr. Black is willing to bet that most of you can name the cat in Alien right now...
SAY MY NAME YOU WORTHLESS GUTTER BUNNY! And if we are giving names to the NPC’s, the thing does NOT get one. This Trideography is called The Thing for a reason. Because as soon as you name it, you give the players power over it. If you call it a Wendigo, or a Black Annis, your players will know they can kill it, and how. And then all the paranoia and fear you have worked so hard to create is gone, just like that. Even if the thing IS a shedem or an insect spirit, never confirm it to the players. When their characters suggest it, have the NPC’s deny it. “So you're saying a undead-like spirit creature from another dimension is possessing them? That’s crazy talk! How does that even work? I mean I am a professor of Advanced Thaumaturgy and Metamagicks, and it just doesn’t work that way!”
I am a professor of Advanced Thaumaturgy,
University of Washington State! I am perfectly fine!The Thing, in Shadowrun terms, is a textbook example of insect spirit possession. An alien, non-human entity, takes over people, and warps their bodies and very souls to its non-mammalian will. Some may appear human on the outside, but on the inside, they want you to join them and create more inhuman spies. Just abdicate your intellect and you will be safe. And there is no harmonious space to share. You are either one of them, or just a future host. If you want to introduce insect spirits to your game in a controllable way, The Thing is a good template. Just the Crew and 10-15 scientist/researchers/fodder for nightmares…
While Mr. Black has much more to say about horror both in Shadowrun and at your table, The Thing is a good start. Follow the notes here until Mr. Black adds more.
*Around Seattle, sea floor research facilities abound in the turbulent waters of Puget Sound. And the NAN Salish Council lands can be isolated enough, especially during winter. Try the Cascade Ork lands, full of polluted mining projects, acid snow, and a repressed tribal people who dislike foreigners, non-NAN members, pink skins and breeders, in ascending order of hatred. Or try the top of a skyscraper, the top thirty floors cut off. Or a vast, deep basement of a research lab, with the elevator power out, and 300 meters of reinforced concrete between them and daylight. Or a facility in Glow City, for a The Thing-lite version. Toxic insect spirits anyone?
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