Halloween Special Part 2 - Sealab 2081

After looking at The Thing and films like it, Mr. Black thought of including Deep Blue Sea. But then Mr. Black realized that horror in a sea base (as opposed to the real life horror of submarines, aka Das Boot) has a lot of material. So let’s cover them in our template. As usual, spoilers.

"But I got 5 successes on my Stealth roll!"

Deep Blue Sea has a lot going for it. Isolated base? Check! Confined underwater? Check! Something has gone wrong and the life support systems have failed? Check! One of the researchers messing about with Things Man Should Leave Alone? Check! About to get eaten by a monster way out of your league? Check and double check! Deep Blue Sea is the very epitome of thing on a sea base. But it is more than that. We get 2 wonderful extras!

Thing One: There is More than One Monster. While the trid has no possession-based thing, that is easy to add. But having a second threat from something that wants to eat the Crew, that is priceless. When the troll is trying to close the huge hatch against the rising water level, and the hacker is trying to turn off the electricity before the Crew gets fried in that water, and the mage is trying fight the giant isopod insect spirit in astral space, and the rigger is trying jury-rig the escape vehicle, all while the street samurai tries to fight to super-brainiac shark, you have a game…

"When does our Edge refresh?"

Thing Two: The Shock Kill. Director Reny Harlin is mostly known for destroying the pirate genre (until its resurgence in Pirates of the Caribbean!) But he knew exactly what he was doing here:

Samuel L. Jackson’s corporate executive Russell Franklin is the trideo’s voice of reason. That is, up until he gets eaten. Reny said he did it for two reasons: 1, it happens on land, out of the water - nowhere is safe! And 2: He kills off the Big Name actor! The one person who you thought would live, gets killed early - no one is now safe! These are great concepts to jack up the tension among your players! You want them to think nowhere is safe, and anyone, at any moment can die. It is just a matter of time until all the NPC’s are gone, and now it is time for the characters to start dying...

Let that sink in before we continue.

"Why is the spirit-y Thing copying my face?"

Next up is The Abyss. It has all the trapping we are looking for, but little of the menace. In fact the most menacing thing up until the thing shows up is a deranged Michael Biehn. Here he plays Lieutenant Hiram Coffey, a special forces type, becoming a More than One Monster. Being in a claustrophobic space with a murderous elite Street Sam type will do that for you. Note that if you want to add a “Hiram Coffey”, make sure he holds rank in the Corporation’s military. It will up both the tension (if he works for the Corp he cannot be trusted!) and the immersion (Corps have militaries! Militaries that are mostly full of special ops types!) With that down we need to amp up the menace. The key is to change the things. Put the sea base near a portal to an astral plane, and have water spirits investigate the metahumans before possessing them. Then once the life support fails and the Wuxing Maritime Security Division/EVO YNT Marine Commandos decide to close the portal with a nuke, you have a race for survival…

"Tell me again why the psycho with a nuke
is duct taping me to bulkheads again?"

Next is Leviathan. This completely lines up with our template, so much so that after the last 2, it is a bit of a let down. A thing that possesses the crew? An uncaring Corp CEO that sends the Crew to their doom? Yep. Still, it has good creature design…

Someone is getting possessed...

Just to keep the rabble at bay, we can talk about Underwater and Sphere, both set on sea bases, but without a lot of possessing, and only Underwater has things. But if you really need more undersea base design inspiration they are there.

And Underwater has a great creepy vibe...

Sector 7 gives a two-fer! This time we get rid of those pesky entitled white people, and let South Koreans fight for their lives. And it is set on an oil rig, giving you another place for fear to strike.

I don'y think a Taser is going to cut it....

The Rift’s one saving grace is R. Lee Ermey. Well that and a giant starfish-like creature...

Someone is going to end up like that soda can...

That is nasty...

Lastly we have Deep Star Six. A mutated extinct sea scorpion* is our thing, which gives us a two-fer, awakened beastie AND insect spirit! It also has navy personnel with nukes, so that’s nice. But an ancient aggressive anachronistic thing from beyond time and space? On second thought, a nuke might be just the right choice…

Looks pretty insect-y spirit-y to me...

So armed with choices, and lots of inspiration, go and scare your players. And don’t forget, they can’t dawdle, there is a major storm about to hit the dive area, and the last LAV out lifts off in 20, so they need to grab their go bags and board with what they have with them!

Next up is using your environment to isolate your Crew...

*Yes, Mr. Black knows a scorpion, sea or otherwise, isn’t an insect, but needs must, neh?

Halloween Special, Part 1 - Other Trideos and Settings

 So while Mr. Black pondered The Thing, he realized there are others out there like it. That is, other films about a body-possessing alien entity trapped inside an isolated space with a few unfortunate souls about to die. Turns out there are loads of them. So let’s do a quick review for those of you looking for something a little less iconic. Please note, we are talking about sending the Crew into a confined, remote, godforsaken place, so no Invasion of the Body Snatchers. If you can leave town in the family station wagon, it is off the list, so no The Blob. Also, we aren’t looking at the remake. It is not a terrible film, but adds little to this discussion.

So old school it lost it’s color!

First up is the original, The Thing from Another World. Mr. Black still gets goosebumps every time he watches the scene where they discover the ship. While it lacks a body possessing thing, it does have an evil scientist determined to grow and feed the thing at any cost. It also has that square-jawed broad-shouldered All-American jingoism that is generally lacking in the rest of these films, and Shadowrun in general. For most of us, this attitude is lacking in the world. But if you wanted to show some soul-tired Runners a glimpse of what working in a mega is like (that smiling happy can-do attitude, mixed with unbearable confidence and xenophobia: “Gee mister, of course Ares is the best in the world! Together we can do anything, even save the world! Let’s go pin the ears back on those EVO commies”)

That is a big object. I wonder what is inside...

And since we are starting Old School, Quatermass and the Pit, AKA 5 Million Years to Earth, gives us locust-like aliens, using their ancient literal hive mind to kill any human without a strand of the alien’s DNA! While this sounds dodgy, this British Trideography Picture heavily inspired generations of sci-fi directors, John Carpenter included, and Mark Gatiss of Doctor Who fame. Mr. Black recalls being creeped out by it as a child. It goes for a black-and-white, movie time news vibe. And it’s protagonist Professor Quatermass, would make an excellent scholarly NPC, a classic cardigan wearing, pipe smoking square jawed academic, with a mustache that could cure cancer. If we need someone to lead the Crew to our facility to find out what has gone wrong, he’s our man...

Insect spirits, or the Devil? You decide...

Mitsuhama goons escort Mr. Johnson and his impressive mustache away...

Annihilation explores a similar theme, but adds in mutated creatures, and “the Shimmer”, an energy field of some kind that is keeping the thing in. Perhaps the insect spirits have set up a hive, and are flesh possessing animals? What do you have when a piasma and an insect spirit aren’t tough enough for your Crew? How about a possessed half piasma/half behemoth? Mr. Black is not sure even he has enough gun for that…

You are going to need a bigger gun...

The Reanimator is considered one of the best Lovecraft adaptations. It lacks the isolation snd claustrophobia of the other trideos discussed, but Mr. Black mentions it here because The Reanimator may be the best depiction of what happens when scientists mess with death and start summoning shedim…

This is when the Crew will start to suspect something has gone wrong...

...and when they know it has all gone dreadfully wrong.

Though shedim may be at the heart of Event Horizon. It features the Distress Call Lure, There is Another Monster and Failing Life Support, ramping up the distress. Whether you look at this as a shedim infestation, or an Astral Outbreak Event is up to you and the level of hell you are willing to inflict on your players…

There is a lot of Hell to go around...

The Void moves our location from Corp facility to a hospital. This has the benefit of confusing your players with a place that is supposed to help them, with a staff that wants to harm them. While sending your Crew to the isolation/quarantine wing of a Corp hospital is creepy enough, send them to a DocWagon Customer Wellness Center. Even after the mission is over, let them wonder if the terror and the things are the new normal for DocWagon…

A pretty suspicious DocWagon team...

...with even more dodgy facilities.

Next up is Alien. While very similar in tone and pace to The Thing, the key difference is that the Corporation is actively trying to get the thing out. This concept is bad enough when you can’t trust anyone because they might be a thing, but knowing someone in the facility is trying to sabotage your efforts to survive and escape, and is actually trying to get you possessed, triples the terror.

I can't lie to you about your chances,

but you have my sympathies...

Let’s cover the rest of the viable franchise while we are here. Aliens is the version after the thing has struck. This time the Crew’s job is rescue and retrieval, guns a-blazing. Little do they know how insidious is their “bug hunt” or that once again, the Corporation only cares about getting the thing back. This version gives your Crew all their toys and guns and bullets, and counters them with LOTS of things! Aliens also switches up our alliances. In Alien the Android is the traitor, here he is there to help, and a baby-faced Paul Reiser is our thing-loving traitor. (Never give your players the same traitor twice!)

This is the True Face of Evil...

Taken together, The Thing is an initial outbreak/infestation. But after review, the Corporation is excited about the results, and sends in another team. This is Alien, an unsuspecting team sent in to be hosts. This doesn’t work either, so this time the Corporation sends in a strike team, Aliens-style, to rescue a host at all costs. Do you dare run the same mission 3 times for your crew?

We will mercifully skip the rest of the series, except for Alien V Predator. While not a good film by any means, we can look at it from the perspective of another Corp finding out, and sending in their own team. After the first Corporation has sent in at least 3 research/rescue/Runner teams, there must be something useful in there. Perhaps the Crew is hired because of a special skill they have, e.g., mountaineering, arctic survival, jungle survival, LAV piloting, mushing (sled dog handling), etc. Find a skill on at least one of the character’s sheets that will help, and go. This new Corp could just be taking a gander, or it could be a smaller Corp looking to steal a leg up on the competition. It could be that Mr. Johnson is the one going with them. He may be looking for a fast promotion, hoping to bring whatever is in the facility to his corporate overlords. Or he could just be a rich day trader type, watching the fuel expenditures and airplane orders of the first Corporation. He realizes something is worth grabbing up there, and hires the team to take him and a couple of buddies/beancounters/bodyguards to the spot. He promises a cash payment and a share of whatever is in the facility, or whatever his Corp can make out of it, or shares in the new company he is hoping to bootstrap out of the discovery! Lots of angles to play here, and loads of ways to play this out. You take your picks, and the Crew takes their chances.

Runners, Mr. Johnson, and prey...

Next up, we take a jander under the sea...

Halloween Special - A Start...

 A while ago, Mr. Black reviewed John Carpenter’s masterpiece, The Thing. But after doing trunks of research, he had a lot more to say about the genre. So he cleverly waited until October to post it, just in time for Halloween. So we will be talking about all the other movies The Thing inspired, and about running a horror game in particular in the Shadowrunverse. So buckle down, as we have a lot to cover, including a very special 10 in Ten, with a thousand(!) potential runs, just to keep your poor (and about to reroll characters) players guessing. First up is a review of other things in a research setting...

Are you ready? Because the Thing is ready for you!