Gethamane, Creepiest City of Exalted

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Ok, for any of you who haven't read Scavenger Sons, Gethemane is a city built into a tunnel system inside a mountain. The tunnels were there after the Contagion, possibly something that was a hold over from the Anathema or something older. The humans live in the well lit and surface level tunnels. A large population and only three temples are key landmarks. What makes them key is the odd priests and nightly rituals of these men and women. They paint odd designs on the sand and threaten anyone who comes to disturb them on these nights. Also, the city has tunnels that lead deeper underground, where all sorts of weeeeeiiiiirrrd stuff lives.


There is a little blurb on one man's experience with a blue eyed creature...*shivers* But with the Fair Folk book we learn a bit more about what is down there. Vodak, the huge Malfean infused behemoth (sorry, forgot their real names ^^;; for one and the large number of undercreatures. Also the city has an aura about it. Dragon-Blooded who stay there feel a terrible urge to flee over the course of a few nights. My question is, does anyone know what causes this? Is it Vodak? Or something else altogether? Thoughts and theories? Perhaps anyone's own spin on the whole thing? Anything is much appreciated!

 

[Flagg]

I'd have to read through that part of SS again, but from what you've said, you can probably glean a lot of inspiration from Lovecraft.


At the Mountains of Madness, The Beast in the Cave, and The Rats in the Walls immediately come to mind, but there are many others. They're good reads anyway, even if they're no help with Gethemane. You might want to check them out if you haven't already.


-S

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Actually I'm a mad Lovecraft fan, that's where I get a lot of inspiration for my games in Exalted...and I never thought of that ^^;;;; Terrible, eh? But I usually end up using Lovecraft inspiration for the North and my newly underway, underwater campaign. Plus I use them for the Primordials and their supreme powers of awesome. I use him a lot 'cause not many people (from what I've heard) really use horror in Exalted. So I try it from time to time.

 

[Flagg]

Actually, I feel stupid now for what I said. I didn't really pay attention to your user name. Obviously, someone going by Cthulhu_Wakes doesn't need to be told about Lovecraft. :-P


-S

 

[Jakk Bey]

You might also want to think about old school Conan. Edgar Rice Burroughs as well. Horror and fantasy blend in those cats' books, tinged by creeping horror. You might also want to check out some of what Mike Mignola does with his Hellboy series--yes, he's read a LOT of Lovecraft, and it shows.


Fantasy has always held hands with horror. Both come Faerie tales--though the modern horror stories have by and large replaced the cultural place of Faerie tales, as tales to reinforce kids staying close to home, not talking to strangers, being polite to strangers, and not eating odd things that strangers offer them.


Modern Fantasy has wandered into new cultural territory, as metaphor for society building, adventure tales, or capturing wonder in the same vein as science fiction--though without the science.  In fact, a good amount of what masquerades as science fiction today is naught but dressed up Fantasy, with a shiny steel suit makeover.  Edgar Rice Burroughs realized this, and capitalized on it unmercifully in his books.


If you want to tell epic tales of myth, then dig deep, because early myth was full of horrors in the dark, not just big monsters, but creeping evil.  Personal evil. Betrayal, ghosts, and creatures of the darkest id, and retribution for past wrong are all fertile ground for an epic myth--and near every hero had some fatal flaw, someone they did wrong, and it almost always came to bite them on the ass later. That's reason enough alone, but when you get heroes messing around with the creatures that the Titans...er Primoridals left behind? You got good story leavings.


Yes, the Dragon Kings were prototypes for intelligent Exalted critters, but what if they weren't the only ones? What if there were others? Not just experiments on the big ass Terror Lizards, but what about the seas? The deep earth?  What about the proto-types that Men in the Creation might have forgotten about, sealed away by jealous Gods, vengeful Spirits, or even the Primordials themselves, who made playthings, and then cast them aside?


The things in the dark might still remember, and either wait for their Masters, hoping for their touch again, or maybe spiteful, angry with all of the Creation, Primordials included. Hate towards the Gods. Hate towards humanity who usurped them and replaced them. Hate to the Dragon Kings who took their place. Hate to the Primordials who made them and cast them aside--and now working on Bindings deep and foul to call their former Lords up, and wreak vengence and scorn upon them--possibly looking the crack the Creation entire, so that the Yozi don't have any toys, possibly servants now to the Malfeans, the Dead Primordials could find fertile ground in that hate...or what if they were contacted by Other Things, things from the Deep Wyld?  Who don't wish the Creation to end, just be plunged into the Wyld, the Creation stripped of its order? Plaything again to alien things that even the Fae fear to speak of? Cousins perhaps to the Primordials, masters of different Creations perhaps?


You could go Lovecraftian, and in that vein of Elder Things Outside, and keep in the spirit of Exalted--great myths forged anew. And dark things whispering don't always have to the Hungry Dead or Demons. There could be older things out there--Demons only came after the Primordials were toppled, as pieces of their Id unleashed by their being sealed away. You could easily have horrors out of the earliest days of the Creation, or things that were accidentally locked into the Creation by forgetful Primordials, distracted by the Games of Divinity. Or combinations of both--lost things from the deep, sealed away when they didn't meet to the standards of the Gods or Primordials, but maybe not designed even to die, only transform. Immortal by accident, trapped, they hear the voices of Things From Below, others trapped by negligent Primordials or Gods too lazy to finish their work, and together these forgotten things ally, to bring themselves out from their prison, where they will make the Primordials and the Gods pay for their suffering...

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

You sir are the greatest wealth of ideas I've seen in a while.  

 

[Jakk Bey]

I accept beer and whiskey as tokens.  And if you have comely sisters, it's not a bad way to go either...


:mrgreen:


I swear I'll get her back by midnight. I don't guarantee a day, but definitely by midnight...

 

[Master of Malfeasance]

I got so caught up reading what Jakk wrote, that I forgot what the original post was about.  I would dread playing in one of his games.


Here's a creepy thought:  If Exalted can do all of the things their artifacts can do, and merely use artifacts to make things easier, why wouldn't the primordials and gods do the same thing?


To borrow an idea from the venerated,  Talislanta, what if there are little shops out there?  Hybridization chambers where you put in creature A, creature B, and creature C, manipulate characteristic X, characteristic Y, and characteristic Z, add a potion of characteristic Q that you distilled yesterday from a demon you found particulalrly cool and you let it mix and mutate for a few days.


What could be worse than a horde of flying, intelligent blood apes that can gain immediate sustenance from blood?  Or a race of half demons with wings who can breed true?  How about someone truly Evil (with a capital E) getting their hands on the means of producing them?

 

[Forn Clakes]

I can only hope that Gethamane is explored in more detail in Bastions of the North.


~FC.

 

[Obsidian Soul]

You also forget that there could be other Primordials, elder things of the Wyld, decending upon Creation as the Solars return, who were just keeping out of Creation out of politeness until they figured out that the other Primordial aren't coming back.  If you thought the Autochtonians were bad, think of what one 'new' Primordial could do.  Think of what a dozen 'new' Primordial could do.