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ostrichmonkey-games · 1 year

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Layers of Unreality: Design Dive

Here we go! Let's talk about Layers of Unreality. Layers is my procedurally generated "dungeon" crawl for the modern horror OSR game Liminal Horror, which you can learn more about here.

The elevator pitch is you play as people who for various reasons, have found themselves plunging into the infinite depths of the Skein. The Skein is my take on the idea of the backrooms, one of my favorite examples of "liminal horror", which is why I wanted to write something using it for the game Liminal Horror.

Full design dive below the cut!

The Layers

Let's break down some things first. What does "procedurally generated" and "dungeon crawl" mean? Here's how I define them.

Procedurally generated: the GM/table relies on a series of tools and procedures (namely random tables) to randomly create a unique version of the Skein.

"Dungeon" crawl: players are restricted to a particular location, moving from room to room while their resources are constantly dwindling, as they search for the goal.

For Layers specifically, these two elements manifested as a series of compounding random tables that are used to generate the Skein as players explore, moving from room to room, space to space, as they try and search for an exit (or other goal) while their resources - HP, gear, Stress, etc - are constantly pushed and expended.

Part of the fun of horror ttrpgs, is a "push your luck" style of play. You want to see what the next room might hold, even though it would be in the best interest of your character to turn back and try and escape.

I was particularly inspired by The Stygian Library, which is a similarly procedurally generated crawl, as well as the Voidcrawl procedure for Liminal Horror, which itself draws on a few other pieces of random table tech.

So that's the general gist of what Layers is. Now let's talk about how I actually made it.

The Skein

I knew right off the bat I wanted to do a backrooms inspired thing for the Tales from the Void - Liminal Horror game jam, and between having already read The Stygian Library and the Voidcrawl procedure, I quickly pulled together the general concept of a procedurally generated adventure. Now the question was how to do that.

First, I needed to figure out what is actually being randomly generated, and then how is it all randomly generated. Rooms being the generative unit was the easiest and most straightforward solution. Also works well for a classic crawl! And for the how, our good friend random tables were going to be doing the heavy lifting.

So I needed random tables, and I needed lots of them. I wanted there to be potential for a lot of unique Rooms, so having multiple connected tables is the easiest way to do that. Probability or something like that.

The Skein (which, while working was just known as the Layers), is set up as such;

Zones: broad ecosystems within the Skein. A mix of set dressing and encounters. Each Zone is unique from each others, so even if someone is entering the same Room type, if they're in different zones, they're gonna feel different. There are six Zones.

Rooms : these are the base units of the Skein. Each Room has a general "purpose" or theme, to help inspire the GM. There are six Room types (most things are d6 based).

Depths: the deeper you delve, the weirder and more horrific things get. There are six (confirmed) Depth ranges.

Those are the three components that make up the units of the Skein. You are always within a Room, which is within a Zone, which is also at a particular Depth. Put all three of those together, and you get a lot of possibilities. Add to that, different sorts of random encounters, and duplicate Rooms should feel very rare.

So how does all of this work on paper? A lot of random tables. A lot.

Each Zone has two sets of tables; one for Details (to add flavor and things to interact with in the current Room) and one for Encounters (more things to interact with). Each Room type has two sets of tables, Moments (flavor and bad omens), and Horrors (sparks for potential encounters and also ways to drain Stress). And each Depth also has a set of two tables each; one for Details and one for more Depth specific encounters.

That's, 36 random tables so far. And we haven't gotten into the Tangles, the new character backgrounds, Creatures, and some miscellaneous tables either. Though I will admit, I cheated a little bit and made a couple random tables completely illegible, for tonal and aesthetic reasons.

I roughly outlined all the tables I was going to need, and then set about filling them in. The next major step was trying to figure out the best ways the actual procedure side of things was going to work. I've got all these tables, now how does the table/GM actually use them?

The Tables

I once again looked to The Stygian Library as a source of inspiration for how all these tables were going to interact. Depth is a tracked value. in general, the deeper into the titular library you go, the higher on certain tables you can roll (since you add Depth to the roll).

Also between TSL and Voidcrawl, I had a good foundation for how players would actually be traveling and exploring the Skein. Seriously, you're looking to build up some exploration procedures, go check them out. Also recommend researching the Overloaded Encounter Die and the Exploded Alarm Die.

What I ended up with is a set of travel/exploration actions. In each Room, players can decide to do different things like Move Forward, Pause, Travel Backwards, etc etc. Each different action comes with different results. Moving Forward takes you into new Rooms and increases your Depth, and carries a chance of entering a new Zone. So on and so forth. Certain things, like the odds of finding a new exit, increase the deeper you go, and the more the Skein changes your player character.

There's a lot of interacting layers within the Layers. Though the basic procedure fits on one spread!

So that's how the Skein is generated and traveled through. The meat of the book is all of the random tables. Here's a little sampler of some of the Room tables.

Outside of the procedural tables, there's also a set of Creatures for populating random encounters, new character options, stress fallouts, ways to enter the Skein, and the Tangles.

Tangles are bespoke Rooms that ignore the standard room generation procedure, and are more likely to crop up the deeper into the Skein you travel.

They include anything from a dark, midnight forest that contains an ever pursuing huntsman, to the literal DMV. Tangles are wild interruptions from the uncanny Skein. They're very fun.

The Vibes

Tone, setting, aesthetic, and vibes play a integral role in horror. So how do you accomplish that in a ttrpg? Well for me, a huge component is the actual writing (unsurprisingly), and the rest relies on the presentation (art and layout).

My favorite part about the backrooms is the general unsettling uncanniness of them. I don't really go for the more elaborate setting-building and categorization that tends to follow particular creepypasta stuff (but if you like that, go for it!), so the backrooms/the Skein are purposefully loose when it comes to "lore". They're presented as the spaces between reality. Something that wears the form of being manmade, but once you start to poke around it, it becomes clear that these spaces are not meant for humans. That's where the uncanniness comes from. The uncanny valley but for physical spaces and architecture.

I think I'm a pretty good writer! So the writing part was really just digging down and making a bunch of short, creepy, but impactful bits and pieces for all the tables. There is a constant friction between "this is something familiar" and "this is something sinister" that was very fun to balance.

The more exciting part was trying to figure out the art direction. Since this was a jam entry, I didn't want to go overboard (I think I did regardless, but oh well), so art pieces needed to come from stuff I had on hand.

I like to start with style tests and covers to help set the tone for the rest of the layout. These are some early cover tests (I ended up using the second one with some extra modifications). The last one ended up as the back cover, and was also a fun learning exercise since I taught myself how to do chromatic aberration effects in Affinity Photo using this tutorial and threw on some scan-line effects to give it a VHS-y look using this tutorial.

For the rest of the layout, I had landed on a grungy, analog sort of look. I like to pick up different asset packs here and there, and had snapped up the BLKMARKET Case Files off of a sale or something, and these were perfect for what I had in mind.

This is an early style test for a spread. I was testing out dropping in different assets and background textures, as well as starting to pick out fonts.

For fonts, I tend to go with a body font, a main header font, and then a subheader. Body fonts need to be readable, while still fitting the style and overall tone. Header fonts can be more abstract, but also need to grab your attention and guide the eye. Here's what I settled on for the final version

That's Work Sans (from google fonts) for the body, Sango for the main header (I liked how it feels skewed!) and Blackout 2AM for the subheader. Google fonts is a great resource for free and useable fonts, and then I keep an eye out for good font deals. But there are a ton of freely available and commercially useable fonts out there.

A big challenge was actually figuring out how to format the tables (tables are hard to layout! ask anyone!), but luckily I was pointed toward the most recent edition of Into the Odd, which has some very lovely tables that I borrowed the look from.

Layers is "art free" in the sense that there are no specific illustrations, but I made heavy use of that Case Files asset pack to give the layout a sort of, shredded, "conspiracy board" look. I layered and collaged different images from the Case Files asset pack, which is pretty straightforward, but it produced some great results. I was also able to find some free images via Unsplash (the cover image, back cover, and interior splash page) that I made use of as well.

So remember when I said I cheated and made some tables illegible for aesthetic reasons? Here's what I meant by that;

Ooooh, how spooky! The idea is that the Hollow Depths are just so weird, they can't even be captured by my humble random tables.

I accomplished this effect by turning the table (which had a few different layers of colored box and glitched text) into an image and then just manually warping them to make it look like they were dripping off the page.

The End?

That about covers the entirety of Layers. The bulk of the work was filling in the roughly 40 random tables, and then playing around with stuff to make it all look suitably spooky. The end result is something pretty cool if you ask me.

It's perfectly suitable for a series of adventures or campaign with Liminal Horror (or other vaguely OSR modern horror games), but the tables themselves serve as great spark and inspiration tables for whatever your horror needs might be.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite bits, the Build-Your-Own-Meat-Swarm table (shoutout to the Gem Room Games discord server for making me write this one lmao).

#indie ttrpg #ttrpg #liminal horror #layers of unreality #design dive

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valoisfulcanellideux · 1 year

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you know, i started writing this SO sure i would have a billion questions and suddenly all thought has deserted me. hm... i've been very curious about where the world of the fic aligns with ours and where it diverges (you've referenced real places and alluded to the use of the gregorian calendar, for example, but skeleton archers and soul sand also exist) -- are there lines or principles you're using to decide how 'minecraft-y' the world is? are there unexpected ways pix's world's history is different from ours because of the existence of those minecraft-y elements?

those might be kind of vague questions and i'm also remembering now that your list of topics was about specific people / places. alternative question: hey, what's etho's deal? can you talk more about him / the redstone masters in general?

Oh my word, you asked the doozie xD

My thought process for the world itself is 'alternate timeline where a form of natural magic exists but not everyone is aware of it'. Much of what has happened in our world has also happened in the story world, but there's a lot more going on beneath the surface, as it were.

What do I mean by 'natural magic'? Explanations coming right up! I'd best put this behind a cut, because it got really long.

1) There is a mystical (almost spiritual, but not in a classically religious sense) power to the Earth itself, and certain races are aware of it, but they keep it a closely-held secret, feeling that they are 'guardians' of it. These races include all of the Empires, but some Empires - especially those in more remote/difficult locations where a deep knowledge of their surroundings is essential for survival - are much closer to this mystical power than others (Paixandrians being one of them), and some people within those races are usually chosen as leaders because of their innate affinity with this power (this being the Emperors, of course).

2) With the above in mind, this is where the more Minecraft-y things can be understood: things such as enchantments, soul sand, and skeletal archers, etc. I'll split out the Nether and the End into separate sections, otherwise this bit would get long!

2a) The Nether is literally the deepest, darkest places of the world. It's not exactly accessed through an actual portal as it is in Minecraft, but it can be discovered in deep caves. The way to get to it is through liminal areas of the underground; areas where the veil between worlds is thinner than most. Again, only those with a sense for these places will be able to spot them and use them to go much, much deeper than others can. 'Ordinary folk' will just see another wall of the cave or tunnel they're in, and - even if they dig through that section - they won't suddenly find themselves in the Nether; instead, they will just have opened up the liminal access point so those who can see it could just walk right through and into the Nether.

2b) The End is something I can only give a more vague explanation for, since it will have a very important impact on the future of the story, and I'm avoiding giving spoilers. There are no Endermen or End Cities/Ships, there is a great winged beast guarding the exit, it is accessed through a liminal space (albeit a special one that must be triggered in a certain way) but it's never been accessed before what happens in my story, and… let's just say that there is a very specific reason why - during the dragon fight in S1 - Pix said "I'm tired of dying in the void". The only thing I can give you as a clue is that you should think of the End as being the place between life and death.

3) The Xornoth arc did not happen in this story's world. There is another reason why the 'great winged beast' was killed. Here I definitely do diverge from Pix's canon reason for going into the fight.

4) The world of Empires S1 is set 2,000 years before the time of my story, so their knowledge and industry is from that time. Empires S2 is set 1,000 years before the story, which is why everything on the Greatbridge is in such a ruined state. S2 is going to be more tricky to explain, purely because some of the CCs have opted for more modern characters and some have opted for much older ones, so I'm doing my best to blend that together, and I'm leaning heavily on the magical side of things to explain it.

5) We won't be meeting any of the other emperors in the story, but there will be a few references. We've already had mention of Sausage, when Pix explored the Sword of Sanctuary on the Greatbridge, as well as Pearl as the Helianthian Queen, and there will be a much shorter mention of at least one or two more emperors later

6) And then there's Time. With a capital 'T'. In this story it is, indeed, wibbly-wobbly and timey-wimey. I really can't go into that in too much detail, again because of spoilers.

As to Etho and the Redstone Masters, it was Etho who discovered the properties of redstone. He's a lot older than he first appears, but the only sign of that is his white hair. I'm still working out all of the lore around redstone in this world, but I suspect there's something about it that increases longevity, and since Etho has been working with it the longest, he is the eldest. The three Guildmasters that we've met thus far (there are more, but I didn't want to over-egg the pudding in that chapter!) all came together in various ways, and they are all older than they first seem:

Tango just turned up on Etho's doorstep after one too many eyebrow-removing explosions and begged to apprentice under him, so he's the first Guildmaster

Impulse had been quietly working on his own redstone circuits for a while, and came to Etho's attention when he presented the then-king (Paix's father) with the blueprint for a storage system for the city's grain imports, so he's the second Guildmaster

Mumbo was a teenage prodigy whose parents brought him to the guild for training, because they were fed up of finding weird circuits all over the place, and were fearful that he'd blow up their family home, so he's the third Guildmaster

#reply post #these stones remember #worldbuilding #empiresblr #empires fanfic #empires smp #plotting chatter

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metamelonisle · 2 years

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in my discord rps, i created a hub world known as the mysterious room. since there are 13 different RP channels, we needed a way to tell who was using which channel at any time and how to know when it was a good time to drop by to avoid derailing.

At its most simple, the room is a room with 13 exits, each labelled with the symbol and name of the channel it represents. Nothing beyond it is defined. This is because the room's appearance is personalized to every person who enters it.

I actually managed to pull off showing how much a character had developed using this.

Inkblot is a character I use quite frequently in RPs due to our similar personalities. They're a strange and surrealistic entity made of various inks, paints, pigments, and other mediums of art. Although they were the "god" of the world they came from, I would compare their mental age to that of a 15 year old, so I refer to them as such and everyone treats them accordingly.

The thing about Inkblot though, is that they have a lot of hangups due to their origins. One is the idea that they are an inherently antagonistic force, as they're responsible for all the bad in their world as well as the good. Another is that due to their preference for old forms of art like traditional animation, stopmotion, and jazz, they feel outdated and forgotten. Their original Mysterious Room reflects this, as the original design was a large underground chamber that resembled the inside of an old house, with garish rotting wallpaper, and water-damaged white-painted wooden doors with symbols of food painted on them. It was poorly lit and smelled strongly of sweet rot and mildew. Overall, comparable to a creepy haunted house or liminal space.

After some period of time where they had gotten over most of their hangups and has begun to grow, the design changed.

The current design is a lavish art studio, with each door made of a different era of animation, and some in different mediums entirely. Each door is dotted with a red "ON AIR" light and the center of the room is a music player that plays a variety of songs, ranging from classical orchestra pieces to jazz songs to hyperpop remixes of Carmelldansen. If it's a song they like, it'll play there at some point. The room smells faintly of fresh ink, post-rain smell, and grapes.

It feels much more friendly, put-together and welcoming than the haunted house straight out of an analog horror video, doesn't it?

#paint.txt #inkblot inkverse #discord shenanigans

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tyrwinthyr · 5 years

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Episode 1, part 4

The area set aside for Sheila to create a portal was a concrete block of a building. It wasn’t until they walked the distance that she understood just how large the inside of this warehouse was. It wasn’t Fae magic that created the space, just some rather ingenious engineering. It took up the entire city block, but from the outside looked like it was broken down into five different lots. The satyr wondered at the purpose of various structures, but Zbrozek was in no mood to instruct her.

“She’s a pain, right?” she probed as he dug the key out of his pocket, thinking of a certain petit apsara.

“What?” he snapped without looking at her.

“Nothing, sir,” she mumbled back. It was more than just his tone that quieted her, it was the aura of cold coming from the door he was unlocking. The gelid feeling in her fingers and nose could only mean one thing – Iron. Worse, blessed Iron.

The lieutenant leaned into the door with a grunt, pushing hard to expose the space beyond. Fluorescent lights flickered to life inside, showing the room mostly empty. On the far side, perhaps sixty feet from the door, a table held painting supplies. Zbrozek crossed to the table, motioning for her to follow.

“Your father wasn’t very forthcoming with what should be in the paint,” he said, lifting one of the cans to show to her. Sheila stood, unmoving, on the other side of the doorway, “The portal isn’t going to paint itself,” he declared impatiently. When she still didn’t move, he dropped the can before walking back to her.

Taking a step back, Sheila shook her head; she kept her gaze down.

“This is why you’re here, remember?” he leaned casually against the door, causing her to wince sympathetically. She knew it wouldn’t bother him, but just the thought of touching was bad enough. When she still didn’t move, he ordered flatly, “Get inside and start painting.”

“No,” she said under her breath, her body starting to shake. One hoof moved forward, forced by the oath.

“What?”

“No, sir,” she corrected herself. She took another step back, pain starting in her left arm, her fingers going numb.

“We don’t have time for acts of rebellion, Sheila,” he growled, grabbing at her arm.

“I’m not going past that!” Sheila pushed at his hand, “How about I set the floor on fire, then demand you walk past it? That’s what you’re asking me.” Her hoof clacked on the concrete as she stomped it at him, her cheeks flushed with anger and pain mixed.

Zbrozek stopped trying to grab her to look back at the door, then back to her, curious.

“The door?” he asked, obviously confused. When she gave him one quick nod, he sighed. “Shit, I’m sorry. I thought you just couldn’t touch it, like an allergy. I didn’t even think liminals had an issue with it at all.” A bitter shake of his head, and he was looking back at the door again, “All the shit I just don’t know…”

The satyr could count off a hundred different scenarios where human ignorance had threatened a Fae’s existence, but she kept her mouth shut. To her mind, it was better that he didn’t know all the other secrets they kept from the vast population of ‘normal people.’

“The door was put up to keep things from coming in through your portal,” the lieutenant lamely explained. “But if I can’t even get you through it, it’ll be pretty unusable.” He seemed to be talking to himself, so Sheila stayed quiet.

“Well… fuck,” Zbrozek motioned for her to follow him again, walking back towards the other buildings. “I guess we’re driving to Denver.”

The drive wasn’t as unpleasant as Sheila had assumed it would be. Fei, having added leggings under her dress to ward off the chill, put on her headphones immediately. Her fingers rarely stopped tapping the Alienware on her lap. Whipple, all the way in the way back of the SUV, had muttered something about being, “All back of the bus,” before spending his time playing a hand-held device. With Alois digging through online records on his laptop for references of the baobhan, it left only the satyr and the lieutenant without their noses pointed at a screen.

Sheila spent her time staring out the window, hugging her knees to her chest. She was trying to find some warmth after dealing with the door.

“We are ten minutes from the hotel,” Zbrozek broke the silence once they entered Denver, turning down the music. He had chosen light jazz for the trip, which the satyr didn’t mind at all. “Dr. Uhl, give us a little background on the sith, please.”

“Darth Bob,” Whip said with hushed reverence.

“The sith, which is usually pronounced ‘shee,’ is a term used for evil fae,” Alois coached, turning in his seat to look back at the rest of the team. “As I’m sure you know, there is a lot of ambiguous lore to sort through. If we enunciate some of the words as they are written, it allows for disambiguation. We still pronounce ‘sid he’ as ‘shee,’ for instance, but most people are aware of the negative connotations of the word ‘sith.’

“We only have ten minutes, Doctor,” Zbrozek butted in, still watching the road.

“Okay, so ‘sith’ is bad, ‘sidhe’ is good?” Sheila asked, never too clear herself on the Fae from the English isles. Alois spread his hand, waggling it.

“Sort of. There are certainly bad sidhe, while sith are invariably malcontents. It is much like the way you use ‘Toothy Day’ for your leadership...”

“Not my leadership,” Fei hissed, putting her headphones to the side.

“My apologies… but no one argues that they are the strongest of the Fae, yes?” Alois waited a moment to see if there was any argument before continuing. “So, yes, we have chosen to pronounce things incorrectly both to help our own minds deal with them, but also to prevent the Naming powers from knowing we speak of them.”

“Shall we just call them vampires then?” Zbrozek queried while checking his GPS.

“That’s way too loose a term for such a complex group of…” The lieutenant turned a frown on the doctor, stopping his lecturing in its tracks. “The baobhan sith are vampiric in nature, but we cannot make the mistake of treating them like classic vampires. As far as I can tell, they are not weakened by garlic, are able to function during the day, and can cross running water.”

“So, no crosses and all that crap either?” the lieutenant asked, maneuvering to their exit off the highway.

“Well, actually,” Alois started, until Fei leaned forward abruptly to change the channel on the radio.

“Doesn’t this thing get any good music?” she asked, flicking from one station to the next. When she found something she liked, she sat back again. “There we go, something more energetic.”

Zbrozek demonstrated what he thought of her choice by turning the radio off.

“You were saying, doctor?” he asked, glancing sidelong at Alois.

Alois held his ribcage, confused. After a furtive glance back at Fei, he said, “No, you’re right. We can toss most of that out the window.”

“So, what do we have?” the lieutenant was obviously exasperated, his ring finger tapping repeatedly on the steering wheel.

“A common thread,” Fei answered. “All of the victims lurked on the same ‘hook up’ site, ‘Glamr.’” She paused for effect, then read the tagline for the app: “Have a fairy tale romance, right in your own neighborhood.” After making a retching noise, she continued, “There’s an app as well… what Fae would be stupid enough to put themselves on an app that tracks their location?”

Sheila turned her gaze out the window to hide her sudden blush.

“It isn’t the Fae that are being killed,” Zbrozek began.

“Not that we’re investigating, anyway,” Fei cut in.

“Stop it,” the lieutenant said, glancing at her in the rear-view mirror.

“Stop what, caring about my people?” the apsara glared at him, mouth a thin, angry line.

“Mom and dad are arguing again, Red,” Whip sobbed from the back, trying to hug Sheila from behind. “Make them stop!” She snickered at his theatrics, patting his hand in false comfort. Gods, he was soft.

“Shall we assume, then,” the doctor jumped in, “That in this case the baobhan is hunting using the app, targeting single males?”

Another tense moment between the lieutenant and Fei passed, before she dropped her eyes to her laptop.

“Yeah. Swims, to be exact.”

“I like to swim,” Whip said, putting his chin on the back of Sheila’s seat so he could comment. “Not a lot of good places to swim without chlorine in Colorado, though.”

“Single white hetero males,” Fei corrected him with a sigh.

“Chlorine is bad for the fur,” the pooka confided in the satyr, giving her a very serious nod.

“Collaborate with Brice back at HQ to pull the information you need,” the lieutenant ordered, reminding Sheila of her missed opportunity to sneak a whiff of the technician. The two ‘non-essential’ humans had been left behind for their own safety, but she was pretty sure it had more to do with Zbrozek not being able to handle the crew he had already. They were supposed to meet another Fae in Denver. The circus was going three rings big, and the ringmaster was getting balder by the minute.

The administration building for the Denver police was a rather daunting edifice made of concrete and glass. No expense had been spared in creating the atmosphere that if you were here, and you didn’t belong, you’d royally messed up. To Sheila, it looked like building blocks stacked on top of each other by a creatively stunted ten-year-old.

Zbrozek tapped his ring finger on the window after closing the Fae in the car. Whipple wriggled his way to the front seat to hit the button, lowering all the windows a crack.

“The greenhouse effect can kill a pet! Crack your windows!”

“You aren’t pets,” exasperated, the lieutenant rapped loudly on the roof. “Just stay in the car.” As he strode away, snippets of his grumbling could be heard with tidbits like ‘herd of cats’ and ‘keeping the pooka in the trunk.’

“He wouldn’t really do that,” Whip asked, turning to look back at Sheila, “Right?”

“I have literally no clue what he’d do,” she replied, unbuckling her seat belt so she could stretch. “You’ve worked with him for a while, haven’t you? In the BNC?”

His teeth chattered some as he considered her question, body oscillating in his seat. “With him… with him… well, alongside him on occasion. Until this assignment, he was just another front-line operative like me.” Turned as he was to play with the radio he missed Fei closing her laptop to listen.

“So, what you’re saying is,” her eyes narrowed, lifting her feet up to kneel on the seat, “That he wasn’t ‘in charge’ before?”

“Yep,” Whipple continued pressing buttons, only allowing the briefest of notes to be played on any one station. “I guess since I was indentured we weren’t exactly the ‘same,’ I guess…” He turned back to look at the apsara, head at a slight angle, his full black eyes and sharp teeth giving him an aura of menace. “But we bled the same color, though. He might be struggling right now, and I might act up, but I’ve got his back. Feel me?”

Fei rested back on her heels, returning his gaze for a long moment before looking out the window. She nodded a couple times, pulling on her headphones.

The pooka flashed Sheila a full grin of sharpened teeth, eyebrows waggling, “Want to pet me some more?”

“I didn’t pet you in the first place.” It was hard to accomplish the appropriate offended look when his tail was thrashing like that.

“Fuck me,” Fei dropped her headphones in her lap, hands going to her chest defensively.

“Ha!” Whip burst out, “Nymph!”

“Fuck off,” she retorted, glaring at him while pointing out the window. As he wriggled his way into a closer seat, Sheila watched the men she was indicating; her heart began to race.

To the human world, the four men were just three police officers escorting a sharply dressed man carrying a briefcase. To the Folk in the car, the clues were obvious as the buildings that loomed over them. The metallic shields on their left breasts appeared normal, unless one noted the black symbol at the center. The image, centered inside of a gold star, was reflected on the case as well, but larger. The Fae always noted that symbol.

“Iron Cross,” Whip exhaled the name. “We are so screwed.”

It wasn’t until the men had entered the building through the same door Zbrozek and Alois used that the three finally breathed again. A cold chill ran down Sheila’s back, mimicked in the nearby pooka’s fur. Reaching a hand up, she began smoothing it out with slow strokes.

“I have to believe,” she said, watching Fei’s face, “That they are here because of the murders, not for us.”

“Are you really that naïve?” the girl gave her usual sneer. “I knew trust fund babies were sheltered, but surely you had wifi in your bunker?”

“Who pissed in your cheerios?” Whipple came to rest between the two front seats, looking back at them. “I agree with Red. We’re on the same side of the law, this time.”

The apsara slumped backwards into the seat, kicking her feet out.

“There has never been an interaction between any Fae and the Iron Cross that didn’t end in bloodshed. If they kill you, they don’t even have to pretend it was an accident. You were guilty because you’re not human. Surely, even you two idiots can understand that?”

Sheila unclenched her fists, not even realizing she’d clenched them, then rubbed her fingers into the divots her nails created.

“Your attitude is what will get us murdered,” she muttered, smoothing Whip’s fur again.

A knock on the window behind Fei turned whatever retort she had planned into a scream. Her body impacted against the satyr’s side as she launched herself away from the car door, twisting her tiny body in mid-dive to face her attacker. Her hands came up, fists clenching around visible currents of air. Whipple’s quickness saved the day, pushing her hands to point at the back of the truck just before she unleashed her power.

Glass flew outward as the rear window shattered. The debris didn’t land immediately however, caught up in the miniature whirlwinds Fei had unleashed. After a few breath’s time, it all fell like hail on a car nearly a block from where it had started.

Outside the vehicle, a thin man rose, nonplussed by the near miss of the apsara’s gift. He was tall, much taller than the lieutenant, so had to bend down to gaze into the car. Gaunt would have described him, but Sheila felt somehow ‘hollow’ explained better. His irises looked like the yolk in over-easy eggs, his fingernails like broken potato chips.

His voice drifted in through the crack in the window, bringing with it the scent of mold.

“Bad time?”

Mortimer, the ghoulish man who’d turned Fei into an air cannon, had claimed the front passenger seat, and was staring out the window blankly. He’d been sent to the SUV by Zbrozek, with instructions to introduce himself.

After giving the pooka a rather scathing look for opening the door for the ghoul, both girls sat quiet. Fei remained next to Sheila in the middle of the back seat, staring at the side of the new man’s face. The satyr was quietly glad for the company. She found the citrus scent under the smell of lilies on the apsara’s skin distracted her from the ‘graveyard’ odor of their new colleague.

“Problem?”

Mortimer’s voice cracked in the middle of the word, but still managed to startle all three Fae.

“I, for one, was wondering if you are a slow zombie, like the classic Romero ones, or if you can run like the current trend in wildcat zombies?” Whip leaned on the driver-side door, eyes wide with wonder, rather than the dread the girls shared.

“I don’t run,” came the raspy reply, “Death catches us all.”

“Seriously?” Fei spurted, kicking the back of the pooka’s seat. She suddenly seemed to find even Sheila’s nearness upsetting, throwing herself back to her own side of the car. “So many Folk in the world, and I’m teamed up with the comedy relief.”

“Red isn’t particularly funny,” quipped Whip, giving his usual sharp-toothed grin.

“That’s strike three, fuzzbutt. Call me Red one more time, and you’ll get to see firsthand just how unfunny I truly am.” While the pooka snickered at her, Sheila leaned forward, elbows on thighs. “So, what are you? Like… Fae-wise?”

He took his gaze off the front window and turned it on her, his neck popping loudly in the car as he did so.

“Sluagh.” As soon as he uttered the word, the other three in the car curled the fingers of their right hand, thumbs sticking out between middle and index fingers. Almost in sync they shook this sign in the air, on the third shake releasing their hands like tossing away something sticky.

Before getting involved with the BNC, Sheila had little contact with Celtic Fae, so her understanding of who they were was limited to common knowledge. She did know the sluagh were dead creatures that would steal your soul if you let them. They’d been frontline terrors during the Crusades. The sight of them flying into battle in a flock of blackbirds had sent their mortal opponents fleeing in terror.

The corners of Mortimer’s mouth curled upwards, his own right hand lifting to expose a thin leather band tied tightly around his wrist. On top, bottom, and both sides a small metal bead could be seen.

“Geas binding,” he explained.

Even though they all scowled in disgust at the extreme measures, they also relaxed. The binding would prevent him from using his abilities, and the Geas wouldn’t allow him to remove the band himself, or to cause others to do it. Breaking the power in the band would cause permanent loss of powers or even death.

“I can’t imagine you’d be very useful, then.” Fei spent a moment adjusting the hem of her dress until it rested just-so. “What good is a powerless dead guy?”

There was no response from the corpse in question, who resumed looking out the front window.

“Speaking of powers, can I just say ‘woah!’ to you?” Whipple’s eyes lit up with admiration. “That was some neat trick! All I can do is transform into something most people think is a ferret. You though… woosh, boom!” His hands rose in mimicry of her own.

“Girl’s got to protect herself from the patriarchy somehow,” Fei replied, attempting to sound blasé. Opening her laptop, she tried to look uninterested, but Sheila saw the corners of her mouth rise.

“Oh, for crying out loud!” Came a sudden roar from the parking lot outside. “I can’t even leave you alone for ten fucking minutes?”

After surveying the damage, as well as spending more than a few minutes complaining about the cost to fix the window, Zbrozek updated them on the situation.

“The detectives here did most of the work for us,” he began, ousting the pooka to the far back again. With Alois pushing himself into the seat next to Sheila, Fei grumbled something hateful before hopping into the back with Whip.

“I’m glad I spent so much time doing research then,” she complained. “I could have been updating my blogosphere…”

“You found information that they didn’t, which connected the links,” the lieutenant interjected.

“Of course, I did.”

“In any event, it looks like our killer made a mistake. The last victim, George Garbutt…”

“Heh, Gar Butt,” Whipple giggled, ducking himself double when Zbrozek glared his direction.

“The last victim snuck a picture of the girl he was with the night he died.” Holding up his phone, he showed the group a picture of a man surreptitiously taking a selfie. Behind him, with her head away, was an auburn-haired woman. Sheila instantly hated her, mostly because her hair was perfect.

“Great. We’re looking for a redhead.”

“Look closer, Fei,” the lieutenant held the phone out further, so the girl could see.

“Mirrors don’t lie,” Mortimer murmured from the front seat.

He had it right. Behind the woman, caught in the angle George had set, was her face in a mirror. As far as they could tell, it was a simple restaurant mirror, not silvered, but it did the trick. Without it, she was probably beautiful. Catching her in the reflection revealed her otherworldly beauty. There were depths to her eyes that demanded blissful staring, and the arch of her cheekbones begged for a lingering touch. Most humans would ignore that half-glimpse of the truth, considering it just a trick of the light. The Fae knew better.

“Right. Her name is April Cassidy, or ‘Summerlove87’ on Glamr. Apparently, all the victims had private conversations with her before they died. They are getting a warrant to pull those messages from the dating service, but we have enough proof to bring her in.”

“That’s enough evidence to bring in a human,” Sheila spoke up, sitting straighter in her seat. “I’m surprised they didn’t drag her in the moment her face was found.”

“Mrs. Cassidy is an executive for a company named ‘Allied Manufacturers Global,’ or AMG. As far as they know, April is out on maternity leave,” Zbrozek paused a moment to let that sink in. “They spoke to her assistant, who is quite positive that her boss is a human.”

“That explains a lot,” Alois broke in, leaning a bit to see the lieutenants face better. “I was wondering why there was a sudden rash of these attacks. Surely, we would have heard of men losing blood, particularly with all the media around Fae powers?”

“I was escorted out of a store when the total didn’t ‘seem right’ to the cashier,” Sheila shared. “The manager accused me of ‘glamouring’ the register.”

“Which, as we know, you cannot do,” Alois continued. “I must assume, given the information provided, that usually they feed discretely from their lovers. Few would investigate a hickey, for example.”

“Babies are starving beasts,” Mortimer whispered.

“Exactly.”

#faerie #fae #pooka #Satyr #OC #original content #writing #writeblr #modern fantasy #urban fantasy #mythology

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rupertacton · 7 years

Text

The Oak Leaves and the Acorns

I'm currently somewhere on the southern side of the Thames Estuary. The pylons stretch for miles across the semi-marshland. I seem to be left alone here. My pursuers must have realised I have no intention of carrying on my campaign. I don't doubt that they will find me at some point but for now I am no longer a priority. This gives me a chance to think. I know there are other people resisting. Pockets of dissent. I am under no illusion though. We have lost. They have won. All I can do for now is try to explain to myself, and anyone that finds this, how we reached this point. Soon there will only be official accounts. Well presented lies on information boards. Something for The Members to file past with suitable reverence. Watched over by The Volunteers.

Like many people of my age my first encounters with The Trust were benign. Boring even. A long drive out of the city. A weekend away. My parents would exit the motorway, turn onto the A and B Roads and follow the familiar signs. A driveway, carpark, a formal garden, an impossibly huge house or castle. The sticker in the car window, the Oak Leaves and the Acorns, granted us access. A vision of how the other half used to live. An aristocracy before the democratisation of extreme wealth caused the cash poor and asset rich to gift their little slices of heaven to us mere mortals. Of course, as a child, I had very little grasp of how, and why, these buildings and their well maintained grounds became part of a very particular holiday for a very particular type of people. These endless houses, infinities of lawns, the never ending tours, were nothing but a preamble to the real action of the gift shop and cafe, an ice cream as a reward for good behaviour or to placate a tantrum. This was The Trust to me. As well as the houses there were vast expanses of coastline, countryside, even whole villages, that we visited, the oak leaf and the acorns in the window bestowing it's privileges upon the Volvo and it's inhabitants.

At this time membership was voluntary of course. My parents were both left-leaning academics in London universities. They had a strong professional interest in the built and natural environment. As I moved into my early teens I developed similar interests but expressed in slightly different ways. Graffiti, skateboarding, breaking into the derelict social housing being decanted as London emptied itself of undesirable elements. Warehouse parties. I still sometimes had to go away with my parents. We sometimes rented a cottage from The Trust, often out of season for the cheaper rates, I hated school so didn't mind being pulled out for a week or two. I was generally left to my own devices. Able to walk, listen to music, read, develop a deep relationship with super strong strains of marijuana. Although we were undeniably culturally middle class we were financially precarious. More like my friends whose parents worked at supermarkets and call centres than my friends whose parents worked for banks and advertising agencies. This was hidden from me but I understood. Academia was falling apart. Especially the serious, radical, unprofitable academic practice my parents were involved with. The initially stable professorships and lecturing positions they held were becoming increasingly unpredictable. The work was different. The students were now mainly extremely wealthy, often from the continent, or further afield, expecting a certain level of service for the huge fees paid by their parents. I only give this background information to contextualise what was happening before things got to where they are now. London had become a playground for the mega rich. Vast swathes of Not-London were post-industrial wasteland, stockbroker belt housing, big sheds, strip malls, badly managed farmland, grouse moors, sheep afflicted pseudo-wilderness, brick clad housing developments, dead shopping precincts, violent town centres.

I'm just old enough to remember pre-Separation Britain. The forces that shaped post-Separation Britain, or what remained, were already working their dark magic. The latent fascism, racism, xenophobia, hatred of difference, this was all here. Dormant but here. The force that really brought about what we have now, though, was the money. Large parts of the country relied on the money siphoned from The Continent, directly or indirectly. Whole counties became unsustainable. Services were slashed, central government had nothing to replace the subsidies, young and old were pitted against each other, the rural and urban, the poor and the rich. You could argue it was forever thus. You could. I'd probably agree. But there were moments of hope, consensus, belief in a better future for everyone. This was over. An almost endless wave of civil disorder, protests, street battles, increasingly violent terrorist incidents and heavy handed government clampdowns by an increasingly underfunded police force helped by an increasingly more influential military, was in motion. Life was still the same, but very different. I managed to finish school, my parents still just about scraped by on teaching jobs. I had become very active politically and had developed a taste for confrontation that would later serve me very well. Or very badly depending on your perspective.

The money ran out. Britain was broke. The government had nothing. Certain far sighted, or some would say complicit, businesses, corporations, NGO's, QUANGO's and other interested parties had seen this coming. There is circumstantial evidence that they had a lot of help from individuals within central and local government but the electronic paper trail for this is complicated and despite, or because of, numerous leaks, counter-leaks and counter-counter-leaks I doubt the full story will ever be told. From the convoluted and contradictory evidence on offer there has been some sort of narrative pieced together by people who are now dead, exiled or living like I am. I was never part of any organised resistance as such, I preferred leaderless cells, random actions, so I was never privy to the inner machinations of the various movements against The Trust but I can tell you what I think I know.

A few years before everything got very bad, when things were merely bad, The Trust appointed a new chairperson, and like most people in positions of power within The Trust, this person had a strong establishment background. As well as being a gifted academic who attended one of the ancient universities, becoming one of the foremost experts on antiquities and classical architecture and becoming something of a celebrity, they also had little side hobby. This side hobby was what the more paranoid among us called The Deep State. The Deep State, for the uninitiated, is the liminal space where the security services, the government, the Monarchy, the civil services, big business, the military and other good guys all meet. We could debate how much actual influence they really have and how much of what has happened is down to a carefully planned conspiracy and how much is down to luck and infighting but there seems to be little doubt about the fact this was key to The Trust becoming what it is today. This new chairperson realised the Trust was in a very strong position, it was financially secure, with donations rolling in from reactionary old people, progressive young people, entrance fees, holiday lets, memberships, grants from businesses, philanthropic donations, even the final dregs of pre-Separation Continental money. The upkeep of the land and buildings it owned was expensive but it's workforce was augmented by countless volunteers doing their duty to preserve the history and heritage of this great country. I can't say whether the chairperson was placed there by people who saw this, or whether it was pure coincidence, but there is strong evidence of a huge funding drive, and a massive program of extra land and property acquisition in the years leading up to the Government declaring bankruptcy and forfeiting all payments on the massive loans taken out from China, the USA, India and the World Bank. There are minutes of high level meetings between ministers, representatives of the Trust, high level military and civilian intelligence officers and various CEO's of banks and businesses, where the idea of The Trust taking over the day to day running of the country seem to be floated, with the strong backing of the Armed Forces.

Along with the extra land and property there had been a marked shift in the way The Trust was run, and the way it recruited and trained volunteers. They started to target serving soldiers, police officers, TA reservists, the Sealed Knot, various far-right affiliated groups, even football hooligans. There was still traditional volunteers, retired people, young people trying to get a foothold in the increasingly important heritage sector, history buffs etc. These two streams were kept separate. Whole portions of forest and uplands were given over to training camps for the new Volunteers. These were explained as survival courses, retraining, back to the land, outward bound, food foraging workshops. The close combat and weapons training were kept secret from the majority of Trust members at first. The recruitment drive at universities and colleges was upped, even primary and secondary schools. I was too stoned to join in with anything, and I had my own solitary wilderness pastimes that took up most of my time, but large numbers of former friends joined up. The Welfare State was falling apart, jobs were increasingly hard to come by, highly trained graduates were working nightshifts in petrol stations for minimum wage, I couldn't blame them for taking what must have seemed to them good opportunities for some kind of purpose in their lives.

As bankruptcy was declared the welfare, health and social care budgets were cut to beyond anything seen so far in the almost constant “austerity” which had been the norm since the Separation. Vast numbers of people who were already poor, hungry and angry became poorer, hungrier and angrier. Huge demonstrations were called all over the country. I went on what turned out to be the last one, in London, with my parents, countless friends, some who were Trust members, the feeling, at first, was amazing. So many people were united in anger at how things had been allowed to get to this state. People from all classes, races, backgrounds, professions, leftists, moderates, centrists, liberals, even old style conservatives, people with no political views, they were all out on the street. This lasted for most of the day, it was mainly peaceful, there were scuffles, bad policing, the treatment of protestors had got consistently worse but because of the make up of the crowd they had seemed to reign it in a bit, there were even police joining in as policing budgets had been cut and many hadn't been paid for months. This “carnival atmosphere” carried on throughout the night in cities and towns throughout the country. This was a mass shutdown, spontaneous, angry yet joyful. Some people thought that was it, the moment when “the people” were going to win. I'm a very cynical person but even I had a small amount of optimism that this had to make some kind of positive difference to the situation we were facing. I'd already been on countless demonstrations that achieved very little but this felt different.

Unfortunately for us some very important people in The Deep State thought it was very different as well. They viewed this as the start of something they couldn't tolerate. A loss of order. They had people in the crowds. In many ways they were right to be worried. A mass of people can do a lot of damage to the state, institutions that seem timeless can be torn down in hours to be replaced by who knows what. There were groups, and individuals, within the crowds who were really up for this. I'm not going to pretend I wasn't one of them. I must already have been on some files due to some actions at previous demos, even my, now elderly, parents were probably in some kind of dossier somewhere due to words they'd written. I'd not dismissed political violence, but I had also seen it's consequences, and it's not something to be entered into lightly. Some people do love any excuse for a fight, and doubtlessly there were people in the crowds who were there for that reason, and also, as an added bit of spice, the very people who so loved order had their own people there, ready to spread disorder for the greater cause of restoring it in a stronger form.

Which is what happened. There were a solid group of police and army personnel who hadn't joined in with the protests or been sympathetic in any way. There were some stand offs and violent incidents which were building in intensity as the protests lasted into a second and third day. Numbers of protestors were down but it was the dedicated and the dedicated provocateurs left. On the third day everything kicked off. A group of about 40 what I initially thought were plain clothes policeman stormed into the crowd in Parliament Square. I was there, my parents were still there. The sheer intensity of the violence was awesome. Then more and more of these people flooded the square. Armed with coshes and sticks, and obviously trained at fighting, they targeted people, some people from the crowd joined them, they were followed by the police, arresting the people who had been beaten up, subjecting to them to more brutality. I was running, confused, I lost my parents and the friends I'd spent three days with. All around me people were getting their heads cracked in. People were fighting back but the sheer speed of the attack had left everyone shocked. I got cornered and punched in the face, drawing blood, but I managed to run, and escape the square. I still feel guilty today but what could I have done then? I'd been in fights and confrontations but I wasn't used to this. These lot must have been military or something I thought. I kept running. Runners weren't pursued. The break up of the protest was the main aim. People who stayed and resisted, even peacefully, took the most punishment. Including my parents. I never saw them again. Officially, at the inquest, the verdict was open, but they were murdered. They were too old to handle that level of violence. Heart failure and a brain haemorrhage.

It was only when I'd managed to clear Parliament Square and sit down that I started to think. Every single one of the thugs that had stormed the crowd were wearing some version of the Oak Leaves and the Acorns on their clothes, whether it was a pin badge, or a knitted jumper, a scarf, they all carried that motif somewhere on them. I made some phone calls, trying to find my parents at first, then friends, then started calling people round the country, comrades on other protests, local organisers. The same thing had happened. I started asking about the Oak Leaves and the Acorns and they were everywhere. I had a sinking feeling. The rumours I'd heard, the vague murmuring on underground message boards, were they true? I thought it was the usual conspiracy bollocks at first. Deep State plans for a coup. This sort of stuff was always talked about and the wackiest one involved a well known heritage organisation, it's new Volunteers and an offer to bail out the country in return for absolute power and a return to order.

The wackjobs were right. I have a lot more respect for them now. The break up of the protests were the first in a string of favours that The Trust did for the government over the ensuing months. No one was really sure what was going on. Education workshops sprang up in every school, staffed by Volunteers, some of them clueless, teachers were happy to have the extra resources after years of being starved of funds. Outreach work was conducted, streets were cleaned, more and more people were recruited. Work was provided for the unemployed whether they wanted it or not. Groundskeeping, compulsory tea room volunteering, etc. The Trust were thanked for their benevolence by politicians who knew they were on borrowed time, who needed to make a good impression on their new masters. I was in mourning. I was now convinced The Trust murdered my parents, and now they were taking over the country. One year on from the last protest and parliament was dissolved for the last time. The Monarchy, of course, were fine with what was happening. They were to be kept on. Prime heritage assets. Everyone was issued with a membership card to The Trust. The Oak Leaves and the Acorns flag flew in every town and village. Tourists loved it. Finally the country they had seen for years on television was here. Everyone was assigned a position, from children, to adults, to the elderly. Everyone had something to do within the organisation. Everyone had to learn the official history. Heritage as a secular religion with the founders of The Trust as saints and the current board as a kind of Papal council. A Caliphate where we pray facing to the past. Of course, you probably know this already, you are probably a Member and you are probably happy. You have won. Bunting is hung from every tree and streetlight, and traitors are beheaded in the Tower Of London.

I was never happy with this and neither were a large minority of the population. We resisted. Some peacefully. Some not. Some tried to reform from within. Some people were just scared. I don't blame anyone. We all had to make our own choices. I chose to plant bombs in the same country houses I visited as a child. To wait overlooking volunteer outpost with a sniper rifle and murder Volunteers. To splatter brown signs with red blood. I'm not proud. I wanted revenge. I also wanted a country that looked to the future, that understood it's heritage, and could be honest about the good points and bad points, that wasn't perfect, but strived for something beyond conducting tours of a past that never really existed. I still hope for this but my hope is almost gone. So many of my comrades have been killed, or turned to betrayal after the worst torture, and are now guiding people around a theme park version of the country I used to love.

I'm here, out on the marshes, in a building of little architectural interest, hoping I won't be found, knowing I will be found. I know there are people sympathetic to the cause amongst this nation of Volunteers, and Members, and I hope you find this and carry on the fight to destroy Heritage, The Past, and The Trust, and avenge the blood of the fallen.

Anon, The Future, the Thames Estuary

#speculative #heritage #fiction #possiblefutures #brexit

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