Hair Curling Horrors

I trimmed some more hair brush bristles to 6mm last night, but didn't have the energy to get out the camera. Hopefully this evening.

Meanwhile...a new distraction has emerged. At the local game store, they're clearing out a few of the CCGs that aren't moving. They marked down the Call of Cthulhu CCG to a buck a booster, so I bought up twenty of them. I don't play the game, but I thought they'd serve as a deck of "inspirations" for horror games. At a loss for a new scene or scenario? Draw a card. "Paranormal Researcher" eh? It seems the group has been contacted by a local university researcher, who's made a startling discovery and needs their help. What kind of discovery? Draw another card. "Cult Fanactic." Aha! She's unearthed a group of cultists operating out of the university and is afraid they know she's wise to them.

You get the idea?

Anyway, that got the ball rolling. I intended to just use the cards as they were. But...they're perhaps a little too specific to the Cthulhu mythos. Fine, if you're into that, but I prefer my mysteries a little closer to reality, and I have my own setting to game in.

So, I started compiling lists. Lists of strange sights, smells and sounds. Lists of story threads. Lists of NPCs one might encounter. Lists of mysterious locales. Lists of objects. Eventually I'll put D100 ranges against each list, so I can easily generate ideas/ticklers/leads from them. Let me know if you're interested, and I'll post a couple here.

The cards were my first source for these lists. The titles, pictures and background texts were all rich veins of inspirational ore. Then I went to the local sci-fi / fantasy / horror / mystery bookstore and bought a copy of one of the Lovecraft compendiums. And subscribed to the Pseudopod podcast. These are providing a lot more fodder for my growing appendages...I mean lists.

I have in mind a campaign setting that folds three interesting genres together. Picture a near-future sci-fi world, dominated by corporations, personal electronics and genetic engineering, into which the old powers are returning. Some of the effects are "positive," yielding a crop of gifted heroes, and some are horrific and villainous. It's Bladerunner, with a big thick ribbon of Heroes and the Blair Witch Project running through it.

I'll be digging through my collection of minis soon, looking for suitable figs. And surfing the web, looking for miniature things that go bump in the night.

But first...back to those ACW hair curler armies.