Creating a Game (Part 15) - Lyrical Threats

This whole game is meant to be inspired by the lyrics of Led Zeppelin, but aside of our game's name, and the lyric quotes that inspire the powers, we're startig to deviate a but from that core premise. A quickandeasy way to remedy that is to create a few antagonists and scene types that draw on the ouevre of zeppelin lyrics. These include the kinds of characters that are deicted in one or more songs. Like the way we'll be using the mysterious "Dullahan Corporation", these probably work best if they aren't applied to every game, especiallu not multiple threats from this list during the one game.

Anyway, here's my first batch of threats directly inspired by Led Zeppelin lyrics...many of them occur in two-parts,with a pair of scenes resolving their story.

When the Levee Breaks (Monstrous, 2-part)

part one "if it keeps on raining" (4 tokens)

A storm sets in over the town, threatening the farmlands that the scarecrows reside on. Like the song, this is a slowly building and ominous threat that seems relentless. It might be easier deaing with the people who are going to be affected rather than dealing with the storm itself. (Keywords: Slow, Tricky(x3))

part two "the levee's gonna break" (+4 tokens)

There's a chance that things wo't get to this level if everything revious has been dealt with, but if even a single "tricky" keyword remains, there's a chance the levee will break and flood the area doing massive damage to those who are unprepared. (Keywords: High Profile, Mystical, Scary, and Vicious are added to any that haven't been resolved so far)

(There probably needs to be some kind of river or dam in the setting for this one to be relevant)

Heartbreaker (Minor) 

Her style is new but the face is the same

As it was so long ago

My initial thought is that the "heartbreaker" is a temprary diversion from the main story, but they could just as easily be a pat f the deeper narrative. They are some kind of immortal fey spirit not necessarily associated wit the faerie who has animated the scarecrows. However they are someone who has been encountered in the distat past, and there is just as much chance that the heartbreaker will either cause problems or help out with them (Keywords: Connected, Talented: Etiquette, Persuasion)

(This requires an old character, one who has existed for decades could make it work, but one who has been around for centuries or longer works better)

In My Time of Dying (Major)

Come on, come on, I can hear the angels singing

Oh, here they come, here they come, here they come

There are things that the mundane world simply canot fathom, the presence of divine superntaural spirits is one of them, especially the so called "Angels of Death". Scarecrows on the other hand are enchanted beings existing o the cusp of the mundane and the mystical, they often see such creatures in the corner of their eyes. Most angels of death ignore scarecrows snce they aren't living creature in the traditional sense, but confrontations may occur when oe of the allies of a scarecrow, or someone else vital to the story, has been marked for death. An angel may leave the living mortal alone if another apprpriate sacrifice is made. (Keywords: Draining, Mystical (x2), Scary)

(This threat might come at a critical moment when a major sacrifice must be made for dramatic purposes in the story)

Black Dog (Minor)

Eyes that shine, burnin' red

Dreams of you all through my head

The black dog has become synonymous with depression, but is also a creature from traditional English folklore. It hounds a mortal, slowly driving them insane. Like the angels of death just mentioned, most people don't see the black dogs, but scarecrows do. There may be a few black dogs in a story, they are often symptomatic of other issues in the area. (Keywords: Scary, Mystical)

Kashmir (1) (Major)

Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace

Like sorts inside a dream

This unseelie fey entity exists invisibly to both mortals and scarecrows on the physical plane, lingering only in the astral plane aound dreaming mortals, feeding on their emotions and causing a maelstrom of psychic energy around them. The maelstrom causes living dreamers to have erratic slumber, and if they linger too long there will be an epidemic of nightmares and people on edge. It feeds on dreams, and can only be confronted there; the longer it remains unaddressed, the more powerful it becomes. (Keywords: Connected, Mystical, Tricky (x2))  

Kashmir (2) (Minor)

To sit with elders of the gentle race

This world has seldom seen

The elders of the gentle race are a group of seelie fey, they aren't necessarily bad, but they have agendas that may run at cross purposes to the scarecrows. Generally, these creatures play games with the mortals around them as chess pieces, and these games are convoluted and can play out over years, if not generations. Time means nothing to them, but a carefl disraction or two can see them retreat to the shadows and let thngs play out in the short term, while their long term game plays out. (Keywords: Connected, Slow)

Immigrant Song (Monstrous)

We are your overlords

It isn't often that the immortal warriors of the fey descend on the mortal world to engage in the wild hunt, but when they do smart creatures know to stay out of their way. Tragically, most mortals don't believe in the wild hunt anymore, and they are unprepared whn it arrives. Many scarecrows have seen their mortal allies hunted and captured by the hunt over the years. (Keywords: Mystical, Predatory, Protected (Fear, Injury), Scary, Talented (Animal Ken, Hunting, Intimidation, Savagery), Vicious)

(With additional tokens spent, the wild hunt may have any gifts that a scarecrow could possess. Typically those from Autumn)

Ramble On (Minor)

Twas in the darket depths of Mordor

I met a girl so fair

Not all threats in a story need to e particularly menacing, some might just be disractions to the main storyline. These types of threats might eat away at the time limit for the scarecrows, or might consume resources because they look like they pose more of a complication than they actually do. Sometimes these "threats" might actually be beeficial if a character plays their cards right (pun intended). (Keywords: Connected, Transforming) 

(Here's a good example of where drawing inspiration from an assortment of lyrics provides a wide scope for interpretation. I could have easily made this into a major or even monstrous shapeshifting threat, but I figured we just needed a few more low level entries in the mix)

Going to California (Major, 2-part)

The mountains and canyons started to tremble and shake

The children of the sun began to awake, watch out

Generally in a session, things should generally be resolved by about 3 or 4 am. This leaves a couple of hours to clean up any mess, so that the humans are none-the-wiser when they wake up at dawn.I like to try to make sure everything is neatly wrapped up at the end of a session, so that way if a player misses the next sessionit doesn't make a major impact on the storyline. In this game it works well, because it just means that different scarecrows are awakened by the fey on different nights. Sometimes, to make things a bit different, I'll activate a cliffhanger that can't be resolved until a future session. That's where a threat like this comes in. If there are enough tokens left over near the end, ready to be activated as a threat, then an earthquake could rock the world. There's no real way to prevent this, just survive it and prevent damage (much like the levee at the beginning of today's sequence) (Keywords: High Profile, Vicious). The second threat comes when the humans awaken to the chaos, and possibly cause problems of their own as they "try to clean up the mess" (Keywords: High Profile, Slow). 

(Again, interpreting the lyrics in adifferent way could have resulted in the arrival of some kind of supernatural counterpart to the scarecrows who only operate during daylight hours, or entities affiliated to the sun in some other way... there's no particular right or wrong, a lot of the back end design stuff at this point is just going with what feels right)

As I write this, I've just come home from a drive of 600 kilometres or so, and in that time I did plenty of thinking about this project. One of those trains of thought considered how this project might have evolved differently if I used the lytrics of a different band of artist. Any variantlike this would probably need to work with a band (or artist) that has a strong visual element and consistency across their work. 

Babymetal - Rather than scarecrows and primal fey imagery, a game driven in this direction would probably tend toward a group of "magical girls" empowered by the energies of an immortal fox spirit who needs jobs done in the mundane world. Instead of a time limit, things would probably ramp up to high levels of danger and adrenaline as a global metalpocalypse threatened. Each session would either end in the fall of the world, or a return to normal, with the mundane world none-the-wiser as it goes about it's boring regularity. While not empowered by the fox spirit, the magical girls would just be regular schoolkids, shop assisants, secretaries, and other low key members of society.    

Tom Waits - I actually wrte some ideas for a Tom Waits inspired RPG many years ago...(here it is)...a lot of the ideas still hold up, even though it was almost a decade ago. I even went with a card based FUBAR implementation to develop the character concepts back then. I'm thinking it could be tied in well to the game idea I had which plays out on the last night of a ten year deal with a crossroads demon. We have scene flashbacks, explaining how the characters lives unfolded, the gritty underbelly of society, and what led them to this climactic moment.

The KLF - The Ancients of Mu exist outside time and space. The characters are trascendental sleeper agents who astrally project in their dreams where the briefing of the nights issues are held in a mysterious astral white room. They work to resolve the issues in the world only in dreams, and only during the witchig hour of 3am eternal (once the clock reaches 4, everything resets back to 3am if the issues have not been resolved). It's all a bit "Groundhog Day".    

David Bowie - The distinct visual style of Bowie changed a few times over the years, so it mght be better to pick a specific period such as the Ziggy Stardust days, or the Alladin Sane days. Of course the problem here is that there isn't as wide a breadth of lyrics to draw from. As a variant, it might be a case that each player draws on a single era of Bowie and builds their characer around the concepts specifically relating to this era.  

Lordi / GWAR - Monster bands are an easy translation. 

Halestorm - Thereare a couple of common themes running through the songs of Halestorm, often relating to outsiders who have to stick together agaist an oppressive world, so that's already got common ground with the FUBAR system and many of the other ideas in this listing. Like David Bowie, the frontwoman of Halestorm, Lzzy Hale, has expermented with a few personae over the years including a Ms. Hyde identity based on Jekyll and Hyde lore, they've got a comic that I beeie is liked to this concept, but there have been issues with that, so I haven't actually read it so far... she has also appeared in GWAR, so theres crossover potentia with ideas there. 

There are probably plenty more, these were just some of the options that came to mind during the drive.