Post by Shad Kelly on Sept 17, 2015 14:09:26 GMT -5
Group,
I have an idea for a Shared World Anthology. It could be a stand-alone anthology or it could be a themed issue of Ghostlight.
The Shared World is tentatively called "The Perfect Haunt". In a nutshell, it's a horror-themed MMORPG-style alternate reality. Here's the pitch:
PREMISE
I am a Halloween person. I love leaves blowing across a cemetery as bare branches click and chitter together. A full moon appearing between fast moving clouds; the flash of lighting and blast of thunder heralding an atmospheric thunderstorm. The orange glow of jack-o-lanterns leading up to a haunted house. Creepy characters in macabre costumes. I love all these things we associate with Halloween, and many more.
Every Halloween I am disappointed.
Reality never lives up to fantasy. The smell of spray paint, the giveaway hiss of pneumatics and mixing of themes are reminders even the best haunted house is a sham.
And I don’t want to just observe, I want to participate. I want a massively multiplayer live-action roleplaying experience, but the limitations of technology and profitability make this impossible.
Fortunately for me, I have an imagination, and am a writer who knows writers. The Perfect Haunt may not be a reality, but I can experience it nonetheless through story.
THE CHALLENGE
Write a short story about the Perfect Haunt using the standard Erie Tales submission guidelines. In addition, as the Perfect Haunt is a paragon of Dreadpunk aesthetic, so must your story be.
I just heard the term Dreadpunk last weekend. Go here for an excellent summary: www.dailydot.com/geek/dreadpunk-dragoncon-gothic-horror-fantasy/
As characters in the Perfect Haunt may have supernatural powers and abilities or useful items, a balance must be struck between danger to the characters and danger posed by the characters. Your story tone should be horror or dark fantasy; not fantasy, sword & sorcery or sci-fi.
THE SHARED WORLD
How, who, what or why the Perfect Haunt was created is unknown at this time. It does not exist in our world. It is not an elaborate virtual reality like the Matrix. Once there it can be difficult to leave. You may not want to leave. It may exist on an astral plane, a parallel world or pocket universe, or as a figment of the mind. The journey is made by the consciousness/soul, not the body, although you may seem to be in your own real world body. If you die in the Perfect Haunt, your body becomes a comatose husk in the real world and will quickly die without life support. If your body dies in the real world, your mind is trapped in the Perfect Haunt. Your characters may or may not know this.
The Perfect Haunt is not limited to one house, no matter how large or intricate. It seems to be a large peninsula jutting into the vast ocean. There is the Mansion, of course. Sprawling and decrepit, it is larger on the inside than the outside. Its architecture is that of every haunted house that ever was. It sits on vast grounds jutting into the sea. It has gardens, cemeteries, chapels, tunnels, guest and servant houses, and stables. There are forests and hills and paths, ruins and standing stones. Lakes, rivers and streams, sunken shipwrecks, a lighthouse and villages (one drowned). The remnants of an insane asylum abandoned decades are clearly visible. If you search, you may come across a train station. The moon is always full, and terrible thunderstorms are guaranteed to occur intermittently. The day spans from sunset to sunset, and despite what time pieces say the night seems to last about twenty hours. No matter where you are, you are always isolated from the “outside world” by the Ocean, or the wall and gate where the peninsula joins the “mainland”.
Invitations are dispersed at sunset of Halloween. They are good for the Halloween (sunset to sunset) at the least, and may extend to all three days of Hallowtide (All Hallow’s Eve, All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day). First time guests-by-invite are called “virgins” and are protected. They are identified and protected by a skull pendant or badge. When danger is near, or someone is trying to use a power on a character, the eyes of the skull flicker with light. The faster the blink, the brighter the light, the more the skull is “interfering” with the danger. Color of the light indicates the type of danger. The skull also acts as a source of information, and can only be removed by the bearer of their own free will. Skulls are only active for the duration of your invitation. If you should somehow enter the Perfect Haunt without an invitation, or on any but the three days of Hallowtide, you will not be given a skull, although someone may voluntarily give you theirs.
Your invitation may be explicit: a formal ticket glowing with embossed gold leaf lettering, found in a lucid dream. It may be subtle: a door discovered while exploring a haunted house attraction after your group has passed by. It may be personal: a guide, in the form of a person or thing, previously known or unknown to you. It may be an out of body experience because you are dying, or have combined the right drugs and music, or because you want to find the place so badly… You might be unware you have even entered the Perfect Haunt until it’s too late.
Once there, you will be given a “costume”. The costume is nothing less than a seemingly real body, possessing appropriate powers, benefits and restrictions. You may have equipment or items. You may or may not have a choice regarding what costume you will wear. The costume is appropriate to the Dreadpunk aesthetic of the Perfect Haunt: Hammer Horror, Universal Monsters, ghosts and spirits, zombies, slashers, maniacs and madmen. Victims. You will not find supers, mutants, ninja or aliens. Technology seems to be limited to the 1920’s or so of Earth, with much of it late 19th Century. Anachronisms are possible. You may find hints and artifacts of Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, even cultists, but the horror of the Perfect Haunt is not cosmic scale; it is very personal.
There are “Powers That Be” that control the Perfect Haunt. The Powers seem to prefer working indirectly, guiding events through communication and coincidence.
I'll write a short story to introduce the setting. Once it is suitable for consumption I'll make it available.
I have tried to generate a name for the setting of the Perfect Haunt. Maybe I’ll have a vote. I think the manor house is named Covenhold. If you want a rough idea of the peninsula Covenhold rests on, Google “Bruce peninsula Ontario map”. I’m not sure if the scale will be the same, but I like the layout. Covenhold would lie on the “Cape Croker Indian Reserve”.