So, following up on my two previous entries, I've got a fair idea of what my next campaign will be.
The setting will be pulpy modified Modern / neo-noir. I've got images of the Gotham City from the most recent film, Batman Begins, and the Batman: The Animated Series cartoon from the 1990s; the latter had advanced science alongside stylish classic cars, dirigibles in the sky, black & white TV, and Chicago-style gangsters from the roaring 20s. Basically, a skillful blend of iconography from a variety of eras. So very beautifully pulpy.
The characters will be occult investigators / monster hunters, perhaps part of the city's law enforcement forces or perhaps members of a company that the city contracts from.
I see shades of Grant Morrison's Invisibles and Doom Patrol, along with James O'Barr's The Crow comic and film. I also see bits of Dark City and Hellblazer.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a sucker for the "monster hunter" genre, and the pulp supers angle will give me a suitably large setting toolbox to play with, allowing for just about any kind of weirdness I can come up with.
I have a fanciful notion to name the city "Neropolis," both for the obvious connotations of madness and corruption (Emperor Nero), and the fact that the Italian word for "black" is nero. But maybe that's being too cute? Probably. So I'll likely go with "Obsidian City" instead, since: (1) Obsidian, as volcanic rock, comes from a place that could be described as "Hell on Earth"; (2) Obsidian's dark color, giving me the atmosphere I want for the game; (3) Obsidian cuts like almost no other substance we know.
As for the system, well, if Dark Pages by Memento Mori Theatricks was out, I'd give it a whirl, since it seems designed specifically for this kind of campaign, but since that's not an option then I'm most certainly going to go with Truth & Justice.
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"The characters will be occult investigators / monster hunters, perhaps part of the city's law enforcement forces or perhaps members of a company that the city contracts from."
As it stands right now, I think this idea is still too influenced by that OCT graphic novel you were reading in Borders the other night.
Try taking a page from Ellis's Apparat line: what if the pulps had been allowed to thrive into the present day?
And what if Lovecraft's Cthullhu nasties flourished right along with them?
Take a very noir metropolis like Dark City. Present day, but with that very clear cut retro, Bogart look and feel to it.
All the pulp archetypes in this city belong to various tribes of hunters that the city contracts to exterminate the Lovecraftian infestation that has taken root and festered over the years.
Taking a page from the Egyptian Dirty Dozen idea, maybe the source of the infestation is a Giant Nasty entombed under the city in a vast, ancient necropolis that is asexually spawning critters to bring it food/sacrifices.
The hunter tribes must kill the nasties to collect bounties, kill or negotiate with each other if competition gets too fierce, and eventually work their way to the source of the infestation, all the while evading the human/Cthullhu hybrids that are hunting *them*.
Thoughts?
PS: Obsidian City. HELL YES.
I thnk that's a sweet idea, but, I don't see that as fitting what I want to see *wholesale*, big picture, though it's a small picture that I like, that I can use, and that I can set into a larger frame.
As I said, and as you know, I've always been a big "monster hunter" genre fan. And while I enjoyed O.C.T. and can use some ideas from it, again I was thinking more in the vein of "weird menace and weirder teams," like Morrison's Doom Patrol, rather than O.C.T.
Also, I want to have room to go beyond Cthulhu nasties. I want to get surreal and bizarre--throw in a bit of David Lynch, a bit of Danielewski, a bit of Borges, and a bit of Stephen King.
Not that I'm rejecting the idea completely, mind you. I think it's an interesting adventure that I could and will likely use. But my idea for a whole campaign is bigger and meatier (in my head, atleast).
For example, riffing off of your idea, I like the idea of the player characters encountering a gang of homeless kids a la _Lord of the Flies_ who deal with the subterranean nasty and its children, tribes of hunters who have been around in the sewers since the founding of the city.
But I also like an idea from Jeffrey Thomas's _Monstrocity_, where the city is built on the burial place a dead god whose spirit haunts and hunts the humans that inhabit it. (In Thomas's book, the city *was* the dead god, if I recall correctly.) This, I think, could allow for even creepier antagonists and situations, and goes beyond the Lovecraftian.
Then there's the whole option of taking a page from Alan Moore's _From Hell_. What if one of the premier city architects was a Nicholas Hawksmoor type who planned the city and built its landmarks to entrap / control / utilize the energy from the dead god beneath? (This allows for some interesting city landmarks!)
I also like the idea of the PCs being rather mercenary bastards working for government contractors, whose only loyalties are to the team and the almighty dollar.
*volley*
"But my idea for a whole campaign is bigger and meatier (in my head, atleast)."
You're probably right. I'm sensing this is one of those You Had to Be There kind of moments.
Does my further explanation help clarify what I'm seeing in my seething brainmeats?
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