03-13-2016, 02:15 PM | #21 | |
Join Date: May 2007
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Re: [Horror/Monster Hunters] American Small Town Mystery
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Right now, with the collapse of oil prices & the mobility of the work force, some of these counties would probably again be frontier. Abandoned man-camps & half-empty towns would be common. (Many of the folks who lived in the towns before the Oil Patch boom were priced out & had to leave. Many haven't come back.) Or -- try Theodore Roosevelt's ol' stomping grounds in Billings County. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billin...,_North_Dakota If Wikipedia is in the ball park you have over 1,000 square miles with 783 people, per the 2010 census. |
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03-13-2016, 09:26 PM | #22 |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Horror/Monster Hunters] American Small Town Mystery
It's probably relevant that I'll be setting the adventure in the late 1980s, not the modern day. Cell phones exist, but are rare and coverage will not be good in rural areas.
I'm aware that isolation is greatly aided by distances and that makes the West attractive, but I haven't actually been to any Western states and haven't read as many evocative semi-autobiographical books set there as in the South. Consequently, I am not confident in my ability to portray convincing Midwest or Western small towns. I have two ideas for an adventure. One of them will work almost anywhere, in that a lot of states have charming small towns where Friday Night Football is the social event of the week and the high school athletes are treated like princes of the Universe, but it would probably work best in Texas, Alabama, Georgia or Lousiana. The other adventure idea thematically demands cold, wilderness and ideally some historical presence of Algonquian-speaking Native Americans nearby.
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03-13-2016, 09:38 PM | #23 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: One Mile Up
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Re: [Horror/Monster Hunters] American Small Town Mystery
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Maine includes a history of the type of the natives you're looking for, and is sometimes a very strange place, even to other Americans. It is at the same time mostly rural / forested, and conservative, but the home of the highest sex toy sales per capita in the union. They have a kind of, "Stay the F--- out of my house," conservatism. Also, some extraordinarily beautiful and dramatic wilderness. I've personally experienced Class 5 White Water Rafting on the Penobscot River, digging for clams in a granite-walled ravine that fills up to 100' with salt water during high tide, 10' of snow in a couple of days, and multiple tiny islands with unique micro-cultures off the coast. Best of all, probably, for your purposes, it's just kind of surreal. The people are not typical in their attitudes, speech patterns, and general demeanor. Most Americans find them a little off-putting, in a way that we sometimes joke about. The best description I've heard came from a native (100% in the sense that he was born and raised there, and 50% in the sense that he was descended from indigenous people), which was: "Maine is 1/3 New England, 1/3 Appalachia, and 1/3 the frickin' Moon." Last edited by Gold & Appel Inc; 03-13-2016 at 09:56 PM. |
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03-13-2016, 09:50 PM | #24 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Horror/Monster Hunters] American Small Town Mystery
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*Just Massachussetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut out of the New England states.
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03-13-2016, 10:10 PM | #25 |
Join Date: Nov 2012
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Re: [Horror/Monster Hunters] American Small Town Mystery
Just getting this point out of the way: part of the fun of modern noir and gothic fiction is that you don't need physical isolation to get psychic isolation. Obvious references would be Camus and Paul Auster.
That said, there are parts of the Appalachian regions where the sun literally never shines-small hanging valleys that are in permanent twilight (well, more accurately, the shadows of the mountains that frame them). Having neighbours, one of whom is literally never in the sun, can be used to highlight the sense of uncanny that you need to make a modern gothic work. If you want to invest the time, read Lee Smith's Oral History. It will show you the possibilities of the setting, and maybe give you a couple ideas. |
03-14-2016, 11:18 AM | #26 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Horror/Monster Hunters] American Small Town Mystery
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03-14-2016, 11:29 AM | #27 | |||||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Horror/Monster Hunters] American Small Town Mystery
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03-14-2016, 11:53 AM | #28 |
Join Date: Oct 2009
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Re: [Horror/Monster Hunters] American Small Town Mystery
Going to throw out a mention to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, mostly because I had plans for a game set there which never took off. Friendly people, lots of Scandinavian and especially Finnish influence. If you've read American Gods, the Perfect American Small Town of Lakeland is supposed to be just across the border in Wisconsin. Very rural and isolated, but probably less so than most of Montana. There are several nearby Ojibwe/Chippewa reservations (Yes, they're an Algonquian culture), abandoned mines from the early 1900s, Great Lakes on three sides with uninhabited islands and deep, mostly unexplored waters, and more snow than pretty much anywhere in the Lower 48 thanks to those lakes.
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03-14-2016, 12:04 PM | #29 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Horror/Monster Hunters] American Small Town Mystery
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03-14-2016, 12:29 PM | #30 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
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Re: [Horror/Monster Hunters] American Small Town Mystery
If you wanted to get a feel for Appalachian culture, in general, and supernatural folklore, in specific, you could read Manly Wade Wellman's Silver John books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_John Heck, even if you decide to not go with an Appalachian setting, for this, you should still read the Silver John stories. They're pretty wonderful.
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federal agencies, high-tech, horror, monster hunters |
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