[Horror/Monster Hunters] American Small Town Mystery

[Tuk the Weekah]

Originally Posted by Icelander

What are good movies to watch to get a feel for the northern Maine or Canadian/Maine Acadian French accent, local mannerisms, speech patterns, fashion choices, architecture, culture and daily life?

Here an interesting blog to look at for linguistic colour. There is a whole trope about Bad Down-East Accents in TV Tropes.

Pet Semetary (Fred Gwynne is, as always, delicious), The Mist, Dolores Claiborne... any good adaptation of Stephen King will have some Maine in it, at least residually.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Apparently, Lt. Dufresne is a sober, reliable man who is an example to all his fellow Christians and patriots. He is a former Eagle Scout, a teetotaler, an active volunteer with local charities and a man who helps all the widows in his neighbourhood shovel the driveway.

Actually if I saw a guy like that on tv, unless he was a main character, I would start to suspect him right away.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

I'm not going to say that it isn't exaggerated for humor in places, but the Chevy Chase fish-out-of-water comedy Funny Farm at least depicts how most other Americans see non-coastal Maine. The comedy career of Marshall Dodge should also help with the accent.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Actually if I saw a guy like that on tv, unless he was a main character, I would start to suspect him right away.

Naturally. So will the players. Their characters, however, will not expect their reality to follow fictional tropes where an immaculate record always conceals villainy. They will rather be predisposed to assume that when a man's colleagues, neighbours and former employees have nothing but good things to say about him, their estimate is more reliable than the words of a criminal in custody who has already been proven to lie to interrogators on many occasions.

Add to that the professional judgment of the BSU shrinks who mostly agree that the suspect might very plausibly have strong psychological motives in constructing a self-serving narrative where he justifies or excuses his own deeds by imputing similar anti-social tendencies as his own to authority figures from his youth, like his father.

So, while the players might be predisposed to suspect Lt. Abel Dufresne of being the villain of the piece, their PCs are ready to give him every benefit of the doubt and even like him. Obviously, the fact that the suspect in custody is his son makes it inadvisable from a legal standpoint that he be involved in the investigation in any official way, but unofficially, he has extended the FBI every courtesy and not made any attempt to hinder their efforts or even make them feel awkward in pursuing inquiries about the childhood of his son.

The players enjoy a healty paranoia, but their PCs still have normal social contact with one of the major player in the mystery, who is among the possible villains. Of course, there are other strong candidates for possible villains, so the players have to consider whether the fictional trope of the small town sheriff covering up a dark secret is being set up specifically in order to subvert their expectations.

The solitary hunting guide who lives just outside of town, Joe Greybear, is another strong candidate for villain, what with young Victor Dufresne having specifically mentioned him repeatedly and even suggested that the police: "Ask him about what happened to his wife and daughters? How come he lives all alone now? And no one has seen Mary or little Emily and Lunette for how many years now?"

While Greybear was never formally married, he did cohabit with a Mary Tomah and they had two daughters, Emily and Lunette Greybear. Neither Mary nor the children are listed as missing and inquiries with the Maine State Police and Aroostook County Sheriff's Office indicate that they simply moved away from Maine with a man named George Wahaki in 1980. As far as Sheriff Edgar Wheeler can recall, it was pretty well known to her circle of friends that she had been having an affair with Wahaki and once Wahaki received a significant monetary settlement from his place of employment after an accident, they moved away together, he thinks to Florida.

Other people that the PCs like for villain are a powerful local businessman named Clayborn Allen, the maternal uncle of suspect Victor Dufresne, and/or his son, Courtney Allen. Their name has come up in relation to several key incidents and apparently young Dufresne spent more time with them than his father in the last few years before he moved away from home.

There is also another uncle, Dr. Harvey Allen, who lives out of state, but has a vacation home about an hour away from Allagash. One of the reasons why investigators believe that an accomplice might have been involved in the murders attributed to Victor Dufresne is that in several cases, some of the wounds are precise, surgical and methological, in stark contrast to other wounds on the same body that are ripping tears made with a brutal flensing knife and even with teeth.

The owner-operator of the cabin rental where the characters are staying also features in some of the players' theories. So does the simple-minded janitor/librarian/dogsbody of the local school. In both cases, the PCs have no reason to suspect them and no evidence or even rumour actually links them to anything, but the players felt that they looked and acted 'weird'. Shades of Norman Bates with the cabin rental guy and immediately when the players heard that there was a simple-minded janitor at the school, they leapt to an assumption out of True Detective.

Ideally, the players will suspect half the population of the area at some point. That way, we get the real Twin Peaks vibe.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

I'm not going to say that it isn't exaggerated for humor in places, but the Chevy Chase fish-out-of-water comedy Funny Farm at least depicts how most other Americans see non-coastal Maine.

Is northern Maine that similar to Vermont? I got the impression that with the Acadian French culture and language, not to mention proximity to Canada, Aroostook County is very different from those parts of rural New England to which I've been.

Within the region my adventure is set, around half the people speak Acadian French at home, even if they attend school in English. There are close cultural ties with Canada and smuggling (in both directions) over the border used to be rampant pre-9/11.*

The tiny town of Allagash even has its own Scots-Irish/Acadian French accent, which is apparently unique to it.

*To the point that priests would preach sermons distinguishing between smuggling and actual sins and even in the 2000s, public sentiment was overwhelmingly against increased border control, with locals even organising a letter-writing campaign against an attempt to prosecute a native for smuggling drugs over the border.

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

The comedy career of Marshall Dodge should also help with the accent.

I don't know him. What would be the best way for me to get a quickly-digested sample? Was he in any movies?

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Icelander

What would be the best way for me to get a quickly-digested sample {of Marshall Dodge's accent}

YouTube?
Bert & I
"Campaign ads" with Dodge as candidate Virgil Bliss

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Is northern Maine that similar to Vermont? I got the impression that with the Acadian French culture and language, not to mention proximity to Canada, Aroostook County is very different from those parts of rural New England to which I've been.

Within the region my adventure is set, around half the people speak Acadian French at home, even if they attend school in English. There are close cultural ties with Canada and smuggling (in both directions) over the border used to be rampant pre-9/11.*

The tiny town of Allagash even has its own Scots-Irish/Acadian French accent, which is apparently unique to it.

*To the point that priests would preach sermons distinguishing between smuggling and actual sins and even in the 2000s, public sentiment was overwhelmingly against increased border control, with locals even organising a letter-writing campaign against an attempt to prosecute a native for smuggling drugs over the border.


I don't know him. What would be the best way for me to get a quickly-digested sample? Was he in any movies?

The displaced Acadians moved to Florida and became the Creoles. In the meantime several English moved in to settle. The given justification was international strategy but there was also land-hunger involved. Probably several of the Acadians descendants moved back but I couldn't swear to it.

Another influence you didn't mention was Scottish Highlanders, both emigrants and exiled Loyalists. There were many of those in Canada, possibly just over the border from Maine and of course there would be plenty of ethnic mix by now.

If I had to hazard a guess, though, I should think most Maine folk are descended from the stereotypical black-hat-blunderbuss-and-turkey Puritans.

[acrosome]

The Blackfoot, Cheyenne and Arapahoe all speak Algonquian languages. So if you want isolation and insular locals in an environment that can turn deadly and attracts hikers, gentlemen, I give you Wyoming. A population of less than 600,000 in a state just slightly smaller than Germany. The Wind River Range is a hiking Mecca- if it's any indication that's where disillusioned Denverites go when they get sick of the crowded trails in the Front Range.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Is northern Maine that similar to Vermont?

The depiction of Vermont in Funny Farm is so unlike actual Vermont (where I lived while attending college) and so like stereotypical Maine (where I have spent many summers) that I actually forgot that it is nominally set in Vermont, and suspect that it was written by a New Yorker who was only passingly-familiar with either and didn't care about the distinction. Apologies for unintentionally misleading you.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

The displaced Acadians moved to Florida and became the Creoles. In the meantime several English moved in to settle. The given justification was international strategy but there was also land-hunger involved. Probably several of the Acadians descendants moved back but I couldn't swear to it.

The area my adventure is set in was claimed by Canada until 1842. While the US did officially claim it at the same time, it wasn't by any means a part of the US until 1840 at the earliest, when Aroostook County was created.

The Acadian French of the region have stoutly resisted assimilation. School was taught in French until 1919 and it wasn't until the 1970s that English-speaking television stations had any presence in the area.* In the current era, you'll still hear the people in diners and gas stations speaking together in Acadian French more often than English and French newspapers outsell English ones by a considerable margin at the time my game is set.

Resisting cultural assimilation seems to be a feature of this part of Maine, incidentally. There are enclaves of Swedish-speakers within driving distance and I found a fascinating story about a family that spoke Yiddish at home until the 1980s.

*Since my game is set in 1988, that means that US-television has been in the area for just over ten years. During the 50s and the 60s, when many of the NPCs were growing up, everyone watched French Canadian television.

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Another influence you didn't mention was Scottish Highlanders, both emigrants and exiled Loyalists. There were many of those in Canada, possibly just over the border from Maine and of course there would be plenty of ethnic mix by now.

The tiny town of Allagash, where the PCs are staying during their adventure, was founded in the first half of the 19th century by, among others, four daughters of the Loyalist Joseph Diamond.

The majority of the townspeople are descended in some way from these four sisters. Two of them were already married by the time they arrived, to men of Loyalist families named John Gardner and John Henderson. One of them married a fellow who travelled with them, William Mullins, and the last sister married a George Moir who arrived in the area at the same time.

Allagash is known for being a tiny little Scots-Irish enclave. Local families of prominence include the McBreairty, Hughes, Jackson, Kelly, O’Leary, Walker, Hafford, Pelletier, Savage, McKinnon, Jalbert, Bolton, Castoguay, Ouellette, Bishop, Taggett, Connors, and Aegan. Mostly Scots-Irish names, with a few Acadian French mixed in.

St. Francis and St. John Plantation, the two neighbouring towns that are also part of the adventure, not to mention the tiny townships northwest of Allagash, are almost entirely Acadian French, however.

Originally Posted by jason taylor

If I had to hazard a guess, though, I should think most Maine folk are descended from the stereotypical black-hat-blunderbuss-and-turkey Puritans.

Well, in northern Aroostook County, any descendants of Puritans would have been immigrants into an Acadian French culture that had been already established there for centuries. And it seems that most non-French immigrants who arrived in Aroostook County the 19th century were Scots-Irish or Swedish, not English Puritans.