Pre-Enlightenment Horror, Urban Fantasy, et cetra

[Prince Charon]

There isn't so much a line between horror and urban fantasy, as an overlapping section on a Venn diagram, with bits of a few other genres overlapping there as well; often, the difference is in the capabilities of the protagonists, and how the setting is presented. In most such settings, the monsters & magic are not something that suddenly appears, they were there all along (there are exceptions, of course, but for a lot of those, it was more that they were mostly hidden until the stars were right/the mana tides came in/whatever). Thus, the settings included these beings in earlier eras when fewer people per-capita would refuse to believe in them (before the Age of Enlightenment, hence the title).

This, then, is a thread for discussing historical settings of this sort (e.g. Monster Hunters: Florence, which I'd call a Renaissance Urban Fantasy setting, though I haven't played in it), as well as campaign ideas, adventure seeds, items, creatures, characters, and so on, that don't yet justify creating a new thread for them. That includes adjusting more modern characters for earlier eras, though if you want to go into a lot of detail, a dedicated thread might work better.

This may not be the best thread for discussing why the Masquerade/Veil/whatever exists, but knowing whether it does and how it works can be pretty important (you need one to have already existed for the Age of Reason to be as skeptical as it was, and it should pre-date the Age by at least a generation if not longer, but it isn't as necessary for stories in earlier eras, and perhaps it's something that came in gradually), so if it comes up, it comes up.


To start things off, imagine a world where spirits are common and somewhat active, and spirit-based powers (including some forms of PC-usable magic), items, and monsters are common enough for the myth parts of mythohistory to be dangerously real, even if they aren't over-the-top, world-shakingly powerful. Grendel and his mother might be evil spirits (perhaps Embodied by ritual), or mortal beings empowered by them (given their deaths, I'd go with the latter; EDIT: Grendel's mother is sometimes depicted as a witch, so perhaps she empowered and/or Embodied him). The gods would likewise be spirits, either powerful individual beings or groups of spirits acting in a collective name in the mortal world.


Thoughts?

[Johnny1A.2]

This describes The Dresden Files world, to a considerable degree. At one point the protagonist, the modern-day Wizard Harry Dresden, muses that the real history of the world looks a lot less rationalist and a lot more like the old fairy tales than most people ever dream. In fact, in the Dresden Files world, the Enlightenment itself was largely the result of a deliberate effort on the part of the major Wizards (though it got rather out of hand).

One thing about the reality of supernatural monsters, etc. on any significant scale is that if it is so, than the real history of the world is probably rather different than what we read about in the history books, and some of the 'fantastical' accounts of old-time histories might actually be literal truth.

So the first question to be asked about such a setting is: how close was the history we learned in school to the real thing?

[RyanW]

One thing that frequently bugs me about "magical history" in settings is how it often accidentally justifies atrocities. I personally prefer that the Salem witch trials remain an out of control prank that caused a mass hysteria and killed two dozen innocent people, rather than a reasonable reaction to things that were really happening.

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by RyanW

One thing that frequently bugs me about "magical history" in settings is how it often accidentally justifies atrocities. I personally prefer that the Salem witch trials remain an out of control prank that caused a mass hysteria and killed two dozen innocent people, rather than a reasonable reaction to things that were really happening.

In other words, don't execute people because a few screaming girls are also throwing things and posing in odd positions. (To avoid both arguments and a warning for violating the rules of this forum, I'm now going to avoid comparing that "trial" to 20th and 21st century American politics....)

That said, 17th century Massachusetts and Connecticut could be used in a campaign without justifying the trials. You could easily do a setting where the witches were using real magic to help others and the community, but had to do so in secret. And to throw in a curve, you could have some that were using magic to harm others. The authorities might well be out to punish them all.

If you wanted to keep the aspect of the girls falsely accusing non-witches of witchery, you could have either one or more of the prosecuting authorities be the real witch(es) or, of course, the real witches could be the screaming girls.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

To start things off, imagine a world where spirits are common and somewhat active, and spirit-based powers (including some forms of PC-usable magic), items, and monsters are common enough for the myth parts of mythohistory to be dangerously real, even if they aren't over-the-top, world-shakingly powerful. Grendel and his mother might be evil spirits (perhaps Embodied by ritual), or mortal beings empowered by them (given their deaths, I'd go with the latter; EDIT: Grendel's mother is sometimes depicted as a witch, so perhaps she empowered and/or Embodied him). The gods would likewise be spirits, either powerful individual beings or groups of spirits acting in a collective name in the mortal world.

Thinking a bit more on this:

1. The tale of Beowulf helps illustrate what I meant about the overlap between horror and urban or epic fantasy: King Beowulf was an epic hero and a modernized version of him could fit in some forms of urban fantasy, but before he came, King Hrothgar and his men were living a horror story.

2. Expanding on what I meant about the gods as possibly groups of spirits, it would be quite difficult for mortals to tell the difference between a single very powerful weather-spirit named Zeus, who is good at shapeshifting (and may have lesser spirits serving him), and an organized group of lesser spirits who all use the name 'Zeus' when interfering in the mortal world.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

So the first question to be asked about such a setting is: how close was the history we learned in school to the real thing?

A very good point. I really think the answer would tie in with the Veil/Masquerade. I tend to imagine that most such settings are something like 'The closer you get to the modern era, the more accurate, on average, the history that actually gets recorded in the books is, though there are still things that get left out or misinterpreted.' The justification for this varies, but broadly has to do with the Veil getting stronger or the Masquerade being more strictly enforced (or both), as the human population expanded.

Related to that, perhaps something like the Skeptic perk (GURPS Psionic Powers p24 text box) works against the common powers of the setting, and people having it grow more and more common as time passes (perhaps just keeping pace with the population increase, or perhaps being more common per capita). Thus, the higher the population density in an area, the greater the chance that people who unconsciously disrupt powers will be nearby - in other words, the greater the chance that someone will spot you using powers, the lower the chance that you'll be able to use them.

Originally Posted by RyanW

One thing that frequently bugs me about "magical history" in settings is how it often accidentally justifies atrocities. I personally prefer that the Salem witch trials remain an out of control prank that caused a mass hysteria and killed two dozen innocent people, rather than a reasonable reaction to things that were really happening.

True.

Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade

If you wanted to keep the aspect of the girls falsely accusing non-witches of witchery, you could have either one or more of the prosecuting authorities be the real witch(es) or, of course, the real witches could be the screaming girls.

For Salem specifically, I prefer the idea that there were no witches in the area at the time, but one or more of the accusers and/or judges being the real witch(es) is also plausible in such a setting.

[Astromancer]

Throw this into the pot. There seems to be evidence, not conclusive, but highly suggestive, that in London at least criminal gangs claimed and may have believed they were protected by the fairies. We know from trial transcripts that masquerading as a fairy was a commonplace stunt for grifters and con artists. Which means that belief in the fairies was so strong that actually meeting a fairy was seen by many as a realistic possibility.

There is evidence that belief in fairies and witches was common within London until at least the end of the Victorian period. Belief in fairies and witches among educated Londoners was normal until the late 17th century.

If you set your game in the 1670s, just as the Enlightenment is beginning in England, you can have fairies, witches, pirates, Fifth Monarchy Men (radical protestant political terrorists), alchemists, and early scientists all in your game.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by RyanW

One thing that frequently bugs me about "magical history" in settings is how it often accidentally justifies atrocities. I personally prefer that the Salem witch trials remain an out of control prank that caused a mass hysteria and killed two dozen innocent people, rather than a reasonable reaction to things that were really happening.

I understand that reaction, but the possibility of such things kind of comes with the territory if you discover that magic is real and that the 'legends' of history are factual. Of course that particular incident might still have been no more than what it seemed, even if magical history is real. But if everything we think we know is wrong, or might be wrong, then everything we think we know comes into question.

Originally Posted by Alden Loveshade

Also keep in mind that a clear-cut distinction between elves and fairies is a relatively modern invention (as a certain recently released GURPS supplement discusses). For example, Edmund Spenser's late 16th century The Faerie Queene uses the terms "elf" and "fairy" interchangeably. In more modern times, the photos of the Cottingley Fairies were believed to be real in the early 20th century. So yeah, elves, fairies, gnomes, brownies, etc. could work.

Also note that the notion that the elves are a 'good' race, or friendly to humans, is also something of a modernist notion. Historically, they and the rest of Faerie were generally seen as either evil or at least unpredictable and dangerous, and you did best to avoid contact if you could.

In that light, the word 'eldritch' originally derives from the same linguistic root word as 'elf'.

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would say in discussions of the Veil it's important to consider who it's actually intended to protect. For example, looking at White Wolf, we have:

• Vampire: the Masquerade protects vampires from mundanes.
• Werewolf: Delirium protects werewolves from mundanes.
• Mage: Paradox protects mundanes from mages.
• Changeling: Banality protects mundanes from changelings.

I generally find the second model easier to make sense of, which gives an interesting model for monster hunters: you actually have two, somewhat incompatible goals:

• Protect people from the monsters.
• Give the people long term protection against monsters by convincing them that the monsters didn't exist in the first place, or were mundane.

It can be both at once. To use The Dresden Files as an example, in it the masquerade is a loose thing, lots of people know something or suspect something of the truth, but TPTB will come after you if you violate it in a big way. It exists to protect both mundane mortals and the supernatural types, from each other.

Humans have a huge edge in numbers, and modern technology multiplies that effect. The monsters are immensely powerful individually, and some of them have world-shaking potency. Magic-using mortals are in both camps at once and can find themselves on either side of the conflict at a given time. The general consensus among those in the know is that it's best not to rock the boat, because a serious mundane/magical conflict could easily get way, way out of hand.

[Johnny1A.2]

We also need to ask what exactly we mean when we use the word 'Enlightenment' in this context. The Enlightenment didn't invent logic or reason, both were recognized and respected throughout history. Nor is the Enlightenment necessarily about the scientific method or science in general, though the roots of what we call 'modern science' are in the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment is as much an attitude, a cultural reflex, as anything else, in terms of its legacy. It's an assumption of a mechanistic universe, at least to some degree, a belief that the universe is basically understandable even if not currently understood. In some ways, the Enlightenment is a side-effect of the Protestant Reformation, in other ways it's the flip side of the same coin as the Romantic movement. (Romantics and Enlightenment rationalists are often seen as opponents, but in fact they are two sides of one thing.)

When an urban fantasy story discusses the 'rules' of magic, or analyzes the origins of a magical creature, they are applying Enlightenment thinking to the supernatural, usually without even realizing it. The impulse to define and contextualize, and the unspoken background assumption that the magic can be so analyzed and grasped, that's post-Enlightenment thinking. A pre-Enlightenment analyst might still attempt to categorize the supernatural, but likely without any background assumption that it's entirety is understandable.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

We also need to ask what exactly we mean when we use the word 'Enlightenment' in this context.

By 'Pre-Enlightenment,' I literally meant 'before the time-period that was called the Enlightenment, Age of Enlightenment, or Age of Reason.' I put a link in the OP so that people wouldn't need to ask that.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

It can be both at once.

Dresden files is not both, it pretty much follows the Vampire/Werewolf model. The thing about Paradox and Mundanity is that they directly do harm to mages and changelings.