03-27-2019, 02:27 AM | #51 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: [MH] Underground Fights in a Tourist Resort in the Caribbean?
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Psychic vampirism is another possibility, and the theft of people's feelings about deaths could explain how the business has stayed secret for some time: nobody feels it matters.
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03-27-2019, 02:33 AM | #52 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: [MH] Underground Fights in a Tourist Resort in the Caribbean?
You could probably work in the pirates and buccaneers who drank, whored, and feasted themselves into bankruptcy between expeditions. Maybe a curse upon the rich after a failed slave revolt, or an unhappy missionary who cursed the planters' extravagance and lack of the Christian virtues? The 17th/18th century is old enough for some magic to work.
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03-27-2019, 08:34 AM | #53 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [MH] Underground Fights in a Tourist Resort in the Caribbean?
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The fights are not actually the only thing going on at the resort, but the disappearance of many promising contenders and skilled journeymen fighters is something that analysts looking for odd things eventually noticed. Quite frankly, if other groups of people are also disappearing from economically depressed areas of the Caribbean, it might well be that nobody has considered it unusual. After all, human trafficking for sexual and economic exploitation isn't uncommon in the world. So it might well be that teen runaways, sex workers, refugees and migrant laborers are also going missing in the same areas as the proprietors of the resort are recruiting fighters, but that those disappearances do not rise above the background noise of 'standard' missing persons. Let us imagine the island resort as a version of Pleasure Island from Pinocchio. There are equivalents of the Coachman in the form of legal employment agencies and less legal recruiters in numerous urban centers within trafficking distance. Of course, not being in a PG cartoon, there are more adult amusements than merely smoking, drinking, cursing, playing pool and enjoying rollercoasters; e.g. any imaginable recreational chemical, exotic and possibly illegal cuisines, high-stakes gambling on a wide variety of bizarre activities, elaborate burlesque shows, choreographed orgies, enactment of any conceivable sexual fantasy, and, of course, bloody gladiatorial spectacles. The island the resort is on needs to be part of a nation with a weak enough institutions and police for it to be plausible that the proprietors could have purchased, with both legal taxes and economic importance as well as massive bribes, what amounts to effective autonomy (as long as no evidence impossible to ignore turns up), but with enough ship traffic to make it possible to smuggle in cargoes of various people and all kinds of less-than-legal party favors per week. The local police would be aware that gambling, prostitution and drug use goes on there, but should not enquire closely enough to realize that some of the people who arrive without paperwork never leave. Quote:
As the evidence that the analysts first noticed was related to fighters disappearing, it's likely that the Occultism theories that the PCs start the adventure with will focus on supernatural beings associated with combat, rage, death, blood and warriors, but when they learn more, it might be that those are only part of the answer, if not entirely red herrings.
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03-27-2019, 08:53 AM | #54 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [MH] Underground Fights in a Tourist Resort in the Caribbean?
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This is exactly the kind of speculation that I want, because before the PCs leave, they'll discuss the information they have so far with multiple NPCs who have high scholarly skills and I'll need to be able to speculate on a wide variety of supernatural causes. There will be NPCs who suggest possible Carib or other indigenous mythological causes, several who give briefings on a range of Afro-Caribbean possibilities and others who note that as they do not yet have reliable information on who is ultimately behind the complex web of shell corporation ownership of the resort, the culprit could be some kind of supernatural being from anywhere who chose the Caribbean because of the combination of relatively small countries with weak institutions and high numbers of affluent tourists allowed for the creation of something that appealed to it. After all, the true owners of the resort could be drug cartels from Central or South America, Russian or other East European oligarchs, a mysterious American tech billionaires, a consortium of secretive European bankers or something even more exotic.
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03-27-2019, 01:50 PM | #55 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [MH] Underground Fights in a Tourist Resort in the Caribbean?
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03-27-2019, 07:26 PM | #56 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: Occultism Theories for a Supernatural Party Responsible?
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One player immediately leapt to the suggestion of an Enter the Dragon type scenario at the suggestion that boxers and MMA fighters were going missing. I reminded him that with no other information than that, he couldn't rule out alternative explanations like:
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03-28-2019, 05:08 PM | #57 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [MH] Underground Fights in a Tourist Resort in the Caribbean?
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The PCs and the analysts, occultists, researchers and scholars who brief them will form their theories about whatever supernatural events are going on from the clues they have, which are whatever trends that their organization has spotted out of the ordinary. First and foremost is the identity of the apparent victims; who seem to be chosen among strong, hardy males in the prime of life, with combat skills as high as anyone is likely to find in modern society. It's clear, at least, that someone is interested in people with good physical Attributes and high unarmed skills, but the PCs don't really know if other types of 'warriors' are also going missing. MMA fighters and boxing contenders are by their nature better known than gang members or criminals who may be skilled in Brawling, Knife or Shortsword skills. It's theoretically possible that skilled machete fighters or literal sicarios have also gone missing, but because of the nature of their lifestyles, it's much less likely that it would register as unusual to any analyst looking for anomalous data points around the 'Bermudan Vile Vortex'. So, it's likely that the theories that the PCs start out with are somewhat skewed, due to their data being incomplete. They don't actually know about everything that might be going on, they just know about the most obvious sign, i.e. victims that due to their potentially profitable skills were known to managers, trainers and fight organizers.
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03-28-2019, 06:56 PM | #58 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Shoreline, WA (north of Seattle)
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Re: [MH] Underground Fights in a Tourist Resort in the Caribbean?
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03-28-2019, 07:46 PM | #59 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [MH] Underground Fights in a Tourist Resort in the Caribbean?
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And I'm looking for as many suggestions for a being, entitiy or spirit that might want this sort of safrifice as I can find. Spirits or loas from Afro-Caribbean religions will loom large as a possibility, not only because of the location, but also because in my campaign, supernatural beings and users of magic are very often involved in the criminal underworld. Magic is secret and apparently only fairly recently started to work, with 19th century and older traditions, especially ones with rituals performed in languages other than those in common use in modern society, working better than anything else. Traditional magic-users from Afro-Caribbean religions are by far the most common users of supernatural power near the 'Bermuda triangle' (actually more like a lozenge) and in the 2010s, most organized crime has someone with unusual powers involved at the highest levels. This means that whoever might ultimately be responsible for the Pleasure Island resort where MMA fighters fight each other to the death, the PCs are going to come across Dominican, Haitian, Jamaican and other Caribbean gangs and organized crime networks providing drugs and human trafficking to the resort, with bokors, houngans, brujos or similar figures in leadership roles. Granted, this would be true for any major enterprise with illegal trade contacts in this part of the world, in my campaign, as most people who find that they suddenly have supernatural powers tend to use them for selfish reasons, ultimately ending up involved in criminal underworlds. And gangs and organized crime are milieus where people with supernatural powers beyond that of mere mortals can quickly rise to the top. Chango is one loa or orisha who might favour warriors fighting each other to death. What are other possibilities, both Afro-Caribbean and from other mythologies?
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03-28-2019, 10:26 PM | #60 | |
Join Date: Aug 2013
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Re: [MH] Underground Fights in a Tourist Resort in the Caribbean?
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They lead you down a set of stairs carved into the rock and you hear murmurs ahead of the others who arrived before you. The hall is low lit and rather bare, in stark contrast to you two escorts, somehow giving them the impression of being...bigger, or just 'more there', an eerie observation to say the least. You are pulled from your musings of your escorts by the eruption of noise as they open a set of very ornate double doors in front of you. The room beyond is large and cavernous and at one time, natural. The walls still have the roughness of nature but the floor and some of the ceiling has been stripped away for modern amenities. The noise comes from almost hundred people talking among themselves in anticipation of tonight's festivities. Along the walls are bleacher seating, many carved from the rock with several private booths spaced at equal intervals around the room. Across the room is a raised area where several individuals sit in similarly ornate but different livery to your escorts. The center of the room is an elevated platform, once white but now stained from many exhibitions. As honored guests tonight, you are shown to a booth near to the elevated platform, guaranteeing a good view. Several minutes pass and the crown quiets as a quiet drum beat starts and slowly rises in both volume and tempo. A man in ornate robes and a mask comes out and begins a speech to the crown in a language you can't quite understand. After a few minutes he says a greeting in several languages you do recognize and finally settling into English. " Ladies and Gentlemen! Society...a strange word that actually means Conformity. Conformity and imprisonment, imprisonment of our true selves, imprisonment for the coddling of those that do not have the will or audacity to embrace our true natures. Tonight I give you freedom." He turns and returns to the raised area to observer the platform. Performers enter the platform area, making undulating movements in colorful outfits, singing and chanting in a low, melodic drone. The air feels absolutely alive in anticipation, almost electric. ......... Just a quick off the top of my head. The Ritual is being performed openly in front of everyone under the guise of entertainment. The participants are all willing members of the audience , feeding it with their greed, lust and bloodthirstiness. The fighters are also brought into the ring, willingly, and at the beginning of the fight a little "ceremonial" display or phrase (part of the ritual). Under the ring is actually the center is a ritual circle, the rest of it extending out into the bleachers and private booths. As for the entities just a couple come to mind: Mammon a demon associated with greed. Glasya-Labolas a demon associated with manslaughter and bloodshed and Asmodeus big bad demon most commonly associated with lust. Another possibility could be (mentioning Asmodeus) could be no particularly named entities may be involved, just concepts. The seven deadly sins. All could be easily represented here. Wrath=the fighters and those reveling in the blood, Lust=those actively indulging in the prostitution, Envy=all of those that covet what those that are better have, Gluttony=drugs, food, everything offered just about, Pride=the winning fighter(s), Greed=all those gambling and the fighters as well, Sloth=the bloated rich heads of the organization and/or the local populace/police/politicians. Anyway, I've put the wife asleep with all of my typing. Hope some of this helps. Also, here is one resource I grabbed from my bookmarks A Compendium of Demons |
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bloodsports, caribbean, fighters, martial arts, monster hunters |
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