Movies as Inspiration

Steve A.

Matthew W Moorman mattmoorman@JUNO.COM

Crash

Perhaps the speedsters are on their way to becoming techrones, or some other combination of flesh, glass and steel. Perhaps their founder achieved this state of 'Union with the Machine' in a car crash (Perhaps he was having sex in the car at the time?), and is trying to create others as well. And, you know that if you want to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs.

Hmm, it is kind of funny, in many ways I had a completely different take on things as far as Crash ideas go. For me what I decided to try and do was to use the ideas behind Crash as a sort of focus for practitioners of passion magic instead of something with technodrones. Here is the general idea...

What I have envisioned is a campaign that revolves around the characters trying to unravel a plan set in motion by a couple of the Archons. The Archons are Malkuth and Tipareth. The basic plot is that Tipareth uses her influence in the entertainment industry to get a very limited directors cut of the movie Crash released. Now that is not exactly a problem, the problem comes in when a passion mage that is loyal to Malkuth goes about "spiking" several copies of the tape that are heading toward a specific city. The "spiked" tapes are created by having this passion mage cast a special emotion affecting ritual on them, as well as inscribing various symbols and runes on the tape itself in the beginning and the end of certain scenes in the movie (particularly in and around the sex and car crash scenes). As someone begins to watch the tapes, if their mental balance is low enough, they become drawn to the movie (in particular the scenes with the symbols). They begin to obsess and compulsively watch the film. In essence they soon begin to focus all of their mental and sexual energies on the movie. They do nothing but think about and contemplate the movie and they find their sexuality beginning to skew towards Vaughn's sexuality. Effectively what begins to happen is they feel drawn to car crashes, and the sexuality and the violence inherent in these settings (to them). Soon these are not enough, they feel the urge to move on to the next level-- they have to get involved in a severe car crash themselves. When they finally get into this crash their entire physical, mental, and sexual being is focused on this one event. As soon as their car hits another their total focus on this state of mind brings them to the brink, they are suddenly aware of their own divinity for just an instant as they complete their first passion magic ritual. It is an empty ritual without effect, but for the first time they are aware that they are something more then their human shell, and sex (their own brand of it) is one way to tap into that. Kind of like jump starting a battery. They undergo the partial awakening, that all mages go through during a ritual, as they tap into their divinity at that instant. Of course this realization takes place while they are plowing into some poor shmuck at 70 miles an hour, but if they survive they will be new practitioners of passion magic, aware that they can tap into something special through the medium of their twisted sex. They are then gathered together as the acolytes and servants of the original passion mage. The entire plot by Malkuth and Tipareth is a recruiting scheme to get more humans on the path to awakening and hence the destruction of the illusion. The characters are brought into this plot by noticing the large number of car crashes lately in which the driver of the crashing vehicle is driving, shall we say, one handed. Of course if the characters realize it, then the Lictors will see this as strange as well. The characters are now part of a contest between the agents of Malkuth and enemy Lictors. Who knows what side they will be on in the end? The beauty is that while this series of adventures has its roots in the high up power structure, the characters are never going to be aware of who started the ball rolling. Lictors are going to be about as high up the Kult "power structure" as they can go. Keeps the mystery for beginning characters, and yet is a good solid introduction into the Kult world. I tried to make this a general outline so that the individual GM can easily integrate any ideas within their own setting. For my own campaign the big tip off for the characters, that all is not normal here, would be that all of these crashies have a copy of the Crash movie in the VCR. The beauty about using a real movie for the focus is that it allows me to show the real Crash movie within the context of the game for all of those players who have not seen it yet. As soon as they see the real movie, and begin to draw parallels, it suddenly becomes apparent what they are up against. A good roleplaying night and a movie night all in one, what more do you need?

Perry tikibun@EPIX.NET

Tetsuo The Iron Man

Tetsuo The Iron Man is a 16mm B&W movie by Shinya Tsukamoto, The Plot involves a young metal fetishist and a businessman, the metal fetishist implants a metal bar into his leg, and while running away in shock after seeing maggots int he wound, is struck by the car carrying the businessman and his girlfriend, who we later discover, were having sex in the car. The next day, after dumping the "body", the businessman discovers a metal growth on his face while shaving. Later, after hiding the growth with a bandage, heads off to work, but while waiting for his train is attacked by a young woman with a fungal/mechanical claw, he stabs her in the neck with a pencil, yet she still chases after him, until jets rupture from his feet, and he flees to a garage, where he kills her.

Various

The closest I came to this was the 'multimedia horror night' of the final adventure in my big ol' year-long KULT campaign. New York was being attacked by Satanist gangs, physically transported into Inferno, and the citizens turned into zombies by marauding packs of Sumatran Rat Pigs. At three times during the evening, I trotted the players out to the main room with the big TV to show them some tapes on the VCR:

(1) The beginning of DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE, where they have a few New York scenes, and then suddenly a terrorist bomb goes off. This was at the beginning of the adventure.

(2) The later scenes of MIRACLE MILE, where the hero climbs on top of a car to see all of Los Angeles in a panic of screaming insanity, riots, and random violence, and newsmen are being shot on TV. This was in the middle of the adventure, when it was starting to sink in that New York was now part of Hell.

(3) The early 'apartment building' scenes of DAWN OF THE DEAD, where zombies are bursting out of nailed-shut doors and attacking mobs of armed riot control officers, and people are going on killing rampages. This was towards the end of the night, when the zombies were spreading.

All in all, it would have been much more successful if I'd just been able to wave my hand and had the scenes appear in the air before the players, rather than having to walk over to the TV and fumble with the VCR (we were playing in a separate room, for various reasons). But it was still a LOT of fun, particularly as most of them weren't familiar with the movies, and the scenes in MIRACLE MILE and DAWN OF THE DEAD were powerful punch-in-the-stomach horror even without any prior explanation or context.

Have you seen Crash yet? If you have not then you are making a huge mistake by passing it up simply because it was made in Hollywood. The movie has gotten several awards and the book is highly regarded as well. Besides a more Kultish vision of sex and twisted minds can seldom be found. If you see the movie and read the book you tend to understand the whole story quite a bit better. As far as other movies that are begging to be made into Kult scenarios, Jacob's Ladder springs to mind, the hospital scene is straight from the pages of a Kult adventure itself. Very well done.

If you see the flick Extreme Measures they have a scene in which Hugh Grant's character goes through the underground of New York. It is a good 5 minute clip to show players the right idea of what their characters are seeing, should they find themselves in the endless maze under Metropolis or any other city.


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