[R Map] The Big Lebowski

[James_Nostack]

Now that we've hashed out the basics of "The Big Lebowski," it's time to take some liberties with it and customize it for game play, to the point where it may become unrecognizable. 

I do not have my copy of Sorcerer's Soul with me, but I hope that people will correct me if I do things wrong.  The whole point of this thread is for me to learn!

Setting: Look and Feel
England in the 1830's.  Think of the works of Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot, and above all Charles Dickens.  The Romantic Period is wheezing to a close ("Shelley abides"), and the Industrial Revolution is in full swing.  The British navy rules the seven seas, the cities belch with smoke and coal, and fine ladies and gentlemen while their time away on country manors, often living above their means.  Justice is stern and self-righteous. 

Humanity
Human Decency.  (This is not the same as being "proper.")  You generally lose Humanity through callous, heartless or powerfully indecent behavior.

Demons: two options
In a more restrained approach, "demons" would be people who have lost the faculty for human sentiment.  A coldblooded murderer, a merciless judge, or a scandalous ladykiller might function as demons.  In this scheme, "A Christmas Carol" is the story of a demon becoming human.

Alternately, given that Gothic literature was pretty popular around this time, you could say that demons are literal hellspawn.  But this is less interesting to me, so I'll point out the fork in the road and go my own way.

The Relationship Map and Backstory
(Please Note - For ease of comprehension I am using the names from the movie.  Obviously they can be renamed for play.  I recommend Chris Pound's name generator, which contains a Dickens list.)

The Big Lebowski married into the landed gentry after a life of accomplishment, but it's all a hoax.  Maybe he was a captain of a slave ship which sank, leaving virtually no evidence?

Brandt was Lebowski's sidekick in his earlier misadventurous phase, now a butler.  If Lebowski ever turns on him, Brandt will blackmail him with information about the slave ship.

Maude, Lebowski's daughter, resented her father's conservative bluster and ended up as a radical: Wollestoncraft, Shelly, Byron, etc.  She publishes essays on the plight of women and children in English society.  Lebowski has written her out of his will.  She has become somewhat infatuated by the dashing revolutionary Karl. 

The Knudsons live in the village near the Lebowski manor.  Mr. Knudson works in the mines, and drinks a lot ever since his daughter ran away.

Fawn Knudson - a/k/a Bunny - ran away to London, fell afoul of Jackie Treehorn, and was married off to Lebowski.  No one knows that Bunny was originally a resident of the village. Bunny is probably a demon, though she could be redeemed.

Jackie Treehorn undergoes a sex change and becomes a madam who runs a gambling house in London, and has pretenses of running a (dingy) salon.  She might be Brandt's estranged wife?   

Mrs. Lebowski is not dead.  She's locked in the attic and mad as a hatter.  She may be a "demon" contained in the attic.  I suppose Maude only knows that "mother was not herself at the end," but the 'death' itself happened while Maude was on the continent. 

Karl Hungus is a Communist, or at any rate knows Marx personally (he was living in London around this time).  He's a lower class worker who frequented Treehorn's place in the early days and fell obsessively in love with Bunny.  He's tracked her to the village; he's also organizing the mine workers against Lebowski. 

(To say it again: the Dude and Walter aren't meant to be part of this story, but it would be easy to turn the Dude into a middle-aged Romantic poet type and Walter into a daft ex-navy man.)

Crimes Against Decency
* Lebowski was a slave trader
* Brandt and/or Lebowski locked Mrs. Lebowski in the attic
* The conditions in the mine are unconscionably bad
* Bunny ran off, and now ignores her parents
* Treehorn pimped out this innocent country girl
* Lebowski has written his daughter out of his will

But these all seem kind of weak.  Any thoughts on beefing this up with some juicy sins?