The Beowulf Effect

[Ian O'Rourke]

Okay, it's not actual play yet, but it will be. I'm also not wanting to go into system too much at this point (as that is mostly decided, and there is good reasons for it beyond perfect fit to a dramatic model).  So what's the question...

Well, I'm looking to begin a mythic england style of game in the next few weeks. It will be like Robin of Sherwood and Ars Magica - basically a fantasy game, with a realistic edge set in a mythic england as this provides me with fantastical elements without having to create a new setting (as the players encounter it or otherwise).

Basically, I want the first sessoins to be like a re-telling of Beowulf. The characters meet for the first time, and get involved in a mystery surrounding a 'large village' in northern england (and hence still slightly viking/saxon) in thinking which is being terrorised by a beast.

I'm just hunting on advice on how to make this more mythical - what can the best be? Why is it terrorising the village? How does it terrorise? Why does the village just not move?

In other words, cover the practical, but telling a myth, as if the story is being told by a bard, and the characters are playing it out. I'd also be going for a 'dark and stormy night' type of tone.

Anything?

[Roy]

Hey, Ian!  It sounds like this will be an interesting game.  

I'm just hunting on advice on how to make this more mythical - what can the best be? Why is it terrorising the village? How does it terrorise? Why does the village just not move?

For a quick idea of what the beast could be, check out the excellent French film "Brotherhood of the Wolf".  You should be able to find it in your neighborhood video store ... and don't worry, it's was dubbed over in English so it doesn't annoy you with subtitles.

But why limit yourself to just one beast?  Why not have three separate things causing the attacks of the beast?  Here's an example:
1)  Excessive logging in the forest has caused a huge feral wolf to start attacking villagers
2)  A Saxon werewolf has been preying on villagers
3)  A noble house has used the attacks to knock off rivals while blaming it on the beast

Weave the encounters in and out between the three causes and you should have a very interesting storyline going as players try to unravel the threads.  Heck, throw in a couple of other random murders that are blamed on the beast and you'll have a very interesting brew going.

As for why the village doesn't just move, would you want to be caught outside the walls when the beast attacks?  Never mind the fact that the beast seems to be able to get inside the walls anytime he wants. :-)

Roy

[Ian O'Rourke]

Actually I've been having some thoughts. I want to keep the story focused on a certain theme, having multiple beasts and stuff might disrupt that (and I have seen Brotherhood of the Wolf).

I was thinking of having the local King (they is a lot of 'kings') be in love with a woman. But this woman is in love with his greatest warrior. So he has a hag curse the great warrior. And as is the nature of curses, this also blights the village, as the monster attacks the village from time to time as it is driven insane by its love for the woman. The king marries the woman as she thinks her lover is dead.

The heroes enter the fray, and they start to look at freeing the village of its curse.

What happens when they find the beat? They uncover the truth but must still kill the curst creature?
What will the king do? He wants his lands free of the beast but if the heroes discover his curse?
What happens when the heroes return with this knowledge?

Cue much heartache sorrow and pathos, with no one really willing, in a way.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Man, this post sent me way back to high school studying Beowulf (didn't help I had recently discovered Eaters of the Dead about a year earlier)

I don't recall much, but you could try to find some critical examination of Beowulf. I do recall there being something about the boast like it is an expected behavior on the part of the hero. I don't know if that helps, but here it is.

A quick search yielded this. A longer search should find more, but it looks like there is some information there.

[Clay]

Critical commentary makes for pretty dry reading.  To get the essence of what makes Beowulf a hero, watch High Noon, which will be a lot more entertaining. Beowulf's final confrontation with the dragon and High Noon differ primarily in the setting (and in High Noon the hero gets to walk away with the girl).

The thing that makes Beowulf into a hero is that he faces the danger when nobody else will, even when he knows he probably won't live.  Make the danger overwhelming, the body count high, meet timidity with shameful destruction and you've got Beowulf's mythic quality.  

Remember that things always went to heck for Beowulf as well. "It was never his fortune to be helped in combat by the cutting edge of weapons made of iron" (2682 - 2684). When they overcome, it must be against great odds.

Mechanically, I'd suggest something that allows for dramatic reversals. 7th Sea with its drama dice might work, as would Sorcerer.  I'd stay away from strong simulationist systems, since the realistic result of facing an overwhelming foe is to be smashed flat.

[Matt Gwinn]

If you really want to play a game based on Beowulf you should be using Scott Kinpe's Wyrd system.  It's designed specifically for that style and works great.  I'm sure he'd send you a PDF if you asked nicely.  He's Hardcoremoose on the Forge if you want to PM him.

,Matt Gwinn

[Ian Cooper]

I'm just hunting on advice on how to make this more mythical - what can the best be? Why is it terrorising the village? How does it terrorise? Why does the village just not move?

What can the beast be?
A draugr - a sort of Germanic vampire/zombie is one of my favourites. They vary in power but the abilities to move thorugh the earth, shroud themselves in mist, vulnerability to weapons found in their own grave are all good rpg material (The Viking answer lady had some good material but I cannot find here site right now - Google or wayback when should help). Grendel and Grendel's mother have many draugr charaecteristics. My favorite draugr tactic is 'stead-riding' where they climb aside a stead and bash the roof with their heels, threatening to collapse the stead unless the inhabitants come out to fight.

Trolls are another possibility, or a big Black Dog (Hound of the Baskervilles style but very traditional in English myth)

Why is it terrorising the village?
A hatred for the living/mprtal men is reason enough in a lot of the stories - sometimes it is the warped form of a person who hated the living (Smeaglo/Gollum fits in this motif but does not really have the power you are afrer probably)

How does it terrorise?
At night almost certainly, or in the deep forest or in the mist covered fens. Snatching people away, their mutilated body parts all that are found. It attacks those alone. For added tension water (even if crossed by a bridge, may be an obstacle to its passage allowing people in certain 'places of safety' to shelter from its attack - ride for the bridge to Newthorp, ride for your life, and don't look back.

Why does the village just not move?
My father lived here and his father before him, their bones are buried in that field over there... We own this land. If we moved I would have to throw myself on another lord's mercy and work his land, a mere tenant...The curse will follow us wherever we go...Leave here behind the Greystream we are safe, cross through the forest to escape, none would survive the trip.

Hope something there helps.

[simon_hibbs]

I'm just hunting on advice on how to make this more mythical - what can the best be? Why is it terrorising the village? How does it terrorise? Why does the village just not move?

Here are a cople of ideas for northern england:

A Druid fleeing from their slaughter by the romans in the ancient british religious centre of Anglesey. The druid was tracked down by a Roman sorcerer of the cult of Selene (the moon) and cursed into the otherworld, but managed to maintain a slight grip on reality. Pagan rituals by local peasants have weakened the curse and allow the druid to return to the material world on moonless nights to wreak his vengeance on the 'Roman' establishment and their latin-speaking priest.

An elite unit of the Legion of the (th was lost without trace in northern england while chasing a British warband. Now they have returned as an undead horde, bound to their battle standard by druidic curses. One by one, outlying settlements are razed and the locals crucified.

If there's a river nearby, perhaps it was navigable once? If so, viking raiders may have terrorised the area. suppose one of the viking warlords was killed, and buried in a mound in the hills. A Draugr is an undead revenent risen from it's desecrated mound to take vengeance on the desecrators. Who's been digging for gold where they shouldn't, and what did they find? How will your players face the problem - battle the undead warlord (and perhaps his thrall servants, sacrified on his funeral pyre to accompany him to the underworld), or return the artifact and lay his spirit to rest.

Finaly, on your point about mobility. serfs were next to being slaves of their lord. They were bound by social 'contract' to work the lands of their feudal master and could be hanged for runnign away. Also, where would they go? They couldn't just take anyone else's land, and what kind of lord would accept someone else's reject serfs anyway?

Set the game during winter - that'll nip their wanderlust in the bud. lots of strange tracks in the snow that suddenly disapear, too!


Simon Hibbs

[szilard]

I don't recall much, but you could try to find some critical examination of Beowulf. I do recall there being something about the boast like it is an expected behavior on the part of the hero. I don't know if that helps, but here it is.

Read Grendel instead.

(It's a retelling of Beowulf from Grendel's p.o.v., by John Gardner.)

Stuart

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Read Grendel instead.

(It's a retelling of Beowulf from Grendel's p.o.v., by John Gardner.

Thanks but I think everyone only has room in their life for one retelling of Beowulf. For me, it's Eaters of the Dead. For my brother, it's the Christopher Lambert movie. Go figure that.