Accursed Monster Party

or

Some Dumb Thoughts About Accursed

A combination of increased production at work (thank you for panicking America, Ted Cruz) and a trough in the waves of my creativity has left me too busy to write much for the last week and with too much writer’s block to produce anything worthwhile, so here are some short, dumb thoughts about Accursed.

As we know, the Accursed (or Witchbreed) are the cast-off monstrous soldiers of the Grand Coven, an alliance of immensely powerful Witches who invaded and conquered the continent of Morden on the quasi-medieval (or is it pseudo-Victorian?) planet Saturnyn.  Each of the Witches created her own breed of Accursed, all of which draw on some aspect of the Witch herself and which resemble iconic monsters (Frankenstein’s monster, The Island of Dr. Moreau-like surgical hybrid, mummy, vampire, werewolf, and what is more or less a zombie).  A witch’s coven is supposed to contain 13 members; assuming the same holds true for the Grand Coven, then the Accursed revealed so far cover only half of the potential Witchbreed.

What could the other half be?

Turning to that definitive classic of monster moviemaking, Mad Monster Party, the classic (one might say “universal”) monster icons are the Creature from the Black Lagoon (AKA the Gill-Man), Dracula, Frankenstein the mad scientist, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, King Kong, the Mummy, the Wolf-Man, and zombies.  Of that set, five have not been turned into Accursed already.  How might one approach these remaining classic monsters?

The Creature from the Black Lagoon

Gosh, are there any stories about an ordinary human finding himself relentlessly compelled to the sea, possibly transforming into a sea-creature and “wearing their unhuman trappings, treading their aqueous ways, and praying monstrously at their evil sea-bottom temples?”  Man, I wish we had some sort of template, possibly provided by one of the founding voices of weird fiction.  Hmm…

The “mother” of the Gill-Men should obviously be Sycorax, the mother of Caliban from Shakespeare’s The Tempest.  Her Banes would include strangely-sentient great white sharks, krakens, and mermaids.  (Mermaids are evil.)  Gill-Men who reject their Witchmark turn into Aquaman.

Dr. Frankenstein

I’m surprised that Weird Science isn’t allowed as an Arcane Background in Accursed, let alone that mad scientists aren’t a player race.  Every lit student knows Victor Frankenstein was the real monster, not the creature he created.

Huh, it occurs to me that you could just port over the mad scientist rules from Deadlands Reloaded and be ready to go with this one.  The Witch in charge of mad scientists is obviously Pearl Forrester.

The Invisible Man

Occula the Eyeless (who looks suspiciously like one of the crones from either version of Clash of the Titans) oversees the unseen world.  Her invisible men tread the line between the corporeal and the ethereal, becoming more ghostlike as they embrace their Witchmarks, and more like Sue Storm when they don’t. 

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Umm…  There’s not much to Jekyll and Hyde that isn’t covered by werewolves, is there?  I guess the Hydelings could be more like the Hulk?  The Witch associated with it would be a mistress of madness and addiction.

King Kong

An Accursed Man-Ape is a devolved human who is comparable to a sasquatch or Mighty Joe Young.  As the character embraces his Witchmark, he becomes more ape-like – eventually assuming a gigantic form like King Kong – while if he rejects his Witchmark he becomes more like Tarzan.

Perhaps they automatically begin as Large creatures with a bonus to Toughness? 

The Witch-Queen of the Man-Apes would have to be a scantily-clad jungle goddess in the tradition of Ayesha and La of Opar.   

Bonus

Masked Slashers

ala Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers

While it would be fairly obvious to tie giant monsters to a Japanese-themed witch instead of masked slasher horror types, I can't help but imagine a Lady of the Murder Masks with a Noh sorta theme -- O-Kamen no Koroshi!  Part of the Grand Coven's army was mercenaries from "Sakurada," so it fits perfectly that there would be some blade-worshipping weirdoes out there.