Silent Legions: Quaint, Quiet Little Town, Part 1

I've just finished replaying Alan Wake and while it is rather lacking in the 'gaming' department it was still a worthwhile experience. Normally I'd be a bit harsh on games which try to be lighter on gameplay and heavier in the story content (in spite of being a fan of Metal Gear, go figure) but Alan Wake manage to really sell itself when it come to the world and story, especially on the part of doing eldritch mind-screwing horror without entirely resorting (only) to the usual cavalcade of Lovecraftian names, ideas and creatures: if there was one video game I'd recommend any Silent Legions Game Masters it would be Alan Wake. Granted, the game has been removed from the Steam market so anyone interested may have to resort to legally dubious means of obtaining the game unless one is willing to track down a physical copy of the Xbox version.

Let's just say he's not having a good day right now...

Alan Wake is very much the child of Twin Peaks, which makes it the younger brother to The X-Files. There's a certain something which is appealing about the concept of the somewhat isolated (north) American small town where seemingly bizarre things happen. Perhaps it's because they seem like the last dark and unknowable spots in an increasingly connected and known world: odd places away from the greater whole of civilization with a deeply entrenched history intertwined in the location and people. This sense of deeper, more connected history and local culture is alien to us city-dwelling folks and can appear, shall we say, creepy at times. It's fairly easy to take these utterly mundane places and start imagining some terrifying secret to it. They also tend to follow a 'two word' format:

D12	First Word	Second Word
1	Night	Springs
2	Mirror
3	Twin	Vale
4	Summer
5	Dark	Lake
6	Winter
7	Midnight	Peaks
8	Light
9	Daybreak	Fort
10	Spring
11	Crow	Grove
12	Dusk

Of course, supernatural happenings and fictional nature or not, the place invariably has some real-world history tied into it for an added layer to make it seem like a believable place which could exist somewhere. In general these stories are set in the United States (especially the New England region or the Appalachian) but such towns can (and do) exist in Canada too, especially the less populated and wilder provinces such as the 'middle Provinces' (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba), the rural parts of Ontario and Québec or the more remote and less-known-internationally provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. If one feel like adding extra cold, there's Alaska and the coldest Canadian provinces (and the northest parts of Québec and Labrador).

Any of these areas breed isolation and a foreboding sense of of 'not being welcomed' for city-folks. These places are smaller, closer-knit communities, almost like an anachronism or atavism to those used to the anonymous masses of the larger cities and the quaint boredom of suburbs. There is also the sense that such villages are isolated islands of civilization in the deep, dark wilderness, with bears, cougars and maybe some rampaging moose. It may sound silly but at night, when you're alone in those woods, it can get lonely and terrifying. If you fall in the dark nobody will ever find you.

These are all perfectly mundane and rational dangers. But what about these dangers which aren't mundane? What if there's really something out there? Or what if there's something in there in the village too. What if it's not just paranoia and isolation?

D6	Investigator’s Hook	Traveller’s Hook
1	A missing person case is what brings you and your colleagues to this town.	Someone or something destroys your car and maybe attack you/your family while you are on a visit.
2	Someone who has been missing for 2d10 years reappear. They haven’t aged a day.	Someone or something keep leaving cryptic messages warning you to avoid a certain thing.
3	Cryptic visions have led you or a colleague to this place. You must untangle their meaning.	The local are way too damn nice. You wake up to find you are suddenly married to someone in town you’ve never met.
4	A sociologist, archeologist or someone similar has gone missing. Their last whereabouts were studying the this town.	Someone in town keep saying you/your friends/your family is a long-lost relative of a local figure.
5	The town has vanished into thin air 1d4 decades ago. When you go there investigating something, it apparently still exist and never disappeared.	According to the locals you’ve been visiting this place for years and they have in depth memories of your misadventures. You don’t.
6	You wake up covered in blood, weapon in hand with the wall smeared with your writing saying how you ‘stopped the calamity’. Nobody knows what this mean, you don’t remember and the locals want your head.	A strange man has been stalking you/your family. Just when you’re about to confront him/you think he’s about to attack you...he is killed by an unknown force and leaves a cryptic warning to you with his dying breath.