Today Veeky Forums, I would like to talk about Fridge Horror and any examples of it you've encountered in your games.
The basic description of fridge horror is something that becomes more terrifying in hindsight.
For a more in depth description, here's the link to the TV Tropes page. Don't worry, I left a trail of breadcrumbs so you can find your way out again:
tvtropes.org
So without further ado, let's get cracking.
Why don't they just call it "hindsight horror" or "horror in hindsight"? That way the meaning is clear from the jump. They already have "hilarious" and "harsher in hindsight" for things tht ended up as part of a joke or a tragedy after the fact. (For example, in Dresden Files a character introduced like 10 years ago who attempts to kill his own son is referred to as "a model father; him and Bill Cosby". Later that very book, we learn he and his entire race are psychic serial rapists. Last year, the public relearned that Bill Cosby was accused of serial date rape. So yeah, just like Bill Cosby!)
>Be playing a group of ragtag investigators in CoC Modern who are sent to solve weird and possibly paranormal cases on the hush by the local police department.
>Latest case focusing on a potential serial killer. Three bodies have been found so far and apart from being slashed to ribbons and partially eaten, there is nothing to tie the victims together.
>Oh goody, sounds like we got a monster hunt boys.
>Third victim has only been dead for a day and wasn't found to far from his home, so we head there to, you've guessed it, search for clues.
>Turns out victim was fairly well-to-do and lived in this pretty well kept gothic-styled house.
>Now before we go to much further, one thing you must know is that our DM fucking loves double bluffs. He also started using sound effects and kept smiling worryingly at a mix tape he made earlier. So when you see sinister shit on the horizon, your best bet is to cautiously walk towards it; guns drawn if socially acceptable.
>Know this and seeing this looming spectre of a house before us, we decided to enter the house. Not too fast though, since we had two handguns and a crowbar between the five of us.
>Surprisingly for us, we found both the front and back doors were locked. This coupled with the fact the windows were too high up to climb into meant we had to, eh, "gently" leverage the backdoor out of the way.
>The house itself was suspiciously lacking in anything occultish.
>There was no dark vibes, the place was tastefully decorated in a modern style, Men In Hats' Safety Dance was playing on the radio, hell even the floor boards didn't create softly.
>Wait...radio?
No idea.
Maybe because it's "cold" horror and it just sits there in the back of your mind until it suddenly thaws.
TVtropes itself says it seems because you pause the movie, go to the fridge for a snack and hey wait a minute that didn't make sense
I don't ynderstand. Are radios suddenly anachronistic?
>Now, there are certain things you come to expect when traipsing around a place that the Adam's Family would feel right at home in. Cheesy pop music is not one of these things.
>So being the experienced, and lightly armed, mythos investigators that we are. We bravely decided to search as a group in an area as far away from the source of this music as possible.
>As is to be expected, we didn't find an awful lot in the area NOT playing suspiciously cheerful music.
>So armed with two guns, a crowbar, a sturdy table leg and, according to the professor, a priceless, but hefty, antique vase, we made our way to the upper floor. To the source of the music.
>As we got closer to the sound, the DM slowly, slowly, turned up the volume on the music whilst this large grin that grew with the music.
>Bracing ourselves for victory (a Pyrrhic victory still counts) we burst into what appeared to be a study. There was a lightless radio, a writing desk with various papers, a well-worn armchair and......nothing.
>Despite the professors protests, we had our "reformed" burglar hurl the pot at the desk. Just in case it sprouted arms and tried to eat us.
>So now a mimic was out of the question, we decided the first thing to do was turn the radio off. Because we were getting sick of the song and it would probably only lead to the horrific mauling of one party member.
>Click....radio turned off, no hands were devoured. Great Success.
>Now we were pretty sure there was only a 30% chance of death, we started routing around the room.
>Turns out our good friend Vic No.3 here kept a pretty extensive diary of his day to day activities.
>Three days ago, he began to here loud music playing outside his house at night, so he started playing Safety Dance on repeat to drown out the sound and drive away whoever was playing the music.
>Must have been pretty loud since his bedroom's two storeys up...
The DM decided that setting the game in a more modern setting would let him have a bit more breathing room and let him play around with things like cybernetics.
It also gave him the excuse to through sturdier and freakier stuff at us, since we could literally walk down the street and buy assault rifles.
Basically it was Delta Green, but we were "normal" people instead of a covert, special forces team.
>Armed with this brilliant clue which narrowed are line of suspects to a horizon, we set off to talk to the neighbours.
>After a couple of hours of charming our ways into living rooms and only getting three broken feet, we found out that, apparently, no one else heard anything out of the ordinary and certainly no music loud enough to be heard from an upstairs window.
>Walking back to the station to give a status update about our thrilling adventure so far, we heard Dolly Parton's "Jolene" playing from a dilapidated house.
>Although we were now suspicious about music, we weren't at the "Accidental Arson" stage yet.
>During the meeting, we learned that there had been another victim. She had been killed in the same fashion as the rest but, luckily for us, the murder had only taken place an hour ago. So we packed our bags and headed off to the crime scene.
>Now armed with five guns, we were much more confident as we entered the dive bar and made our way down to the ladies bathroom.
>They weren't kidding when they said that the victims had been slashed to bits. She was not so much as butchered as she was splattered across the entire room.
>So monster then, oh well, this is Mr.5.56mm is for.
>As the doctor and the professor started splashing around, or as they called it "conducting an autopsy", the professor started humming.
>"Yo prof, what's you humming"
>"Hall of the mountain king. I know it's not the most appropriate time, but I just can't help but hum along when I hear it."
>Wait...uh oh
>Battle stances go!
>It was hard to say what was more unnerving, classical music in a dive bar or pop music in an old gothic house. But hey, more guns, greater chance of Pyrrhic victory.
>Advancing in the most tactical way two academics, an ex-con, a penniless bum and a private investigator can, we made our way into the dance hall as cautiously as we could.
>What met us there was flashy lights, a thumping bass and a pulpit hosting the DJ's gear.
>Although we couldn't tell exactly where the music was coming from, it was definitely coming from the stereo.
>Using the highly-successful and prestigious tactic known as "The Bum Rush", we bravely engaged the audio equipment and started hitting switches.
>The music soon stopped, which of course meant we had succeeded in vanquishing the memetic, rupture bea-BAM
>"So...who wants to turn around and who wants to run?" I asked the rapidly dissipating dust clouds that used to be my comrades in brown pants.
>After we performed that calm and collected tactical withdrawal. We celebrated a decisive victory against the creature, since we now knew it was a creature and that meant we could shoot/incinerate it, Yay.
>Bug Hunt mode engaged.
>So now we knew what the problem was how to deal with it, we just needed to figure out how to lure it out.
>We then set about the most dangerous part of any mythos investigation. Going back home to sleep.
>It was whilst three out of five of us were wrapped up safe in jury-rigged bunkers, that
someone received a visitor. Guess who...