How would you make an urban fantasy game set in Appalachia?

How would you make an urban fantasy game set in Appalachia?

Other urls found in this thread:

readcomiconline.to/Comic/Hillbilly/Issue-1?id=81619
goodman-games.com/store/product-category/the-shudder-mountains-campaign/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

>urban
>appalachian
Pick one

Rednecks and meth and poor. More innawoods unease than urban tho.

I ran a Call of Cthulhu game in rural Appalachia in 30s for a few sessions. Basically,
>players were out of towners + the deputy sheriff looking into a strange murder, seemingly involving a giant snake
>creepy snake handling church who were actually just a red herring
>moonshiners who were a good source of information on the criminal underworld
>owner of the coal mine was possessed by Yig
It was ok

Did you use the legend of Uktena in your game? It's a Cherokee story that's perfect as a local, bastardized version of Yig/one of Yig's children.

This really.

But if you're talking about *modern* fantasy set in Appalachia, that's easy as hell. Lots of American cryptids living in the mountains/woods, Native American spirits and gods abound, perhaps have a shadow war going on behind the scenes between a circle of Native American shamans trying to protect the land and keep it pure/unspoiled and a sinister corporation run by sorcerers who want to develop the land and siphon off the power that's practically oozing out of the ground thanks to the preservation of these native creatures and spirits. Toss in a backwoods hillbilly family or two who have Bigfoot/Wendigo ancestors and a taste for human flesh to serve as secondary antagonists (maybe one of which is particularly clever and seeking the flesh of some kind of sacred creature to consume to turn him into a powerful creature/sorcerer himself) and you've got a good groundwork for a modern fantasy in the mountains and woods of Missouri and Tennessee.

Something in the Smokies would be pretty flavorful with little towns perched all around the mountainsides, winding roads (edged by sheer cliffs) leading from place to place and a near constant mist/fog from being so high up in the hills. I can easily see a misty morning breaking over Gatlinburg before a scream pierces the calm as someone discovers a pile of half-eaten corpses with a trail of gore leading off into the treeline toward the hills.

I'd pick a less touristy place than Gatlinburg though.

Chattanooga, TN

Yeah, but that was the first town that sprang to mind. There are other small little towns in the area, but looking up Gatlinburg can give you an idea of the regional topography and such. Generally the misty morning in the mountain town can be transplanted anywhere, but if the DM wants to do a more urban campaign with a little country flavor, Gatlinburg would be a good pick. You could involve outsiders more easily (tourists, companies with outside interests, etc.) and they'd be able to be drawn away from the bigger area towards some smaller towns further down the road if they're tracking the mystery. It's all down to how you want the story to start and where you want it to go.

There have been some mysterious disappearances in Great Smoky Mountains National Park that have never been resolved. Maybe the PCs could be investigating them, or searching for a newly disappeared person.

Aside from the loads of old history, cryptids, hauntings and folklore, there's also a magic tradition called pow-wow native to the area for which you can readily find the resources online (eg The Long Lost Friend).

Plus there's quite a lot of material to take inspiration from: Old Nathan, Silver John, Hillbilly, Lovecraft's backwoods horror stories...

...

Read about a cryptic called Snarlyyowl.

Not kidding on that name.

Also, in my binging of Sasquatch-based podcasts, ask about Sasquatch or Bigfoot in the South or in Appalachia, and you're going to get looked at funny.

Ask about "booger men", "woolly boogers", and "wood boogers", and you'll get no end of stories of encounters with tall, hairy, apelike creatures in the woods.

I don't think that was really Appalachia though

Set it in Boone, NC where the players are all college kids. Closest to urban you'll get. Have spooky supernatural shit happen to them.

Cryptids.
Cryptids everywhere.
Also hillbillies that act totally oblivious to all the monsters and danger and seem to be immune to it.

>Undead
Exaggerate Meth heads. Think weeping sores, hair pulled out, emaciated, insane gibbering ghouls

>Mutants/Orcs
Inbreds. You can have “Great Houses” of inbreds with territory they fight each other for

>Cultists
Hard-core religious fundamentalists

>Beasts
Mountain lions, wild boars, black bears, Sasquatch, lizardmen, and a troop of baboons IRL were accidentally let out a long time ago, exaggerate coyotes to wolves

t. Blue Ridge dweller

>fellow NCfag on Veeky Forums

>"Great Houses" of inbreds

Fuck, I love this.

Raleigh fag reporting. Good to know NC is Veeky Forums

NC a best

>Landcape
Mountains, obviously. You can have forested mountains, but make sure you include bare faced mountains of rock. Also swaths of wildfire blackened forests for variety. Swamps and rivers snaking between the mountains— We only have enough melt during spring for rivers flowing down.

>Civilization
Make sure your peaceful hamlets and villages are in the valleys to collect rainwater runoff and warrior cultures are on the summits for defense. Building a town on the side of a mountain is purely for aesthetics and if your setting is medieval, it wouldn’t make sense.

>Heroes
We’d have a lot of Rangers and Druids. Not sure if you’ve hiked Appalachia, but heavy armor really isn’t an option. If you’re shooting for believability, keep it light and rugged

Read this for inspiration, its literally a folklore/sword and sorcery inspired fantasy set in the Appalachians.

Came here to post this.

Great setting and I would love to DM a game based in it.

Werewolves on meth?

Persona style game set in a small town with a derelict ski hill.
Get out of here Griffin.

Pittsburgh counts right?

Missing 411calls would be a good resource for innawood tension and mystery.

Red neck vampire running the middle of nowhere gas stop.

>Red neck
I see what you did there.

Hey missus, can you refill me?
Sure, handsome, as long as you can refill me...

readcomiconline.to/Comic/Hillbilly/Issue-1?id=81619
Wow, this is some good shit.

>I DON'T DANCE!

Meth that turns you into a Werewolf.

Junkies who turn into meth on a full moon.

Everyone dies horribly except the people who desserve it most, those live to be 100+.

Twin Peaks with an Eastern paintjob.

>NCfags everywhere

Asheville by way of Fayetteville reporting in.


Up in cherokee they have a couple of weird ass monster legends, like there's this one monster/spirit that has one super long claw on each hand, and it uses it to reach up inside and tear out unborn children from pregnant mothers before devouring them. Can't for the live of me remember what the thing is called, but it sounds pretty spooky.

Also, some of yall are forgetting that the largest privately owned mansion in the US is right down the road in Asheville. It's basically a giant playground for all sorts of spoopy or weird shit. Maybe set up a plothook where some sort of weird shenanigans are going on so they close down the museum portion of the estate and the PCs have to investigate the rest, complete with secret passages and all that other stuff.

Also can confirm there is a very high wiccan/occult/esoteric magic enthusiast population in this particular section of the mountains. All sorts of options for accidentally a demon or something.

>"Within Appalachia, there are several areas of urban concentration, the largest being the Pittsburgh metropolitan area in Pennsylvania. In Alabama, the Greater Birmingham metropolitan area is the largest urban concentration followed by the Huntsville metropolitan area . In Tennessee, the Knoxville metropolitan area and the Chattanooga metropolitan area are the urban clusters. Other notable areas include Asheville and the Greenville metropolitan area in the Carolinas, and in West Virginia, the Charleston metropolitan area."

True as that may be, when you're talking about Appalachia you're talking about the low rolling mountains, the misty rain, the damp wood, the fiery orange and yellow leaves in the fall, all that good shit.

Birmingham ain't that. Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Asheville are all right smack in the middle of it. You can hardly even see the fucking mountains from the trash heap that is Greenville SC.

Also, a good runner up is the Boone/Blowing Rock area of NC. College town with a decent bit of hustle and bustle for how relatively small it is.

>"I was wrong but I'll still try to wriggle out of it by pretending the actual locations don't count compared to my own personal vision"

Cross Twin Peaks with Justified.

>"I lack the understanding to differentiate between technical geographic locales and places that embody the general vibe and culture of Appalachia"

I'm the the original guy, I'm just saying that if you want Urban Appalachia, your options are a) pretty limited and b) generally inconsistent with the feel of the culture if you go too big.

>"hurr durr I'm still wrong but won't admit it"

Come on man, it's not that serious. You don't need to get worked up about it.

The Shudder Mountains setting in Dungeon Crawl Classics is set in appalachia. It's pretty cool.

goodman-games.com/store/product-category/the-shudder-mountains-campaign/