A world for the old.

Story idea:

Spirited old man winds up being sent to an Old People's Home because his family thinks he's been losing his marbles.  There, he makes friends with the other residents, who are generally dour about being a drain on their families, not being contacted by their children, and having little to do.  He winds up inviting them into his fantasy world, re-imagining their plain surroundings into a much more interesting place.  Everyone gets to build their own fantasies where they express their issues and concerns, build using the rich experiences of their memories.

Slowly, the distinction between the real world, and the fantasies the old man have brought blurs away, until all the old people are living in a world somewhere in between, drifting towards the more fantastic.

Central issues mostly involving existentialism, and escapism, but also a strong positive focus on the richness of old peoples past experiences.  Also focus on the richness of the world they create for each other to live in.


Apparently this is Mary Poppins meets Bridge to Terabithia in an old people's home.  Needs to be written before old peoples' homes die out.

A Pit Fiend (For DnD).

In DnD, there are devils and demons - both of them are the native denizens of the lower planes, both are incredibly powerful, and both of them generally are kept down below. Demons live on the Infinite Layers of the Abyss, and are raveningly mad, cruel, and full of destructive rage. Devils live in the Nine Hells of Baator, and are a plotting, scheming sort, hungering for power - they follow a strict hierarchy, and always keep their word, but the hierarchy is flexible if you can use plots and power-plays to increase your standing, and while devils always keep to their word... well, the literal meaning of their words can be surprisingly flexible. (The obvious moralizing is that making a deal with a devil is always going to be in the devil's favor as much as possible, any you only thought you were getting a good deal.)

But here's an interesting little difference. Demons are evil in nature, because they want to cause death, agony, perversion, and destruction. However, devils are evil in practice because they seek power by lawyering death, agony, perversion, and destruction.

Each and every devil desires to some day rise to the top, beat down the demons and angels and take control all of existence. Demons, on the other hand, are incapable of ruling, and therefore do not desire that sort of power (instead, they are power).

This leaves a bit of a loop-hole, and loop-holes make for interesting possibilities, and interesting possibilities make for characters. What if a power-hungry devil decides that love and kindness always seem to win against cruelty and enslavement, and decides that the practice of seeking power is more effective by building bonds of trust, admiration, and love, rather than bonds of fear, intimidation, and more fear.

Which produces a power-hungry devil that does good for selfish reasons.

I envision that a civilization in a DnD world is ruled by a benevolent-acting devil (Shalamshi) who provides free healing, devilish sorcery truly with no strings attached, and is understanding about deals... and basically is turning his civilization into a small utopia filled with people who truly, utterly think that the mystery figure behind it all is a good person. Armies of fanatics for self-defense, and an offense of conversion. Hopefully expanding until the whole material realm willingly accepts Shalamshi's rulership.

So for the Player Characters (PCs) who realize what is going on... what do you do? Do you kill the power-hungry devil, and make the world a worse place? Does intention outweigh action? Or do they fall in line, defending and expanding Shalamshi's no-strings-attached utopia? If they believe that Shalamshi will someday betray his vision, and turn his utopia into a dystopia? If so... when do you stop the goodness before it turns to evil? Should you stop it while things are good, since by the time things go bad, there will be nothing that can be done?

PCs have power in DnD - partly because the PCs have unlimited growth potential, but also plot armor in that they generally can win against anything they fight. However, with power comes responsibility - potentially responsibility for civilizations or even realms of existence. DnD therefore poses an opportunity to ask players, "You can do what you want, but what do you want to do?"

In my opinion, DnD isn't about players trying to win, but players trying to figure out what constitutes winning. Like what to do about an evil who does only good.

Horrible little creatures.

So there are a few thought on creating little monsters, more for a modern horror setting.

What is scary? In this case, it's things that may-or-may-not exist, but you wouldn't be able to tell either way. The objective is to have the fear be related to something that people experience in their lives, so they are reminded of it. I guess.

These are some old things.

---From a chat---

A demon.

It starts as a little shadow - almost nothing to it.

It finds someone with nervous tendencies, and then plays with the person.

It flutters and moves near the shadows in the corner of the person's sight.

But hides and vanishes whenever the person looks.

The person is wonders what it is, but doesn't know.

But it continues.

Soon, the curiousity turns to fear - there must be something out there, for the person keeps seeing it.

And then the demon can grow, for as the person imagines it to be something horrible, something horrible it becomes - a reflection of the victim's thoughts.

As the fear and paranoia grows, so does the demon, until finally it does not need to hide in shadows for the person to fear it.

Instead, it lures the victim to some dark spot, and uses the strength the victim gave it to devour the victim.

And then, with no mind giving it shape, it dissolves back into so many bits of shadow, all made of the victim's fear.

And each little bit of fear goes out to torment some new victim.

---End---

The next one was made to illustrate differences between physical horror, rather than mental horror. I prefer the demon above, somewhat unsurprisingly. Again, the thought is that you don't know whether it happened to you.

---Chat---

Imagine a demon-creature who slithers around in the water pipes.

It slithers until it finds a shower head, and when a woman takes a shower there, it mixes sleepiness-inducing chemical into the water.

The woman feels tired, and then falls asleep.

The demon then slithers out, and lays its eggs within the woman.

And then she wakes up, none the wiser.

Until they start to grow.

My friend asked: Where exactly does this demon lay its eggs?

Me: *shrugs*

Me: Any orifice would work, though the mouth or vagina/uterus are the traditional ones.

---End---

Those two for now, maybe more later when I figure out where other old designs are.