[DL] Depraved (No, I'm not talking about Ghoull)

["Leybourne, Brian" <Brian.Leybourne@airnz.co.nz>]

A few listers (including John Goff) were reccomending 'Depraved' last week,
which is the story of H. H. Holmes, America's first "Serial Killer".

Bought it and read it.

I have to say, I was a little disapointed that the book didn't go into more
detail about "the castle" where he supposedly killed and butchered heaps o'
people, and I was kind of hoping for a better floorplan than the tiny, badly
reproduced image in the book which didn't look at all like the "crazy
corridors, strairs leading to nowhere and greased body chutes down to the
basement" that were described in the book. Apparently there's another (out
of print) book called "The Scarlet Mansion" which covers the mansion in
better detail - I'll have to find it.

Now, how does this relate to Deadlands? (See, I get there eventually)

The timing is slightly off, as Holmes built his mansion twenty or so years
after the "current" deadlands year, but with a little DL magic that can
easily be solved. I was thinking of designing an adventure set in the
mansion AFTER Holmes left, but before it was burned to the ground (and
BEFORE the truth about it was known). Those pesky manitou have been up to
their tricks again, and the second, third and basement floors of the mansion
have become altogether darker than they were in the non-deadlandized real
world we live in.

This led me to thinking back to the recent haunted houses thread, and the
stage was set. Some fearmonger (oops.. sorry, we're not allowed to use that
word anymore. Some "bad guy"(tm)) has moved into the castle and the posse
are investigating disapearances of vagrants and travellers to Chicago, and
they eventually find themselves in the 'deathtrap dungeon' that is the
castle, have to fight their way through freaky shifting corridors, bleeding
walls, and all the other great stuff that people came up with, and finally
confront the fearmo..err..bad guy either in the office on the third floor
where Holmes stayed, or more likely in the basement where he sent many of
his victims.

Anyway, I just wanted to mention it, as it's got me all excited and tingly
now. When the adventure is done I'll post it here or to the webpage. Any
great ideas out there as to what form the bad guy will take? A 'glom is the
obvious choice, but that's too commonplace, so I ned to come up with
something much more evil :-) Ghoull? Goff?

Brian "Still a very interesting book and worth a read!" Leybourne.

.-->
"The Web brings people together because no matter what kind of a 
twisted sexual mutant you happen to be, you've got millions of pals 
out there. Type in 'Find people who have sex with goats that are on 
fire' and the computer will say, 'Specify type of goat.'"

Brian Leybourne
brian.leybourne@airnz.co.nz
bleybourne@hotmail.com
____________________________________________________________________
CAUTION - This message may contain privileged and confidential 
information intended only for the use of the addressee named above.
If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby 
notified that any use, dissemination, distribution or reproduction 
of this message is prohibited. If you have received this message in 
error please notify Air New Zealand immediately. Any views expressed 
in this message are those of the individual sender and may not 
necessarily reflect the views of Air New Zealand.
_____________________________________________________________________