The Evolution of a Superhero setting

 

So in my earliest days of hanging out and playing as a kid at "OSR Famous" Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica, I had access to a lot of older post DND game systems. Bunnies and Burrows, Empire of the Petal Throne, Bushido, etc. But since I was a comic book collecting kid, Superhero 2044 had an instant fascination for me. I mean, the over itself was very Marvel looking, despite none of the characters being Marvel. 

Well, that may be Doctor Strange.

When I got my hands on the game, I used its setting for a brief period as described in the book. And why not? The artwork in the book was very evocative. Especially for a 70's rpg.

This image just makes you want
to do a superhero fight right now!

Anyway, I would very soon create New Haven, and it was very based on Superhero 2044's high tech futuristic Pacific Island nation Inguria. It was also called Shanter Island, and we had a hard time as kids not calling it "Shatner Island."

It was explored in the 1800's by an English sea captain, was the site of combat in WW2, and fell under American control eventually. Nuclear war ravaged the US eventually, and Inguria became its own nation, and eventually joined the European Commonwealth. The nation eventually took in Formian refugees from space, who now lived among the human population. They are described as carnivores who at times might prey on humans, but not much more is written on that. I would evolve away from a lot of the stuff, especially the Formians. I always had the setting be only 20 years in the future, as opposed to Superhero 2044's close to 70.

So in my version, the island was considered very taboo by Pacific Island and Asian people of the Pan Pacific. So though about the size of Hawaii, it was never inhabited permanently for hundreds of years. I decided this was mostly because it was a "weirdness magnet" that attracted strangeness. Gateways to other dimensions and galaxies. And lots of supernatural magic being around. This fed into my desire for a pastiche kitchen sink setting. Where comic book stuff, cyberpunk, future noir, and future supernatural stuff could go on. 

After the US took control after WW2, it became an out of the way place to build some industry, and of course secret science labs. The worker population eventually demanded a city grow out of the jungle, and New America City was born. 

So for decades I had a paper map, but for this recent stuff I did up a revised map of Haven. 

New America still contains all the neighborhoods I devised during those years of steady campaigns. Beverly and Sunrise Park, based on Beverly Hills and West Hollywood/Brentwood. City Center, based on Manhattan and Century City in Los Angeles. Chavez, a working-class part of town. Old Town and Chavez where the first inhabited areas of the city by laborers back in the day. And the Bottoms was the oldest part of town, abutting the marsh and lake areas, and very diverse from the refugee crisis after the great war decades ago. So Pacific Island, Caribbean, and various world supernatural elements might mingle. 

So since I have used Haven in the 80's, 90's, and a little mid 2000s, have retconned a bit over the years. Why not? Most comic companies more or less reboot about every 10 years. Iron Man's origin was in the Korean War I think. Later Vietnam and even later in the Middle East. So I do something similar. I still want to use some NPC's going back to my teens, and I don't want them to all be elderly. Though I have had time go by. Important long time NPC, the Japanese Irish CEO (one of the only non evil ones) who was in her late 20's in old games, will be in her 50's now. But still lovely. 

Wears a ring, but just to keep wolves at bay. 
She is married to her company.

So here is some history from the game Discord "Info Dump" text channel. It by now is only a bit inspired by the setting of Superhero 2044, but very much its own thing that has evolved or 40 years of games. 

"Konoah" was in older times a mostly uninhabited Pacific Island. a bit bigger than size of Hawaii, pacific peoples never permanently inhabited it because as far back a oral history goes, it was considered a cursed and taboo place. Where gods and demons freely visit. Legend has it that it is a place that touches on the edges of other worlds and realities. That it is a realm not always considered as part of the normal world. Such was its reputation. Even fierce nations such as Japan historically avoided it, as it was feared as a place where monsters dwell and relalities collide.. In the early 1800's it was put on many modern charts. Its first real occupation occurred during the 1930's, when The United States established a military base there

During WW2 America kept dominion over the island, though Japanese forces attacked the military fields multiple times. After the war, it was widely reported that the US atomic bomb was developed stateside, when in reality it was secretly mostly created on Konoah. At this time it was renamed by the US as Shanter Island after Samuel Shanter, the chief scientist of the secret government labs started during the war. Into the 1950's Shanter was utilized heavily for scientific and industrial work. As laboratories, office buildings, and a few high tech factories grew, a local populace that worked on these areas, as well as in the military defense fields boomed and a town slowly grew into a city. "New America Town" became "New America City" by the early 1960's. in 1965 the island was rebranded as "Haven."

The island became famous as it was a place where science and industry lived alongside tropical beauty. It became not just a place of a booming permanent populace, but also a tourism trade grew. In 1980, in this reality, Haven was designated as the 51st State of America. As the mainland's Silicone Valley became the high tech capital of the free world, Haven had its own technological breakthroughs and heavy global corporate presence. But at the same time the island local remained steeped in mystic superstition. As the new millennium approached, and the city grew with a newer image in the north districts, while the southern "Old Town" area of the city still presented the old esthetic of retro technological concerns along with the spiritual reputation of the island state. Old neighborhoods such as "Mutie Town," "Electric Avenue" in old town (in the 60's and 70's the high tech sector but now the lower end of the economic scale) and "The Bottoms" with palm tree lined old avenues, and the "Down City" area with its well lit office buildings and shopping areas surrounded by once well maintained mini lakes and canals and adorned with a landscaped portion of the shadowy southern jungle outback that always seems to be creeping into the more lighted areas.

Into the 90's New America City grew, and its northern sectors reflected its focus on science and industry that many of the more privileged people got to enjoy. Long before Hong Kong adopted a city scape of light, the Uptown of New America City lit up the Pacific with neon and laser light.

In 2001 the attack on the World Trade Towers in America began a domino affect that started World War 3. During this period besides escalating world conflicts and refugee crisis', and with anti-mutant sentiment grew across many parts of the world the use of mutant hunting Sentinel machines also grew and the combination of AI aggression in general and activities of military powers of the world in lead in January of 2005 to nuclear strikes across the world but most significantly in parts of the United States, Russia, China, India, and other pockets in the middle east. It was not full scale global nuclear war, but the civilizations were heavily impacted and the great nations of the world faced great crisis. Years of strife and governmental turmoil and and break down were suffered. The global market collapsed.

Some places, such as Japan, Hong Kong, and the newly organized Western European Commonwealth continued to survive and became the new world powers to varying degrees. Haven came out of it fairly unscathed. The newly implemented Weather Control satellites, which Haven had shared the tech with the previously mentioned countries, helped shield these places from some of the affects of short term nuclear winter and Fallout. Haven announced its status as a sovereign nation the day before new years eve 2005, a democracy still close to its American roots. Over the following decades while the once great powers of the world continued to try to recover from apocalypse, Haven leads the new world powers into an age of progress with a theme of the world arising from ashes through science and industry.

Haven announced its status as a sovereign nation the day before new years eve 2005, a democracy still close to its American roots. Over the following decades while the once great powers of the world continued to try to recover from apocalypse, Haven leads the new world powers into an age of progress with a theme of the world arising from ashes through science and industry.

Haven is a democracy, and always has 2-4 viable parties during elections periods, and sadly the Republican and Democratic parties still exist, perhaps evolved/devolved, but in the last two or three decades alternatives often win.

Science Police: originating uniquely in Haven after 2005 as an anti-nuclear/terrorist force, by the late 90's in Haven the Science Police changed into policing dangerous technology in general, and meta humans in general. Now Sci Pol exists across nations as a global force similar to United Nations, but with the aforementioned focus.

The late Lou Zocchi - who knew?

 

I have not been known to write about game designers and other such personalities on this blog. The one exception is probably Paul/Janelle Jaquays, who was a big influence on my childhood rpg mindset. You can search Paul Jaquays in this blogs search function for several related posts, but maybe my most significant post about her was here almost 15 years ago. 

But today I read about this guy who passed away last week, Lou Zocchi. In my mind in recent years, I only knew of the guy as a dice designer. But looking a bit into his history, it is a safe bet that I have heard the name since I was a kid. And it rings dim memories from the deep past. Probably saw the name a hundred times in old gaming periodicals. 

Since I am posting about my Superhero gaming of past and present lately, including the first one Superhero 2044, I must have known at some point that Zocchi published the second, full color cover version of Superhero 2044 in 1977. Damn, that should be pretty important to me since that game inspired a lot of my future comic book gaming. 

And as a kid, before I got into rpgs, I had an elementary school buddy, a Korean kid named Michael Yim, who loved Avalon hill wargames, and Zocchi was involved in that early on. And including Star Trek related stuff, he has his hands in various ways in my precious Judges Guild, including printing some of their out-of-print material, which was likely most of what I got my hands on in the 80's. That shit inspired my campaigns for my entire life. 

And of course I knew the name Game Science. Mostly known for dice, he was an advocate for proper dice that truly rolled randomly. I mean, even as kids we suspected dice of being uneven. We all had dice we swore by. That D20 that seemed to get a natural "20" a third of the time. 

He also invented the D100, and I remember how blown away I was by it back in the day. I was still recovering from the D30. He also was the first to make D3, D14, etc. 

I remember we used to joke about what
a D1000 would look like. It would 
probably just roll off the table and 
phase thorough a wall into Liminal Space

So yeah, a revolutionary to be sure. Oh, he also blunted the D4..

I never owned one. I am sure it is less painful. Yeah,
admit it. You have stepped on the regular one
like a hundred times. Like me. 

So glad to read a bit about him, even though its after he is gone. The guy lived to a ripe 97 years old, so good on him!

Cheers!

Superhero Gaming finally going Full Steam Ahead

 

Almost a full year ago, I posted about my long and fruitless efforts to find a way to run my old supers setting Haven on Roll20. You can see links there about old posts about my Supers campaigns of yore, or just search the blog for "Haven" or "Superheroes" or whatever. But in a nutshell, I ran this setting, based on the Ancient Superhero 2044 Island nation of Inguria, since I was a teen, through a variety of systems. Superhero 2044 briefly, (you can read about my somewhat unhappy experience with early Supers rpg Supergame here ) then Villains and Vigilantes, then into Champions. 

In that post last year, I mentioned that after 3 years or so of looking for a game that would be doable on Roll20, I had found out about the Marvel Mutliverse RPG. 

Though I of course overthought the rules as usual, it turned out to be not at all as complicated as I first thought. But it was supported and linked though Demiplane into your Roll20, so it seemed my best chance at getting my Haven setting going again. So first step would be to study it so I could run it effectively. Then learn to use the Demiplane connectivity (which included paying for a Demiplane subscription). Maybe be a player in some sessions. Then get my own group going for it. 

All easier said than done. Like I said I overthought the rules. But eventually I figured out that the basic task resolution was fairly simple, if not a little wonky. But the various powers and abilities weren't something I needed to memorize at all. I just needed to know the basics of how they tied into play. So much like spells in DnD, I leave it up to the players to know how it works and then tell me. Done and Done. 

I then played in some games. I played in a couple of sessions by a guy called Morganwolf, who has tons of live plays on Youtube. He runs it at conventions and such, and overall promotes the system, which I think is not exactly popular yet as far as I can tell. Morgan uses published adventures, and you have to play existing Marvel characters. He is good at it, but I am not a fan of using pregens. And I was late in signing up, so got stuck with Black Widow. But I had some fun with it. These sessions don't exactly give a lot of leeway for role-play, but the little I got to do was having Black Widow at Avengers Mansion drinking Vodka and smoking Russian cigarettes.  

Then sometime later, I found a little group through the Marvel RPG Discord. They were gaming very infrequently, and it was set in the Marvel Universe circa 1980. But we got to create our own characters, so the opportunity was there to better learn the system through character generation. My character was a version of my old gaming days Champions character Manx McCallister. He was a human cat hybrid, who got stuck in a teleporter pod his Quantum Scientist parents were working on and got spliced with his pet cat, much like Jeff Goldblum and his not pet fly. 

OK, I at first was going to use Fritz the Cat for his image, but settled on a more human version.

Manx is a Physics student in college, so has science stuff
in addition to feline agility and some knowledge of "Cat Fu"

These handful of sessions were fun, though our characters seemed to be secondary to the goings on of various existing Marvel heroes. But here I met the guys who would make up half of my group. More on that in a bit. 

So I knew the system a lot better, was now versed in character creation through Demiplane, and just needed players. So I started reaching out in the Marvel RPG discord, with less than satisfactory results. Since most advertises sessions there where for one shots with existing Marvel characters, somebody looking to do actual campaign play with original characters got a lot of attention. But honestly, a lot of the dudes (and yes, the members of the Discord were almost all dudes) raised red flags for me. 

For example, one guy seemed OK with some good ideas, but eventually told me he would have to use his phone to play, because he lived in a tent. Another guy wanted to run a Star Wars Stormtrooper who was dancing all the time. Ugh. 

My setting is sort of a kitchen sink pastiche
but this was going a bit too off the rails

 

Month in and month out, I was having trouble finding good fits for me. The guys from some of the games I played Manx in were up for it, based mostly on how much fun I think the role play of Manx was in those sessions. But I would need more. And ones who did not seem like lunatics were few and far between. But slowly it came together. Here and there I found somebody who might work. A guy who had streamed tons of his Marvel games on Youtube. And eventually a girl, who was super rare on the forums (and she has been in my Saturday DnD games for a few weeks as well and injected some new energy into that). 

So holy mother of fuck, it was off to the races. As of last week (had to be off this last Sunday), we are three sessions in. 

OK, so here is what I decided to run. In my old Champions campaigns, I would have two different groups. One was The Protectors, a government sponsored superteam that for years of play was the main situation. Supers fighting super stuff in the streets of New America City. But also as an occasional side thing I did Justice Incorporated, which was a kind of heroes for hire that was more street level. So like a cowboy, and field hacker cyberpunk, a ninja, a depowered genie called Blue Jinn. Things like that. I figured Justice Inc would be a good start. 

And I had used my Inkarnate account, which had been sitting idle (and getting paid for annually) for around four years, to recreate and update my old Haven setting map. 

Inkarnate doesn't have great futuristic
city and town tools, so I just used images

Justice Incorporated of old was a sort of side hobby of rich Japanese/Irish industrialist Patricia Elizabeth Kyono, who in my old games served as the "good" corporate CEO to counterpoint the evil ones. She was a good bit older, but still hot as hell. 

I actually may still have my mini for her 
somewhere. A female in corporate garb. 
But this one I made with AI captures her. 

So since it has been over a decade since I did anything with the Haven setting, I have had it be that there has been almost nothing in the way of supergroups or supertypes in general, things have been quiet and the world plugging away in the decades following WW3. I still have the Science Police (inspired by such from Superhero 2044) who try to handle meta human and science gone awry situations these days. 

So after a couple weeks of letting the players do up their characters, we were about set. Again, this was a long time in the coming, so I was pretty jazzed. And a little nervous about a few things. The oddball way I would start the campaign, that these would be more powerful than basic street level dudes Justice Incorporated had in the old days, etc. But I wanted them to be Rank 3, which in this system was sort of mid-level supers (Rank 4 would be heading into Thor and Iron Man territory), and just in general trying to manage expectations. 

Well, my expectations were by far exceeded. I can only say that these three sessions so far have brought me great joy, and the players are enthusiastic as I could ever hope. I have a DnD campaign going on, and its OK, but this is just bringing back old feels from the Old Haven campaigns. 

I want to talk about the actual sessions, but this would be a gigantic post, so I will save that for the next one. But for now, here are the great characters:

Igneous. He is a descendant of Titans, 
and has walked the earth for centuries. 
He has great strength and some rock powers.

Ghost is blind since birth, but has Daredevil
type sensed and almost supernatural ability to 
sense things down to almost the molecular level. 
His mentor is actually a now in this 70's Matt Murdoch.

Paladin is a descendant of an ancient order
of fighters against the supernatural going 
back to biblical days. 

Crash is a wealthy, partially cybernetic
cyberpunk who has almost mental powers
to use to tap into technology and the web

What can I say about Ra-Ta? He is a small grey alien who flies around
in a small UFO while studying earth. His players often works late, so only
shows up for the last half of some sessions. But it is pretty funny. An absurd
character that actually works with what I am doing. He comes and goes. It works 
for this character. His player is hilarious and the character cannot speak English
so he does a sort of high pitch gibberish (that Igneous can understand for some reason)

Seraph. She is a member of an ancient
winged race. She is just a loner who 
lives kind of homeless on old warehouse
rooftops. Loves fresh fish. 

The endless durp about "10-foot pole" gaming

 

"10-foot pole gaming" is a term I just made up. I could just say "old school" or "classic" or whatever. But I think the 10-foot pole thing as one of the more cartoonish elements of old DnD. Sure, it would have its uses in classic dungeons, or even in the woods to shove down a hole of an abrasive gopher. 

But the image of somebody with one in a dungeon, where there can often be tight squeeze turns (you ever try get a mattress up the turn in a narrow flight of stairs?). Always reminds me of Granpa Munster trying to get through the doorway holding his shovel and the angle requires a couple of tries. I always thought that a simple 5-foot-long quarterstaff would be about as useful. Tie a torch to the end for extra utility. I really feel the original including of this item in equipment lists was a wink and nod to the old saying "would not touch it with a ten-foot pole." 

But I was thinking about this stuff after about a week or so of sampling some of Erik Tenkar's vids. I like to see some of his takes on things going on in gaming and controversies of the years. But lately so much of it seems about how you are having "bad wrong fun" with your DnD while extoling the virtues of (very) basic DM and player styles. And how you are doing it poorly. Having fun? Fuck that. It's wrong fun. Shades of classic Dragonsfoot forum comments. 

I dunno. That asshat Chevy just 
reminds me of a Dragonfoot guy

OK, I like Erik and don't want to get harsh. And I have not watched all (or even half) of such videos he has been posting for weeks. Maybe he does more explaining in some other places. "Hey, this is pretty much about BX gaming and dungeon delving especially. Not to be taken seriously" 

Which would be fair enough, though I am kind of doubting that. So the good constable will start a video, often with one hand up pinching his fingers in a "that's a spicey meatball!" gesture. Then go into his "tavernsplaining" the topic of the day. Usually some fuddy old approach to doors and thieves and listening and retreating and mirrors and clerics are more than healbots and do theater of the mind hex mats ruin everything and henchmen and yada yada. 

"You don't want story. You want spikes to jam doors. You don't want feats and skills and dice rolls. You want a mirror to peak around a corner. Didn't you see Private Ryan? Thar's ah snipah up thar!"

A favorite was about how old school fighters were not all same-same. They should be defined by their weapon they find! Again, if this was just about how to play BX or older shit, it would be fine. It's that type of game. I guess I personally did not sample all the editions. As a little kid I got the three little books and the Monster Manual. Soon after it was 1st edition, and I stayed with it for decades. The boxed sets were all Toy r Us to me and my friends. It was outliers who had the boxes of "baby DnD" who were friends of a friend. I swear to god the one that comes to mind from my teens was totally "Butters" from South Park.

Not saying this is Tenkar, 
it's just my experience

And by the time I was in my later teens, I was kind of tired of the ol' dungeonarooni. Don't get me wrong, the surreal nature of underworld spaces with monsters and nasty magic had big appeal to me. But my GMing was evolving. I was enjoying having things take place in the city and on the road more than the moldy ol' dungeon slog. Outside of Underdark forays, the dungeons I did were smaller lairs and not of the mythic variety. Sure I would go back to old dungeons again and again, but it was no longer what it was all about. It's one of the reasons I had some older times in the character continuity of my setting be known as "The Dungeon Age." It was a time when we were really young and our characters mostly romped in dungeons. 

I think by the time I was around 17, I was more into higher fantasy. Sure, things could be gritty anywhere. But endless dungeon crawls had gotten old hat for not just me, but it seemed that is the way the general gaming populace was going, for good or bad. 

As an aside, I think that since our girlfriends played with us, or just more females in general as we got older, was also a factor. They might like action, but the endless slaying and dark tones was not overall appealing to them. Some might have anti-hero characters who were even capable of murder, but being either a murder hobo or a fearful poltroon spiking doors was not fantasy to them. Making up interesting characters and the development of them during play was far more fun than adhering to notions of "proper dungeoneering techniques." More on all that in a minute. 

Equipment will always be important to one degree or another to players, but being anal retentive as a professional climber prepping for Mt. Everest is not often a priority. Shit, I think though the characters in my last campaign were going to The Isle of Dread they didn't even bring sleeping rolls on the journey. 

I always loved the old dungeon notions, but after those early years the chill at the surreal had less impact on me. They stopped being spooky. Getting into blogging and the OSR around 2009 brought back some of those feels. But it was fleeting. For decades I acted like it was the be all end all. I kept wanting to do a dungeon slog every few years but would end up doing something bigger instead. Like The Night Below, which was for sure a giant dungeon. Though I do recall some characters did prep like a cave climber might for that. But there was a lot of build up to the descent. But still, that was mostly just a long rope, lanterns, and some rations. 

So Erik clearly does not like 5th ed or its players. I mean, when he mimics a 5th ed player there is a lot of eye rolling or using a goofy voice to portray them. At first I thought it was kind of mean, but then I remember I have done this in the past years and decades to goof on some DnD people. Though nowadays I try to be more a Buddhist in my kind understanding (often failing). 

Erik seems to allude to some con running he has done with some old school gew gaw, and the modern players who attended going all slack jawed mouth breathers as they were told there were no feats, skills, or superpowers. 

So maybe he has just had bad experiences with the kids these days not falling in line with proper professional dungeon crawler standard operational procedures, like Hulk Hogans "Hulkamaniacs not following his famous demandments..

Or is Erik just talking to the BX fans out there? And if so, how long have they been doing the hard-core mapping, door listening, mirror using, torch conserving, no background having, fuck feats and skills and rolls and full on dungeon slogs. Decade in and decade out. In my last long time face to face group I ran the three little books plus Greyhawk for a few session break from our 1st ed. And it was fun. I did a few sessions at the Socal Minicon during the salad days of the OSR (the actual one) and a local convention soon after. It was fun to revisit.  But good gawd, for that to be my DnD now? 

I remember years ago watching some footage at a con circa early to mid 2000's of Frank Mentzer running what looked like an ad hoc session for some various con folk (like 12 guys and 1 girl). He just had a couple papers and dice in front of him. It was clearly old school in nature, probably his boxed edition (bestselling version of DnD!!!). But you could tell it was old school, because it took like 45 minutes to map 30 feet of corridor, and another 45 of fumbling around with and gang-listening at a door. Yawn, and that is a capitol Y. 

So after several years of my journey with 5th ed, how does it fit my style? Well, I have been into character development since I was a kid. Not only mine, but that of my players. It's kind of my joy. To preside over something they find so fun. And as far as feats and skills, hell, when I was as young as 15 I was just having players make stat rolls for this and that for things that would probably nowadays been seen as a version of "skills." CHR for persuasion type stuff and seducing, WIS for noticing things (prob inspired by Runequests classic "Spot Hidden") or whatever. 

Erik seems to hate lots of dice rolling. But since my earliest days, it was the funnest part of the game. So I don't mind skills and feats or whatever. And all the choices and builds? It is interesting to me. Like I say I love character development. and Creativity. I come from a Superhero Game background since childhood just like I did for DnD. So these aspects of creating a character are right up my alley. Sure, I have seen the dudes who were candidates to be in my online groups who want to run their Half Beholder Half Minotaur Cyborg Ninja Gunsmith. I have learned to weed them out real quick. My vetting of strangers online has become a specialty for me. And I may scoff at Game of Thrones novel page count character backgrounds a bit, but they can be interesting a lot of the time. And why should I give a fuck if they want that? It gets them to ask about my setting. 

OK, I only pick at Erik Tenkar because I like him. I have been on his Discord for years now. But I am just a bit baffled at his nitpicks at 5th ed players. But also these videos are performance to some degree for streamers. I think it is not so much vitriol as much as it is a bit of mean playfulness. I dunno, there are a bunch of these vids up the last weeks and months, so go watch and you make the call. 

Since This post is already getting long, I will probably watch a few more and post about some things. Hex Mats vs Theater of the Mind kind of stuff. Also, Erik is doing these posts as part of a collaboration with the Greyhawk Grognard guy (I don't know much about him) and Joe the Lawyer. I have not watched a lot of Joe's stuff, but I did look to see how his line of thinking was compared to Erik. I was surprised to hear that much like me he came up old school but now runs 5th edition, and he works at keeping those games old school in flavor much like to try to, so I might want to post about one or two of those video commentaries. But for now, yeah, this is too long. So cheers and have a great weekend. 

And god bless the dice rollers! Its fun!

Backrooms and Liminal Space Horror

 

My parents are European immigrants, and when I was a little kid, before me da' started working for movie studios (mostly Fox and Paramount..I spent a lot of time on those lots growing up) and still poor, he was a painter. Residential and commercial. On some weekends he would often be working in industrial buildings, new office buildings, and such. When I was maybe around six or seven, he would often take either me or one of my brothers with him to watch as he worked, because sometimes three sons were a handful for mom alone. Dad would be in some empty room or hall, and I would go wandering. Some of these complexes were huge, and often empty of furnishings and certainly devoid of people. So I would go off exploring, and the sound of dad and whoever was working with him, and the portable radio they were listening to, would disappear into the distance as I moved on. These were often places in areas like Marina Del Rey near the Ballona Wetlands, where Hughes Aircraft always had these huge buildings. 

I would go through carpeted office areas, down silent stairwells, and into boiler areas full of pipes and machines. I had dreams throughout my childhood of these places, sometimes nightmares where I felt an entity was near, and could hear dad singing to country tunes or whatever in the distance. I would call out and he could never hear me. I may have originally gained my fascination with mythic dungeons from these experiences. 

So when I discovered "Backrooms" and liminal space horror, I was a shoe in. AI search gives this info on Liminal space:

• Liminal spaces are transitional or transformative areas between two states or places.
• They often evoke feelings of unease or nostalgia due to their ambiguous nature.
• Common examples include hallways, airports, and empty parking lots.
• These spaces can symbolize change, uncertainty, or the passage from one phase to another.
• Liminality is often explored in art, literature, and psychology to represent personal growth or societal shifts.
• The term originates from the Latin word "limen," meaning threshold, highlighting the idea of crossing boundaries.

You have probably been in these spaces in your life, alone, as I have. Getting to work in an office building super early. Or going down an airport walkway at 3am. I have often enjoyed the eerie vibe of walking in a long wide corridor between two major Vegas casinos pre-dawn with nobody around with pop music oozing from speakers. 

You can look up the full history of this sublime horror, but it started I believe with this image:

This was a furniture store that was undergoing renovations (I think it eventually became one of those once popular model car racing track businesses). It does seem to kind of go on in an eerie way. As the concept grew, this became known as level 0. The main entrance area of the Backrooms Liminal Zones. Known for drab yellow 1970s or 80's wallpaper, humming overhead lighting, and wet shag carpet that gave off a moldy smell with each step. 

The lore iceberg has it that some old corporation was using some kind of quantum physics science to try and create an extra dimensional space to uses for storage and workspaces etc, and an existing dimension copied inner space areas from the real world to create hundreds of massive levels, often inhabited with twisted creatures whose sole food was people who accidentally "no clipped" into the Backrooms. 

This is based on the video game term "clipping." That is the code that kept you from being able to go through walls or locked doors or the floor.  People who somehow fell into the Backrooms almost always started in the moist carpet wallpaper halls, an endless maze of sameness. 

But other areas and levels were copies of real world spaces, almost always empty and where you might get stalked by something you do not want to meet. 

Empty shopping malls are a fun part
of liminal space fandom

When I first started getting into Liminal space,
I saw this image and was delighted. I recognized it
and had walked these stairs. This is from the 
Queen Mary in Long Beach, where over the years
I performed with my bagpipes at the yearly Highland
game there all over the boat. 

One of my favorite Youtube series is Infographics, which depicts current events, historical events, and fictional ideas in a cartoon point of view. They did one on Backrooms:

Not too many years ago a young man started making short films on Backrooms, sort of making the Creepy Pasta abstract concept more solid, and decidedly his. The films often featured scientists in hazmat suits, who more often than not would meet a horrifying end.

Also was turned into a video game at one point. This stuff just added to the lore and created an actual big iceberg around it. The government sponsored organization exploring and studying it, poor souls randomly no clipping into it, and many of the endless levels explained. The creatures of the spaces described and encountered:

Most of the entities in the spaces seem to be lost victims who one way or another are mutated into these forms. Often due to strange bacteria. Monsters lurk, stalk, whisper, and even sometimes howl as in great pain. Yeah, scary.

So for sure there are similarities to classic magical DnD dungeons, where the laws of physics do not always apply like they do on the surface world. And there is treasure here and there, mostly in the form of drinkable water, edible food, and strangely lots of bottles of almond milk. At least one of the odd creatures can also produce almond milk. Yeah, for sure sounds like something from the mind of a Gen Z'er with progressive, Trader Joe's shopping ideals. 

So lots of inspiration for dungeons. Or even a modern world tabletop RPG where you are lost there and must find your way out or at least survive. 

Half of my does not really like this expansionism. More and more levels, levels with the appearance of towns or even big red hued cities. And in current lore there are areas that are safer and lost people have gathered in little societies. Places with water and food, a quiet misty forest where the lost actually created village societies. Are having babies and growing the population. 

This would all be fine for an ongoing rpg or whatever. But the other half of me wants the horror of loneliness and sameness. Being alone in an endless maze of yellow wallpaper and moist carpet. The occasional stalking from and entity. Hopelessness. "I will never see home again." 

This is all on my mind because I heard last week a movie is coming out based on Backroom lore. It looks pretty good, thought the hero seems to be able to move in and out of the spaces (and of course he has to go talk to a therapist about it). These low budget horror films tend to do  well, so odds are very good a franchise will grow here. It will dull the chilling vibe of liminal area terror. But what the hell, I am all in for the rest of the Backrooms ride. Check out the trailer. Cheers.