Frankenstein Factory
What follows is the first couple of pages of Frankenstein Factory to serve as a taster of the game itself for those who expressed an interest to know more. Playtest copies are about to be sent out to those who have already emailed me. I hope you all like it!
Introduction
Frankenstein Factory is not a typical role-playing game. It is not a great, enormous tome of rules
with a heavy hardcover and an expensive cover price. You will not find massive lists of spells, nor
will you find a series of profession stereotypes or skills divided into their
subtlest minutiae. There are no
supplements, yet, no sourcebooks, and it is profoundly unlikely that any
adventures or campaigns will be published for it.
Simplicity is the name
of the game.
Frankenstein Factory is not an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s book, or
a series of adventures based around the existing storyline. It is an extrapolation from the legendary
tale, drawing just as heavily on B-movies and the author’s own twisted
imagination as it does the original text.
As with any game, the
idea is to have fun with the ideas presented - albeit disturbing and somewhat
disgusting fun - we hope you enjoy playing with the denizens of Frankenstein Factory. Come inside, they are waiting for you.
The
Players
The Doctor, Doctor
Victor Von Frankenstein, has constructed a small Factory in the town of
Why does he do
it? Nobody knows. The Doctor appears to have gone completely
insane. He has severed his ties with the
world outside and has shut himself up inside his crumbling castle alone with
his experiments. He does not give his
“children” much attention, instead he spends his time endlessly experimenting,
synthesising chemical solutions, scribbling labyrinthine formulae on
blackboards, and tinkering with mysterious devices. He is manifestly uninterested in the operation
of the production line. Instead a hunchbacked servant, Igor, adopted by
Frankenstein many years ago, oversees the day-to-day operation of the Factory.
During a Frankenstein Factory game, the players
take on the role of the tortured monsters created by the Doctor. His hideous
Frankensteiners...
Life
Pain. Life is pain.
This is the first
stimulus that comes to the reanimated brain of a Frankensteiner.
Pain stretched across
an eternal moment, striking with the speed of light and the power of a racing
train. This is the Apocalypse of sensation,
the Armageddon within as every cell in the body begins anew in the unnatural
life that science and electricity can provide.
Every single atom is scoured, the body becomes the universe, erupting
supernovae of sensation, and whirling black holes of pained despair, all
filling the mind with the horrific, infinite pain that is existence renewed.
Despite the pain the
Creature would trade his very soul to be alive again, and through the pain
dreams are fulfilled, life is restored and sensation and consciousness are
dragged back from the very brink of the cyclopean abyss.
Everything fades to
black as the machinery falls silent once more, electrodes ceasing to crackle,
ratchets clanking back into place. The
nerves of the body, dead just a short while ago, now invigorated by pain, begin
to transmit faltering signals, boosted by the electrical energy of the Doctor’s
perverted science. The coldness of the
dissection table, the smell of formaldehyde, the touch of rough, starched
sheets pulled across the face.
Next comes sound, the
thunder rumbling overhead, the hiss and patter of falling rain as it lashes
broken tiles and grimy windows, someone’s breath nearby, and the rustle of the
fabric of his clothes as he moves. A deep
and difficult breath is taken as if the awakened one is born again, wanting to
fill every part of his body with life-giving air. When there is no more room to inhale, there
is nothing to do but breathe out in the terrible, piercing scream of rebirth.
A Frankensteiner
returned to life behaves much like a newborn child. He is disoriented, inexperienced, curious,
and clumsy. Getting used to this new,
patchwork body takes some time. Who acts
as father to these bastard undead children of twisted intelligence? The Doctor is far too busy with his new
experiments, overseeing his “children”
only rarely when some insane inspiration takes him. Therefore the Creatures
learn on their own, imitating their ““elders” within the Factory, older
Frankensteiners that have survived both the Doctor’s experiments and Igor’s
“innovations.” Despite being reluctant,
Igor gives them some basic explanation on the facts of life, but only so that
they can perform their duties more effectively.
After all, his master did not create them to be cared for, and on the
production line Igor can only spare a small amount of time for each Creature.
At the beginning of
his new life a Creature experiences considerable difficulties getting used to
his recycled body. His limbs feel
chilled as though by frost, clumsy, sluggish, and distant. His hands seem unnaturally big and
mismatched, like thick, oversized gloves.
Fingers appear to be too thick, round like sausages or perhaps the other
way, too long and slender, unfamiliar, disobedient, not the hands that are
remembered by the mind. Even the
simplest of movements seems slow, the Creature feels strange in his own body,
as though he is dressing up as someone else, playing at lets pretend. Constant itching torments the Creature around
the crude stitching that binds his form together, it never stops. Unused to his new weight, he is oppressed by
a feeling of terrible, heavy awkwardness.
Legs, too heavy to move properly, sweep the floor in slow motion,
hobnailed boots scraping against the flagstones or knees giving in under the
unfamiliar weight of the new body.
It is extremely
difficult to rid himself of old habits and reflexes, but these will soon be
replaced by new ones: nervous twitches never known before, seizures and violent
gestures that seem to come from nowhere.
Every part of the new,
scrap-built body has its own story; the life it led with its previous owner,
the job it held, and the people it knew.
Now all of those overlapping and conflicting memories begin to come to
the fore. This is another horror for
each Creature-besides having a strange body.
Amnesia brought on by the very electrical impulse which brought them
back to life allows the fragments of thought clinging to the old body parts to
try to fill the gap, tormenting the Frankensteiner while what remains of his
own mind, his own memories, his own emotions are scarred and distorted, broken,
vulnerable. New fragments of memory
replace others, some merge; still others just fill the empty spaces in the
Creature’s mind. As a result, he has
memories of lives that never were, of things that never existed, of words never
said, and of events that never happened.
Gaining control over this roiling storm of thoughts and emotions is not
easy, but is much less simple than gaining some control over the body. Neither time nor experience will help in
untangling his own, true memories. As
Frankenstein himself says…
“The brain and reactions taking place within it
remain a mystery, even to me.”
Unfortunately for the
tormented monsters, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts are not to be found
anywhere in the Factory.
Who then can help the
Creature, lost within the illusory maze of his damaged memory? People once known perhaps, family, friends,
and the people of Shalleymouth. Finding
the right ones is one thing, convincing them to help a looming, misshapen
monster, is another.
The monster itself is
a truly amazing marvel of science.
Possessing inhuman strength he is able to wring iron bars with his bare
hands, smash brick walls, and hurl carriages with little effort, shattering
them to matchwood. Nobody will trust a monster with such superhuman abilities
coupled with an inhuman appearance, especially if he is also vulnerable, clumsy
and frightened. A Creature unable to perform the simplest of tasks, but able to
dash a man to pieces or tear him limb from limb when the pain and rage becomes
too much. It is hard to be a child in a
giant’s body.
What are the
Creatures’ goals? What do they strive
for? What can they strive for? They do
not know themselves. Simply staying alive
is their most important and immediate goal and their foremost thought. Given a little luck and well-tightened bolts
perhaps this small thing can even be achieved, even with the dangers of the
Factory.
There will be other
goals, in time, as the Creatures progress. They will want to be normal people
again, living normal lives. This is impossible of course given what they
are. The Games Master should take full
advantage of the Creatures’ vulnerability.
He should use it as the carrot and stick to bring the Creatures into
stories and adventure. “Normal life” should be shown to them from a distance;
it should tempt, torment, and provoke them.
When a Creature gets too close to life, it should be shut away from him,
the door slammed in his face, his former wife running away screaming at the
terrible revelation, his one-time friends forming a torch-wielding mob. They are cut off forever from the harmony and
joy of a life the Creatures may not have appreciated when it was theirs to
have.
Cruel? Inhuman?
Mean? Welcome to Frankenstein Factory.
So why play? Why bother at all?
For fun of
course! To understand that what the
Creatures are looking for cannot be found anywhere outside the Factory, they
will not find it in the town or in their former lives.
Where will they find
it?
That is up to you.
Profile
angusabranson- Angus Abranson
- Chronicle City
Comments
heheh, looks fuckin brill!