My wife and I watched Annihilation on Netflix the other night. She was thought it was pretentious wank. I enjoyed it (I’m quite fond of pretentious wank), though I agreed it was flawed. I haven’t read the book, but I think I might hunt it out now to see how it differs from the film.

* * * SPOILERS * * *

It’s basically Tarkovsky’s Stalker meets H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space. In Stalker, a group of nameless protagonists (the Writer, the Professor, the Stalker) travel into an area of wilderness sealed off by the government called “the zone”. Reality is breaking down here, so they have to tread carefully. They are searching for a specific landmark in the wilderness called “the room”. Each has their own reason for seeking this place.

In Annihilation, a group of nameless protagonists (the Biologist, the Anthropologist, the Psychologist – at least, in the book they’re apparently nameless… they’re all given names in the film) travel into an area of wilderness sealed off by the government called “the shimmer”. Reality is breaking down here, so they have to tread carefully. They are searching for a specific landmark in the wilderness called “the lighthouse”. Each has their own reason for seeking this place.

Just as in Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space, a meteorite has fallen from space. It has released a colourful, radiation-like cosmic effect (“the shimmer”) that warps and mutates (ultimately fatally) the flora and fauna around the impact spot. The affected area is slowly growing, creeping toward civilisation. It’s unclear whether the phenomenon is sentient or not, or what it’s motivation might be (if it has such a thing). The core of the phenomenon is hidden underground (in Lovecraft, it’s at the bottom of a well; in Annihilation, it’s hidden beneath the lighthouse).

Annihilation takes these source materials (though the author of the book, Jeff VanderMeer, has denied Lovecraft was an influence in the original novel) and mixes them up into something new. It scrambles their DNA, adding a splash of 2001, maybe a dash of Arrival, a hint of Under the Skin.

Which is fitting, because that’s the central conceit of the movie; the shimmer is supposedly refracting everything within it, mixing it all together. Creating something new.

Ultimately, though, Annihilation is a movie about annihilation (natch). It’s about destruction. More specifically, it’s about self-destruction. Alex Garland, the director, has said as much in interviews:

“[Annihilation] is really about self-destruction. It’s about the nature of self-destruction in a literal sense: cells have life cycles and stars have life cycles and plants and the universe and us. You, me, everyone. But also psychological forms of self-destruction.”

Self-destruction. Self-annihilation. The annihilation of the Self. Ego death. It sounds like the Sufi concept of Fana (often translated as “annihilation”), which imagines a breaking down of the individual ego and a recognition that all things are truly the same thing. In the movie Annhilation, this happens literally as parts of the individual are incorporated into the environment around them and vice versa (hence the bear who screams with the voice of its victim, or the trees becoming people / people becoming trees). The Self and the Other become one.

For some, the annihilation of the Self is disturbing. The Psychologist says: “If I don’t reach the lighthouse soon, the person that started this journey won’t be the person that ends it. I want to be the one that ends it.” Others embrace it, like the Physicist, who is willingly annihilated as she transforms into her environment.

When Garland says the movie is about “self-destruction”, it’s easy to fixate on the destruction part. But I think the key is “self”. That’s why the mimic at the end of the film is thematically appropriate. The doppelgänger is the ultimate challenge to the Self. How can we be sure which is the copy and which is the original? Does the distinction even matter? If everything is one, then like the Ouroboros tattoo that mysteriously appears throughout the movie, at what point does the snake end and the tail begin?

I don’t believe the final shot with the colourful shimmer visible in the eyes of both the Biologist and the Husband is a cheap attempt at a twist ending. It’s not implying a secret alien invasion scenario similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers or V. When the Husband is asked if he is really himself, he seems uncertain. He doesn’t say “No”, but rather: “I don’t think so.”

He is not an alien pretending to be a human. He is identical to the individual who entered the shimmer. He has no memory of being anything but himself. He does not know who he is. And, at that point, nor does the Biologist. That is what her gasp of understanding represents: her final realisation. Self-destruction. Annihilation of the Self.

So, yeah. Pretentious wank. I liked it. My wife didn’t.

Ok, let’s do this thing.

I already have the high-level concept for my wilderness / megadungeon campaign. Basically: it’s a hexcrawl on a medieval plague island, meaning that cities and towns are treated like dungeons because roughly 30% of buildings are boarded-up under quarantine and the plague is transforming the infected people inside those buildings into strange and unwholesome things.

I got some great feedback on Google+ about my campaign concept from Beloch Shrike of the Papers & Pencils blog:

“If you wanted to be really weird with it, you could say the disease starts seeping its way into architecture and changing the internal layout of buildings as well. Give yourself an excuse to make all those crazy dungeon layouts that are so fun to play.”

I really love this suggestion. So, over time, I’m going to have the disease cause weird organic growths to sprout up everywhere, transforming the internal architecture of each town’s plague quarter into fleshy meat-dungeons (probably using some of the tables put together for Xor).

If the PCs don’t fight back the infestation, then the meat-dungeons will slowly spread and link up across the island. There will also be a cult worshipping the plague, encouraging the infection to grow across the hexmap. So, basically, add Abomination: The Nemesis Project to my list of influences.

Anyway, I have some strong themes I hope will tie everything in the hexcrawl together (i.e. plague, disease, and mutation). I’ve selected my wilderness (Isle of the Unknown) and my megadungeon (Castle Gargantua). I’ve also decided to populate the map with a bunch of published LotFP adventures (luckily, I have a healthy collection at hand).

It’s time to start pencilling in some basic details. I’m not going to prep the entire hexcrawl (that way lies madness). Instead, I’ll start the players in a dungeon near the city of Vyones (Hex 2409) and work outwards from there.

Still, I think it would be helpful to at least have names for the most prominent features on the map: towns, rivers, and mountain ranges. That way I have the broad features of the island sketched out, and can go back later and add more details.

I took the names of towns directly from the second issue of Worlds of Cthulhu magazine, which includes a gazetteer of Averoigne by Adam Crossingham and Dan Harms:

– Les Hiboux, pop. 1,500, hex 0410

– Ximes, pop. 5,500, hex 0416

– Flèches, pop. 1,900, hex 0506

– Coeur-sur-Mer, pop. 1,700, hex 0516

– Marais, pop. 5,300, hex 0603

– Sainte Crapauld, pop. 1,800, hex 0712

– Morraine, pop. 1,500, hex 0812

– La Frênaie, pop. 2,800, hex 0903

– Sainte Azédarac, pop. 2,600, hex 0907

– Blois, pop. 1,600, hex 1211

– Émaux, pop. 1,700, hex 1809

– Touraine, pop. 4,100, hex 1814

– Erlette, pop. 2,200, hex 2002

– Sainte Thierry, pop. 1,600, hex 2012

– Sainte Zenobie, pop. 1,800, hex 2103

– Vyones, pop. 19,100, hex 2409

In terms of mountains, the Isle of the Unknown is dominated by a single chain of mountains in the centre, very much like the real-world island it was based on: Corsica (the so-called “mountain in the sea”).

Again, I turned to the gazetteer of Averoigne, which mentions the “Collines d’Est”. That didn’t seem to fit an island, so I adapted it to the “Collines d’Averoigne” (I’ll be deliberately mixing up French, Occitan, and English words and placenames throughout, in order to carve out as much flexibility for myself when I need to make up names on the fly. Oh, and I do realise my French is appallingly bad).

Finally, for the rivers I did a quick Google for “rivers of Auvergne” (the region of France which Clark Ashton Smith may have based Averoigne on). I borrowed names from the smallest, most obscure rivers I could find (as well as throwing in the “Isoile” from the Averoigne gazetteer):

– River Isoile, hex 2105 to hex 2115

– River Jordanne, hex 2004 to hex 1412

– River Ambène, hex 1704 to hex 1411, then back to hex 1704

– River Tiretaine, hex 0703 to hex 1715

– River Ance, hex 1007 to hex 1140

– River Pavin, hex 0908 to hex 1116

– River Acolin, hex 0914 to hex 0916

– River Dolore, hex 1110 to hex 1316

– River Veyre, hex 0709 to hex 0716

That’s enough for now. Next I’ll be pondering Jeff Rients’ twenty quick questions for your campaign setting.

I feel like running an old-school wilderness and megadungeon campaign for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Inspiration will be drawn from Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith. I plan on using Isle of the Unknown for the wilderness and Castle Gargantua for the megadungeon.

The year is 1311 A.D and the Red Death has struck the Mediterranean isle of Averenha. The entire island is under blockade by the Genoese navy, with ships prevented from setting sail or docking. In the island’s towns and villages, plague-afflicted houses lie empty and under quarantine… just waiting for some entrepreneurial party of looters to crowbar open boarded-up doors and windows.

The nobility have fled to fortified rural estates, leaving urban manors unguarded and ripe for plunder. Catacombs, plague pits, and graveyards overflow with the dead, and many a fat merchant has been buried hastily alongside his worldly wealth.

Meanwhile, devils and demons roam the forests and mountains, and simple-minded folk turn to heresy and witchcraft to protect themselves in vain from the pestilence.

Towering over everything is Castle Gargantua. High in the mountains above the city of Vyones, the black edifice of the ancient fortress stretches up into the clouds. Here and there, round pointed towers sprout from the main building’s roof, weird oval windows and alcoves set at intervals into their walls.

It is rumoured that the castle was constructed long ago by some primal antediluvian giant. Its lower reaches have been raided many times over by adventuring parties, but hoards of treasure may yet exist in the upper floors.

That’s the basic set-up. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be filling in the details and prepping to launch the campaign.

Hello world.

I’m (re-)launching an online venture; a place to discuss horror and gaming.

I’ll be focusing on retro role-playing games (particularly Lamentations of the Flame Princess, a game based on 1980s D&D and released as part of the Old School Renaissance).

I’ll also be talking about Call of Cthulhu and the new Delta Green, as well as horror movies, TV, fiction, comics and video games (especially old FPS games like Doom and Blood, and roguelikes such as Darkest Dungeon and Infra Arcana).

Obviously, I have a love of all things retro-horror (i.e. horror from – or in the style of – the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s). However, more contemporary horror will also get some attention.

I’ll try to post semi-regularly, but I do have a job / wife / kids.