…yum!
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The Doclopedia #292
After The Change Came: Lunatic Fringe, I Know You’re Out There
Folks, I started this article a week ago and this version is the one you are getting because it is the one in which I ranted the least. Yes, this time around I’m going to be discussing the wackos that surfaced after the Change. In particular, the Potterites, the Vampire Lovers and the Crazy LARPers. Below, short sketches of each group…
Crazy LARPers are the least annoying of the bunch, mostly because they have chosen to form their own small Towns where they do their best to actually live out their idea of a D&D style world. To be honest, many ordinary gamers go to these villages for a bit of LARPing now and then, but they are glad to come home to the modern comforts after a few days.
These Towns look and run just like any generic fantasy roleplaying village, down to using actual gold, silver and copper pieces as money. There are inns, shops, taverns…everything you might expect. The people all look pretty much like the typical pudgy gamer, but they dress up and behave like swordspeople, thieves, clerics and mages. Only the mages are real tho, since the clerics have no real gods to call upon, the thieves are too out of shape (or nervous) to pull a second story job and the sword swingers use enchanted weapons that cannot actually harm anything.
Most impressively, every Town has a dungeon complex near it. Most of these man made set ups are only a couple of levels deep and the townsfolk have to hire New Races to “dwell” in them (and use illusions for things like slimes and various animals or creatures that don’t exist). Still, the illusions used to make them look right really do look pretty cool and the “expedition tax” that outsiders must pay earns the town a hefty chunk of dough.
The big problem with Crazy LARPers is that they are a bit divorced from reality and that can get pretty annoying when you have to deal with them. However, that problem pales in comparison to the ones that you’ll find among…
Vampire Lovers, who are a whole couple of levels of crazy beyond the Crazy LARPers. I’m not talking about the millions of folks who are keeping the current wave of vampire fiction selling so well. No, I’m talking about those pasty skinned angst dripping folks who wear black, take Vampire: The Masquerade WAY too seriously and used to stalk Anne Rice before she changed into a Gnome and started writing children’s books.
Vampire Lovers were just heartbroken when they found out that the Change did not create any undead at all, especially vampires. A bunch of them even pleaded with some Wizards to turn them into “noble & beautiful vampires”, but the Wizards told them to go away and forget it. Unfortunately, they didn’t take the advice, they just added the injustice of it all to their list of things to whine about.
About 5 years ago, right after Masquerade 6 (the biggest convention for Vampire Lovers), a whole bunch of them decided to go the route of the Crazy LARPers and build their own town. A couple of Wizards, who thought getting all of these pale wackos into one place might be a good idea, offered to build them a glorious vampire city…if they paid large up front. (Note: Wizards have no need for money, it was just the principal of the thing). The Vampire Lovers could not agree fast enough and soon, Blood City appeared smack in the middle of Nevada. It can best be described as looking like Salvador Dali did some touch up work on Gotham City from the first Tim Burton “Batman” movie…with lots of crystal and more gloom.
Blood city could easily house 100,000 people, but only about 25,000 live there. Vampire Lovers from all over the world came there and formed their little factions and try like hell to get normal people to live there, which very few will do.
One last bit on this subject: As we all know by now, Wizards do like their little jests, so they rigged Blood City with two good ones. First, once a true Vampire Lover enters the city, they can only leave by rejecting all things vampiric and entreating a Wizard to let them go. This hardly ever happens. Secondly, nobody inside the city can actually consume blood, human or otherwise. If they do, it will make them violently ill for hours.
As you might think, that really gave the Vampire Lovers something to whine about.
The last group of strangeoids is by far the most annoying and bothersome. My blood pressure rises just thinking of them.
I’m speaking of the Potterites, those fans of all things Harry Potter who pretty much lost their minds when the Change did not go the way they thought it should. Their list of grievances is very long. Here are a few highlights…
House elves look and act all wrong, what with wearing clothes, speaking perfectly in the language of whomever they are serving, accepting actual monthly payment for their work (not much, but still) and behaving in a totally wrong manner compared to the HP house elves.
Mages don’t come into their power until about age 18 and even then they don’t need to go to any schools to learn about magic.
Almost nobody (except Potterites) tries to fly around on a broom. That would be because riding a broom for even a short ways is truly a pain in the ass.
No Hogwarts!
No Diagon Alley!
Dragons/giants/goblins/whatever are all wrong!
London is all wrong!
There are potions, but (you guessed it) they are all wrong!
Nobody wants to play Quidditch (except Potterites) because it’s dangerous, takes forever to finish a match and you’ve gotta ride a damned broom.
Nobody calls anybody a muggle and if you did, they’d just laugh.
No…well, you get the idea. Things weren’t helped when, after finishing “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” in 2004, J.K. Rowling suggested that the Potterites “just get over it and accept reality”. They didn’t and I suspect they never will. The launch last year of the new Harry Potter series “Harry Potter: The Auror Cases” has only given the Potterites more to wish for and complain about.
Wizards offered to create a city for the Potterites (all 500,000 of them), but this was after Blood City was built and the Potterites weren’t going for it. We all feel bad about that, I assure you.
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