I was hooked by that point, which is
odd. I've never been a fan of horror. I'm not ashamed to admit that
I'm a scaredy cat. I don't react well to a lot of horror stuff,
especially startle and jump scares. Which is probably why I liked
Silent Hill so much. Rather than going for cheap tricks, Silent Hill
drew you in with a mystery and a very emotional story. It was a
masterpiece. I played several times and bought a PS2 just to play
Silent Hill 2. I liked Silent Hill 3, but never finished Silent Hill
4. It just didn't connect with me. Plus, I hate having enemies coming
after you that you can't kill. No thank you. That said, I've beaten
the first three games several times and have earned almost every
ending in each one.
Over the years, the Silent Hill media
has grown immensely. More games, comics, and even movies have been
produced in the almost 20 years since the first game came out. And
I've enjoyed some of it. Of course, the canon of all of this is a
complete and total clusterfuck. More on that in a moment...
Since Silent Hill has been such an
important thing for me, of course I've been thinking about trying to
run a game of it. For several years. Before the first movie came out.
As much as I wanted to run a game of Silent Hill, there were a few
problems that cropped up. The first one was, what system to use?
There's a lot of different gaming systems out there, each with their
own benefits and drawbacks. After much debate, I selected All Flesh
Must Be Eaten. Why AFMBE? The system can handle fear stuff, the
supernatural, and is highly adaptable when it comes to making
creatures. There are, of course, drawbacks. It's not an easy system
to pick up right away, it can be overly complicated, and it is not
very forgiving when it comes to damage. However, I do feel it is the
best thing to use.
Now that I've picked the system, the
issue of canon comes to the fore. As I mentioned before, there's a
lot of Silent Hill stuff out there. In addition to the first four
games, I also own the IDW comics and the movies. But, the canon is a
mess. The first and third game connect directly, as do the second and
fourth, but the two groups don't intersect (except for some jokes in
the games). The comics make reference to some of the things from the
games, most notably The Order and Pyramid Head. However, they start
adding in other elements, such as the Cthulhu Mythos. Now, I have to
pick and choose what I want to use. Since I liked the first three
games so much, I decided to use them as my main sources of influence.
I only use the movies for people who haven't played the games to get
an understanding of the main ideas.
Using the games, there's a few gaps to
work out. In the first and third games, there's The Order. However,
what exactly is The Order? We don't know for sure, but we do have
little hints. Going over the strategy guides (which I own), as well
as going over walkthroughs and other sources, we've got some kind of
idea of them. From what I've pieced together, The Order is a cult of
some kind. While there's some elements of Christianity, there's
clearly some Pagan undertones that appear in the third game. And
there's some talk about how there was a Native American tribe in the
area where Silent Hill now stands and that area was some sort of holy
place, a place of spirits. Given the typical history of white folks
coming across Natives, it probably didn't end well for them. Which
can also explain the Pagan undertones in The Order. Given how
Christianity had a tendency to steamroll previously existing faiths,
many peoples would simply cover their native practices with a “Jesus”
covering. And this is where I'm at with The Order.
My personal belief is that The Order is
from somewhere in Europe originally. This small sect managed to keep
their original beliefs, but they shifted and changed over time.
Eventually, the sect made the leap across the Atlantic. There, they
tried to settle in an area where they could practice their beliefs a
little more openly. They found the area what would become Silent
Hill...
And that's a brief history of The
Order. But, what about their beliefs and practices? Thankfully, the
third game gives us the most amount of information. We know that they
have one “God” who is female (or perhaps became female) served by
a host of lesser gods and angels. Here, we don't have much else to go
on. Clearly, there's something about Paradise, Resurrection, and
believers and unbelievers. Exactly what all these things are, we
don't really know. This is both good and bad. While much of The
Order's faith is up in the air, it gives me stuff to explore. I
started by building on the themes we've seen in their stuff, the dark
faith and weird mix of other bits. Having all this come together also
gave me a thread to follow for all the monsters.
Which brings me to another point, what
about the town? Not only do I need a physical map of the town, but
there's the matter of the town itself. In Silent Hill 2, we're
introduced to the concept that the town itself is possessed or
somehow alive. And it calls people to it. While the main character
was called there by something else, the other characters we met
seemed to have randomly turned up there. Given how we've got some
weird metaphysical stuff going on with The Order, it stands to reason
that the town itself has absorbs some bad ju-ju. Could it be that the
town itself has become “alive” in some fashion? Quite possible,
but not something I focused on.
Now that I've picked out the “what”
of Silent Hill (for the most part), it was time to figure out the
“who” of this game. Stay tuned...
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