The Unknown Companion

[Kevin Mowery]

----------
> From: James Palmer <jrp36 at hermes.cam.ac.uk>
> To: UA list <UA at purpletape.cs.uchicago.edu>
> Subject: The Unknown Companion
> Date: Friday, February 05, 1999 9:15 AM
> 
> "Who is the third who walks always beside you?
> When I count, there are only you and I together
> But when I look ahead up the white road
> There is always another one walking beside you
> Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
> I do not know whether a man or a woman 
> - but who is that on the other side of you?"
> 
> Eliot, "The Waste Land"
> 
> "360: The following lines were stimulated by the account of one of the
> Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton's):
> it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their
> strength, had the constant delusion that there was _one more member_ than
> could actually be counted."
> 
> Eliot, "Notes on The Waste Land"
> 
> This is a remarkably cruel and subtle effect to spring on your PC's. 
When
> they are at the very limits of their strength, battered, broken, and out
> of charges, start describing events as if there was one more member of
the
> group than there actually is.  For example, if there are four of them,
say
> "the five of you slowly make your way past the shattered remains of the
> automaton."  When one of them notices and challenges you, tell him that
> he's convinced there are five members of the group.  When they count,
they
> count four - but they're certain that there's five.  As they keep
> journeying, occasionally drop descriptions of their companion - "You
brush
> past brown robes (or whatever) as you move to the front of the group."
> 
> There are three variations of this -
> 
> a) Mundane.  The PC's are just experiencing a genuine psychological
> curiosity that affects people at extremities of fatigue.  Now, of course,
> they'll go nuts trying to figure out what spell's affecting them.
> 
> b) Nasty.  A very subtle entropic is causing the effect, and may
> occasionally give them false hope only to lead them into danger - a
modern
> will-o-the-wisp.
> 
> c) Interesting.  The figure is a manifestation of the Archetype of the
> Unknown Companion, the secret helper or aid who supports the hero at his
> most desperate moments.  The best way out of their situation is to follow
> the (barely-perceivable) motions of that half-glimpsed figure.

I like this a lot.  I'd add a fourth possibility, though: Creepy.  If I may
add another quote to your list:
	"Where your eyes don't go a filthy scarecrow waves his broomstick arms and
does a parody of each unconscious thing you do/When you turn around to look
it's gone behind you on its face its wearing a confused expression where
your eyes don't go . . . Should you worry when the skull head is in front
of you/or is it worse because it's always grinning where your eyes don't
go."  -They Might Be Giants

	The Unknown Companion is Death.  Maybe it's the Archetype of Death (not
the Executioner), or some other archetype that would want to hang around as
people die.  And it knows that something bad is going to happen in the
vicinity of the characters very soon.  It's not *causing* it, it just wants
to be there when it happens.	

> 
> 

Kevin "Professor Bobo" Mowery _____________________ profbobo at io.com
"The entire dismemberment of Vash Gar reveals an ignorance of anatomy so 
deep that I begin to question whether the author does, indeed, have a
body."
                       --ratmm's Norb on the "Seven Stars MSTing"
     **See the "Seven Stars MSTing" at http://www.io.com/~profbobo **