[UA] Raising Kaine (long)

[Stuart Anderson]

"Dr.Robert Logan" wrote:

> I want to thank the list for their help.  Particularly Stu, as I have incorporated most of his ideas and Greg, as I like the addition of the St. Cecil angle.

Anytime--I love the campaign sketch. It's going to be a blast.

> (Thoughts I’m kicking around, and would welcome help with
)
> -Who should have a dubbed copy of Kaine’s work “Black Fever”?  The Sleepers are the most logical choice, but that’s not doing much for me


I think the Sleepers should not have a copy. It shows evidence, which they would be busily suppressing if they knew about it. Archivists or collectors would have a piece. The Lone Gunmen and those like them will have a piece. Some lonely would-be adept of an obscure rock&roll magickal school may realize that his cut of it is the only one that makes any of his spells work. I think the Sleepers should become aware of it during the course of the adventure.

>  -How is Furnier going to try to kill Kaine and make it look like an accident?  I have a “mugging” arranged but could use more


    This is the piece that got me started on Jean being French. Now--this is almost certainly *not* what you had in mind, but I'm offering it in the hope that it sparks something for you. My idea for Jean's attacks on Johnny were predicated on the idea that Jean was a flaked-out French metal junkie with little killer instinct or common sense. Start thinking Pink Panther or Mr. Magoo. Jean cuts Johnny's brake lines and waits in a van at the bottom of a hill to confirm the kill. But Johnny swerves into a parking garage near the bottom of the hill at eighty-five per, crashes the rail, rockets up the ramp, and launches himself off the top of the building . . .landing on the van, which breaks the fall
enough for him to escape unscathed. The next morning, he sees his car in the newspaper, with no idea of how it got there.
    Jean (with many bandages) then introduces a deadly cobra into Johnny's room and wedges a chair under the outer doorknob of Johnny's apartment. He waits below to listen for the screams. The snake slithers under Johnny's bed. Johnny begins gathering laundry and the cobra gets wrapped up in his blanket. Johnny, with a huge hamper in his arms, tries to take his laundry to the coin-op, but has to ram his shoulder against the 'sticky' door, which opens all at once when the chair comes loose, which causes Johnny to fall out and loose the hamper over his balcony rail. Of course it lands upside down over Jean's head and he goes for another ride to the hospital. Johnny sees the bizarre headline the
next morning and a picture of an already heavily-bandaged man being loaded into an ambulance, with no idea that it has anything to do with him
    You see the pattern. Poorly-laid trap, damage rebounds onto Jean, collateral damage is picked up by the newspaper. Johnny gets the clue from the bizarre newspaper stories, but it takes a while because they don't--at first--seem to be related to him. You can see how the contrived nature of the examples would strain suspension of disbelief if Jean were not French. I'd suggest doing something with the pattern above, even if you reduce the wackiness of the examples.

> -Longtime girlfriend Lilly Blade is supposed to be dead.  I would like a REALLY freaky way of reintroducing her


    OK. So the last time we saw her, she was in the clutches of the Christians? Has she been deprogrammed? Is she coming back from somewhere stranger?  I like controlled re-incarnations. It depends on how large a role you want for Lilly to have. If she were truly diabolical, masterminding her abduction by the Cecilians in order to advance another manipulation, then maybe she cut a deal with demonic or magickal forces to die and be reincarnated with her memories and agenda intact. If she 'died' in the early 80s, she'd be something like 17 or 18? Maybe she's Brittney Spears. I don't know if that works, but it'd be freaky. Maybe she's a Lolita-esque groupie that develops a subtle influence over
Johnny, helping him feel a sudden new burst of creativity just as he begins to reassert his memory and get his life together, starting the whole wicked cycle over from the beginning. Kind of a Angel Heart meets Reuben, Reuben.

I dug the interview. In addition to being a mediocre bass player, Derek Smalls is an electrifying journalist.
--Stu


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