Developing the Narrative for 7TV: Lurkers from the Deep

7TV: Lurkers from the Deep: Entry Five.

In his series of blog posts, Conor Dwyer discussed the designing of the casts for 7TV: Lurkers from the Deep. In this post, we’ll be taking a closer look into the development of the narrative for this up-and-coming campaign!

Our initial aim was to create a series of episodes linked by a single narrative inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’.

Rather than a lonesome Investigator as is in Lovecraft’s tale, we opted for a G-Men centric cast with an action-focussed narrative:

A team of G-Men were sent to Marshport to investigate anonymous reports of bootlegging in the town. Shortly after arrival, all contact from them ceased. Their last known position: The Siren’s Respite, Marshport’s finest hotel.

Division-19, a squad of specialist G-Men, have been dispatched into Marshport to recover the missing team, but the crumbling town harbours more sinister secrets than Emille and her crew bargained for.

Conor and I began by plotting out a map of Marshport, so we could logically see how Division-19 would get to their next location. It wouldn’t make sense for our heroes to jump from the bridge, to the reef, to the hotel.

Without revealing all our plot points, play begins on the bridge. If the heroes win, they immediately get on with their mission and head to the last known point of contact of the missing G-Men; the hotel. If the heroes lose, Division-19 retreat to find another way into the town through the abandoned railyard.

We wanted to follow the build of terror typical for the genre. Lurkers begins with mundane locations, for example, the bridge. As the plot progresses, the settings grow more iconic with the cannery and docks. The narrative ends in a truly cosmic way; a ruinous spire of R’lyeh out on Devil’s Reef.

And so marks the end of our development posts. But, as we move into beta, there may be more to follow…