THE VILLA DIODATI

Discussing Masque of the Red Death
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nothri
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THE VILLA DIODATI

Post by nothri »

The following is transcribed from the GURPS supplement Who's Who under the entry for Lord Byron:

"THE VILLA DIODATI

While in Switzerland, Byron hosted a few friends in a rented villa by the shore of Lake Geneva; Dr. John Polidori, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, and Byron’s mistress Claire Clairmont. One evening, Byron suggested writing ghost stories, Mary’s idea developed into her famous novel, Frankenstein. Byron began a short story about a vampire but abandoned it after a few pages; Polidori took notes, and rewrote it some years later. The result was published as The Vampyre, under Byron’s name to boost sales; Byron was furious, but the story became a minor classic.

The GM of a horror-related campaign might wonder what exactly happened at the Villa Diodati to inspire two such influential stories. Polidori committed suicide soon after the publication of The Vampyre, at the age of 26, and Shelley drowned in 1822; two of Byron’s close friends from his youth also drowned. Both the Byrons and the Gordons (his mother’s family) were said to be cursed; Catherine’s father and grandfather both committed suicide – again by drowning – and the fifth Lord Byron killed his own cousin in a particularly pointless duel. The movie Gothic and Tim Powers’ novel The Stress of Her Regard both deal with this subject (in very different ways)."

On Gothic Earth I have often wondered what rationale we can apply to a world in which the famous monsters of Gothic Horror are real entities influencing the world, yet presumably history has followed the same pattern as the real world (by which I mean, the details of these monsters is available in paperback at any reasonably stocked bookstore). I have always assumed that some modestly powerful cabal must have used its influence to create a front company of book publishers to ensure that these stories were distributed far and wide (keeping in fictional so that the general public would absorb the tales without rejecting it as the claims of madmen- sure, you might feel like a fool when you learn Dracula really exists, but as least you know his spawn are vulnerable to light, garlic, need to be invited it, etc) as well as honor the heroes who have fought these monsters. Given the above, I now believe we can blame this particular secret society on Lord Byron and his contemporaries.
I'm just a ghost in this house.
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