Archie's weird mysteries (hang in there, I'll explain)

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Rock of the Fraternity
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Archie's weird mysteries (hang in there, I'll explain)

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

I recently found out this cartoon exists, and at least some of the episodes seem like they'd make good Ravenloft material, or draw inspiration from the same sources.

Take zombies of love: the key item is a love philtre that makes people so obsessed with someone that they stop eating and sleeping, refuse to let the object of their obsession break the spell, and will probably rise as love-obsessed zombies after death? Oh, yeah!

Or twisted youth: a radioactive mineral gets in a lake and spreads a contaminant that turns adults into teenagers ... without memories of their adulthood. The show provided an easy fix, but imagine the ruined families if there wasn't one.

Mega mall of horrors: a mall appears overnight, the stores offering exactly what people want - not unlike in Needful things. Teen customers receive free credit cards at the door. But once a card is maxed out, the teen owner is turned into a sentient but immobile mannequin until the mall's owner has reaped all the town's teens and is ready to leave - and sacrifice all his captive souls to Hell.
And the best / worst part? As soon as someone has been turned into a mannequin, everyone they knew forgets they existed...
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Re: Archie's weird mysteries (hang in there, I'll explain)

Post by Mephisto of the FoS »

Rock of the Fraternity wrote: Sat Dec 16, 2023 11:04 am Take zombies of love: the key item is a love philtre that makes people so obsessed with someone that they stop eating and sleeping, refuse to let the object of their obsession break the spell, and will probably rise as love-obsessed zombies after death? Oh, yeah!
This could be combined with the following item from the Black Vault
alhoon wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 1:51 pm "Chains of Binding" : More of a matching pair of necklaces in the form of chain links made from cold iron than real chains. Created for an abusive, jealous aristocrat so that he could control his wife and his mistress. The necklaces when worn "bind" the will of the target to the owner (the wearer obeys the owner's stated commands as if target by a suggestion spell, DC 13). However, the items are cursed and slowly the corrupted mind of those binded becomes obsessive with the person that gave them the necklaces. The baron's life ended when his mistress stabbed him in the back out of jealously.
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Re: Archie's weird mysteries (hang in there, I'll explain)

Post by Wolfglide of the Fraternity »

I have memories of watching reruns of this show when I was little, but I couldn't remember the name of it.

I particularly remember the beginning of "Misfortune Hunters," which could be inspiration for a Ravenloft story where an innocent is manipulated by villains. "Little Chock'Lit Shoppe of Horrors" bears a vague resemblance to the origin story I put into The Font of Mercurial Tears, namely instilling a location with a sentience intended to improve it, but having the sentience become twisted. Considering that this particular episode may be my earliest memory of an "evil AI" story, it may actually have been a subconscious influence.
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Re: Archie's weird mysteries (hang in there, I'll explain)

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

Curse of the mummy is an interesting subversion of the usual mummy-related shenanigans, in that the titular mummy is so full of self-loathing that (in life) it destroyed every image of its own face, and its curse only befalls those who create an image of it. It is a mummy that wishes to be forgotten, as it despises itself for postponing marriage to its one true love while working on its pyramid, until she finally had enough and left.

Fleas release me has a nicely tense scene, when a prisoner in the county lock-up and the sheriff guarding him discover that the sheriff is a maledictive werewolf... because the full moon is rising. Que the prisoner cowering in the far corner of the cell, yelling for his friends and even his mommy to save him, while sheriff werewolf is trying to break through the iron bars to get at him -- and making good headway.
The requirements for someone to become a werewolf are interesting, too; the addition of a pentagram in particular. The moment when the main character hears what a pentagram is and realizes the sheriff's been sporting a bandage and wears a five-pointed star on his chest is nicely rewarding.
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