Mountain Monsters: A "Reality" Show for Cryptid Hunters

 

I subscribe to Max, and since the merger of Warner and Discovery, they've added all the Discovery Plus content. This includes a show I never knew existed, but I am now addicted to, called Mountain Monsters. The premise of the show is that a group of backwoodsmen attempt to encounter or trap (or even kill) cryptids in the Appalachian wilderness. It's such an obviously scripted show (the monsters are never shown, and when they are, it's clearly a CGI embellishment), but it is incredible fun. I look at it as a hillbilly version of Supernatural, the kind of guys that Sam and Dean would make fun of, because they're all gonna die approaching monsters this way.

However, I did have a wonderful idea. I haven't decided if I'll use an OSR ruleset, or Beyond the Supernatural from Palladium, but since each episode has some lore and imagery of each monster, I figured what better opportunity to adapt them for roleplaying! I've always been fond of Appalachian folklore and horror, like Manly Wade Wellman's fiction, from Silver John to his other characters. The down-home aspect of this type of fiction appeals to me, and seems all the more fantastical due to being in a setting I can relate to - I'm from just north of Appalachia myself, lower Northeast Ohio. I loved making my way down through the hills of Ohio on a drive, through forests and farmland.

That's the plan, then. I'll be posting them here, also, as I write them up. The plan is to take each of these critters and stat them out completely. Of course, since the lore on the show is usually paper-thin, I'll have to do a bit of research on each to make sure I'm giving them all the powers and abilities they need to kill player characters. I'll make sure to reference each episode, also.

Please note that this isn't a challenge to any copyright, or an attempt to use the show to improve this blog - I'm just a fan, and I wanted to make some monsters based on what I've seen on the show, and weave these cryptids into the fantastical landscape of Appalachian fantasy stories.

Stay tuned, so to speak. Monsters are coming.