Tucked away up on up on the coast of Maine, Collinsport is
the (fictional) home of the Dark Shadows TV show
fame. With a plethora of information
put together by Dark Shadows fans, consider playing the H. P. Lovecraft mythos
RPG,
Call of Cthulhu in beautiful downtown Collinsport for a change of pace, if Arkham becomes a bit too
expected.
If you are of a certain age, you remember running home from
school to catch the latest episode of the daytime soap opera, Dark Shadows. It was an afternoon weekday TV show that ran
from 1966 to 1971 originally. But it
was a bit different because it was a horror series, something not seen in a
daytime slot. There were 1,225 episodes
overall and a couple of movies+. The
series starred the notorious vampire Barnabas Collins as
played by Jonathan Frid
and featured a parade of Frankenstein monsters, witches, zombies, and
werewolves. The show also had time
travel story lines and parallel universes.
Clearly there is enough ground there to please any eldritch gamer.
Although obscure to most of you today, Dark Shadows
was a huge hit in its heyday in the late 1960s. Today, the episodes are all but unwatchable by modern standards,
but Dark Shadows brought in slow pacing, tropes, and memes that we see
more often in our modern graphic novels these days. Dark Shadows was ground breaking and had a good deal of
influence even years after the show went off the air.
There was also a bit of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos
connection in Dark Shadows. The
story arc, The Leviathans, brought some Lovecraft stirrings to the TV
series, although fans really didn’t like seeing Barnabas as the pawn of the Old
Ones. Given the parallels with
Lovecraft Country, working on scenarios in Collinsport wouldn’t be too hard.
A couple of links about Collinwood Mansion the lair of the
Collins family and Barnabas himself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collinwood_Mansion and http://darkshadows.wikia.com/wiki/Collinwood
Floor plans of Collinswood
http://imgarcade.com/1/collinwood-mansion-floor-plan/
Well worth your time is a trip to the Dark Shadows Wiki,
which has tons of useful information: http://darkshadows.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Shadows_Wiki
Pictured is a map of Collinsport drawn by Jean Graham at
Dark Shadows wiki http://darkshadows.wikia.com/wiki/Collinsport
Playing in Collinsport in the 1920s would prove to be a lot
of fun for those who don’t mind a bit of initial preparation. Being contemporary with Arkham and the
Cthulhu mythos works well, especially since most folks are not familiar with
Dark Shadows enough to find continuity errors in your home-build scenarios if
you color outside of the limes somewhat.
Here’s a bit of background to pique your interest in adding
Collinsport to the topography of Mythos haunted New England. To show you how much fun Collinsport might
be, I gleaned a few things from the series itself, but other parts I
extrapolated, borrowed or made up whole cloth.
Pay a visit to beautiful Collinsport sometime, especially in the 1920s.
Collinsport was founded in the 1620s but began a decline
from the 1870s onward as a fishing village.
By the late 1890s, it’s picturesque quality attracted summer visitors
escaping the summer heat of large cities.
Plus it was a lot cheaper than other resorts. The railroad made the village accessible. Note that by 1962 the railroad stopped making
daily scheduled stops, due to lack of traffic and the decline of fishing
industry cannery cargo. A seasonal artist
colony sprang up just after WWI. It was
a quiet place for relaxation in seclusion.
The townspeople were insular and often uncouth and the village did not
attract “the right kind of people” and remained unfashionable.
In previous centuries ship salvage was a source of income
and when that proved lean, wrecking
would suffice. Smuggling from Canada to
avoid taxes started in colonial times down to the present. Additionally the Collinsport fishing fleet
ranged down to Florida in winter months to fish for the Havana market starting
in 1815, wrecking there in the dangerous reefs to make extra money. Often used Indian Key,
Florida as a headquarters.
Historically, Collinsport was seldom directly involved in
the slave trade from Colonial times to Civil War, although their shipping
expertise would have been useful from their smuggling and wrecking days. Some profit was made in outfitting and
crewing slave ships, but the most money was made in financing the trade both
when it was legal and later illegal.
Later, there was a little income from the China Trade, but not much.
Prohibition (1920 to 1933) saw some activity in Collinsport
with rum running from
Canada, but Collinsport’s activity was primarily as a middleman, generally by
poor fishermen trying to make ends meet rather than large, national-level
gangs. Meeting larger ships, they broke
down the cargo into smaller lots and hid it until they it picked up or shipped
out again. Some use of false-bottom
train cars used for shipping fish were used early on, but were too easy to
catch, leading to dispersal of illegal liquor throughout the fishing fleet and
being hidden in spots around the coast.
There was some small-scale moonshining, but it was generally for local
consumption.
You can visit to the so-called Viking
ruins well outside of town and the long-abandoned site of the old Indian
village site in a clearing just down the coast. The famous treasure pit, which sees occasional excavation for
elusive gold (see Oak Island
treasure). Collinsport ships may
have stumbled on treasure from the 1733
treasure fleet while “fishing” down in Florida, at least that is the origin
of the story of the treasure pit.
Sometimes dark things are found at the site and there are stories of
“disturbances” in the area. Also http://info.flheritage.com/galleon-trail/fleetOf1733.cfm
Anyway, I suggest you do a little Googling around, follow
some of the links provided below and see if you don’t get excited about gaming
in and around Collinsport and other haunted sites around Maine. I think this is fertile ground for CoC or
any paranormal role
playing gaming and there is plenty to discover. The background to the Dark Shadows world is interesting in itself
and would lend itself creditably to some RPGing from the Victorian era, the
1920s, and even up to modern times. The
sea has always been a link to the dim, primordial past as well as a highway
between cultures. Some exploring is in
order.CoastConFan
Footnotes
+Films made Both theatrical films, House of Dark Shadows (1970) and Night of Dark Shadows (1971). There was also a revival movie in 2012
starring Johnny Depp
Some good links for RPGing in the Collinsport area:
A must-visit is the fan site, The Collinsport Historical
Society, with tons of information http://www.collinsporthistoricalsociety.com/
A detailed Wikipedia article about Collinsport and
its environs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collinsport
Dark Shadows Every Day, a blog that reviews an episode of
the popular 60 TV show each day http://darkshadowseveryday.com/
Maine has it shares of domestic monsters and the like: http://dsduby.hubpages.com/hub/Urban-Legends-and-Haunted-Places-the-series-Maine-Edition
Of course, Steven King’s home is in
Maine and some of his stories are set there as well. He created a number of fictitious towns in Maine for his
stories and Collinsport would fit in nicely:
http://www.syfy.co.uk/blogs/top-10-stephen-king-towns
If this doesn’t give you enough Weird Fictional New England
towns as grist for your scenario mill, then you are probably not much into
gaming.
Well worth a download, American Architecture and Building
News, 1890 on Project Gutenberg for building ideas and floor plans http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21596/21596-h/21596-h.htm
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