Hunchback: The Lurching

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A storytelling game of co-dependency, self-pity, despite, anger and alienation.

All over the world people suffer from debilitating physical ailments. Legs bend at odd angles naturally. Faces swell and twist. Some are affected by chemicals in the atmosphere. Others by their parents genes. Then there are those who cannot be explained. Twisted humans who inspire revulsion in even the most accepting. They are known as Hunchbacks.

Hunchback: The Lurching is a fan-made game for White Wolf's New World of Darkness storytelling RPG. The game concerns the (mis)adventures of these Hunchbacks, who suffer from "The Curse," an affliction that twists their bodies into something inhuman.

The main goals for a Hunchback are finding a master, searching for love and dealing with being an ostracized freak. The game has no relation to real people with deformities.

The complete game is available online, and even has a Mr Gone-designed character sheet. The author also put out some ideas for a companion game, Mad Scientist: The Experiment, here.

Tropes used in Hunchback: The Lurching include:
  • Body Horror - Normally, this title would be given to the hunchbacks, but the author made something even worse, called "Torsos", quadriplegic bodies who move either like a snake, an inchworm, or a four legged spider. Oh, and they can gnaw off limbs to make the limbs their own, and drain a body of spinal fluid. They love hunchbacks, because of their humps potency.
  • City of Adventure - Pittsburgh since apparently Amerindian history of the area describes a giant "mound" in the area that was a source of great evil. It seems Hunchbacks are called to it.
  • Gratuitous French - Given in a game about hunchbacks.
  • The Igor - Even more given.