Genre Splash #1: These Vitiated Streets [B]

Continued from Wednesday

The widespread creation of Nightwears was the final blow that felled civilization in the last world to be invaded by the Garbage Men. Already in disarray from the machinations of the Garbage Men, the governments of that world totally collapsed beneath the rising tide of more and more Nightwears after they reached the point where each new Nightwear made conditions easier for creating even more of the monsters. A solution was ultimately devised but not in enough time. Instead, two hundred pairs of people were chosen to undergo a series of magical operations. The operations ended with the extraction of one person's soul from each pair and the death of the other person in the process of using their body for raw materials in giving physical form to that soul. The two hundred survivors, who were given the name "Knights," were left semi-soulless and, unexpectedly, unable to use Sparks themselves. Unable to directly oppose the Garbage Men, they opted to continue with the plan as best as they could and follow them to their next target and from there find people to use the Sparks in their place.

Genre Splash #1: These Vitiated Streets [A]

A couple of years ago I started to wonder about the ideas that I was coming up with. Not all of them- I won't even say most of them- were regarded as very, very peculiar but there were some. What I wanted to determine was whether I had an actual talent at crossing unlikely concepts together or if I subconsciously filtered out the combinations that I couldn't do anything with.

Genre Splash is my way of figuring this out. If you have a combination that you would like to see developed, leave it in the Comments section or send me an email.

Challenge: Crime Noir, Giant Robot, and Magical Girl. No city-wide amnesia allowed.

The time is the late Forties. The Cold War is in high swing- and getting hot.

For a year now, something has been seeping into our world. It is a collective entity of separate minds and bodies but, in some fashion, a single essence and soul. Its avatars are the Garbage Men, insect-like monsters that can rapidly eviscerate a man and wear his flayed skin like a cloak. Like some kind of inverted vampire they are at their most powerful when their blood is being shed. Besides being highly addictive to anyone that is forced to drink it (or is convinced to do it of their own volition), their blood can be psychically controlled and shaped to form knives and pseudo-limbs. The harder the beating, the harder that a Garbage Man can hit back.