Thoughts on "Monster Hunters" in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy
Iām planning to flesh out some of the info and themes in the Eureka rulebook about monster hunters, so Iām turning these thoughts into a proper post.
Where thereās monsters in modern fantasy, thereās monster hunters. Itās not actually quite that old of a trope, and often gets applied retroactively, (See: van Helsing just brings some guy who has read a lot about vampires in the original Dracula novel, but getting portrayed as a badass vampire hunting specialist in so many subsequent iterations) but whatever the case, the concept of a monster-hunting specialist will find its way into just about any setting with monsters.
These may many forms across different media.
Sometimes theyāre for-hire almost like exterminators, sometimes theyāre on the payroll of a secret government agency or a secret branch of The Church, sometimes they just do it because no one else will.
Sometimes theyāre the good guys, vigilantes striking out against monsters that represent oppressive power structures, invading forces, dangerous problems that those in power turn a blind eye to, etc.
Sometimes theyāre the bad guys, religious fanatics or government secret police who relentlessly pursue monsters representing some misunderstood, marginalized, and innocent group.
Sometimes theyāre āone of the good ones,ā hunting their own kind as a form of atonement.
Well, in Eureka, there is no global secret society run by monsters, nor a global secret society, government branch, or branch of the Church suppressing monsters.
Monsters are both a largely unknown - and legitimately dangerous - phenomenon to the general public, and yet still otherwise ānormalā people with their own lives and problems. Read these posts for more on that subject.
Through a discussion with @vixensdungeon (great blog to follow for TTRPG stuff by the way) it came to our attention that some of our more jo
something I donāt get about the disability metaphor is that for eureka monsters obviously it harms another person to eat them. the help a di
If these are the monsters in Eureka, then who are the monster hunters? What kind of person becomes a self-described āmonster hunterā in this context? Probably not a very good one. Now donāt get me wrong, monsters are very dangerous, but they also are so exceptionally rare that most monsters will have never met anyone else like them in their entire lives. Most people will never even unknowingly walk past one on the street.
So, first of all, to even believe that these monsters are out there and striking with such frequency that you could reasonably āhuntā them, you already have to be a little bit of a crackpot.
Now, there are dangerous people out there in Eureka and in real life. This is a work of art that strongly believes in the right to self-defense and ownership of the means of self-defense. What else are you going to do, rely on the police?
But for a self-described āmonster hunterā in Eureka, this danger is not something theyāre simply wary of and prepared for, it is something that, conscious or not, excites them. This isnāt ācarries a gun just in case of the unlikely event of an attackā kind of āself-defense,ā this is ādrive three states over to a protest to make sure something happensā kind of āself-defense.ā This is āhoping for any excuse and opportunity to rid society of undesirables from āthe streetsā through violenceā kind of āself-defense.ā
And, in a world where monsters are so rare and also so hard to distinguish from normal people as in Eureka, what does āmonster huntingā even look like? Well, it aināt a good look. It means hypervigilantly scouring everyone you meet for any abnormality or sign of deviant or ādangerousā behavior. Then, when youāve got what might be a hit, invade their privacy, stalk them, watch their every move for more evidence of the danger you know is there. Then, once they raise enough red flags, and youāve got an opportunity, you attempt to destroy them.
Obviously most of these āmonstersā are false positives, there just arenāt that many actual monsters out there, and their ātellsā can often be identical to the behaviors of people who just donāt fit in with normal society for whatever other reason, and might even be huge assholes, but are ultimately not capable of causing much harm, if any.
Most āmonster huntersā will have never encountered a single real monster, and if they ever did, they would probably be out of their depth, but they pat themselves on the back for their hard work keeping the community safe all the same. After all, a normal mortal who already has a stake through their heart canāt explain that they always ask to be invited in because they have OCD or anxiety. (And why should they even have to? Because you imagined they might be a vampire? Seriously?)
I donāt think most of you reading this carry guns IRL so Iām going to bring it a bit closer to home. In more online spaces, these are the same kind of people who start compiling āevidenceā for callout posts as soon as they get a ābad vibeā from someone, or somebody is rude to or disagrees with them. Itās the same MO. Scan everyone for the slightest evidence āproblematicā behavior, start stalking them and invading their privacy once youāve got a hit, then move in to destroy.
Who cares if you stretch the truth a little bit? You know in your mind theyāre problematic, so itās up to you to protect the community from them by any means necessary, even lying, otherwise people might not take it seriously enough!
This is called "relational aggression" or "relational violence," by the way.
āBut what about the real monsters who really eat people? Doesnāt somebody need to do something about them?ā
Well, yes and no. Itās complicated, just like in real life. The posts I linked above explain the comparison between Eureka monsters and disabled people, with the fact that monsters eat people representing how disabled people can often eat up time, energy, and resources of those around them whether they like it or not. Some of them would be less of an issue if societal structures changed, others would not, and even within different categories of monster itās pretty case-by-case. As much as these man-eating monsters have a right to life, the people they eat have a right to defend themselves from monster attacks. I donāt pretend to have the perfect solution to disability or to Eureka monsters, exploring the nuance therein is one of the things the game is about, but I do know that āwe need to weed out and exterminate all people with harmful or burdensome needs for the good of societyā, well, that aināt it chief.
Be safe, be wary, but donāt be a monster hunter. Donāt go picking fights, donāt assume itās your duty to cyberstalk and ostracize people whose backgrounds or behaviors are āsuspiciousā or less than squeaky clean, and do be skeptical of callout posts and related tools of ostracization. For every one legitimately, maliciously harmful person out there, there are a hundred more who are on the receiving end of this kind of treatment because they were an asshole to the wrong person, or because they caused a scene on a train car.
A self-righteous monster hunter is every bit as dangerous as the monsters they claim to hunt.
