USA folklore

>>17656411
VA here

I can only think up the bunny man

>car is transporting prisoners to a jail
>something happens and prisoners escape
>eventually they are all found but one guy
>he's never found but there are rabbit carcasses everywhere
>eventually murders star occurring around a bridge
>people get hanged if they cross under it
>people associate the dead bunnys, the killings and the prisoner together
>they now call the prisoner the bunny man who is also a ghost now

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>>17656421
Definitely something I will use, thanks. This is exactly the kind of things I'm looking for.

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Any of the lumberjack folklore is fantastic. This site has some of the 'core' fearsome creatures, though there are a ton of different ones: http://www.lumberwoods.com/mainindex.htm A lot of them are ridiculous, but they can easily be turned darker and creepier.

>>17656411
you using this for a campaign?

Ohio has Hell Town. It's the Northern half of Summit county I believe. It's abandoned due to the state buying up most of the land for preservation and pushing people off.
There's a bunch of rumors of serial killers hiding there, ghosts, and cult activity.

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>>17657530
I have some things saved, I'll post a few.

"Cincinnati has the Waxman, a man with a wax face who drives a beatup golden car down I-71 at midnight every night. Many adventurous teenagers and other thrill-seekers wait until his car passes by and follows him down his route, where he plays tricks and tries to time the spotlights to lose his followers.

The legends say that his destination every night is a junkyard, and the only people who managed to follow him all the way there have never spoken of what they saw."

"Here's the story of Cold Friday Road.

>southern Indiana
>very close to the Hoosier national forest
>there's an old horse trail that cuts through the woods to the Ohio river that got paved over years ago.
>turns back into a dirt road before you get to the river though
>legend has it that one particularly cold Friday night in the fall a guy took his horse out on the trail
>he left just before sundown on his horse to go camping
>he ended up getting lost
>it got EXTREMELY cold that night
>him and his horse are both found a few days later apparently frozen together
>the road has a lot of hills and valleys
>when you walk down the road on a Friday night you feel the tempature drop from comfortable with a sweater on the top of a hill to "shivering uncontrolably with a big coat on" once you enter the valley

Southern indiana , especially the Ohio river valley, has plenty of spoops to be had and what's believed to be one of the biggest cave systems in north America."

From Wikipedia:

Goatman's Bridge

Old Alton Bridge is a historic iron through-truss bridge connecting the cities of Denton, Texas and Copper Canyon, Texas. Built in 1884 by the King Iron Bridge Manufacturing Company, it originally carried horses and later automobiles over Hickory Creek at a location that once was a popular ford for crossing cattle. The bridge takes its name from the abandoned community of Alton, which between 1850-1856 was the seat of Denton County.

Locally, the bridge is known as "Goatman's Bridge", due to a legendary demonic satyr of the same name, who is popularly believed to inhabit the forest surrounding the area.

Legend tells of a black goat farmer who moved his family to a residence just north of the bridge. A few years later, Oscar Washburn was known as a dependable and honest businessman. North Texans endearingly began to call him the Goatman. But the success of a black man was still unwelcome to many, and Klansmen in the local government turned to violence after he displayed a sign on Alton Bridge: "this way to the Goatman's".

In August 1938 Klansmen crossed the bridge and kidnapped Washburn from his family. They hung a noose on Old Alton Bridge and, after securing it around his neck, threw him over the side. When they looked down to see if he had died, the noose was empty. In a panic, they returned to his family home and slaughtered his wife and children.

Locals warn that if you crossed the bridge at night without headlights, you will be met on the other side by the Goatman. Ghostly figures and strange lights are also reported in the surrounding woods. As well as visitors being touched, grabbed and having rocks thrown at them. This legend results in the area around Old Alton Bridge being popular with paranormal societies and Halloween activities.

" Over here in Westchester County, NY, which is right next to where I live, we have Buckout Road. According to the legends and who's telling them, the road is haunted by 3 witches who were hung from a tree. Apparently, you can see them hanging some nights, but I haven't yet. There is also the legend of albino cannibals, but that's just ridiclious.

There's some other stuff I'm forgetting, but there's a website up if anyone wants to read up on it. The only creepy thing to happen to me was I was walking down the road with 2 friends one night all shoulder to shoulder so we took up basically the width of the road. We all got creepy vibes, which was off cause we'd been there many times before and never felt like that. About a quarter mile down the road we all are feeling too spooked and turn around. About 300 yards from where we parked, we notice a cross in the road. We stop and snap photos and then my sister calls me and tells me my two shepards at home are bugging out for no reason. Getting very aggressive at seemingly nothing.

Anyways, we finish up and head back to the ca,r and then about 5 mins after driving it hits me. There wasn't a cross in the road on the way there. It was like 4 feet by 5 feet. No way we would have missed it. Either way I look at it creeps me out. Either a ghost did something, or some creep put that there after watching us walk by, then stayed and waited for us to come back and find it. I don't know and I don't really want to know.

That's my only really creep experience there and I've been there like 150 times. If anyone wants to go, be careful. I've had to dip into the woods before to get away from the cops. I was in the it for like 2 hours trying to get back to the whip without being noticed. Surprisingly, nothing happened when I was in the woods focused on something else."

It's really a loaned over Cherokee legend, but in my part of the country (Southern Appalachia) we talk about the Ulunsuti. It's a giant serpent with a jewel on its forehead. It's almost impossible to kill because it only has one unarmored spot, and it is big enough to swallow a person whole, but the jewel is extremely valuable and, back in the Cherokee days, anybody who could slay one and bring back the jewel would instantly be considered a hero.

Can confirm that both of these at least have some truth to them, in that the origin story actually happened and people have experienced phenomena.

http://hauntin.gs/listing/cry-baby-bridge-crybaby-bridge-29/
http://www.hauntedplaces.org/item/three-bridges-road/

My dad always told me this story about an orphanage back where he lived in Elyria Ohio, he took me to where it was. Basically it held the mischievous and bad behaved orphans and one of them started a fire and it burnt down. Basically the spooky part is the trouble making kids are ghosts that if you park there long enough they will do things like jump on top of the car, smash headlights, and do dents. Supposedly if you put flour on the car you can see their handprints after.

>>17656411
my friend told me a story about an albino sasquatch that was running around our town called El Diablo Blanco but that's a weird name cause we live near pittsburgh
>Albino Sasquatch
>Is the cause for some birds/squirrels coming up dead
>He said his brother saw him 1 night when their motion activated backyard light turned on
>Had black eyes

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How about this guy? If I remember right, he was in the Rockies, and would slide down the mountains and eat people.

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I live in Arkansas. Here's a story I heard from my great grandpa.
>around 1910, 1920
>shit town is just getting settled, probably around 50, 60 people spread around 10 miles
>grandpa is ten and has a huge family because Irish, all of the kids sleep in the same room
>one day his little sister wakes him up at like midnight and tells him theres a rabbit looking through the window at her
>he goes and looks
>its a white rabbit, it just sits completely still outside and watches little sister
>think nothing of it
>rabbit keeps showing up at night, all it does is stare through window at lil sis
>she's starting to get weaker and is getting sick more often
>grandaddy finally gets the shotgun, waits for the rabbit to show up, and shoots it
>it loses a paw and somehow gets away

Here's the fucked up part, though.

>they have a neighbor who lives higher up the ridge, fairly close given population density
>old bitchy widow who only comes down to get groceries, nobody in town cares much about her
>anyway day after this happens, family sees the doctor heading up the road to the old bitch's house
>great-great grandma asks what happens bc thats a rural thing
>doctor says old woman had some kind of shit sent down about having a hunting accident
>shot off her hand
>grandaddy's face when

>>17656411
We have the Melonheads in near Cleveland ohio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melon_heads#Legend_in_Ohio

I know ponchoman has been big around the states for a while

>>17658189
You live in pa?

>>17658302
Awesome! Imma from NE Arkansas. My great grandpaw knew a family that had this happen to them.

>about 1920 to 1930 range
>be normal dirt-poor hill folk
>piss off pig farmer's widow somehow
>pigs "somehow" wander off of her property and root up the senpai's ground

>can be driven off, but at night there was always one that would wander in the yard and squeal terrible like--creeped ya out and ruined your sleep
>week or two of arguing with the woman, nothing doing

>man gets fed up one night, walks out on the porch and pops the squealer
>tfw no more squeal'n, comfy sleep
>get up in the morning and find the pig farmer's widow, butt naked, shot dead exactly where he shot the pig

They never ate bacon again

>>17656421
holy shit.

>>17656411
South Texas here, theres brown peoplewho chop other brown people's heads off.

>>17658980
The heads aren't limited to just brown...they are equal opportunity choppers.

>>17658302
>>17658969

My Arkansas brothers

I'm sure you all know of the phantom killer here in texarkana

Well my dad used to work with a guy who says he thinks it was his uncle, he said his uncle was always weird and distant then came home one day all shot up in the same way the police reported shooting the killer, this was during the same time as the killings

I believe him

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>>17657457
Yeah, a World of Darkness campaign set in 1955, players are normal humans who, because of their jobs or their personal objectives, end up hiking through the USA scooby-doo style, stopping by small towns and generally stumbling upon the more fantastic aspect of american culture. A bit of horror, a bit of investigation, and a lot of old folk stories.
>>17658245
Just like that, from out of nowhere?
>>17658302
>>17658969
Oh this one's good. The personal stories are always the best.
Thanks for sharing.

>>17658969

Sorta makes me wonder how many families around here have stories like that.

>>17659637
Yeah, I'm pretty far from Texarkana but since I like researching serial killers, I know a decent amount about the guy. My dad always swore it was his friend's dad or something.

A lot of spooky shit goes down in Arkansas, but it's also kind of one of those shit states that no one ever talks about.

I'll have to see if I can find my Reader's Digest on American Folklore. Had a lot of interesting stuff in there.

One thing I do remember is the 'glass mountains'. Glass mountains was almost like a force field. You couldn't see them, only indication they were there was a line of did animals. Animals would run/fly into them and kill themselves. If you were new to the area, it was smart to survey the area for these 'mountains'.

Oh, and the air trails. Think Indiana Jones when he goes across that invisible path. Cowboys would observe animals walking across these paths, they used them. Some of the old cowhands used them so often they and their steeds didn't even hesitate crossing them.

>>17662252
Shit, I used to have the exact same book, I remember reading about the glass mountains. My dad collected american folklore books when I was little so I could learn more about that kind of thing; he's pretty proud of that part of American culture. We only have one of them left now, I think. It's from the 60s and has some pretty cool stuff in there.

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>>17656411
Well in Missouri you've got baldknobbers, basically they were a vigilante group in Missouri after the Civil War. They wore costumes like in this pic. Whether they were good guys or bad guys depends on your point of view, but with the crazy costumes and uncertain motives they make great rpg fodder.

Not sure how to categorize this, but a lot of people from Michigan on down through the midwest think that black pets are targeted for ritual sacrifices around Halloween, my mom swears it's true and never let our black cat out the week of Halloween. I've also heard animal shelters also won't let you have a black dog or cat on the 30th or 31st.

The only other one I've got personal experience with is Stull, Kansas. As far as I can tell the story about it being the gateway to hell is just something the college kids started for shits and giggles, but the people of Stull act like people in a horror movie town. They're not particularly friendly, and you'll have eyes on you from the time you enter until the time you leave. To be fair to them though almost all of the non-residents come to gawk at where the old church used to be and there's a good amount of vandalism.

You might try the Silver John stories, they're about this kind of thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_John

In a small town in Georgia named Screven there is the 'Spooklight.' People have been seeing it since before the Civil War.

>A long time ago there was a bum who, obviously wasted passed out on the railroad
>Later on, while he's still unconscious, a train comes and the wheel slices off his head
>Now at night if you go to the railroad and wait a while you'll see the light of his lantern swaying back and forth as his ghost looks for his severed head

People I know who don't believe in ghosts have seen it. They don't think it's a ghost but they still can't explain it.

>>17662568
Even on the town's Wikipedia page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screven,_Georgia

> the home of the Screven Ghost Light, a bouncing orb of light seen for over a century at the railroad crossing on Bennett Road.
>Those who have seen the light say it moves back and forth and glows bright and then dim.
>It reportedly is seen after rain and after a train has gone by.
>Bennett Road is located 4 miles out of Screven on Hwy 84 East.

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>>17657611
Shut up shut up shut up I'm in southern Indiana anon I wanna sleep tonight.

>>17656411
There's this story that is very well known here, there's a place called Morgan's corner. A 68 year old widow lived there, then in 1948 two prisoners who were on work detail murdered her. Some time passes and eventually those two prisoners were found murdered under mysterious circumstances(idk the story behind their murders, but some say it was from the spirit of the widow). Apparently you can hear faint screams or see apparitions when you visit Morgan's corner. (Morgan's corner is also notorious for having a lot of car crashes, murders, and suicides)

>>17662605
Whoops correction, they were captured after the murder. Both complained of the widow screaming at them in their dreams, and watching them sleep. One attempted to kill himself. After some years passed, one was eventually found dead in his cell and after the release of the other, he mysteriously disappeared.

>>17662578
I live like 30 minutes from there. Weird.

There's the Haunted Pillar in Augusta GA but no real credible stories for it. And the Rock House in Thomson, where I personally had an experience with a presence.

>>17656421
Last Halloween I went there with my friends on acid. Pretty sweet.

In South Carolina we have the Lizard Man, Boo Hag, Carolina Woolybooger, swamp cats large enough to carry off deer and tons of haunted places

>>17657530
"Hell Town" is really just a very normal, average, insignificant town. There's plenty of weird little rumors about it but there's nothing to really reinforce any of it if you go. It's not even abandoned.

In Connecticut (and NY) we have the leatherman, not folklore but fact

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leatherman_%28vagabond%29

>>17662449
I grab books when I find them, though I'm finding a good deal is modern uhh..fanfiction? I guess. People making up stories and telling them in the fashion of folktales.
I know that sounds like a silly distinction, seeing as they're all fiction, but it's just different. They just feel different. I think modern tellers try to keep it more realistic while the originals just didn't give a fuck. The more unrealistic and fantastic the better.

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Well we used to have the green man of Pennsylvania, until he died that is...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Robinson_%28Green_Man%29

>>17663543
Oh no, I know exactly what you mean. I think with modern books, they're more interesting in explaining stories and retelling them in their own words instead of simply recording them as-is. It's more like deconstructing them, or just using folklore as a backing for writing short stories. I can't speak for the pros and cons of that, but I feel like there should be more of a focus on balancing the two.
My 60s book, for example, has a very short and somewhat comedic folktale about a gigantic mosquito going into a guy's room to drink his blood and talking. That's something I think you would never see in a more recent, post '90s title.
On that note, when it comes to recording US folklore, I think that in the past decade there has definitely been a popular trend of hyper-focusing on the spooky or macabre stories at the expense of comedic, religious, and explanatory ones (or even those elements with more paranormal overtones, like the hairy toe or the story about the devil trying to catch haddock). I'm kind of getting ahead of myself here, though.

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>>17656411
From SD
There's this place called Prairie Village that basically a big museum thing where they moved a bunch of historical buildings to one spot and filled them with a bunch of museum pieces.
The creepy thing about it is that the whole thing is basically populated entirely by spooky mannequins to show off the old styles of clothing and stuff, and they all look like they're doing the jobs involved in whatever building they're in.
There's also a campsite on the grounds, and everyone I know who camped there as a child had nightmares about the mannequins coming to life and shit. Some people have said that they've actually seen them move.

USA folklore is shitty and uninteresting, since it's a fairly new country.

>>17664410
Just because the country's new doesn't mean the stories are. Native Americans have literally been here for thousands of years, forming their own folkloric tradition (though, granted, none of that has really been posted here yet).

>>17656411

NorCal here

Aliens from Mount Shasta of course

>>17664352
Even the macabre modern ones miss the something of the original. I have a book on old folktales for WV, uses the original tales. I have a book that's something star spangled or other. Can NOT get into that book to save my life. Modern folklore.
Gotta get my butt into the attic.
But yeah, the comedic ones have a charm about them.

>>17664410
I think the issue is most people aren't aware of most of their country's folklore. I live in WV and the WV folklore book had shit in it I'd never heard of. Folklore seems more a local thing than universal in America.

Even with bigfoot being a hot thing right now, bet most people in my area have never heard of 'Old Yellow Top', 'that there white thing', and stonemen. Old Yellow is a marked hominid, 'white' is a albino bigfoot, and stonemen is a term for bigfoot. I assume because of stone throwing? Not 100% on that. New term to me.

>>17658321
Sounds like some of the inspiration for the "Wrong Turn" series of movies

Some from my area (San Antonio - basically American Mexico)

La Llorona - Mexican version of White Woman. Not very different from them too other than the fact they moan and weep a lot and are very murderous.

Lechuza (my favorite) - Angry ass abuelas who transform into giant owls and prey on unsuspecting white folk. Their faces don't change. They are typically massive (think Thunderbird)

Donkey Lady - A certain spot innawoods is popular with young kids because supposedly a half-woman half-donkey attacks people there. My middle school science teacher swore on his life he saw it ripping up a hobo

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>>17664896

>>17656411
NM here,we got La Llorona(If I recall right it translate to "The crying woman)
Basically,a pretty young woman marries a soldier that travels between NE NM and Mexico,in the 1800s.
She has two of his kids,when kid 1 is eight or so,she finds out her husband has another family across the border
She loses it,drowns her chilluns,gets hung for it and the dumb fuckers didn't tie the rope right so she choked instead of getting her neck snapped
They bury his ass like in the middle of nowhere near the Rio Grande(Bigass fucking river that runs through the state,can't miss it)in an unmarked grave
Her ass turns into a ghost that cries in regret for killing her sons.
This story becomes the state and Mexico boogyman,saying she will drag off your kids to replace her own.They tell it to children to keep 'em behaved or stop them from going out at night,near ditches and the river especially saying that she'll drag 'em off.It's supposed to be based on a true story that says you can find her grave...somewhere,it's a coffin shaped ringed with purple flowers,since she had purple eyes as a child.

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>>17664901
General other shit,some stories say she was actually buried just outside a church graveyard somewhere,and there are other indivual stories out there
Read one titled "La Llorona of the Moon"
One about a drunkie Mexicunt that almost got dragged out to drowntown by her after a night of partying
One about a simple wood cutter that encountered her but was spared because she took pity on him.
AND I got a story from my uncle,super short
>Be uncle,15-19,living with mother and siblings
>Out with friend from next door
>They're fucking about with some other friends a few streets over
>They get done hanging out,heading home
The shortest way home is to cross a couple peoples' yards then a ditch via a tinyass bridge that is right next to his friend's yard
>get through these yards fine
>on bridge,he crosses and turns back to wait for his friend(it's tiny,singlefile only)
>His friend is halfway across when a white,ghostly figure forms on the other side
>He freaks the fuck out,his friends turns around and freaks too
>Friend books it the rest of the way across the bridge,they hop fence into his yard.

>>17664410
America as a country has been around for more than two hundred years; we've had plenty of time to think up interesting folklore. We also have the traditions of all the people who settled here, collected over millennia from their respective areas. The Indians, the Europeans, the Africans, everyone brought a little of their folklore along and it's created a huge mishmash of monsters and heroes and spooky shit.

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>>17660687
The Slide Rock Bolter uses its hook like tail to grip onto mountain and hill sides and releases itself when it sees prey. Using the momentum from sliding down hill, it slides up the next mountain, latches on, and waits for it's next meal.

>>17656411
Listen to some David Paulides interviews about the missing person's cases. Apparently there's over 1500 missing person's cases in the US, Canada and several other countries, where people almost completely vanish and their bodies, if found are many miles away from where they should be, there's no evidence of a struggle and they disappear in the presence of others. Meaning that they're walking with a friend or family and they go up ahead in the trail at distances as short as 100 feet. For some reason a lot of times the search dogs can't find any trail. There's one report about a 3 year old kid who went into some trees and they found his body like 12 hours later and the kid had walk up a steep mountain, down another and up on another. Something that no 3 year old can do. No signs of a struggle, his shoes were not worn out from walking, they couldn't find a cause of death and there were no bruises to suggest it was an animal or a serial killer. And there's hundreds of stories just like it.

>>17656425
Where did you get that cool artwork?

Also dont know if this has been mentioned but check out the devil at the crossroad. It is basically encounters with satan at crossroads in which you exhange your soul for talent, fame, money etc. Robert Johnson was famous for that. Also check out wendigos skinwalkers, sasquatch, jersey devil

>>17659637
Ft Smith fag here. Had no idea about this

Here we just have Fort Chaffee, and its been on a couple ghost hunter shows. Big plot of land with old ass ww1-ww2 buildings decay, right next to a newer army base, but enough public land to go fish and shit like that.
Dont know the specifics, other them ghost of army officers and of the immigrants that died when being housed here. A few buddies of mine say that when driving through it, a car will follow you for what is like a 20 min drive. Just as you get off to turn, they told me it was gone.
Thats all ive got

My mother always used to tell me when I as about five or six that if I acted poorly she'd send me to the "bad boys' home." She almost did it a few times too, but the home didn't exist as she described it. What she would do was drive out to a rural area and stop the car abruptly, point out to a house on a far away hill, and tell me "is that where you want to go? Are you going to keep acting like this? Because if you do, that's where you'll be." Sometimes I'd cry and we'd drive off and pick up McDonalds or something, other times I'd just pout and stick my tongue out. Those times were the worst. She'd force me out of the car and drive off for a minute or two, leaving me their by myself. She told me "the bus will come to take you their, I'm going home." I'd start to cry immediately and she's come back to pick me up because "the bus couldn't come that day." In my area is a special school of sorts for children that misbehave, run by the state of course. By the time I turned 13, I was made aware of it through news paper articles about it, since the town itself is somewhat small and not much goes on. There would always be stories of fights, drug busts, and sometimes the occasional accidental murder from that place. I get chills remembering that that was where my mother threatened to send me when I was so young.

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>>17657409
>this book
lol.

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>>17666634
Also the Irish killed off leprechauns during the potato famine.

>>17666585
Your mom sounds like a great lady. My mom never went to such great lengths to keep me out of trouble. Every once in a while she'd threaten to sell me to the gypsies, but that was it. She picked up the habit from her Hungarian grandmother, but the threat didn't really mean much to me since we lived in New Jersey.

Down near my area we have a little legend. There's this old bridge you drive to and you park your car right before it. You flash your lights 3 times and honk your horn once and wait in darkness. Apparently your car will start to move and you will hear running and see an albino looking man. Might see a hand on your window, or people in the far distance coming towards you. People see different things.

>fa/tg/uy
>fa tg uy
>fat guy
kek

>>17664204
I remember reading some stories from people who interacted with him back in the day. Apparently he was just a really pleasant, yet quiet guy who was just horribly disfigured.

>>17667036
Wow, it's like it's the first time you've ever heard that. Moron.

>>17657605
people know where he lives and leaves his house at 11:30, but no one bothers to visit him before hand?

Live in Ohio and I remember reading the story of the melon heads. It's one of those urban legends that doesn't really have a region and I have even found similar stories in different states. About a orphanage in the woods that took on unwanted children, some stories say that the children where born with various disfigurements and parents payed top dollar to keep them hidden away from everyone else. Other versions say they where victims of experiments, in any case they are small children with huge heads that run around in the woods playing pranks but running away when people get too close. There might actually be a thin vein of truth to the myth I found out about a remote "care center" that had been taking care of mentally handicapped patients. When it stopped getting funding the workers just up and left. It was a while before anyone even thought to check on the patients and when they did most of them where in bad shape. Rumors at the time had it that the a lot of them had escaped to the woods and where living in the wild.

>>17664410
>>17664450
Yeah, we natives got plenty of them.
floating heads
spirit masks
hoof lady
the yellow island snake
the little stone people
witchdogs

just a few from my neck of the woods

any of these peak your interest?

You could do something about the >Men of Straw

It's not really paranormal, but you could put a paranormal spin on it. Ship captions would try to hire the bester person, then they would take whoever they could, then they would try to bribe people with drugs, and then they would try other means to get a crew (normally in this order). . . Basically, when ship captions could not get enough men to join them they would hire a Crimp (someone who kidnaps people to be a sailor). This person would either forcibly kidnap people or simply drug them and drag them back to a ship caption. The Crimp would be paid for his work and his victims would be shanghaied into service by the captain once the boat/ship set sail. Victims really couldn't do anything about it once in open sea and Crimps would try to target people who couldn't swim.

That being said, not surprisingly, not all crimps where honest men. Because the caption was already likely to use drugs as a means of enticing people, and the Crimps did the same to kidnap people, at times the Crimps would just drag a dead body or two or three on board and get paid for it. Since so many would be knocked out from the drug use, most crew would not even notice that people had died until a handful of days later.

>It gets better

>So your an unhonest Crimp, but the body of the corpse you found has been maimed, so how do you swindle your paying caption?

Cut off the head and put it on a scare crow. . . Really, the Men of Straw are pretty much scare crows (with human head). Greater still, sometimes it would just be the Scare Crow (no human parts whatsoever). Since so many people by this point would be high on drugs and only the poorest of the poor would be targeted. . . the Men of Straw often looked fitter then the crew they where hidden among.

I'm sure you can think of a story about a possessed scarecrow or something haunting and ship lost at sea or something. Just make sure to credit me or something.

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>>17670357
>*I'm sure you can think of a story about a possessed scarecrow or something, haunting a ship lost at sea or something.

>>17658321
I have some friends from the Kirtland area (where the melonheads live.) They both swear up and down that they're real. The one guy actually claims to have seen one.

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>>17656411
>Utah's folklore is just "Mormons"
Self-deprecating kek

>>17656411
Skinner's "Myths and Legends of our own Land" google it read it...

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Surprised that this series hasn't been posted yet.

www.weirdus.com

>>17663328

go to his cave all the time shit is dope

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>>17656411
NoDak here
seen UFO's a few times. I figure most of those times were planes from the GF air force base. But there was the time my brother, our friend and I think we saw what we thought was a space battle.
>Be we 3, roughly 13-14 at the time
>Decide to have a sleep over on the deck since it was a clear sunny summer day.
>Do sleep over shit (gameboy, stories, lots of soda, etc)
>About 3:00AM we're all still wide awake. Standing on the deck just bullshitting about
>One of us looks up, don't remember who, and says 'what's that?'
>Look up and see two round silhouettes flying around circling each other.
>We see a quick volley of red beams go back in forth as the silhouettes strafe each other.
>As their orbit get's wider the volleys slow until they eventually stop and the two shapes dart of in different directions.
>All 3 of us just completely fucking dumbfounded. Confirm with each other that we all really just saw that shit.

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>>17672039
Oh also we have Thunder Bird sightings here every now and again. Usually more towards the western part of the state.
http://cryptidz.wikia.com/wiki/Thunderbird

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I can only think of two really spooky experiences (Ontario btw)

once I was driving down this old road that turned into a winding dirt trail about halfway through then back into blacktop again

it was a quiet dark night, cloudy so no stars or moon out
I was on the dirt road when I saw some rubbish in the road ahead, lots of branches and shit blocking up the road.
I got out to try and move them aside, as I was doing so I saw something just ahead of me walking across the road
I got my phone out and turned its light up so I could see better

it looked like a dog or coyote but really fucked up, its eyes were dull yellow and massive, its mouth seemed way larger than its head with its jaw just stretched out in a really disturbing way with it teeth far bigger than normal
its back had a huge hump as well and its skin was covered in sores it looked like.

it just stopped there in the road, stared at me for a bit then let out this low rumbling mix between a growl and a howl before just fucking bolting down the road towards me.
I was so freaked out I ran into my car, slammed the door and just sped off over the remaining branches.
no idea what happened to the animal

second time was when I was walking along a trail with a small bridge up ahead, as I was walking I saw some floating greenish-blue ball of light in the distance sort of swaying around
as I got closer there was this sort of soft whistling which almost sounded like wind then it just sped off into the trees.

>>17672351
Damn

Anyone have a download of last nights Coast to Coast show? It was about spooky folklore from the south, like New Orleans.

It was too spooky for me to handle at the time so I stopped listening. Would love to hear the whole show

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>>17662640

Don't forget about the Grey Man of Pawley's Island. Probably our most famous spooky story (if not the Lizard Man).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gray_Man_(ghost)

There are ghost stories all over SC. Civil War and Revolutionary War soldiers, slaves, etc.

Several cities in the state have networks of tunnels underneath them. I've been in them. Most people don't know about them, but urbex dudes go in them all the time. Many passages are now blocked due to construction overhead causing them to collapse. But they are incredibly eerie, and there are some great ghost stories and Civil War era conspiracy theories attached to the catacombs. The 3rd Eye Man is a great one. He's supposed to be a mutant who lived in the tunnels under the U. of SC. That legend actually has some good reports - from competent police officers and other respectable people. But he hasn't been seen for decades.

Here's a good reddit thread about the tunnels under Columbia, and legends concerning them: https://www.reddit.com/r/AbandonedPorn/comments/25g8xb/the_catacombs_underneath_columbia_sc_really_cool/

I also was able to go into CCI, the prison in Columbia. It was the oldest prison in the US at the time (demolished now). It was bizarre. Parts were well over 100 years old, maybe 200. It looked more like a dungeon or a huge place to keep livestock than a prison. I also got to go into the building which held the electric chair used for executions. One guy with us actually sat in the chair. I didn't want to. But that building is supposedly haunted, of course.

This pic is part of the catacombs beneath Columbia (I didn't take it, just found it on google).

"The Screaming Bridge"

>Cincinnati, OH
>small one lane bridge that crosses over railroad tracks surrounded by wooded area
>legend is a mob lynched a group of Blacks there
>but it wasn't a regular lynching
>instead of hanging by their necks they hung by their feet when they heard the train whistle
>train decapitated them
>legend goes if you go up there at night and turn your car/electronics off you can hear them screaming

Cool thing is as a kid a remember going up there and if it's windy it can actually create a slight scream-like sound with the way the bridge is structured.

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>>17669229

The melonheads were kids with hydrocephalus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocephalus

>Hydrocephalus (from Greek hydro-, meaning "water", and kephalos, meaning "head") is a medical condition in which there is an abnormal accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the brain. This causes increased intracranial pressure inside the skull and may cause progressive enlargement of the head if it occurs in childhood, potentially causing convulsion, tunnel vision, and mental disability. It was once informally called "Water on the brain."[1]

>>17656411
Arizona native here

Twice people I knew spoke of the 'mogollon monster'

My father told me of the legend that up near the four corners area lives a creature. A creature you smell before you see.

The story goes with the second friend of mine who was assaulted by the monster.
He smelt raw fish or the smell of fish and felt watched , him and three others that were camping. They got spooked and started flashing their lights across and embankment and reeds leading to a pond/creek
As soon as the hit the reeds movement and a rock was thrown at him , a larger river rock , they bounced back to phoenix that moment.

So its either a bigfoot yeti , type creature.

Or a mountain man/golem type humanoid who has lived off the land and is very barbaric

>>17656421
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rJeT9bbTH8 story for those who are unaware

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>>17656421
Fellow Virginian here. I clicked the thread expecting to see someone mention him. Was not disappointed.

Never actually googled where it was, it's actually less than half an hour away from where I live.

>>17656411
TN here, our most famous one is the bell witch but my area has a few small town spooks including two haunted cemeteries not far from here both super old but the scarier lesser know one is haunted by something bad after dark.

mom said when they used to mow it at dusk around the time they were nearly done she'd always see black figures in the distance and never felt easy until getting home, also some teens were out there screwing around one night when one dude out of nowhere gets slammed down hard on the hood of a car before a voice screams at them to get out

there's also a persisting story of traveling doctor who got nearly strangled there returning home one night possible the early 1900s or further back i don't know how old the story actually is

>>17675479
I need to know more about skinwalkers. I have recently discovered that my family lineage stems from Celtic wolf people, many legends say that they could transform.

>>17675498
wow these guys are annoying

>>17658189
>El Diablo Blanco

No man, your friend is just talking about white people from the perspective of his black/latin mixed heritige.

>>17660687
oh shit you replied to my post, I thought this thread died.

American folklore is a fantastic idea for a campaign!

Boogers, Witches and Haints
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0307948242

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>>17678202
I'm lurking. This thread has been wildly more successful than I thought it'd be.
Running a campaign like this has been an interest of mine for a long time now, but it took me a while to persuade my friends into playing.
I especially like the way most of it is a mutation of stories from other parts of the world. Really fits the cosmopolitan nature of mankind in the 1800s and on.

And again, thanks to everyone who posted in this thread, you've all been amazingly helpful.

>>17662626
I live in Augusta, GA but I've never heard these things. Care to elaborate?

>>17664392
I used to camp out there when I was a kid. I never got the dreams, some kids did, others only said they had them just to spook the others.

One time I stood next to a kid that said he saw them moving. This scared some of the others. The thing is the mannequins never moved. It was just light and shadow from the trees moving in the wind.

I thought it was fun to have a home town ghost story when I was a kid, but was disappointed when it seemed to just be the power of suggestion at play on young minds.

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>>17662535
Hell yes, Wellman's storytelling is ace as is, but the way he takes folklore and his own creations and blends them seamlessly is amazing. Pic related is full of short stories, some of which are merely a paragraph long, but is an amazing read. Definitely one of my favorite books.

>>17669260
Not that anon, but all of these sound interesting, I've never heard of any of them. I'd love to hear what you've got!

>>17669260
Please yes. Start from whichever you like the most.

>>17676534
I saw slenderman-like figure not too far from Workman's once.