Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Lobsopdoy 09-26-07, 07:11 PM	I've been wanting to translate Silent Hill to D&D for awhile, and was wondering where to put it. The Grey Wastes would be my first choice...but the Abyss does have some themes that could work with it (willpower changing it, but being twisted) So, you guys know this stuff better then me. What do you think?
Zousha_Omenohu 09-26-07, 07:12 PM	I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I believe that Ravenloft would be the best location. It was meant for horror-oriented stuff, and it's got a lot of mist.
The Ubbergeek 09-26-07, 07:37 PM	I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I believe that Ravenloft would be the best location. It was meant for horror-oriented stuff, and it's got a lot of mist. I concur; for a fantasy version, Raveloft is the place. The Demi-Plane of Dread. Best of all, it offers ways to amke distinct 'horrorlands' - domains.
Lobsopdoy 09-26-07, 07:46 PM	I concur; for a fantasy version, Raveloft is the place. The Demi-Plane of Dread. Best of all, it offers ways to amke distinct 'horrorlands' - domains. But it seems a little too gothic for my tastes. it's all vampires, ghosts and Frankenstein's monster (at least that's the sense I got after reading it)
The Ubbergeek 09-26-07, 10:19 PM	But it seems a little too gothic for my tastes. it's all vampires, ghosts and Frankenstein's monster (at least that's the sense I got after reading it) depend... AMong the 'core' domains, yes, gothic tended to be the norm... but the good side was there was many form of horros, mroe peripheral realms... Like, a somewaht Bayouesque zombies and witches and evil clerics domain... a Dark Sun-inspired one... A Doctor Moreau islands of freaks... One could make easily a new, eberron inspired one - like an even darker version of riedra, where your thoughts are watched - and you KNOW it....
Count Arioch the 28th 09-26-07, 10:33 PM	I'd make it its own plane. One that is coterminous with the prime.
Aseran 09-26-07, 10:44 PM	Ravenloft, the Demiplane of Dread, is pretty much perfect. The basic premise is that it's a parallel existence that forms around individuals who've attracted the notice of the anonymous "Dark Powers" behind it, a dark nightmare-world based entirely around the psyches of these individuals, the environment and inhabitants shaped from what they know and what they fear, and they're trapped there through their own wayward actions that attracted the Dark Powers in the first place. Some rule these realms, like Strahd, the iconic Ravenloft villain, but many do not, many are near-helpless prisoners and little else. That sounds a hell of a lot like what Silent Hill is to me.
Count Arioch the 28th 09-26-07, 10:48 PM	Ravenloft is a bad example, because no one can escape ravenloft. People can leave silent hill.
Aseran 09-26-07, 10:53 PM	Of course people can escape Ravenloft, just not without some incredibly effort, usually some gargantuan act of redemption or revelation of self. Same as Silent Hill. I'm tellin' you, man, it's perfect.
zeratulcraft 09-26-07, 10:56 PM	Ravenloft lets you out when it wants to.
Zebppir 09-26-07, 11:24 PM	I'd make it its own plane. One that is coterminous with the prime. I concur but how are you going to stats all the monsters??
wizardguy2003 09-27-07, 12:13 AM	Ironically, it looks like 4th Edition's Shadowfell would be the perfect place for this. Design & Development : Cosmology (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070926a)
Thanael 09-27-07, 06:03 AM	Check out this thread on the FoS site: Fan-Made Domain: Silent Hill (http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4036) for a d20/D&D conversion for most of the monsters and lots of other stuff. One poster recommends not making it into a Ravenloft domain but into "a dreamscape of the little girl. This would also suit itself to sending a single PC into the dreamscape alone. [...] or maybe a mists oubliette" For more about Dreamscapes see the article "Demented Dreamscapes" in the Undead Sea Scrolls #3 (http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/Library.html)
Xiuhcoatl 09-27-07, 07:22 AM	I'd make it its own plane. One that is coterminous with the prime. That's how I'd do it. Going on my very limited knowledge of Silent Hill (honestly, just the movie) ... it's a locked demi-plane of Alessa, who is likely ~ DvR 1.
Naderion 09-27-07, 08:22 AM	I'm working on a silent hillish adventure for my campaign and I think it will work as follows: - Shadowstuff, the elemental matter of the plane of shadow, can be shaped into anything by magic. - A trait of my setting is, that there are tiny mindless fey everywhere that absorb emotion and radiate it so that places where great evil had been will feel evil for a long time after the dark events have ended. - The place, where everything happens, is an area, where the plane of shadow bleeds into the real world. In this area, everything is practiacly at both the material plane and the shadow plane at the same time. - And now enter our powerful insane telepath. :D The result is that he projects his insane nightmares everywhere and the whole area starts to feel nightmarish. This effect is so strong, that the shadowstuff starts to emulate the nightmares and though they are all illusions, they are quasi-real as by the Shadow Conjuration spell. In a regular cosmology, I would say it's a demi-plane.
Avenger314 09-29-07, 01:12 AM	Silent Hill is one of my favorite video game franchises. I'd strongly argue that it should be a transitive plane. It's very similar to the prime material plane, but a bit out of phase and more demonic. So you could say it's a mildly evil-aligned, mildly chaos-aligned part of the plane of Shadow. The Far Realm is also a possibility. And I really like someone's idea that it could be part of the Dreaming.
Demon_Paladin 10-01-07, 07:12 PM	I would say plane of shadow. And for a twist for when the adventure is all said and done. Make all the players ghosts that can only shift from the plane of shadow to the ethereal plane.
Crimson_Concerto 10-01-07, 07:55 PM	The problem is that Silent Hill isn't just one plane. It's actually multiples planes stacked upon each other, and it just so happens that some characters are able to move between them. Also, it needs to be noted that all the the planes are limited (though as SH4 proves, they can grow, move, or be made elsewhere), and the reason for that is that they're man-made. In SH1, we had the normal Silent Hill, located on this plane, then the foggy Silent Hill, and then the dark, creepy Silent Hill. The foggy Silent Hill was created by Dahlia, and the dark, creepy Silent Hill was created by Alessa. Our main character (I forget his name, it was some middle-aged white guy :P ) was pulled from the normal Silent Hill into these two, and he gets dragged back and forth between them. Or, it could be that the planes don't exist at the same time at all and that the changes come about whenever the balance of power shifts between Dahlia and Alessa. However, if this is true, there's no other plane to begin with. In SHII, we learn that foggy Silent Hill may have some other secrets. See, here, it's revealed that however these planes were created, it builds itself not from conscious effort but from the subconscious mind. Furthermore, it's worth noting that everybody seems to see something different. The little girl (Laura?) sees no monster, that fat white guy sees a bunch of people ridiculing him, and Angela sees everything on fire, and yet they're all in the same place and can see each other just fine. In SH2, it's more likely that these are all the same plane presenting themselves differently to different people. Again, it's seeming more like an alternate plane is not a good explanation. In SHIII, we see the same thing as in the second. Heather creates her own existence, just as she did before, but here we get something important from Vincent when he tells is that these monsters she's been killing are actually just innocent people. He says he's just kidding, but how trustworthy is he? The greatest and most plausible theory for all of Silent Hill is simply that the characters are insane or that something else is tainting their perceptions of the world. One possibility is that the fog was a hallucinogenic chemical (and having been born within it, Heather may have had some mental genetic imperfections that may have caused her dementia to develop). However, these insane episodes make too much sense for drugs, so we may want to throw that out. Besides... SHIV makes the drug theory almost impossible. The world here was clearly made from that evil guy's (have you noticed I'm horrible with names?) subconscious, and he's pulled other people into it. All in all? I say that the easiest way to work this for your purposes would probably be to create a separate mirror plane created out the subconscious of your BBEG, and the characters are pulled in for some specific reason, a la SH4. If you want there to be even more mirror versions, I suggest that there be a separate BBEG in control of this one and that there be a power struggle causing the change, a la SH1. However, this separate plane wouldn't be something big that we would have a name for already in D&D. I recommend against using the PC subconscious a la SH2 and SH3, because that's too unpredictable and difficult to work with, especially when you have more than 1 PC. :P . . . In case you can't tell, I have actually done a 10-page paper on the true nature of Silent Hill before. :D I can't believe my English teacher let me do that instead of a book, but hey, the paper was awesome!
Thanael 10-02-07, 11:31 AM	The world here was clearly made from that evil guy's (have you noticed I'm horrible with names?) subconscious, and he's pulled other people into it. All in all? I say that the easiest way to work this for your purposes would probably be to create a separate mirror plane created out the subconscious of your BBEG, and the characters are pulled in for some specific reason, a la SH4. If you want there to be even more mirror versions, I suggest that there be a separate BBEG in control of this one and that there be a power struggle causing the change, a la SH1. However, this separate plane wouldn't be something big that we would have a name for already in D&D. I recommend against using the PC subconscious a la SH2 and SH3, because that's too unpredictable and difficult to work with, especially when you have more than 1 PC. :P This sounds very much like a Dreamscape in Ravenloft.
GuyrtheadamantineOne 10-02-07, 11:53 AM	Silent Hill is just so cool. Finally, horror and madness in a tight bound package. I'm so gonna throw my players in Ravenloft.(With Heroes of Horror to help!)
VedicDragon 10-04-07, 01:53 PM	Silent Hill is one of my favorite video game franchises. I'd strongly argue that it should be a transitive plane. It's very similar to the prime material plane, but a bit out of phase and more demonic. So you could say it's a mildly evil-aligned, mildly chaos-aligned part of the plane of Shadow. The Far Realm is also a possibility. And I really like someone's idea that it could be part of the Dreaming. I concur. If you look at the monsters, from both the Video Game and the movie, the ONLY plane where this makes sense is the Far Realm. First explored in the adventure "The Gates of Firestorm Peak", the Far Realm is a place of Non-euclidian geometry, nightmareish creatures that defy description and horrible mind-unhinging oddity. The Alienest mages from Complete Arcane would be an excellent example of the antagonist of the piece. Look at the monsters in the game and then look up Dharculus and Gibber-slugs, just to name a few correlations. The Far Realm Geography and Characteristics The Far Realm is composed of an infinite number of layers, but unlike those of many Outer Planes, the layers of the Far Realm are thin. A Far Realm layer can range from an inch to a mile thick. On average, each layer is separated from the other by about ten feet. Travelers are able to see through many layers simultaneously. Usually twenty layers can be seen at once, each one blurrier than the last. The layers are also highly morphic. On the whim of the alien entities that drift through them, the layers continually evaporate, divide, spawn, and breathe. Changes in the elemental and energy traits of the layers continuously occur, creating the Far Realm equivalent of a storm. These changes can be seen from far off, moving from layer to layer as a storm moves across the face of a normal world. Features and creatures of the Far Realm are multidimensional and can exist on more than one layer simultaneously. The layers of the Far Realm are like a stack of translucent parchment, and the multilayered creatures are like a single dot marked upon each parchment, seemingly coalescing into a three-dimensional object. The translucent layers seem to fade away on either side and are pierced with free-floating rivers of milk-white liquid that sometimes flow along a layer's edge for a few feet before plunging into the next. Strange blue globes rain down from unseen heights, bursting when they strike an object and releasing ticks the size of horses that immediately scuttle off in search of blood. Gelatinous worms wriggle from layer to layer through tentacled vegetation encrusted with orange moss, all of which is suspended above an amoebic sea. Vast multilayered shapes drift through the layers, the smallest being the size of a city. Gravity and time do not exist in the Far Realm. The entities of the Far Realm float around in dark nothingness. The air is syrupy thick, and strong strokes are needed to swim through it. Another type of movement that is allowed in the Far Realm is passage between layers, which requires only a thought. Non-natives to the Far Realm can only exist on one layer at a time, but large Far Realm entities often exist in several layers simultaneously. Inhabitants The Far Realm has many different inhabitants, many of them sentient. Some resemble mammals, while others are insectoid. Some are even as powerful as deities (whether they are sentient or not may be difficult to assess). When confronted with beings from the Material Plane, the Inner Planes, or the Outer Planes, Far Realm entities often take the form of creatures familiar to the viewer, although they are usually horribly disfigured and grotesque. The simplest natives of the Far Realm are the pseudonatural creatures that roam the different layers, occupied with unguessable errands. They dwell beyond time itself and the regular planes of existence, living forever in a state of seeming insanity. When summoned to the Material Plane (which is a very rare and extremely difficult task), they often emulate and take the shape of familiar creatures, although they are always more gruesome than their earthly counterparts. Sometimes, however, they appear in a form more closely related to their origins, usually a mass of writhing tentacles, although more terrible forms are always possible. The next step up in the bizarre evolution of the Far Realm inhabitants would be the Kaorti. Born from an exploring order of Imaskari wizards known as the Quin, the Kaorti eventually returned to the Material Plane, which they could no longer inhabit. The first of them died out, but the second wave came in suits of protective resin, and used the same secretion to form protective cysts to live in. They now seek to conquer the Material Plane and turn it into a new Far Realm. They have created several creatures for this task: the flying mount creatures known as Skybleeders, the living siege engines known as the Rukanyr, the Urquirshes which provide endless quantities of protective resin, and the deadly Thruocks, egg-implanting ravagers. The Lords over the Far Realm are the Uvuudaum. These are horrifying creatures that have two arms where you would expect to find them on a human. However, the similarities end there. The lower body has six arms instead of legs splayed spiderlike below it. Loose clothing drapes its grotesque legs. The real horror is the tail-like appendage replacing what would be the head on a normal creature. At the very end of the appendage is an iron hard spike. Travel Mortal travelers to the Far Realm would usually be subject to insanity. All sorts of horrifying changes can occur to them, such as eyes sprouting from their palms. They can also relive a hundred warped memories simultaneously. There are no known portals to the Far Realm. Ancient elves once pierced the boundary of eons by creating a portal to the Far Realm, called the "Vast Gate." However, their civilization imploded in bloody terror, and since then, the portal's location remains unknown to most, though it lies hidden within Firestorm Peak. There are other methods for reaching the Far Realm, though, such as traveling to the beginning or end of time or finding the true Dreamheart (the heart of the Region of Dreams) past the Portal of Sleep. Xaxox Xaxox is a relic from the Material Plane—a stone keep securely lashed to the trunk of a desiccated tree a mile in diameter. It was an outpost of adventurous wizards who desired to explore and study the bizarre and mysterious Far Realm. Their expedition was disastrous, and the survivors have lost all traces of rational thought. Some powerful wizards and their servants yet wander amid the wreckage of a laboratory, barracks, kitchen, small library, and specimen cells. Daruth Winterwood was the elven wizard in charge of the expedition; his brain is now literally filled with spiders. He still seeks to return Xaxox to the Prime Material plane intact. Once in a while, he manages to open a small portal, allowing the essence of the Far Realm to seep onto some random plane, which causes the dreams of those nearby to be affected. If someone manages to assist Daruth from the other side of the portals, a permanent portal could open between the Far Realm and the Material Plane, creating utter chaos. Anticipation of the wave of insanity that would follow is what continues to inspire Daruth's mania. Xoriat, the Realm of Madness The Eberron campaign setting has a specific plane in its cosmology that is based heavily upon the Far Realm: Xoriat, the Realm of Madness. Xoriat and its inhabitants are treated as a major force in the history of Eberron, as opposed to the "normal" treatment in other settings where the Far Realm is a rarely-employed option. Where the Far Realm is unthinkably remote, the plane of Xoriat orbits Eberron through the Astral Plane, always distant but an undeniable fixture of the cosmology. The physical description of Xoriat is almost identical to that of the Far Realm, being made of an infinity of "thin" layers which are alien and anathema to the inhabitants of the material world. There is more of an hierarchy within Xoriat than in the Far Realm, as the former is dominated by a monstrous race of "fleshcrafters" known as the Daelkyr, who use their magic to create aberrations for their armies and tools. Within the Eberron setting, nearly all aberrations come from Xoriat, changing their ecology and origins greatly from the norm, and even changing how they organize: beholders were created to be living siege engines, for example, while the illithids served as potent lieutenants in the armies of the Daelkyr. Perhaps the greatest deviation from the Far Realm is the particular interest the inhabitants of Xoriat have in the world of Eberron. Where the Far Realm is dangerous to material reality simply from being so alien, the beings of Xoriat actively seek to occupy and control the material world, and twist its races into new troops and tools. When Xoriat was last coterminous with Eberron, many thousands of years ago, the Daelkyr and their armies invaded. The invasion was opposed by a great hobgoblin empire and various orders of druids, and both were nearly broken before victory. The Gatekeepers sect of druids created great seals that forced Xoriat into a distant orbit that would never return, and trapped the Daelkyr and most of their armies underground in the depths of Khyber. Mad cultists who serve the Daelkyr occasionally try to break these seals and free their masters, but are opposed primarily by the Gatekeepers who stand vigil still. If anyone is still hellbent on sticking this in -Ravenloft- I would strongly advise using the old 2nd Edition boxed set "The Nightmare Lands". It makes infinitely more sense and you can then use the plotline and pseudonatural monsters of the Far Realm as dream-seed creatures brought forth by the poor disenfranchised and mentally diseased patients of Dr. Ilhousen. Perhaps one of them is feeding the minds of the others to the alien inhabitants of that awful realm, having been contacted through the barriers around the demiplane the one way they can: Dreams.
Zousha_Omenohu 10-06-07, 12:40 AM	. . . In case you can't tell, I have actually done a 10-page paper on the true nature of Silent Hill before. :D I can't believe my English teacher let me do that instead of a book, but hey, the paper was awesome! Don't be so surprised. I've seen something similar done with BioShock.