Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Gurv 06-15-06, 09:07 PM	This week, my players will be invading a lab where some cultists of the Dragon Below have been working on people. Specifically, this place was located beneath an orphanage, where the vile doctors used children as their lab specimens. I don't have a lot of time before the game, and I need to spend what time I have creating the mechanical aspects (monsters, traps, etc) that they will have to deal with. What I am looking for is some help fleshing out the descriptive flavor. The place will be full of incomplete flesh grafts, jars of colorful liquids, and aberrations in suspended animation. But I need more than just the expected...I need things that will creep out players who are already expecting creepy things. What else can I add? Edit: Also, would changing a grick's DR from 10/magic to 10/byshek adjust it's CR? There are actually byshek weapons in the lab, but I was wondering what people thought.
Kid SixXx 06-15-06, 11:43 PM	I've probably seen too many Takashi Miike movies or Dead Ringers one too many times, because nothing creeps me out more than seeing surgical instruments that are so horrific looking that they probably double as torture items. Especially needles. Really long needles. Embelishment of description will probably help more than details: - How well is the room lit? (flickering Continual Light, everbright torches) - What sounds can they hear? (water dripping, the clinking of chains in the distance) - In what condition are the aberrations? (perfectly preserved, rotting) - Anything lying around? (graphic surgical journals, retorts still left boiling) Description (and innuendo in your description) will serve you well. Your crew is liable to be more creeped out by what they don't see (make them roll useless Spot checks that automatically succeed just for fun), rather than what they can readily perceive.
taski 06-16-06, 04:37 AM	About the Beshk, just make sure the PCs find the weapons before the grick. As for atmosphere. The players are probably going to expect creepy children. It's tempting to, say, provide them with mutilated tykes and gorey bodies, but you want them to stay on their toes. It's just less shocking when it's expected. So, no creepy kids in the laboratory under the orphanage. Still, there could be plenty of evidence the kids were experimented on: Blood on the scalpels and tables Tiny, bloody handprints on the folded smocks laying around The stink of urine (from when the kids wet themselves from fear) Locks of different color hair, tied up and labed with names A little pickled tongue in one of the jars Threads of the same gray, grimy cloth the orphans wear stuck in the grick's beak (explaining why there are no bodies...) Another idea: the living orphans in the orphanage have learned to be afraid of any adults, including the PCs. If asked about what happened to their friends, they start crying or go catatonic. They won't follow the PCs anywhere, not even after the bad guys are defeated, unless the PCs lay down their weapons and succeed on some high diplomacy checks. A good success means the orphans will want to be adopted by the PCs, desperately clinging to their legs as if for dear life.
Gurv 06-16-06, 07:09 AM	Good ideas. I'll likely have a lot of that crop up. The lighting is something I hadn't thought of...now I picture things with bright (almost fluorescent) lighting that flickers on and off. The condition of the aberrations will vary, some simply corpses with gentle repose, while others will have failed and allowed decay to occur (some just not dead at all). The entire place is in disrepair. Although I don't have any undead planned, some of the experimentation was psionic in nature, and left some serious psychic imprints; they'll wonder if they see and hear ghost-like things. Divination spells might trigger unexpected results. I should have mentioned before that the lab they going into was under an orphanage. The place burned down; apparently arson, and none of the orphans survived. The PCs were trying to figure out exactly what happened when they discover the lower levels are still intact. The mother of one of the PCs (a daelkyr halfblood who doesn't know what she is) spent some time at this orphanage, and some secrets from the past will crop up here. Ultimately, they will learn about the cult that caused her to be the way she is.
Forged_Fury 06-16-06, 07:15 PM	Two ideas: 1) They discover a smiling doll with mismatched head, torso, and limbs on the steps leading down into the lab. 2) Have them find children's drawings where the "stick" figures get progressively stranger and less human looking posted to a random wall. Maybe along the staircase. As they descend, the drawings get more and more grotesque. -Forged_Fury