Post/Author/DateTime	Post
jay 02-01-06, 04:09 AM	A friend got Heroes of Horror, and that got me thinking about horror in Eberron. So here's an idea... It's 894 YK, the year in which the Last War will begin. The PCs, or at least a good part of them, are working for the Sharn City Watch. And they get assigned to investigate a couple of grisly murders of low-class prostitutes... In other news, the king is dying. Succession might be disputed. Kaius of Karrnath and Thalin of Thrane are the most vocal opponents of Mishann, who should be the default heir. During the investigation, the PCs find out that the dead women are from Karrnath and Thrane. Another one shows up dead. Wroann of Breland openly states she will not support Mishann as successor, and starts building up the military. The third prostitute was from Breland. And the pattern continues, until five women are dead, and the party realizes that their own cleric has ties to the dragons of Argonessen and the Chamber, and they burst into the mortuary where the bodies are stored and find him performing some sort of unholy ritual on them. They kill him, and with his dying breath he delivers a speech about a bloody century being born and him delivering it and so on... The king dies. The funeral nearly turns into an armed skirmish, this army crosses that border, another squad mounts a punitive expedition, diplomats get arrested... the war begins. But at least the PCs have the satisfaction of having stopped as mad dragon-worshipper. Hopefully. Those kinds of rituals don't work if they're not completed, right? If he only managed to finish the part which included the body of the Cyran prostitute? And exactly 100 years later, it's 994. Do you need to look at the timeline, or do you know what happens in 994.?
Setherial 02-01-06, 04:56 AM	no what, the war ends, Cyre goes Boom, what ? I don't get it, so your pc's solve the killing of 4 prostitutes. Where does this lead, what does this have to do with heroes of horror, what does it have to do with anything ?
WayneTheGame 02-01-06, 09:35 AM	I get it... 5 bodies.. 5 Nations. The 5th body (Cyran) wasn't messed with, so the bloody war (i.e. The Last War) results in no Cyre. 994 is when the Day of Mourning happened (right?)... so somehow because the Cyran prostitute's body wasn't added to the ritual, it caused the Mourning. That's the gist of what I'm getting... It doesn't seem to make sense, though. It sounds like an interesting concept, but... kinda like one of those Twilight Zone episodes that leave you wondering "Huh??!" at the end.
Setherial 02-01-06, 09:43 AM	I get it... 5 bodies.. 5 Nations. The 5th body (Cyran) wasn't messed with, so the bloody war (i.e. The Last War) results in no Cyre. 994 is when the Day of Mourning happened (right?)... so somehow because the Cyran prostitute's body wasn't added to the ritual, it caused the Mourning. That's the gist of what I'm getting... It doesn't seem to make sense, though. It sounds like an interesting concept, but... kinda like one of those Twilight Zone episodes that leave you wondering "Huh??!" at the end. If in the end the players find out the role the prostitutes played or why they were chosen it would be cool, then they can be responsible for the Mourning :) But I guess it will indeed turn into one of those keeping you guessing things.
Griff_Goodbeard 02-01-06, 10:27 AM	Interesting concept, but if you're not careful I can see something like this turning into a big railroad for your players.
jay 02-01-06, 10:39 AM	I get it... 5 bodies.. 5 Nations. The 5th body (Cyran) wasn't messed with, so the bloody war (i.e. The Last War) results in no Cyre. 994 is when the Day of Mourning happened (right?)... so somehow because the Cyran prostitute's body wasn't added to the ritual, it caused the Mourning. That's the gist of what I'm getting... Actually, the idea was that the Cyran's body was messed with, and the villain is stopped before he manages to do the same thing with the other bodies. It doesn't seem to make sense, though. Not really. Why would killing prostitutes precipitate the War? How could defiling the Cyran's body cause the Mourning? But then, many horror plots don't make much sense logically. Why does the tape in The Ring kill people who watch it? Why isn't the girl's ghost put to rest when they find the body in the well? <shrug> Who cares? The important thing is that it connections are made clear enough to produce an unease in the character (and/or players). And there's always the world-internal handwave that the Prophecy isn't something that can be completely understood by normal human minds... It sounds like an interesting concept, but... kinda like one of those Twilight Zone episodes that leave you wondering "Huh??!" at the end. If I ran this, and the players compared it to the Twilight Zone, I'd cosider my job well done. :)
jay 02-01-06, 11:02 AM	BTW, the idea is tightly based on From Hell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Hell). I would've thought it obvious, from the title and the plot combined, but judging from Setherial's confused reaction, perhaps the movie, the comic and theories about Jack the Ripper that inspired them aren't as widely known as I assumed...?