I am looking to start planning a mini-campaign for a group I will be DMing this fall. Basically, I am looking to have a horror themed adventure for about 2 sessions ready for the beginning of October. Good time of year for it.
I want all of your ideas on what I should do.
So far, I want to do a Ravenloft style adventure (the whole gothic horror, vampires and zombies deal).
Obviously there is going to be a castle and maybe a little village down below etc etc. This has all be done before, but what I want is some good plot hooks, something new and different.
So give me some ideas!
Thanks in advance.
What I mean can be summed up in two syllables:
Dracolich.
The PCs fight undead monstrosity after undead monstrosity and then WHAM!!! You drop a ****** off, undead dragon on them.
1. One of a PC's limbs suddenly starts to act on it's own.
2. Vampires steal all the towns paintings, draw mustaches on all of them.
3. Zombies rise from the grave, aggressively crave a certain kind of food. ("Piiiiiiizaaaa... piiiiizzzzaaaa....")
4. The entire town is made up of doppelgangers
5. Yellow-musk creepers.
6. After an initial fight with a mysterious creature, each day a different PC wakes up covered in blood.
7. The town believes that the PC's are werewolves, tries to exterminate them.
8. Each of the major NPC's in the town has contributed a body part in order to build a flesh golem. The exact motives for it's construction can vary.
9. The trees are eating people.
10. Ravens. Thousands of them.
11. The entire town disappears, is replaced by a shopping center.
12. The characters personalities keep switching bodies. It's the work of a bored lich who likes to watch the ensuing confusion.
13. Go read "Rainy Season" by Richard Bachman.
James, your post made me laugh out loud, some of those ideas are also good
thanks for the responses! keep bringin em!
The town has some dark secret that they try to keep hidden from the outside world, so whenever visitors come by they are very kept to themselves.
The castle above the town is kinda like...overshadowing it as well, and the man/monster/being who owns the castle is like the leader or the instigator.
What could that secret be?
I was thinking the whole town are vampires or werewolves or they eat children, but that's too overused I think. I need something different
Okay, I just found something that I would like to include in the plot..
The town has some dark secret that they try to keep hidden from the outside world, so whenever visitors come by they are very kept to themselves.
The castle above the town is kinda like...overshadowing it as well, and the man/monster/being who owns the castle is like the leader or the instigator.
What could that secret be?
I was thinking the whole town are vampires or werewolves or they eat children, but that's too overused I think. I need something different
Go read Dagon.
Go read Dagon.
Any Lovecraft for that matter. Dreamquest of unknown Kadath is good too. Also thumb through the Call of Cthulhu RPG books, especially Cthulhu Dark Ages for ideas.
A local blacksmith has developed an engine that runs on blood. The Lord's been putting it to good use >:}
The town kills its old
The town eats people-meat pies. (Sweeney Todd says hello)
The locals eat undead.
Within the catacombs between the city and the castle a dracolich is holding the town hostage, using them as a zombie farm/army and manual labor for an upcoming invasion!!! Which would explain why everyone in town wears those necklaces...
Now, in my personal experience, RPG players tend to be blased by classic horror themes. They tend to have a "if it has stats it can die" attitude, be it a mere zombie, or a Dracolich in person. Devil May Cry and Warhammer completly destroyed any fear one can have from demons. Hellsing destroyed any fear one could have of vampires. Resident Evil destroyed the zombie's reputation.
What you need is to come up with something which will create psychological horror. To illustrate my point, let me talk about a few games:
Doom 3: Now Doom 3 tries to scare the player with dark corridors, nasty demons and so fourth. After a few minutes of play, it just comes to burst in room, shoot monster, continue. The immersion is lost.
F.E.A.R.: Now that is a game that kept my nerves on edge up to the very end. To give a brief presentation, you play a special forces guy that has to stop a clone soldier army controlled by a psychic commander. That's the action part. The scary part is the ghost of the little girls you see from time to time. She's usualy accompagnied by the lights flickering, for a split second she's on the corner of your vision, the next, gone. She's sort of like Samara in the Ring. One tinsy difference, she can melt the flesh of Delta Force guys. Except on some very rare circumstances, she is never a physical threat to the player. But the problem is you never know when she is dangerous, and when she isn't, and you're not willing to find out.
In a similar fashion of a good example of immersion, the Ravenloft level in Half Life two is simply magnificient. Your brain knows all it takes is a well placed shotgun round to kill them, but the headcrab zombies still freak you out. Not beacause of their claws or blood drenched clothes, but because everything about the level reminds you these were once normal people and the town was one a cherful one. The screams of pain they occasionaly let out freak you out because, the guy is still somehow alive and conscious, living nothing but pain, unable to control the body.
As we can see, the fear responce must be emmotional, not along the lines of "ohhh, this thing is several Cr over my head.".
So, what we need, is a big bad who is very ellusive and players have no idea how to deal with, if it is even possible. They must be under the impression that it could harm them at any moment, and there is little they can do.
Small monsters must be scary implicitly, rather than by danger or appearances. A random zomby doesn't scare anyone anymore. The parasited body of a still aware but out of control mother of a familly, now, that's gonna freak people out. Especialy if they knew the person while she was alive. For even better effect, they should show pain the same way normal people would.
A small plot that can happen by combining the following elements:
All contact with a medium town has been completly lost. (ie no merchants ever come back, taxes haven't been paid...) The PCs, for a reason or another, go there to investigate. When they arrive (at day would be better), the town is deserted. No one there. By lokking around, some vague traces of battle can be found: barricades, small traces of blood, some half burnt places maybe. No bodies however. No threat should come for the first day. Maybe just some weird signs, or noises. Give the impression ennemies could attack at any time. But do nothing. Even for the first couple of nights, while the players carefully organise guard turns and things, no attack. Have them wake up a few times for strange noises and so fourth, but nothing.
By exploring, they should find journals, papers or reports indicating that something was amiss before the dissapearance of the people.
Then the thrid night, have another apparently random noise wake them up. Except this time....
And I happily leave the rest to you.
The town has some dark secret that they try to keep hidden from the outside world, so whenever visitors come by they are very kept to themselves.
The castle above the town is kinda like...overshadowing it as well, and the man/monster/being who owns the castle is like the leader or the instigator.
What could that secret be?
Long ago the town of Unnamedsville was a booming community due to the local coal mine. The town attracted the attention of a Lord and Lady that came to the town, they built the manor and settled in. Fast forward 15 years, the Lord and Lady and now 12 year old Daughter are still doing well but the towns coal mine went dry and hit on hard times. The locals begin to blame Lord and Lady Innocent and one night after heavy drinking the prominent locals form a lynch mob and storm the Castle. Unprepared the locals charge in and begin to loot the manor. Lord Innocent goes to stop them but is overwhelmed and dies. The mob continues to Lady Innocent's bed chamber and finds her trying to protect her young daughter. A fight ensues and by accident the young daughter is pushed off the balcony onto the rocks below. Lady Innocent(maybe not) shrieks a curse at the locals invoking the name of a powerful otherworldly being and seals the pact in blood. Committing suicide she binds the curse to the mob.
"You have taken everything I love, killed my darling and left me in agony. You too shall live this agony, you shall see your children DIE."
The curse left most of the locals unable to die. Existing day in and day out in a rotting shell, not truly alive but not truly dead. Worse still, every night they are compelled to pull their children kicking and screaming out of their beds and drag them to the cliff where the Lady's daughter died and throw their own children onto the rocks below. Every morning their children awake as they had been the day before and the cycle restarts.
It has been years and the towns people are disheveled and withered but in order to hide their shame and curse they disguise themselves with heavy clothing and masks and hands made of the dead skin of the uncursed locals who tried to stop the nightly murders. They also have taken it to remove all paths to the town and all references of the towns existence so imagine the players suprise when the find a town no one has heard of.
Above it all in the castle the ghost of the Lady watches the townsfolk suffer every night.
Hi all,
I am looking to start planning a mini-campaign for a group I will be DMing this fall. Basically, I am looking to have a horror themed adventure for about 2 sessions ready for the beginning of October. Good time of year for it.
I want all of your ideas on what I should do.
So far, I want to do a Ravenloft style adventure (the whole gothic horror, vampires and zombies deal).
Obviously there is going to be a castle and maybe a little village down below etc etc. This has all be done before, but what I want is some good plot hooks, something new and different.
So give me some ideas!
Thanks in advance.
http://naegunfael.proboards61.com/index.cgi?board=special&action=display&thread=154
Taint... because nothing says horror like Taint and Insanity hehe
This might help. It's still in early stages yet and I'll have Insanity done soon.. but if you're going for total horror this might help you. (rather than just theming your monsters)
Example: One Call of Cthulhu game was at an isolated cabin. When the players went to leave the van wouldn't start. They then discovered that the engine was missing pieces critical to operation. Oh, and of course there was no cell phone service.
Cheers, LT.
Okay, I just found something that I would like to include in the plot..
The town has some dark secret that they try to keep hidden from the outside world, so whenever visitors come by they are very kept to themselves.
The castle above the town is kinda like...overshadowing it as well, and the man/monster/being who owns the castle is like the leader or the instigator.
What could that secret be?
I was thinking the whole town are vampires or werewolves or they eat children, but that's too overused I think. I need something different
Some 4 centuries ago the town was faced with a horrible blight. Crops died, people were ill as the blight tainted food, the whole town was faced with its demise. To save his people, the Baron made a pact with the Big Bad. In return for the continued safety of his town, the Baron agreed to become a vampyre and had to leave a drained corpse in a field every fortnight to demonstrate he was keeping his end of the bargain.
If the Baron stops - or is stopped, say by being staked - the blight returns.
Go read Dagon.
Dagon is great, but I think you're thinking of The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Innsmouth is about a town with monstrous secrets. Dagon is about a shipwrecked sailor on a very weird island. Stuart Gordon combined the two stories to make his film Dagon (which is one of the better Lovecraft films).
part of a horror setting to me is feeling helpless at any moment
this means overwhelming them from time to time especially if they get cocky
a horror setting should not be easy. or its not scary, how scary would a vampire lord be if you have all the proper tools to just off him
how scary would a wave of zombies be if you had any well fortified place at all
Every situation should be leaned against the Pc
i mean the doom reference from above is a great example
dark corridors small places. low-light and high DC perception checks
Think of 30 days of night..
and individual vampire for a small group of people willing to fight back was kill able.... but not all 40 some at once
Make them feel hunted, if they run chase them. give them rest but only if they absolutely need it to continue the campaign. kill pc's characters die.. think of a horror movie where everyone lived.... if you can name it i'll give you five dollars
28 days later is also a good one
the desolation... the look at what an area becomes after only a short period of time with out people, and also note how against the odds their survival was.
Make them feel like they can beat the bad guy if only they can get to him.
Organizing a group to survive for an extended period of time, while balancing personal interests, and with overwhelming odds is the hard part and the horror.
Pummeling the evil boss at the end is the reward and shouldn't necessarily be easy, but pummeling is what a tense group of survivors would do best i imagine.
Screeching and stuff of the criters in the distance which sounded closer due to the sound bouncing off the walls, strange smells and weird green glowing marks here and there, dead drow corpses laying about.
To make it more pressing add a stopwatch or something. You only give x amount of seconds for the PC's to react. If they don't a round is forfeited by in-action. Look at inventory of spell and items and make sure they have no items which can directly be used. But do allow combinations of items/spells to be a solution. See if they can think and solve puzzles on the go :D This is also a way to make the game AGAINST the PC's and keep it exciting.
9. The trees are eating people.
This happens to me all the time.