Horatio@Bridge
2009-10-09, 04:38 PM
So, I have a semi-tradition of having a long game around Halloween to tell a quasi-horror tale. Back in college I told a d20 Modern game where the heroes (including one who behaved suspiciously like Ash from Evil Dead) took on some cultists of a dark serpent god. A couple of years ago I played a game of Horror Movie Heroes inspired by the song of the same name by the pirate band The Jolly Rogers. In it, the Ghostbusters, the vampire and werewolf from Underworld, and the Exorcist teamed up to fight zombies, vampires, and cultists who were over-running a small town and summoned an avatar of Cthulhu.
This year, I'm wanting to get a bit grittier and go with survival horror using the WoD book. I'm using the Eastern Front in WWI as the backdrop, just after the Soviet government has brokered peace with the Germans. The players are prisoners in a small town in the Balkans/Ukraine, being dragged East by the retreating Russian army. I haven't figured out the mix yet, but I'm thinking a German POW, a Russian officer imprisoned by the local Red Guard, and some Gypsies caught up in the whole mess (because what survival horror story in the Balkans during World War I doesn't have Gypsies?).
The problem is, I'm not sure how to inject the supernatural into this. I'm thinking that the Red Guard commanders do something stupid to set off an old curse, or get a new curse called down on them, and the prisoners get caught up in the middle of it all. But what is the curse? And how does the initial curse unfurl into a tale of madness and woe that the characters can run screaming through, trying to escape with their lives and sanity intact? Also, what would be some good other PCs? I've got about six people who'd be interested in playing.
If the execution of the Romanovs could be worked into this, that would be awesome.
This year, I'm wanting to get a bit grittier and go with survival horror using the WoD book. I'm using the Eastern Front in WWI as the backdrop, just after the Soviet government has brokered peace with the Germans. The players are prisoners in a small town in the Balkans/Ukraine, being dragged East by the retreating Russian army. I haven't figured out the mix yet, but I'm thinking a German POW, a Russian officer imprisoned by the local Red Guard, and some Gypsies caught up in the whole mess (because what survival horror story in the Balkans during World War I doesn't have Gypsies?).
The problem is, I'm not sure how to inject the supernatural into this. I'm thinking that the Red Guard commanders do something stupid to set off an old curse, or get a new curse called down on them, and the prisoners get caught up in the middle of it all. But what is the curse? And how does the initial curse unfurl into a tale of madness and woe that the characters can run screaming through, trying to escape with their lives and sanity intact? Also, what would be some good other PCs? I've got about six people who'd be interested in playing.
If the execution of the Romanovs could be worked into this, that would be awesome.