A House for a God Gone Mad (Dungeon Idea)

[BRC]

So, I had an idea. It goes something like this
A God decides to get back in touch with what’s going on the material plane. His worshippers are basically nonexistent. So he decides to incarnate himself as a human and walk the world for a little while. Once he dies, he will become a god again and use his experiences on the material plane to better handle his divine duties, having lived a full lifetime on the material plane.
However, during this time a problem arises. He incarnates as a human and lives his life, completally unaware that he is, in fact, a God. However, at one point in this life, he goes insane, and get’s taken to an asylum.
In this asylum, his condition desegregates to the point wherein he subconsciously reactivates his divine abilities, which begin reshaping the asylum to the way he sees it. On the Asylum grounds, his delusions become reality. The routine of day to day life continues, and none of the Asylum residents appear aware of any changes, but their behaviors have changed to reflect the way he imagines them. He is unaware that he’s doing this (The way he sees it, nothing has changed, since reality is now reflecting his delusions and hallucinations).
So, Ideas for this asylum.
The Orderlies have twisted into brutish, demonic ogre like things.
The Doctors appear as thin, long-clawed devils who want nothing more than to perform horrific experiments on the Inmates.
Anybody else have ideas for this?

[drengnikrafe]

This is an epicly awesome idea. The question is... how do the PCs win? They're fighting... a God.

Alright, that aside.. Make sure the asylum itself still could exist independantly. The same way you create a villain, create this as though it were a legitimate place. Namely because it is. I visualize One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, as visualized through the narrator's eyes... y'know, put to the extreme. Let things reshape themselves periodically. Mess with the PCs heads. Serve the PCs food, but do weird stuff to it... in real life. Give them a sandwhich with... umm... really weird toppings on it. Let it sink into their subconscious. Play random, creepy music, but change it at will.

I see this more as an opporunity to play with the PCs minds then I do as a standard adventure.

[Harperfan7]

So the changes are real? It's not just enchantment/illusion?

Do the players have to make saves vs. insanity or to resist being changed?

How do you decide what happens?

[DiscipleofBob]

See the asylum level in Psychonauts if you want something truly, literally twisted.

I can still hear the squeaks of the exploding rats of confusion gas.

[chiasaur11]

See the asylum level in Psychonauts if you want something truly, literally twisted.

I can still hear the squeaks of the exploding rats of confusion gas.

And that was a "real world" area.

Imagine when they get to the meat circus.

[Mikeavelli]

For some delightful inspiration, check out the old Planescape Module Harbringer House, which dealt with almost exactly this issue.

The premise was a little different (The "Harbringer House" is a sort of halfway house for individuals with a bit of the divine spark who "couldn't handle it" and went crazy) - It features every "insane godling" type NPC the creators could think up.

The best part of it was that the godlings weren't bat**** Fishmalk crazy either, they could be interacted with, some of them even understood their predicament and had moments of lucidity, most of them didn't end up hostile if the players played their cards right. They were sorta've window dressing for the main adventure (A godling of war and murder got loose, and was terrorizing Sigil. someone else found a ritual that could make them ascend, and was trying to steal the godliness of the residents for themselves, etc.) - But it should have what you're looking for.

[BRC]

This is an epicly awesome idea. The question is... how do the PCs win? They're fighting... a God.

But he dosn't know he's a God. He may subconciously defend himself by controlling his delusion creatures.

Remember that if he dies he turns back into a God, so a good aligned adventuring party could try to enter the asylum and slay him in order to bring another good god back into play.

The way I see it, you have to be in the Asylum for some time (Call it a week) before he really starts affecting you. He's percieve you as other things, but because his power is subconscious, you won't really change.

You may need to make will saves to avoid insanity when exposed to his insanity made manifest though.


Of course, you could go so many different directions with this. It could be a standard hack and slash dungeon, chop your way through some demon orderlies and faceless patients.

It could also be an investigative thing. The Effect isn't constant, it only flares up occasionally, when he is in a fit of madness, and only in certain areas. The PC's are new arrivals to the Asylum staff or patients, and they can all tell something odd is going on .
Or maybe (If we are going with DnD) they are just an adventuring party who take shelter there during a storm. As the storm continues, his madness increases and the delusions become more and more omnipresent. They hear about odd deaths occuring at the Asylum. They notice somthing odd out of the corner of their eye, then look and everything is perfectly normal. As the night continues, things gradually get weirder until they're trapped in a demented Hellscape (One of the effects is the Doors Vanishing, as the God feels he's trapped in the asylum). Finally, they must either defeat the Godling, or maybe some especially strong manifestation of his madness.

[Leliel]

Indeed, Mr. Mikeavelli.

You have to remember that only the worst-treated of the most paranoid schizophrenics turn violent, and even that's a bit iffy.

Most, in fact, are actually quite peaceable, if easily scared and well, wacky.

In order to talk to one, you have to convince him you're not an enemy (if he's a paranoiac) or understand what he sees (anything else).

[LongVin]

Right after reading this I thought of the Shalebridge Cradle level from Thief 3. The scariest level in gaming history.

Basically, the cradle is an insane asylum and orphange rolled into one. Some years back it suffered a devastating fire and was sealed off. Now the cradle is haunted by the undead patients who inhabitated it. So you have undead monsters with cages over their heads(that kept them from biting people in life) that are basically unkillable. Sure, you can knock them down but when you pass by again they will just pop up and kill you.

Now what is really crazy is that the building is alive and has memories, so once you go in it it remembers you and you become part of the Cradle and can't leave. The only way to escape the cradle is to go back in time and trick the cradle into thinking you were never there.

Hopefully that wasn't just me rambling and you can get something useful out of that. Perhaps have the god become the living asylum himself.

[Mikeavelli]

Thematic things for the hellscape house:

Writing on the Walls. Think: The Shining, the Simpsons Parody thereof, or if you've played Trilby's notes, "It hurts."

For a man-god who feels trapped, "let me out" or "I want out" repeating over and over again could work. Bonus points if it's in an obscure language that gives hints as to the divine origin of the captive.

Give the players a method of control over their surroundings that begins to work less and less. It might be as simple as occasional Will saves with steadily increasing DC's. Let them know the DC's they have to meet so they understand it's increasing. Eventually one of them will latch on to the realization that eventually, they're not going to be able to make these saves. It gives them a good timeline for how long they have before everything goes to hell.

Every time they fail one, change them a little. Make it similar to the changes that have come over the existing inmates. There shouldn't be any mechanical bonuses or penalties (to start), but it should be enough to make it clear that whatever happened to these mindless things they're fighting is happening to them.

For the grand finale, have the whole world slip away into some parallel prison-realm the man-god has trapped himself (and, by extension, the players) in.

Lastly, one of the Psionics books has a monster called the "Caller in Darkness" that would be fantastic to use as a tortured spirit, reflavored as the "strong manifestation of madness" you're looking for.

[Fizban]

Wow, awesome idea. My first thought is that it reminds me of a certain Tales game (spoilers in case you're like me):
In Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, the Summon Spirit that guards the gates to hell gets woke up and bothered, and when he sees that humans have screwed up his world, says he's going to kill them all. But he's weak from just waking up, and gets his ass handed to him by the humans that did the waking, so he takes human form and suppresses his own memories in order to hide while he regains his strength.

Your situation is different enough that you can't really use the same stuff they did in the game, but you've got plenty of hooks here already. Since he's locked away most of his powers you don't have to worry about fighting a god, since he's only as powerful as you make him. Hmm, if his power was linked to his remaining sanity that could put a bit of a long term clock on it: if the players don't act now, in a few months he'll be even more powerful as he loses his grip. It even gives you an excuse to level the opponents up as the party does if they ignore it for a while.

The god's true identity is where you have the most potential, I think. If the players know he's a god and killing him will restore his godhood, then it turns into a straight boss rush dungeon. If they don't, they think there's some other demonic or supernatural influence at work and might not realize just who's causing it. If they already know the person they won't have a clue what's going on and will just pull him out of there, which will have the side effect of fixing the problem, and they might never find out that he was actually a god. If they realize it's not a normal person they can go on a hunt for information and turn it into a whole campaign where they do divinations and talk to the god's last remaining angels before returning to smite him back into sanity before he plunges the world into the Far Realm.

[Coidzor]

Hmm... One thing you can do is make it so that the orderlies don't seem to really have faces, except for a few who are most familiar to him who are bigger and nastier and different from the rank and file grunts.

Something similar with the doctors as well, maybe exaggerate their observation and poking and prodding... Maybe they leave their eyes in multiple places so that they always know what's going on?

Heh... that'd be an excellent security system, especially if he's got enough lucidity to realize the doctor ones direct the orderly ones.

For the other patients, well, there's always the sickly, armless shamblers from Silent Hill to draw from, though again, one or two might have become 'uniqueish' creatures. Maybe they gained some kind of "Twisted" template rather than becoming just a new creature type like the rank and file did?

ALso, the pseudo-natural template is almost made for this sort of thing, yes?

Occasionally flocks of pseudonatural hummingbirds fly by and through a wall...

[bosssmiley]

So, I had an idea. It goes something like this
A God decides to get back in touch with what’s going on the material plane. His worshippers are basically nonexistent. So he decides to incarnate himself as a human and walk the world for a little while. Once he dies, he will become a god again and use his experiences on the material plane to better handle his divine duties, having lived a full lifetime on the material plane.
However, during this time a problem arises. He incarnates as a human and lives his life, completally unaware that he is, in fact, a God. However, at one point in this life, he goes insane, and get’s taken to an asylum.
In this asylum, his condition desegregates to the point wherein he subconsciously reactivates his divine abilities, which begin reshaping the asylum to the way he sees it. On the Asylum grounds, his delusions become reality. The routine of day to day life continues, and none of the Asylum residents appear aware of any changes, but their behaviors have changed to reflect the way he imagines them. He is unaware that he’s doing this (The way he sees it, nothing has changed, since reality is now reflecting his delusions and hallucinations).
So, Ideas for this asylum.
The Orderlies have twisted into brutish, demonic ogre like things.
The Doctors appear as thin, long-clawed devils who want nothing more than to perform horrific experiments on the Inmates.
Anybody else have ideas for this?

"Y hallo thar Silent Hill." :smallbiggrin:

[vicente408]

Perhaps the reason for him going insane in the first place is that his mortal form simply can't handle the divinity suppressed within it? As his life went on it kept straining to get out, affecting his mind, and now is starting to leak out.

There should be ways for the players to figure out the backstory, though. What would a god subconsciously desire?

Worshipers.

While the PCs are at the asylum, at some point "Patient Alpha" subconsciously causes a prison break of sorts. He frees himself and all the other patients, who have probably also turned into some other form. They are running wild through the twisted building, and have elevated their "rescuer" to a god-like figure in their eyes. While this is subconsciously what he desires, the god-patient is terrified of all the strangers surrounding him and fawning over him, so he locks himself in his room, turning it into a cocoon or womb of sorts, with crowds of worshipers outside it desperately clinging to the walls and trying to get closer to their rescuer.