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oxybe
2010-02-19, 07:22 PM
I'm currently planning on dropping a group of PCs into the mournlands, on behalf of house cannith (the employer will be gnome simply calling himself "Mr.Johnson" and doesn't look like the most trustworthy of sorts, but the pay is quite good), to locate the last group of adventurers & recover the rather large dragonshard & plans they were supposed to bring back should they have failed to do so (and yes, they're dead :shiftyeyes:).

they'll hop onto the lighting rail from sharn, travel as close to the cyran borders as possible and jump out, make their way to the mournland then get to the ruined creation forge & nearby town.

at this point they'll have to investigate the ghost town & forge, possibly unearthing a few of house cannith's closet skeletons...

once they're done, they'll have to make their way to sharn to meet up with their employer with the information.
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now how do i stress that "this place if effin dangerous"? the small town itself will be reminiscent of Fallout 3's "underworld", though far less populated. only a few sentient undead will be there and i should stress that they are famished undead that may or may not be trustworthy.

the creation forge will be more of an underground laboratory/testing area with the large forge well hidden & defended through traps & semi-intelligent golem/traps.

one encounter i've got planned, before they reach town is to have them fight a large brutish zombie and a few chumps, whom after killed will have it's skeleton leap out of it's flesh to attack the PCs, and finally after killing it, a small whisp of lingering hate will attack them (this will just be a minion).

should the minion hit, it will "drain" a surge until the PC gets looked at and has a remove curse used on him. these types of undead will show up every so often

i'm also planning on stealing from games like Left 4 Dead, where some undead can "mark" PCs so the less proactive ones will hoard & gather around the smell.

any help on how to incorporate the mournland's mist itself (other then the normal mist-effects: blocking sight and making weird shadows) or just other hints on running a more "survival horror" type game?

RdMarquis
2010-02-19, 07:25 PM
This thread should give you some ideas. http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19785742/1001_Mournland_Horrors

AslanCross
2010-02-19, 07:30 PM
I only have 3.5 books, but I bet you could adapt Five Nations' Mournland writeup somehow:

1. Potions and healing magic do not work in the Mournland.
2. Even natural healing doesn't work, so resting doesn't do anything.
3. All groundwater is tainted and plants and animals are either toxic or want to kill you, so you'll have to bring all your food.
4. There are randomly-occurring fonts of magical energy that can either heal you or harm you if you drink from them.

EDIT: Oh boy. That thread makes me want to run a Mournland campaign.

Touchy
2010-02-19, 10:35 PM
This thread should give you some ideas. http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19785742/1001_Mournland_Horrors
Lots of dead babies to be had, if you are not comfortable with dead babies, be prepared to randomly jump ten pages for awhile, the dead babies stop after awhile or so.

Also no sleep tonight. :smallsigh:

Edit: Suddenly I want to run High Fantasy in a normally horror environment.

Kaun
2010-02-20, 01:45 AM
Here is my advice. You want to put the fear of death into them, stop them from getting an extended rest for a few days.

Burn down there healing surges with encounters and get them running on a wire tiliting closser to death. This will have more affect playing up every additional danger then anything else. They will start thinking twice about fights they would of previously charged head long into.

DragonBaneDM
2010-02-20, 02:57 AM
Quori are scary. :) Paragon tier is appropriate.

Kol Korran
2010-02-20, 07:57 AM
i also only know the 3.5 Mournland, but as far as i understand, the 4E one is pretty close.

as AslanCross mentioned- healing in the mournland can be a b***h. choose how youhandle this- do you allow magical healing from leaders? do you allow healing in short rests? does haeling surges return after an extended rest? these are all things you should seriously consider. if you don't wish to stop healing completly, i suggest you let the party do some test for any healing related try- healing in combat, in short rest, and extended rests. this should creept them out a bit.

i haven't checked the thread above but it should be full of good ideas. just remember- horror isn't just undead, it's plainly bizzare things. think abberations- a gibbering whatnot (homebrew one if needed)
he'rs an idea- make one out of the faces and mouths of the former town's people. have it be filled with objects of the town people- a frying pan, a dress, a hoe, a teddy bear... have it speaks constantly, as if it's still running the town as usuall. it could be quite powerfull, forcing the party to actually parly with this monstrosity, other than simply fight it (here comes the world's strangest diplomacy skill check!)

other ideas: things in the mournland are somewhat like Cyre was before the mourning, but they are... distorted. give the party a map of the place, a fairly detailed map. when they get to the town and it's surroundings, they find things are not exactly as they should be (sometimes to a small degree, sometime to a serious one)- the smithy is in the wrong place, and is turned into a butchery where the meat continue screaming, never rotting. the mayor's house is upside down, and some mocking jestfull spirit (or living spell) is presiding at the top- the basement, if you have a god fearing wo/man in your party, prepare something special in the temple. the labaratory as well should be quite distoreted.

as to the mist- it's full of whispering voices, that can make a man mad. plus- it's not easely navigatable. you can't just walk straight ahead till you get out of it. again- a skill test. the worst the party gets, the farther they get from their destination (and this could be by HUNDREDs of miles, even if they only walked a few).

what else? animals acting in weird manner- have a simple encounter (CR well below the party) with a group of not dead, not alive animals who act in concert, like a swarm of bunnies, badgers, mooses, wolves and so on. give them a small hive mind- it's always good for horror themes.

have a lot of just plain wrong phenomena around the place, doesn't have to make pose a danger. some ideas:
- some woods who are deadly calm, not a leaf moves, even though there is a terrible gale around the place. also, they seem to be watching you and so on (think of the BAD fairy tales)
- as the party sleeps at some place, make the guard roll a test to avoid falling asleep. if s/he succeed, they can try to relocate. if not, then the entire party falls asleep, and awaken somewhere tottally else!
- some location, or enemy, has a chance of making the arcane/ divine powers come alive for a short while! (encounter) i suggest for these to become minions.
- a place where gravity works differently, where you can walk on walls and perhaps ceilings, but only on certain spots and trails (could make an awesome battle site)
- "please help me!" some area (maybe the entire town) is sometime fileld with various voices of the people seeking solace, or help. you can force tests on the PCs to avoid getting a bit (or a lot) mad.
- visions of the PCs past- all kind of reanactments of events in the PCs past, perhaps in their adventuring days, perahsp before. only the reanactment isn't exactly right..

check the thread, i'm sure a lot of people thought of far better ideas than i have. hope this helped,
Kol.

DiscipleofBob
2010-02-20, 11:23 AM
The key to making something really scary is vivid description and making it clear that this isn't a combat encounter, this is something to run away from now. Describe said horror as vaguely as possible. Don't say "a carcass crab attacks." Mention the stacked pile of corpses with sharp spikes protruding from it. Mention how certain party members feel like the corpses are watching them. Mention how the corpses seem to shift slightly from a distance but are completely still up close. If they do decide to fight it, give it really high defenses and let it do a few attacks with high damage, making it seem like a solo. Then introduce five more of the guys. Your party members will be running scared in no time.

Whenever I went to the Mournland, each DM would use the giant walking city that slowly approached. Players who didn't know what it was would quickly start running when artillery fire came from the giant city, and Veteran Players would realize that said city is home to the Lord of Blades and his army of flesh-hating warforged.

Dimers
2010-02-20, 12:37 PM
Consider issues surrounding the Endurance skill. You can expect it to come up a lot in a "survival" game. Do you want to make it more significant? less? Do you want to give players the option to retrain to it? How will it tie in to the difficulty of healing?

If your party is as cautious as mine generally are (until they see a foe, at which point they get all berserkerragestabstabglrptbgrrphblrt, but I digress), bet on other skills seeing heavier than normal use as well. Nature, Arcana, Religion, Dungeoneering and History usually give hints about the various challenges the PCs will face ... whether you set the DC high or low, be ready to draw the line on what's known so the party doesn't whittle away hours of play time and all sense of mystery with informational rolls. One good way to convey "effin' dangerous" is to respond to most info requests with "You're highly trained in this field, and you have no idea what this is beyond what your eyes tell you. You want to know about good tactics? Try swords and fire, those are fairly reliable."

Another way to convey danger is to plant some modern symbols of power (house insignia, maybe) among the dead, making it clear just how many others have tried to penetrate the Mournlands and failed.

bosssmiley
2010-02-20, 02:04 PM
I only have 3.5 books, but I bet you could adapt Five Nations' Mournland writeup somehow:

1. Potions and healing magic do not work in the Mournland.
2. Even natural healing doesn't work, so resting doesn't do anything.
3. All groundwater is tainted and plants and animals are either toxic or want to kill you, so you'll have to bring all your food.
4. There are randomly-occurring fonts of magical energy that can either heal you or harm you if you drink from them.

Also, given that the Mournland is basically an expy of L5R's Rokugani Shadowlands (blast radius of Jigoku breaking through to the mortal world), any of John Wick's "make them cry!" material will probably apply.

4E specific:
You can't spend healing surges to heal.
Dead in the Mournlands means "dead, roll a new char", rather than "dead, save negates".
Extended rests? For what else were wandering monster tables invented?
Loss of plot armour will concentrate the players' minds wonderfully on just how deadly this place really is. :smallwink:

"What? You're the ones who decided to go picking apples in Chernobyl."

cupkeyk
2010-02-21, 11:33 PM
I just finished reading Kieth Baker's Dreaming Dark Trilogy (late, I know). A few things I remember:

In some places, dead people still move(not undead, just mechanically speaking). So there are never ending battles where animated corpses are just hacking at each other. They don't decompose either. Its not an encounter or anything, its just a really creepy scene. Unless the PC's jump into the fight, and then maybe, but they will need to realize that they can just walk away from it and there's no beating it.

It rained razorblades.

There was this one d00d who has no skin. Perfectly alive and well, except a little crazy(and evil).

Oh and I think the Lord of blades lives in the mournland, so have robots and zombies wheeeeee.

Beorn080
2010-02-22, 12:25 AM
Might I suggest the SCP foundation?

http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/

In particular, SCP-610 would make for fantastic material in there with a bit of rewriting.

Colmarr
2010-02-22, 01:04 AM
I only have 3.5 books, but I bet you could adapt Five Nations' Mournland writeup somehow

The mournland is detailed in the 4e Eberron Campaign guide.

I don't remember the full details off the top of my head, but I do remember a couple of things:


when you're bloodied, your surge value is halved. In other words, it's a b.tch to heal once you're wounded.
there is a disease in the mournland that saps your vitality. It also affects healing but it doesn't explicitly have any visible symptoms.
If I were DMing a mournland survival horror, I'd play up that second one. Don't tell the PCs why they're suffering those affects. Don't let them make the save or the endurance checks. Do it all behind the screen (or better yet away from the table).

If they figure it out themselves and have the capacity to do something about it - which essentially requires a ritual IIRC - good for them. If not, it'll add tremendously to the sense of impending doom.