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Jan Mattys
2010-06-04, 05:33 AM
I'm playing a short campaign very loosely based on Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.

The Long story short:

- The villain (the Count) has been banished to this personal demiplane of nightmare due to horrible sins done in his past life.

- He found out the lady he loved was in love with his younger brother instead, so he killed his brother. The lady, mad with grief, decided to kill herself.

- The Count went mad and made a pact with demonic forces. They gave him knowledge of the dark arts, and with them he was able to defeat death, becoming immortal and forever young.

- To bring his love back to life, he ripped his own heart and put it in her chest. She woke up, but this act sealed the Count's fate: the Gods couldn't bear such a disrespect for love, life, and all that was good, so they punished him.

- He is now cursed. He lives in a demiplane which is both his domain and his cage. He rules over desperate peasants, venomous mists and rotten land.

- Once every one hundred years, ad 6 am in the morning in the village appears a lady who doesn't remember anything about her past. She's his original love reincarnated.

- The Count cannot leave the Castle during daylight, so in "that day", he sends troops out of the castle at 6 am with the task of finding the lady and bringing her to him. In case they don't succeed, he can personally go after her after 6 pm, but in that case he has already wasted 12 hours of the 24 he has at his disposal.

- The Count is doomed to always search for her, take her to the Castle, and spend a whole day with his love, trying desperately every time to make her fall in love with him again. He longs for that single day, he waits 100 years for it.

- Every time, as the time passes and she spends time with the Count, she begins to remember things... places... faces. Every century, she slowly regains consciousness of her past, and every century, at dawn, after 24 hours with the Count, after a terrible night, she kills herself, or the she tries to escape and the Count kills her in fit of rage, or something equally bad happens.

- Basically, his doom is to wait 100 years for his love, then spend 1 day with it, and at the end of the day he's always forced to lose it again, often experiencing the excruciating pain of seeing extreme disgust, extreme hate or extreme grief on his love's last look.

- The Count is immortal as long as his heart is alive. To kill the Count they PCs have to stab the girl in the heart, effectively freeing her from the Count's spell and at the same making the Count mortal again.




Now, my heroes found a way to this demiplane, and they seek to destroy the Count.

They are about to enter his castle. I need to make the experience as gloomy and dark as possible. Everything that adds to the atmosphere is golden to me.
Things I have planned so far:

1- The Castle is a place of anguish and grief. They meet various manifestations of previous ghosts of the lady, everytime seeing her dying in different ways. For example, they meet a pale lady looking at the horizon from the castle walls. She's crying. As they approach her, she casts herself of the walls. If the PCs try to grab her, they grab only the air. No corpse can be found at the bottom of the castle walls.

2- Various pieces of the diary of the Count are scattered around the castle, making the PCs able to undersand what happened in the past.

3- Various pieces of information written / left ages ago by the servants of the Count, who slowly saw their master fading into undeath, stopping to drink and eat, and becoming less and less active during daytime.

4- The castle is the cage and the punishment of the Count. It constantly shifts back in time to make him live again the worst moments of his tragedy (not much differently than the nightmarish scene every night in Lord Soth's castle, for those who read Dragonlance). So if the PCs storm the castle they might be caught in these ghostly retellings of the tragedy. For example the moment when the Count killed his brother, or when he performed the ritual of undeath, or when he put the heart in the chest of his dead love).

Now, I can put an arbitrary amount of these tricks in the castle, and I really want to. Everything is ok, from pure fluff to scenes leading to a cool fight for the PCs. What is important, is that the atmosphere can be kept gloomy and desperate.
Traps are fine too, especially if they are tematically appropriate.
Feel free to take ideas from Alone in the Dark or anything else appropriate to help me keep he tension up.

Give me your best, playgrounders! I need your help to make my nightmare castle truly memorable!

Le-vante
2010-06-04, 06:19 AM
If your using ghosts or specters in your quest it's probably worth researching suposed "real life" ghost storys, ghost kids are always terrifying.

Also IMO it's the fealing of helplessness that creates fear, but put into game turms it probaly wouldn't blend well.

Bharg
2010-06-04, 06:33 AM
Neutral will-o'-wisps for the outskirt area always add a lot of flair.
Simply let the PCs relive that the count is reliving in the castle, his thoughts, his fears, his feelings...

Fallbot
2010-06-04, 07:57 AM
(Stolen from Supernatural) The castle isn't only caging the count; have an NPC that's with them (or a PC if you're feeling mean) get separated. The next time the rest of the party see them, they look strange and don't respond to their friends. And then their death plays out, in much the same way as it has for the ghosts of the lady.

It makes things more personal but on the other hand it could distract from the Count's story so I'm not entirely sure how well it would work.

Optimystik
2010-06-04, 08:11 AM
I thought it was a wonderful story, but I agree with Fallbot - you need a hook to engage the players. A Good party might be compelled to help the Count for the sake of... well, goodness, but Neutral and Evil characters don't really have much incentive to get involved in the Groundhog Day Loop.

You could just trap them on the demiplane I suppose, but that smacks of railroading.

Maybe some spirit/angel asks for their assistance, and promises the less morally upright party members a great treasure of some kind within the castle once the cycle is broken. It can then turn out to be the spirit of the Count's lover, perhaps the collection of her memories from each iteration of the cycle, seeking to free him from his torment but lacking the power to do so on her own.

Mastikator
2010-06-04, 08:16 AM
Abandoned torture chambers where the demons he made a deal with torture and eat the peasants. (killing the count banishes the demons)
Maybe they only show themselves during night, and the PCs go there during the day to find evidence.

And the peasants that are still there, too scared to even look at the PCs. One of the peasants dares talk to them, not saying much, but the next day he's dead.

When they put two and two together, they might feel a little guilt. And guilt creates gloomyness and desperation.

Jan Mattys
2010-06-04, 08:30 AM
I want to add that my PCs know that "somehow" they only have 1 day to kill the count.

They already know part of the story, the homicide of the brother, and they think it is that crime that the Count is doomed to pay for. They still know nothing about the girl and the Count's real curse.

The hooks I used were hints and traces of truth given by some of the village's peasants, who once (read: a couple cycles ago, 200 years in the past) got trapped in the same way.

One is extremely old and quite mad, and speaks only with riddles. The other one has lost al hope of ever coming back, and has accepted his fate in the demiplane. He's delusional and has forgot a lot about the story, so he only remembers vaguely what his group found 200 years ago, before failing to kill the Count in time.

The third one is a ranger who is the oldest adventurer in this demiplane. He got trapped 800 years ago, and is now completely insane. He lives in the forest, well hidden, really close to the mists that circle around the demiplane. He lives in a glade full of trees, all marked with little signs used to count the days he's been trapped. You can well imagine there's LOT of trees completely full of little signs. He's been here for almost a millennium. He still had in his hidden cave some hints about the true nature of the Count, but being competely insane he attacks on sight every being entering his portion of the forest accusing everything that moves to be a "minion of the Count", and he's quite a formidabie opponent.

The PCs spawned in the demiplane exactly at 6 am and the way back closes at 6am next day.
They either kill they Count or the lady kills herself again and the cycle is destroyed. And this means they will be trapped in the demiplane for 100 years.

Every once in a while, I tell them that they hear a night-tower bell ringing the time. Currently they are in front of the Castle and it's 7 PM.

First session they came. Second (and last) session, they have 11 hours ahead, and they have to face the Castle and the Count, and either win or stay trapped for 100 years.

It's a two-session mini campaign. The first session has been incredibly fun and well-received. I need ideas to make the Castle just as memorable :smallbiggrin:

Cyrion
2010-06-04, 09:28 AM
I based an adventure in a haunted mansion around this idea (stolen from an old episode of the Night Gallery TV show) which you might be able to adapt.

In their initial explorations of the mansion, the party noticed a particular painting of the mansion they were in. They passed it a little later and one of the party members realized that the picture had changed- it was now showing the graveyard outside. Throughout the evening, it continued to change- it showed a particular grave, then the same grave with a skeletal hand coming out of it; the next version was another view of the house itself, followed by the door of the house. Knowing something was coming, but not knowing what or why added good tension and creep factor as they tried to formulate a plan to deal with what might be coming through the door while other complication inside the mansion cropped up.

Axolotl
2010-06-04, 09:53 AM
First session they came. Second (and last) session, they have 11 hours ahead, and they have to face the Castle and the Count, and either win or stay trapped for 100 years.How about having the players repeatedly see clocks counting down the remaining time?

It's a little obvious but it would help reinforce the atmosphere.

cssmythe3
2010-06-04, 10:04 AM
Undead kids. Creeeeeepy. If you want a HUGE list of creepy things, look here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/130133-creepy.html

Jan Mattys
2010-06-04, 10:32 AM
How about having the players repeatedly see clocks counting down the remaining time?

It's a little obvious but it would help reinforce the atmosphere.

This would work particularly well: it's not for the players... it's the demiplane and the castle playing tricks with the Count's desperation.

Time runs out fast. His time with his lover is quickly expiring.
Everywhere in the Castle, he is reminded that there's a countdown and that after that it is another century of utter solitude and horror.

I like it.

Le-vante
2010-06-04, 10:33 AM
Undead kids. Creeeeeepy.

I think there's a zombie kid in LM actualy. The counts brother could have had a child with his brothers lover? Have her follow the Pcs around telling them how much time they have left ect. Just make sure her mouth is sown up and she speaks via telepathy for extra shivers.

Telonius
2010-06-04, 11:58 AM
Any portraits of the lady will slowly have the face fade away throughout the day.

A ghostly chef in the kitchen preparing for a great feast, but the food is only ever ashes and sand.

Quincunx
2010-06-04, 12:21 PM
As the face fades from the portraits, so too does the region of the painting centered over her heart.

Nothing bleeds in this place for the duration of the day. All wounds are dry as dust, even those of the PCs. If you can contrive to spill a drink on one of them before time runs out, so that they think they've begun to bleed again, bonus points.

hamishspence
2010-06-04, 12:41 PM
Heroes of Horror has a long list of "creepy things" to spice up a more horror-themed campaign.

TheThan
2010-06-04, 12:42 PM
Personally I think you should run this campaign arch in one huge 12 hour session. It would be even more awesome if you could start at 6am and run it until 6 pm.

Maybe the count has grown tired of this torture and wishes to end his own life so he can be with his real love in the afterlife. But because he’s immortal he cannot find a way to do this, also he needs a way to atone for his past sins so he can meet his woman in the afterlife and not get sent someplace nasty.

Another idea is to get an ambient “creepy” sound track, I know they sell them at around Halloween, so I don’t know how easy it’ll be to get this time of year. But that might help to add to the atmosphere. Don’t forget to keep the lights low.

Ruinix
2010-06-04, 01:23 PM
sry dudes i dont read all of you so i throw in my ideas.

-in time to time the PCs make a step in middle of a room and all back to the happy days and they see a ball, or romantic dinner or what ever, at end of that image all the pcs sense the grief giving them some penalties.

-make them live a part of this plot their own flesh. polymorph them as the count and make them live his grief.

-sudden temperature changes when some important ghost is near.

Sitzkrieg
2010-06-04, 02:36 PM
The PCs accidentally disturb a figment of the wife as she is crying and putting on make-up and jewelry in front of her cracked mirror. When she sees them, she puts on her Necklace of Strangulation.

The PCs find the woman's mausoleum outside the mansion. Although it is locked tight, there are thousands of scratches on the outside walls, door, and decorations, as if someone had spent a great deal of time fighting to destroy it, or get in...

The house's construction could have been modified/expanded as time went on, so as the house goes back in time to specific moments, certain doors or hallways could appear or disappear that weren't there the first time the PCs went by.

One floor/room has a terrible, nauseating stench. Searching the walls will reveal a hastily constructed section of wall that hides the brother's body behind it.

An overflowing bath is found in a molded bathroom on the second floor. A figment of the woman's drowned body is visible inside the tub. Approaching the bath causes the rotted floor underneath to collapse, dropping an unfortunate PC into a locked pantry, filled with rotten food and rat swarms that come through the walls.

From the hallway, the wife's bedroom appears perfectly pristine and untouched, with fresh linens and a pleasant perfumed smell. The floors are waxed and gleaming, and there are beautiful portraits and paintings on the walls. Even the paint seems fresh. When you enter the room and pass through the illusion, you find the same room but the paintings are torn down, the sheets have worms, the walls are crawling with mildew, paint is chipping off in sheets, etc.