Lyra Reynolds
2010-06-16, 05:18 PM
Hi! Long post is long. Sorry for that...
I'm currently running a short horror campaign (5 or 6 sessions). I've broadly mapped out where I want to go, but I'm unsure as to the crunch, how to work out the rules. I've got one player who's a bit of a rules lawyer (which she knows, thankfully) and I usually try to avoid fudging or houseruling too much so as not to 'cheat'. So rules-based stuff is best. :)
I've got the PHB, DM1&2, Monster Manual 1-4 and Heroes of Horror, by the way. (And I learned through experience that reading HoH at 2AM when you can't sleep isn't the wisest thing to do. Some of those atmosphere suggestions are CREEPY... which is the point of course.)
I DM a Steampunk campaign with shorter adventures that explore different genres, but with the same characters who are based in a city but travel to different countries. I did a city-based to start (think Sherlock Holmes), then a desert one (Indiana Jones/The Mummy) and right now we're on horror. I mainly take my inspiration from Sleepy Hollow, there's just something about those New England towns in the fall... but anyway. The party is made up of a human female fighter, halfling female rogue, halfelf female cleric, dwarf male paladin and human male druid.
Right now, they traveled from the city to a charming little village so the cleric can meet her in-laws (she's set to marry an NPC - the fighter and paladin are already married and the fighter has a child!). Besides that, the fighter has also been contacted by a gentleman living in the village. It turns out that there have been strange occurences in the village: people hearing voices without seeing anybody, objects moving on their own accord, people sensing there was somebody there but not seeing anyone... The gentleman can't figure out himself what's going on, and since he heard from a reliable source (the fighter's brother) that the party was used to weird stuff, he decided to ask them to come and find out what's wrong. So basically two plothooks: figure out the weird stuff and meet the inlaws.
Meeting the inlaws was fine, if awkward (it's a shy cleric and a shy npc). She even got a ring from her intended, and I was nice enough to give the player a ring, too. The party has also been asking around the village about the strange things. Turns out the voice is that of a woman, who usually sounds melancholy or sometimes cheerful. She talks (but so softly that it's unintelligeble) and sometimes sings. The party asked the older people in the village and the local priest about any young women who died. Turns out a couple died in a fire; their young son is now being raised by his grandmother. A local woodchopper was engaged but broke off the engagement some years ago for reasons nobody knows; his fiancee moved to a city not too far from the village. There used to live a husband and wife in the house currently rented by the Cleric's inlaws, but they moved out about a decade ago, nobody knows where. I think currently the party is most interested in the woodchopper and the inlaws' house.
The mysterious gentleman turned out to be a vampire, which they figured out rather quickly (out of game tho, I don't think the characters themselves know yet). He has only heard about the happenings from his servants, as he has never heard any voice: strange stuff usually leaves him alone after all, and the servants acknowledged they never had anything happen on the grounds of the gentleman's house. (In hindsight, I shouldn't have done this as it immediately removed (or seemed to remove anyway) the vampire gentleman from the suspect list. The party unanimously decided to leave him alone since he was 'obviously' not the cause.)
But back behind the DM screen...
The woodchopper will turn out to be a werewolf. The druid, who is gay and has no concept of monogamy (not because he's gay but because he was raised literally by wolves, which has caused him problems several times), has already shown interest in him (me: "it's a woodchopper, chopping wood." Druid: "is he shirtless?!" Me: "... yes. And muscled and sweaty and oh stop pawing at him."). That of course led the party to think that the man was gay as well, and that was 'obviously' the reason he broke off the engagement. So I'm going to make him a werewolf - he's already established as being rough and a bit... uncouth. So werewolf fits, and it gives them something to fight, and then the druid can have a lover who is both man and animal. I hope he likes that. (And if not, well, no skin off my nose. ;))
The vampire gentleman... I still want to have a twist with him. Right now the party has basically dismissed him, and I just think that's a shame of a good character. Roughly, I used Dracula as character inspiration, so he's gentlemanly but still with an air of fierce power, and he definitely drinks human blood. But I kind of need to figure out a way to bring him back into the story. The Paladin did detect evil with him because, well, he's a vampire, but right now he seems a pretty harmless vampire.
The Cleric is possessed. This is the biggest twist and it fills me with glee how the rest of the party just basically pats her on the head and more or less ignores that plotline. The Cleric's player is in cahoots with me, and I give her pointers on how to act. We're sloooowwwlly twisting her character, and hopefully the party will notice before she goes off the deep end. Right now she's already been targeted the most by the mysterous ghost. The ghost is that of a young woman who lived in the Cleric's inlaws' house several decades ago. She gave birth to a baby, but the child was evil/an abomination/Just Wrong, and it either died or was locked away in a disappointments room (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MadwomanInTheAttic) kind of thing. The woman eventually died of grief. Her husband moved away, trying to put this whole sad affair behind him. A couple of years later an elderly couple, wanting to settle down, decided to rent the house - the cleric's inlaws. What do you know, they found this pretty ring, and Fiance NPC ended up giving it to the Cleric. The ring used to belong to the young woman who died, and her ghost/spirit is tied to it. Now the Cleric is wearing it, she'll start seeing the young woman more and more and she will eventually be taken over by the ghost. She'll be drawn to the house where 'she' used to live. Eventually (and hopefully not too soon - don't want to show all my aces too soon) the party will discover the room the baby was locked up in, with a box with some old photographs, a baby bonnet and letters from the woman, happy that she married, that she got pregnant, that she got a beautiful baby girl, then sad that there's something wrong with the baby, that it died... (I love having props for my games.) And then!
... and then I dunno.
Hopefully, in my ideal game world where the players do exactly what I want them to do (i.e. never gonna happen), the cleric will get frantic and will end up 'having' to fight the party because she wants the box with the keepsakes, because it's HERS. That will (hopefully) put the fear of god/St Cuthbert into the players and freak them out.
I'd also really like for them to have to fight the baby somehow, too. Is there a kind of monster that can appear in baby form and fight a party? Preferably WITHOUT the Paladin immediately casting Turn Undead, thus ending the entire thing in a major anticlimax.
I'm also not entire sure what I want to do with the young woman. Destroy the baby (man, that sounds so evil) ends the ghost's ties to this world? Somehow doing something with the keepsakes? Promising to use them for another baby, thus giving them a purpose? (That would certainly give me a reason to have the Cleric roll often for pregnancies. ;)) Not quite sure. The young woman was buried at the local graveyard so it's not as if she literally needs to be put to rest.
Are there any rules for possessed items and characters? I read Heroes of Horror but I'm not quite sure if there are any clear rules about it. I might just have to wing it, but I'd rather not. The possessed ring can't be taken off, anyway, so there's that. And a possessed PC? How to do it without being totally obvious at first? My main concern is that, sure, I can call for listen checks and have her hear stuff the others don't, but she usually rolls the lowest of the entire party so that gets a bit conspicuous! And what about Detect Evil? The Paladin cast it as soon as the party first encountered the ghost. I said he didn't detect any evil (because as far as I'm aware, ghosts aren't authomatically evil like vampires are?) so the party was all "lalala oh it's not evil so it can't harm us, let's take our time". So 1) how can I still pester them? 2) Can the possession be detected through any means but noticing that something is decidedly... off, about the Cleric? And how can I let her be 'off' without immediately having a big neon sign go off with "HEY, THIS IS NOT WHAT USUALLY HAPPENS WITH OUR CLERIC". :p
And then in the end I wrap it up with a PC/NPC wedding (I'm sure Mrs Inlaw has some pretty dress stashed away somewhere, or else the cleric'll just have to go in her St Cuthbert robes. Or raid the ghost woman's closet) and a pretty bow, and xp and treasure for everybody.
Cookies if you read this far! So, anybody still alive/awake... got any tips?
And just general horror tips are welcome, too. I already read through this forum and found some excellent music/atmosphere tips. :) Bit of a shame that I'm running this campaign in the summer - bit hard to get spooky when it's still light out!
I'm currently running a short horror campaign (5 or 6 sessions). I've broadly mapped out where I want to go, but I'm unsure as to the crunch, how to work out the rules. I've got one player who's a bit of a rules lawyer (which she knows, thankfully) and I usually try to avoid fudging or houseruling too much so as not to 'cheat'. So rules-based stuff is best. :)
I've got the PHB, DM1&2, Monster Manual 1-4 and Heroes of Horror, by the way. (And I learned through experience that reading HoH at 2AM when you can't sleep isn't the wisest thing to do. Some of those atmosphere suggestions are CREEPY... which is the point of course.)
I DM a Steampunk campaign with shorter adventures that explore different genres, but with the same characters who are based in a city but travel to different countries. I did a city-based to start (think Sherlock Holmes), then a desert one (Indiana Jones/The Mummy) and right now we're on horror. I mainly take my inspiration from Sleepy Hollow, there's just something about those New England towns in the fall... but anyway. The party is made up of a human female fighter, halfling female rogue, halfelf female cleric, dwarf male paladin and human male druid.
Right now, they traveled from the city to a charming little village so the cleric can meet her in-laws (she's set to marry an NPC - the fighter and paladin are already married and the fighter has a child!). Besides that, the fighter has also been contacted by a gentleman living in the village. It turns out that there have been strange occurences in the village: people hearing voices without seeing anybody, objects moving on their own accord, people sensing there was somebody there but not seeing anyone... The gentleman can't figure out himself what's going on, and since he heard from a reliable source (the fighter's brother) that the party was used to weird stuff, he decided to ask them to come and find out what's wrong. So basically two plothooks: figure out the weird stuff and meet the inlaws.
Meeting the inlaws was fine, if awkward (it's a shy cleric and a shy npc). She even got a ring from her intended, and I was nice enough to give the player a ring, too. The party has also been asking around the village about the strange things. Turns out the voice is that of a woman, who usually sounds melancholy or sometimes cheerful. She talks (but so softly that it's unintelligeble) and sometimes sings. The party asked the older people in the village and the local priest about any young women who died. Turns out a couple died in a fire; their young son is now being raised by his grandmother. A local woodchopper was engaged but broke off the engagement some years ago for reasons nobody knows; his fiancee moved to a city not too far from the village. There used to live a husband and wife in the house currently rented by the Cleric's inlaws, but they moved out about a decade ago, nobody knows where. I think currently the party is most interested in the woodchopper and the inlaws' house.
The mysterious gentleman turned out to be a vampire, which they figured out rather quickly (out of game tho, I don't think the characters themselves know yet). He has only heard about the happenings from his servants, as he has never heard any voice: strange stuff usually leaves him alone after all, and the servants acknowledged they never had anything happen on the grounds of the gentleman's house. (In hindsight, I shouldn't have done this as it immediately removed (or seemed to remove anyway) the vampire gentleman from the suspect list. The party unanimously decided to leave him alone since he was 'obviously' not the cause.)
But back behind the DM screen...
The woodchopper will turn out to be a werewolf. The druid, who is gay and has no concept of monogamy (not because he's gay but because he was raised literally by wolves, which has caused him problems several times), has already shown interest in him (me: "it's a woodchopper, chopping wood." Druid: "is he shirtless?!" Me: "... yes. And muscled and sweaty and oh stop pawing at him."). That of course led the party to think that the man was gay as well, and that was 'obviously' the reason he broke off the engagement. So I'm going to make him a werewolf - he's already established as being rough and a bit... uncouth. So werewolf fits, and it gives them something to fight, and then the druid can have a lover who is both man and animal. I hope he likes that. (And if not, well, no skin off my nose. ;))
The vampire gentleman... I still want to have a twist with him. Right now the party has basically dismissed him, and I just think that's a shame of a good character. Roughly, I used Dracula as character inspiration, so he's gentlemanly but still with an air of fierce power, and he definitely drinks human blood. But I kind of need to figure out a way to bring him back into the story. The Paladin did detect evil with him because, well, he's a vampire, but right now he seems a pretty harmless vampire.
The Cleric is possessed. This is the biggest twist and it fills me with glee how the rest of the party just basically pats her on the head and more or less ignores that plotline. The Cleric's player is in cahoots with me, and I give her pointers on how to act. We're sloooowwwlly twisting her character, and hopefully the party will notice before she goes off the deep end. Right now she's already been targeted the most by the mysterous ghost. The ghost is that of a young woman who lived in the Cleric's inlaws' house several decades ago. She gave birth to a baby, but the child was evil/an abomination/Just Wrong, and it either died or was locked away in a disappointments room (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MadwomanInTheAttic) kind of thing. The woman eventually died of grief. Her husband moved away, trying to put this whole sad affair behind him. A couple of years later an elderly couple, wanting to settle down, decided to rent the house - the cleric's inlaws. What do you know, they found this pretty ring, and Fiance NPC ended up giving it to the Cleric. The ring used to belong to the young woman who died, and her ghost/spirit is tied to it. Now the Cleric is wearing it, she'll start seeing the young woman more and more and she will eventually be taken over by the ghost. She'll be drawn to the house where 'she' used to live. Eventually (and hopefully not too soon - don't want to show all my aces too soon) the party will discover the room the baby was locked up in, with a box with some old photographs, a baby bonnet and letters from the woman, happy that she married, that she got pregnant, that she got a beautiful baby girl, then sad that there's something wrong with the baby, that it died... (I love having props for my games.) And then!
... and then I dunno.
Hopefully, in my ideal game world where the players do exactly what I want them to do (i.e. never gonna happen), the cleric will get frantic and will end up 'having' to fight the party because she wants the box with the keepsakes, because it's HERS. That will (hopefully) put the fear of god/St Cuthbert into the players and freak them out.
I'd also really like for them to have to fight the baby somehow, too. Is there a kind of monster that can appear in baby form and fight a party? Preferably WITHOUT the Paladin immediately casting Turn Undead, thus ending the entire thing in a major anticlimax.
I'm also not entire sure what I want to do with the young woman. Destroy the baby (man, that sounds so evil) ends the ghost's ties to this world? Somehow doing something with the keepsakes? Promising to use them for another baby, thus giving them a purpose? (That would certainly give me a reason to have the Cleric roll often for pregnancies. ;)) Not quite sure. The young woman was buried at the local graveyard so it's not as if she literally needs to be put to rest.
Are there any rules for possessed items and characters? I read Heroes of Horror but I'm not quite sure if there are any clear rules about it. I might just have to wing it, but I'd rather not. The possessed ring can't be taken off, anyway, so there's that. And a possessed PC? How to do it without being totally obvious at first? My main concern is that, sure, I can call for listen checks and have her hear stuff the others don't, but she usually rolls the lowest of the entire party so that gets a bit conspicuous! And what about Detect Evil? The Paladin cast it as soon as the party first encountered the ghost. I said he didn't detect any evil (because as far as I'm aware, ghosts aren't authomatically evil like vampires are?) so the party was all "lalala oh it's not evil so it can't harm us, let's take our time". So 1) how can I still pester them? 2) Can the possession be detected through any means but noticing that something is decidedly... off, about the Cleric? And how can I let her be 'off' without immediately having a big neon sign go off with "HEY, THIS IS NOT WHAT USUALLY HAPPENS WITH OUR CLERIC". :p
And then in the end I wrap it up with a PC/NPC wedding (I'm sure Mrs Inlaw has some pretty dress stashed away somewhere, or else the cleric'll just have to go in her St Cuthbert robes. Or raid the ghost woman's closet) and a pretty bow, and xp and treasure for everybody.
Cookies if you read this far! So, anybody still alive/awake... got any tips?
And just general horror tips are welcome, too. I already read through this forum and found some excellent music/atmosphere tips. :) Bit of a shame that I'm running this campaign in the summer - bit hard to get spooky when it's still light out!