PDA

View Full Version : The town is cursed. Symptoms?



Chells
2010-07-01, 10:02 AM
Dark forces are trying to get the townsfolk to turn on each other. They have slowly been layering curses on the town. Very isolated island village. Every six months they travel to nieghboring islands for the things they can't produce. We are just about onto the 6 month mark and their trades goods have dissappeared. They are very desparate. Enter the PC's.

So far I have:
Storage barns have caught fire.
Workers sickened.
Birds have gotten into the grain.
A mysterious death.
Only one well left.
Huge flock of birds attacked livestock and later kids.

So, what else could have happened to these poor folk? The idea is to induce lots of suffering not slaughter.
Thanks

pasko77
2010-07-01, 10:04 AM
Dark forces are trying to get the townsfolk to turn on each other. They have slowly been layering curses on the town. Very isolated island village. Every six months they sell they restock the things they can't produce.

Storage barns have caught fire.
Workers sickened.
Birds have gotten into the grain.
A mysterious death.
Only one well left.
Huge flock of birds attacked livestock and later kids.

So, what else can I do to these poor folk? The idea is to induce lots of suffering not slaughter.
Thanks

Broken condoms.
:smalltongue:

Grimlock
2010-07-01, 10:04 AM
Ummmm, rats getting into foodstuffs and spreading disease..dare I say it plague!
Strange creatures/shapes/shadows/things seen around the village.
A new member of the village, or an established one who is possessed/controlled/evil, who is spreading discord and rumours!

Snake-Aes
2010-07-01, 10:05 AM
All children have the same nightmare, every two nights.
When any villager meets someone else for the first time in a day, that someone else seems to reply with a creepy defaced baring of teeth followed by a hiss, but doesn't recall doing that and acts as if nothing happened.

Lord Loss
2010-07-01, 10:08 AM
A few villagers every night have a nightmare, the same nightmare. Some have it repetitively. It shows something about the origins of the curse.

Mirrors shatter during the night.

Livestock die of Cardiac Arrest

Ravens gather in the town square at noon.

kamikasei
2010-07-01, 10:10 AM
How much control have these dark forces over their curses? If they can exempt a handful of people, that'd be a great way to stir up suspicion and hostility - "how come none of this bad stuff is happening to them, they must be behind it!".

I like Snake-Aes' ideas.

All livestock pregnancies are turning out stillborn and deformed.

Coplantor
2010-07-01, 10:12 AM
Cancel all their favourite shows!

Or, give'em nightmares, visions and that kind of stuff. Play mostly with illusions.
Make them all believe that everyone else is a monster, and each citizen will believe they are the only normal guy around, and slowly, make them know that it's heir duty to cleanse the town from the horror that inhabits it.

You could also be a little more subtle, stuff moving around when no one is watching, but not long distances, it shouldnt be obvious, just enough to make them wonder if things are actually moving. There was this book I heard about, in wich the interior of the house was one inch longer than the exterior, that was driving the owner mad!

Big stuff is fantastic, small stuff is unnerving

Snake-Aes
2010-07-01, 10:13 AM
How much control have these dark forces over their curses? If they can exempt a handful of people, that'd be a great way to stir up suspicion and hostility - "how come none of this bad stuff is happening to them, they must be behind it!".

I like Snake-Aes' ideas.

All livestock pregnancies are turning out stillborn and deformed.

Thanks :p the second one is from Heroes of Horror tho.

Another fun one: At night, the village seems...different. The buildings seem to shift and ghostly people who never should have existed are seen talking and leading normal lives. Except, of course, that it's the middle of the night and the actual villagers can see it all, but they can't interact with this "Ghost of a past village".

Chells
2010-07-01, 10:19 AM
Nightmares! Perfect.

Add to that sounds in the night. So half town is afraid to sleep. The other half can't because scratching sounds from walls/roofs/etc.

Things moving good too. Subtle is better. Until the trade goods went missing the townsfolk don't know they are cursed. They just think they are having run of horrible luck.

Telonius
2010-07-01, 10:25 AM
Cancel all their favourite shows!


Or, the equivalent: all the bards in the town have had a rash of broken strings, split reeds, broken drums, etc.

Other ideas:

Ghost sightings.

Oldest man in the town mutters darkly that he's seen this sort of thing before.

No rain.

Itinerant prophet came through a month ago, nobody gave him much thought.

All the hens lay "bloody eggs."

Timmy was bitten by a snake, Johnny tripped and fell and broke his arm, the blacksmith's anvil shattered, the painter's ladder broke. (Basically a whole bunch of random "misfortunes" happen all at once. Taken together it seems weird).

The local Weird Old Woman has a pet raven. It's usually talkative, but the last few days, it's saying only, "Leave now."

The butcher noticed that the last three animals he's slaughtered were walking normally, but when he cut them open, none of them had hearts.

Vulaas
2010-07-01, 10:30 AM
There's all sorts of goodies for this in Heroes of Horror

Coplantor
2010-07-01, 10:31 AM
Thanks :p the second one is from Heroes of Horror tho.

Another fun one: At night, the village seems...different. The buildings seem to shift and ghostly people who never should have existed are seen talking and leading normal lives. Except, of course, that it's the middle of the night and the actual villagers can see it all, but they can't interact with this "Ghost of a past village".

The first part of your post got me thinking of Dark City.

A sinister twist is that he curse was not made due to something that actually makes sense, but because some wizard/demon/giant evil cow was bored and needed some distraction.

"Tell me! Tell me why? Why we've been through all of this? What's the reason for all the suffering we had endured through all of our lives?"

"I thought it was hilarious"

kamikasei
2010-07-01, 10:32 AM
The butcher noticed that the last three animals he's slaughtered were walking normally, but when he cut them open, none of them had hearts.

Nice.

Oh, an island? Have a few animals run off cliffs or drown themselves, ideally in full view of the farmer so that it's clearly weird behaviour on their part rather than a simple accident.

The Shadowmind
2010-07-01, 10:42 AM
Have a clockmaker lock himself in and start making thousands of effigy spiders. The little constructs are pretty much harmless but they start getting everywhere. Then when the PC open the door to find him, he has been completely replaced by a swarm of them making up his form, as he has replaced himself with them in his madness.

Flickerdart
2010-07-01, 10:44 AM
The rats have all fled.

subject42
2010-07-01, 11:12 AM
When the villagers plant their remaining grain, all that grows in the fields are thorns and nettles. When they try to cut them down, the sap within them glistens like blood.

wizuriel
2010-07-01, 11:12 AM
Once the PC's arrive have them make listen checks at random times in the town (or at random locations). Those that fail the test hear strange whispers on the wind.

Kaiyanwang
2010-07-01, 11:21 AM
All livestock pregnancies are turning out stillborn and deformed.

I like it very much. If well described, can be very scary. If the game allows it (age of players and such) one could think to shift deformities on human(oid) babies born.

Disturbing Spoiler Warning

I remember a tale of Stephen King that scared me a lot - the way he described a cursed family or something similar, where a baby was born without facial features.


As a variant, one could take this theme and make it more "politically correct". As an example, babies could grow too fast or too slow.

UnChosenOne
2010-07-01, 11:24 AM
Maybe clocks 've started to work strangely after PC's arrive? For example striking 13 times at midnight or sommething like that.

That inn where PC's are staying? They could for example find the mummified (not as monster mummy but as natural normal mummy) corpse of the woman who is/was breastfeeding corpse of still-born child under the floors. The joke is that this woman tried to escape from the town with her kid after things started to happen.

jseah
2010-07-01, 11:35 AM
Time and space could be screwed up.

People find themselves walking into the pub a minute later/earlier than the group they were going together with.

Or walking into the wrong house when they were right. (but not sure enough to be absolutely certain)

The young children who go out to play report finding a glade in the nearby woods that no one else can find. The children can't find it if the adults are around.


If it gets more extreme (noticeable), you could have people stumble on stairs that seem to be always one step too short/long, even if you looked and the steps and walked.


Other things can be the one-eyed beggar finding a strange lump in his empty socket which turns out to be his eye regrowing (it's normal but grows quickly over a few days from a lump to a full eyeball that works)
Basically, the town cripple regrows his deformity for no reason.

Someone's bucket appears to draw sweet drinkable water from the well. Everyone else's bucket draws metallic tasting water (it's not poisonous or only at the stomachache level)

The patrons in the pub find thier mugs mysteriously drained/filled when they don't recall refilling/drinking.

Someone finds a large cache of solid unmarked gold bars in his field. That he has tilled many times before and would certainly have hit it. There are no tracks, no sign of anyone burying it, no possible reason for it to be there.

One kid disappears while out playing. The others with him report him wandering off in a specific direction. Then another disappears the same way. And another.
After the search parties give up, they wander back into town as if no time had passed at all for each of them.

Master_Rahl22
2010-07-01, 12:12 PM
Creepiest "weird stuff is going on in this town" example I know of is from the latest Wheel of Time book, A Gathering Storm:
After sundown, the villagers go insane and try to kill each other with their bare hands. No matter what condition they were in at the end of the night, including dead, they wake up in their beds the next morning with memories of what happened. Anybody from outside the village who dies there will wake up in the village again every morning, making them unable to ever leave.

MickJay
2010-07-01, 12:18 PM
The land around the village inexplicably begins turning into a swamp. Plague of mosquitoes and fevers. Sunlight in the village and the nearest area becomes dimmed, on top of that, dark clouds seem to appear much more frequently in the sky than they used to. Days and nights turn gradually colder, despite the time of year (or perhaps this coldness is only felt by the people). Food loses much of its taste and spoils fast. Domesticated animals become aggressive for no reason. Clothes and fabrics age and decay very quickly. Plants wither and die.

Umael
2010-07-01, 12:19 PM
I just finished playing in an online L5R game not that long ago where the village was under something like a curse. Basically, an entity was trapped within the sacred lake next to it, and said entity was influencing the villagers to give in to their dark desires. It was all subtle stuff, nothing like some of the more dramatic things listed, but it kept building.

Everything that happened was perfectly explainable - someone who had coveted another man's wife for a long time finally boiled over and killed that man; a bullying kid tortured a kitten to death; tempers flared and people go into arguments.

But in the midst of all of this, the people were very charming and friendly. They liked the PCs (for the most part) and the PCs liked them (for the most part).

It were other things too. One of the PCs gave a samurai boy a dressing-down for behaving inappropriately, to the point where the boy felt that his non-combatant aunt would have to duel to defend their family honor. That boy decided that the only way to protect both his aunt and the family honor was to commit suicide right there (the PCs managed to stop him). Others were very promiscious and adventurous. Those who were particularly strong of mind and will did fine, except that when the entity was released in the end-of-game battle, we found ourselves first having to fight a lot of the villagers we had come to care about, and then the monstrous minions of the BBEG.

For the record, the death toll for the PCs included the shugenja who willingly betrayed the group, the bushi who had to sacrifice his own life to manifest as the new guardian spirit that could fight the BBEG, a second bushi who was overwhelmed by the mob of nearly-mind-controlled villagers (the death-blow was given to him by the 13-year-old girl he had earlier saved from being raped), and the monk who was the last member of the 1000-year-old sacred order who had originally contained the BBEG. We also lost several NPCs on both sides (the magistrate was torn apart by the mob, his bodyguard lost control and had to be killed by the PCs, etc.), and nearly lost the two-months-pregnant master archer PC.

Basically, anything that could be explained as "normal human behavior" was fair game... just... it was a bit on the extreme side.

sciencepanda
2010-07-01, 12:28 PM
Crops grow unusually large, but crumble into dust when picked.

People and livestock become unusually thin and pale.

Swarms of large insects of an unknown species.

Occasional hallucinations for those in the area.

Coidzor
2010-07-01, 12:29 PM
Angry (and rather cowardly) druids. Burn down the nearby forests, tree and kelp in order to get them to face you in combat.

Just so you know the immediate conclusion they're going to jump to from the ones you have so far.

Anyway...


Children born a color that is wrong for the race they're a part of, if human... orange or purple or some such, or even just ashen grey like a variety of drow, if elven silvery-blue and translucent or black in the way that humans are black rather than drow black, or just failing the paper bag test without being one of Lolth's ilk.


Or something really weird like a full-blooded member of another race, say goliath, minotaur, sahuagin, being born from a human couple.


Or something sufficiently squicky, like harlequin fetuses being the rule or humanoids giving birth to animals and animals to humanoids or pseudonatural, soulless children that have blond hair and blue eyes without exception and appear normal except for their alien minds already functioning upon birth but also being wrong, wrong, wrong... and probably having something more like a red-right hand than outright is covered in tentacle-rape like most pseudo-natural creatures.



Or just no children being born. At all. Not even to the livestock. No pregnancies either. On pregnancies that were preexisting, you can have those continue normally, have them be very sickly and life-threatening, have the women die in childbirth without exception since it started happening, or just have 'em all miscarry.



I'd prefer for maximum creepiness if overnight even heavily pregnant women no longer were pregnant at all. Their swollen belly just disappears with no baby in its wake.

For an isolated people, that alone will **** them up with fatalism.

Crafty Cultist
2010-07-01, 12:29 PM
How about having the children born into the village be born with eyes that are entirely black?

paddyfool
2010-07-01, 12:38 PM
Alter any of the following you like:

Appearance: perhaps everything looks grey, or less well-lit than it should be, or out of proportion, or darker than it should be, or has an after-image, or, of course, you see things that just couldn't be there
Sounds: perhaps an unnatural hush, or everything seeming louder than it should be; or weirdly altered pitches to sounds; or echoes
Smells: perhaps other people all smell faintly nauseating; or all smells are turned up way beyond what they should be; or a weird smell of blood, ash, or rotting flesh hanges over everything
Tastes: perhaps no food tastes any good, unless it's fresh raw meat... which tastes delicious
Sensations: perhaps injuries hurt more than they should; or other people touching you feels wrong
Motivations: you could crank up any natural urges towards any of the seven sins that you like... but beware of inducing lust. You may not want to take your friends down that road
Sense of direction: you're on an island; maybe boats either often get lost at sea and unable to find their way back, or get drawn towards the island when they had no intention of travelling in its direction


Just a few ideas to get you going, really.

Coplantor
2010-07-01, 12:41 PM
For source and inspirational materials, you should look for anything related to Ravenloft

Snake-Aes
2010-07-01, 12:41 PM
How about having the children born into the village be born with eyes that are entirely black?

Better yet, make the color change every dawn, and make it a novelty among the youngest. They cheerfully expect for the next day, making sure they go to sleep as early as they wake up if they didn't like the new color...

UnChosenOne
2010-07-01, 12:49 PM
I quess that the town is fishing village. So in nearby lake/sea/bay fishes 've started to die/be replaced by something more exotic (read:creepier) marine animals.

Maybe towns's priest (the jolly good natured shepard type not I-purge-you type) has commited suicide sometime before PC's arive by somewhat bizzare way and thus towns only temple has been corrupted. Peoples hear strange voices inside of it and dead priest ghost is sometimes seen keeping sermons inside like nothing had been happened.

taltamir
2010-07-01, 01:07 PM
Broken condoms.
:smalltongue:

I think you meant "inexplicit failing of the contraceptive cantrips"

Coidzor
2010-07-01, 01:26 PM
I think you meant "inexplicit failing of the contraceptive cantrips"

I still stand by it being creepier once they realize they can't become pregnant at all, none of them at all, not even the animals of the farm, birds of the air, or fish of the sea.

Although... the contraceptive cantrips failing for awhile and then coming back in the middle of the pregnancies....:smallamused:

FMArthur
2010-07-01, 01:38 PM
Odd noises, odd grey shapes moving out of sight at the edges of peripheral vision, and the occasional violent but disturbingly silent death all occur in the night. On more than one occasion, a person finds themself unable to use their voice for a several long minutes during the night.

Days are perpetually cloudy and grey, and every day lasts a little longer than the last, which does not appear to be seasonal. Villagers suffer from insomnia and grow fatigued, making the town gradually quieter and unhappier. All of the unsettling things that only seemed to happen in the night before begin to happen in the day. Nearly perpetual twilight sets in...

mcl01
2010-07-01, 01:45 PM
I haven't read through the entire thread, but I'm tossing out a few ideas. Hope i'm not repeating too many


Children born with deformities - misshapen hands, feet, faces, etc.
Cursed ground produces poisonous/diseased crops
animal diseases akin to Mad Cow disease
Infectious "Bad luck" - Random people have bad luck, and people who interact with them catch it in a viral manner
Unseasonal weather - nonstop snowstorms, driving rain
Exodus of animal life
Undead rising
Growing insanity - people in town under constant threat of permanent mental ability drain. Coupled with nightmarish dreams, visions, and hallucinations.
Corrupted bodies - people under constant threat of permanent physical ability drain
Discolored, rancid tasting food (otherwise fine)
Slow buildup of an unbearable stench
People slowly sleeping for longer periods of time (perhaps 9 hours/day, slowly creeping upward until they're all permanently comatose)
Dimensional rifts to the Negative Energy plane
Slowed rate of natural healing
Loss of senses
Vermin grow increasingly intelligent. Eventually forming massive swarms and/or hiveminds. Possible coupled with vast multiplication of vermin in the area
Weakened effect of divine magic - implementing some sort of "divine spell failure %" in the same vein as arcane spell failure. Or increased material or XP costs to spells.
Confusion of languages
Ghost hauntings
Death of surrounding vegetation

Erts
2010-07-01, 01:47 PM
I think a lot of the suggestions here are good, but try not to overdo it. If it seems to overt, things will lose their mysteriousness.

Telonius
2010-07-01, 01:51 PM
Ooh, missed the fact it's an island! That gives lots of other possibilities.

- Sightings of ships that were known to have sunk years ago.
- Fishermen seeing faces in the water of comrades known to be drowned.
- The tides don't come in one day.
- One day the beaches are filled to overflowing with dying horseshoe crabs. Flocks of carrion birds appear as though from nowhere and carry them all off.
- Fishermen report that fish have screamed for mercy when they're pulled into the boats.
- One man reported that his oar was caught in some seaweed. When he tried to get it out, something tried to pull him in.

Raimun
2010-07-01, 02:39 PM
How about almost catatonic people?

Not everyone but a sizeable population of the villagers (like 5-10%) are almost catatonic. They are still able to walk (more like, shamble forward) and do some basic stuff (like eat, not very often and when they do: random stuff) but they don't speak at all and don't seem to sleep either. Expect weird staring from them sometimes.

However, it wouldn't be a disease or a virus since it doesn't spread from people to people. Eventually it's revealed that they all got it from single source. It's up to the heroes to find out who or what is behind this.

taltamir
2010-07-01, 02:45 PM
I still stand by it being creepier once they realize they can't become pregnant at all, none of them at all, not even the animals of the farm, birds of the air, or fish of the sea.

Although... the contraceptive cantrips failing for awhile and then coming back in the middle of the pregnancies....:smallamused:

actually, that is a good point, it would be creepier. Although it would also have the unfortunate effect of having them all die of starvation.
How about limit it to mammals?
So they run out of livestock, and the people aren't having kids, pets and rats are gone... but birds, snakes, bugs and most importantly, crops all still reproduce normally.
And the birds, snakes, and bugs behave... *ominous thunder* "Abnormally"

Dr.Epic
2010-07-01, 02:47 PM
Vicious thunderstorms or other nasty weather.

taltamir
2010-07-01, 02:49 PM
Vicious thunderstorms or other nasty weather.

seems a bit too obvious... how about "it rains... always"?
no wait, that would eliminate the crops and result in them dying out wouldn't it? it is supposed to cause suffering but not death.

Kaiyanwang
2010-07-01, 02:49 PM
On the line of deformities, what about a quote from "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", H.P. Lovercraft?

The inhabitants seem to show some slight deformity, maybe resembling some fish creature.

The more time players spent in the island, the more the inhabitants seem monstrous.

Take care to let the players wonder, by your descriptions, if the villagers become more monstrous more time passing, or they are simply noticing this thing and light, dark, suggestion, fear, exaggerate odd somatic traits.

Instill paranoia.

deuxhero
2010-07-01, 02:54 PM
Do you believe in ghosts?
No? What's that white hand on your shoulder then?


Ominous fog would be a bit too obvious.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-01, 02:57 PM
Ever since an odd traveler came by, people have heard the sound of creatures smelling around, with a shuddering accompanied by a sense of utter wrongness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hounds_of_Tindalos). Those who talked to the traveler disappeared shortly after they mentioned such sounds, and were found a few days later, laid in fetal position, bloodshot eyes that don't blink and muttering senseless incomplete words, most of them chewed out their own tongues.

Escheton
2010-07-01, 03:10 PM
All the woman in town become raging lesbians over night.

Random bouts of lust and jealousy. Sometimes violently so. Homicidal rage, rape,though harsh, plausible if the condition last for too long. Works best for a round or 2 though.

First 2 work best with a succubus haunting though.


Roads become soggy and difficult to travel.

Fog banks that leave bloody residue on shrubbery.

Local rain , for instance 1 house. Perhaps only during certain hours.

Fingernails that discolour or grow rapidly.

Bugs, lots of them.

Ecstatically happy and cheery npc, completely out of place with the rest of the mood. Works well if something horrible has just befallen him/her

It is very difficult to heat the houses.

Doors open and close without handling and squeak terribly.

The sound of beating hearts are heard from under floorboards. But after inspection, there is nothing there.

Halitosis, terrible terrible halitosis.

Je dit Viola
2010-07-01, 03:16 PM
Oh, I have one! It's really creepy - so creepy that it was put into TVTropes.

After a couple of days after the things happening, all of a sudden, there's one day where everything's normal. Nothing lurking behind you, nothing hiding in the shadows, no odd sounds out of place. The averageness of the day is emphasized.

Throughout the entire day, things are just...not happening. People keep on expecting something to happen ("I heard that tonight..." "There's going to be something big later today; I can feel it." "What? Odd occurnances? What are those?" "It's quiet...too quiet."), but nothing happens.


Edit: And, also, just because it's obligatory for me to suggest it, there's a lone musician travelling through town, playing his instrument (I would prefer a viola, but a violin works just as fine) in the streets, seemingly aloof of all the goingons.
During the night, his music can be heard echoing throughout the streets.

@\/: Huh?

Snake-Aes
2010-07-01, 03:28 PM
Edit: And, also, just because it's obligatory for me to suggest it, there's a lone musician travelling through town, playing his instrument (I would prefer a viola, but a violin works just as fine) in the streets, seemingly aloof of all the goingons.
During the night, his music can be heard echoing throughout the streets.

Dragon Quest :D

Dr.Epic
2010-07-01, 03:46 PM
seems a bit too obvious... how about "it rains... always"?
no wait, that would eliminate the crops and result in them dying out wouldn't it? it is supposed to cause suffering but not death.

Well given any form of suffering people could die. The threat of fear could lead to irrational behavior and even slaughter of each other.

Doctor D&D
2010-07-01, 04:11 PM
With all the things that you have put in already the nightmare is the nature progression.

Then move on to more blatant things, and end with the Mists coming to take the island.

When I hear cursed towns near water, I think aboleths. Just my two cents.

LCP
2010-07-01, 04:58 PM
Pick one PC, or recognisable NPC. Whatever nasty things are happening, they don't seem to happen to them. Whoever that person has any possible motive to dislike, the bad things happen to them worst, moving down the 'list'. Once people start accusing them of being behind said bad things, have hysteria escalate with lots of people throwing accusations hither and thither, like the Salem Witch Trials.

Who needs the supernatural when you have a whole pack of human beings ready to make things worse?

AvatarZero
2010-07-01, 06:54 PM
Page 8 of Heroes of Horror is the start of a whole list of creepy things to get your players on edge (assuming they allow themselves to get on edge, it's not everyone's idea of a fun game). They're always variations on a theme of "it's unnatural, it's obvious, but there's no clear way to react to it". Getting PCs to be passive about something that's happening around them is always difficult; most of the time if you show a PC a curse they'll simply ask "So how do I break it?"

herrhauptmann
2010-07-01, 10:00 PM
Variations in the natural order.
Marine life beaching itself on the shores.
A red tide
Geese fly in a reversed V
The only church is struck by lightning, and the head priest is crushed/impaled by the largest/most significant icon within the church. During services for extra points.
The extreme ordinariness sounds good, but seems like it would put too much effort on the DM to come up a lot of variations on the theme, otherwise he'll have villagers responding with the same 9 messages, like in a cheap RPG where they only program 2 responses for each stage of the game.
Could couple the ordinariness with a groundhog day thing. Perhaps start teh day out with a combat, and before the game, preroll the monster attacks. Now you've pretty much ensured that the combat will be identical except for the actions of the players. Of course, for the proper feel, you'll need to use enemies with dull tactics. (Have the dice prerolled, both attacks and damage, but just roll a dice behind the screen so the players don't catch on too fast, or think you're railroading.)

Thiyr
2010-07-02, 01:58 AM
For some reason, and I don't know if this will help overmuch, but if you want this to be a long-term thing, you may be able to glean some inspiration from this Let's Play of Animal Crossing. Warning for strong language at times and violent imagery. (http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Animal%20Crossing/index.html)

If you do that, though, it might be a bit...railroad-y, as the "curse" may be more for the players, considering that implies the "villagers" would be playing along with the "curse" to avoid being punished and/or killed. Play up how nice the villagers seem at first, but let it sink in that they're not as nice as they seem, that something else is going on. If you do this, the trick will probably be finding inventive and realistic ways from keeping the players from leaving. Water is always too rough to safely sail out, weather is always making flight a risky proposition, likely to toss you into the water. Attempts to escape are met with (apologetic) hostility from the villagers, who act like nothing happened the next day.

Incorrect
2010-07-02, 05:38 AM
Pregnancies seems to be creepy..
How about all the women become pregnant at the same time. Their stomachs seem to grow way to rapidly. In stead of nine months, the pregnancy seems to last only a few days. The doctor cant find any signs of life from the growing stomachs. This will give the players a few days to worry about this phenomena. When the women give birth, something comes out. Something unnatural, horrible. Maybe spiders, intestines, or the undead-fetus-monster.

The church bells ring every midnight, even though no one is ringing them. Bad things seem to happen to everyone outside while this happens.

One of the large families in town haven't been seen for days. When players go to their house to investigate, they have tortured each other to death. Let the players enjoy the depravity for a while before the twisted remains attack them.

The sound of a music box seems to come from the grave of a dead child (yes, Rammstein reference)

Maybe all the children are seen as innocent in the eyes to whoever cast the curse, so they never experience any effects of the curse and just run around playing in the streets.

--Lime--
2010-07-02, 06:06 AM
oh dear god I just spent half an hour typing out 4 really detailed suggestions and it doesnt post.

I'll...*sigh*... I'll type them back up. Sorry if this version seems rushed.

THINGS I LIKE SO FAR:
Various animal things (see below)
Changing colour of eyes which I'll adapt below.
Children having a hidden place that disappears when adults are with the kids, which I'll expand below.
Things like the well water tasting off to all but a few, basically divide and conquer... which I'll adapt below.
Shared Nightmares, which I won't expand below, but I will say that it's best to have it establish a pattern, then break the pattern, but unless it's actually been cured, it comes back every time. Could really screw with your N/PCs (NPCs and PCs)

EDIT #2 - Hooray! Finished! After all that, somebody had better read it and comment!

-------------------------------------------------------
BARLEY BARLEY EVERYWHERE AND NOT A GRAIN TO EAT
So the people are always hungry. They get enough food --just-- to stay alive, but food is always short. As has been suggested, whether it's fish begging for their lives, animals that won't be eaten because they have no hearts, or eggs that are filled with blood, the populace is just getting by. Constantly starving hungry, but never dying of starvation.

Thing is every day they go into the fields, cut the crop, load up the carts, bring it back, fill the barn and in the morning the crop is back in the fields again, roots and all. The barn is empty, and anything made from the crop is gone (so if they try grinding flour on the day that they harvest, the sacks are empty). After a few days of this, they appoint a watchman to stay up all night, but whoever they choose always wakes up the next morning when the others come to check the barn, and while he know's he's been asleep he doesn't remember falling asleep. This happens to everyone they appoint.

In vain, they go back to the fields to harvest.

When the PCs arrive, they find that the barns are full of grain and that it is even starting to rot, untouched. The people are standing in the fields, waving scythes inches above the stubble of a recently-harvested field. They lift invisible bundles into empty carts, and drive bewildered horses back into town, where they empty large bundles of nothing into the barns. The flour they grind is not gone from the sack, but this isn't realised. Whenever some of the grain is taken from the barn and made into flour, it's poured into a sack, overflowing and spilling on the floor. But the villagers think the bags are empty, and will argue that PCs are liars.

BURN THE WITCH
So food is short (even though it isn't :P). But there's always one or two people who, every morning, have a bacon joint and a wheel of cheese in the pantry, a loaf of bread rising in the oven, and the kitchen table dusted with flour like they've been up all night baking.

When discovered, probably by neighbours attracted by the smell of baking bread, they have no idea how it all got there. As soon as they are left alone for even a moment (just enough for the next bit to happen...) only the bone remains from the bacon joint, only the rind remains from the cheese, only a few crumbs of crust are where the loaf was on the cutting board, and the small bag of flour has disappeared (if you want, it can look like it's been hastily thrown out of a window, with flour all over the muddy ground).

They get accused of hiding supplies, of wasting food, of having a pact with the devil... you choose. They are dragged off to jail, and not given any ration except water. Yet every morining, the bread, cheese and bacon is back. Inside the cell bars. Naturally, they're found guilty, but in the customary few days/week between sentencing and death penalty, they stop getting food in the cell. No, instead the neighbour who led the mob, or the most vocal prosecutor, or the priest, or the magistrate, or even the mayor starts to wake up to find his larder full and his table dusted with flour. He protests his innocence. People accuse him of entering a pact with whatever demon the others were in league with, since when burned they could be of no more use to the devil.

The previous prisoners are freed, their souls apparently saved, and this new guilty party is banged up in jail. Still, food appears inside the cell again, until sentence is passed...

(repeat to fade!)

"NO YOU!" "NO, YOU!"
Two equally honest villagers are having massive disagreements. Each is being totally truthful when he describes the offence he saw/knows the other committed against him. Do the PCs take sides? Do they end up in the middle, on the wrong end of both parties' anger? Do they attend a trial where one plaintiff has to lose, and faces a severe penalty? Do they then step in to stop the penalty, at the risk of upsetting the whole town? Decisions like these will test whether your players are playing as a party or not. They do not have to know that both sides are being honest - in fact, it's better if they don't. A good party will not take sides on the basis of hearsay, but the most fun ones to DM for will :P!

THE SECRET GARDEN
Yes, the children know of a grove where fat rabbits lie lazily around waiting to be eaten, and the fruit trees have just the juiciest apples and peaches and pears, and blackberries large and ripe adorn every bramble bush in sight - and even mushrooms and wild onions have been seen growing there. Thing is, when the adults press the children to lead them there, they can't.

It's put down to a joke in very bad taste, played by kids who don't understand the seriousness of the situation on adults who are constantly hungry.

That is, until the children return with berry stains around their mouths, or some boys come back with a rabbitskin pouch, or the girls have stained their pretty frocks with juice from the peaches dribbling down their chin.

This is no joke any more. The place clearly exists, and the parents swing from trying to wheedle the real location from the children to trying to bully it out of them. Mothers break down in tears as they try to explain that the kid NEEDS to tell them where this place is, or the whole town will surely die - their friends, and friends' parents too. Fathers take the belt to many a young'un's backside. And yet, when sent off to find the grove, either together or separately, the children all head to exactly the same spot where there is... nothing. Just grass. No rabbits. No fruit trees. Not even any mushrooms. The parents can't comprehend why the children are being this cruel and stupid, or how they managed to co-ordinate where they'd lead the parents to. And those that turn 13 during all of this suddenly lose all sense of where the grove ever was overnight.

So the parents decide to send them off with baskets and buckets, but the children return having lost the bucket, or with the basket broken, its wicker holed.

What do the PCs make of it? How to solve this problem? Another chance for mediation, and even for the players to get frustrated if they end up believing the parents.

ROSE-TINTED VIEW OF THINGS
Have you ever put a plastic bottle cap of a bold colour over one eye, closed the eye that wasn't covered, and kept the covered eye open? Then, after a few minutes, removed the bottle cap, and seen how (if the cap was red) the covered eye sees everything bathed in blue-green, and the closed eye sees things blushing in scarlet? No? Well, try it if you haven't. Don't worry - your eyes fix themselves within 5 minutes, but it's cool while it lasts.

This affliction is like that. Every day, the town wakes up and all the buildings are bathed in shades of crimson, or aquamarine, or tangerine, or vermillion, or any other colour with a delicious name that you can think of. Mauve, perhaps.

This excites all the little kids, who play guessing games about what colour the world will be the next day, but the adults worry. They know this is not right. Things stayed the same when they were nippers.

As the sun begins to set, the colour drains from the world. Everything goes into a fuzzy grey, and as the sun reaches the horizon and the moon is high above, everything is in the starkest contrast: either a deatly shade of pale; a candid blanche - or is a dark, inky and impenetrable black. Shadows envelop those who enter them, and provide total, unfaltering concealment. Even those suffused in the umbra cannot see their noses in front of their faces, but must skip between islands of light, hoping they do not catch their toes on uneven cobbles or abandoned handcarts.

As dawn approaches, a new colour seeps slowly back into the world, like a watercolour wash. Today is a Tuesday. What will it be? Ochre? Burnt umber? Bisque? Last Tuesday, it was alder. Yesterday faded from a verdant mesclun to a dignified sage, before turning that hazy silver in the twilight. What can we expect today? One hopes, as he sees the sun rise, that today - just for today - his world will be bathed in gentle puce.

--Lime--
2010-07-02, 07:16 AM
This is a bit of a bump because this is probably my last post before October, and having rewritten the last one it would be dissatisfying to say the least if I didn't get some feedback on it before I left. So... if anyone could have a read I'd be very grateful.