PDA

View Full Version : Looking for adventure ideas for a Lovecraftian themed exploration of a deserted town.



Talakeal
2013-05-13, 06:17 PM
Ok, so for my current campaign the players have just come out on top of a world shattering apocalypse that resulted in the near complete destruction of humanoid civilization and the deaths of most of the gods.

As a result of the apocalypse there are no a number of "rifts" where the far realm is leaking through into the physical world. The players are trying to track down and seal these rifts, and have located one somewhere in the town of Lampwych Court. The description of the town is as follows:


"At the time of the Cataclysm the town was among the most prosperous in the northlands with a population growing steadily, and if the Imperium had not collapsed it might have eventually become a great frontier city. The city ceased to grow after the Warlords took possession of the region, but it did not die or give in to ruin. The town was never razed and the town chose to acquiesce to the Warlord’s wishes and provide good and conscripts in exchange for his protection.

The town is small, but large enough and modern enough to have paved streets lit by gaslight and for the majority of the homes to be of a quality built by professional carpenters.

A few years back, the town's population suddenly disappeared. There was no sign of natural disaster or battle, indeed the town is still in almost the same fine shape it was when the city was lost. The town was simply abandoned, of its population there is no trace. There are many stories, but few have the ring of truth, some say that a great fog came in off the nearby lake in the middle of the night and when the morning sun burned it away the town was empty, others that subterranean horrors came up from the sewers and carried the people off to the underground, and still other stories claim that a cult within the town conducted a great ritual that went horribly wrong.

Many treasure hunters and explorers have attempted to loot the town or unravel the mystery with little success, but most do not stay in the town long, an impending feeling of dread forcing them to return prematurely, if they return at all."


So I am trying to come up with ideas as to what the players will find there and what sort of encounters they could have within the city. I will, of course, have to shed some light on what exactly caused the disappearance of the city's inhabitants, and figure out some way for the players to deal with it while at the same time finding a way to seal the rift (which may or may not be related).


At the moment I am somewhat dry as far as inspiration goes, and would love to hear what sort of ideas the playground can come up with for me to meld into an awesome adventure.



Note that this is for my homebrew system, which is a gothic sword and sorcery setting. The players are powerful, but still mostly within real world human limits, and the party sorcerer can do pretty much anything, but requires lots of time to prepare and recover afterward. Any advice which would apply to low op d20 will work fine.

Thanks everyone!

Grinner
2013-05-13, 06:23 PM
Have fog roll into the town just to set the players on edge.

Zahhak
2013-05-13, 10:44 PM
I'm not sure how familiar you are with horror, so, sorry if this seems insulting:

I think there are few key points to dealing with Lovecraftian horrors, and indeed any horrors. I've never run a horror game, but I've written some horror short stories, and this is more or less my advice. Use it as you like.

1. The enemies should be massively stronger than the protagonist
- DND makes this kind of nice, because I can say something like "the CR should be at least twice the parties combined level". In fact, 1st level commoners would probably be better, because they don't have the hope of fighting their way out. They can run and hide, or die.

2. People should die
- You should frankly open the first session with "my goal is to kill as many of you as I can"

3. The enemy cannot be avoided
- It's cliche, but locked in a cabin, or trapped out in the woods basically forces the party to deal with something they simply cannot. If they can avoid the enemy they have no chance of beating, why would they engage? Exactly. It's better to use a cliche if you have to, then leave a massive plot hole.

4. Monster sightings and fear of the monster are inversely correlated.
- Mathy way of saying, the more you see it, the less likely you are to poo your pants when it approaches. So, if there is a nine limbed monster crawling around the city, the protagonists should see things like, its slime trail, but not it. Or maybe just a part of a limb. But never, never, show the whole monster.

5. Have a plan and a good story line
- Flow charting out all possible actions and their consequences isn't a terrible plan, but I won't say you have to. Basically just be prepared. And if the party starts to predict the events or notice plot holes, the whole event is going to be just as ruined as premature ejaculation.

6. Good horror is like good sex: slow and methodical
- OK, that's poor wording, but the whole event of good horror is kind of like good sex. There's the non-sexual but arousing opening (the general exploration of some place), the undressing (finding a corpse), the foreplay (doors closing on their own, strange sounds and sights), the actual sex (the first hint of the monster and running in the opposite direction), the climax (party members start dying), and the orgasm (everyone dies).

7. Pacing
This is last because pacing is kind of built on the rest. A big thing with horror is that it's continuous. Continuing the sex metaphor that will probably get deleted, it isn't sexy to get to the climax and walk away and come back a week later. Getting there, backing off to the beginning and working your way back up, sure. But don't take week long breaks. If you goal is horror, to make the protagonists crap themselves uncontrollably in terror, you need to get the whole story resolved in a single session, or a few very quickly related sessions.

I could also throw something in about mood setting, like by using music (good damn, sex metaphor continued), but that isn't strictly necessary.

For specific encounter ideas, the rifts are leaking monsters into the world that are several steps past being merely "alien monstrosities". Their form should be nearly indescribable, their actions unexplainable, and their indifference to your existence unavoidable.

kieza
2013-05-14, 01:40 AM
Set up an encounter wherein you try to drag at least one player off into the shadows/mists. Later, when the players get into another encounter and kill a few monsters, tell them when they search the bodies that one of the horrific inhuman things is wearing bits and pieces of the missing player's gear. It's up to you whether he was corrupted into a monster or just had his gear taken.

Perhaps the cultists/monsters are performing a ritual that involves their own willing sacrifice. Once the players find out about it, point out that killing the monsters may very well work to fuel the ritual. Now they have to leave as many as possible alive, paving the way for them to escape or summon something unspeakable in the players' base of operations.

Conceal the nature of the monsters in the town as long as possible. Make it ambiguous as to whether they're cultists in form-shrouding costumes, unnatural but still comprehensible monsters, or extradimensional horrors. Fog and darkness are obligatory.

Make the monsters an incidental threat; the real danger is the town itself, and if the players stay too long they'll start to be affected like all of the townsfolk. It could be a disease or something in the water, or, for a nastier touch, maybe it's something in the shadows. (If the players only have torches for light, it should totally start raining or get really windy in the night.)

Kane0
2013-05-14, 04:06 AM
Snip

More or less this, except to add to point 4:
You can invert this by having specific creature(s) be instantly recognisable and somewhat easy to find, but never easy to fight let alone defeat. An example might be something like the first time you see a big daddy in Bioshock. Big daddies are not difficult to locate, but they are scary regardless. Seeing one makes you want to steer well clear, imagine making him hostile by default. Just be careful that they do not become obstacles, you may want to mphasise the alien nature to keep the players on edge when one draws near.