Looking for a Mod

[yosomith]

Hi, I will be running a game for some friends coming up soon starting at lvl 11. What I'm looking for is a Dark Souls styled/themed mod if such a one exists.

I'm perfectly fine with it not being a Dark Souls specific mod but I definitely would like similar themes/style, that being, difficult and dark but with a good story/lore. The only thing that comes to mind for me is Ravenloft but I'm not 100% that is what I'm looking for as I haven't run it before.

So, any suggestions?

[Inevitability]

I think you'd make it easier for others if you specified what you meant with 'mod'.

[Snowbluff]

I wish I played 4e more so I could help you. I love Dark Souls.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I wish the Fourthcore stuff was still around; it's just the right sort of experience you're looking for.

[yosomith]

I think you'd make it easier for others if you specified what you meant with 'mod'.

Alright, what I mean by mod is a module or adventure designed for a higher level party, a bit like Ravenloft or the Forthcore stuff, though I've run one of the Forthcore mods before and that one is more designed to throw away characters more so then anything else, not quite what I had in mind.

[Actana]

While I don't really know much about modules and such, I did run a highly Dark Souls inspired campaign a while back to great success, so I might be able to give a few pointers. To me, there are a few key concepts that make Dark Souls what it is:
Atmosphere. Dark Souls is a bleak game, and everything in the game reinforces that. The story, environment and NPCs are all rather fatalistic, and while there are glimpses of hope here and there, they're often fleeting and usually end badly. Especially with the NPCs, there are no happy endings for any character. A solemn mood throughout the campaign is important to set the tone.
Loneliness. There are very few NPCs in Dark Souls, and they're also sparsely located. Keep your NPCs few and far in between to ensure that the NPCs the players do meet are significant. Don't have any major hubs of civilization. At best have signs of former civilization (such as a ransacked camp for example), or have the players gather people they find into a single location. Players shouldn't have access to comforts of civilization, as there are none around.
Death. The presence of death is everywhere in Dark Souls. There are bodies lying around, most enemies are hollow, and even the player is an undead. Use a lot of grim enemies, though this doesn't mean it has to be gore. Death doesn't have to be kept with organic elements either. Overgrown ruins are as much a sign of death as corpses.
Light & dark. The diametric concepts of light and darkness are the key motif in Dark Souls. Souls represent light and humanity represents darkness. Without dark there can be no light. Light is the thing that draws life to it and instills hope inside the bleakness that otherwise oppresses the players. To get maximum effect out of it, have darkness always be the default setting, with light sources being either exceptional places or come from creatures (whether the PCs or other NPCs/creatures).
Focus. Dark Souls doesn't have any unnecessary parts in its lore (mainly because the lore was created for the game, not the other way around). For example, there are only two races that matter: humans and giants, and then dragons which have a marginal and mainly backstory presence. There are marks of other things too, but they aren't focused upon.

However, what's more important is how all the aspects work together to create the mood. It's not just one thing or the other, it's how they affect each other. Bonfires are a good example: they're made from the bones of undead, they provide light and you often find NPCs in good moods around them.


Mechanically, there are a few things I used in my own game:

Hollowing: players cannot die permanently. Instead, each PC is afflicted with a permanent and incurable disease called "Undeath" with a few stages going from "hollow" to "undead" to "human" and some in-between stages. Each time a player drops below 0 hit points, they go down 1 step. If they die, they go down 2 additional steps. At the end of each extended rest, they have to make an Endurance check or go down one stage (maybe up to a certain point, not entirely down). To counteract the constant hollowing, they can spend spare humanity to go up either fully or a few steps, depending on how much they have to spare. For the stages themselves, they shouldn't be completely punitive; some bonuses for more hollow stages makes it seem less like a punishment, though the penalties should still be bigger than the bonuses. (Note: I didn't actually use this version in my own game; I refined the mechanics into this after the campaign ended.)
This had the added benefit of being able to ramp up difficulty significantly (though I still had a difficult time killing my PCs), while making death an undesirable thing. Humanity should be rare enough that you can't immediately revert the hollowing process every time it happens.

Souls: whenever the players kill some significant or powerful creature, they can absorb the creature's soul. This grants them the option to "purchase" a magic item of their level or lower and use it. Normally the characters have Fixed Bonuses and mundane gear, but the souls they gain can override their regular bonuses. This allows them to function better as characters of their level and makes for easier loot distribution since there are no markets to buy stuff from. I had rules to prevent players from grabbing a ton of rare and/or wondrous items, but how you do that is up to you.


Overall, however, I do not think that 4e is the system you'll find good modules in. The edition doesn't focus on darker stories too well, and relies on a few things that are anathema to creating an atmosphere like Dark Souls', like magic shops and a general expectation of orderly civilization. You might want to look at adapting modules from other games that have a more horror focus.

[yosomith]

~snip~

That has given me a few ideas, thanks. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot available so I guess I'll revise my original question: Anyone know of a module/adventure that has a sufficiently dark yet good story, from any system, that would suit a Dark Souls style game? As it stands I'll be running a game from lvl 11 to lvl 13 (Another DM takes over at 13) so something around there would be great. Encounters wise, I have already several things in mind what I want to have and achieve it's just the story side I really suck at.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Alright, what I mean by mod is a module or adventure designed for a higher level party, a bit like Ravenloft or the Forthcore stuff, though I've run one of the Forthcore mods before and that one is more designed to throw away characters more so then anything else, not quite what I had in mind.
Wait, is Dark Souls II significantly different from Dark Souls? :smallwink: I thought this was the point of the game! :smallbiggrin:

[yosomith]

Wait, is Dark Souls II significantly different from Dark Souls? :smallwink: I thought this was the point of the game! :smallbiggrin:

The way I see it the point to Dark Souls is more learning from mistakes, it does so by dealing with those mistakes very harshly. While this same principle can make for an interesting game it's not something that I would want to run for any length of time. Forthcore, while it was fun to run, is really only meant as a one shot adventure, something that doesn't really fit very well into most games, if at all. Also I felt it was a little lacking in terms of story.

The game I will be DMing is an ongoing game (been running since lvl 1) and is likely going to continue until we hit lvl 30. Another person and I take in turns with the DMing and this time I want to spice things up a little (the other DM tends to go a little easy at times as far as I'm concerned). I don't want to outright kill players with an adventure like Forthcore but I do want to shake them up a little. As such some plans I have going are difficult encounters made of fewer mobs but stronger with a couple of solo encounters in there to try to give it that Dark Souls feel. I also plan to use a hollowing type system as the adventure will be set in an alternate realm with different rules, I will likely take a lot out of what Actana posted, mainly because it was similar to what I wanted anyway (I really only knew I wanted to do a hollowing styled Dark Souls adventure, not much else beyond that).I was thinking I'd set it in some ruined land with a variety of locations so the players are not just running around in a stereotypical dungeon, going from encounter to encounter.

What I lack is a suitable story to go along with it. I'm sure the players will be fine for little story or reason why they are there but I'd like a better reason (not that they would find out much at all from the start anyway, à la Dark Souls). As I have said, I'm not fussy what level or system the adventure is set for, so long as it can be done with in around two levels and it has a Dark Souls style to it.