Occult or Esoteric mood

[Kesslann]

Do you have any suggestions on how to give an esoteric vibe to a pathfinder game?
I've read Occult Adventures et similia, but they all lack interesting monsters and enemies. Moreover (albeit this may be material more suited for the "World-Building" sub-forum), what changes to the main classes' fluff or other homebrew mechanics could be a nice addition?

[Sapreaver]

Well what kind of vibe did you want the game to have? If you wanted an oriental sort of vibe with more Japanese feel you can make it so the monsters are evil spirits that are invading and throw the etheral or shadow template on them have a couple demons. Good times

Could re fluff classes as priests ir exorcists or bodyguards.
Just look in to the material you want and change things to suit it better.
The one above would eventually feel like inuyasha if j kept changing things.

[Sapreaver]

If you want an occult vibe i'd go cthulu

[Calthropstu]

If you want an occult vibe i'd go cthulu

Yes, they did adapt Cthulhu for pathfinder.

[DMVerdandi]

What's wrong with the monsters that pathfinder already has?
It's got ghosts, fairies, corporeal undead, outsiders (I.E the racial types you need to be focusing on.)
Obviously don't throw any dragons or high fantasy monsters in there. If you have Giants, they are there for the purpose of eating children, and things like that. Keep it very old school horror.


The occult classes are good, if a little weak, and the thing is, weak is good, because you can challenge the players more. Throw out all the other caster type characters and only have occult magic and mundanes.

Have different cities/towns, all with different atmospheres, but the same quality of light being obscured in some way. A grey, misty hamlet, a bustling metropolis with smokestacks that always blot out the sun, an underground haven of outcasts.

[Milo v3]

All the classes can easily work as occult outside of the classes with no magic at all which should be able to work in anything. Many classes even have really really occult creepy archetypes like druids now being having things like suicide cults. Are there any specific issues you have?

Some decent monsters for occult games IMO are aboleth, barghest, cyclops, dark folk, demons, derro, elementals, genie, ghosts, ghouls, gibbering mouther, hags, intellect devourers, kytons, naga, neolithid, night hags, rakshasa, shoggoth, wight, wraiths, xill, aeons, animate dreams, attic whisperers, bodak, chaos beasts, daemon, denizens of leng, faceless stalkers, carrion golem, gugs, hounds of tindalos, leng spider, lurkers in the light, poltergeist, qlippoth, seugathi, shantak, shining childs, soul eaters, totenmask, urdefhan, wendigo, witchfire, worms that walk, adherer, allip, asura, berbalang, bhuta, caulborn, div, dybbuk, unfettered eidolons, festrog, ghul, bone golem, graveknight, grodair, guecubu, huecuva, kami, moon-beasts, nuckelavee, penanggalen, tupilaq, alpluachras, ankou, contemplatives, outer dragons, drakainia, ectoplasmic creatures, elder things, elohim, vildeis, festering spirit, fleshwarp creatures, gashadokuro, geist, blood golems, great old ones, hungry flesh, ijraq, immortal ichor, incutilis, living walls, necrocraft, nightmare creatures, owb, phantom armour, pickled punk, samsaran, sayona, spawn of yogshoggoth, taniniver, warnsworn, wickerman, amarok, astomoi, caller in darkness, cursed king, deep ones, esoteric dragons, egregore, etianen, fext, gravebound, hundun, kurobozu, lotus tree, manasuptra, mummy lord, ostovite, papinijuwari, unfettered phantom, pharonic guardian, polong, psychemental, reptoid, rhu-chalik, sahkil, sangoi, saxra, shabti, su, tiyanak, tsukumogami, tulpa, vilderavn, and vukodlak.

[Pyromancer999]

There are rituals, which allow for magic effects to be produced by non-casters who are willing to take a lot of time. Also got some weird stuff in Horror Adventures, like the Mythos Cultist Archetype, which worships Cthulhu.

[Calthropstu]

All the classes can easily work as occult outside of the classes with no magic at all which should be able to work in anything. Many classes even have really really occult creepy archetypes like druids now being having things like suicide cults. Are there any specific issues you have?

Some decent monsters for occult games IMO are aboleth, barghest, cyclops, dark folk, demons, derro, elementals, genie, ghosts, ghouls, gibbering mouther, hags, intellect devourers, kytons, naga, neolithid, night hags, rakshasa, shoggoth, wight, wraiths, xill, aeons, animate dreams, attic whisperers, bodak, chaos beasts, daemon, denizens of leng, faceless stalkers, carrion golem, gugs, hounds of tindalos, leng spider, lurkers in the light, poltergeist, qlippoth, seugathi, shantak, shining childs, soul eaters, totenmask, urdefhan, wendigo, witchfire, worms that walk, adherer, allip, asura, berbalang, bhuta, caulborn, div, dybbuk, unfettered eidolons, festrog, ghul, bone golem, graveknight, grodair, guecubu, huecuva, kami, moon-beasts, nuckelavee, penanggalen, tupilaq, alpluachras, ankou, contemplatives, outer dragons, drakainia, ectoplasmic creatures, elder things, elohim, vildeis, festering spirit, fleshwarp creatures, gashadokuro, geist, blood golems, great old ones, hungry flesh, ijraq, immortal ichor, incutilis, living walls, necrocraft, nightmare creatures, owb, phantom armour, pickled punk, samsaran, sayona, spawn of yogshoggoth, taniniver, warnsworn, wickerman, amarok, astomoi, caller in darkness, cursed king, deep ones, esoteric dragons, egregore, etianen, fext, gravebound, hundun, kurobozu, lotus tree, manasuptra, mummy lord, ostovite, papinijuwari, unfettered phantom, pharonic guardian, polong, psychemental, reptoid, rhu-chalik, sahkil, sangoi, saxra, shabti, su, tiyanak, tsukumogami, tulpa, vilderavn, and vukodlak.

I could totally see a pathfinder abyssal sorcerer being a cult focus trying to free cthulhu. Demons are often a cult goal.
I could also see devil worshipers trying to unleash devils and bring hellfire to punish sinners.
Generally what the evil occultists go for.

edit: I'd like to see a cult centered on unleashing the Tarasque to bring a rebirth of civilization.

[Extra Anchovies]

@OP: do some digging for enemies the players won't be familiar with. The later monster manuals and bestiaries have some really weird, obscure stuff.


I could totally see a pathfinder abyssal sorcerer being a cult focus trying to free cthulhu.

edit: I'd like to see a cult centered on unleashing the Tarasque to bring a rebirth of civilization.

These both actually are quite in line with Rovagug's (http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Rovagug) general MO. The good ol' Rough Beast is more about final destruction than rebirth, though, so it might be a good idea to swap them out for a more insidious deity, e.g. Ghaunadaur (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Ghaunadaur).

[ekarney]

It's 3.5 and I believe 3rd party, but there's nothing wrong with it, but you could adapt Ravenloft content to it, which has a very old school, occult vibe to it.

[Calthropstu]

nvm, ignore me.

[Xar Zarath]

Well in Pathfinder Occult Realms there a rules for idols. Basically objects that over time, worship and sometimes sacrifice they become sentient and can grant worshippers domains just like clerics. Moreover idols are sentient and can exercise a number of powers to some effect in order to maintain their hold over their worshippers. Those with more worshippers are more powerful of course.

You could combine this with a cult. Cult starts worshipping an idol (you could create one based on the Arrow tv series. S4 has the villain Damien Darkh having an idol that grants him his magic) and they start kidnapping people to sacrifice. Your PC's could be led to think it was some dark god, never realising the major magic item in front of them is the god of that little cult.

Combine this with other monsters and such and you could achieve a very good occultic adventure.

[Calthropstu]

Well in Pathfinder Occult Realms there a rules for idols. Basically objects that over time, worship and sometimes sacrifice they become sentient and can grant worshippers domains just like clerics. Moreover idols are sentient and can exercise a number of powers to some effect in order to maintain their hold over their worshippers. Those with more worshippers are more powerful of course.

You could combine this with a cult. Cult starts worshipping an idol (you could create one based on the Arrow tv series. S4 has the villain Damien Darkh having an idol that grants him his magic) and they start kidnapping people to sacrifice. Your PC's could be led to think it was some dark god, never realising the major magic item in front of them is the god of that little cult.

Combine this with other monsters and such and you could achieve a very good occultic adventure.

Also have a spirit locked in the item desperate to get free.

If you want it to be hilarious, have the cult succeed in releasing the spirit, and have it actually be a very annoying unkillable imp.

[Kesslann]

Thanks for all the really helpful answers :smallsmile:
I'd rather avoid directly adopting the Cthulhu mythos since my players are already pretty familiar with it.
Since some of you asked: by "occult and esoteric vibe" I intend the feeling you get from séances, demon conjuring rituals (kinda like the Binder's ones), Kabbalah and ancient Egypt -which actually is the kind of weird hobbies people of the belle époque had, and that Lovecraft described.

edit: Also, if you have any experience in playing, running an occult campaign: was there something you particularly enjoyed?

[Boogastreehouse]

*

I think running a setting with occult flavor is pretty fun. I suggest employing strategies that limit what the players know. If someone is possessed, the players will have to struggle to figure out what sort of entity they're dealing with. Demon? Ghost? Ancient spirit that has long roamed the deepest, shadowy recesses of the Ethereal Plane, only able to approach the realms of form and matter by entering a mortal when they are at their most vulnerable and filled with despair?

You could also limit what the players know of a monster by having them attack from another plane like a ghost or a phase spider, but describe the entity as being hard to identify due to the part of it that extends into this dimension looking like long, raw, skinless limbs, or like an amalgam of the player characters or like a slightly-off version of someone or something a character was thinking of.

I remember coming across a cool example for creating a weird atmosphere in TVTropes; they suggest messing with the players in small, but weird/creepy ways.

For instance, give a general description of a room including a desk, a lamp, a bed and a little girl standing in the corner in front of a large bookshelf full of old scrolls, tomes and folios of assorted sizes.

When the players ask for a description of the little girl, simply say "what girl?"


Another big part of the occult is secret societies that guard hidden clues for enlightenment or control. Having knowledge-hoarding cults based on the Illuminati, the Rosicrucians or the Knights Templar, and having them operate through layers of other, more visible organizations makes for a fun, if somewhat paranoid game.


Edit I: Just read your post above. Binders are a very flavorful class in my opinion, and you can always change the fluff of various sects and societies of Binders, so that the players have to figure out if the Binders are host to bodiless Lovecraftian entities from twisted and formless dimensions, or strange angels who were ancient before life even began on the Material Plane.

Edit II: Also, play soundtracks with a mysterious flavor. Hellraiser II, for instance, has some great tracks.


*