Horror One-Shot Brainstorm

[Dr paradox]

Heya. I've been asked by my friends to put together a horrifying, Halloween-y One-Shot for late this month. The problem is, I'm a little blocked for ideas.

We'll probably run something low-level and horror tinged in 5th edition D&D, probably very gothic and ravenloft-like, or something a little more modern and psychological in Fate Core.

As far as ideas so far...

There's a D&D vampire hunt I've had in mind where the players are drawn to a town in not-Ukraine that's been built around a fountain of endless clean water in the middle of some woods that are packed with elven ruins. A vampire spawn has more or less turned the town into his personal cult, who offer up their children so that he can sacrifice them to try and resurrect his vampire queen.

There's a Call of Cthulhu Fate Core thing that I've run for a different group to notable success, where the group has come to investigate a newly bought factory. The place was a weapons manufactory back during the civil war, but fell into disrepair for decades afterward. Rumors persist about strange illnesses bizarre manufacturing practices, but the townies still look back on the days of its activity as something of a golden age for the town. In actuality, the factory was designed to slowly and subtly alter the workers, until they would become mindless, shambling horrors called Company Men, and incorporate themselves into a hellish organic machine in the natural caves beneath the factory.

Any other ideas? examples of games you've run?

[root]

I've had an amusing idea a couple years ago which never quite materialized into reality.

A meteorite has fallen down in a remote mining town about a fortnight ago and the last two shipments of ore never came through. Rumours spread about bad omens predicted by the fallen star, a few people even attempt to visit the town but they either don't come back or return utterly bereft of possessions, blaming it on a gang of toughs blocking the roads. The officials sigh and decide to write it off as a loss - banditry is common on the open roads, military help from the local baron is less than likely and the winter is harsh.

Players end up drawn to the town in some way, either hoping for a reward or wanting to check on the rumour of a bundle of sky metal just lying out there in the wild, ripe for picking.

The town is utterly desolate at first... Where could a hundred odd miners disappear in the middle of winter?

The meteor was an egg/vessel of an alien creature that reproduces via worm-like parasites that enter victims and turn them into obedient zombies until the hatchling matures further.

It ended up being too reliant on zombie tropes and atmosphere of isolation but I'm still hoping to reuse the idea one day in a more appropriate setting/system.

Kind of a combination of "The Thing", body snatchers and generic zombie flicks. Just keep the players in the dark for as long as possible, leave a lot of red herrings and focus as much as possible on description. Kind of scalable beyond a one shot if you assume that its not a one-time event and a meteor shower carrying untold number of slumbering alien beasts capable of zombifying a whole town may just hit aaany day from now.



Edit: doesn't really work in a generic D&D setting all that well imo. Might be fun in something less magic and perhaps more modern.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

The town is utterly desolate at first... Where could a hundred odd miners disappear in the middle of winter?

The meteor was an egg/vessel of an alien creature that reproduces via worm-like parasites that enter victims and turn them into obedient zombies until the hatchling matures further.

It ended up being too reliant on zombie tropes and atmosphere of isolation but I'm still hoping to reuse the idea one day in a more appropriate setting/system.

Kind of a combination of "The Thing", body snatchers and generic zombie flicks. Just keep the players in the dark for as long as possible, leave a lot of red herrings and focus as much as possible on description. Kind of scalable beyond a one shot if you assume that its not a one-time event and a meteor shower carrying untold number of slumbering alien beasts capable of zombifying a whole town may just hit aaany day from now.



1st edition had something similar in Fiend Folio - I think it was the Yellow Musk Creeper, making Yellow Musk Zombies.

Basically, think The Last of Us, but with a plant rather than fungal infection.

Alternatively, what about a number of disturbed graves and burial sites - is it the dead rising? Bodysnatchers? An alchemist searching for ingredients? Ghouls? Someone's building an army of flesh golems? A necromancer trying to resurrect her long dead evil warlord lover who was hung, dismembered and their body parts scattered far and wide?

[root]

1st edition had something similar in Fiend Folio - I think it was the Yellow Musk Creeper, making Yellow Musk Zombies.

Basically, think The Last of Us, but with a plant rather than fungal infection.

Alternatively, what about a number of disturbed graves and burial sites - is it the dead rising? Bodysnatchers? An alchemist searching for ingredients? Ghouls? Someone's building an army of flesh golems? A necromancer trying to resurrect her long dead evil warlord lover who was hung, dismembered and their body parts scattered far and wide?

Heh, I love those zombies. For me, I was mainly influenced by The Thing and a Pathfinder monster called Akata (basically an alien that can slumber in a cocoon for millenia in space, crash and turn things into zombies that use a hatchling's body as a sharp tongue to attack with).

Just a healthy dose of body horror, y'know?

I find it's pretty difficult to create scary situations in D&D from a mechanical standpoint, so you really have to work on a creepy atmosphere above all.

The second idea in OP (Company Men) is just beautiful :smallbiggrin:

[Segev]

A haggard woman runs an overburdened orphanage in a small city or large town. Something terrible must be happening in the nearby farms and villages, because her charges are suddenly increasing in number at an alarming rate. Worse, as their numbers increase, more and more of them are suffering horrific nightmares.

In addition, small animals - particularly cats and dogs - are being found mutilated around the town. After one group of kids saw one and started screaming and panicking, tensions are rising between those who just think this orphanage is not taking proper care of them and those who are worried that something supernatural is going on.

The kids themselves are...scared. And they cling to one another. Almost desperately, they keep each others' company. They hate being separated, almost as if afraid to be alone.

Exploration and investigation outside of town will find signs of monsters and tiny swarms of beasts moving through the area. A few farms have been rattled by noises in the night, and others are abandoned. Some of these farmers are moving their families into town for fear of what's out there. Signs of were-rats and a cult of phrenic gnolls and their pet intellect devourers and cranium rats lurk in the outskirts, watching and waiting, possibly planning to strike. (Build an atmosphere of oppressive "they could be anywhere" terror, and have fights be quick, leading to retreats after some harm has been done in the form of theft or the destruction of key items/clues.)

What's really going on is that the haggard woman is an Alienist who was lonely, and wanted children. So she polymorphed a swarm of cranium rats into them. These were the first of her "orphans." The loss of their psychic link and the sudden individual acquisition of intelligence has made the children forget what they were, but they're desperate for each other's companionship because they know they're missing...something.

Ilsensyne, god of forbidden knowledge, was not pleased with the sudden disappearance of some if its eyes. After searching for a long while, another cranium rat swarm found this orphanage. Before it could piece together what had happened, the crazy wizardess changed it, too.

Now sensing roughly WHERE the problem is, more swarms were sent, and more things Ilsensyne could influence are coming. The alienist orphanage-runner keeps turning them into more children, but the pressure is rising and more Things are coming.

[Hopeless]

How about your group are investigating a ruin only to stumble through a broken teleport portal and finds themselves stuck inside an old keep except its located on the bottom of the nearby lake apparently was home to some wizard whose long dead and by that I mean they find him still sitting in the lounge apparently at ease until they move into a position to get a better look and find he's been dead for god knows how long...

Now they've got to find a way out or rather back up to the surface once they realise where they are...

Villains?

Zombies, skeletons the remains of the wizards former servants and boy do the have a major grudge against anyone similar to their former master...

I was thinking of revealing the only other entrance and exit is a mini sub located in the bottom chamber that has its own pool, the question is can your group co-operate enough to escape once they realise their only means to escape?

[MintyNinja]

I literally did this a couple weeks ago for some friends. It was a very basic zombie horror game but against overwhelming odds.

All four of them arrive as a group in the small village of Shephard's Hill. They're dead tired and on their way to Royal City, a long ways off. Everyone in town seems to be mildly ill, coughing and breathing heavy, but getting by. The players stay the night and halfway through all the townspeople are turned into zombies. The Zeds are coming from the four directions and convening on the centre of town. I added darkvision and ranged attacks because I had a flying monk who would have been bored otherwise. In any case, the Party try to leave town. They split up and half go 500 feet north only to be ambushed by a pair of Zombie Ogres and a Minotaur Skeleton. An okay scuffle for four Level 7 characters, but just 2 also contending with the horde of undead at their backs were out of luck. One of the characters died there, the other escaped into the night.

The other two characters summoned a horse and started fighting their way through the streets. They came across their own MinoSkel and ZOgre Twins group but handled them nicely. Then another, and then a third. Barbarians are monsters and Aarocokra Sun Soul Monks were the perfect choice. In any case, as they're in the centre of town where the convergence is happening, but down two party members, they notice that the town well seems to be the focal point. Traveling down there they find a secret shrine to Orcus and a Oathbreaker Paladin (Level 7) commanding the forces through a magic cauldron. They fight and it's a close thing as the flight doesn't help underground. In the end, the Barbarian is brought to zero and the monk defeats the paladin in the same round. He stabilizes his friend at the foot of the statue to Orcus as the hordes of undead roam the streets above.

Took two sessions, but that was a lot of combat and some mystery. They didn't know what kind of game it was going to be because all they asked for was a one shot and gave me a couple days to prepare. I let them use their characters from our other games at Level 7 and away we went. Good times.