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View Full Version : Roleplaying Journey through the Afterlife plothelp



ThirdProgenitor
2018-02-23, 01:24 AM
So, I was inspired a while back by cartoon networks Over the Garden Wall to run a game using "journey through the afterlife" as the general trope and theme. As per the miniseries, I want to instill in my characters both a sense of their curiosity to discover and explore, but always have that be shadowed by a subtext of terror and eeriness. Hoping for some plot and session ideas, as well, and most importantly ideas as to achieve this general atmosphere.

Wavyhill
2018-02-23, 08:16 AM
How about the idea that they 'shouldn't have died & have to find their way out' - back to the living world. Could have them making their way through various different afterlives...each with a different theme & route to escape (e.g. bureaucracy, happy hunting grounds, etc.).

ThirdProgenitor
2018-02-23, 04:21 PM
That might be an idea. Although, i want to keep it under-wraps that they are traveling through the afterlife. I'm hoping to make it kind of a near death experience scenario, where their actions an success determines if they live or die.
For example, in over the garden wall, theres a periodic train sounding in the background which *spoiler* [is the sound of the train they were nearly hit by before drowning] *spoiler end*
Theres always this sensation that things are just slightly off. Always within your ability to suspend disbelief, but always pushing the boundaries a little further every event.

jhonny
2018-02-23, 05:25 PM
Maybe you should use an eternal fog that makes people only see some meters around them, use some kind of Hourglass above their heads and every time one ends the one disapear.

ThirdProgenitor
2018-02-24, 01:49 PM
Maybe you should use an eternal fog that makes people only see some meters around them, use some kind of Hourglass above their heads and every time one ends the one disapear.

I like that idea, though i'd definitely want to make it less obvious and noticeable than an hourglass. Maybe it's something they're not always near, like a fire or the leaves of a tree

daemonaetea
2018-02-24, 10:28 PM
One way to play up the oddness and terror might be to emphasize the alien nature of each of the realms to them. I'm gonna go based on D&D 3.5, since that's the gaming afterlife I know best, but you could do something similar for other systems.

So being in an afterlife not matching your alignment is dangerous to unpleasant, depending on how far off you are. The actual environment itself is inimical to their life, and the longer you're there, the worse it gets. So you could have them be physically impacted by being in the "wrong" afterlife for too long.

You could also emphasize the odd natures of the individual afterlives. A Valhalla where the warriors think nothing of wanton slaughter over the smallest slight, with the sure knowledge everyone will wake up back in their beds the next morning. A Lawful plane where disobeying any law causes immediate pain, or reality to begin breaking down around you. A Chaos plane where the opposite happens, or even attempting to make a plan causes an outbreak of random magic to "balance" the plane out.

Basically just emphasize how the realities they're in are absolutely disconnected from the reality they know.

jhonny
2018-02-24, 10:54 PM
I was thinking that maybe the people in after life can be very scary if you put some extra people to begin with than, but they sudenly see a person that walk out of the fog and looks exactly like one of group, he came walking and touche that person face and than the person begin to smelt droping flesh, eyes bones and everithing until the person that have touched sudenly turns around and his face become one of your people. ( you can or not even raise that one dead in the floor and made him come back to life and change his face and start to run after one of the extra person you create).

Sounds really somekind of terror to me. What do you think.

redwizard007
2018-02-26, 03:08 PM
I highly recommend watching What Dreams May Come. Great potential source of inspiration. Also, great movie.