Faerie horror encounters

[Calmar]

Strange lights in the twilight, children being stolen from their beds, men waking up on lonely places far off their settlements after having "lost" time, strange figures skulking around farmsteads being sighted at night, women giving birth to unhuman "changelings", odd things happening, persons who were taken into the faerie-realm returning only to behave in strange ways, maybe possessing frightening unearthly powers... tales about faeries are sometimes frighteningly similar to the reports, rumours- and lies - by people who claim to have had encounters with extraterrestrial beings.

The faeries in my game are certainly truly faeries and no "aliens" in the modern sense, but I believe the similarities might be very useful guidelines to evoke the horror of the true fey of certain stories (in opposite to the cute Victorian and modern day faeries).

Since the creation of a scary atmosphere is, I think, one of the most difficult tasks of a DM, especially in a stats-heavy game such as D&D, I'd like to hear your opinions, experiences with faerie-horror - and horror adventures in general, and advice on pittfalls to avoid.

[Telonius]

Depends a bit on how closely you're going to want the players to interact with Faerie throughout the quest. Is it going to take place mainly in the "real world," with them only gradually figuring out that Faerie is there at all? Or encountered fairly early on, an spending a significant chunk of time going back and forth, maybe even taking place mostly in Faerie (with or without means of getting back)?

[subject42]

I've done a game that involved faerie and I can offer two pieces of advice.

The first is do away with the battlemat whenever possible. Run encounters based on description, rather than squares. If it means giving the PCs the benefit of the doubt, that's OK. It forces people to put more effort into picturing the scene.

The second thing I did that worked well was adding things that didn't make a single lick of sense; almost as if faerie were an outpost for the far realm.

As an example, crashed in the middle of a field was a giant ironclad ship with no visible mast or screw. The wheelhouse had large windows on the front three sides. When a PC gave them a hard tap with his hammer, they all exploded like Prince Rupert's Drops, showering everyone with glass. The first deck of the ship contained dozens of metal cylinders. When the players forced them to iris open, there were bleached skeletons inside that disintegrated at a touch. One skeleton was intact, but composed entirely of mithril and the skull had no eyes.

The bottommost deck contained nothing but a bed and a typewriter. A mummified man was in the bed, but his lower jaw extended all the way to the bottom of his ribcage and he had eleven grotesquely elongated fingers on each hand with extra knuckles bending in all directions.

The typewriter had almost two-hundred keys with seemingly random symbols on them. A thick metal cable ran from the back of the typewriter to the deck with the skeleton tubes.

When questioned about it, the local fey just laughed and changed the subject.

[Yora]

In my current campaign spirits are almost incomprehensible for most mortals. It takes religious experts like druids or shamans to even communicate with them. They just don't seem to treat normal people as creatures that have the mental capacity to communicate. Quite often, they just ignore them, like harmless critters you don't have to pay any attention to. Unless they get close to something they might break, then they get shooed away. To them, humanoids are no more special than pigeons or squirrels.
Which also means they expect people to run away when they have some of their spirit business to do, and quite often don't really care much if anyone gets harmed or killed. They have no hostile intentions, but you really want to stay well clear of them.

[ShinyRocks]

The forest is dark. A thick, cloying darkness that almost seems to have physical weight. You press through. Slimy bracken embraces your calves. You stumble into root holes and rabbit warrens.

Eventually you see a small, floating ball of light. It approaches you, skittering about erratically. As it gets closer you see that it is, in fact, a tiny flying humanoid.

Then it speaks. Words that adventurers only dare whisper. Words that you never thought to hear spoken with such terrifying casualness. Words reputed to drive men to madness through their very utterance. It speaks again. Repeating the dread phrase. 'Hey, listen!'

[Calmar]

Depends a bit on how closely you're going to want the players to interact with Faerie throughout the quest. Is it going to take place mainly in the "real world," with them only gradually figuring out that Faerie is there at all? Or encountered fairly early on, an spending a significant chunk of time going back and forth, maybe even taking place mostly in Faerie (with or without means of getting back)?

The game is mainly taking place in the world, but interaction with fey and the faerie realm may happen quite often (campaign is still young) and belief in faeries is common superstition.

I've done a game that involved faerie and I can offer two pieces of advice.

The first is do away with the battlemat whenever possible. Run encounters based on description, rather than squares. If it means giving the PCs the benefit of the doubt, that's OK. It forces people to put more effort into picturing the scene.

That's good advice.
Personally I like it a lot when I'm able to avoid combat situations almost entirely, but that's often easier said than done.

The second thing I did that worked well was adding things that didn't make a single lick of sense; almost as if faerie were an outpost for the far realm.

As an example, crashed in the middle of a field was a giant ironclad ship with no visible mast or screw. The wheelhouse had large windows on the front three sides. When a PC gave them a hard tap with his hammer, they all exploded like Prince Rupert's Drops, showering everyone with glass. The first deck of the ship contained dozens of metal cylinders. When the players forced them to iris open, there were bleached skeletons inside that disintegrated at a touch. One skeleton was intact, but composed entirely of mithril and the skull had no eyes.

The bottommost deck contained nothing but a bed and a typewriter. A mummified man was in the bed, but his lower jaw extended all the way to the bottom of his ribcage and he had eleven grotesquely elongated fingers on each hand with extra knuckles bending in all directions.

The typewriter had almost two-hundred keys with seemingly random symbols on them. A thick metal cable ran from the back of the typewriter to the deck with the skeleton tubes.

When questioned about it, the local fey just laughed and changed the subject.

That concept sounds interesting. Such mechanical devices don't suit my needs, but buildings and places that are odd like this could be perfect.

In my current campaign spirits are almost incomprehensible for most mortals. It takes religious experts like druids or shamans to even communicate with them. They just don't seem to treat normal people as creatures that have the mental capacity to communicate. Quite often, they just ignore them, like harmless critters you don't have to pay any attention to. Unless they get close to something they might break, then they get shooed away. To them, humanoids are no more special than pigeons or squirrels.
Which also means they expect people to run away when they have some of their spirit business to do, and quite often don't really care much if anyone gets harmed or killed. They have no hostile intentions, but you really want to stay well clear of them.

Yeah, in my game too most fey and spirits probably aren't interested in mortals at all, and a some are friendly to mortals. There are many stories about helpful faeries, and those who only oppose mortals when they do them wrong (and often only in temparate way). But now I'm interested in the dark, unseelie faeries who more often than not are hostile and dangerous to mortals.

It speaks again. Repeating the dread phrase. 'Hey, listen!'

Heh.

[penbed400]

If you really want to do something that is horror related then it is kind of important that you make sure that your players want it first though. So just first thing first make sure they agree to playing a horror game otherwise the atmosphere is right out.

Another thing that helps is to make sure that players feel immersed in whatever they are doing. One way of doing this is background music. It kind of tones out any of the small noises that may be happening in the real world. Plus if it is a monotonous noise then players will become accustomed to the music and then when you stop playing the music it creates a very eerie silence. Props also help out a bunch in the immersion factor, but make sure more than just doing gimmicks you make sure that you write an intriguing story. It has to captivate the players.

I would highly recommend checking out Heroes of Horror. You might be able to find it at a local store. They have a whole bunch of tips on this kind of thing.

A pitfall that seems to come with playing a horror game is creating an unrealistic or comical mood by overdoing something. I'd stick away from buckets of blood and stuff that is just blatant. The unknown is usually the most scary to people not only in game but out of it too. Retrospect horror is also a good tool to use.

[fryplink]

My faerie encounters are almost always tucker encounters. They always see a glimpse of an enemy that does something in the dark, then it leaves. Hit and run, nothing is scarier in a party of spell casters than constant attacks that leave them unable to rest. At first it feels like a regular encounter. The wizard runs out of spells first. No rest time. They keep attacking. They never know what is attacking they just know that every time the begin to rest, they get attacked, stuff gets stolen when they fail a spot check

[Thurbane]

I would highly recommend checking out Heroes of Horror. You might be able to find it at a local store. They have a whole bunch of tips on this kind of thing.

Indeed - HoH even includes a detailed "evil fey" sample encounter, with a new fey introduced in the book (Grey Jester).

...I recall an episode in the first (?) series of Torchwood, that had the team investigating evil faeries that were killing people (they turned out to be a type of extradimensional alien).

[Human Paragon 3]

See my post in this thread.

[hamishspence]

A bit of The Wild Hunt, with the PCs as prey, might be one horror aspect. Especially if the faerie are as mean as Predators or meaner.

[Eldan]

I've once run an adventure which took place in a cursed fairy castle. Now, I don't have all the details anymore, but a few I remember:


The place outside the castle was called the Forest of Silence. Some objects and things there made no sound at all, others did. It took the players a while to notice the pattern, but: if an intelligent creature tried to make a sound in any way, by speaking, banging two cans together etc., it did. If no one specifically tried to make a sound, it didn't (footsteps, breathing, wind in the trees).

The lord of the castle was a ten-foot tall man with raven wings, sitting on a throne, asleep. The fairies of the castle ensured everyone that he would wake up soon, but he never did. In fact, the fairies repeated the same daily routine every day, unless disturbed by the players.

There was a hall of trophies, consisting of single, beautifully preserved eyes of a few dozen species, each on a velvet cushion. Touching any of the eyes lets one relive the last moments of the creature the eye belonged to, which in almost all cases involved a fey sticking a knife in your eye.

There was a library full of books, none of which could be opened.

Some of the fairies repeating the same daily routine seemed half-transformed, weird mixtures of human and more alien body parts. From time to time, when spoken to, these would have brief moments remembering their past lives: they were humans coming to this castle, then unable to leave, slowly transformed into more fey mindlessly repeating the same day over and over.

In the night, a single human stalked the castle, dirty, malnourished and gibbering madly, trying to catch rats in the cellars to eat, saying that all the food in the castle was cursed.

Where the castle gate was, there was now just another hallway. Jumping out of a window always brought one to the same courtyard.

[Calmar]

Thanks for all the replies!

My faerie encounters are almost always tucker encounters. They always see a glimpse of an enemy that does something in the dark, then it leaves. Hit and run, nothing is scarier in a party of spell casters than constant attacks that leave them unable to rest. At first it feels like a regular encounter. The wizard runs out of spells first. No rest time. They keep attacking. They never know what is attacking they just know that every time the begin to rest, they get attacked, stuff gets stolen when they fail a spot check

That sounds good. Probably works best without using a battle map.

A bit of The Wild Hunt, with the PCs as prey, might be one horror aspect. Especially if the faerie are as mean as Predators or meaner.

Do you have some suggestions how to indicate that escape is the best option? Personally I don't like horror-through-superior-stats; been a player once in such a game and it was only a mix of frustrating and boring.

I've once run an adventure which took place in a cursed fairy castle. Now, I don't have all the details anymore, but a few I remember:

*snip*

That sounds like a great session. Inexplicable things seem to be among the best plot-devices here.

[hamishspence]

Have a monster more powerful than the PCs come fleeing in terror from the hunt, which swoops past the PCs and dramatically slaughters the monster in front of them.