Escalating Weirdness

[Yora]

I am currently preparing my next AS&SH game, in which I will run an adaptation of Against the Cult of the Reptile God and Queen with Burning Eyes (the later being essentially an adaptation of the former for Eberron).
So far, the only encounter the party had with the supernatural has been the guardian spirit of an old druid shrine, which is pretty much what would be expected in an animistic world where shamanism is the most common form of religion. Right now, the party has been hired to find the base of a "group of bandits", who have stolen a valuable gem from an elf, who wants it back. However, the "bandits" are actually a cult of frontier people, whose base is an underground temple to the strange deity they worship. By the end of the adventure, the players will not have seen any definite proof that the eldritch horror the people worship does actually exist or they have any magical powers other than those that come from the gem they stole. It might all just be the delusions of a madman and his filthy flock of outcasts living in the hills. The party will then hopefully leave the sight, thinking "well, this got weird" and continue on their adventures against ordinary bandits and forest monsters. And if the campaign reaches higher levels, the whole weird business with eldritch horrors from the Outer Void will return again at a much bigger scale.

Do you have any suggestions how I can set up the search for the bandit lair and the exploration of the cave shrine to achieve this effect? I want the adventure to be a bit unsettling, but mostly in the "deranged madmen abducting villagers" kind of unsettling than the "slimy tentacles from the darkness" type.

[Gildedragon]

Abductees are put into vegetable pods that either turn them to slush, brainwash, or hold in slimy stasis for reasons unknown

Strange taxidermy experiments (owlbear made from owl and bear parts)

Not-visibly-spoiled (without expert knowledge) rations on which a psychotropic fungus has grown. Investigation points to perhaps deliberate cultivation

[RFTD-blog]

Just to get this straight, the way I interpreted this is that you want the cult of bandits (who I assume are a common humanoid) to seem like deranged madmen, rather than worshipers of slimy tentacles (even if they are). They actually do worship the slimy tentacles, but you don't want those to make an appearance yet, and you want your PCs to believe that maybe there are no eldritch horror monsters.

Here are just a couple random ideas thrown out there. Maybe they're not the right fit, but hopefully they'll inspire whatever could be.

Firstly, do the bandits have any divine casters? This is a surefire sign that there is some legitimacy in their worship...consider not giving them a divine caster.

When the PCs get to their base, I'd think about how they live, particularly their religion. Do they have an altar? What kind of symbols are on this altar? Some vague religious lore like arcane marks or candles to set the mood—you could even light some candles or show some example etchings in real life.

Any slaves? Maybe a slave NPC could shed some light on how crazy they are, such as cannibalism or science experiments. To make things appear fishy, maybe all their experiments fail. Maybe one of them is TRYING to get levels in cleric but consistently failing (too low of Wisdom or something like that). That would make the tentacle monster thing not seem real.

Does the leader keep any writing? If the players get a chance, maybe they find his diary or a similar book. Maybe it's just a religious pamphlet with one prayer and crazed notes in the margins. Perhaps one of the players has Knowledge (religion) and can deduce that the leader of this clan does NOT really know what he's talking about when it comes to Eldritch horrors (even if maybe he does, or is just a weird sect). If you want THE classic example of this, look no farther than The Shining: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." :)

Any friendly NPCs that could talk down the possibility of the slimy tentacles? Maybe the elf you mentioned? Maybe the local Pelor priest shakes his head at the idea. "In my 30 years, I've seen trolls, ghosts, demons, and even a few angels, but never this...tentacle monster you describe. Sounds fishy."

Going back to the fungus idea of Guigarci's, maybe that's what made the bandits go crazy. But chemical effects like that can be kind of cliche. A better twist would be if a third actor (such as the friendly priest) purposefully poisoned (cultivated) the rations with this fungus...or something like that. Or maybe the bandits have been mass cultivating this poison to insert into the town's water supply.

[Gildedragon]

My idea behind the rations is to cast aspersions on their claims. They claim to have seen "the great beyond" but that could well be the drugs talking. If pcs don't identify the fungus and eat the rations they get all manner of trippy visions, obscure foreshadowing mixed with "many mouthed technicolor spiders tap dancing on your eyeballs" and the like. Perhaps a "random encounter" with what later turns out to be a tree or oddly shaped bush or boulder, but at the time looked like a nightwalker, tree-ent, or manticore

Thing is the PCs have it backwards. Drugs don't lead to eldritcthulhu but the other way round.

Having their primary spellcaster be a warlock or binder can help.

The idea of barking mad scribbles would be good (better yet if they contain an incantation... Ask them if they read it aloud)

First meeting the cult leader in a town square (or jail) preaching would be cool set-up. Cooler yet if you quote time cube.

[Yora]

Just to get this straight, the way I interpreted this is that you want the cult of bandits (who I assume are a common humanoid) to seem like deranged madmen, rather than worshipers of slimy tentacles (even if they are). They actually do worship the slimy tentacles, but you don't want those to make an appearance yet, and you want your PCs to believe that maybe there are no eldritch horror monsters.

Right now, yes. But I'm interested in the subject in general too.

Pod people would be a bit much at the start of such a storyline. However, making the cultists eat some mildly toxic things sounds great. That could easily be taken as evidence that they are all delusional to some degree.

[RFTD-blog]

However, making the cultists eat some mildly toxic things sounds great. That could easily be taken as evidence that they are all delusional to some degree.

I'm also a fan of this idea. A couple other thoughts I had on it is to find specific spells that might effect them. Simple, Major Image or other kinds of illusion magic mixed with enchantment magic. Guigarci already gave some good ideas for how to apply that in-game. Maybe it's not a simple ration, but a fancy feast right on the altar with golden silverware and a silver plate, as well as a green liquid in a brass goblet. Technically Detect Poison wouldn't reveal anything I don't think, but a Detect Magic would. And the PCs won't really know the effects unless they try to eat some... >:)

Talking about how to make the search for the bandit quarters itself part of this eerieness—I think I'd need more context. What are their best leads? Perhaps a prisoner, like Guigarci mentioned? Or the elf has some tips? Maybe a band of countryside goblins who laugh at their mythology?

[Gildedragon]

Hahaha! Yes! Put-upon goblins; they fight the PCs yelling "we are not interested! Go away!" And the like, thinking the PCs are very militant preachers of the Whatever
That or after combat they surrender and sit, asking the pcs to get on with their speech
Perhaps comical, but laughter will contrast with the soft-meat crowns in the bandit cave and entrail garlands

[Yora]

They know the cult base is somewhere near a remote village. Some of the villagers are cultists and some others have been charmed to join them recently, and the remaining ones have noticed that something strange is going on. Some don't want to have strangers around and make things even more confusing, but a few are willing to talk to outsiders. Cultists are regularly traveling between the village and their shrine, and once the PCs get a pointer, they can follow the trail relatively easily.

Instead of crocodiles and giant frogs, the cultists will have a bunch of big war dogs. Always underused as monsters and reastablishing the appearance of normality.
I think the first half of the dungeon will look like a regular bandit hideout, with signs of a cult only appearing gradually as the characters progress deeper into the cave.

[Gildedragon]

Are the dogs libertarian? Have ranks in Spraypainting?

More seriously: dogs are a good idea. Perhaps it is dogs (mostly) that are sacrificed. Dogs might be in odd shape; a disease bite would be a good "things are less than right".
Or the cultists have the disease bite

Finding a grove where they waylaid and butchered someone would be good pointed (grove is haunted. Townsfolk talk about it) thorough examination of remains show they left gold and gems and spices behind. A kn arcana check indicates the pattern the bones are strewn is similar to magic runes found in pop catalogues of magic. Ineffective folk magic to "ensure" things like invisibility, success in battle, the like. Like how people chant Baa Zeus Ahu + [a wish] thrice in dark rooms before a mirror as a childhood wish-making/prank ritual (like Bloody Mary)

Ghost tells of bandits that waylaid them, points PCs in direction of cave.

[Fable Wright]

One thing that comes to mind is to have the bandits have a lot of paintings of rather average quality, robbed from merchants, that have beautifully detailed tentacles graffiti'd on them, and arranged in such a way that it looks like the tentacles each might be part of the greater whole.

Another might be, completely normal star charts that look like a 4-year old tried to connect the dots.

Perhaps include an old bandit curled up in the corner around an old, shriveled, rotting lemon, whispering to it that everything's going to be okay, that the adventurers aren't going to hurt it, that mama's going to be right back. In the previous room, one of the male guards has a small pouch filled with lemon seeds somewhere on (or in) his person.

[Arbane]

Walls covered in crazy ranting. Some of it in languages nobody can identify.

[Gildedragon]

Conspiracy theorist-eque pin and thread maps.
pieces of data include:

Sally's Bakery of [town] reduced cost of glazed buns by 1cp
Two headed lamb born in [thorp]
Moss is growing on South Side of trees
strange lights over [big city] [date concordant with a festival]
birds migrating in an O formation
My echo didnt sound right
Man in [hamlet] found burried treasure
Stew burnt while camping in X

[Rhynn]

Get detailed, make them go room by room, door by door, right down to every detail. (No maps, etc., is better.) Ominous sounds, sights, and smells. Darkness. Bad feelings. Lots of atmosphere and tiny red herrings - make them nervous and think that everything is going to jump out at them. (Just remember, every time they do fight something, all the tension you've built is going to unwind and you have to start over.) Make them expect something much worse than they get - if you do the atmosphere right, they're going to think you're building up to something much bigger than some crazy hillbillies, and hopefully they'll be left thinking they somehow missed or avoided whatever it was.

[Yora]

I got a great idea on the bus home: Corpses infested by some kind of mold or fungus, that uses the dead bodies both as a skeleton and food. Quite bizare and somewhat disturbing, but once you think it over, it's still entirely within the natural realm of fantasy biology. (There are even actual parasites that do this thing to ants, it's really just scaled up.)

Another thing that came to mind yesterday was taking a page from the genius concept behind Star Wars. Use lots of elements already familiar to the audience and just change the appearance a bit, but still make it recognizable that it evokes the archetypes associated with it. If you take a common archetype, you skip the whole process of having to explain all the implications. A huge guy in armor with a black cloak and a skull mask does not need to be explained. When you see it, you instantly know what it means.
So I am thinking blatantly copying visual cliches from works that match the atmosphere that is meant to be created. Specifically, I am thinking of unarmored attackers with two-handed felling axes or really big rusty knives. It's the same as a battleaxe or a dagger, but the feel of it is quite different.
Also, the entrance to the cave is not just a hole in the side of a hill. It's massively overgrown with thorny vines. And as someone mentioned, strange symbols painted on walls all over the place.

[GuesssWho]

The fungus that produces LSD grows on rye, maybe have the local bread full of it. Add some crazy hobos that very sensibly explain total nonsense to the party in grave tones. Have them see things out of the corners of their eyes that aren't there when they turn around. Have a map pinned to the wall with ten or fifteen colors of pin. Sing a few hymns to Sheogorath and mix in a Delirium quote or two. Tempus frangit!

[Rhynn]

The fungus that produces LSD grows on rye, maybe have the local bread full of it.

Ergotism isn't an LSD trip, it's a serious poisoning that causes convulsions, diarrhea, mania, psychosis, skin peeling, edema, and gangrene.

... just nobody eats any ergot, I guess.

It makes for a great one-off scenario, though.

Also, there's nothing scary or creepy about tripping paranoid hobos. Sorry. That kind of stuff makes players laugh, if it has any effect.

[Driderman]

I'd recommend watching True Detective, actually, and see if that could inspire you. It certainly straddles the fence between "something is actually out there" and "these guy are nuts, they think something is actually out there".

[Yora]

Yeah, for a time I thought it was going

Spoiler

Show

full Lovecraftian. Bit of a letdown when it stayed 95% mundane at the end, but maybe they are conserving the weird for later seasons. I love the final "dungeon".

Great show.