Creepy...

Nazerel said:

Well, that was a bit longer than I thought it would be. There are a few more disturbing events at the cathedral, but I wrote enough as it is. But basically, I took a few ideas from the Silent Hill series of games, and gave them a D&D twist. No zombies though, but ghosts and not so friendly blood-fly monsters were another matter. A shame the campaign didn't last long enough to get into the real meat and potatoes of the cultists who were behind the strange goings-on in town.

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It's a shame you didn't get to finish this off, it sounds like it would be a really cool time. I've never played any of the silent hill games so it was all new to me. Don't let the length of the post stop you, if you feel like sharing more creepy ideas, share on...

If you don't want your own posts to be lost to posterity (pardon the pun), then why not enter them in the Horrific Scenes section of the War Stories category?

Future generations of gamers will be grateful - and some of this stuff is simply too good to throw away!

DMH said:

or weregiant cockroach

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Gregor Samsa?

Warrior Poet

eris404 said:

A good example was in last night's game. KidCharlemagne has an NPC named Red who we started to refer to as "Ron Howards' Brother." He had horrible mannerisms, was just oily, bootlicking and subtly menancing in a dirty-old-man sort of way. He spoke in this nasally voice that reminded me vaguely of the Pat character from Saturday Night Live. For some reason, this character just made me shudder every time someone had to deal with him.

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Sheesh! And that was after you charmed him...

I've noticed a great number of undead used in these enounters. While this makes sense that the creepiest thing would be the mockery of life that is undeath, I was wondering what other creatures have been used to creep players out? Not just scare them because of possilbe damage or death to thier PC, but really just makes the PCs skin crawl.

Personally, I've always thought a "Jaws" type adventure with a suitable creep shark - 1/2 dragon or 1/2 fiend dire maybe - would be really fun to run.

tombshroud said:

I've noticed a great number of undead used in these enounters. While this makes sense that the creepiest thing would be the mockery of life that is undeath, I was wondering what other creatures have been used to creep players out? Not just scare them because of possilbe damage or death to thier PC, but really just makes the PCs skin crawl.

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Mindflayers absolutely is the hands down winner for pure scariness. Everything about them is scary and nightmarish.

I've talked about this in another thread, but here's what I do. People like to talk about themselves, and if I can glean during conversation what really creeps them out in real life, I'll eventually incorporate that into a game. I've made my sister physically ill describing a carrion crawler larva hatching from a corpse, caused my brother to become so upset about spiders in his dwarven PC's beard he had to have a couple tequila shots before coming back to the table, and had a woman so freaked out when her ranger fell into pit of (harmless) snakes she had to take a break and walk around the yard for awhile to get her breath back.

DungeonmasterCal said:

I've talked about this in another thread, but here's what I do. People like to talk about themselves, and if I can glean during conversation what really creeps them out in real life, I'll eventually incorporate that into a game. I've made my sister physically ill describing a carrion crawler larva hatching from a corpse, caused my brother to become so upset about spiders in his dwarven PC's beard he had to have a couple tequila shots before coming back to the table, and had a woman so freaked out when her ranger fell into pit of (harmless) snakes she had to take a break and walk around the yard for awhile to get her breath back.

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That's just mean!

I think I'll try that.

The creepiest plot I ever pulled on my players was back in the AD&D 2ed days. I was running the players through my homebrew world, which was new to them.

I had already had them uncomfortable with the twists I had put on the basic races. IE Dwarves and Elves were holding an uneasy truce after years of warfare, halflings were considered barbaric by most other races, and gnomes were evil little creatures that caused all sorts of mayhem.

But, what really got them was the missing child. They were in a town, exploring, looking for adventure, when they met a child/urchin. For whatever reason, one of the players took a liking to this NPC, and helped her out. The child was about 8 years of age, and I believe I named her Emily. She was street smart and not very trusting of kindness, and wouldn't accept anything from the PC except some coin to buy food. The PC kept trying to convince her to stay at the inn with the party, as she wasn't safe on the street.

Now, this was not a planned plot device, but I went with it. I had already had plans involving disappearing townsfolk, and I just modified it to disappearing orphans. When Emily disappeared, the PCs became very upset and began tearing the town apart to find her.

Through investigation, they determined a Cult of some sort was responsible for the kidnappings, and was up to some sort of evil under the city. They even learned who was the local leader of the cult, but couldn't prove it. So, they followed another member and discovered the secret lair.

Turns out, the Cult was sacrificing the orphans in a sick ritual to bring an evil entity from the Far Realms to the world. The party stumbled into the lair, disguised themselves as cult members, and then attacked the 3 or 4 members currently in the lair, killing them. Just as they did so, the leader showed up, leading the town guard on a "raid" and blaming the PCs for all the disappearances, as well as the "murder" of several of their "fellow cult members", as was evidenced by the bodies around them.

They managed to flee, setting up an ongoing battle, but to this day they continue to look at me funny if I introduce NPC children. And they always shudder when I do.

DungeonmasterCal said:

I've talked about this in another thread, but here's what I do. People like to talk about themselves, and if I can glean during conversation what really creeps them out in real life, I'll eventually incorporate that into a game. I've made my sister physically ill describing a carrion crawler larva hatching from a corpse, caused my brother to become so upset about spiders in his dwarven PC's beard he had to have a couple tequila shots before coming back to the table, and had a woman so freaked out when her ranger fell into pit of (harmless) snakes she had to take a break and walk around the yard for awhile to get her breath back.

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Yeah, I like to do this, too. One of the female gamers in our group is very afraid of spiders. So giant spiders are always attacking her characters.