Heroic Dark Fantasy Campaign

I know it sounds a bit strange, but I have had this idea in mind for a while now and it is, as most of my ideas usually do, slowly coaslescing over the course of many months. As my current campaign is ending soon, I need to really pull this together for my next one (though I am taking a few weeks off from the DM's seat to get it ready). Here is my idea:

I want to do a Heroic Dark Fantasy campaign. I started out thinking that what I was looking for was Tim Burton inspired, but many of the movies I have in mind are not Burton films. What they seem to have in common was that Danny Elfman composed the music for most of the movies I have in mind.

I am planning on using Heroes of Horror and some other sources and have ordered Ken Hite's Nightmare of Mine (hopefully I actually get a copy of it, I have heard wonderful things about it) and already have GURPS Horror 3rd Edition.

The difference between what I want to do and a straight horror fantasy game is a sense of the surreal and that the heroes will be very heroic, but adventuring in a dark setting. There is darkness and corruption all around them and only they have the strength to make it right. I am using some published adventures (mostly Dungeon) that have the right feel to them and am designing the world and come up with some original adventure material as well.

What I would like to do is list my sources of inspiration and ask that if anyone is doing/has done anything like this, or just has any thoughts or ideas chime in with any house rules, advice, classes/PrC's to allow/disallow, rules to avoid, etc. Basically any advice you can give to help me capture the right feel I am looking for. The players are getting excited about this game and so am I, I am just starting to right my campaign handbook and would like to do this right, so that everyone enjoys it. Any assistance is greatly appreciated! That is one of the great things about ENWORLD! I can post my ideas and have instant brainstorming and feedback.

Here are my inspirational materials:

MOVIES
Beetlejuice
Batman (et al)
Nightbreed
Dick Tracy
Darkman
Edward Scissorhands
Sleepy Hollow
Dark City
Blade
Hellraiser (original)
Van Helsing
The Mummy (et al)


BOOKS
Lovecraft
Poe
Robert E. Howard
Robert R. McCammon's Boy's Life and Gone South
Stephen King's It , 'Salem's Lot and Silver Bullet
Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde,etc,

I picture a world of corrupt politicians trading the welfare of their people for a life of ease and riches. The weather will feature lots of rain and fog (London, Seattle?). I want to create a sens of unease. The PC's are going to take the roles of heroic redeemers. They will win many smal victories, such as saving the village from the local werewolf bandits while discovering that the mayor was letting same bandits have thir way with the town in exchange for gold, etc. Also, lots of iconic monster, such as mummies, aberrations (Lords of Madness), vampires, the created, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, etc.

Thanks in advance for any and all ideas and suggestions. If nothing else, scrutiny will help me zero in on exactly where I am going with this campaign.

DM

I worry about any DM who uses Heroes of Horror, the Book of Vile Darkness, and Libris Mortis as his PH, DMG, and MM...

Sounds good. You MIGHT want to look at some Ravenloft material (either 2e or the heavily discounted 3e stuff) for both some excellent source material and some nifty crunch (feats, prcs)

Consider some replacement classes: magic is creepier when your primary caster classes are the archivist and warlock...

I believe taint is in HoH, but check out Unearthed Arcana for taint and sanity...

Oh, you might be able to draw some inspiration from the famous Castlevania videogames as well.

1. Have you thought about running a Warhammer Fantasy RP 2e game?


2. media:

MOVIES
The Last Valley
The Witchfinder General
Flesh & Blood
all old "Hammer" horror movies
Dagon
Brotherhood of Wolves
Freaks
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Golem (silent movie classics)

The Cardinal said:

1. Have you thought about running a Warhammer Fantasy RP 2e game?

Click to expand...

I am firmly entrenched in the idea of running this as a 3.5E D&D game. Nobody is in favor of switching systems at this time.

DM

I would suggest taking a look at the TV series "Angel." That springs to mind as some pretty well-written heroic dark fantasy.

Midnight, the d20 RPG, would offer some great inspiration, especially based on the description you wrote of the type of setting you're looking for.

Fantasy Flight's Darkness and Dread would probably be useful.

HBO's Carnivale (especially the mystery that is Management - 1st season) would likely be useful.

Chris Carter shows are likely to be inspirational, particularly Millennium, but riffing off of X Files would be appropriate. Also, the "new" Night Stalker series is likely useful.

As mentioned, Angel would be good, especially seasons 1, 2 and 5.

Reading the Elric books by Michael Moorcock would possibly be helpful, at least from the bleak/dark fantasy standpoint.

As mentioned above, Ravenloft material would be useful, especially the DM's guide which gives some advice on running a "Gothic" horror game.

...And if you actually receive Hite's Nightmares of Mine, you're in for a treat--it's a great read!

If i can think of more I'll add to the list.

i have an idea for a dungeon....
its called the cyber dungeon and you can have cyber sex with orcs

Duh, how could I forget -- Dungeon mag's Age of Worms adventure path, while mostly "standard" fantasy, has a very dark root to it....it wouldn't take much to 'dark it up' quite a bit (i.e. throw in some evil, dangerous cultists and some squamous....things....of hideous, monsterous nature....)

petrified_towel said:

i have an idea for a dungeon....
its called the cyber dungeon and you can have cyber sex with orcs

Click to expand...

Posts = 1

You actually created an account on these boards just to post THAT? (rolls eyes)

Warlock isn't technically for d20, but it could be adapted to work with d20 fairly easily (in fact, if you want to do a conversion or something, I'd be happy to add it to the document and credit you for it). It draws heavily on George Lucas's Star Wars, Larry Niven's Warlock novels, H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal, and the film Equilibrium. You can download it for free here:

http://jdrakeh.hostingisus.com/Settings/Window/Warlock/warlock.rar

Note that you'll need a copy of WinRAR (also a free download) or other file decompressing program that recognizes the RAR format in order to access the files. The RAR itself includes two PDF files that you will need Acrobat 7.0 or higher to read.