Supernatural Horror in High Fantasy

Jürgen Hubert · Sep 19, 2006

From another thread over at ENWorld:

For genuine horror, the supernatural is IMHO far too blatant and commonplace. Horror games need low-profile, mysterious, hidden forces. For the same reason Horror doesn't work with High Fantasy for me (or to be more specific supernatural horror doesn't.)

Well, personally I think that horror - including supernatural horror - can be done in High Fantasy, and that it's not that difficult.

After all, most characters in fantasy worlds - including the PCs - have preconceptions on how the world is supposed to work. Shatter those, and you can create an atmosphere of horror.

For example, in my old D&D Forgotten Realms campaign, the party encountered a half-fiendish hatchling dragon in an inhabited castle which had just hatched out of his egg (located in the wizard's tower). At the beginning of the night, they only knew that there was a small, acid-spitting monstrosity on the loose in the castle killing people. Then they found the eggshell in the wizard's study and determined that they were facing a small dragon.

But when they actually encountered the creature, they saw that it had three red eyeballs in each eye-socket, and learned to their horror that their assumptions had been wrong, and barely managed to escape with their lives.

Later in the campaign, they discovered another dragon-fiend hybrid. But while a half fiend-half green dragon might have been conceivable - both species were evil, after all, this one was a half silver dragon, and silver dragons are normally creatures of good! Needless to say, the whole implications of that encounter were very disturbing - especially the speculations under what circumstances such a creature might have come into existence, and if there were more of them...

Of course, to shatter the preconceptions, the PCs must have a sense of "normalicy" in the first place, and the GM must take care to maintain that sense in the beginning. Many worlds are already pretty screwed up from the start, and thus the PCs won't be startled by horrific creatures and situations - familiarity breeds contempt, and all that. However, because the Forgotten Realms - possibly the most famous example of "High Fantasy" among RPG settings - does have a "sense of normality", the horrors intruding upon it were all the more effective.

So I was wondering: Have you successfully evoked horror in high fantasy worlds and campaigns? In what worlds? And what techiques did you use?

Hussar · Sep 19, 2006

I've often wanted to, although I'm not sure how successful I've been. All things being equal, probably not very.

Using the City of Shelzar in Scarred Lands, I had a madman running around randomly (apparently) slaughtering people every few days. A single murder, very spectacular, regular as clockwork. I borrowed the idea from Dragon for a Deathstalker of Bhaal, where the prereq for the PrC is to kill 12 or 13 (I misremember which) random people for no reason.

While it wasn't horror per se, it did freak out my players quite well. Very Se7en. It did make for some intense sessions.

Jürgen Hubert · Sep 19, 2006

Here are a couple of ideas I had for horror campaign featuring high or even epic level PCs:

"Even high or epic-level characters can work in horror campaigns. Even if they are immune to the horror it doesn't mean that the rest of the civilization they have come to depend on and appreciate is.

Imagine, for example, if a plague of infectious zombies were to appear in a part of the Forgotten Realms, and slowly started to spread across the world. Each time the zombies kill someone, that someone rises as a new zombie, seeking victims

Sure, the PCs can easily slaughter those zombies left and right. But they can't be everywhere. A single zombie who manages to infiltrate the slums of a city can infect more and more people - until there are enough zombies to overwhelm the entire community and the city has to be abandoned. Fields can no longer be tended to. Trade routes are no longer travelled. The whole infrastrucutre civilization depends on collapses - and civilization with it. The survivors huddling in a few, well-protected enclaves will tear each other apart to get at the scarce remaining resources.

That's horror, even if the PCs are powerful enough to protect themselves. They will probably frantically search for a solution for all this, and they know that for each day that they wait, thousands could die.

Or how about a bilogical invasion as in War Against the Cthorr? Again, a very horrific concept that even high-level PCs will have problem with fighting - because the infection doesn't have a central command that can be taken out.

And I also had an idea for an Eberron campaign that was basically a retelling of "The War of the Worlds" - with neogi instead of Martians. Sure, the PCs might be able to initially repel the invaders from the location they are currently at - but then the invaders will simply pour poison gas on that location, or drop rocks from orbit. And in the places where they aren't, they will systematically eliminate the population.

With these methods, you can combine High Fantasy and epic heroes with horror - simply use the fact that they can't be everywhere at once and make it clear that for every day they don't find a way of defeating the horror, the horror grows and kills many innocent people."

Matrix Sorcica · Sep 20, 2006

Hussar said:
I borrowed the idea from Dragon for a Deathstalker of Bhaal, where the prereq for the PrC is to kill 12 or 13 (I misremember which) random people for no reason.

How can you ever qualify for this PrC? Wouldn't slaying those people to qualify for the PrC in reality disqualify you right away

Aeric · Sep 20, 2006

I've often thought about unleashing a zombie apocalypse on an unsuspecting fantasy world. Dunno how scary it would be, unless the PCs were very low level. Fear of infection would be the source of the horror, otherwise you're just runing a post-apocaylpse game. I would institute some new rules to allow a reasonable chance for a zombie to get in a bite or scratch, maybe not enough to do damage, but just enough to infect. A touch attack, perhaps?

As for the War of the Worlds, that is another one I've thought of doing. However, Eberron seems much more well-equipped to deal with an alien invasion than, say, Greyhawk.

MarkB · Sep 20, 2006

Sorcica said:
How can you ever qualify for this PrC?

Accidentally.

It sounds like, in-character, it's a PrC that seeks you out, rather than the other way around.

talien · Sep 20, 2006

I think horror in games works best when you see other characters horrified.

I don't want to give too much away (this will all be revealed in my story hour), but at one point one of our PCs had become a drug addict to a drug called "ghoul juice." He thought that was just a name.

So we start the 'ole "build up to horror."
1) They discover the body of one of the drug addicts (murdered for dealing drugs), who has a long, coarse tongue, fangs, and a gray pallor.
2) The PC begins hallucinating. Since we use Call of Cthulhu a lot, this means lots of King in Yellow nightmares/hallucinations from the adventure Tatters of the King.
3) While in a dreamscape where every character portrays how he sees himself, the PC looks like a ghoul (but doesn't realize it).
4) Finally, he stumbles upon another drug den of junkie/ghouls. He sees a vial of ghoul juice glittering in the basement. He reaches for it...and six ghouls crawl out to surround him.

Only they don't attack.

They just sniff him.

And that was when the PC said, "...wait, why aren't they attacking me?" Followed quickly by , "...ghoul juice actually turns you into a GHOUL?!"

Raven Crowking · Sep 20, 2006

talien said:
And that was when the PC said, "...wait, why aren't they attacking me?" Followed quickly by , "...ghoul juice actually turns you into a GHOUL?!"

Kudos!

RC

wally · Sep 20, 2006

Read some real world ghost stories. I don't mean you have to believe them, just portray as the story sees them.

I had a keep that was haunted by ghosts, but not ghosts in the MM sense. The characters could interact with them, depending upon the ghost, but if they tried to attack, they would be completely unable to damage it and the ghost would take a horrific image and the character would have to make a will save or succumb to fear. The ghosts themselves couldn't really do damage to the characters.

There were also areas of 'cold' within the keep. It felt cold, but it was really a spiritual coldness, so energy resistances wouldn't help. Things like this that cause them to not know how to deal with the issues is enough to put a little fear into the player and a lot into the character.

What they had to do was find the source of the haunting, which they learned through watching the ghosts and doing a little investigation. The one creature they could fight was the source of the haunting, and once they found out how to defeat it and succeeded, then the keep was 'purged of evil' as they saw it.

Most real world ghost stories have a specific reason behind why there is a haunting, and the theory is that if you can find out what that is and correct it, it will make things better and maybe make the haunting disappear. Just give something like this to your players and if you can describe the images in a horrific appearing manner, and the characters can't just fight it to defeat it, then you will see your players even getting a little scared.

-wally

Jürgen Hubert · Sep 20, 2006

Aeric said:
As for the War of the Worlds, that is another one I've thought of doing. However, Eberron seems much more well-equipped to deal with an alien invasion than, say, Greyhawk.

Yes. They seem to be.

However, the Victorians also thought that their scientific and technological progress was pretty hot stuff, and that they were on top of the world. When the Martians arrived, this faith was soundly thrashed.

And the same is true with Eberron. The people of Khorvaire tend to be pretty proud of their magical industrial society. But an encounter with a more advanced alien civilization will show them just how wrong they were. "Pride comes before the fall and that."

You don't have the same effect with the standard, pseudo-medieval worlds where most inhabitant aren't so full of themselves - because they tend to be muck-dwelling peasants. Sure, you can tell some nice alien invasion stories with them too, but you just don't get the same satisfaction you get when you crush some overwhelming egos...