Best horror system you have used?

cdrcjsn said:

Thanks for the help all.

I created a variant Horror effect based on the 4e disease track, and it worked fairly well. (I could post it here if anyone's interested).

The thing that conveyed the proper tone however was exactly what everyone else here was saying. It is the description and gradual build up of dread that really gets people's adrenaline pumping.

By the time the creepy little blind girl sang a nursery rhyme about the party's eventual doom, the paladin in the group was ready to bolt the room.

Click to expand...

Color me interested.

Basically the party was on route to meet up with a treasure hunting gnome in an isolated seaside village.

They arrive by ship through thick fog at sunset to find the village eerily deserted. The light tower north of the village is dark. The only indication of habitation is light coming from a window on the second story of the inn. There they meet the crazed gnome, gibbering something about "squaring the circle so they can't come in!"

The party encounter various unnerving events at the inn.

When exploring the village, they come across a small blind girl. The party was very protective of her (giving her their cloak, feeding her, etc.). Then they get to a cellar underneath a house and are greeted with carnage. After describing the horrific scene, the party was torn on what to do.

At that point, the child started singing a nursery rhyme:
"Don’t you laugh when they come by
‘cause you might be the next to die
They scoop out your eyes and swallow them whole
They want your life cause they have no soul

They steal your face and stack them into sheets
Then take them all to the briny deep
They took what they could, but they want some more
Pretty soon they’ll be coming through that door"

It all goes downhill from there...

Some help and opinions needed for my Ravenloft game...

I'm thinking of having my players meet a character that I want to scare the players, but not just in the "we will die if we annoy it" sense, but because it creeps them out.

For some reason, I have the image in mind of it appearing like a little girl, probably in dirty, blood-stained clothing, with a sweet face and angelic voice. I'm kinda imagining the girl from "The Reaping" that you wonder if she's good or evil until the end (except in this case I want her to be so irredeemably evil that the group Paladin will get a nosebleed the moment they get within her "aura of evil" area).

What I have in mind is that this character is supposedly truly ancient "she was here since the birth of the land" and wise - but spoken of only in whispers. The players will need to convince her to help them on a quest - but what price will she demand in return? Will the price be worse than allowing the great evil they are trying to stop occurring?

What I need help with is WHAT to make this character. Since I don't expect the players to actually be dumb enough to pick a fight, levels are no problems (if it's that ancient, I'd expect level 20 if not epic), but what I'm debating is:
- a human who became corrupted because of evil, and became a monster... in the process gaining immortality (e.g. a monk or sorcerer)? My issue with this is that this might make the character a darklord... when I actually prefer it to NOT be one.
- a fiend that is trapped in Ravenloft, and has bound itself to the land (anyone knowing Ravenloft will understand how fiends can bind themselves to the land - making it harder to ever leave, but growing in power). In which case, which? Most of the Demons are "killing machines" and I'm tired of always pitting Succubi/Incubi against the players as demonic antagonists. And most Demons are likewise killing things or can't change shape. Yugoloth's are possible, as are Rakshasa... but Rakshasa don't feel right for "ancient evil" theme.
- The "girl" is actually a really sweet, innocent child that powerful mages bound the fiend into. So whilst it's a truly evil creature, it's fairly powerless inside the girl (her innocence holds it in physically). This can also have the players sense great evil, but great innocence. They'd learn that the girl must be living eternal hell-on-earth anguish to keep this thing inside, but to "help her" would mean releasing the full power of the evil on Ravenloft. This would throw an interesting moral dilemma at the players (especially since the price the fiend may demand is a way of releasing iself from its human prison).
- or anything else you wise sages out there can pull out of your evil minds that would be nice

Ideas and comments really appreciated!

Thanx!