Halloween horror game - undead Civil War commander in West Virginia

[RangerWickett]

I'm brainstorming for a one-shot Halloween horror game (it's a tradition among my friends, with GM dibs switching each year), and one possibility I'm considering is small town vs. the undead.

Sons & Daughters of the Confederacy
The rough idea I have is that it's the 1950s, in Appalachian West Virginia, and a carnival train comes into town. The carnies set up attractions and act as the obvious red herring since everyone in my group is familiar with Something Wicked This Way Comes. But the real threat is the carnival's fortune teller, an incredibly old lady who has come to bring back her long-dead father.

Said lover was a Confederate commander in the Civil War who committed horrible atrocities and still is vaguely recalled a century later. He was cornered by Union forces, and took refuge in a cave complex. Rather than root him out, the Union troops blew up the entrance and trapped the man and his troops. The commander survived for a while by eating his own men, but eventually shot himself in the heart to end his agony.

I'm thinking many of the townsfolk will be descendants of the Union forces, and the fortune teller daughter has come to take revenge. She uses magic to lure away the friends, family, and lovers of the PCs, and while initial clues pin the blame on the carnies, eventually the party realizes what happened. They follow the fortune teller to the cave -- recently penetrated during an excavation from a railroad tunnel -- and try to stop her before she binds the blood of the innocent in order to wake the dead.

They show up too late, and a troop of undead soldiers march out of the tunnel and do . . . something. I'm kind of blanking on where to go with this, and how to spruce it up and give the players stuff to do. Also, while I have mind-affecting weirdness with the fortune teller, and creepy cannibal undead soldiers, I'd like other ways to up the horror. Finally, I don't know a ton about the Civil War, but three of my players are buffs. How can I involve elements they'll like without risking being inaccurate?

I'm pretty sure I'm going to use Dread to run this. So, any suggestions?

 

[malcolypse]

Their weapons would most likely be lumps of rust, but here's a good overview of what they would most likely have been carrying back in the day.

List of weapons in the American Civil War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Their uniforms don't need to be described beyond the tattered, moldy remnants.

A few carefully chosen words and the details will get filled in by their own knowledge.

As for what a zombie confederate army should do, I would think they'd go with the classic number 6.

Hedley Lamarr: [frowns] "Number 6"? I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that one.
Taggart: Well, that's where we go a-ridin' into town, a-whompin' and a-whumpin' every livin' thing that moves within an inch of its life. Except the women folks, of course.
Hedley Lamarr: You spare the women?
Taggart: Naw, we the out of them at the Number Six Dance later on.
Hedley Lamarr: Marvelous!

I'm sold on this idea, and excited to hear how it plays out. Good luck and have fun with it.

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, I was thinking I'd use ghost soldiers, maybe with a vampire commander. But should I have the climax be "survive the attack and stop the undead before you all die" or make it a more specific "stop a particular bad thing the undead are shooting for"?

 

[adwyn]

Rather than a straight up fight, how about needing to drive the ghosts back with relics from the Union militia that originally defeated them?

The flag could very well still be in the courthouse or museum and allow for turning the creatures and drive them back to the cave, the drum lay forgotten in someone's attic but be played as a weapon. Old muzzle loaders still hang above veteran's pictures in living rooms throughout town.

 

[Janx]

step 1, get your relations straight. is it the fortune teller's father or lover? or both?

step 2, figure out what town this in in. If it's a mostly union town, you gotta be in a state the confeds invaded. i don't know my history either, but it sure won't be a southern town.

Otherwise, put it in the south and have it be a union army that was trapped. We may have won the war, but we lost a few battles. This will make it easier to just name some made up town in the south and not be contradicted by the history buffs.

For Dread, you could use some carnival games to maybe instigate a few early pulls to prime the pump.

 

[Alzrius]

But should I have the climax be "survive the attack and stop the undead before you all die" or make it a more specific "stop a particular bad thing the undead are shooting for"?

Make it that they want to secede and form a country where the dead are legally empowered to enslave the living.

 

[barrowwight]

Ranger, you might want to consider White Sulfur Springs area with the Greenbrier resort. The government started building the congressional bunker in the late 50's so you could have them fall back into that. Mothman wasn't until the 60's and across the state but you could throw it into the mix.

 

[IronWolf]

Rather than a straight up fight, how about needing to drive the ghosts back with relics from the Union militia that originally defeated them?

The flag could very well still be in the courthouse or museum and allow for turning the creatures and drive them back to the cave, the drum lay forgotten in someone's attic but be played as a weapon. Old muzzle loaders still hang above veteran's pictures in living rooms throughout town.

This is similar to what I was thinking. While the town is attacked the PCs need to go and gather this stuff. This will let you have the chaos going on around them, but then give you terrain and environment changes to keep things interesting.

Sounds like an awesome Halloween game!

 

[RangerWickett]

Cool suggestions. Thanks guys. It's starting to coalesce in my mind.

Now I need to figure out how to organize it. I've got a lot of gamer friends, and last year the GM carrying the Halloween flag ran four separate sessions on consecutive weekends. I think that's a bit much for me, but I guess I need to pick 12 people I really want to game with.