Something Truly Awful

[M.T. Black]

I'm currently working on a horror-themed D&D adventure - we are talking Lovecraftian style horror. I'm looking to add another encounter, something visceral and atmospheric rather than dangerous, but I'm running low on ideas.

What is the most disturbing (in a horror sense) thing you've ever encountered in a tabletop RPG?

 

[Eltab]

Tangent (because it might turn into comedy)

Have the dust under the bed clump together; first into several small things, then into a great big dangerous Dust Bunny - and attack.
Where do you go to get away from dust?

 

[MarkB]

That depends on how deep you want to go, and in what direction. There are some serious psychological horrors you can get into, but the most effective of them are things you should be building up over the course of an adventure rather than in a single scene.

 

[LordEntrails]

Horror, more context would help, but...

Cannibalism and such...
- After spending some time at an inn and enjoying the meals, going out to the cold storage and finding that humanoids are being butchered and turned into meat pies, etc.
- A convalescent home or religious order that tends to the injured. And turns out slows the healing of the patients just for the anguish and pain it causes.
- The old granny of the neighborhood who makes treats for the homeless; from the homeless (i.e. as above), from the dead bodies in the graveyard...
- The use of the dead from a city being used as fertilizer

Children...
- kidnapped and being experimented on to separate them from their innocence or such (i.e. think of the Golden Compass storyline).
- stolen from parents and sold for experiments, slavery, turned into assassins, used as arcane batteries (i.e. the Matrix)
- Children/Child as the BBEG

Sewage...

Helplessness...
- An injustice/evil/danger/etc that the party is helpless to prevent
- Forcing the party to chose between the lesser of two evils, such as feeding the infirm to a vampire or causing a war where thousands will die

 

[GMMichael]

What is the most disturbing (in a horror sense) thing you've ever encountered in a tabletop RPG?

Fighting mind-controlled slaves (naked and weaponless) that did serious damage to our 13th level party. Those were some tough slaves!

Followed shortly thereafter by watching my freshly-made 13th level caster fall dead at the beginning of a battle to a desiccation spell. Horrifying.

Hey, it's meta, but you did make the question personal.

 

[was]

Evil plants replacing people..(..like Invasion of the Body Snatchers). Didn't see it at first, thought it was was like a zombie adventure but the then the holy stuff wasn't working.

 

[Vepr]

If the group can be trusted not to go straight to murderizing each other have a child tell them that one of their number has turned to madness and is working to bring about the rebirth of a foul power. Pass out slips of paper to all of them "Saying you are not the one" and then ask for them back. Have the machinations of the group trying to discover which one of them is the non-existent traitor and their work to discover what is going on and how this happened actually work towards triggering the event. All sorts of misleading and creepy hints can be added along the way to inspire paranoia and fear as you give various signs pointing to each of them being the guilty party which is not a lie technically.

 

[Eltab]

Cannibalism and such...

Sewage...

"Soylent Green is people!" I have to go back and watch that movie again, I barely remember the plot.

- The "garbage masher monster" aboard the Death Star could be made more scary by dimming the lights and making the liquid into something more like quicksand.
- If you fall into the slop, you have to make a Save vs. Disease (use the mechanics for infected Giant Rats?) or get something that gradually tears you up. Might be too much IRL bookkeeping work, though. Or provide some 'box text' descriptions of the rising fever, tremors, chills, &c as their body succumbs. Will this just be a nasty flu bug, or something much much worse?

 

[Ath-kethin]

I think that a living wall (a 2e creature that was literally a wall made of the bodies of its victims; if you're not familiar with it I recommend looking it up) was an underused and underappreciated creature in terms of sheer horror. Think of it: conscious creatures bound into a fixed spot, unable to rest or escape or do anything to better themselves, fueled only by their hatred for their creator and the endless need to draw more creatures into their morass. Nasty.

I haven't found a 5e version I like; I was developing one myself for inclusion in the City of Hidden Ways piece, but there wasn't room in the article.

 

[Richards]

This didn't happen in a tabletop RPG, but rather at a tabletop RPG session.

I went to my friend's house to play D&D. He offered me a drink. But it wasn't our standard fare, a normal can of Mello Yello...it was Mello Yello Zero!

Have you ever tried Mello Yello Zero? Seriously, it tastes like ass. (Or so I'm told, by noted ass gourmands.)

Horrifying!

Johnathan