Creating in-game "atmosphere"

[NewJeffCT]

I'm still dusting off my DMing rust and want some tips on creating a good creepy/spooky type of atmosphere in game.

The PCs are going to be going into a swampy/marsh type of area in the coming session and I want to set the mood for them that there is potential danger in every step - movement will be slowed at times, there are "mundane" dangers like poisonous snakes, etc. Eventually, the players will find the green hag & her "covey" of ogres.

I remember 10 years ago as a player, a DM had really created a great creepy atmosphere when the players had entered a swamp and I'm drawing a blank on how the guy did it, I just remember it was very tense at the table. No background music - all verbal/flavor text type of stuff.

Thanks

 

[Raven Crowking]

Find a copy of Wildscape and use the hazards therein.

RC

 

[Voadam]

Description matters. Don't call things by name, describe the monsters. In swamps seeing ripples in the murky water as something slips underwater is nice as they know something is down there but not what.

I had a group tracking down some orcs in a swamp come across things like finding a place where the orcs scattered in a panic and big marks showing where one was dragged off to the side down into the river. Foreshadowing of the croc attack to come.

 

[Desdichado]

Also, in your descriptions, be sure and include plenty of things that are creepy and weird but which offer no immediate threat. That builds the suspension and tension because you know that there's Bad Things (TM) just waiting to grab you, but you haven't yet seen them.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Find a copy of Wildscape and use the hazards therein.

RC

Thanks, I'll have to look it up... but, unless it's on PDF, I won't be able to get it before tomorrow night.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Thanks, I'll have to look it up... but, unless it's on PDF, I won't be able to get it before tomorrow night.

Some help:

General Conditions:


Light Disease (CR ½): Fortitude save DC 5; 2 hour interval; +0 modifier/interval; Special: On a failed save, a character contracts a minor disease from a bug bite, a parasite in the water, or a similar exposure. This disease has an incubation period of 1d3 days and a Fortitude save DC 10 to resist it, and it inflicts 1d3 Con damage.


Moderate Disease (CR 1): Fortitude save DC 10; 2 hour interval; +0 modifier/interval; Special: On a failed save, a character contracts a minor disease from a bug bite, a parasite in the water, or a similar exposure. This disease has an incubation period of 1d3 days and a Fortitude save DC 15 to resist it, and it inflicts 1d3 Con damage.

Flooding and mires can slow movement, reducing movement to ½ normal rate (i.e., each square of movement counts as 2 squares).


Light Vermin (CR ¼): Fortitude save DC 10; 1 hour interval; –1 penalty/interval; –1 competence penalty to attacks, checks, and saves; Special: Note that as a competence penalty, this hazard does not stack with successive failures. Characters can remove this penalty with a hot bath and change of clothes. Creatures native to a swamp ignore this hazard.

Light Obscuring Mist: The mist appears as wispy, light clouds that fade quickly as travelers approach them. They provide little cover, but do prevent explorers from seeing too far ahead. Characters can see as normal up to a range of 90 ft. Beyond that, creatures gain the benefit of concealment.

Moderate Obscuring Mist: Thicker cloudbanks conceal creatures, trees, pools of water, and other obstacles. Anything more than 40 ft. away from an observer gains the benefits of concealment. All Listen checks in the swamp suffer a –2 circumstance penalty as the fog muffles any noise.

Moderate Gloom: By day creatures have bright illumination to a range of 30 ft. and shadowy illumination to a range of 30 ft. and shadowy illumination to a range of 60 ft. Creatures with low-light vision double these ranges. At night, creatures have shadowy illumination to a range of 20 ft.

Monsters:

Shrew-like Rats: CR 1/8; Tiny Animal; HD ¼d8; hp 1 each; Init +2; Spd 15 ft. (3 squares), climb 15 ft., swim 15 ft.; Space/Reach 2 ½ ft./o ft.; AC 14, touch 14, flat-footed 12; Base Atk +0; Grp–12 (+0 if attached); Atk/Full Atk Bite +4 melee (1d3–4); SA Attach, Blood drain; SQ Low-light vision, scent; AL N; SV Fort +2, Ref +4, Will +1; Str 2, Dex 15, Con 10, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 2.

Skills and Feats: Balance +10, Climb +12, Hide +14, Move Silently +10, Swim +10, Weapon Finesse.

Skills: Shrew-like rats have a +4 racial bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks, and a +8 racial bonus on Balance, Climb, and Swim checks. A shrew-like rat can always choose to take 10 on Climb checks, even if rushed or threatened. A shrew-like rat uses its Dexterity modifier instead of its Strength modifier for Climb and Swim checks. A shrew-like rat has a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform some special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.

Attach (Ex): If a shrew-like rat hits with a bite attack, it locks its teeth, and is effectively grappling its prey. The shrew-like rat loses its Dexterity bonus to AC and has an AC of 12, but holds on with great tenacity. Shrew-like rats have a +12 racial bonus on grapple checks when attached (already figured into the Base Attack/Grapple entry above). An attached shrew-like rat can be struck with a weapon or grappled itself. To remove an attached shrew-like rat through grappling, the opponent must achieve a pin against the creature.

Blood Drain (Ex): A shrew-like rat drains blood, dealing 1 points of Constitution damage in any round when it begins its turn attached to a victim. Once it has dealt 2 points of Constitution damage, it detaches and runs off to digest the meal. If its victim dies before the shrew-like rat’s appetite has been sated, the shrew-like rat detaches and seeks a new target.

 

[Voadam]

Thanks, I'll have to look it up... but, unless it's on PDF, I won't be able to get it before tomorrow night.

It is a pdf on rpgnow.com

 

[Raven Crowking]

It is a pdf on rpgnow.com

Just be aware that the shrew-like rats don't come from Wildscape (although the hazards do). I wrote them up for an adventure of my own.

RC

 

[NewJeffCT]

It is a pdf on rpgnow.com

thanks - I'll check it out later tonight when I don't have to run off to pick up my daughter.

 

[Aeolius]

It’s a genuine pity that WotC never finished the environmental series with a rainforest/swamp/jungle/coniferous woods supplement, as one is sorely needed.

Are their any woods, nearby? If so, try walking there at night - without a flashlight. If you need a light, keep it small. The darker the better. Use your senses; listen to the wind as it dances through the limbs above, feel the leaves as they move beneath your feet. Smell the freshly turned soil. Now, imagine there is someone following you. Invoke your gamers’ imagination to awaken your Willing Suspension of Disbelief. There IS someone behind you. Frightened yet? Good. Bottle that fear, so that it can be used later.

Your most valuable NPC is the swamp itself. The marsh is a living amalgamated entity. Its breath emerges as dank air afoul with the stench of rotting flesh. It reaches out with twisted tree branch fingertips draped in a cloak of sphagnum moss. When it speaks, you are mesmerized by the cacophonous melody of leaves rustling in the distance, water cascading over hidden river stones, and whispering winds sharing secrets in the distance. How will the adventurers travel, within the darkness of the woods? Do they dare travel on foot within the perilous marsh? Will they instead travel by boat, a ready source of curiosity to the indigenous alligators, snakes, and unnaturally large catfish.

Let’s examine your choice of villains, the greenhag. As “usually chaotic evil” monstrous humanoids, more than half of their population are deemed evil. That leaves quite a few that might be as callously neutral and unforgiving as the swamp itself. Greenhags often keep company with ogres, as you have surmised. If you subscribe to certain Ecologies, the union of greenhag and ogre produces an annis.

Hags are notoriously fond of the taste of human flesh. Such creatures see humans as naught by cattle; dumb animals to be deceived, demoralized, and destroyed. Her lair would thusly be strewn with the skeletal remains of past victims, her cauldron bubbling as flesh falls from the dismembered limbs within. Her root cellar would be filled with earthen pots containing the pickled remains of fingers, toes, ears, and eyes. Her attic adorned with strips of human skin drying by the smoke of the central fire. Ever resourceful, the greenhag would use the skulls of past repasts to mark the edges of her territory; warding away the weak while beckoning the foolhardy to their inevitable deaths. Wind chimes made from bleached finger bones echo eerily in the treetops.

Her lair would no doubt be near a ready source of water, as the greenhag is comfortable therein. Envision a massive beaver lodge, it’s submerged entrance hidden beneath stagnant waters emerging within a hollowed thicket of thorns and ivy. Her innate powers of mimicry would serve her well, here, luring the innocent into a maze of inescapable roots and branches.

If you have access to DRAGON #125, you will find “The Ecology of the Greenhag” by Nigel D. Findley. I highly recommend this article to any who find themselves fascinated by hags.