Dark Side of the Moon (landing)

[Novem5er]

By complete coincidence, my 4e campaign has found itself on the moon... just as we celebrate Apollo's 40th anniversary.

A little backstory:

We're playing an FR campaign, and the group has been hunting down a clan of werewolves that have been plaguing the locals. In a previous adventure, the party had discovered an abandoned "moon gate" of Selune, which they were able to restore and then use for quick travel.

Now, some months later, the party has found a similar portal. This new gate is a ring of black stone (as opposed to the silver stone of the pure moon gate). The party has figured out that the werewolf leader has traveled through the portal, carrying something called a "weird stone" that he had used to create the portal years ago. The goal is to enter, obtain the weird stone, and then return and use the stone to destroy the portal.

The party (level 7) so far knows that this thing is a portal, but they have NO CLUE as to where. They know the werewolves has some links to "weird" creatures (aka, aberrations). They think the black ring is an old form of Shar's holy symbal, and thus, I think they are expecting some Shadow forces to come about. Friday night, they are going to step through the portal and find themselves in an expanse of gray desert, with only the stars above them to light the way. A set of tracks will lead them into the darkness.

My Idea: Old lore tells us that were-creatures often go crazy over the moon. Why? Also, it is part of Selune's doctrine to hunt down and stop evil lycanthropes. My idea is that something has corrupted the moon, and made it a beacon of madness to Selune's once favored servants: the lycanthropes.

In my game, the side of the moon facing Faerun in Selune's domain, and the other half is dominated by a crystal monolith from the Far Realm. This crystal monolith (a possible dungeon?) was thrown into the moon during the Spellplague (by Shar?) and has since made the moon's light even more madening for lycanthropes. Selune has just been waiting for some heroes to come and remove the plague from her moon.

Ever since reading one of the War of the Twins book (in which Tasselhoff is on the moon), I've always been fascinated with using the moon as a bleak, alien landscape during an adventure. Now, with Far Realm aberrations, I have some suitably alien monsters to put there.

I plan on running 2-3 sessions here on the moon and I need some help acheiving some atmospheric (hah!) results. First, I don't want it immediately obvious that the player's are on the moon. I want them to figure it out, or perhaps have a really great moment where they hike to the edge of the darkness and peer over, into the sky, and see Toril spread before them in all her magisty!

I'm looking for:

• tricks to make the place feel utterly alien.
• things that make the characters question their sanity.
• slowly build on the idea of utter isolation.
• cool encounters, hazards, narrative pieces that build on these ideas.

What do you think? I already have the big bad guy planned out (using the Cursechanged Beggar reskinned as a werewolf boss), and it would be cool to fight him at the base of the crystal monolith (Hmm, do we go home or enter the crystal?). In the end, I think the party should have the choice of returning home with the weird stone and destroying the portal... or pressing on to perhaps destroy the monolith and free lycanthropes the world over from the curse.

See you on the dark side of the moon...

 

[Rechan]

No green cheese or flags, eh?

Question: did they go through the first Moongate to reach the moon? If they did, then wouldn't the dark side of the moon look... similar?

Because the whole time I was reading the entry, I was anticipating the players to use the first Moongate, then hoof it to the dark side. (Sidenote: Maybe after they destroy the monolith, the portal back is destroyed, so they have to walk back to the first Moongate).

Also, if you established anything if/when they went through the first time, then those qualities should be constant.

the Cursechanged Beggar

Where are these stats found?

Also, I want to say that I find the notion of the Moon being corrupted by the Far Realms to mess with lycanthropes/madness, AND that lycanthropes were once chosen of Selune... to be freaking BRILLIANT.

 

[Rechan]

My first feeling as improvements:

No Sound. Absolutely no sound. Players can barely hear one another when they talk right beside one another. As if the sky eats the sound itself. The only thing they can hear is their own breathing. However, things like craters actually bounce sound around like if you yell inside a bucket or a barren room. This captures the isolating feeling of space, and adds a creepy element: if one of your allies behind you is attacked, you don't hear it. (In order to make your players get this, limit between-player communication, and limit mid-game tactics discussions. PCs have to draw battleplans in the dirt beforehand, wave their arms to get one another's attention, etc. A game where everyone plays Charades when they can't stand next to one another might get old, but I think it's particularly appropriate.)

If you like messing with senses like that: light doesn't function in the normal sense. Instead of it being a beam or a glowing radiance, light actually acts like it's a floating, fluorescent liquid. It forms different shapes, it can break apart and shift away (until it shrivels up). You might even have Far Realms entities composed of malignant light, which seep into the player's Light Sources, turning them different colors and attacking from within the light source (forcing the PCs to turn their light sources off!).

Gravity is different. Not bouncing around different. Perhaps certain things fall UP. Or, certain things fall down slower. Liquid (like blood) instead ripples and spirals, falling in a diagonal, like it was going down stairs.

No wind. Not even the semblance of wind. Also, no flora or fauna (even though it's a "desert"). If you have a ranger, or any sort of nature oriented character, you should tell them point blank, "This feels Wrong."

However, you could spice the above up if you started letting flora/fauna and wind creep in, as the PCs grow closer to the monolith - but drive home that these things are wrong somehow, that they don't belong in the environment. Like the surface wasn't meant to handle plants, so that plants are actually cracking it slowly. This, thus, shows the corruptive nature of the monolith. Perhaps these plants create sinkholes, which are natural pit traps.

Instead of the monolith being some sort of tower that just rises out of the ground, how about an inverted monolith. It looks like some sort of thorn or spike that was THROWN into the surface of the moon (driving home that 'flung' feeling). It could even look like an enormous, crystal thorn from whence visible corruption in the form of cracks spread.

The Moon is a physical manifestation of Selune, right? While it may not be organic (or maybe it is!), this taint represents a sort of corruption. So, maybe a physical (or spiritual) manifestation of that corruption, in the form of an infection. Non-organic tumors or growths made of the same material as the monolith. Maybe these growths rupture (by shattering), releasing Far Realms monsters, or quicksilver oozes.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Also, I want to say that I find the notion of the Moon being corrupted by the Far Realms to mess with lycanthropes/madness, AND that lycanthropes were once chosen of Selune... to be freaking BRILLIANT.

I agree very well thought out story here.

As for ideas:

• Perhaps have bonuses to jumps, pushes, etc. To get that less-gravity feel across. So you can jump farther, and throw/shove enemies farther.
• Have pockets where whatever is giving the moon oxygen is absent.
• Perhaps bring in worries that NASA had about the moon and exaggerated. So things like whole "lakes" of layers of dust that simply never blew away and built up.
• The lack of any wind or clouds. This can I think really help the feel of isolation since literally NOTHING moves if the PCs don't cause it.
• The lack of sound. With being in a vacuum (though not really since they can breath but lets run with it). This can help with isolation with not being able to hear anything, and change up communication.

Edit: Damn you Rechan! Ninjaing me

 

[Rechan]

Going back over my previous post, it occurs to me that several of my suggestions sound like tips for underwater atmosphere. Which is a good way of thinking about it: underwater is a very alien environment to us, it messes with the senses, it feels different. While there's obvious distinctions, thinking about a deep sea diver's experiences can be a source of inspiration.

• Have pockets where whatever is giving the moon oxygen is absent.
• Perhaps bring in worries that NASA had about the moon and exaggerated. So things like whole "lakes" of layers of dust that simply never blew away and built up.

I like these. Use drowning rules for the "No Air" areas. And of course, the PCs have to go through a No Air area; they have to run. Compound this by the players being chased; they can't stop to fight, because they'll run out of air. Maybe whatever causes the air to be absent in that area can be fixed, so the PCs have a minor objection: get the air going in that area.

The dust might even be a problem, as players could breathe it in. Or, imagine a fight in a dust lake - the dust is getting knocked up, obscuring everything. With no sound, it suddenly turns into a game of cat and mouse.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

To jump off of Rechan's talk of organic flora/fauna. I remember reading a report on some manner of bacteria that could actually survive in a vacuum, was even more crazy in that it lived off radiation. You could have whole swaths of the moon infested by these. Have fields of them, or cracks in the moon filled up by them (imagine how disturbing that be falling into one of these cracks and being forced to push yourself through living bacteria).

 

[Rechan]

Depending on how you interpret your Far Realms... given the position they are in space, perhaps the PCs have a better vantage point of "That which lies beyond/between the Stars".

They may not see Cthulu's bedroom from where they stand, but they might see some freaky stuff in the stars. A spot of living darkness that drifts behind celestial bodies like a malignant cloud. A constellation in the shape of an eye that, out of the corner of the PCs vision, seems to blink, or turn to watch them. Maybe a comet travels past, and the PCs feel that they are in the Presence of something, like mental humidity.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

They may not see Cthulu's bedroom from where they stand, but they might see some freaky stuff in the stars. A spot of living darkness that drifts behind celestial bodies like a malignant cloud. A constellation in the shape of an eye that, out of the corner of the PCs vision, seems to blink, or turn to watch them. Maybe a comet travels past, and the PCs feel that they are in the Presence of something, like mental humidity.

NEBULAS! I've always liked the idea for a story or game where a nebula somehow manages to drift into a celestial body. With it being D&D all sorts of crazy stuff could take place with that, it could even be the space version of Far Realm taint.

Perhaps the party notices that the stars move. But not like they do on the planet with the rotation of it. But in their own bizarre fashion, perhaps making constellations, etc.

Perhaps mess around with rotations of the moon. Since it does rotate but at the same speed it rotates the earth. So have it slow down or speed up, add magical effects and this could mess with tides on earth a bunch, ie; tidal waves.

If you want to bring in Pseudoscience, have space be filled with the Aether and since no atmosphere on the moon that means one actually is walking through the Aether.
If the parties have any PCs that be more tied to the cosmos they definitely should have some sort of effect being felt. Be it a Star Pact Warlock or say Cosmos Sorcerer.

 

[Novem5er]

Wow, guys! Some great ideas here. Thank you, so far.

A little clarification on my part: the original moon gate they entered (2 months ago) just teleported them to another moon gate in a distant city. The "good" moon gates are linked by moon phases, so when the moon is at crescent, then travel is possible between all crescent gates. The idea is actually taken from the old Ultima video game. The original scene was pretty cool b/c they didn't know what they were uncovering until it was done, and then an Angel appeared, thanked them for their service, and bade them to "light up the darkness" by uncovering more lost gates. Not bad for level 4

So, thus, the players have no idea that a gate could actually lead them to the moon itself. I really wonder how long it will take them to figure out what's going on. If they don't, then I really want to create a scene where they cross into the "light side", look over the horizon, and see a crescent Toril in the sky.

Ideas already yoinked from this thread:

• lack of sound - love the idea that all is silent, save for adjacent squares, and the distant cries of alien intelligences.
• lack of air - shards of this Far Realms monolith pepper the landscape, creating pockets of vacuum. Destroy the shard and restore the air.
• odd gravity - anything not on your person is subjected to low gravity; all ranged attacks add an extra 4 squares to max range. Jumping gives an extra square.
• No wind + lots of dust - fighting in a square for 2 rounds creates zones of lightly obscured terrain (harmful to breath?)
• infected landscape - the only flora or fauna found is highly alien; bachterial or amorphous.
• Malevolent stars - Instead of a glorious starry night, the PCs are going to get the sense that they are intruding, that some stars seem to be glaring at them, and even blinking randomly. I don't want to overdo the idea w/ moving nebulas, etc (at least not at first!), but that is something that would be great to swirl above the monolith when they find it.

These little bits will definitely add to the creep factor, and even more if the players don't catch on that their actually on the moon.

A little more clarification: the Cursechanged Beggar is from the D&D Compendium as a level 6 Aberrant Solo. Basically he flails around alot, hitting everybody, and gets tougher when he's bloodied. I think he'll make a good reskinned Aberrant Werewolf (and I've got a great mini a-la Dreamblade!). I don't want the last battle to be a slug fest, so I'm trying to find something interesting to happen during the fight... something to keep the players and the Solo moving. Getting some ideas now with the ideas above.

One last thing... I'm looking for events that will make the characters start to feel a little insane. For instance, they players will be following a set of tracks in the dust... what if the tracks suddenly reverse direction, as in, point the opposite direction? Did the PCs get turned around, or do they continue to follow these backwards foot prints?

 

[Rechan]

I don't want the last battle to be a slug fest, so I'm trying to find something interesting to happen during the fight... something to keep the players and the Solo moving. Getting some ideas now with the ideas above.

Terrain and events are important for solo fights. Perhaps the monolith is "Charging up", or doing SOMETHING freaky. It's causing cracks to form in the ground (splitting some people up, or separating them from the BBEG). Consider that some spots might rise or lower, too. The Monolith might also be tossing down some attacks, but it telegraphs where it's going to hit by light - it lights up an area during this round, and next round, BOOM. Of course, it's not discriminating - the werewolf can get hit by this too, so naturally he wants to get out of dodge as well.

One last thing... I'm looking for events that will make the characters start to feel a little insane. For instance, they players will be following a set of tracks in the dust... what if the tracks suddenly reverse direction, as in, point the opposite direction? Did the PCs get turned around, or do they continue to follow these backwards foot prints?

Maybe the tracks go straight up the side of something, like an Escher painting.