Decorating help for evil Necromancer

[Akhkharu]

Make the gnome like Martha Stewart. Have the entire placed decorated as something Martha would do.
Nice fluffy pillows on the couch/chair that match the curtains.
A ensemble of pretty flowers sitting on a coffee table made from sea shells found at the beach.

 

[Rashak Mani]

A Pit for pitfighting among his evil creations and prisoners... I like the idea of a fighting pit.

Put piles of body parts or Shrines for evil dieties. Naturally loads of virginal prisoners with their eyes poked out. Dont overdo it or they will just turn it off....


Maybe a portal with a view to hell ?

 

[Dieter]

Make the gnome like Martha Stewart. Have the entire placed decorated as something Martha would do.
Nice fluffy pillows on the couch/chair that match the curtains.
A ensemble of pretty flowers sitting on a coffee table made from sea shells found at the beach.

Cool idea, but also make Martha Stewart like she's portayed on Saturday Night Live (TM) by Ana Gasteyer. Eeriely wholesome, but with dark and brooding overtones. Sure, she'll show you how to make meringue tarts....and how to properly lace them with arsenic to give that nice "death warmed over look".

 

[Sodalis]

how about a room filled with mannequins, or so the party thinks they are. In reality, they are people infected with paralysis and can barely move. This is a special paralysis where instead of falling down unable to move, th epeople are frozen in place. They eyes still move and they can sorta make noises, but their bodies are completely frozen in place.

Afet a while, make one of them able to move- just a litle bit- and he reaches out for help.

Or a taxonomy room where animals are not what they seem- if you have the necromancy book, there is a PrC taht can graft monstrous appendages to any being- so a rat can have carrion crawler tentacles, and a dire bear has owlbear wings... or a five arsed monkey...

 

[Moe Ronalds]

Love the ideas, keep 'em coming. I'm definitely using the five arsed monkey idea, and the paralyzed people. I also like the idea of bathing in blood. Something you should know is that they won't meet him for a while though. I'm also gonna look up medievel(sp?) torture devices...

 

[barsoomcore]

There's a fine line between creepy and ridiculous. Just ask Sam Raimi.

I find that suggestion always works better than revelation. Having live people who have gone mad and can only tell the party limited things is really effective -- let them use their imagination. What they are picturing in their own heads will scare them far more than what you describe.

You only need enough details to get your point across -- if you keep ladling on the gore and grue eventually your players will cease to be impressed. Small details, scattered about a sea of emptiness, will work much more effectively than a Grand Guignol extravaganza. Nothing scares my party more than finding one gruesome detail at first and then travelling through empty spaces, jumping at shadows and looking for more clues as to what's going on -- and not finding any.

What will really scare your players is the sense that they don't know what's going on, but whatever it is, it's bad.

Think of most horror films. Usually they start out pretty good -- something creepy happens and for the next hour you're all jumpy. But eventually they pull out the big bad and it's never as scary as what you'd been worrying about. It's very hard to follow through on suspense without disappointing your audience. I think that overdoing it at the start is just setting yourself up for failure half-way through.

 

[Hatchling Dragon]

There's a fine line between creepy and ridiculous. Just ask Sam Raimi.

I find that suggestion always works better than revelation. Having live people who have gone mad and can only tell the party limited things is really effective -- let them use their imagination. What they are picturing in their own heads will scare them far more than what you describe.

I'll agree with baroomcore, why try to guess at what your players find the most horrifing, let them do all the hard work/imagining

I like the idea of the Necromancer being a 'gentleman' and suave, the perfect host. It'd just creepy when your foe is nicer than you.

You could wait till the party is at least slightly split-up (and they always split up!) and have one or two of them hear what they think is a faint scream or moan, yet they can't seem to find precisely where it's coming from. And of course when they try to get the rest of the party to help there isn't anything to hear/follow.

I'd suggest using furnature constructed from bone(s). Doesn't have to be disgusting or blood-splattered, just made of bones. How would you like it if you were seated at a table and sitting on chairs constructed from skeletonal remains, perhaps even of sentient beings? Waste not want not, and Necromancers certainly aren't squeemish about the dead.

Speeking of non-squeemishness, how about Zombies or Skeletons as servants in the castle? Why pay potentially disloyal people when you have eternally loyal undead? Also makes the PC's decision to attack thier host more difficult if they've seen Zombie Ogres or what-not shambling around the grounds.

One specific bit of 'furnature' I thought would be at least 'nifty', if not really too terrifying unless the PC's realise how powerfull the Necromancer must be to 'waste' undead like this, would be to have an Animated Skeleton of a Giant Snake of some sort suspended from the ceiling being used as a movable light source. As their host is showing them around he can neglegently order the snake to show-off some bit of sculpture (of bone?) that he's particularly proud of, thus suprising the characters.

Hatchling Dragon

 

[LostSoul]

You see a small, iron cage hanging from the ceiling. At the bottom of it are sharp, iron spikes. Inside the cage, you see a mangled corpse with a look of pure greif and anguish frozen on their face. Below the cage is a pool of blood. You can see the corpse was freshly killed, as it is still dripping blood. Suddenly, the corpse turns towards you, it's half rotted face twisting and contorting. You only barely realize, he's trying to talk. He send a strange moaning from his throat, but you manage to make out the tormented words "Help Me" before he goes into spasms, blood spraying everywhere. A few drops hit your face, as he finally freezes, and dies.

You don't want to describe things - like what the PCs see - but you want to tell them how they feel or what's going on in thier minds. I think, at least. Descriptions get boring and players tend to overlook the details.

"You step into the room. The air is still and dead. There's a small cage hanging from the cieling, filled with spikes. There's a small trickle of blood, drip... drip... dripping down into a pool of the stuff. You can see a pale body, almost bone-white, in the cage. He is reaching out with one limp hand."

While the PCs decide what to do, drip, drip, drip...

If any of the PCs get close to the cage:
"The hand suddenly twiches and the body spasms!" grab the PC. Take a drink of water. spit out "Help me" in his face, then fake a seisure.
"He twitches for a while then stops."

Of course, that would be hard to do, but it would probably freak somebody out.

Here's a freaky image (adult warning):


the lower half of a woman with a wooden upper half (life-like) and a smiling face. She's wearing a wedding gown that's hiked up above her waist. It's splattered with blood.

 

[Anabstercorian]

Eww! Ick ick ick.

All right, how about this. A beautiful painting in red cast of a woman looking off in to the sunset... It's one of the best pieces of art the characters have ever seen. Then they get close. Everything in it is made up of bits of organs, dried, of different shades, arranged carefully, like those butterfly wing paintings. And the eyes of the woman are real. And they're moving.

 

[LostSoul]

Re: Eww! Ick ick ick.

And the eyes of the woman are real. And they're moving.

heh heh. Of course! because she's still alive.