Horror - how dark is too dark?

[gamerprinter]

Nothing says, I couldn't change the curse from 1000 years to 10,000...

Regarding the land of Kaidan - its an archipelago of islands not dissimilar to Japan, although some have pointed out it kind of looks like the Phillipines in island distribution. It's probably close to the land square mileage of California, or even real-world Japan. With a climate from subtropical to subarctic (not quite that cold), with lots of precipitation. Not unlike Japan itself.

First map below is the entire archipelago of the empire of Kaidan, while the second map is just Yonshu - the third largest island to the western side of the archipelago and where the entire Curse of the Golden Spear intro trilogy occurs...

So not like continental in size, but not a tiny island either.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Love your maps, you are very good making them.

I think I will give your adventure path a try. I kinda like your backstory for most part. Ah, and I like weird monsters, though with my long history of horror stories/movies things that I find scary, is too much for other people. So I anyhow tend to go for things that I find bit "lacking", rather than all the way to dark lands of my imagination.

When are parts 2 and 3 going to come out? There is this pre-sail going on at paizo page, where I do all my shopping nowdays.

Boy-empiror I find interesting character. I have a thing for "innocent" corrupt and creepy kids. Best Dark Lord IMO in Ravenloft was that magnitude V (if I recoll those things right) ghost/poltergeist that was possesing the house. House was very interesting. I got great inspiration. I did very succesful haunted houses out of that inspiration when I was running my WoG Rel Mord city adventure in "final days of magic".
Anyway, just thinking that his relationship with palace might have similar thing going on. All in all, I think it might make nice setting for some high level plays and some evil court intrigue. But yeh, you probably have all kinda cool ideas in mind already.

Hauntings in pathfinder are interesting mood-enchanting mechanic. If you haven't already used them, I think they would make great addition to Kaiden. Carrion Crown adventure path part 1 has quite many examples of them. That modele has some good stuff, but kind of falls short what comes to horror. IMO of course. But mechanic for hauntings is great it allows much creativity.

 

[gamerprinter]

All 3 adventures for the Curse of the Golden Spear have been released as of Gen Con and they are available as printed books and/or PDF - remember this is just an introductory mini-campaign. You can order it through the Paizo Store, RPGDriveThru, RPGNow, Amazon, even possibly you local game store. The printed books were done through Cubicle 7. Also note, that while this is an imprint under Rite Publishing, and Jonathan McAnulty is my lead designer/writer, I am the creator and owner of the IP.

Also available are 3 PDF books on PC races of Kaidan. Soon more supplements will be available - magic items and factions books are next.

There are 2 hauntings in the first adventure and 1 haunting in the second. Actually the first haunting is a linked series of hauntings - so there's really more than 3 hauntings.

And thanks for the comment on my maps - its what I do best.

 

[Ettin]

And thanks for the comment on my maps - its what I do best.

That's good news! I was worried stealth marketing was your day job.

 

[gamerprinter]

Well, the OP has been pretty much settled and I didn't initiate the marketing perspective. I'm only answering specific questions regarding the setting, because I was asked.

Unless some one else has some keen thoughts on horror and on crossing the line. I already said this thread was over a page ago...

 

[lynnfredricks]

Well, the OP has been pretty much settled and I didn't initiate the marketing perspective. I'm only answering specific questions regarding the setting, because I was asked.

Unless some one else has some keen thoughts on horror and on crossing the line. I already said this thread was over a page ago...

Once you ask a question on an open forum, its no longer yours. This is an interesting topic, and once a thread gets long its likely newcomers won't read every post in the thread.

You should be happy that your product and question has generated so much dialog - its free marketing, lap it up

 

[gamerprinter]

OK, then, let's get back on topic. On another thread here, last week or so, somebody was in a situation where a GM was presenting a horror game, and one of the players who brought his girlfriend to play suggested to the GM that she had a terrible fear of spiders. So this GM pulled a dick move and included a giant spider right away, which caused the girl to faint.

Now I agree that the GM was being a jerk doing so. I would have warned the players right away that spiders might indeed be included in the adventure - or I might have been forced to alter the giant spider to be a giant scorpion instead (or something like that.) My third adventure, for example, has instances of a swarm of apocalypse spiders, as well as a giant shape-changing spider. Since these encounters are built-in to that adventure, it would difficult to remove them and maintain their specific nuance in the adventure. The fact is the third adventure is indelibly concerned with phobias as its emphasis.

So what do you find scary and where do you draw the line of being too much - if you even believe there is a line for 'too much'?

 

[scourger]

Already, the first adventure of Kaidan's intro arc, The Gift, has a scene where a serial killer has been abducting children, torturing them, then dumping their bodies into a mountain lake. At one point the PCs are encamped by this lake and get attacked by zombie children - the victims of the serial killer. In adventure 2, Dim Spirit, the PCs will find themselves sharing a guest quarters with the serial killer in question, and get the opportunity to end his reign of terror, prior to his next incident.

This is too dark. For me, on a fantasy literary spectrum Howard is just right but Lovecraft is a too horrific (and it's not even graphic). Adventure 1 as you propose is too much, for me, and I would not care to support it or the companies involved. Adventure 2 is tolerable for the justice aspect but skip the intro.

 

[scourger]

...I have thoughts on presenting a female ghost of a young woman who killed herself, after her abusive boyfriend, a kyodai (big brother) in the local yakuza submits her to the wiles of the younger shatei (little brothers) of the gang in a mass rape incident as a form of initiation.

Again, too dark. It would work better for me if the girl ghost simply stated that she sought redemption or revenge for certain "outrages" by these various people. It is the graphic details that make it too much.

 

[Janx]

OK, then, let's get back on topic. On another thread here, last week or so, somebody was in a situation where a GM was presenting a horror game, and one of the players who brought his girlfriend to play suggested to the GM that she had a terrible fear of spiders. So this GM pulled a dick move and included a giant spider right away, which caused the girl to faint.

I call BS. You're afraid of spiders. You sit down to my game. I describe the next encounter of how the giant spider crawls out of the pantry and jumps on the kitchen table, eyes gleaming. And you faint.

Seriously? Your response while sitting at the gaming table with dice and pop and fellow players around you is to faint to the description of an imaginary spider?

sure, I've got a friend who darn near caused the driver to crash the truck when the driver tossed a plastic spider onto his lap. He spazzed out that bad.

But at least it was a real object in the real world. As opposed to a reference to an imaginary one, while sitting in a dissimilar environment to the story.

On right or wrong to use the spider imagery? Spiders are scary to most people, so any GM is inclined to use it for a beastie. If he hadn't known of the fear, he would be in the right to use it. Since he knew about the phobia, and the point of the spider in any case was to cause fear, it makes sense to use it. The person's own software defects are their own problem. If you're going to faint or spazz out and cause a car crash because of your phobia, you have a software defect in your head that is your problem, no one elses.

Now would I toss out a plastic spider on the batlemat with my friend* playing? No. Not because I respect his phobia, but because I don't want his overreaction to result in damaging property or causing injury as he freaks out.

*This is a good friend I've known for 30 years, heck I just talked to him on the phone. But his reaction was quite disfunctional and dangerous.