How do I make tiny animated dolls super creepy?

While the characters are doing something else, have one (or more) of them slip into a backpack. They could do all sorts of malicious things to the items in the backpack, leap out and attack when the PCs reach for something in the pack, or even start attacking through the pack into the character's back.

Then, there's always creepy voodoo dolls of the PCs; if the PCs harm the animated voodoo doll, it hurts them as well. Really interesting when the voodoo dolls are suicidal. Before the characters can attempt to destroy the dolls safely, they'll need to use a remove curse to destroy the bond.
 

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As I remember the adventure, the DM is encouraged to split up the group and let a group of Carrionettes attack at once. And epically the fighter (with Perception not as class skill) shouldn't be afraid of the tiny puppets he sees. He should be afraid if he doesn't see them as they sneak up from behind/above and take over his body...
 

Thanks for the help and ideas everyone.

Turns out, all my work and prep went for naught. One of my players showed up more than a little bit tipsy. Enough so, that I was left wondering how he drove there in the first place, and that he didn't drink much at all during the game. For the record, we're all beer fans...we make a point of drinking during our games.

Anyway, he decided to really ham things up, for just about the first time ever. And it really killed the atmosphere.

On top of that, the party essentially TPK'd fairly early in the evening. During the encounter in the toy shop, things went very very badly. 3 PCs flat-out died. 2 of them had already been "possessed." And they happened to be the most lethal of the party. The greatsword-wielding fighter and gunslinger TORE through their former companions, leaving PCs dying that should have become host bodies for other carrionettes. The gunslinger critted twice, doing upwards of 35+ damage each time against level 2 PCs. The fighter essentially AO'd the barbarian and paladin/cleric into paste after Maligno slapped them both with Irresistible Dance.

So, they got the initial shock of being swarmed by Carrionettes in the theater, got a couple of scares wandering the streets of Odiare in the foggy nightscape, and then got wiped out in the toy shop ambush. And it was all blown to hell by a way-too-drunk player. =/
 

Well that's frustrating. It's hard enough to create the right mood for a horror game that you're trying tomake legitimately spooky. Booze isn't going to mix well with those efforts. Wonder if it'd be better next year to do a booze-free horror game or a beer-soaked hammy B-movie kind of game.

Sorry things didn't go the way you intended.
 

Yeah, we're usually a very beer-and-pretzels kind of game, so obviously the regular game-night drinking usually isn't a problem. I think for next year, I'm just going do to a straight up B-movie horror pastiche and assume things are going to go straight to hell and let the game accommodate for it.

Live and learn!
 


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