How do I make tiny animated dolls super creepy?

[Stumblewyk]

In honor the upcoming Halloween holiday, I'm running the my (now) annual Ravenloft "Weekend-in-the-Mists" game for my regular group tonight. This year, I've decided to convert the old AD&D 2e module The Created for my players. We've elected to make 2nd-level characters for a one-off session.

I found the updated 3.5 stats for the Carrionette in Dragon Magazine, and I've updated them for PF. I created customized Animated Objects for the PCs as dolls (if it goes that way), and I've created Maligno nearly from scratch using the Carrionette as a base. I've got some cool background music and creepy sound effects, we're dimming the lights, and I think I've got the "atmosphere" part of Ravenloft down. I'm ready to run the module.

Here's what I'm unsure on however - how do I make Tiny, animated puppets menacing and scary? The party is not going be afraid to walk up to a tiny-sized puppet and start wailing on them. Especially since they ended up being so melee-heavy as a party. Barbarian, Fighter, Cleric, and then a Fighter/Gunslinger and Alchemist who will need to be in "near-melee" range to be effective. The crossbow Ranger will be easy to mess with, since I'm expecting he'll be willing to hang back and can get cut-off from the rest of the group.

But how do I strike fear into the Barb and Fighter in particular, when they're confronted with a little, wooden marionette? I'm looking for tactics and tricks I can employ with these guys. As the Carrionette is written, they're "schtick" is to paralyze and incapacitate you at a range, but that range is limited to 15 feet, so they're not going to be picking people off at a great distance either if they do get into combat.

 

[Systole]

They're Coming To Get You Barbara (Su): When an Animated Doll is reduced to less than 0 HP, it is stunned for 1d3 rounds. The doll then gains the staggered condition, and may take a single standard action per round. The doll does not lose additional health, even if this action is strenuous. Adiitionally, its speed is reduced to 15'. A doll is destroyed immediately if it is reduced to -10 health.

GM: The creepy thing about horror films is that the bad guy always comes back when you think he's dead. In this case, they kill a doll, and then a few rounds later, the broken doll sits back up and starts dragging itself toward them, like a zombie. In this case, the doll is much less of a threat, but any time you mess with things a player is sure of (i.e. that he killed a baddie), it makes him nervous.

 

[SnowleopardVK]

Wait, you need to do something to tiny living dolls to make them creepy?

They're kind of pretty freaky on their own.

Alright well, one way that tiny things can be scary: When they hide on a shelf or chandelier and jump down on your face when you walk below. Make the players scared to walk under anything.

 

[SteelDraco]

I would have them exploit their size and stealth for an advantage in combat. Something that small can go a lot of places that a Medium creature can't. I'd have an environment full of objects - furniture, debris, whatever. The little dolls are small enough to move around without impediment, but anyone trying to attack them in melee is going to have to deal with difficult terrain and cover problems. Difficult terrain makes life hard for melee-types, and it makes sense that enemies with short-range missile attacks would use cover to get as close as possible and strike from cover to avoid reprisal. A lot of cover would also protect them from ranged reprisal (the gunslinger and maybe the alchemist). Add to that a series of Tiny-sized passages through the walls and such so they can get around easily.

How stealthy are the little critters? I assume with the bonus to Stealth from size Tiny that they'd be able to sneak rings around a group of 2nd level PCs with some reliability. Use that. They strike and disappear with a chorus of children's giggles, as several members of the group start wobbling from incapacitating poison. As the group drops defenses and moves to help the casters who just got a dart in the neck, they strike again from a different direction, wearing down and confusing the PCs. If the little dolls are intelligent, they know they'll just go squish if one of those gigantic humans gets close enough to attack. So don't let them.

 

[billd91]

Keep them unnerved by having the dolls make up other dolls to look like the PCs and dismember them so that they keep seeing doll versions of themselves all hacked up. Perhaps a doll dressed like the gunslinger found hanging from a noose. Maybe a doll head made up to look like the barbarian comes rolling down the stairs at them.

Another option is to make them not so much animated dolls, but a set of identical dolls animated by a spirit that moves from one to another. They'll destroy one only to be plagued by it again.

 

[Stumblewyk]

Wait, you need to do something to tiny living dolls to make them creepy?

They're kind of pretty freaky on their own.

Alright well, one way that tiny things can be scary: When they hide on a shelf or chandelier and jump down on your face when you walk below. Make the players scared to walk under anything.

I think a tiny, animated, malicious puppet who wants to take over your body is plenty creepy. But I want to hammer that home for my players, who often tend to be of the "scorched earth" philosophy of gaming. But I like the idea of those carrionettes willing to serve as the cannon fodder leaping from the concealing glare of a street lamp onto the barbarian's face where they start stabbing, stabbing, stabbing at his eyes. *cough*

How stealthy are the little critters? I assume with the bonus to Stealth from size Tiny that they'd be able to sneak rings around a group of 2nd level PCs with some reliability. Use that. They strike and disappear with a chorus of children's giggles, as several members of the group start wobbling from incapacitating poison.

VERY stealthy. I intend to have them make most of their attacks from rooftops, and with surprise when possible. But I think you're right it's perfectly fair to fill alleys with carts, barrels, and crates the little buggers can hide behind and under as well.

 

[wolff96]

A little description goes a long way, too. But I would add at least one "Puppeteer" at one point. He has a modified Dominate Person (similar to the Witch's Wax Doll hex) that he can try to use on a party member.

If he gets control, they move in a very stilted manner as they try to kill the rest of the party -- him manipulating the doll being the method of control.

After the party kills the puppeteer, make sure his description was distinctive. That way, when they find the control point of the dolls (some secret lab? Magic tower?) they can find a little wax doll of the "pupeteer" that they killed... and signs that the real villain made a hasty retreat.

 

[Stumblewyk]

After the party kills the puppeteer, make sure his description was distinctive. That way, when they find the control point of the dolls (some secret lab? Magic tower?) they can find a little wax doll of the "pupeteer" that they killed... and signs that the real villain made a hasty retreat.

That's a great idea, but the carionettes are essentially intelligent "souls" living in an animated puppet. Their entire goal is take the body of a human adult and then dispose of their former puppet body (with the human's soul trapped inside) in such a way as to guarantee that the puppet body won't die. If it does, both the trapped humanoid spirit, and the carrionette spirit are permanently destroyed.

They're basically intelligent parasites - stealing bodies and living amongst other people in their new form.

But they're so small. I just don't want the party to just say, "They're small. Crush them." I want the party to say "Oh crap. Those things again..."

 

[SnowleopardVK]

Small things being super stealthy is their biggest advantage, intelligent and well thought out hit and run tactics are the best ways to make players fear them.

They attack unseen in the night from rooftops and other high or dark places, they flee just as quickly through escape routes too small for the players to follow them, they hit and run relentlessly, but (aside from the occasional cannon fodder one) attack in ways that will be safe for them. And when the players try to run, they cut off the escape route.

Basically read up on Tucker's Kobolds. These could be perhaps even worse to face if someone's scared of the creepy factor they have.

 

[Samurai]

How about this: The dolls ready an action so that when the melee type charges into range, they unleash their "paralyze" attack.

PC: "I charge and smash the first doll! Rrrarr!"

DM: "Ok, make 3 Will saves..."

PC: "I got a 15, a 6, and a 12"

DM: "You run at them, growling, but when you get to just 15' away from the malevolent dolls, 3 of the dolls raise their little hands and point at you, and you feel sharp pains on your hands and knees, You stop dead in your tracks, and you can't move your arms or legs at all, but you can still move your head. You see ghostly strings extending from your extremities toward the ceiling. You hear one of the puppets on the ground say "cut out his eyes and tongue while we keep him dangling on our strings!" You are completely helpless as you see and feel tiny puppets hands scrabbling and clawing their way up your legs, tiny swords grasped in their hinged mouths, climbing relentlessly toward your head....