Non-supernatural horror

[The Shaman]

Horror in roleplaying games most often involves elements of the supernatural, from vampires and vengeful spirits to unkillable boogeymen and tentacled creatures from another dimension.

Relatively less common, in my experience, are mudane, non-supernatural horrors. Off the top of my head, I can think of two basic types of non-supernatural horrors, serial killers and monsters.

Serial killers
Serial killers are well-represented in both fact and fiction, from Jack the Ripper, Elizabeth Báthory, the marquise de Brinvilliers, and Burke and Hare to Hannibal Lecktor, Sweeny Todd, and Norman Bates, but my impression is that this is less common in roleplaying games, perhaps because the squick factor is too high - dealing with an imaginary monster like a werewolf is less disturbing than a killer inspired by the likes of Ed Gein.

Monsters
The stories of the beast of Gévaudan and the lions of Tsavo open up all sorts of interesting possibilities for encounters with animals which are both monstrous and mundane. They could be wild animals running amok, trained pets (as in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"), or 'lost' species.

Other potentially non-supernatural horror elements come to mind, such as ritual cannibals or pagan cultists, but I'm sure I'm missing a whole bunch of great ideas. I'm honestly pretty bad at horror when it comes to gaming, since my squick meter trips pretty easily - I have one encounter in my Flashing Blades game that gives me chills, but I imagine it's unbelievably pedestrian to, say, your average CoC fans.

Have you incorporated non-supernatural horror in your games? What else am I missing?

 

[Nagol]

Ritual cultists count as non-supernatural like satanists or thugees of Kali. Freaky obsessive people also fit the bill; think of movies like The Roommate, Fatal Attraction, etc.


Horror requires a feelinmg of 'otherness' in the risk. The object must be outside the norm. The threat of death or destruction needs to defy conventional logic enough that a rational person can enter the danger zone without recognising the risk exists.

 

[Coldwyn]

Horror oly requires mood. If the mood is right, even a quite normal hobo can scare the hell out of everyone. Now imagine being in the seedier part of town, lights are low, all doors locked and barred, not sound and no police anywhere and you notice those squatters/hobos. They look at you, they start to whisper to each other....

Ok, maybe it won´t work b/c most D&D characters are simply able to fireball them into oblivion, but it´s still a horror encounter for low level.

 

[Wiseblood]

The Lions of Tsavo awesome. Try Jaws. Abnormal, sure but not supernatural. PC's should get to be the crew of the ORCA. Tough guys going fishin'. Once they are commited then you let them know that they're gonna need a bigger boat. The horror comes in when the threat refuses to cooperate with conventional or D&D wisdom.

Oh.. and a handful of mutilations couldn't hurt.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Moby Dick was based on an actual attack of a whaling ship by an unusually large & aggressive male sperm whale.

"Horror" can also be generated by natural disasters- earthquakes, hurricanes, sinkholes, etc.- especially when exacerbated by human intervention. Being trapped in a building that collapsed due to shoddy manufacture, for instance, or being in a country terrorized by secret police, mercenary armies or death squads.

 

[Tonguez]

Fungus Spores

There is a story maybe by Lovecraft(I can't recall the name) which involves the investigation of a 'haunted' room. The major focus is the strange black patch that continues to grow on the ceiling and a strange yellow dust that covers everything. The protagonist hears stories about the former occupant having gone to foreign lands, returned then disappeared. Anyway in the course of the story the protagonist goes upstairs into a hidden room where he finds the source of the black patch

Spoiler

and the corpse of the former occupant - the yellow dust was the spores of a fungus which when inhaled kills the host, such was the fate for the former occupant and is now also the fate of the protagonist.

I've used a serial killer in a game session before, I called him Myk Elmyers. The PCs were town constables who came across a serries of bodies missing various body parts

I also use lots of cultists and cannibals too.

Swarms can be fun (The Birds the Birds! or the Frogs, the Frogs!)

Ninjas - striking from the shadows and silently killing the people around you - can also be used for horror effect

Also in a situation where you can't fight back, just anyone trying to catch you (could be Military, Police, Gangs)

 

[RandomCitizenX]

I know some genre conventions differentiate Horror by the fact that the supernatural is involved, where as Thriller would be the equivalent if it is not supernatural. Specifically this is coming from the 24 hour film project's genre judging guidelines, but I know one of my creative writing classes in college made the distinction as well.

With that said I have played in a supers game where a run in with a non powered serial killer was possibly the most horrific thing I ever encountered in gaming. If you can make the insanity come across as happening organically (as in just the product of his regular life) and still make it clear that the thought processes would no longer pass as human it can be very very unnerving.

 

[Twichyboy]

A serial killer is would probably be the most effective in my opinion

Imagine a high powered group of heroes almost brought to their knees by a low level commoner who happened to be Very intelligent and very good at killing people

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Then, of course, there are the effects of chemistry.

Both man-made and natural chemicals can radically affect behavior. Mercury poisoning, PCP, certain plant, fungal, parasite or insect toxins, diseases like schizophrenia, rabies or even late-stage syphillis- all can make otherwise normal beings (human or animal) act/react with unexpected violence. Some do so by inducing hallucinations, some by simply eating holes in your greymatter or other methods.

While scary in individuals, a mass dosing could lead to something truly horrific.

Ergotism, an affliction due to ingesting ergot of rye in bread and other foodstuffs happens because of the LSD and alkaloids the ergot produces. It causes convulsive and gangrenous symptoms, and has also been accused of responsibility for several outbreaks of mass psychoses.

 

[The Shaman]

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone - great reminder about some specific chem/bio causes, Da.