D&D 3E/3.5 PF/3.5 Need help with ideas for one-shot horror session

[Chronikoce]

I am planning to do a Horror session in the ongoing campaign for my D&D group. We meet on Fridays and I can't pass up this chance to mess with them terribly.

They are currently on a damaged riverboat which they plan on taking down river and I figure the easiest segue is that the night is foggy and when the fog starts to burn off the next day they are somewhere else.

Anyway here are the basic ideas that I have so far and would love additional evil, terrifying, and mean ideas to use against my poor players.

[sblock=Plot Ideas]Damaged river boat floating through fog. When the fog clears they are on an open ocean with only a small island visible in the distance. The island is forested (possibly jungle) and is inhabited by 100 or so people. They all act really weird (friendly but in the eyes darting about and laughing at nothing sort of way that makes people wildly suspicious).

These people are either possessed, cultists, or something. I want all of the adults to actually be more or less normal people that are terrified out of their minds. The real threat will be the children. They will act like normal kids who are scared and worried about why all the adults are acting so strangely. In reality the children are the evil ones (Unholy Scions maybe?) who are tormenting the adults and using them in the rituals/sacrifices/other evil plot devices.

Ideally the children will manage to get party members alone at some point and that is when I will hand that player a handout explaining that they have been tortured, abused, mentally assaulted, and ultimately possessed. When they rejoin the party they will be working towards the goal of enslaving their fellow party members!

Any ideas on how else I can be totally evil to them?[/sblock]

I won't tell them that character death is fake (i.e. if they die their characters will wake up on the boat with some mental stat damage or something). I don't want a real TPK but if they all die in the session and think that their characters that have been in play for over a year IRL just bit it then I want that to worry them *Insert Evil Laugh*.

I am thinking about using some sort of madness effects, maybe from Heroes of Horror or something to mess with them. Any systems better than that one?

--Edit--
The party is currently level 7 and we are playing PF/3.5 mix

--Edit 2--
Been a while since I posted on EnWorld. Thought I posted in the wrong forum location but then it showed up in the right place.

 

[BlackSeed_Vash]

* Lotus-Eaters: The natives keep offering various foods and drinks that clearly contain a strange flower as the core ingredient. Describe the flower's shape and color as something very recognizable. Consumption of the food/drink lowers their resistance to being possessed.

* Steal from Goosebumps : Instead of being tortured, etc. the children take the party members to a special place to play. Pick a race like demon, devil, etc. Each time a party member uses the "mirror", give them a new ability/stat boost in addition to all the previous ones. Pick abilities/stat boosts that are 1) useful/cool; 2) are possessed by at least 1 member of that race; 3) are not blatantly evil/twisted. Each time the abilities/stat boosts lasts longer and longer. If the villagers are asked about it, they can tell the truth about it frightens strangers to so obviously use such powers in front of them. What they don't say is that each use (for adults) trades a small pieces of their soul to gain this power with the ultimate ending of becoming the a member of the selected race.

* Troll your players. Have the inhabitants behave as you described; however, there is no evil plot going on. Leave tons of clues of something evil may be going on, but nothing is. If your players are anything like the people I play with, they are going to be suspicious pretty much right after the fog clears and they find themselves in an unknown ocean. Just make all the inhabitants something crazy like werewolf lords. Make sure that it is mentioned often they are celebrating the new moon.

* Dreamscape

* Not so creep for the one shot, but keep a list of all the prominent npcs the players interact with. Interject those npcs randomly throughout the rest of the game. The less likely for the players to have met them before the better. While the players can instantly recognize the npcs, the npcs only vaguely recognizes the players but can't seem to remember from where. If pressed, they eventually divulge about a strange dream they have almost every night about living on an unknown island where secret horrors take place. (Any player that was possessed also has this problem.)

* The players have just arrived for a very special holiday. The exact nature of the holiday is never fully explained; however, the inhabitants are overjoyed to have more people join them in the celebration. Have one or two families that are extremely pleased for your presence (one member of each family was wearing very special outfits). Members of those families are extra friendly and try to convince players to wear pieces of or the whole outfit. At the end of the day, anyone wearing some of the outfit find themselves unable to control their bodies. Something walks them to the center of the village where the rest of the inhabitants eats the victims alive.

 

[gamerprinter]

Not that you'd want to go with Japanese horror, but I am the developer for the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG) and we have a number of horror one-shots, as well as a full 3 module introductory campaign. Interesting regarding your points about PC death, Kaidan features is own twisted version of reincarnation that can only be found in Appendix 1 of the first module of the trilogy campaign - Curse of the Golden Spear - Part 1: The Gift.

One of the one-shot adventrues, set for a party of 7th level players that closely ties to the Kaidan death mechanic is Up from Darkness. Instead of wakening up in boat, the module begins with all PCs awake with amnesia on the bottom level of a lethal dungeon. By successfully negotiating the dungeons hazards, the PCs memories slowly begin to return. If they should die in the dungeon, they wake up with amnesia on the bottom level once again. Only having escaped the dungeon do the learn the whole truth of why they are there - its a pretty dark, surprising ending as well.

Other Kaidan one-shots is Frozen Wind for 4, 5th PCs, a survival horror one-shot that is a monastery acting as a trap and sandbox and a FREE module.

Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House is a mini adventure with a ghost that comes in multiple CRs from 6 to 22, with haunts and a unique curse.

Also worth looking at #30
Haunts for Kaidan which is a haunts guide that features nine creepy storylines with related haunts and included new undead creatures, each of the nine can make for a full one-shot on its own.

Here's a link to all Kaidan products on DTRPG.

 

[Chronikoce]

Thanks for the ideas Blackseed, I like the idea about the clothing or items given to the players taken control over them if they wear them. I can turn up the creepy by having scared little children be the ones giving their favorite PC a bracelet or some token of friendship and if they wear this they can easily become possessed.

I actually downloaded the Frozen Wind Module last night and plan to start reading it this evening for ideas. Thanks!

 

[gamerprinter]

I think Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House might be more easily reflavored to fit any genre. Though the location is a bath house, which isn't common to every culture, the bath house is just a glorified tavern/inn, so could easily be reflavored to any inn with a drinking hall and overnight rooms to let. The ghost itself is a former bath house attendant so could be easily reflavored as a tavern wench. Although designed for use in a Japanese horror setting, its nothing to replace kimonos with T-tunics. Already stated the ghost comes in multiple CR values so could be an appropriate encounter for levels between 4th and epic so is ready for any party to encounter.

 

[Random Bystander]

Honestly, it sounds like a railroad. You cannot force horror; all you will get is annoyed players if you try. For example, "Are you telling me my character is tortured, brainwashed, and did not even get a chance to resist?" If you want the next scenario to be horror, work with your players, do not declare that the horror happens.

 

[gamerprinter]

Honestly, it sounds like a railroad. You cannot force horror; all you will get is annoyed players if you try. For example, "Are you telling me my character is tortured, brainwashed, and did not even get a chance to resist?" If you want the next scenario to be horror, work with your players, do not declare that the horror happens.

Often encounters with ghosts are treated as defeating it in combat, but not taking the time to laying it to rest. Also most ghosts are anchored to a specific location, usually the place of its death. In Japanese folklore more powerful Japanese ghosts are capable of applying a curse onto those that enter its anchored domain that do just what curse in the Haiku product provides, and very much as the concept was presented in the movie, The Grudge. Rather than being a more powerful ghost, it is a ghost with a curse. Actually several groups that ran this in Roll20 contacted me on G+, thanking me for its excellence in play and its high creepy factor. No one has sent me negative feedback. Its even a Silver seller on DTRPG, meaning its a fairly popular product. Perhaps my post doesn't give it justice for you, but it really isn't as forced as you seem to think it is.

The mini-adventure begins with a series of haunts designed to build up the horror, but none of them being lethal haunts. The first encounter with the ghost is not 'in your face', but her triggered appearance depends on how the haunts are dealt with. There is great emphasis in building the horror. In the end, the mini-adventure is resolved with an investigation type adventure to reveal the circumstances of the murder with clues scattered about the employees and bath house. Once clues are revealed and the perpetrator is exposed, the curse is removed and ghost lain to rest.

You shouldn't judge it unseen, just from my post, its better then you seem to think.

 

[Chronikoce]

I think he may have been commenting on my plans for the group. I ended up using a combination of ideas and putting it all together. They actually enjoyed the evening so much that they want to know more and have plans to try and find a way back to where they were taken. The entire event happened in a dream world of sorts (think of how the dream world works in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time Series).

As for railroading, I won't ever have for-gone conclusions in my campaigns. The party regularly does crazy things that forces me to think on my feet for how that impacts the world. The best example of this was the campaign was originally about assisting an heir to reclaim the throne but due to party desires and interactions with the world, they have instead been working to prevent a possible planar invasion. The heir has refocused her efforts to assist the party since saving the world ought to come before reclaiming a single kingdom.

 

[Samloyal23]

Remember, horror and fear are two different things. Fear is the visceral reaction to a physical threat. Horror is the reaction to a threat to reality or sanity. So, my standard example:

You are walking to your parent's house late one night and hear footsteps behind you. You look but see no one. You keep walking and soon hear more footsteps so you turn around sharply and see a figure duck for cover. You start walking faster. The footsteps keep pace. You finally see a cloaked figure chasing after you with a sickle, and see that it is already dripping in blood.

You slip and fall, the figure gets closer. You trip on a tree root, the figure gets even closer. You see the figure is wearing a mask and has a robe splattered with blood. You keep running, but the figure catches up and slashes your back with the sickle. You scream in pain and keep running. You scream for help. You run. You finally collapse. The dark figure looms over you, stabs you in the shoulder. The masked figure stabs you again and again...

...BOOM! You hear a gun blast. The masked figure falls to the ground and a man with a gun runs up to you. "Are you okay? The police are coming, I heard you screaming." You have just been rescued. The dark figure with the sickle is lying dead in a pool of blood. The man who saved you is binding your wounds. The fear is subsiding, you are calming down, your heartrate is returning to normal. The adrenalin has stopped pumping in your blood. You are calming down while the police arrive to take your report. An ambulance is on the way, you are going to be okay. The fear is gone.

You hobble over to the corpse of the slasher who just tried to kill you and pull the mask away. You look at the face and realize it is no stranger. The person who was trying to kill you stares back at you with dead eyes. It's your mother...

...That is when the horror starts.

 

[Random Bystander]

I would like to appropriately thank Samloyal for providing a clear and distinct explanation of the difference between fear and horror.

Here, Sam. An awesome link, just for you.