Rediscovering D&D

[S'mon]

Have you read William Hope Hodgson's The House on the Borderland? I was just browsing it the other day in the bookstore, and this really reminded me of what I gathered from a quick glance.

Keep on the Borderlands meets House on the Borderland - I have chills down my spine! Wow!

The pig-men of House on the Borderland aren't very developed within the story, but the atmosphere of grim horror is perfect, and worth looking at for inspiration.

BTW if you like monster hacks, The Boats of the Glen Carrig is the grand daddy of them all.

 

[S'mon]

I've been using orcs to good effect in my Wilderlands/C&C game. The first encounter was the orcs ambushing and wiping out the merchant caravan the PCs were escorting, and the PCs' desperate struggle to escape - two made it, one didn't. It set a very different tone than if the first encounter had been PCs massacring some sleepy orcs down a dungeon.