What to use in a Ravenloft-style undead campaign?

[Wycen]

The whole Carron Crown AP is a grand tour of Ustalav, the Pathfinder realm of gothic horror. Or Rule of Fear talks about the realm without having to buy all the AP.

I think Legendary Games was working on Carrion Crown compatible material, but the status escapes me, since they were associated with Necromancer Games which is now property of Frog God Games. I would bet somewhere on the Paizo boards somebody knows the current status. Ah hah! Search worked: http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/l/legendaryGames

I think that Warhammer the fantasy rpg actually does a pretty good job of instilling fear and/or paranoia associated with not knowing who to trust and who's really in an evil cult or not. I'm not sure how to translate that into playing a d20 system though. I think it is inherit somewhat with being Warhammer.

 

[gamerprinter]

How Ravenloft-like do you intend to include in the setting? Ravenloft is an alignment trap, by definition, using the Dark Powers check to any PC who commits an evil act. Once you acquire too many failed powers checks then you are stuck in Ravenloft, even possibly becoming a domain lord.

Whether you include this or not, there may be some need for Taint points of some kind.

In Kaidan, rather than a Dark Powers check for accumulation of taint, it's a step beyond - if you die in Kaidan, you're stuck in a spiritual trap. You can even do good things for the entire career of your PC, and if you die in Kaidan, you are now bound to the endless reincarnation cycle; a condition actually much worse than failed powers check.

Also you might need some kind of Insanity check, akin to both Ravenloft and CoC, and an accumulation of insanity points - especially for encounters with diabolical evil and horror checks.

If you don't include some kind of additional mechanic in the acquisition of negative attributes - horror, insanity, dark powers, spiritual trap, what might seem horrific could be somewhat mitigated by the safety of working without such a mechanic.

Are you going to include something regarding this?

 

[Stumblewyk]

I cannot recommend enough the subtle psychological tension of playing the game in *near* dark. Illuminate ONLY the table, leave darkness everywhere else, so that the player's backs (as many of them are possible) are to a dark, open area. The rest of them should be staring into the darkness in front of them.

It seems simple, but it works. I've had players tell me that one of the most terrifying aspects of a particular session was that even though they *knew* there was nothing behind them to afraid of, the fact that they couldn't see anything clearly beyond a few feet from the table truly unnerved them. And that feeds back into the game, which feeds back into their irrational fear of the darkness around them. It's a closed loop, and it's effective.

Toss some well-timed, and handpicked music into the mix, and you've got your players right where you want them. I've made excellent use of Softrope for timing up specific noises, and creating mixes of swamp sounds, cityscape noises, and throwing in disquieting calliope music with creepy kid laughs for a particular module I ran.