Your Weird, Creepy, and Lethal Adventure and Campaign Ideas

[Jack7]

Tonight after watching The Thing with my daughter (the prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing) I had a sort of bizarre and I think horrific and creepy idea for a series of adventures, or a campaign.

On one of the worlds of my game there is an ancient city, long deserted, and which was partially buried over time. It was said to have been built by a race of true Giants (and master architects and builders) at the base of a mountain, and there is a huge carving (for lack of a better term) that had been partially carved into one of the mountain sides.

The city is full of interesting constructs but is still considered extremely dangerous (and because Giants are so feared in this world), and because the city is long deserted and considered haunted no one will approach it. The city was said to have been built by Giants but under the direction of a still much older race that supposedly disappeared and not much was known about them, or at least not much information has survived to this day.

Anyway, a few weeks ago (in game time) a huge comet was said to have fallen from the sky and smashed into one end of this huge, dead city. Debris was thrown for miles, earthquakes occurred, aftershocks are still common, and a dark cloud rose above the area that has yet to fully dissipate. The comet was of course not a comet at all but a large spacecraft. Much of the craft survived the impact (due to construction and technological advantages) but many of the creatures aboard were killed. And the craft was a sort of storage vehicle for various creatures that were either being held captive, experimented upon, or both.

After the crash many of the crew were killed by the escaping creatures. So far the events are similar to Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. But at this point the story changes. Aboard the craft was an Alien (from the film, but created not from a human host but from something altogether different and with different abilities than the film Alien), a Vagr (from the Predator film, but again a cross bred version of the Predator), the Thing (also from the films), a Mind Flayer, and a previously unknown being that in game terms would be a Demon.

The Party (your players) are sent in to investigate the site where the comet was said to have fallen not knowing that the comet was actually a spacecraft or that these five creatures are in the area. The city itself is also full of both physical monsters like Chimera of different kinds and of spectral beings like Wraiths. There are devices, artifacts, and even relics left over from the construction of the city and from the age when the city was alive.

Some being or force has somehow gained the ability to control the minds of the Five Creatures (Alien, Predator, Thing, Mind Flayer, and Demon) and all five creatures/beings are operating under the illusion/assumption that they are a single party of all of the same type creatures. The Mind Flayer believes the other four are Mind Flayers, the Alien believes the other four are Aliens, etc. The controlling force is using these five creatures as a patrolling/security/expeditionary force to keep others from approaching the crash site and the city. In effect they act as a Party of NPCs in opposition to the Player Character Party seeking to get to the crash site and explore what's left of the city.

What this controlling force is not even the crew members of the spacecraft know, and the survivors among them are also being hunted down and exterminated by the Five Creatures (and maybe by others as well).

The crew of the spaceship had previously been contacted and directed to the city believing they were approaching the Dead City to capture and extract some of the creatures in it for their work, but as they approached the city an energy beam (or was it sorcery, or magic, a psychic force, or even something supernatural - they do not know at this point?) shot out from the supposedly long dead city or perhaps the mountainside, disabled their craft without causing any apparent physical damage, and caused it to crash.

The result was a wrecked ship and the death or escape of most of the subjects aboard.

Who caused the crash, or how, is unknown.

The crew was able to prevent the Five Creatures from gaining access to weapons, so far, but the five creatures have not needed them so far. Each uses their own natural abilities to hunt anything they feel led to hunt and kill. The Thing uses it's abilities, the Alien its abilities, the Mind Flayer his. And so forth. This is of course a series of Adventures/Campaign for very high level characters.


The Players:

The Player Character Party

The Surviving Crew Members (possible allies or possibly a severe threat)

The Anti-Party (the Five Creatures)

The Others - the other subjects of the spaceship who were either being held or were being experimented upon

The Chimeras (the Monsters that were already inhabiting the City, created by unknown means and by unknown parties)

The Spectral Monsters (the spectral beings already inhabiting the City)

The Creators - those responsible for creating the Chimeras inhabiting the City

The Dead Race - at least one member of the Dead Race who had the giants construct the City still lives

The Ghost of the Last Giant - the ghost of the Giant who was buried alive by the Dead Race as the cornerstone of the City

The Unknown Being - the being or force that is controlling the Five Creatures and maybe some of the other events as well


The Adventures/Campaign: you may encounter any group pf Players at any point elsewhere in the Campaign as well

1. Make your way to the Crash Site while encountering and surviving, or if possible killing, the Anti-Party

2. Find out what the comet really is while encountering the surviving crew members

3. Get aboard the space craft and discover whatever you can, if necessary survive encountering the Others, try to find out what is actually going on

4. Fight your way through the Chimeras and if you survive encounter the Ghost of the Last Giant

5. Fight your way through the Spectral monsters while the dead Race also tries to prevent you from digging up he body of the Last Giant/Cornerstone of the City - use that body and burial site to discover clues to some of the devices, artifacts, and relics buried in the city

6. Use the artifacts, devices, and relics to fight or kill the other players (if necessary) and find the Unknown Being who may or may not be behind this entire series of events

7. The last adventure will be for the party survivors to find the Unknown Being, find out exactly what it is doing and how, and go up against it (if necessary), kill it, or work with it.


The Environments:

The Crash Site and the Spaceship remains

The visible Dead City

The underground/buried Dead City

The Chimera Warrens

The Mountainside

The Keep of the Unknown Being



The PC Party will of course know nothing of any of this until they begin to have encounters and to piece together what possibly might be happening as they go along. The only things they will know beforehand will be that the City was supposedly built by Giants, was the home to a long dead race, has been in ruins for centuries or even much longer, and that a comet recently fell into it causing some monsters to flee the city and attack the neighboring countryside.

Well, that's probably the weirdest set of adventures I've thought of lately.

And maybe the most lethal. Even with a well equipped, very powerful, and relatively numerous party I would expect lethal causalities, depending upon who they can befriend, of between 40 to 70%. Even before the very last encounters.

Feel free to describe your own Weird, Creepy, and Lethal Adventure and Campaign Ideas.

 

[Niccodaemus]

In my Shatterworld campain setting, I have the Nameless City. Before "The Shattering" (a worldwide cataclysmic event ordained by the gods to stem the growing power of mortals), the city had a name and was a center for debauchery, demon worship, and all manner of unsavory behavior.

After The Shattering, in which the Continent was split into number of smaller land masses, there was sickness, starvation, and general despair throughout the land. In this City, they resorted to cannibalism... first eating the slaves, and later the weak in their midst, starting with children, and working their way through the population.

Those that remained were cursed by Phanes, god of Life, and turned into ghouls. The ghouls first feasted upon the corpses in their area, then worked their way through Woodbury Forest, and out into the newly free territory of Merchant's Republic. They now haunt battlefields, coming out at night to pick over the fallen, and follow sickness and pestilence into villages and cities. They are still prone to attacking the still living if the pickings are easy... the wounded, the sick, the feeble, and the very young.

Their paralyzing attack induces rigor mortis, resulting in death in several hours due to respiratory and organ failure. They like to bury their victims, and come back after several days to feast on the decaying flesh.

They will find whatever shelter they can from sunlight during the day... sewers, abandoned buildings, caves... even hollowed out rotting trees in the forest. They create mazelike warrens in graveyards, digging into the sides of the graves of the newly buried.

There are those who brave crumbling paved Imperial road through the Bugbear and bandit infested forest to reach The Namless City.. a trek of some four days from the forest's edge. Within the city are reputed to be great riches and powerful ancient secrets. But few who venture return.

The city is on the coast, but is shunned by sailors. Even sailing in sight of the ruins is said to bring disaster.

 

[Jack7]

Very dark ND. I especially liked this part:

Their paralyzing attack induces rigor mortis, resulting in death in several hours due to respiratory and organ failure. They like to bury their victims, and come back after several days to feast on the decaying flesh.

They will find whatever shelter they can from sunlight during the day... sewers, abandoned buildings, caves... even hollowed out rotting trees in the forest. They create mazelike warrens in graveyards, digging into the sides of the graves of the newly buried.

and this:

The city is on the coast, but is shunned by sailors. Even sailing in sight of the ruins is said to bring disaster. Yesterday 11:53 PM

I think places like that should inspire Curses and talk of Disaster.

 

[Niccodaemus]

Very dark ND. I especially liked this part:



and this:



I think places like that should inspire Curses and talk of Disaster.

My thought is that whatever spirits are still lingering in the city would try to cause shipwrecks. Sort of a sirens call type of thing. Then, use the bodies of the sailors for all sorts of unsavory purposes, possibly even crewing an entire ship with undead.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I have a homebrew in which the surface world was essentially pounded back into the stone age due to a meteoric bombardment. The empires of the surface world- along with their populations- are decimated. The realms of the Underdark, though, are largely intact.

As was planned by the Illithids from the future. What did not go to plan, however, was that the Illithids craft responsible for the bombardment suffered a malfunction and crashed. The Elder Brain survived, but just barely, and with significant damage. Over time, it and a handful of servitors built up a small colony of Illithids who retained their culture...but knew nothing of their origins.

The harsh conditions of the surface world has changed the ecology. Most large creatures are extinct. To survive, elves had performed a great ritual, and fused their essence with the trees they loved, gaining woody skins and leaves whose photosynthesis supplemented their farming and hunting. Dwarves, closest to the surface, were hardest hit of the races that called the Underdark home, until their dwindling numbers forced their hands, and they constructed metal bodies to house the minds of the psionically active among them; the Inheritors, they called themselves.

Attracted to the rips in dimensions caused by the bombardment, creatures from other planes briefly strode the world for reasons known only to themselves. Their legacy- besides further destruction- was a large number of offspring. Nephilim, as they are called, are only partly of this world...

The Green Council- a trio of Awakened Aspen who took up the druidic mantle, have in turn sent their agents into the world: animals who have also been blessed with the Ritual of Awakening.

This is the world into which the adventurers were born.








(also, check my sig)

 

[Loonook]

I have been toying with doing a swords-and-sorcery version of a Modern Arcana idea I had had of a stock exchange having been taken over by the Shadow. Basically the idea is of a counting house that has been completely abandoned due to the fact that the scriveners and moneychangers began trading in less savory things. The party must go to find the whereabouts of a specific trader, who took his ships and brought them laden with goods to port never to be seen again. All of his men came back on mast-broken heaps, white of hair and in various levels of insanity/dementia.

The story leads through the streets of this slowly falling apart village, once the hub of an enormous cross-sea trade. The streets have turned to violence, and the loss of the occasional sailor, child, maiden, or apprentice is not unheard.

The scriveners offered assurance to a demon-blooded merchant on his cargo, a hundred slaves bearing towards a barbarous coast for trade. They offered prices for livestock for each lost, and when the ship went down he went to claim his debt. When they gave him his due for ship, crew, passage, and chattel he spoke of the unpaid price of their assurance, demanding a hundred souls for the slaves (having bound each of his own men and rendering them little more than the walking dead). To this end they claim their debts on high-interest notes in souls, and thus their formerly glorious house has become an entrance to a dire place. The creatures who claim the souls take them in cruel ways, and... Well, there's a lot more but it was specific evils for each player.

Nice to see you Jack! It's been too long!

Slainte,

-Loonook.