Haunts and Other Spooky Stuff (Pathfinder) - OG Myth-Weavers

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Haunts and Other Spooky Stuff (Pathfinder)

   
Haunts and Other Spooky Stuff (Pathfinder)

So, as I continue to flesh out a festival of fear for my players that is filled with haunts, I realize that some of these haunts are really... just traps. Very creative and potentially scary traps, but... traps all the same. I don't want to have a house full of zombies, but having a haunted house full of traps really isn't much better; just the other end of the encounter spectrum.
I also really like haunts because they have some kind of way to foil them that isn't just a skill check (for example, the ghostly maiden who ages onlookers that screams and vanishes when shown her own haggard reflection). To me, that's creative, and in turn, kind of spooky. You have to brave the danger in order to gauge what might stop it.
In other cases, a trap that demands a real sacrifice from the PC, with a high chance of failure, is scary and nerve-wracking. For instance, you walk into a room with some zombies, but catch the eye of a beautiful painting. You're stuck watching it while the zombies approach and start to damage you. You can escape, but again, the odds of making the save are kinda hard. It ramps up the tension, for me anyways...

My point for all that jabber is this: can you come up with an idea for some spooks and haunts that will turn a horror situation into survival horror? Not just with traps, but maybe entities, creatures and other things. I'll start with a few of my own thoughts:

The Wishing-You-Well: A spirit that cries for acts of charity when people pass by. If you've got nothing on you, you find the mild wailing kind of annoying. But if you have stuff in your inventory, you make a Will save (DC 17, perhaps). Failing the save compels your character to take out their most expensive/valuable item and hold it over the well. Players make another Will save at a slightly lower DC (15, for example). If you succeed, the cries go quiet, you recover your senses and return your item to your inventory. But if you fail, you drop it down the well. The only way to get it back is to go down and get it (be it in a storm cellar or having to climb down the dark narrow dried up well). There may or may not be something actually hiding down at the bottom...

Torch of Terrors Revealed: Functions like a normal torch, but every time the PC holding it enters a new room, make a roll. If 20-12, the torch reveals nothing in the darkness. If 11-6, the PC sees something moderately unsettling in the room that only they can see (ie. a bleached skeleton hung from the ceiling, carpets and tapestries sewn from fresh carcass skins,etc.). If 5-2, the PC sees zombies or other undead creatures shuffling around, moaning and groaning (alternatively, any actual monsters appear like normal, friendly NPCs). If 1, the PC believes any allies with him have turned into monstrous forms and are attacking him/her. These effects only apply if the torch's light is shining on the apparitions. The torch goes out after the same length of time as a normal torch, but can be re-light 2 rounds after it goes out. Unless identified with a Knowledge: Arcana or Knowledge: Religion check, the torch appears to be perfectly normal.

The Chitterbug: CR 2 (make your own stats, or use a standard large bug. The behavior is the key aspect) - A large beetle or insect (roughly the size of a domestic cat) with dark navy coloring, this scavenger follows noisily, but cleverly behind or close to wandering PCs in hopes of finding a meal from slain foes. Named for the chittering noise is makes when moving, the bug will move alongside or, if possible, directly above PCs. If the PC stops, the bug (and it's chittering noises) stop as well, only moving when the PC it's following does. If discovered, it hunkers down and raises it's outer hide in hopes of blending in or disinteresting potential predators. If attacked, it retreats out of sight as far as it can.
Along with causing PCs unease or nervous behavior, the Chitterbug's noisy movement can attract other nearby foes...

Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainFord View Post
My point for all that jabber is this: can you come up with an idea for some spooks and haunts that will turn a horror situation into survival horror?
i love what you already have

for a boss i was thinking of a 'weak' outsider with this template;
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/mon...ature-template

naturally this can be played as the team killing the 'big bad' only to find that they hadn't and the NCPs around them start acting strange. one by one as the NCPs attack the party it would add some paranoia to the party and setting and it would continue until the party found out about the demon.

also adding some gremlins to covertly pull pranks on the party would help.

Now that would spook the heck out of some players. Imagine a spirit stalking a town possessing people, and every person they meet, even the shop keepers, could end up being a menace.

The gremlins are a pretty good idea as well. They aren't exactly threatening, just... there. Which in itself is pretty scary.
I'm trying to think of a Haunt less as a supernatural trap that requires more in-depth disarming and more of a regular element that gets one heck of a spooky overhaul. That's why I include the Torch of Terrors Revealed and the Chitterbug with the Wishing-You-Well in the above examples: a trap, an item and an enemy could all feasibly count as a haunt. They're all exactly what they are, but there's the one lone quality about them that makes them... off. Having zombies patrolling a hallway isn't scary to the seasoned adventure... but if, after being slain, they get back up and go back to patrolling their territory, or merely seem content to chase intruders off, suddenly, it gets creepy. It's not normal.

I suppose each "type" of haunt has a quality about them that makes them uniquely creepy or scary. Trap Haunts don't really hurt you, but they do have a high cost, and knowing that instills fear in both the character and the player. Item Haunts appear to be normal items and function like such, but they have a quality of randomness to them, or unexpected and oddly specific drawback. And Monster Haunts function much like normal monsters, but again have that quality that is kinda creepy, unnatural (as opposed to an abomination of the laws of life and death having natural qualities?)

I suppose, ultimately, it's as much about catering to the player outside the game as the character in the game. After all, what makes something in a game less spooky? The knowledge that it's all in a game and it still follows a set of trending rules. But when the ghoul you've been following keeps running deeper and deeper into the haunted house as if it's frightened of you? That's... creepy. And it invites you to follow after it, but makes you realize you're traipsing deeper into the darkness and unknown... at some point, you'll be too far into it's territory to turn back... but when do you know when you've reached that point?

Here's a thought. Maybe the entire reason the area is haunted is that the planar boundaries are a little weak, and too much negative energy is leaking through. But only of a very specific "frequency" (if that's how such things work), meaning that boring old zombies and most other types of undead are no more likely than usual, but extremely low-level immaterial ghosts so feeble that they aren't usually considered a problem get a huge boost.

One consequence is that anyone who dies nearby with a strong unfulfilled desire on their mind leaves behind a tiny bit of themselves with just enough intelligence to be obsessed with that one desire forever. Since people who are delirious may die while obsessing about something trivial or absurd, some of these phantoms may have as their only thought: "I must get the washing in", meaning that they'll attempt to steal items of clothing with a weak telekinesis effect but are completely harmless, whereas others may be serial killers, or somebody who died yearning for revenge on anybody who even slightly resembles someone they hated. But they all look pretty much the same, so the party cleric will waste a turning/rebuking slot on the ghost that just wants to gaze lovingly at any man with blond hair.

The same planar effect means that the feeble spirits of ordinary animals may also persist. These are invisible, and usually manifest by animating an object that in some way suggests the creature they used to be - for example, a bear might end up as a heavy table and be extremely aggressive, whereas a tortoise will animate a treasure-chest and do little more than wander away slowly if disturbed. But of course the players will assume it's a mimic! They will also assume that there's some sinister point to all of this poltergeist activity, when it may just be a whole family of dead squirrels possessing old gloves or whatever in order to carry on behaving like squirrels. Again, misdirection - a glove possessed by a phantom squirrel is technically undead, and cannot be magically distinguished from something much worse, such as the life-force of a mad strangler focused in his own mummified hand (which may be wearing a glove).

I'm guessing here, but this sounds like a scenario for low-level PCs. If so, throwing in a lot of trivial, harmless encounters of this type would mess with their heads without being too lethal. For example, they find an abandoned dining-hall where little things are moving around in the shadows with clinking sounds, and if Detect spells are used, the whole place registers both Undead and Evil. Closer inspection reveals that dozens of knives, forks and spoons are crawling around with a life of their own! Scary!

Actually it's just the ghosts of a whole bunch of mice, but it's not an illusion so it can't be disbelieved or dispelled, and if they insist on attacking these objects, which, being made of metal and in most cases edged and/or pointed, are much tougher and more dangerous than mice, the poor things will fly about in panic and may cause some injuries. The players will of course assume that this is being done on purpose by some sinister foe that's watching their every move... Talking of which, I imagine that in such a setting, the End Boss would probably be the weakest and most obscure kind of incorporeal undead you can think of, ramped up to unexpected power-levels by the location.

The problem with most tricks and traps is that a single roll is rather boring. Combat is more fun because it's based off a lot of rolls, and - often - a lot of decisions, which makes the outcome pretty much not computable, at least for humans. With traps and skill rolls and things, it's not hard for people to see that it's essentially just boiling down to what may as well be one random chance.

Thus, if I have to make a save or be stuck looking at a magical painting whilst zombies kill me, that's no fun. It's the problem with all "save or die" effects, in fact. However, if I'm there, staring at it whilst the zombies slowly clamber into the room, giving me several rounds to tear myself away, yeah, that's a lot more tense. It's still not great if it just boils down to me making several saves, though, as they could be enumerated as a single chance.

In all these sorts of ideas, I think that the challenge is to incorporate possibilities for the players to act and make decisions. The "show the ghost her own reflection" one is cool, but you do have the problem of whether the PCs will think of it, especially if it's the only solution, and a fairly obscure one. Coming back to the painting-and-zombies idea, it should work OK vs a party, as then you may have some people who make the save trying to pull others away before the zombies get in. Of course they can run and save themselves, but then their friends die. The only thing is that you could do with some ways for those people to buy time or save their allies other than just "I shake them; they get a new save" (some players may have spells or other abilities to help with that, though - Resurgence, Dispel, Break Enchantment, for example). In this case, trying to destroy the painting is another option, but maybe they're subject to it again, a la a gaze attack, so either have to bravely try to rip it from the wall whilst resisting its powers, or keep their eyes averted whilst they do so, etc etc.

I actually really like that idea, and it seems as though you're thinking about those sorts of things, I'm just using that as an example of trying to make what could be a very boring "save or else" into something more dynamic. Hell, I may even pinch that one for use myself (reminds me of Durlag's Tower).

Me, when I think of horror, sure, i think about zombies, but i also think Lovecraft.

With that being said, insanity should be a factor in your game

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steampeng MK1 View Post
Me, when I think of horror, sure, i think about zombies, but i also think Lovecraft.

With that being said, insanity should be a factor in your game
yes! when people go insane they might not think they are insane and think the world around them instead is insane. which leads to comical moments and hundreds of misunderstandings whether or not the PCs or NPCs are the one's insane.

though i don't tend to think of zombies, that is more a hack n slash element. try other odder forms of undead.

that sounds cool, anyway, speaking on lovecraft, he was the one who impend the "insanity form horror" as will know it.

I think it depends on the tone a bit. Something Lovecraftian is a little different to a typical "zombie horror" type, and I mean that in as creepy and spooky a sense as you care to imagine, rather than just horror movie style zombie horror or just undead hordes kind of zombie horror (not actually that spooky, since it's usually just zombies killing people - more thriller or something). Like, some of Lovecraft was tentacled nightmares beyond comprehension (more insanity-inducing than mere zombies) and the rest of it was stuff hinted at but never seen, that sort of thing.

So, certainly, a lot can be drawn from it, and I love it. It's not quite the same tone, though, I don't think, so one might want to go for one or another, for whatever reason.

yeah, that sounds right
Lovecraftian horror is based on the idea of humans would go mad if they understand too much of the world and see all of the horrors there in.




 

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