Greetings gamers from all systems, places, and timelines!
As some of you may be aware, we at 3WD appreciate one-shot adventures and player birthday games. To which, we just completed a horror-style adventure in honor of a birthday in my all-girls campaign, which was inspired by Game of Thrones and Stranger Things – two of the birthday girl’s favorites!
However, true horror is more challenging than it seems, because there is a significant difference between merely running a grimdark setting featuring excessive gore and creating a game that evokes tension, which was my goal, and a lofty one at that, because it was the birthday girl’s request.
With that said, I’m going to share with you seven steps/tips that were used in this game to set up for a moment of dread, which will not be forgotten anytime soon.
1. The Opening Scene
Without delving too deeply into the plot of the game, which would easily be eight hundred words by itself, the players found themselves in ancient times in Dragonstone, a majestic location that filled the party with the last comforts they would enjoy during this adventure.
It was here that they were asked to investigate the gruesome death of the high priest in a remote, yet sacred, temple. On the face of it, I wanted the players to feel like they were being drawn into a typical mystery. And while it would not be one where they were conducting interviews with suspects, they just didn’t know that yet.
2. The Unexpected is a Valuable Tool
Instead of being greeted by the priest who called for their aid, they found his frozen, snow-covered corpse outside the temple, missing its legs. Mechanically, the characters were allowed to make multiple successful Skill Checks to determine more about what occurred here, and here’s how I meted that out:
Medicine check DC13
First Success: The priest wasn’t killed more than twenty-four hours ago – the frozen blood soaks the earth where his lower half was.
Second Success: The victim’s legs were ripped off by the jaws of a creature that had no problem cutting through bone.
Perception check DC 13
First Success: This person, from the waist up, appears to be relatively uninjured,despite both of his legs having been severed.
Nature Check DC 13
First Success: It’s been snowing and no tracks can be followed at this point – they are long covered by snow.
Second Success: The soil, despite being frozen in the winter, is strangely devoid of its nutrients.
Once all of these skill checks have been made, no more information can be learned.
3. Keep Them Wondering
All of the clues from the previous scene were designed to address other unresolved questions that had been lingering in their minds. But this only became worse when they discovered the body of the high priest, whose disfigured body was laid in the chapel.
Obvious observations – his guts were ripped out and his face contorted with pain as if he was alive as this occurred.
Medicine or Perception check DC 13
First Success: One of his legs was broken, but not from any blow with any point of impact that you can determine.
Second Success: While he was killed by being disemboweled, that’s not all. The victim’s skin in some places seems like it has rotted, possibly by a flesh-eating disease.
Third Success: The corpse was struck from behind with something which created an entry wound from the lower back which then exited through the corpse’s abdomen causing the disembowelment, opposed to it happening from a laceration.
At this point the party had thrown out that a dragon may have caused the injuries on the priest outside. But now after inspecting the remains of the high priest they were left with more questions than answers and no one to explain what really happened here.
4. Isolation
So here the party was, just after leaving Dragonstone, now at a remote frozen location with the remains of two individuals who died horrible deaths. All of the other priests seem to be either dead or unaccounted for. This is where I had my DMPC announce all of this as a recap of disbelief and if all of this hadn’t hit the characters, it did then.
They were effectively alone and isolated, and that’s a great place to be to dial up the tension.
5. “I’ve Got a Bad Feeling About This…”
At separate points during the adventure, the birthday girl’s character, Raven, sensed the following, which lasted anywhere from a few seconds to more persistently throughout the adventure:
- You have the feeling that you are being watched, but you can’t see by whom or by what.
- Involuntarily, Raven finds herself looking over her shoulder or behind her. What she feels is whatever is watching her feels threatening.
- You feel almost like an invisible force following if not outright stalking you. This leaves with an impending feeling that something terrible is about to happen.
I made sure that all of the players heard this, which left them with a great, “It’s somehow worse than we thought” vibe.
6. Setting the Scene
When the characters discovered the catacombs underneath the temple, they descended seeking answers, but never imagining that they would find themselves in a flesh pit. After their arrival this is the block text that was read to them:
The atmosphere, dark but with illumination from points of red light. The temperature is oddly warm and the walls and the floor seem to be now covered in an organic material that pulses with a sickening life.
After journeying deeper into the horrible depths, they reached the largest chamber they had encountered, and here is its block text:
The stench of blood and rot turns your stomachs, while the walls seem to pulse with a vile, wet life. Your skin crawls under the weight of an unseen gaze, an ancient malice pressing on their minds like cold iron. Then from the chamber, two voices speak of an unseen source, smooth but mocking; eloquent, yet villainous.
7. The Reveal
Making a complex story short, the high priest of the temple had announced his retirement. One of the older, but less gifted, priests wasn’t even considered for the position. This caused him to use blood magic in an attempt to strengthen his connection to the spirit realm and found himself communing with twin spirits who were part of the same being. It promised him the power to shake the very world and, in his greed and ambition, he summoned this being into the world, and that demon, true to his word in an ironic sense, made him his host.
The Party Stood Before Demogorgan, Prince of Demons
Here I broke out the official figure and it indeed is intimidating, as it is taller than any giant. And here it occurred to me that even if you have a player with a heart of stone, and nothing on earth scares them, they still probably are afraid of their character dying. You know, that character you have invested weeks and weeks of your time into.
This then resulted in the most panicked retreat in gaming history which was handled in a five part Skill Challenge. Failure on one of the stages of the challenge drained their health until Demogorgan would have a chance to claim them.
Final Thoughts
Truth be told, I didn’t watch all of Game of Thrones (cue shocked gasping!), so to run a game in the setting, I decided to take it somewhere that they couldn’t challenge my conception of the beloved world. To that end, I placed it prior to the Doom of Valyria… so NO ONE knows what’s going on!
And, although not a Game of Thrones character, Demogorgon made it into the session as a hefty nod to Stanger Things. And would newer players know just how threatening of an opponent that he was? No, probably not, but no one needed to. The point was they were faced with an opponent which might as well be unkillable and no one wanted to roll up a new character that night.
As we always say, birthday games and one-shots are excellent ways to change it up: a palette cleanser for the ongoing campaign, or to try something completely different… and in this campaign, that seems to be the hallmark!
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