1000 Freaky Occurrences


3.5/d20/OGL

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Dark Archive

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In the vein of 1000 Aasimar Traits and 1000 Tiefling Appearance Quirks, a place to list strange / Fortean / surreal encounters or events to spring on your unsuspecting players;

1. You pass what must have once been a pasture, but the only signs remaining are fenceposts lying abandoned in a row, paralleling your route. Atop each fencepost is a crow, and as you get closer, they cover their faces with their wings, as if to avoid gazing upon you approaching. As you pass each crow, it turns to the other side and buries its face behind its other wing, as if to avert its eyes from your passing as well.

2. Dark clouds have threatened all day, but no rain has fallen. Finally a thin drizzle begins, and a faintly bitter smell accompanies the light rain, which tastes salty, like tears. A half-hour later, the first tiny impacts begin, as of hail striking your garments, but instead of hailstones, the soft projectiles appear to be human eyeballs, smaller even than appleseeds, with dangling optic nerves flailing behind them like the tails of tadpoles. For several minutes they fall, gathering in squirming clumps on the ground before the ‘hail’ stops and the clouds part. Under the light of the sun, they eventually stop thrashing and die, and within hours, the area reeks of decomposing flesh as the tiny eyeballs begin to decay, while insects and birds swarm to take advantage of this bounty.

3. A stray dog follows you from town, shying away from contact, but eagerly devouring any scraps you toss its way. That night, as you make camp, it curls up as close as allowed, and sleeps, preferably within the warming radius of any campfire that has been built. In the morning, you note that the dog does not awaken, and upon approaching, find that nothing remains but the skin of a dog, slit open at the belly, and a trail of something slug-like and legless moving off into the distance. Whatever thing followed you from town, wearing the skin of a dog as a disguise, has taken its leave.

4. Travelling through the marshlands, you notice that while your companions are beset by mosquitos and leeches, you are, for the most part, unmolested. A single mosquito lands on your arm, and as you move to swat it, it falls dead into the water. You notice at this point that the water around you has an oily sheen that trails behind you, and that neither your companions nor their gear are leaving a similar wake. Looking behind you, a few leeches and a single small fish float belly up in the wake of your passage.

5. The area around you was once cleared for pasturage, and an abandoned barn sits decrepit, far off the road, near the treeline. Off in the forest, birds fly squawking into the air, and the trees themselves begin to whip around in an unnatural fashion. Whatever disturbance occurs, it seems to be coming in your direction, and you see it reach the treeline, with the visible trees jerking in all directions, with the ground beneath them rising and subsiding suddenly, as if the earth itself was a giant wave, coming straight at you. The barn explodes as its support timbers pitch in opposite directions, tearing the old structure to rubble in an instant, and still the earth-wave flows inexorably towards the road, moving faster than a galloping horse. It reaches the road and crashes, like water upon a rocky shore, spraying you with clods of loose earth, and then it over, the earth once again lying flat and still, showing little sign of its unnatural animation. Fallen leaves and branches, overturned earth, distressed birds and the ruins of the barn remain as the only evidence of this 'tidal wave of earth.'

6. A great termite mound lies in the center of the forest, three meters in height, and as wide around the bottom, with several smaller meter high mounds around it, with small walkways connecting them. For thirty yards around the mound, the undergrowth has been cleared away, and differently colored hexagonal patches of plants several yards across lie in a strange pattern, with trains of beetles carrying harvested plant matter to the central mound. A closer look reveals smaller insects riding atop the beetles, or walking beside them, and at your approach, a thin barely audible reedy keening erupts and shortly a flying swarm of tiny red, orange and yellow beetles pour forth from the mound and hover before you, making a threatening clattering sound. In their miniscule forelimbs, they bear shields made from the same material as their carapaces, in the same bright colors, and inch long polearms with mandible-like ‘blades,’ and it is by clashing their ‘weapons’ against their ‘shields’ that they make the warning clamor.

7. Hundreds of butterflies with pale green and lavender wings sun themselves on a tree near where you set up camp. The patterns on the wings are individually unique, and resemble fanciful glyphs or sigils in some ornate alien script. They beat their wings slowly, to remain cool, creating the impression of a single pulsing organism, which breaks apart at your approach as the butterflies fly away. The tree itself has been stripped of all leaves and buds, and lies naked, with scars upon its bark weeping sap like blood, when its ravagers depart, a sad and lonely sight. In the middle of the night, a loud crack accompanies the largest branch of the tree pulling free and crashing to the ground, and by morning the tree looks to have been dead for decades, and the grass and other small plants within several yards of the dead tree has also withered and turned yellow-brown, while the wood of the tree, and the fallen branch, reveal the wandering rune-like trails of thousands of tiny burrowing vermin, never crossing each other, and winding around each limb and branch, which, to the untrained eye, resemble long cursive runic inscriptions.

8. You awaken ravenously hungry, and feeling as if you have become entangled in your blankets, and begin to thrash about as you realize that you are indeed wrapped up in something. It is a matter of panicky moments to tear yourself free of the silken cocoon, no stronger than a spiders web, that envelops you, and other than yourself and your equipment being suspiciously clean and shiny, you appear to have suffered no ill effects from whatever force spun you into a flimsy silken prison for the night. The cast off webbing seems to wither away in the light of the sun, and soon the only evidence remaining of this strange ordeal is your unnatural hunger and thirst, which persists for several days, and a heavy sensation in your belly, which increasingly grows firm to the touch, and warmer than normal. Three nights later, you have a terrible dream of an alien-looking monstrous spider with intelligent eyes tearing itself free from your abdomen, and launching itself off into an endless expanse of mist and webbing, and you awaken to find that your stomach no longer feels as burdened as it had, and that your unnatural hunger and thirst have subsided. [You've just been used to incubate a baby phase spider! Mazel tov!]


More please!

Dark Archive

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Bill Lumberg wrote:
More please!

Oh hey, I forgot this even existed! And I'm surely not gonna do all 1000 myself!

But here's a couple more;

9. Your companions have caught some nagging affliction in these wasted badlands, and find your strength and your wits fading daily. Standard magical remedies seem insufficient, and the ague is pernicious. It is by lucky chance that an encounter with a wicked sorcerer leaves you temporarily sightless, blinded by some foul curse, and it is only then, through sightless eyes, that you see them, the pale white creatures, the size of halflings, clinging to the backs of your companions with long rubbery limbs, with suckered mouths fastened to the backs of their necks, slowing draining away their lives. So long as you are blind, you can attack these creatures, which prove to be somewhat feeble and easy to defeat, freeing your companions from the 'disease' that has plagued them, but your sighted companions can neither see nor perceive them, and you can't seem to reach the one attached to your own back. Someone is going to have to volunteer to be blinded, hopefully via some temporary magical effect!, to save you in return...

10. The journey took longer than expected, and you are still a half days travel from the nearest town when night falls. You see a campfire by the roadside ahead, with a few huddled figures around it, and a wagon to the side. As you get closer, the wagon appears broken down, and the travelers do not seem to notice your arrival, or respond to your hails. Suddenly they leap up, facing the woodline, and begin going through the motions of a pitched battle, in utter silence, against unseen foes, attempting to fall back to their decrepit wagon, as if for safety. They fall swiftly, and disappear moments later, as the fire goes out. By the time you reach them, the firepit has been cold for many years, and the wagon a ruin for at least that long. A few piles of stones mark the nameless graves of these long dead travelers.

Dark Archive

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11. The apple smelled delicious, but upon cutting into (or worse, biting into) it, you found that the 'flesh' of the apple was indeed, flesh.


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12. As the party rounds a bend in the road of a wooded area they see a large number of white rabbits covering an indistinct mound about one and a half feet high. The rabbits turn to face the party and their faces are stained red. In a flash, the rabbits flee into the surrounding brush. Then the party can see the carcass of a wolf, nearly stripped to the bones, lying in the road. If anyone touches the dead wolf he will note that it is not yet cold.

Dark Archive

Oh, that's hot! I love it!

'Animals behaving unnaturally' is always good for a creepy feel.

Silver Crusade

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Oh yes.

Also, 11. AAHHHH D:

13. One black night during a thunderstorm, the only light provided from one horizon to the next is that which brief flashes of lightning might provide.

Unfortunately, these flashes of lightning begin illuminating landscapes entirely different from what had been seen previously. And with each flash of light, the breifly glimpsed surroundings grow more and more unfamiliar.

And then you glimpse figures in the distance during the flashes, standing entirely still in the distance.

With each flash they stand closer and more numerous.

When the storm breaks and the light of the stars, moon, or sun shines through, everything is as it was before, with no sign of the night's strangeness to be seen.

Dark Archive

Ooh, I like that one! Stuff only visible in a photoflash of lightning, and, on the next strike, being unreasonably closer, or entirely different, is cool.

Alternately, something that appears as one thing under normal light, and something entirely more terrifying under special light (such as moonlight, or firelight, or magical light) could be funky. That might even be a fun bestow curse to put on someone, so that, under the light of the moon, their appearance grows bestial, leading others to believe that they are secretly a werewolf...

Silver Crusade

Set wrote:

Alternately, something that appears as one thing under normal light, and something entirely more terrifying under special light (such as moonlight, or firelight, or magical light) could be funky. That might even be a fun bestow curse to put on someone, so that, under the light of the moon, their appearance grows bestial, leading others to believe that they are secretly a werewolf...

Augh! That reminds me of a regular nightmare theme I used to have. D:

15. Putting out the only source of bright light in a darkened space suddenly reveals a misshapen being nearby that wasn't there when that space was brightly illuminated. It might simply stand in place and stare at you, or remain seemingly unaware of your presense. Or it may slowly draw closer.

Alternately, stuff being visible in darkness rather than light could be played for wonder instead, opening "faerie paths" and such. :)

Dark Archive

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16. Thunder Down Under The shadows of clouds rush along the ground, but there are no clouds in the sky. Within moments, the ground grows damp, as if from dew, and puddles begin to form in depressions, with strange rippling disturbances as if raindrops are falling into them, although there is no rain to be felt. A rumbling sound can be heard, like distant thunder, but muffled, and more felt through the soles of one's boots than heard, as it travels through the earth. This unnatural 'thunderstorm' ends with a crack of lightning as a tree suddenly splits apart and bursts into flames, as if struck by lightning, although the discharge travels up from it's roots. Soon after, the 'storm' passes, and the puddles dry as the cloudless cloud-shadows disperse.


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Very nice work, Set. That reminds me a bit of something I came up with. Yours is much better, though.

17. Reflecting Pool

As the PCs approach look over the side of a pond to fill their canteens and water their horses they naturally see their reflections. But their reflections then make moves that the PCs did not. Instantly, the reflections startle and point at the pool, obviously yelling to one another.

As the PCs watch, one reflection reaches behind himself, outside of the pool's border. He then turn to face the party and drops a rock from his hand. The rock splashes through the now rippling pond, tursn in the air for moment and falls back into the water. When the water is calm once again the reflections act as they normally would.


Set wrote:

11. The apple smelled delicious, but upon cutting into (or worse, biting into) it, you found that the 'flesh' of the apple was indeed, flesh.

Oh, to have a Call of Cthulhu game to use this one in!!!

Dark Archive

Bill Lumberg wrote:
17. Reflecting Pool

Ooh, this is a good one. Anything with reflections or shadows behaving oddly, or reflecting something other than the viewer, or appearing to *others* to reflect something other than the viewer (so that anyone else sees your reflection as a lycanthrope or doppleganger or fiend...), has potential for fun!

For the GM, anyway. :)


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18. What is in the firewood the ranger brought back?! Instead of the usual crackle and pop of dried syrup and resin, the partys campfire that night mutters words at the same rate. They are a true hodgepodge of words, completely nonsensical, but all the more eerie for their precise pronunciation and diction.


Freehold DM wrote:
18. What is in the firewood the ranger brought back?! Instead of the usual crackle and pop of dried syrup and resin, the partys campfire that night mutters words at the same rate. They are a true hodgepodge of words, completely nonsensical, but all the more eerie for their precise pronunciation and diction.

Very nice!


Thank you!


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Set wrote:

11. The apple smelled delicious, but upon cutting into (or worse, biting into) it, you found that the 'flesh' of the apple was indeed, flesh.

Days later, you and your companions seem to have shaken off the unnerving episode, with them now good-naturedly joking about your unluckiness in selecting fruit. Yet you still remain shaken; you may vaguely remember the horrifying appearance of the fruit's flesh, but you will never forget its taste... that damned delicious taste.

Dark Archive

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19. Ripley's Nightmare. Swollen bodies hang from the trees, or the rafters of this barn, cocooned in spider silk and twitching softly as if reacting to your presence. One by one, they split open, the still living people (or herd animals) dying with screams as small sized giant spiders (or spider swarms!) erupt from their bellies. Those not yet split open thrash, and a timely remove disease spell or mercy (or even antiplague) can kill the unhatched eggs within them, saving their lives (and sparing you facing another giant spider or spider swarm in a few rounds, as they have remained dormant, waiting to hatch until their parent brings them a first meal of live struggling prey).

Alternately,
The bodies as snared to the cavern walls via bonds of hardened mud, and they burst open to unleash immature giant wasps.
The bodies are pierced through and suspended from great thorny brambles, and burst open to unleash blood-covered shrikes or immature dire corbies.


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Nukes thread from orbit


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Set wrote:
19. Ripley's Nightmare. Swollen bodies hang from the trees, or the rafters of this barn, cocooned in spider silk and twitching softly as if reacting to your presence. One by one, they split open, the still living people (or herd animals) dying with screams as small sized giant spiders (or spider swarms!) erupt from their bellies. Those not yet split open thrash, and a timely remove disease spell or mercy (or even antiplague) can kill the unhatched eggs within them, saving their lives (and sparing you facing another giant spider or spider swarm in a few rounds, as they have remained dormant, waiting to hatch until their parent brings them a first meal of live struggling prey).

I don't know why, but this immediately made me think of spiders that had a human eyeball for their abdomens, and that pop out of a oblivious human's eyesockets while they're asleep and return before the sleeper awakens.

I should probably worry why these images comes to mind so quickly and easily... but I'm not. That I'm not worried should probably worry me.

Edit: What if Set's scenario were reversed: Large swollen spiders (or other insects) that split open to reveal blue-eyed blonde human children? How would you ever be able to not keep one eye on them? Which weird/odd behaviors would just be children being children, and which would be because they're slightly Other?


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My god.... saves last bullet for himself.


Oh hai! I'm in yur gun, replacing teh bullets with tiny ballistic clockwork spiders.


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20. Aftermath of Famous Stories

it is late evening under a clear sky when the party rounds a bend in the road and sights the outskirts of a small village. The residents are simple humans gathered tightly in a crowd. They look down at something that the PCs cannot see. Occasionally one lifts his head and points to the crescent moon that illuminates the scene.

When the players approach close enough they hear a childlike sobbing from emanating from behind a bush on the roadside. A cat dressed in an ornate vest and floppy hat stands on its hind legs and wrings its paws in consternation. The cat notices the PCs and looks up at them as if to speak but nothing comes from its mouth. There is a musical instrument on the ground behind the cat. The crying continues and the PCs see a dish and a spoon with their arms around eachother. The dish tells the spoon over and over "it's all right, she is in a better place..."

Now the PCs can see between the bodies of the villagers to what they are surrounding. It is the battered, bloody form of a cow that fills a four-foot depression in the ground. "She just came out of nowhere" a elderly man says as he looks up at the moon.


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This entire thread is excellent and sumptuous, much like the fluid that collects behind a sheep's eyes after depriving it of sleep for a month with fear.


Ambrosia Slaad wrote:
Set wrote:

11. The apple smelled delicious, but upon cutting into (or worse, biting into) it, you found that the 'flesh' of the apple was indeed, flesh.

Days later, you and your companions seem to have shaken off the unnerving episode, with them now good-naturedly joking about your unluckiness in selecting fruit. Yet you still remain shaken; you may vaguely remember the horrifying appearance of the fruit's flesh, but you will never forget its taste... that damned delicious taste.

its been a few weeks since the apple incident, and although you can't forget the taste, an encounter with some ghouls and their ghast leader a few days ago is enough to keep yoi on the straight and narrow. This afternoon, however, it started to rain, and even though its the rainy season aroundabouts, the drops are fatter and.. warmer than usual. You paid no heed to tha t last part at first, but once you and your friends took shelter, you discovered that you all reeked of cilantro and pepper and the liquid running into your mouths was salty- it wasn't water falling from the heavens, but soup broth. A moment after this realization, a clove of garlic the size of a small boulder and falling with astonishing velocity smashes a nearby tree into splinters. You hear a faint, rumbling hum from the heavens above, as if some truly enormous creature were singing to itself, and as you all split up and run for more sturdy cover, a volley of carrot slices the size of wagon wheels lands all around you as if you were the target of a vegetable fussilade. The falling soup-rain is starting to get warmer...


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21. The Vats

Ever since your friends paid that cleric to bring you back to life after an ill-fated encounter, you have been plagued by dreams of waking up in a transparent, fluid-filled vat somewhere underground. As you look around through the sides of the vat, you realize the cavernous room is full of hundreds of these vats, each containing copies of your body in various stages of development. In the vat next to your rests a ruined corpse still bearing the wounds that previously claimed your life. Tadpole-like creatures with rudimentary human faces feast upon in and each other in swarms, slowly growing larger. You are about to try to escape when your friends arrive and one injects something into the fluid around you. Things go hazy and then you awaken.


This is great stuff! Dot!


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Ptolmaeus Arvenus wrote:
This entire thread is excellent and sumptuous, much like the fluid that collects behind a sheep's eyes after depriving it of sleep for a month with fear.

rocks back and forth in corner of thread I..I just wanna go home....


Freehold DM wrote:
Ptolmaeus Arvenus wrote:
This entire thread is excellent and sumptuous, much like the fluid that collects behind a sheep's eyes after depriving it of sleep for a month with fear.
rocks back and forth in corner of thread I..I just wanna go home....

Hmm, yes, not a sheep but no doubt your humors will be wonderfully tinged with wordless terror and familiar disgust.

Dark Archive

Ptolmaeus Arvenus wrote:
This entire thread is excellent and sumptuous, much like the fluid that collects behind a sheep's eyes after depriving it of sleep for a month with fear.

I had a (rough) plot seed on a similar theme.

Spoiler:

Former Nexian, worshipper of Nethys, thinks non-spellcasters are irrelevant meat to be experimented upon by their betters. Left Nex when his necromantic studies proved too extreme for his ‘squeamish’ fellow Nexians, and moved to Geb, where he knew nobody would complain about his experiments on human ‘volunteers.’ Treff Somethingorother.

Gnome in Geb, follower of Zon-Kuthon, develops the Fear Extractor, a helmet contraption that is bolted and screwed into the skull of a person, drilling into their brain, and pressing against the parts of the brain that are stimulated during a fear reaction, causing them to become resistant to fear (immune to shaken penalties, only dazed by the frightened or panicked conditions), but also giving them fierce headaches (-2 to all Int, Wis or Cha based skill checks). If exposed to supernatural fear, the resistance remains, but the wearer of the Fear Extractor loses 1 Con point instead, and the vials atop the Extractor slowly fill with droplets of clear liquid that the Gnome calls ‘Liquid Fear.’ It can be used as a power component when casting a Fear spells (+1 CL and +1 DC, but user is shaken for 1 round as well), or as a splash weapon (target is shaken for 2d4 rounds, all splashed for 1 round), or imbibed or injected into someone to cause them to be panicked for 1d4+1 rounds and then shaken and fatigued for 1d4+1 minutes (or just shaken for 1d4+1 rounds if they make a Fort save). Undead drinking a dose of liquid fear experience mortal fear and are shaken for 1d4+1 rounds. They consider this a decadent delicacy, since they no longer experience human passions in this manner, as undead.


Set wrote:
Ptolmaeus Arvenus wrote:
This entire thread is excellent and sumptuous, much like the fluid that collects behind a sheep's eyes after depriving it of sleep for a month with fear.

I had a (rough) plot seed on a similar theme.

** spoiler omitted **

sounds like the psycho-man!


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22. Parasitic Eyes

You are on watch one night when you hear a low keening sound and find yourself unable to move. From the position where you head is frozen, you are able to watch a group of eyeballs approach on optic nerves they manipulate like tentacles. They are all a remarkable green color. As you watch, they fall upon one of your comrades. Prying his eyelid open, one splits vertically to reveal a set of tiny and impossibly sharp teeth. You cannot look away as it devours you friend's eye and slips into the socket itself.

The next morning your friend denies feeling anything wrong apart from a nasty headache but every now and then when no one else can see, his eye turns green and grins at you.


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23. Hole In the Ground

The party hastily makes camp after a long day's hike. You drew the lot to dig the sh!thole, among other chores. Your mind drifts off to whether it'll be cold rations or a warm meal tonight while absent-mindedly scooping away the dirt. You observe some friendly chatter as others rush about their tasks, but when you look back down to see if the hole is deep enough, you see the musculature and skeletal remains of a human(oid) head buried in the cold ground.

You jump back, looking at the tool with which you were digging in time to see the face of a party member's wife slide off the instrument and hit the ground with an audible 'fff-whop.' Before you can alert your friends, something pulls the body deeper into the ground--loose dirt filling its trail. The face, when you try to turn it over to confirm you aren't mad, comes apart as though it were disturbed, viscous muck atop a stagnant pool. Two beetles with iridescent patterns eeriely like the eyes of your companion's wife scurry off into the surroundings. You are left to wonder if the faint snaps and pops you hear are the sticks in the campfire ... or bones being crushed below.


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24. Put Away ... Things

You bolt awake in the middle of the night--your sentry has given hue and cry. As you jump up and prepare for imminent melee, your companion relates that you've been robbed. The culprits were not caught in the act, but items from that group of [insert goblinoid here] are gone. Hurriedly, all are roused and the haul is inventoried.

The weapons you took from the fallen enemies appear to be made of sticks and boards. Armors are now scant cloths. Gems are marbles, precious stones are skipping stones, and gold pieces are paint chips and bits of brass. The blood, however, that was on these items remains. Another puzzling detail is that the clothing no longer seems large enough for those you encountered. The "treasure" is essentially a worthless hoarding of shiny bits, pretty cloth, and mock "equipment." No discernable tracks, other than your own, lead to or from your encampment.

(Should the party return to the scene of battle, the remains of their enemies are seen to be children--either from the original race or from their own race. Unlike the slain children, fallen comrades are found to be asleep where they fell or were carried ... or were buried. Critical injuries, it seems, were all in the mind and the wounds suffered were merely subdual damage. The slaughtered children, on the other hand, took the full brunt of your lethality.)


I approve, marking for future study.


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25. Silent Inn

Thick mists have slowed your progress on the road and you are doomed to reach your destination shortly after dawn ... after which, of course, you'll be expected to entertain questions, run down folks who know what's what, and try to avoid being used as pawns in local politics. As you consider the likely fines for someone bloodying a local in their sleep-deprivation, you happen upon an unexpected Inn on the edge of the road.

The Innkeeper is a woman who is quiet and serene, offering you an unbelievably low price for the night; however, there is no food to be made this late in the evening. Mounts are taken away and tied up in a shoddy stable, each person is taken to a room, and the daughters--who look like less weathered images of their mother--take you to your rooms without a word. Glimpses of the Innkeeper's husband are caught while getting settled; a greasy, unkempt man of thin, yet hunched, build eyes you suspiciously while sucking meat off the bones of his supper and keeping a hesitant, tacit distance. The wife sees to everything with humility and reserve, commenting how "Few people visit these days."

In the morning, each person finds themselves to have slept sealed in a mausoleum (An escape must be managed from each, but gear brought in is accessible). Mounts are found with their reins tied to headstones in the shape of holy symbols. It is there that the party will notice the statues, which clearly had the wife and daughters as their subjects. They, too, will also notice a freshly disturbed grave with its recently interred occupant half out. This individual was half-eaten, and teeth marks on his leg bones are evident to those who more than glance. Your destination, thought hours away, is just around the bend. You slept in its cemetery, yet somehow failed to notice a 'ghoul problem,' which everyone is on about.


Very good stuff!


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26. The Battered Door

As you search the darkened chambers and lonely hallways of this decaying structure, you find a door that seems as though it ought not belong--timbers reinforced with iron bands and thick nails throughout. Despite its heaviness, the door has been smashed outward, though the layers of iron sheets hold it together and prevent visualization of the room behind. It is locked, but can be forced (especially in its state of disrepair).

The door gives way, slowed by the corpse of a man-sized being whom you sweep behind the door as you enter. The walls of the room differ in décor and composition, as does the ceiling height and architectural scheme. A shift in the airflow brings the smell of decay, dust, and old mold toward you.

The scene before you is a gruesome one. A minstrel, half a dozen servants (in foreign garb), and what appear to be two dignitaries are strewn about the table, savagely slain. Many bodies are piled at the farthest end of the table, which is broken and lays atop a few bodies, dishes scattered loosely. A battle axe is wedged ominously in the wall nearby. Aside from lethal axe-strokes on the majority of the deceased, all have had their hands severed.

When your attention is turned to the husk behind the door, you notice several severed hands clutching the tunic, tangled in handfuls of red beard, and crushing the throat of this man. Closer inspection reveals fingers, bone fragments, and a hand with some broken bones hanging out of the man's mouth like a crab crushed clumsily by a poorly fitted door. Broken tooth fragments roll loose in his mouth, as does a signet ring still on the bone. This man's hands, too, are missing, but the shriveled wrists reveal no wounds ... almost as if they were cauterized. His large, muscular build supports that it may have been he who kicked the door *outward*. Under the door handle, a hand hangs limply from a finger thrust through the ring of a key in the battered door's lock.

When you leave the room and pull the door shut, the door falls from the wall and shatters, leaving behind what appears to be shards of stained-glass a similar color to the door's timber. No room exists beyond where the battered door stood. As your friends puzzle over this occurrence and attune themselves to the environment they delved into initially (so different from the room behind the door), the keener of you hears claws scratching stone emanating from who-knows-where. Rats, you hope.

Dark Archive

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Inspired by the last one;

27. Evil Hand. After touching the thing you ought not have touched, your hand is filled with a burning sensation and twists into a demonic claw that begins attacking you. Every time it strikes, it tears into your flesh and reveals new demonic flesh beneath, as if it is attempting to rip away your human self and unleash the demon growing within you. You have to sever the demonic hand, and restrain it, as the demon (a mere quasit?) still is trapped within it.

Your human hand regrows from the stump overnight, although you won't know this until the morning.

A horrible version of this could occur after some nut decides to desecrate an evil altar by peeing on it...


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28. Sleep Tight

You float happily amongst dreams of boisterous taverns, large bonfires, foamy-ale stupors, and well-received romantic advances. As you bat your eyes and turn away from the pre-dawn glow, your first coherent thoughts are that you are surprisingly warm despite the dewy, chilly morning you would have expected.

Your arm momentarily glides beyond its snug position amongst the bedroll and touches something cozily warm, but surprisingly ... wet? You crawl forward, gathering your elbows underneath your shoulders and blinking repeatedly, you coax your eyes to focus this brisk, early morning.

Unaware that you had made a noise, you find yourself responding to your companions as they seem to be alarmedly talking you down. Thick, viscous blood stretches between your fingers, but you barely register these facts ... your mind is busy dealing with the ridge of thick molars jutting from pink viscera wrapped about your torso, a tongue lolling about lazily, a horrified eye looking skyward by your hip ...

When all is said and done (that is, after everyone's screams of surprise and disjointed shake-off dances of unexpected, icky violation have ended), you comprehend that everyone in your party had their bedrolls wrapped in a cow turned inside-out ... while ... they ... slept! Even the jerk who was supposed to be on watch was wrapped in one when he apparently dozed off against the log in front of the campfire.

The most coldly logical and unafraid comrade observes that no tears or cuts exist in the once-cows. These are probably the same ones you passed many miles back yesterday, but what could have transported and so altered these beasts, you'd prefer not to imagine ...

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Cthulhu Kid wrote:
28. Sleep Tight

Ew! Love it!

29. Home, Under the Sea
Your reflection in the waters of the pool seems ordinary enough until a gray skinned humanoid with hundreds of triangular white teeth rises up behind it in the water and drags it kicking away into the depths, struggling uselessly as it is dragged out of sight in a wash of bubbles, and then an ominous upwelling of blood.

Moments later, the water clears, and your reflection returns, although the eyes are oddly dark, like those of a shark...


30. Sweet Dreams

While popping a squat to relieve yourself, you think about the events of the day, tongue some annoying sores that sprung up on the inside of your cheeks, and--most importantly--keep your eyes and ears keen lest a beast (or, more likely, a perverted joker among your companions) creep up on you.

The numerous, delicate ulcers in your mouth are annoyingly painful. You force yourself to still your tongue, though it writhes against the nearest teeth as its set boundaries; it's anxious to violate your rules when the urge becomes too powerful. This helps take your mind off the difficult time you're having defecating. You almost inaudibly grunt as you bear down, but are taken aback when you hear light clinking sounds underneath your posterior.

With some apprehension, you closely inspect your stool, seeing what appears to be several tiny, metallic belts crafted for beings that could be hardly larger than your longest finger. You poke about with a stick and notice tiny, pointy spear-twigs also in your scat. Several of them. Most broken. Some undigested lumps look like tiny, mud-caked footwear, but you're probably just imaging it now.

As you look about uncomfortably, brow crinkled with confusion, you recall the briefest bit of your dream last night. All you can remember is the word "Brownies" and the feeling that you had dreamed of eating copious amounts of some sweet delicacy.

As you roll a twig-spear between your fingers (and a leaf, of course!) you reason that sleep-chewing while you dreamt is the best explanation for your numerous mouth sores.


31. Into The Woods

You stand before a massacre of a dozen men--lumberjacks by trade, it would seem. Half have been flayed and their skins are wrapped about the bases of young tree trunks. The other half of the men appear to have been chopped into fist-sized pieces and liberally sprinkled about the bases of four trees in particular. Divots and evidence of blood pools are concentrated amongst damaged tents, bedrolls, and ground cloths; however, the blood seems to have been gathered and splashed on the four trees some distance away, perhaps ritualistically.

It is noted that bloody axes are glued or otherwise bound somehow in the upper branches of the four gilded trees. Recovering those tools could yield valuable clues to whodunnit. None of the able-bodied, young men seem willing to climb to those risky heights to look any deeper into this disconcerting, morbid affair.


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32. Impending Dichotomy

After nigh a day tramping through a near-lightless forest—a forest the locals warned you to avoid—you note soon after emerging into the sunlight that your shadow's actions no longer ape your own. Careful study and consideration leads you (or a perspicacious comrade) to speculate that it is conveying images of your future. It shows you relieving yourself, bending to wring your hands (presumably washing in the stream), and eating what looks to be (in hindsight) a cold mutton shank—all approximately fifteen minutes before you actually do those things. You begin to relax and even look forward to what's next—until your shadow-self lurches to its feet, draws a weapon, engages in what looks to be practice or a mock battle with an invisible foe ...

... well, until it ends with your shadows toppling to the ground—one of your body, and the other your now decapitated head. A moment later, the head's shadow begins to bob and move away—as if the victor has claimed its prize and is swinging it freely in his grasp while striding away.


33. Bankrupted Water Economy

After two days of unexpectedly arid lands and sere conditions, you find yourself with no water rationed for the persons in your group. You take refuge from the scorching sun under the thatch-roofed, mud-walled huts of an abandoned hamlet.

Some scouting work turns up nothing of value, but a well was found in the center of the town in a stout, well-built structure. The well is protected from the sun and is enclosed, presumably, to prevent the winds from drying up its contents.

A drawing bucket is improvised and the party pulls thirstily at the sweet pail-loads precious prize.

Before long, you begin the feel sluggish and experiences visions of people walking about the town and living communal, pleasant lives. Your friends are gone and your environment is clearly restored to what it once was--perhaps you have travelled to the past.

Long, apprehensive minutes pass without interaction from these ghostly figures as you sweat off the oppressive daze so full of lens flare, halos, and (your own) drunken ambulation.

A woman with a bucket of water appears and you feel compelled to follow her. She leads you back to the central building, which is now adorned with intricate carvings, fine cloth curtains, and metal objects; you burp heavily and avoid the pounding details that cause your temples to throb and threaten about of sick-up.

Eventually, you stand before a woman in childbirth, the bucket of water used to soak rags and clean away the blood from the process. Your agony is hers; the tearing fleshing in her loins is as your headache. Through your pain, you notice the afterbirth and birth-fluids caught in a blue bowl at the foot of the table on which the woman writhes.

You and your companions come to, each sickened, but unwilling to discuss the details of their personal tribulation. As you depart this town and the smell of rain fills the air, you shudder inwardly and outwardly. You hope never again to see, hear of, or recall a woman emptying a bowl into a well.

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34. Shadow War Old bones and corroded gear litter the floor of this ancient chamber, crunching underfoot. Four braziers ignite, one at the center of each of the rooms four walls, and you quickly see that the shadows you cast from their light begin to replay some ancient conflict, sliding across the walls to attack one another.

For each shadow that 'falls' to this conflict, the person casting that shadow suffers harm, as the 'wound' that appeared to lay that shadow low appears on their body. By extinguishing the braziers, you can end this 'war' early (suffering no harm for shadows 'extinguished' along with their light source) until the room is only lit by whatever light sources you brought with you, and only your original shadows remain.

[Alternately, the room has a brazier lit with continual flame behind a spear-wielding statue of a Greco-Roman soldier. A large greater shadow attacks with an incorporeal longspear (that conducts the greater shadows touch attack, rather than doing any damage on its own), anchored to the base of the statue, but able to reach the entire room. The shadow is hard to hurt, but extinguishing the flame behind the statue causes it to disperse, as does destroying the statue itself. But that's less of a 'freaky occurence' and more of a standard encounter...]


35. Tasty Treat

Running from the (insert monster here) you fall into a pit of loose stones.

After eventually escaping, you realize the pit into which you tumbled was more than it seemed--it was full of teeth! Apparently many different kinds.

You pull off some stuck into your skin and shake some from your boots. Now, every animal with teeth eyes you longingly ... And hungrily. Even herbivores ... even some of your companions, too (though they deny it completely).

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36. Sinister Drums The crack of the thunderstone caused the noise of the battle to be shorn away, leaving you feeling like you've been thrust into another world, where the melee around you is but an illusion, and the only sound is a strange rushing roar, that sounds like a waterfall, but is only the sound of the blood rushing through arteries near your ears. You quickly notice that you can not only hear your own heartbeat, but also those of everyone else, mixed into a strange discordant rhythm, or, more precisely, two warring rhythms, with your allies heartbeats forming a hopeful familiar pattern of beats, and your foes, a more desperate sinister symphony. The second 'song' grows dimmer as foes fall, until they have all been slain, or fled the scene. And yet, a single discordant beat remains, even though no one stands save your travelling companions. You turn to try and find out where this lone discordant beat is coming from, but your hearing returns, and you lose the ability to perceive it, only having determined that it came from one of your company...

In a world now overflowing with speech and laughter and other mundane sounds, drowning out your brief moment of perception, you are left to wonder, which of your trusted friends is not as they seem, and has a heart that beats to a sinister drum?


"Finney!" :)

Number 36 is really quite a delightful one, Set. Nicely done.

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37. And Graves Give Up Their Dead The village lies in a mountain valley, and as you arrive, the sun has yet to crest the mountain side, casting the sleepy community in shadow. On the slope you cross, a small graveyard covers a field, and upon every grave, a body rests, above ground, some little more than rags and bones, others only years old. One in particular, a young woman, seems almost pristine, and lies upon freshly turned earth, her headstone revealing that she died only the day before. The other graves show no sign of disturbance, other than the occupants of their graves lying peacefully atop the earth, instead of deep within it. The sun crests the rise and the bodies disappear, as if sucked back into their graves, leaving no trace of their unnatural appearance, although the body of the young woman, who you now note has bloodied hands, marring her otherwise pristine form, awakens and screams before disappearing.

If the party digs up that grave, she was buried alive last night, thought to be dead after a bad reaction to a mushroom she ate, and through some unnatural circumstance, is alive still, but will suffocate shortly if not saved!

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