The run-down Ustalavan town of Ravengro was as quiet and distrustful as it was dingy. Were it not for the funeral invitation to see an old acquaintance off, you would not have any reason to think twice of such a place. Every set of eyes upon you seems paranoid and uncertain of your mere presence; you're an outsider, and in such a small and insular town, they know it from the mere sight of you. But it's not the distrusting eyes that bother you most, it's the distinct wrongness in the air. You can almost taste that something is wrong with each breath, your neck tensed up as if expecting some chilly, spectral hand to grasp across it at any second.
You were asked here by Kendra Lorrimor, the daughter of an old acquaintance, Professor Petros Lorrimor. Petros passed under circumstances you don't yet know, and under the direction of his will, Kendra has asked you to visit this backwater Ustalavan town to help put him in the ground, as well as being mentioned in his will, perhaps the beneficiary of some fortune? Regardless of the relationship you two held, you have come to honour his final wishes, although every second you spent in Ravengro leaves you more and more eager to see him in the ground so that you may leave before you start to grow accustomed to the tingling up your spine.
“Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”
― Edgar Allan Poe
Carrion Crown is an adventure path very heavy on influence from gothic horror, which is my genre, my aesthetic, my life. And so I would like to run it, but with some changes. What I'm looking for is a group of players interested in running a Carrion Crown that is much more heavily rooted in its horror influences. I will be making substantial edits to the book to give it more horror elements in the roleplay and story aspects, while also cranking up some areas challenge-wise to give the players more of a feeling of despair. I'm not looking to be a killer GM and my intentions won't be to see my players struggling in every fight, but there should be times where you don't feel like grand adventuring heroes who can take on the anything, because success will be all the sweeter for the struggle it takes to earn.
One particular way I want to bring stronger horror elements into the game is through encouraging players to create characters around the game's concepts and themes. Characters who are strongly tied to the inspiration and the genre are definitely going to get stronger consideration out of me, because I want characters who can be more readily immersed into the genre and its tone. A standard adventurer type will have a much harder time catching my eye, so please keep that in mind when putting your character together. There are many literature archetypes and character ideas in the source material that could definitely inspire something special. The mad scientist, the werewolf hunter, the dhampir raging out against the darkness in anger.
Another way to tie your character strongly to the campaign is to pull on certain classes or archetypes that feel horror appropriate. Occult Classes and Vampire Hunter are on the table, but there are also a wide variety of archetypes you can use to turn other classes into a slightly more genre-approprite bent. I'll leave the choices to you, but if anyone wants to be directed to some I can certainly provide.
I guess this is a good place to note that I am a very, very rambly man, please bear with me; I just like conveying as much information and detail as I can to make sure people fully understand the situation. The more I can convey to you, the better, I hope.
Character Creation rules:
25 Point Buy with no higher than 18 or lower than 8 after racial bonuses. This may seem high for a game I want to be tense and terrifying, but I'll be adjusting things anyway, and I want to give you the chance to put your best foot forward so that you can be challenged on it. Plus, it helps hedge your bits a bit on not getting deaded.
Races: All Core races, as well as Changeling, Dhampir, Orc, Skinwalker, and Tiefling. Many of the core races have interesting and flavourful alternate racial traits from Horror Adventures you may find useful.
Classes: All Paizo classes allowed. Barbarian, Monk, Rogue, and Summoner must use their unchained variants. All archetypes permitted, and as mentioned above archetypes or class features that lean into the setting and genre will be looked upon more favorably.
Two Traits, one of which must come from the free Carrion Crown player's guide. You may take a Drawback to gain a third trait.
Background skills will be in effect
No CE or NE characters. LE is on very, very thin ice but is possible, it will just need promises to bring someone to the table who can play with others
Starting gold as standard for your class
Content from any official Paizo book is allowed barring any weird, specific cases. Splatbooks dealing with relevant topics, like Undead Slayer's Handbook, Horror Adventures, Occult adventures, etc. will be particularly useful reference points.
Fluff:
A written character backstory. The more you give me, the better. I won't put a word minimum on it because that doesn't inherently make good characters, but I would like to see strong, well defined charactrers. Use any prompts or methods of generating one you would like.
Your backstory should contain how your character knew Professor Lorrimor. The campaign traits will give you the basic hook for that, but you're free to go into more detail and broaden the story.
Referring to the Horror Characters write-up for some guidance would not be a bad idea at all.
A character that ties into the genre and its influences will be looked on much, much more favorably. I am a fan of Gothic fiction and horror in general, and that is going to inform the game and how it's shaped. Playing to that will increase your chances of being selected.
Give your character some plot hooks. It can be goals, it can unresolved mysteries, but give me something that your character is trying to do. I'm a big fan of weaving character plotlines into the campaign story or finding places to insert side content to work through them.
A write-up of your character's personality and appearance wouldn't hurt either.
Sub-systems, house rules, and other changes:
The big one is that I will be revising and editing the books as I see fit. This can be to change encounters to reflect the party, but it can also mean plot edits, overhauling sections, changing things up, and finding places where I can tie character backstory into the content. If you played a short way into Carrion Crown this can mean new experiences for you, but can also make for some nasty surprises if expectations get thrown out the window.
The Elephant In The Room feat tax changes. You can find a doc featuring only the changes made here.
Experience is gone. I will level you up with the plot when I say so. This gives me more freedom to run encounters and side content without skewing the books too much
Variant Fear Rules. For the purposes of this system, any feature that grants Fear Immunity will turn into Fear Resistance, where you take penalties of the fear level two steps lower than you actual level, and the bottom two levels will offer no penalty. Furthermore, effects that cause you to become spooked or shaken don't increase your fear to a higher level. For a Paladin's Aura of Courage and similar abilities, the Paladin will gain the effect of their morale bonus as well.
Sanity Rules will be used sparingly and only when appropriate, rather than in the face of all undead threats and sights of unseemly horror.
Corruption isn't something I'm explicitly planning on involving in the game, but if there's a situation that I feel would warrant contracting a corruption and some really poor rolls against it, it could come up. This is more of a warning than anything.
Variant Multiclassing is allowed, but you will have limitations put on you to multiclass out into other things if you take it. If you have an idea in mind, ask me about it and we can feel things out
Micromanaging encumbrance is out, don't worry about your Str score being high enough to carry things, just play around with reason and know you'll need a Bag of Holding to carry super heavy stuff.
Game rules:
Post frequency is at least once per weekday and once per weekend. More frequent posting rates are always welcome. If you take longer than 24 hours to respond to a combat turn, I skip you and move on. Group initiative will be used to help facilitate combat speed.
A darker, mature tone comes with the territory here, but please be mature enough to handle maturity. We will be handling death, violence, psychological horror, and matters of the such, but we're not going anywhere near things like rape, and violent sexual content is not something we're touching on.
Don't be an asshat. I'd like my table to be welcoming to anyone who wants to play in it and to be inclusive, and I won't tolerate intolerance or dickishness at the table. Come on, we're adults.
If you're still with me after this rambly-ass mess and still interested then hi there, thanks for sticking it out. I'm around for any questions you might have or anything I may have forgotten. I've run a lot of meatspace games and even been a PBP player, before my only PBP DM experience was with friends over Discord, so if I missed anything I should have in the OP let me know. Recruitment will run for at least a week, I will see where interest is and how much time people need, but there'll be a few days' warning before I close it up.
