Modernizing the Haunting of Harrowstone.


Conversions


I'm working my way through this adventure to bring it into the modern world. One of my main hang-ups I've run into - replacing the stirges. They are fairly important thematically, so I need to nail this one. Any suggestions?

I'm sure I'll have more questions come up and I'll post them here as they arise.


Are you talking a modern world without monsters, but with ghosts? How about vampire bats? They fly, they drink blood...


Doc_Outlands wrote:

I'm working my way through this adventure to bring it into the modern world. One of my main hang-ups I've run into - replacing the stirges. They are fairly important thematically, so I need to nail this one. Any suggestions?

I'm sure I'll have more questions come up and I'll post them here as they arise.

Unique regional fist-sized mosquitoes.


I like the other two ideas better, but if you want something more normal you could go for weasels. Any blood drinking animal would do really.


Yeah, I'd wanted to use real critters rather than the fantasy ones we are used to. I'm making the campaign world something along the lines of the tv shows "Supernatural" and "Charmed" - there will be magic for the PCs eventually, so I have to figure out how to handle the magic stuff - scrolls, potions, wands, etc - in the adventure, as well as working out what critters to replace. There'll be monsters, but rarely - or that's the plan...


Doc_Outlands wrote:
Yeah, I'd wanted to use real critters rather than the fantasy ones we are used to. I'm making the campaign world something along the lines of the tv shows "Supernatural" and "Charmed" - there will be magic for the PCs eventually, so I have to figure out how to handle the magic stuff - scrolls, potions, wands, etc - in the adventure, as well as working out what critters to replace. There'll be monsters, but rarely - or that's the plan...

That's why I suggested an unusually large mosquito species that cannot survive outside of the local ecosystem. The species would normally be timid and avoid active humans (prefers sleeping blood sources), but the mating swarms can be hazardous to the casual pedestrian.

New Zealand has some pretty sizeable insects, so I don't see why the northern hemisphere can't have some fun too.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Shadowborn wrote:
Are you talking a modern world without monsters, but with ghosts? How about vampire bats? They fly, they drink blood...

Vampire bat may be your best option. OTOH, another, more obscure one might be the vampire finch (of the galapagos islands) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_Finch

Although neither are really native to North America or Europe, some could have been smuggled in at some point by those wanting to sell them on the exotic pet black market.

As for the other critters,

Spoiler:
the giant centipedes could be replaced with snakes (of the poisonous variety) and the giant spiders could be especially large/mutated bird eating spiders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird-eating_spider or could perhaps be replaced with spider swarms or rabid dogs. The oozes might be replaced with hazards- exposure to disease and the like.

As for expendable magical equipment, I'd think reskinning them as needed to modern technological equivalents could work best. For example, a wand of shocking grasp could work as a stun gun (doing nonlethal damage of course), whereas a wand of cure light wounds could be the medical sprays used so often in the Resident Evil video game series.


Necromancer wrote:
New Zealand has some pretty sizeable insects, so I don't see why the northern hemisphere can't have some fun too.

Head to the Pine Barrens in the summer and you'll see giant mosquitoes in the northern hemisphere


I live in Louisiana - I've seen mosquitoes the size of jet fighters... :D

I've been thinking, if there is magick in the world (hidden or not) and monsters in the dark corners, why can't stirges have been mosquitoes that was exposed to those dark energies? I'll just describe them as being to mosquitoes what the Hulk is to a normal human. Heck, they may even have screaming human visages, since this is a haunted area - just to keep it creepy.

As for the magic items, yes - modern medicines. Or, at least, they LOOK like modern medicines... ;-) I've already done the stun batons (see Avalon Games' Infinite Horizons #2). As for making the cure wands something like a spray-can, I can see that for modern stuff. What about for stuff that was made around 1900, though? Any thoughts there?


A hypodermic syringe immediately comes to mind.


What scares me most is the fact the pic you provided matched almost exactly what I was envisioning in my head... Many thanks for the awesome pic that will be added into my stash!


Doc_Outlands wrote:
What scares me most is the fact the pic you provided matched almost exactly what I was envisioning in my head... Many thanks for the awesome pic that will be added into my stash!

Glad its useful (I saved it too). Anytime some mentions 1900s, 1910s, or 1920s and 'medicine' in the same sentence, an image like the one linked always comes to mind. Along with really old audio equipment and warbling old music...


...
you may have just added a new haunt to my version of Harrowstone...


Also, I'm starting up Carrion Crown soon, with a few setting alterations, and I came up with this NPC while in a creepy-asylum-Victorian/1900s mood. Post link. Maybe this might lend an idea or two...


And so it starts...

Beyond the Veil

This is the blog I'm starting up for the campaign - there will be spoilers, so if you are going to be a player in an adventure listed in any entry's title, don't read it. Otherwise, I'd love folks to read and offer comments. That way, I can keep otherwise scattered, disparate threads herded into a manageable entity.

The first entry is a GM's overview of setting up the new campaign - what I plan to accomplish, what gaming resources are approved or pending, etc. A second entry will be happening very soon, dealing specifically with questions and thoughts on how to modernize Harrowstone.


If I understand this correctly, the entirety/majority of the campaign will be set in Ravengro focusing on hauntings and undead shenanigans?

Will Harrowstone remain a prison or will you change it into an asylum, orphanage, etc.?


It will start there, but I don't know that it will *stay* there. It may well turn into the PCs' "home base," depending on how well they do - I can see the Good Professor's daughter (to be remade as a Witch, I think) acting as an anchor-point/librarian/lodgekeeper for the PCs should all go well. One of the next adventures will be a modernized "Haunting of Soldragon Academy."

Harrowstone will grow in age, likely being placed in western Pennsylvania some 20 miles off the beaten path. The facilities will have originally been a prison during the War Between the States, later converted into an asylum and then into a prison, falling prey to the backstory events some time in the very early 1900's. The events of "seventeen days ago" that kick off the module occur as detailed.

That's the current plan, anyway...


What year do you think you'll start the campaign in? I could easily see it set in the '70s or '80s.


Probably late-80's. Makes the PCs have to actually GO SOMEWHERE to conduct research, rather than relying on Goooooogle. :D


+1 regarding non-search engine research

I've been digging through photos of burned buildings to help me describe things. I want the jaunt into Harrowstone to feel like a dismal, subtle sort of hell for the players. I really wish I had thought of something like this (haunt-focused campaign) rather than committing to the AP as a whole.

This doesn't mean my players won't find a wild goose to chase and end up elsewhere.

Dark Archive

Doc_Outlands wrote:

I'm working my way through this adventure to bring it into the modern world. One of my main hang-ups I've run into - replacing the stirges. They are fairly important thematically, so I need to nail this one. Any suggestions?

I'm sure I'll have more questions come up and I'll post them here as they arise.

Doesn't need to be giant mosquitoes (unless you want them to be).

The first thing I think of when I hear Ravengro is Ravens, and then of course Damian: the Omen part II.
It doesn't even need to be giant or undead ravens (though you could use those as variants) but just sinister and intelligent ravens controlled by TSM - that may actually be more disturbing than using an actual "monster" in the role.
Imagine if you will the first "Birds" style of swarm attack, maybe once PC calls out to a caster to do something or one player to use X weapon, etc...and the Birds respond to the verbal commands and try to intercede in the plan (swarm the player yelling the commands or the one who is going to act).

And then they break off the attack seemingly randomly. Long after the adventure is over your party will remember the encounters and will never feel safe around birds again.

I have run Chill/CoC since the mid 80's, so I understand the dilemma of modern horror/minimal monsters situation.

Just an idea


Now that's just creepy... Excellent!!

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Conversions / Modernizing the Haunting of Harrowstone. All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.