Aside from Eastern European, The Caribbean, and Louisiana, what are some other locales that lend themselves to horror campaigns?
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The British Isles are packed with tales of terror. Sleepy rural villagers with suspicious locals, mist-shrouded moors and howls in the night. Ancient architecture, and an underground system that has been around for thousands of years and is so extensive it would put the underdark to shame, and who knows what has been living down there, waiting...
in my opinion the arctic and antarctic areas both lend themselves well to horror, something about unsettled lands separated from the mainland by oceans always seemed really hopeless and disparaging to me.
in my opinion the arctic and antarctic areas both lend themselves well to horror, something about unsettled lands separated from the mainland by oceans always seemed really hopeless and disparaging to me.
The Thing!
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Interestingly enough, I got my master's degree in Louisiana, spent two summers teaching English in Transylvania (yes, really! -- Arad, Romania), and am currently teaching full time in the Caribbean.
My favorite author enjoyed exploring the eldritch rural areas of rural Massachusetts. And another of my favorites was partial to rural Maine for awhile. I think you could probably use the deserted areas of Detroit effectively.
Given what Jim Butcher has done with Chicago (and the White Wolf people have done with a lot of cities), I would think that with a little imagination you could add some dark corners to just about any of your favorite locales with which you have more than just a passing familiarity.
EVERYWHERE is a good setting for a horror campaign, just with different flavors. If you want some ideas outside Louisiana, Eastern Europe, and the Caribbean, the already suggested New England and British Isles are very good. You could also try Japan, which has some wonderfully creepy folklore, or Iceland, which can also be creepy. Germany's black forest region could also be nice, as could old Egyptian or Aztec ruins.
Really, though, you can set a horror story anywhere. Every place has it's share of scary legends.
Thanks, all good suggestions.
The British Isles are packed with tales of terror. Sleepy rural villagers with suspicious locals, mist-shrouded moors and howls in the night.
I liked American Werewolf in London too!
Has anyone mentioned the Alleghenies yet?
Alaska or Canadian/Siberian forests are good for survival horror. Ship anywhere on sea/ocean too. South East Asia - jungles with unnamed cults or cinematographically bloody and monstrous presentation of Vietnam War as a background for horror in the jungle. Tibetan or Nepali monasteries. Arabian deserts (Pitch Black?). Old Paris with it's catacombs and sewers. Modern London for different kind of horror - zombiepocalypse for example...
Aside from Eastern European, The Caribbean, and Louisiana, what are some other locales that lend themselves to horror campaigns?
I'm not expert. I've only run a horror game once, during a bout of inspiration, and my players said it was "damn creepy", but...
I don't think the location matters as much as the way it's presented. I think a good, creepy horror, could be done most anywhere. In fact, it is my humble belief that the more mundane the location, the more frightening it will be when the horror sets in. When something familiar and safe slowly melts away into anything but, then...yes then...
Horror games are often about anticipation. Contrary to popular belief, at least in my experience, things like taint scores and insanity don't really add much to the experience quite like paranoia does. When your PCs doesn't even trust their own horses...well then you know...
Consider dotting the game with things that seem creepy. Drop false signs or weird occurrences and let them try to sort it out, or figure it out, and their confusion will add to their fear. Keep a strait face, as if you know everything that is going on. Play with their senses with things that are meaningless but seem to have some sort of growing relevance. Perhaps a cat lulls about outside their window at an inn when they go to a town. Perhaps the next night, there are two. The next night, there are three. Then the night after...they are gone...
The party crosses a dead tree in the woods. It's a twisted, gnarled thing, and the place around it seems haunted somehow, yet don't call it haunted. Have seemingly mundane noises, like something scratching about in the trees, or a spooked deer running through the woods put them slightly on edge. Later, their dreams are filled with the tree. With shadows. Maybe a name was carved in the tree, and partially scraped out. Maybe they keep wondering about the tree, and then when their curiosity brings them back, the tree has been burned down, but nothing else was burned around it...
Watch as the player scrambles to figure out the meaning behind these strange occurrences. They will wonder. Often, they will wonder aloud, and provide you with fuel to craft their nightmares with. Their own thoughts manifest into possible hooks that you could twist and turn the story into. Why is this hold house abandoned? Why is there a nursery in the house that is completely spotless and well kept, while the house seems empty and full of dust? Where does the whispering sound in the woods keep coming from? Is it the wind? Is it more? Why do you wake up to your sword unsheathed and on your left, when each night you lay it sheathed on your right?
Why indeed...
Backwoods New England!!!!!
Steven Spielberg and Dean Koontz have both made careers in horror by making the least creepy environments the location for their horror stories. The descent from normalcy into horror is part of what makes it so horrific.
You are in the suburbs.. and there is a LAAAMP MONSTERRRR...
Like others have said, most any region/area can be twisted into a nice horror setting. For ideas just look through lore/legends/tall tales/myths and other stories for teh area. Then pick out the darker ones to breath more detail and life into. Baba Yaga stories are also another 'easy' horror example.
Depending on the style of horror you are going for, different places work. Desolation rarely works, but desolate areas can be useful in establishing isolation, which is a common tool. Humans are social, and only having a limited amount of people to contact can add to fear.
Conversely, you can create isolation in a crowded environment. What if the protagonists can't trust the authority around them? What if the problems they're having would make normal people think them crazy and run away, or worse, lock them up where the horrors can get them? They can be surrounded by people all the time, and still be very, very alone. Or worse- any of those people can be one of them.
Spending about an hour doing research in any location can net you plenty of material to spin a horror story around it.
New England? H.P. Lovecraft and Poe both lived there. Lizzie Borden lived there (and so did her parents). Salem is there.
Florida? Plenty of people get dumped in the Everglades for the alligators to eat. Cult activity is rife- there is even an apocalypic cult established in the town my Grandparents live in. They're mostly harmless, but who knows what happens behind the flaps of other revivalist tents or lavishly decorated megachurches? Also, good ol' boy justice still happens all over. You don't even need to go into the supernatural to make things horrific here.
The Southwest? Roswell, with Area 51. Las Vegas, with the Mafia. Hollywood, with illusions, vice and money.
America's history with its indigenous populations is pretty horrific, and spans the entirety of the continent.
A few things are downright mysterious, such as Roanoke (the Lost Colony), the Marie Celeste, and Flight 19. Those can be used well, and can add mystery to an otherwise boring location.
There were rumors from the architecture students of enormous, old, sealed WWII "research vaults" linked to the bomb shelters underneath the university I went to. I mostly discount it as imagination, but there are a ton of old, rusted, locked doors in or near maintenance paths and tunnels all over campus. Combine it with a good conspiracy theory or an 80's sci-fi plot, and you're off.
Not sure if it's been mentioned, but watch some Japanese horror films for inspiration too. Not so much modern ones (though they can give you some ideas on suspense and that supernatural, spine-tingling weirdness), but more like Kaidan or Onibaba which depict the more medieval Japanese setting and the types of old-world difficulties.
Read some Hellboy for ideas too, or old old old faerie tales, the kind where they kidnap children out of their cribs and replace them with faeries. Reading some H.P. Lovecraft can get you into the insanity aspect and some of his passages--mainly those having to do with obtuse angles acting acute--can be some nice inspiration.
I've run a horror campaign before and if I were to give tips, first and foremost is to not only play on the environment's creepiness, but also the fears that players have for their characters. Wanton destruction of weapons isn't really advisable... But.... Were you inclined... Desperation is frightening when you're a player; feeling that things are quickly slipping out of your control is more frightening than eerie mist or a Wil-o-the-Whisp calling out in a dead child's voice. Your job is to just keep them right on the edge, only throwing them over it like you would a bungee jumper.
Having a solid grasp on darkness rules and creatures that will pop out, attack for a round, then run away are nice things to keep people on their toes. If you want to be especially insidious you can even play into starvation rules, sending them to an island like Matango where all the indigenous flora is poisonous and the food is guarded by insane creatures.
in my opinion the arctic and antarctic areas both lend themselves well to horror, something about unsettled lands separated from the mainland by oceans always seemed really hopeless and disparaging to me.The Thing!
Or to take it back a bit more, The Mountains of Madness
I like deserts for horror, personally; between the scorching-hot days and icy nights, hallucinations brought on by dehydration, poisonous critters and plants EVERYWHERE...
And you can really see the stars at night, in the desert. Well enough to NOTICE that black, winged shape occluding them.
Backwoods New England!!!!!
Backwards Old England!
Some of the CREEPIEST horror stories I've ever seen/read take place in the most common places: somone's own bedroom, the Chicago projects, the art scene of 20's New York, a quiet fishing village. Y'know what minor little throwaway kids story would make a GREAT horror game? The tale of Icabod Crane and the Headless Horseman.
As far as REGIONS known for their horror stories they're all over the place. Heck, I grew up in a suburb of Chicago where there was this old factory on the outskirts of town that was perfect fodder for an urban legend: it was abandoned and condemmed but never torn down, there was terrible graffiti all over it and some homeless dudes had died there. It was isolated (only an access road or a nearby park trail could reach it) and eventually some heavy-metal wannabe satanists began hanging there. Translate this to a PF campaign:
There's a foul-smelling tannery on the outskirts of town. It was outside the walls due to the smell but close enough where folks could walk down to the place at the river's edge. Animals' hides and brains were regularly delivered from farms in the area for a small guild of tanners to scrape and prepare; everything used to be fine, until one day a pair of teamsters arrived to find the place a bloody mess with skinned bodies hung from the trees and the guildmaster hard at work on their still-warm flesh.
Nowadays no one goes there and the path has overgrown with weeds and gnarled undergrowth. Animals avoid it as well, but some roam the area nearby. They have become feral, savage things that further discourage travelers near the tannery. Yet life has gone on around this blight; several of the city's outlying farms still herd animals only a few miles from the place and merchants moving upriver can see it from their vessels.
Then again there's the children who sing disturbingly about Fagan the Skinner and how he just went crazy one night and made himself a coat to wear. The phrase "Tan your hide" takes on a whole new meaning in town and none of the commoners remember anymore EXACTLY what happened to Fagan after he was found that morning. The one thing people DO remember? His wistling; he always wistled while he worked and the story goes that when they found him Fagan was merrily tweeting while he scraped the fat from the flesh of his best mates. Of late folks in town have heard the sound of it and later discovered unspeakable things have occured.