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As anyone who cares enough to look through my post history can see, I'm running Carrion Crown for a group that is half "People who went through HoH" and half "People with no clue" prompting me to re-write the Haunting of Harrowstone as something different and new; I'm using The 1969 version of The Haunting as a basis, and am planning on doing a straight up haunted house with greater focus on haunts and atmosphere than on combat.
Currently, to help my writing processes, I am thinking up the "themes" of Carrion Crown; the idea came to me when I decided to look through my old 2nd Ed Vampire Storyteller's guide for ideas.
The excerpt probably explains it best;
"Have you ever really sat down and wondered what the
difference is between theme and concept? At times, they're
used interchangeably, but that's not really true or helpful at
all. They both embody story ideas, but they work in two very
different ways. When you seek to make effective, impacting
decisions on what the whole framework of what your
chronicle is going to say, think of theme as the central ideal
that you're trying to communicate. By comparison, concept is
the sensory representation - the taste, feel, look, smell and
sound, if you will - of these ideals. Neither theme nor concept
has to be singular. Your chronicle can incorporate a variety of
different themes into one big story line and can use a variety
of sensory pictures to communicate those themes. Using
theme and concept isn't exactly easy, but if you keep these
differences in mind, it becomes a much less arduous task,
because just understanding this gives you strong inferences
on why they work and why they're important. Simply stated,
theme is your message and concept is your look." - Page 69 of the Vampire: The Masquerade Storytellers Handbook, 2nd Edition, Revised.
As things stand, the themes I have are;
The Conquest of the Mind over the Supernatural (The fact that all of my PCs are intellectuals; an Archaeologist with ambitions, a Doctor with flexible morals and an end-justifies-the-means attitude, a School-Teacher turned horiffic monster, struggling with his darker nature, and a Dhampir nobleman, dealing with social politics and inherent darkness in his blood)
The Inevitability of Fate (Pharasma, the Harrow Deck, the fact that most of my PCs are doomed to tragic ends in some form or fashion)
The Warping of Good Intentions Toward Evil (Most, if not all of my PCs in some form or fashion, as well as Caromarc,)
The Inherent Evils of the Supernatural (Vorstag and Grine and the Whispering Way, the Dhampir PC)
So, throw me a few? I'd like to have one major theme for each section of Carrion Crown, if I could.
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I'd say one of Carrion Crown's biggest themes is an obsession with the past and how it can return to haunt the future. This is probably best seen in The Haunting of Harrowstone and in Broken Moon, HoH as it's a direct attempt by the ghosts of the past to wreak vengeance on the town that imprisoned them and left them to die, Broken Moon both for the ruins of Desna's temple now serving as a werewolf haven that can be purified by the PCs and because of the ruins of Feldgrau, where the atrocities of the War Without Rivals are deliberately being relived.
There's also Trial of the Beast, where the PCs must go digging into the past of the crimes the beast is accused of to learn what REALLY happened. And in the case of Brother Swarm, it's another example of the past returning to haunt the present, the executed murderer returning to take revenge on the community that wronged him. The Beast itself and Caromarc's other experiments represent his former inability to let go of his past power as the Count. Though he grew out of that phase, the results of his work continued to plague Vieland when they got loose.
Other aspects of clinging to the past can be seen in Ashes at Dawn. Vampires, by their very nature are undead monsters clinging to the pretense of the humans they once were. In addition, the witches in the abbey are obsessed with the past, namely in resurrecting their dead mentor (though one was beginning to drift away from this goal, but she became a vampire, and thus could count as a clinging to the past of her humanity). And indeed, Carrion Crown itself is about the attempt to resurrect one of the greatest evils from Golarion's past. Adivion Adrissant is convinced that he was born in the wrong era, and that only by reconnecting with the great minds of the past can he find an equal. Hell, the AP begins at a funeral, the act of remembering someone from the past who has just left this world.
And in the final chaper, Shadows of Gallowspire, you're exploring the ruined citadels of the Whispering Way. Ruins almost always draw connections to the past, and here the PCs are kind of reliving moments of the Shining Crusade, striving to purge the ancient enemy.
Not to mention that, Carrion Crown's story aside, Ustalav as a whole is a nation unable to forget the horrors of its past. The scars of the Whispering Tyrant's reign remain still. The nobles backstab each other for slights and ambitions that started long long ago, the Kellid swampfolk harbor grudges against the Varisian settlers that conquered them, etc. Almost every major power figure in Ustalav has something in their past that affects their present.
The only entry in Carrion Crown where the sins of the past don't seem to explicitly be returning to reap what was sown is Wake of the Watcher, which seems more like a multiple-way battle between the interests of two or three groups of Lovecraftian monsters with the PCs caught in the middle.
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Hmm; I like it, but it feels like it needs a certain... punch to it; My themes I have thus far all do kind of have a consquence, a sort of, well symbolism; or at least that's the way I intend (afiac, good, suspensful Horror needs a little symbolism and subtext to work) What would you call specific symbolism for that? Since it seems rather general with the ruins and such; I suppose what I am asking for is a "period" to drive it home; to communicate The Inevitability Of Fate, I am considering having at least one if not more of the characters doomed to some end that despite their best efforts will claim them in the end (aside from me being a big fan of Planscape Torment, I also appreciate that, to an extent, Horror is about doom and powerlessness, and how one reacts in the face of that. (See Descent))
Symbolism based on Pharasma (the spiral, whipporwills, etc), the Whispering Way's whispered secrets of corruption from the ancient past, the petty power play / political struggles of the immortal vampires. If you can, reference some current hot-button real life political items within the latter chapters couched in game & setting terms.
WotW has the "this is where Ravengro is going" kind of vibe to it. Insular common folk gone horribly, terribly wrong. If you're willing to alter the town map of Illmarsh a bit, add in common elements of Ravengro to Illmarsh (circular town center, add in the posting poles), much the same as was done in Chapter 1 of RoW.
Pharasma's 'spiral of fate' - especially if corrupted or interrupted - should make some excellent symbology to scatter throughout the campaign. I plan to use such elements for my own CC group.
were any of your players actually spooked by the adventure?
Oh, Turin, if you want to talk shop, I am big into patching holes in the dark ages rules, as that's the most advanced of the old world of darkness games.
corruption is also a key feature. Did anyone notice that the BBEG of the last module was a descendant of the guy credited for defeating Tar-baphon, in effect totally destroying the heroic legacy of his ancestors?
==Aelryinth
corruption is also a key feature. Did anyone notice that the BBEG of the last module was a descendant of the guy credited for defeating Tar-baphon, in effect totally destroying the heroic legacy of his ancestors?
==Aelryinth
How is that corruption? Mighty types must run in the family, for good or ill. The bloodline certainly hasn't thinned, though their moral convictions may have.
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A prison for the murderous, turned into a source of murder.
A construct made for protection, turned into a source of death while paranoia warps the heart of a population and attempts to subvert justice.
An outside force tearing apart a fragile peace among the lycanthropes in furtherance of its ambitions.
A small town corrupted at its heart, sacrificing the few and innocent for the benefit of those giving them up.
Striking a deal with the rot at the center of Ustalav society, to deal with a greater evil...a paladin corrupted into evil by vampirism, and nobility by the desire to live forever.
and lastly, the greatest living scion of a family of a family immortalized for a legendary deed, now fallen and attempting to undo his ancestor's own greatness as his soul falls to true darkness.
Corruption oozes out of this AP, evil taking root and subverting what men do. I mean, seriously, the law in Ustalav basically totally ignores the vampiric threat that has dwelt beneath them for hundreds of years, while the noble class knows of it and includes them in their games. Eesh!
==Aelryinth
Dotting this one for future reference. This is a rather interesting topic for a fledgling writer like me.
There are also strong themes of personal loss, especially in the first two.
-Kendra loses Petros right at the beginning.
-Vesorianna loses the warden twice, once physically and then spiritually.
-The Beast loses his only friend, the child Elsa. This drives him into unending sorrow, at least until the PCs intervene.
-Caromarc loses his wife and uses this as an impetus for his research.
-The werewolves of the Shudderwood lose all sense of tradition and purpose when their way of succession is broken.
-The Witches of the Abbey have lost their mentor and are driven towards differing goals because of it.
It seems like personal loss and how it either strengthens or destroys those it affects is a prevalent theme in these modules.
corruption is also a key feature. Did anyone notice that the BBEG of the last module was a descendant of the guy credited for defeating Tar-baphon, in effect totally destroying the heroic legacy of his ancestors?
==Aelryinth
Where are you getting this?
Not that I'm doubting you, it s just that I have the whole CC path, Rule of Fear, and the Inner Sea World Guide, and I don't remember anything about that...
Look at the last name of the guy bearing the shield of aroden that muckled up Tar-Baphon. Now, where have we seen that family name before?
:)
==Aelryinth
Arnisant, right? Close, but not quite the same as Adrissant... unless its a name that got changed or its an off-shoot of the original name. Again, is there a bit of information I'm not aware of? Are there details on the name change or are they two separate families?
Hmm, I drew the parallel from somewhere, but I could be mistaken. Isn't Arnisant the name of Count Jeggare's dog?
Heh. Ah, memory.
==Aerlyinth
On a much simpler note, facing death seems to be a big theme of Carrion Crown.
Both in the form of the myriad types of undead and the various ways any given PC could be swiftly killed out of nowhere by traps and monsters.
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Hmm; I like it, but it feels like it needs a certain... punch to it; My themes I have thus far all do kind of have a consquence, a sort of, well symbolism; or at least that's the way I intend (afiac, good, suspensful Horror needs a little symbolism and subtext to work) What would you call specific symbolism for that? Since it seems rather general with the ruins and such; I suppose what I am asking for is a "period" to drive it home; to communicate The Inevitability Of Fate, I am considering having at least one if not more of the characters doomed to some end that despite their best efforts will claim them in the end (aside from me being a big fan of Planscape Torment, I also appreciate that, to an extent, Horror is about doom and powerlessness, and how one reacts in the face of that. (See Descent))
Dont discount Zousha's ideas as having no punch. Without the rich past of Ustalav's trajic history being played on, you have no real punch to deliver to the PC's. A historian in this campaign would be just as important as an ancient Thassalonian archaeologist in RotRL. It is those discoveries of what happened years ago that will make the pc's choices much easier to make. In the end, if you have a PC that is trying to stop the vicious cycle of violence and superstition, history is the more important than gold or platnum.
'Knowledge is power' should be the mantra for this AP, so please dont discount what was mentioned earlier by Zousha. It is that rich background of each installment that brings this place to life. Without history, HoH is just a haunted house with haunts in it. TotB is just a flesh golem with a hint of intellect, etc...