Creeping out your players in Virlych

[WitchyTangles]

So, I've found that just from a role play perspective, simple is sometimes better when laying on the horror. I used several WW wizards with a stock pile of scrolls of Sculpt Corpse & Animate Dead to send undead look-alikes of the pc's out of the fog as they were running out of light in the mountains of Virlych...silent & creepy to see your self replicated repeatedly and walking towards you out of the gloom. It's fun to come up with nasty surprises.

[Tybid]

I'm actually changing Renchurch a bit to be a recently rediscovered temple of urgathoa on a demiplane. The Whispering Way sealed their priests into it when the Tyrant was imprisoned with designs to free them (great knowledge gained of undeath and magic with hundreds of years of seclusion) when his resurrection was nigh.

That is where the whole thing goes completely hellraiser.

The priests devolved into experiments in pain and deviance as their captivity drove them even crazier. I'm going to modify the cenobites with a bad touch cleric variant. Should be fairly graphic horrifying for my group.

[tbug]

It sounds like in the interim they may have converted to Xon-Kuthon.

[Tybid]

I was actually thinking the exact same thing when I was trying to think of a way to make it work.

Maybe make my version of Renchurch the only place that the ritual take place and when the Gray Friar arrives along with his followers they find that the ancient priests have converted to Xon and are just as much a threat to them as the party.

Place signs throughout the monastery that their forces have been fighting their way into the depths.

It seems like a massive amount of change to make just to make my cenobites more horrifying though. Luckily I have three or four more sessions at least before they even start Shadows of Gallowspire.

[Tacticslion]

Also, minor pedantic note: it's "Zon" instead of "Xon". :)

Otherwise, I like what I'm seeing so far...

Also, for the creep out factor...

My players are not permitted here:

... Adivion has become a near-lover of an inquisitor of Iomedae*. I made him a Sherlock-variant (a combined version of the newer BBC series of very charismatic "highly functioning socio-path" with the more "actiony" Robert Downy Jr. portrayal in the films). Also, in terms of how his scores are arranged, I purposefully tanked his constitution. Made for a very interesting character: concerned with hygiene, easily addicted, and easily affected by substances: the low fortitude, vain, hedonistic, power hungry, and pride make for a wonderful character combination... especially since they don't negatively impact his status as an 'end boss' later in the game, and partially entirely negated by his later undead state. <I thought of condescending as tempting, but the intimidate penalty just wasn't worth it>.

He came in for the funeral (well, a simulacrum^ of him came in for the funeral), was nearly seduced by the Inqisitor (who wanted him. Badly. For great justice. Ahem.) but who felt guilty because of the morals she successfully instilled into him through their back-and-forth discussions (and various opposed checks: his intelligence v. her wisdom, and vice verse: her high wisdom was comparable to his intelligence, and his relatively moderate wisdom was exceeded easily by her high intelligence).

He (or rather, a simulacra^) will briefly be in the lodge of part three (Broken Moon), as will the Count Galdana, at which point he will help Kendra (and a very infatuated Galdana) head back to his resources at Caliphas, in order to "assist" a (very badly cursed, since he last saw her) Kendra... and making them perfect targets for his eventual kidnapping.

^ He communes with his simulacra (he has several) by way of magic item that uses telepathic bond, dream, modify memory, and share memory, all bundled in a little note pad that each of them have that is dedicated to the explicit purpose of allowing Adrissant to be in multiple places at once and have memory of those events. Effectively, once per week, they will journal their information. This updates the core Adrissant memories when that man reads them. However, the one that was debated into non-evil by the Inquisitor decided to follow his orders, and utilized his pad to erase the memories of how much he loves her, modifying them to become a haze of booze and regret over the loss of Petros, as (in my writing) despite their sharp and hard disagreement, he genuinely respected the man (and quietly hoped to convert him to the Whispering Way - or at least to use the Whispering Way like Adrissant himself is. Also because Petros purposefully didn't invite Adrisson to his funeral to ensure that Adrisson came to his funeral: it stung to be manipulated in that manner, a concept that the Inquisitor correctly assessed, and then explained to Adivion in their dialogues.

That deadly and terrible form of betrayal, combined with some of the ideas here, will be excellent horror-fodder, I think.

* I nearly misspelled it Iomadae instead of Iomedae. Ah, good times.