Hello, I'm looking to start work on a new campaign and the start of it will be inside an insane asylum. Anyone have any ideas of who some of the occupants that my PC's would encounter could be? The level range would be from 1 to 3.
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Rogues, barbarians, arcane spellcasters, some clerics to evil, ancient, or mad deities... What, exactly, is it that you're looking for? Of course, those are all good for generic madmen (and women), but pretty much anything can work for individuals. Insanity does not discriminate. Consider a noble paladin who lost hope after seeing a glimpse of hell, or a druid with a grudge against civilization who was arrested for arson. I would like to raise a word of caution towards using the mentally damaged as mere fodder - it comes with many unfortunate implications... Not the least of which being that historically, more sane but undesirable people ended up in asylums than truly mad ones. Because of that, if you just want to do a simple dungeon crawl that doesn't wrestle with complex ethical issues, I recommend going the mad cultist route. Pick an evil deity like Zon-Kuthon or Rovagug, and have his clerics make up the majority of the inmates. Still a little unpleasant if you think about it too long, but you can then have the high concentration of cultists cause the deity's influence to infect the rest of the inhabitants, turning all of them into uncontrollable and incurable lunatics.
Also, if this is your first time running a game, might I suggest considering running a published adventure first? There are a number available for free. (I particularly enjoyed the We Be Goblins! series, myself.) They're fairly short, so completing one shouldn't take more than a session or two, meaning that you can get on to your own custom campaign fairly quickly, after getting some familiarity with how a game is run. They can also be examples on how to build your own adventures. (If you have run a Pathfinder game before, please forgive my presumption and feel free to ignore this bit.)
I've ran quite a bit of campaigns before. Basically what is going to be happening is the PC's are going to be patients of the asylum for reasons chosen by them in their backstories. The town in which the asylum sits is going to be under attack by a neighboring kingdom and as such the asylum is going to be hit by a barrage of trebuchet attacks and this will free the PC's from their cells but will also free some of the other not so sane residents. So they will have to flee the asylum all while running into some of the more notorious inmates.
I was looking for random NPC's that could be used as encounters like for example perhaps a cannibal that was placed in the asylum instead of being executed because his family was of noble bloodlines. I could come up with a lot by myself but was seeing what the community here had in mind that I might not have or wouldn't think of.
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Well, it sounds like this is going to be a rather hectic scenario (though quite interesting, I might add - scratch most all of my concerns about unfortunate implications), so I don't quite see how the PCs will get much opportunity to learn about any given patient's backstory. I could be wrong, of course, but under the circumstances, I think you'd be hard-pressed to squeeze in more than one or two introductions (of which your noble cannibal should certainly be one). Statting up a 1st-level barbarian, and 1st- and 2nd-level warriors and commoners will certainly do well enough, as far as I can tell.
There was a video game that one of my friends was playing years ago, but I don't remember the name. Basically, I think you were a convict in prison who has severe mental instability. The game starts when demons attack and there is a prison break. So you're trying to escape. The thing is, when you get into a fight, it could be demons, other inmates, demonically possessed inmates, or you might just be experiencing a mental break and psychedelically experience some kind of imaginary battle. Or a combo of any of the above. Anyhow, I don't know if that helps, but I thought it was an intriguing concept for a game.
I'm thinking that the PC's will be able to find a list of current inmates and after the dust has settled they may have to find and deal with some of the more notorious inmates in future adventures. Perhaps when the battle is over and "new management" has taken the town the PC's will be tasked with capturing the escapees. Or, if their alignment is evil they might look to find some of them as ally's.
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Very cool. May I recommend, in that case, creating a couple of inmates who actually aren't insane but are merely being dismissed as such, particularly if the party is good, so that they have to decide whether or not they should bring them back to the asylum. The druid I mentioned in my previous post could be an example. Perhaps they have some legitimate grievance with the town (perhaps it cut down a holy grove to make way for some new houses or something, or hunters from the town shot his animal companion, mistaking it for a regular deer), and were thrown in the madhouse so that the town's elite wouldn't have to acknowledge any potential wrong-doing on their part.
Lawrence, that sounds like a good idea. That will surely create a moral dilemma for them. I also was thinking that perhaps I could have them run into a character that acts, talks and is for all said purposes a Paladin. The character will think he's a paladin but the kicker is everything he does is evil but he thinks he's doing it for the greater good. What the character really is, is an insane anti-paladin. But in the beginning they will think him to be a paladin that is just in the asylum because some rich person wanted him locked away. Later on they will have to find him and deal with him.
How large is the asylum? I mean, how many inmates could it hold?
How is the asylum run, exactly? Is it more like a prison with a few healers? Since you seem to agree that at least some of those within it are not actually insane but there for political reasons, how many are like that?
Is there anything nasty going on within the asylum? I mean, if I were a PC in this scenario, I'd likely play someone investigating the asylum for misdoings and mistreatment (especially if it's part of some church and I was an Inquisitor).
I could imagine non-standard versions of NPC races ending up here as well. Some orc that thinks he or she is a cleric of an elven deity, maybe a polite and courteous gnoll, a goblin that's terrified of fire, etc.
What can the PCs do with the inmates? I mean, if not all of them are evil per se (or those that are aren't insane in the more homicidal ways), then sticking around during an attack isn't a great idea and if the PCs are good they might want to help their fellow inmates to safety. If the Asylum is more a prison then they will have to deal with the guards as well.
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Lawrence, that sounds like a good idea. That will surely create a moral dilemma for them. I also was thinking that perhaps I could have them run into a character that acts, talks and is for all said purposes a Paladin. The character will think he's a paladin but the kicker is everything he does is evil but he thinks he's doing it for the greater good. What the character really is, is an insane anti-paladin. But in the beginning they will think him to be a paladin that is just in the asylum because some rich person wanted him locked away. Later on they will have to find him and deal with him.
Nice! If you want to be even more diabolical, perhaps some rich person really did just want him locked away (evil doesn't always get along, after all), and perhaps that particular crusade the (anti-)paladin fights could at least arguably be called legitimate. Perhaps it is a case of some legal loophole being abused that could actually have benefits for the town as a whole, but will definitely have great benefits for the rich guy abusing it, just to layer the grayness even more.
I could imagine non-standard versions of NPC races ending up here as well. Some orc that thinks he or she is a cleric of an elven deity, maybe a polite and courteous gnoll, a goblin that's terrified of fire, etc.
I second this. Even more convoluted moral dilemmas! People who actually are insane, but with ailments that are at least arguably beneficial to themselves and the public, rather than harmful.
I'm thinking the asylum will be able to hold at least 100 inmates. Not saying I wanna flesh out all 100. I'm thinking probably twenty that will be involved with the PC's in some fashion.
I originally thought about having a neighboring kingdom attack the city and causing damage to the asylum and that allows escape. But I've recently thought about what if one of the inmates thought they were a powerful wizard and through a series of mishaps and dumb luck, the inmate summoned a demon and the demon started driving the inmates even more insane and that causes an uprising. Which scenario do you guys think would work better. Or do you have a different one that would work better?
The Asylum is run more like an old asylum from like the 40's. Lots of electroshock therapy and pretty deplorable conditions.
