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In the celebration of the new Horror Adventures, this thread seems appropriate since a lot of us will likely soon be running full scale horror themed adventures.
For those you are not familiar with this kinda of thread, it works as follows. Together we compile a list of random events that are somehow horrific. In general it is not the idea that the events necessarily has any real impact, but they are used as a way to intensify the atmosphere of horror. At some point Mark Hoover shows up and takes the thread to a new level, and if we are really good, Broken Zenith immortalizes our work.
If you are still in doubt check out 150 Campsite Events
I'll kick off
1. Beyond the light of your campfire a white mist creeps along the forest floor muffling the sounds of night. From time to time long wispy tendrils stretches towards you camp, only to retract from the fire. You still have a few logs left, but this is the first watch.
2. Looking to the mirror your reflection suddenly flashes a ugly leer. It raises a piece of glass to its throat and slashes a long red gash. Reflexively you reach for your throat, but finds no pierced skin. The blood running down your shirt, however, is very real.
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4. Whenever you look in a mirror or reflective surface every other person you can see in the reflection is staring fixedly at you, but when you turn around they're all acting normally.
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5. All your dreams feel real to the point that every cut and bruise you get dreaming is there when you wake. After a few "nights" you no longer know when you are asleep and when you are awake, or if there is even a difference.
6. Every time you stumble, or rest your eyes for a moment, you fall into a dark forest of archtrees, spiraling high into the starless sky, as a squamous, Cyclopean horror of alien geometries chases you down with skin of forbidden runes and wings of whispered blasphemies, its footfalls simultaneously the soft padding of a sinister stalker and the loud pounding of a wrathful monster. Every time, you find no recourse but to flee from the fell creature, and every time you stumble, you find yourself back in your own body.
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7. At the end of a battle where you watched your friends all fall before you, you take a fatal blow. As you start to fall into death you watch an enemy warrior cut open your chest so that the last thing you see is your own heart... You and your friends wake the next day, all with near fatal wounds. It seems that the enemy left you for dead and moved on. When you check your chest it is no more injured than the rest of you, so you try and ignore the hollow feeling. The fact that your wounds only seem to bleed when you look at them is harder to ignore...
11. You arrive at a new town. When you look at anyone except a player character, their first blink seems to be sideways. Nobody else sees it.
At twilight, people in the town go home and close the door to all foraigners, including the party.
At night, a religious procession traverses the town, like every year, finding a corpse to fill several coffins, which are exactly of your sizes.
14. You find a puppy/kitten.
When holding it, its head splits into a big maw and it tries to bite your head off.
Btw, if you use events from other media (games, movies, books), please make a reference. Nothing ruins horror like a player being too familiar with the events.
15. Your throats are parched after a long fight, but as you put your water skin to your lips, the sweet coppery taste of blood fills your mouths.
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16. The party breaks a binding/Iron Flask/whatever and a VERY powerful evil outsider appears, more then strong enough to lay waste the group. It rears up with a mad laugh, looks you over, freezes, and bows its head to the ground before one PC. It then says, "Be careful, oh great one. The Others will find you soon and I am unable to defend you this time<' and vanishes.
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There are a few ideas in this thread that could be pillaged for creepy atmospherics.
17. The skeletons that listlessly guard this forgotten tomb shy away from you, holding their arms up as if to shield their eyes from some horrible thing they see as you approach. The dread tyrant of infamy whose burial chamber they guard lies in state, mail corroded, but gleaming sword as black and shiny as the day it was forged (in blood). As you approach, the dead king holds the sword aloft, as if in tribute, and mutters, "At last, one comes whose darkness eclipses my own. Take this sword and remind the people of my lands why they fear the night."
18. Haunting music drifts through your campsite. Three lights appear and a susurrus of whispers begins.
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20. Whenever you near a large body of water, you feel a strong unseen force pulling at you, trying to draw you into the water and presumably, keep you there for good.
21. After waking one morning feeling unwell, you notice that whenever anyone uses the name of a good deity to bless you, even if it was just a polite thing to say, you cough blood uncontrollably.
22. Recently, whenever another being's shadow touches you, all color begins to seemingly drain from you, then, you begin to fade from existence.
23. An immensely skilled doppelganger serial killer has taken a sick liking to you and your group, declaring you all to be his new "play things". You now wander cities, unsure of whom to trust, when the killer could be any of them.
24. When sleeping on solid ground, in all your dreams you're buried alive. When sleeping on a ship / boat, in all your dreams you drown. If you manage to sleep in the skies, in all your dreams you feel like you're falling forever. This had just begun, and for what reason, you don't know why.
26. People have been vanishing. When getting to the rumored BBEg's residence, you notice some weird guard beasts...that show some familiar features with the abductees.
(Tattoos, hair color, earring, whatever)
Ref: Manga Frankenfran.
Link
Earlier semi-ref: parasite eve.
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27. You are eaten by a grue.
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28.A strange Shop appears in town, with no one remembering when it was built, or how long it was there. Still the owner seems helpful enough, offering useful and powerful items for no major cost, only that should you wish to be rid of them, you return them in a weeks time. Everything seems fine...Until a week passes and you find yourself awakening in a room with a dead body, soaked in blood, the item embedded in the body, and no memory of what happened last night. These episodes persist every night for a week(or until the item is returned), with the item(now revealed to be intelligent, independent, and cursed) being nearly impossible to be rid of. If the item is not gotten rid of by the end of this week of episodes, The Item becomes silent and powerless...And the owner is now effected by the possessed corruption, with the possessing spirit being a murderous psychopath(of any alignment).
29. As you brush your hand through your hair, a large turf of hair effortless pulls free from your head. Soon more follows and you feel the strains of hair slipping through the sponge like flesh of you scalp.
30. You bite into an apple, only to discover that under its skin lay dozens of teeth.
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31. A Curse has caused one of your Eyes to turn Purple when it is the Only eye open it peers in to a Un-natural realm, Tenticle Monsters of a Sort seem to be in your Side vision you to look they have gone, the World glows a Eerie Purple Hue a Similar world to your own you try as you might to see more but you Mind seems unable to comprehend what you have seen (From a Horror/Gothic Campaign I am currently running)
32. Spiders (or some other innocuous vermin) are attracted to a particular PC; they act like overfond pets who nestle into his clothing, attempt to share his bed, bring him tiny gifts of food (web-wrapped living flies), and the like.
Heroes of horror
33. The faces of those killed by the party seem to be appearing in the smoke of the campfire.
34. As the character overlooks a pool of clear water, they see an large eye reflected back at them. The eye vanishes if they call attention to it.
35. Although the enemies are not quiet, their mouths and eyes have been stitched shut. Examination after the fact reveals that their heads are on backwards—the "mouths and eyes" are just stitches on the backs of their skulls, while their actual faces were obscured by hoods, hats and even full heads of hair.
36. After fighting some biomass, with a sting attack, that nobody could identify. The one PC didn't pass the fort save, and said PC sees eyes grow in his flesh, and later small mouths.
But whenever he tries to draw attention to it, they disappear.
37. The character hears muffled conversation on the other side of every door he comes across, even if when he opens the door the room is completely empty.
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37. The character hears muffled conversation on the other side of every door he comes across, even if when he opens the door the room is completely empty.
This one works well if the party is exploring the scene of a massacre, or an ancient ruin, and whenever they listen at a door, they hear the party that happened before the massacre, only to open the door and find more bodies, or a normal day in the castle centuries ago, before they enter the room and it's all dust and decay.
Mirrors could also be all grimy and / covered with drop clothes, and when cleaned / uncovered, momentarily reflect the bright colors and jaunty movements of what used to be, before the image fades to reflect only the bleak and desolate current scene.
39. You find a book, it's pages blank. Upon further inspection however, words begin to appear. Sentences and paragraphs in various handwriting detail how they would torture and kill you, and each is signed by someone you know. You close the book when you recognize your mother's handwriting.
40. An intense, agonizing pain shoots through your leg. Just as quickly as it began, it ends. It is then that you notice all of the towns children playing with a doll that looks an awful lot like you. One is about to put a needle through their dolls eye.
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Your DM asks you to pick the class you want to play THEN he/she asks you to roll your stats.
In order.
41. You start seeing shadows move separate from anything casting them. Most fade as soon as you look closely but some hold for a second or two. As time goes by you see more and more but you know they are not real. After a hard fight you look up and see one standing in the open. When you focus on it it doesn't fade but instead a wide grin tears across its "face" and you notice that this one is casting a shadow of its own.
43. One or several of the pcs' horses suddenly turn carnivorous, refusing to eat anything but raw meat.
44. While out in the fields harvesting pumpkins, they animate as d6 scarecrows.
45. While enjoying sleeping in an actual bed at the local inn after all those weeks of adventuring out in the wilds have a PC dream of an approaching menance.
In her dream the menace knocks at the inn's doors only to force its way in by smashing the doors. This terrifying menace approaches the PC's room with every door smashed in (ideally along a hallway). Then have her roll Perception to notic a knock on her door... Call for initiative!
46. The party books a room at a shady in for the night. The bartender is oddly insistent on keeping the party in their rooms after dark, and the only other patron is sitting in the corner and hasn't moved since they arrived. There is a heavy wooden door in the common room that the bartender doesn't acknowledge existing. There is scratching from inside the walls.
47: Fog...
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48. Somewhere in every 'dungeon' the characters run through the PCs find their own bodies. Torn up, killed by various means, and with no recoverable equipment of any real value, but still recognizable as them.
49: A cute, seemingly childish shadow creature starts following you around asking questions. It occasionally has to eat shadows, but then what casts them either dies or falls apart. While it's harmless and friendly, most of it's kind are the stuff of horror stories. Where there's one, there are more. (from Digger.)
http://diggercomic.com/blog/2007/02/01/wombat1-gnorf/
50: An otherwise normal person comes to the characters and begs for help. There are bloody footprints following them. The footprints are slowly catching up. (The movie It Follows is based on a scary short story.)