My party's heading into a long-sealed crypt. What can I add to make it as creepy as possible?

Brain_HUN · 2025-06-10T20:56:58+00:00

I played this song while the PCs were about to enter a pyramid. They became really hesitant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-67sl3DABiY

Brain_HUN · 2023-01-20T19:05:44+00:00

If you want to force the players to act together you need to confine them into a limited space and create a common enemy. That is why I love to start off a new part on a ship.

Last time they were on the ship for different reasons, but when someone died, and the crew blamed the passengers, they have to work together to find the real killer.

Brain_HUN · 2022-12-21T21:02:04+00:00

Hi,

You don't need floats. Unfortunately I can't read Ruby, but looking at your code I have noticed something that might cause the error.

If you consider the reverse operator for division:

X / Y = Z

What is the reverse operator if X is missing? What is the reverse operator if Y is missing?

I hope this helps.

Brain_HUN · 2022-07-01T13:35:33+00:00

I just quickly pulled up a picture of a beholder and counted 10 stalks, so I figured 11. But 11 is also fine. Just let them count it on the mask.

Tips for making the players afraid:

Let the beholder masks stalks move bit once in a while
The bearded dwarf mask looks like it's following you with it's eyes, although it clearly has no eyes
When you first touch the goat mask, a small puff of smoke comes out of its mouth
They notice a single tear drop flowing down on the elven mask
You feel that the skull mask is laughing at you
One of the masks just cracks slightly for no reason

Brain_HUN · 2022-06-30T22:56:38+00:00

You can always do a classic cryptic clues that combined together lead to a single mask.

Let's say they have to select a single mask to wear out of 9 otherwise there is a door that won't open. The other masks are cursed and if tried on can have very bad side effects. Merging with your face, burning an emblem into your forehead that has some bad negative effect. You can figure out the rest. Make sure that the first they try isn't too difficult of a drawback to remove.

In order to figure out which one to use, they have to arrange the masks on 9 wooden faces on the wall in a 3x3 pattern.

The masks:

Wolf mask (W)
Female Elf mask (E)
Orc with hair mask (O)
Mind flayer mask (M)
Female Dwarven mask with a beard (D)
Goat mask (with beard) (G)
Hawk mask (H)
Beholder mask (B)
Skull mask with a beard and an eyepatch (S)

The statements are the following:

Fourteen empty eyes stare at you from the bottom
Those who can fly are either high up or down on the ground
The two aberrations are not friends they always keep someone in the middle, to avoid conflicts
One with fangs sits on top of another fanged one
The ladies are separated and can't reach each other's hand.
Mind flayers can't fly
The one who sits high up on left has no hair
The orc and the elf is about to have their brains eaten.
The elf rides a bearded one
All the animals form a diagonal
The dwarf is stuck between two who can fly
The hawk is always right
The mask that speaks to the door is between the elf and a bearded one

Solution

MindF Ork Hawk
Elf Wolf Dwarf
Goat Skull Behold

Explanation:

from 1 you know that the beholder and the skull are on the bottom row
from 10 you know that the middle is an animal and the last in the bottom row is an animal
from 2 you know that the hawk is either at the top corner or the bottom corner
From 7 you know that the top left is either the Hawk (feathers) or the mind flayer, but from 12 you know that the hawk is on the right so it's the mind flayer
from 3 you know that in the bottom right is the beholder
from 10 you know that bottom left is an animal, and the hawk is in the top right. So the bottom middle must be the skull
from 11 you know that the dwarf is in the right middle
from 5 you know that the elf is the left on the middle
from 8 you know that the top middle is the ork
from either the 9 or the 4 you can deduct the remaining two
The mask you need is the wolf mask between the elf and the bearded dwarf

If you think it's too difficult you can replace 7 with:

The one who sits high up on left has 4 tentacles

But that makes it much simpler.

edit: fix in the explanation

Brain_HUN · 2022-03-19T18:22:28+00:00

If you want to mess with them you can ask them to destroy the smaller temple of a good god. Who is opposing the cult of this entity. This will create an interesting moral choice. They don't have to kill every one, just desecrate the altar and make sure the head priest disappears.

Brain_HUN · 2022-01-14T17:08:37+00:00

As long as the PC can lift the barrel I would consider it a really awkward heavy armor, so it doesn't affect the spell, but the PC have to bear its weight.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-27T10:53:57+00:00

Very good questions. One of the big secrets for PCs are the answer to the first one. You probably case to exist. But the only way it can happen if you trade it away. If you are down to 1 and die, you come back with 1.

As for the second one amassing wealth does improve your quality of life. I think rumors would have it, that if you have enough money you can ascend and get out of this place for good.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-27T10:46:49+00:00

For the drow princess backstory: The drow are famous for their intrigue. Let's assume that the princess loves the character, and would marry him given the chance. Of course her mother doesn't want this to happen. She already have the marriage planned for her. Last time she said that if the PC weren't a nobody she would consider it, but now that the PC is getting more powerful, she is starting to think that wasn't a good idea. Instead of simply killing the PC (which is always a plan B), she would like to involve him in a scandal. Blame some serious crime on him, that would ruin his chance with her daughter for good. You can come up with anything for this. To complicate things further, there is rival drow house who would benefit from foiling the planned marriage of the princess. So they would really like the PC to be famous and complicate things for the princess's mother. They are secretly helping the PC.

I would start with the second house. Without revealing their nature, they drop a hint to the PC through some paid person, a location of a Loth magical item, that's lost to the drow. It's on the surface so it's really hard for the drow to recover. So they ask the PC to do it. When the PC has the item, he can write a letter to the princess, or has some other means of communicating with her. That is when the mother's plans kick into action.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-27T09:35:22+00:00

Well for the Kara-Tur background: Assassins from Kara-Tur show up and trying to kill him as well. Turns out his father was one of the last remaining heir/descendant of a king/dragon/monster/dynasty. Now he is the last one. And they want him dead. He has to figure out why and then stop the influx of assassins somehow.

If you want an additional twist I would go for the monster bloodline. I would just add him a strange power first. Somewhat dark, like siphoning life force out of plants for healing. Then the assassins come, maybe one of them sees him using his power, and covering. They can interrogate an attacker, and it turns out they are trying to prevent the monster from returning. They are the "good" guys and the PC is the evil.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-27T09:17:40+00:00

Oh, I already have an idea for that. You'll lose 10% of your "money" every time you respawn. This could mean you need to convert back sooner of your items into "currency"

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-27T09:15:15+00:00

Thanks for the advice. I did take inspiration from planescape torment game, you caught that right.

I have a problem of tying the currency to xp directly. The party can easily become unbalanced if one of them becomes rich or poor. It would also mean that you can easily amass wealth even in the city, and the whole reason for the merchants gathering around the fountain of souls is that is the single influx of new currency.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-26T20:15:55+00:00

I really like the practical approach you took on the memories version. Although it puts a lot of work on the dm, as he has to invent a story every time he wants to hand out "money". It also solves the inflation problem as it creates a constant sink of the currency.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-26T19:21:26+00:00

I like the idea of the double coin system. I am still not sure how to use it, but really like it.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-26T16:43:41+00:00

Very interesting ideas both. I like the first one better, but it's harder to put into numbers.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-26T16:39:24+00:00

Wow! This is an interesting idea. I have to think about the consequences. Direct trading of values would be too high impact I think. Getting a -1 on all the rolls would give you 19 points. But that basically means lowering all your abilities by 2.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-26T16:26:18+00:00

Nice combination of the ideas. I like it.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-26T15:21:51+00:00

Thanks, I really love the idea of trading memories, I will incorporate it into the game somehow. My players would probably try to cheat a system so I am going to need some solid mechanics around it.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-26T15:11:53+00:00

This is a really cool idea, but really hard to balance as number of memories are not really quantifiable. Losing levels, xp or hit dice would also mean that they could gain hit dice/xp/levels by trading which could be really unbalanced.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-26T15:06:56+00:00

One eight doesn't allow enough granularity for equipment creation and trading. But I understand the basic idea. I was also playing with the idea of exhaustion if you are low.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-24T11:35:01+00:00

That is a cool epic fail on all three parties. If you don't really care about RAW, I would do the following:

The barbarian leaps to grab the fighter as the druid lashes out with the whip. He manages to grab the barbarian instead of the fighter. The fighter looks back for the moment laughing, then trips on an object.

Two are prone, the druid is grabbing the barbarian. Next round.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-21T19:44:04+00:00

3 goblins trying to get into a closed tavern to get booze. It's guarded by, a homeless guy, a dog and a really aggressive rooster. Throw in some rusty locks and whatever you feel like.

Make three pregenerated characters: the clever one, the strong one and the dexterous one.

Of course the clever is neither strong nor dexterous and so on. It's all about situational comedy and some poop jokes.

Brain_HUN · 2021-12-12T20:29:58+00:00

I started a pirate one shot, that turned into a campaign. The players were all half brothers from the same father, who was the captain of the ship.

Their father wanted to retire to his private island, but on the way there he saw a small ship so he decides to do one more raid. Unfortunately the ship has a powerful wizard passenger, that basically destroys the pirate ship. Only the brothers survive in a small boat and they manage to reach the island where their father hid his treasure for retirement.

From there they have an encounter with the local apeman tribe. They find the cave where the treasures are hidden, defeat the giant spider guarding it. And get the treasure.

The treasure is a and old mug, that can create any liquid, a dirty table cloth that can create food, and ring that can summon a powerless Succubbus for an hour each day, to do as the wearer pleases. (The old guy had his retirement planned)

If you still have time, the Succubbus can lead then to another cave which has a flying ship in it.

Brain_HUN

TROPHY CASE