Dnd Sketchpad 1
Let’s live write a horror one-shot dnd thing
The central deal about horror is the feat and uncertainty. If the players know the specifications of the monster they’re hunting, then this isn’t horror, but rather, military scifi? Instead of feeling dread they feel a steely and masculine resolve, determination, tactics. These have their place! But what we want to evoke is disquiet.
What’s the scenario…
A good hook contains spine-tingling-strangeness which demands explanation. Depending on how much you’re dropping your players in blind, you can let some of the worldbuilding be this; anything which twigs their curiosity will serve to engender engagement.
Do I want an exfiltration mission?
The sketch I have in my head is something like, the players are an interdimensional infiltration team of special ops succubi. (Kinda cliche start)
The world is a stonepunk superhero setting, post-apocalyptic, in which almost all civilization is terrorized by feral xenos and “warlord” is the default unit of human organization. All metal disappeared from the world a thousand years ago, say, and so the tech level is a bit schizophrenic; they have antibiotics and animal husbandry but no guns and they’re often using stone tools.
(Further development on this perhaps. Stone masonry. Is concrete still viable if there’s no metal in the industrial processes involved in making it? How much can obsidian knapping substitute for other sharp things? Is armor stone or leather or meticulous insect carapace weaving now? What’s possibly hard / light enough to serve as ring mail? How much is agriculture set back? Assume another thousand years of extremely motivated crop cultivation and animal husbandry. Oranges the size of watermelons.)
The players are infiltrating the local superpower monastery bootcamp.
…
I didn’t have a plan so I googled “weird news story”.
Mothman festival in West Virginia. Kitten found in a car. Northern lights. World’s tallest church. Some sort of suspiciously furry Japanese mascot at a small town festival. Giant cryptid bug at state fair.
…
Giant church / festival / state fair.
The players are here to exfiltrate a Person of Interest. But those POI (who I’ve decided will be a hivemind in multiple bodies, as a twist) are under lock and key at the Monastic Superpower Bootcamp. However, this night is the big debut festival, and the xenos will be paraded about for the common folk. Also there’s, yknow, meat on a stick.
Structure of the city? How does Vatican City look…How is Vatican city stuck in the center of Rome? This isn’t a tourist venue, this is a military parade as the monastery opens its gates and marches the Imperial-Sanctioned Biodynamics through the streets.
“You are not filthy xeno ferals. You are Imperial biodynamics and you will behave as such. Chin up, professional behavior. We are always watching.”
This actually is no longer horror, it’s a heist. Ok!
The players are all shapeshifters, which will make infiltration easier. They’ll probably have fun with that. I’ll need to build out a real soap opera between the imperial biodynamic monks, so that the players are knocking over dominoes every time they talk.
The guards all have Nullstone armor and weapons, which suppress superpowers and with the players will force them to revert back to their True Forms. Most of the superpowered people in the monastery are in some kind of nullification slave collars. The players are only here for one specific student, which has two+ bodies and is kind of a hivemind and kind of not. The hivemind is of religious significance to the shapeshifting players’ matron goddess
Let’s look at the gameplay middle first.
Classic heist beats
Onboarding, they wander around the town and notice that literally everything is wood and stone. They gather information about background knowledge of the world.
Scouting, they start planning attack routes for their target. I probably want to just make this simple; they need to execute a snatch during the parade? But, no plan survives contact with the players, let’s think about a vast underground labyrinth in the Monastery in which they can discover idk some kind of mana-battery harvesting operation?
Maybe I could make it all wet and wormy for aesthetic. Nah, stonepunk TRON, clean lines, big heavy canisters. Crystals? Dumb. Is there any way to do chemical batteries with no metal? Eh, maybe some kind of chemfuel / bioluminescent handheld lantern. Basically no, it’s gotta be magic power cells. But it’s powered by the forsaken children, so it’s not like most people have them.
Action, they attempt the snatch, discover some facts about the nullstone guards being immortals entombed in their cool Ancient Guardian armor, probably kill some people along the way? Though combat isn’t their thing and maybe this heist will go off without a hitch.
Reaction, they need to race to the extraction point, and it’s critical that no Nullists follow them through their evac portal, since that’s a lose condition?
This doesn’t have enough soap opera.
How much soap opera can we do in three hours?
Whatever, let’s throw some angsty teens with superpowers in and draw out a really catty high school relationship chart.
