Massive Inspiration Attack
In my my last post about this, I mentioned I was starting to plan a campaign surrounding a mysterious Patron that knew of the players “paranormal experiences”. The idea being that each player would have a very different and unrelated experience, seeing things, hearing things etc. Ever since my first game of this a couple of months ago, I have fallen down a serious deep TTRPG well. Along with now looking into PathFinder and the ideas of using cool maps and modular pieces, which would also assist my wargaming hobby, I have been watching many many videos around the hobby. I then stumbled onto the Dungeon Dudes YouTube channel, and more importantly their new “Tales from Woodcreek” series. Seeing how Deborah Ann Woll does what she does has just got my brain racing.
If you haven’t seen it, I wont spoil anything except to say that a couple of the characters in the story have an identical marking on their hand. This is what made me rethink the justification of bringing the players together in this campaign. I was thinking about having a mark that everyone bares like this series, but I didn’t want to copy the idea in its entirety, then another idea came into my head from somewhere, probably a scenario or something I read in one of the CoC scenario books. The Dreamscape! I then saw it all in my head, each of the players will be afflicted with a strange nightmare that plays the same every night. The thing is, while each player will have a different dream, it is all the same dream, just different aspects of it. As each scenario is completed, they will have a different part of the dream revealed and they should start to understand that they are all experiencing the same visions.
I have generated 10 different initial dream sequences and will give each of the players a random sequence, each one is related to another in their theme or words used, so from the beginning there is clues there that it’s connected. Then each one will have its continuation which links the initial dream to the one following the first scenario. This will continue for each of the scenarios until the end of the campaign. I have 6 regular scenarios then a final one.
The Final Scenario - The Dreamscape
Now that the campaign surrounds dreams, I want the final showdown to take place in a dream like environment. I have a vivid picture in my head, 10 or so floating islands surrounding a single floating island. The idea being that each little island will have a portal which connects to the other smaller islands. But it’s not as simple as just passing from one island to another. As my players LOVE sticking together, the idea will be that when a portal is activated to be passed through, they will need to roll a d10 (or how ever many islands there wil be), then a d4 or d6. This will indicate which island they get teleported to and how many players can pass through to that same island before it resets.
Each island will hold a small encounter or puzzle which has to be dealt with in order to break down a barrier to the central island for the final confrontation. This confrontation will be against the Patron as he shifts between a human form and a dream avatar form of Nyarlathotep. He cannot be killed and will be protecting an item known as the black lens. This item needs to be destroyed in order to “win”. But not without great sacrifice.
But First
I want this entire sequence to be tough, punishing, violent and very tormenting. But to do this with normal characters, especially ones that will hopefully have survived a while, it would just not be feasible. So I am going to pulpify the Dreamscape part, bump their health up, max out their sanity to as much as it can (one or two of them might know some spells or cthulhu mythos) and just make them a little more durable. They are in a dream after all. They wont quite be affected by sanity loss like normal. Seeing the horrors they need to fight wont cause any losses. But there are some things. Seeing the death of a fellow player will result in a 1d10 sanity loss, facing your own reflection (there is a glass and mirror motif here too) will cause 1d8.
The Real Cost of Success
Then the 2 heavy hitters. Seeing the Patrons true form, you will loose 1d12 + 1d6 sanity, a heavy price to pay indeed. But the black lens, that is the most brutal one. To break the lens, it will cost 5d20 sanity points, guaranteed madness for one person. However, a problem shared is a problem halved… well kinda. There will be the option to come together and share the responsibility of breaking the lens, those 5d20 can be divided between all players that are putting their sanity on the line to break the lens. For this to work, each player involved will need to spend 3 rounds focusing on this task. That means being undisturbed by the Patron. So to do that, it will require the players to decide who is going to suffer and who is going to keep the Patron occupied, if they can. Any interruption to the process will mean they need to restart, if any players who were trying to hold back the Patron are hurt and can no longer hold him back, then the players will probably need to stop or be interrupted and probably hurt.
There will be no rolls to pass sanity checks, they will just loose it. There wont be any temporary insanity come into play, but there might be some bouts of madness if they loose too much in one go. I want my players to feel the pressure, I am hoping by the time we get to that point, they will have gotten into the groove of being their characters and having bonds. I want the final decision of sacrifice to be a hard one. Does the person worst off take the brunt of it and go completely bat shit crazy, or do they have someone who hasn’t suffered as much take it to try and preserve everyones sanity.
Setting the Mood
So I have explained the crux of this scenario, the goal and the trials involved. But how is this going to feel on the day?
Well I can’t know for sure, but I have a great picture in my head. Depending how the campaign has played out, there may need to be a small scenario before the Dreamscape or there might not. Either way, at some point during the game before the Dreamscape is revealed, I will make all the players leave the room. I will tie them up with a puzzle, this will give me time to set the board and props up. I want to have an element of the great display of a battle you get with DnD etc, but I wont tell the players anything about it. It will be a surprise.
To keep them occupied, I am going to spread clues through the campaign, that they will hopefully keep track of and have them go to the office of the lawyer who will address them and setup the final real world puzzle. An enigma machine of sorts. The clues they would have found during the campaign will be how to set the machine up, which dials to use, which order to use them and which end piece they need to use. They will have an encoded letter, nothing too long, that they need to decode. Once the lawyer has fulfilled his duty, he will kill himself in front of the players, probably with the dagger from the first scenario. The letter will decode into an explanation of what they have been partaking in and what it all means. Then it will sign off with “Now Sleep”. This will cause all of the players to fall asleep and awaken in the Dreamscape. Ready to finish this.
I will then lead them back to the table, where I have now set up the game board and ready with models.
The final prop I want to have for them is the alter at the center of the island they have to focus on to destroy the lens. I am picturing some electronic device which the players need to keep their hands on while the rounds count down, so they will be away from the table and unable to partake in anything. I want to be able to make this alter open up once they have finished focusing and reveal the lense which they can then physically break. It will be a clear resin printed shallow dome, which will be tinted black that they can break signifying the end of the campaign and a victory at a price.
The campaign will end with (hopefully) a loss or two of characters, either to death or complete insanity. If they succeed in breaking the lens, then the dream is shattered, the summoning of this avatar doesn’t happen and the world, for the most part, is unaware of what happened and the sacrifices made for their safety. If they fail on the other hand, the world is pulled into darkness and a dream state forever, the world suffers and Nyarlathotep in one form or another wins over the domain.
I am so fucking hyped about this it is hard to put into words. Unfortunately, this conclusion to a campaign that hasn’t yet started is a long way off. Many things could change between now and then and a lot of it might hinge on how the players go through the campaign. But for now I am just foaming at the mouth with this idea and conclusion! I kinda want to film it too!
Anyway, that is all for now!
Much Love <3