Hattifattener from Moomin - perfect creatures for rpg

I'll just leave the link here. I think that Hattifattener are perfect creatures for any fantastic or even horror roleplaying setting. Go check these little creeps out!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattifattener

E - Ethereal encounters

Ethereal [ih-theer-ee-uhl]
1. light, airy, or tenuous: an ethereal world created through the poetic imagination.
2. extremely delicate or refined: ethereal beauty.
3. heavenly or celestial: gone to his ethereal home.

When encountering something ethereal Referee should pay attention for describing it. The description should be a little eerie, mystical or even strange from normal. Ethereal is not something characters meet in everyday basis. Ethereal is something beyond that. Should ethereal always be vulnerable and delicate? Pure and good? In weird fantasy, no.

Ethereal could be a place of evil but the mood there is ethereal in description as in definition 1. Evil is not always black and bloody red and heavy metal. Evil could be something else thus surprising breaking the assumption.

Ethereal beauty is not pretty bar-maid or council's daughter. They are just beautiful. Within ethereal beauty there is something weird. Ethereal beauty is something what makes your will bend, makes you feel nervous. Even makes you feel dread. Ethereal beauty could be also something evil-doer possesses. Countess' beauty might be ethereal, beyond imagination, as a result she bathes in virgins' blood.

Ethereal being could be something out of this world. From another planes, dimensions or even Heavens. But this kind of ethereal even though is good might be devastating. The power of ethereal creature might be beyond human (demi-human) senses and even a glimpse might make one insane. Ethereal being might also radiate power from great distances with different effects. Fallen wounded angel might be in agony but nearby villages get great harvest and people never get sick. Ethereal being's suffering might be other's benefit. Demons and other evil spirits and beings might also masquerade their true nature in ethereal cloak to deceive lesser beings.

For Lamentations Of The Flame Princess don't forget the weird-fantasy with horror. There's always two sides and even though there is dark black there never should be light white. Light at most is in the shade of gray. Ethereal place might bring comfort and be magnificent beyond dreams but because of that time there travels 10 times faster. Characters are so bewitched by the ethereal surrounding they get mentally stuck in there. Ethereal beauty might make ones crazy, bend wills, or be gained by horrible actions and murderous torture. Heavenly or celestial might not be what it seems, even good could be too powerful for mortals or it might be abused for evil gains.

A-Z C for Cromwell by Reverend Bizarre

James Raggi IV has mentioned bands he likes here and there (one example is my interview HERE) and I have seen him wearing Reverend Bizarre t-shirt in pictures. I knew the band by name before but my only touch was a low quality live video in Youtube. Second time after my interview I checked Reverend Bizarre (and other bands mentioned) and the song I randomly chose was Cromwell. It was awesome.

After that Cromwell has been in my Lamentations Of The Flame Princess playlist and it is first song for my unofficial LotFP inspiration music.




Lyrics:
Passing through the seven gates I ride 
Dusty road behind forever 
You have got no hope, no place to hide 
Ironsides will rise with Oliver Cromwell 

Once upon a time there ruled a King 
Now I see his proud head fallen 
Lord Protector knows true faith will win 
You should kneel to wait another morning 

Love will be my Law, Love under Will 
But first there is the Law of Cromwell 
Soon there will be graveyard on this hill 
Filled with those of you who are still standing 

Paraller universes - the setting of dreams

This is just a draft of idea I got. It is not finished, detailed or thinked throughout. The idea is to use in a roleplaying game, campaign or even just one adventure. It is not rules specific, so could be used with almost any system.

Parallel Universes And Multiverse


First you might want to check this Wikipedia article to get some idea about this topic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse There's lots of to read and I will just pick an idea or two from here and there. But you might want to refer to that Wikipedia article for more detailed article or if you are really interested in this topic, might want to find better articles from Google search.

What I write here, is fictional and doesn't represent my beliefs and should not read as an ultimate truth about life and existence. This is fictional idea for roleplaying purpose, not to be taken seriously from me.


The main idea I will introduce is that every choice you make in your life, splits to another dimension. If you decide not to go to work today but instead take a lazy day, dimensions split in half where in other dimension you went to work. Basically you split in two lives but are only aware of what you live in. As your split dimensional choice in parallel universe does also. You can imagine that there are countless of these multiverses from the beginning of humanity. Several of you, several of other peoples... countless parallel universes.

Also time is relevant. There is no time line in different dimensions and universes. Past is as present as future is.

Accessing Other Parallel Universes


You ever had a dream, where you were in a space ship, or commando mission or even a warrior in barbaric era of fantasy? That actually is reality. At least in some other universe.

Sometimes when you dream, you leave your body and enter a body of one of your parallel self of another multiverse, if also he is sleeping. As there are countless of different versions of you in different kind of realities, it's a big change that some of you is sleeping simultenously. That's when you get to live his life. But the results rarely are permanent as the real person did not live the moments. You just get to live a blink of his life what doesn't affect his life. And vice verca, some other parallel you might get into you when you sleep and live your life in his dream.

But there are some rare exceptions, where you actually live the life of parallel you and the cause is usually amnesia or disorientation of late past.

Also other trained people can access parallel universes via their parallel selves by meditation and astral travel. They might just randomly travel where they get, or try to focus to certain point they knew as their destination. It doesn't always work as the parallel self must be asleep to enter him. Some who master this practice of astral travelling might at will be able to take full control as long as the subject is asleep and make differences and really affect the universe he is.

Usually taking place in parallel universe is just a dream what doesn't affect anything. And usually people don't know they have traveled to other self in another reality as they just think it is an ordinary dream.

Story Seeds


Character sees dreams. Maybe when several player characters are asleep they meet at parallel universe together, as they know each other in this reality, they might know each other in another reality also. Or they might not know each other here, but might know each other in one or several of parallel universes. This might be a good story seed. Characters are everyday people not aware of each other in this "real" world, but when they sleep they are together fighting dragons, solving murder mystery in 20's or even in distress in spaceship emergency landed on an isolated planet. When they wake up, they are back in "real" world.
Will they try to seek each other in "real" world to find out what is going on? Will they accidentally see each other at streets and recognize each other from their shared dream? And what does it mean? What will they do, as their strange shared adventure continues every night.

Also one might try to change here and now by trying to travel into past to make his present future different. Problem is to master the arts of astral parallel travelling and also to find right place to make the difference. It will be a campaign to travel into past in different worlds from 20's gangster area to victorian slavery and fantasy world fighting orcs (at some point in history, maybe reality divided in half making orcs and high fantasy happen, who knows). After a change when he wakes up, world might be totally different, and he must travel back in his sleep or astral traveling to fix things and try another route. Results might be, that when he has changed the past and wakes up from his parallel travel world is not 21th century as we know, but dystopia after World War three occured in 70's. Everything can happen!

Game System And Setting To Use


Best effect you get is to use setting of modern times where we do live. It is familiar for players, so all the strange parallel universes of dreams will be more distant and weird. Also setting should be as down to earth as possible, so strange things feel more stranger.
For parallel travel you could use the same setting, but might give parallel universe setting detailed extra skills. You might decide them or let players pick few. It should be quick and it represents the things you do in dreams. Shoot weapons even if you never handled one or wield a sword. That happens in dreams and it is actually residual energy and memories of your parallel self.

For parallel universes you might want to use another game settings of your choice. But you could use the rules same to keep things simple.

Finally...


This is just a quick idea I wrote down before I forget it. It is not completed, but with a little thinking and tweaking you might quite easily get your own inspiration from this text to run dream based parallel universe adventure.

Eerie fairy forest (Youtube video inspiration)

When you hear strange music, but no one playing. Feel that you are watched, but don't see anyone. When you see strange vegetation which seems to be alive, you know, that you have wandered too deep. Fairies are tricky folk. Some are playful, some tricksters, some just want to observe strangers. Where there is fairy magic, the forest is alive.

[Inspiration] Producing an entity with thought expectation

Some mage groups might have an ability to actually create something. Not summon, not possess, not capture. But to create out of the thin air. They must go several rituals, write the being they summon, believe in it and make it real.

This is really powerful magic, and rare to create entities out of nothing. Sometimes they appear as the group has imagined, sometimes disturbance in shared imagination might make these entities slightly different than ment to be, or even dangerously out of control.

Usually it needs a group to create an entity this way, but very powerful mages can also create one themselves. They don't necessarily have differences of mind in creation process what group brings, but when the entity born, it might be hard to control alone.

Creating Gods


Similarly cults or religions might create new gods. Of course, gods are powerful, so they need much energy and belief to be formed. This needs a great group of believers of cultists or religionists. Sometimes, gods are formed out of despair or need. Sometimes one man has this idea of what he wants to create, and needs followers with faith into his word to finish his idea into an actual entity.

Some do create via belief gods in need. For good things. But some, usually cult leaders with selfish needs do want to create gods for their own purposes. It might be obvious for cultists that the god will be evil (or is if cult leader has told so already even if there is nothing existing yet) or the cult or religion leader might masquerade the god to be good and only harvests the power of the belief trying to shape it as he pleases to create an evil god despite of his believers' belief.

Destroying Gods


What if no one believes in a god no more, what was created by group belief? The god dies. The god might be true, and he might have followers, but some powerful institute what doesn't like that god, might start persecution against the believers. As they hunt down the believers and kill them, for a moment the god might be more powerful than ever as the remaining and hunted followers might believe in him more. But as time passes, and people are killed and persecuted, the power of belief starts to fade. Because of the lack of believers left, or more damagingly because of those who rebound their faith in fear of death.

Sleeping Gods


If there are only few left, the god is sleeping. It is alive, as long as there are those who believe, but the god has lost his power. It is sleeping (hybernating). This is when usually cults are formed. The god is long forgotten, nearly unexistent, and secret cults are formed with carefully chosen members who are guaranteed to advance the awakening of their god.

Game Setting


For high fantasy setting, several lesser deities can easily be explained by this. It also can explain various evil cults. In modern games, I wouldn't necessarily go as further as creating gods, but maybe beings. In horror campaign these artifically with imagination created entities could very well be demons.
Also in Call of Cthulhu games sleeping gods and secret cults could be explained this way.

Read More


Here are a couple of articles, that were inspiration for this idea. The Philip Experiment.
http://www.time-loops.net/nostradamus/Experiment_Philip.htm
http://paranormal.about.com/od/ghosthuntinggeninfo/a/create-a-ghost.htm
http://www.bwpi.net/philip.pdf

"In the 1970's, a group of Canadian parapsychologists wanted to attempt an experiment to create aghost, proving their theory that the human mind can produce spirits through expectation, imagination and visualization.

The actual experiment took place in Toronto, Canada, in 1972, under the direction of the world-renown expert on poltergeists, Dr A. R. G. Owen.

The members of the experiment proposed an idea... by using extreme and prolonged concentration, they could create their ghost through a collective thought form: Non-physical entities which exist in either the mental or astral plane. In order to create this ghost and make it as 'real' as possible, it needed a life story; a background in which the ghost could 'relate' to."

Quote from first link to sum up The Philip Experiment.

[C:tL] This is how changelings are explained in media

You are kidnapped to be a servant for fae. But there is something put as a replacement of you, who continues your life as you serve as a slave...

But there must be some accounts of people missing? Take a look at this news article for an example:
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/10/30/nation/7330365&sec=nation

Siti was captured after several failures, where she was found in strange places. When she was actually captured, her replacement was found 600 km away from his home.

In the world of darkness, there is always something behind the mysteries. Strange incidents can be explained if you know more. And in this case, if you know more, you know what really, really, happened.

Xenophobia in science fiction (X for A-Z)

Even though humanity has reached the stars and met other races more primitive or advanced, more agressive or peaceful, still racism is written in human history. Maybe racism against each other amongst us people has seized, but racism has found its new form: Xenophobia.

In science fiction xenophobia means hatred or fear of foreigners or strangers or of their politics or culture from other races outside of humanity. Also other alien races can be xenophobic towards humans or other alien races.


If there are space travels, different worlds and cultures and that evil spawning race threatening all known civilization - human or non-human - why there is xenophobia?


For the same reason it has always existed. Fear of different, uneducated mind, fear of higher power or fear that lower civilization can somehow ruin your own. And in some spacestations or busy spaceports locals might feel that all other beings, races and aliens are some kind of threat for their living and their culture. Maybe they are afraid of change and in that fear it doesn't matter if the change would be good or bad.


To understand xenophobia in science fiction you just need to look at written history. It is the same. Reasons are same. Only in future the target might have bigger space ships with weird technology or their skin might be blue.

Villains from video games to rpg villains (A-Z letter V)

Picture from ign article

I found this list of top 100 videogame villains from ign.com http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/
I point out some of them I find interesting and what I could use. Descriptions from picked villains and their usages are short, as they are described in ign.com article already. These are just small ideas I have from them in what game you could use them. There might be better games I suggest here, or you could possibly modify these villains to any genre making them a bit different (for example sniper Wolf from MGS could work in fantasy setting as well etc.)

So, here are few I find worth mentioning. It doesn't mean, that others are not good to use. Look at the list, take idea seeds for your rpg campaign villain. And if you get ideas how to use these villains listed in a campaign or game setting, feel free to post in in comments. I appreciate your ideas and will read them with great interest!


http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/98.html Gary Oak from Pokémon series. Annoying person, who is always ahead of main character. In roleplaying game he could be in a campaign this person who is not your enemy, but you start to hate. In the other hand, it could ruin the fun for the players if there is this NPC who always is a bit better, and always a step ahead. So be careful when making this kind of antagonist.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/97.html Shang Tsung from Mortal Kombat. In final battle the main villain can change himself to represent player character's skills. With one on one battle this can be really challenging and interesting because character has to basically fight himself. If there is adventurer party, it is not that big of a challenge as there are many against one character replica. Still, it could be powerful but emulate in top of that one character's skills in addition for his own powers.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/96.html Adrian Ripburger from Full Throttle. Big company chief works with almost any rpg. Could be good in Cyberpunk where he controls street gang.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/92.html Sniper Wolf from Metal Gear Solid. The whole scene with Sniper Wolf from MGS game could be good drama and action for roleplaying game. What will be character's decision in that situation?

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/90.html Dagoth Ur from Morrowind. Players have to save the world from evil god who causes all bad things all around? And is basically immortal? Dagoth Ur will be great meta-plot and epic and hard final antagonist.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/87.html Officer Tenpenny from GTA: San Andreas. Bad cop in modern setting. He has law behind him and killing an officer is never a good thing. But he is bad cop and characters get into trouble with him and soon after characters aren't that bad anymore when there's corrupted law in the other half.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/85.html Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat. Exalted could be good for Sub-Zero, or grim and dirty superheroes game.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/83.html Death Adder from Golden Axe. Conan rpg could use this kind of bad guy, or some other low magic fantasy setting.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/80.html Bydo from R-Type. The whole background of the bydo is really cool, and can be put in science fiction game.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/79.html Jafar/Vizier from Prince of Persia. Evil ruler what gives characters a plot. To save a princess or otherwise she's dead.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/77.html Shadow Link from Zelda. Character's evil shadow twin? There'd dobbelgangers in fantasy games, but if it was more personal. In Kult if you mess up your mind bad enough, your soul will manifest it's physical shadow half.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/75.html Lavos from Chrono Trigger. I see some Mythos like plot here. Ancient god monster who will bring apocalypse. That is time for player characters to act.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/74.html Diablo from Diablo. What would be better final villain monster in D&D dungeon to hell than devil demon himself?

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/73.html Alma from F.E.A.R. Make your shooting action game into horror with Alma. While having fun throwing dice and shooting enemy troops, you have horror aspect and also mystery in background to solve. Test Code/X from Burger Games for great rules to run F.E.A.R. action.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/71.html Dark Falz from Phantasy Star. Can be great plot for Fading Suns. Is Dark Falz some unknown creature, or part of symbiots? What ever it is, it might be behind the fading suns phenomenom.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/69.html Cyberdemon from Doom. Well, Doom itself is great setting for futuristic dungeon crawl, and cyberdemon would be great villain to characters to deal with... firepower.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/68.html Calypso from Twisted Metal. For post apocalyptic rpg (I suggest Taiga here) Calypso would be great bad gang leader with background. And with post apocalyptic I mean Mad Max.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/67.html Goro from Mortal Kombat. I haven't played Exalted, but I so see Goro being there.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/65.html Dr. Nefarious from Ratchet And Clank. Humorous cartoon styled superhero game here's your villain.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/61.html Predator from Aliens Vs. Predator. Predator are awesome, and human troopers easy hunt. There's great fan made supplements for Savage Worlds with predator as a monster. Kill it before you are killed. Predator works in modern today settings to science fiction, and why not in even fantasy.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/60.html Prophet of Truth from Halo. Yet again science fiction antagonist to deal with.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/59.html Nemesis from Resident Evil. Want a big bad zombie for your All Flesh Must Be Eaten? Nemesis is one choice to wet your player character's pants.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/57.html Origami Killer from Heavy Rain. Hunters have something to hunt as this is a great Slasher (Hunter: the Vigil + Slasher sourcebook).

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/55.html Ares from God of War. For your Greek OSR rpg (cannot remember the name) great villain with a plot.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/51.html Tank from L4D. Also great surprise for AFMBE characters to encounter. It first eats your bullets, then eats you.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/47.html SHODAN from System Shock. Trapped in space ship where everything goes wrong? Great campaign for science fiction horror trapped in a spaceship and trying to both survive and figure out what is going on.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/46.html Grue from Zork. Make your Call of Cthulhu characters be a bit more afraid of dark.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/45.html Flood from Halo. Make your AFMBE a science fiction setting, or make Fading Suns symbiats more twisted.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/41.html Arthas from Warcraft. This bad guy's whole background story will make an awesome Dungeons & Dragons campaign altogether.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/39.html Harbinger from Mass Effect. What could be more dangerous than a villain you don't confront, but you confront his minions what this villain gives power to?

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/37.html Lich King from World of Warcraft. If your campaign with Arthas was not enough, give more experienced characters sequel to your campaign with Lich King.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/35.html John Henry Eden from Fallout. Was there some hope in your post apocalyptic game? Ruin it introducing new American president.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/34.html Kain from Legacy of Kain. For Vampire: Dark Ages Kain could be really powerful ancient vampire, who was betrayed and now seeks revenge. He might be antagonist, or even powerful ally or leader for characters.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/33.html Darth Malak from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Obviously for Star Wars games the main thread in whole campaign. With little modification could also be evil wizard in fantasy settings. Or even in Vampire, if you change fighting ships to ghouls and shovel heads.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/30.html Ultros from Final Fantasy. What if characters encountered a talking carnivorous purple octopus what wanted to kill them in Dungeons & Dragons. In different campaigns. Several times. Go find out.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/27.html Dr. Breen from Half-Life. In future if characters are on guerilla's side, Dr. Breen could be the enemy they fight against.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/14.html Albert Wesker from Resident Evil. What would a zombie game be without a megalomaniac psychopath, who tries to get advace from the situation? Make a bad guy in your AFMBE campaign... zombies are not your only trouble after it.

http://www.ign.com/videogame-villains/8.html Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid. Somehow I see Nosferatu possibility here for Vampire.

Almost any villain from that list could be a good antagonist for a campaign with next to no modification, some could be modified or obvious ones could be put in totally different genre to create something new.

A-Z: Beehive, random challenge dungeon

Wow, again, schedule sucks! Why am I so busy now? Well, I'll get to right schedule. This is actually post for 04/02/2011 what should have been Saturday. But well... this is how it goes now. So, today it will be Saturday's post for letter B for A-Z blog challenge...

What Is Beehive


Beehive is repeatable challenge quest in Perfect World mmorpg. I have to admit, that I have never attended it, so what I know about it is just what I have heard about it. But anyways, this blog is not about the beehive challenge quest in Perfect world mmorpg, but what inspiration it could give for roleplaying games.

It has nothing to do with actual bees, but I think that the structure of this challenge quest as random rooms is why it is called a beehive. Side note.

Beehive is a dungeon with random rooms. Different rooms have different tasks to do before you can move further to next random level. There are, don't know... 50 or so (at least) of these challenge rooms, and if you are lucky, you could skip most of the rooms to get into the end and prize, or you might have to go room by room all of them.

I am not 100% positive how it works. I know you need these Mirage stones to enter it, and if I remember right, you get to roll dice in game to determine the next room you are going...

What ever the case is, the point is, that you take a series of challenges in rooms in random order to get the prize. How would it work in a rpg?

Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition And Beehive


Gotta say, never played, never read the game. But what I know about D&D 4th Edition is that basically the structure of campaign is made of challenges. Challenges might be not only fights, but also for example social or puzzle type. So, if you think that D&D is encounter after encounter, doesn't beehive work well for it?

Would beehive just be some random quests, or could there be a in game story for it? Yes.

There is this magical labyrinth, where you need skill, power and sheer luck. You enter the room, when win it's challenge enter another room where your magical dice teleport you (I am quite sure, there was dice involved in PW in this manner). Some rooms are simple puzzles, some traps, some contain monsters. Some are deadly what only the skilled can conquer, some need next to nothing to pass.

Why should character or character party enter this beehive then? Because it is good excuse for repeated encounters and experience points and loot. Oh, and those who get through beehive to it's last room, will be rewarded generously.

Basically beehive is just excuse to run random encounters room after room with some meta plot thingie there. It's not rocket science, but if your players are in the right mood for D&D (loot and experience) this would be perfect. No long story, every encounter what seems random serve a purpose for an adventure and prize in the end.

Also other D&D versions, D&D like games, old school games etc. work very well for this kind of campaign. I just used D&D 4 as an example, because never actually wrote about it before.

Beehive, How Does It Work


You need to determine the rooms, how many there will be. Would be easier to randomly determine the next room, if the number of rooms equals to some number possible to roll with dice. Possibilities are, for example 3D20 (3-60), 1D100 (1-100), 1D100/2 (1-50) etc. It would be better to have more rooms than less of them. To keep things simple.

Writing rooms should be easy. Just take random ideas and random monsters and write them down. Roll that number, that's the room character or character party enters. Some should be extreme challenging and feel very unlucky to enter, some might be easy. Some might be monster or monsters, some traps. One or two rooms might be just empty where you have to roll dice in the middle of it. Could be fun, if character's have encountered dangers. Would they take this innocent looking (and perfectly innocent) room suspiciously?

When entering rooms, you could enter with room "1" what is the entrance, first room of the challenge. From there, party rolls magical dice in the middle of the room (every room might contain similar dice rolling teleportation place, but it should be activated only after the conditions of the room are met) and sees where they are teleported according to the dice result.

If you want to make it easier, those rooms already entered are "used", and cannot be entered again. Use next available higher or lower number what closest is available. Lower number preferred. If you are a harsh DM, you can enter to same room twice and if you are extra hard, the room has reseted and it must be won again.

You might also want, that group can enter only higher room next, rolling dice as long as next result is higher than previous room, but that is way too easy.

Prize For Winning The Beehive Challenge


Remember, there is luck involved. Lucky roll, character or party could go to the last room of beehive challenge from the beginning (should last room be also challenge, or just finishing line is up to you). But the journey there could have been extremely rough (multiple rooms, multiple same rooms). But that is the trick. With luck you might win the challenge easily, but you might get yourself stuck there, wandering same rooms again and again waiting dice to favor you.

What ever the case is, reward should and could contain experience points, fixed number for the party, shared, solid, what ever suits you. Gold of course, or other valuables like diamonds are good. Also could be good if every character could choose one special item what suits his character. Better part of armor, pendant with magical powers, powerful weapon. It was a quest after all.

Variations


Could beehive work with some other games? Yes. Have you seen the movie Cube, or Hypercube (Cube 2)? If you haven't you should. In Cube the "beehive" is more like prison with deadly traps, but it will work fine with your science fiction, or modern world Warehouse 13 type game.

In Call of Cthulhu reasons might be many for investigators to get stuck in strange rooms with strange monsters and challenges. It could be in dreamworld, another dimension or even ancient mystical ruins. Similarly could work with pulp adventure in Indiana Jones fashion.

Be creative. Take the game in your hands, and think what kind of variation beehive could be in that setting. Might be easier than it sounds. To be frank, in my opinion Dungeons & Dragons styled game could be the easiest to run beehive, but I bet that in other games the use of it could be more creative.

Pictures of huge monsters for inspiration

What is more terriffying than huge monsters? Dragons make even experienced party nervous and humongous monsters are something 21th century people are not used to. It doesn't matter how big your laser weapon is if your opponent's is bigger and it's armor thicker. Here are the monsters, that make your player's characters weep.

Disclaimer: I found this neat picture somewhere around internet. Unfortunately I don't know the source for image compilation nor who the original artists are.


So, I apologise for violating copyrights, but these pictures are so awesome. So, who ever you are mr. or mrs. artists, thank you for inpsiration!

Story of the Demon Boy

It was christmas eve, in 1866 when a christian woman Matilda Herrings got violently attacked. Or so she claims. No evidence was found of violence. No bruises, scratches, wounds. Only her story. When she was laying on her bed and questioned for the details about this attacker, he couldn't tell what he looked like. But she referred her attacker as "it", not he.
People of the town lit their torches and torchlights and armed themselves what ever they could find. Some with guns, other with pitchforks and even with kitchen knives. Search lasted for a month, but nothing out of ordinary could be found what could be this mysterious attacker.
Towns elder started to question, if one member of their community would have done this heinous attack. Maybe drunken after a day, but they did not find any evidence against no one or couldn't accuse anyone for the attack so it was speculated, that maybe some outsider or wandering traveller had did this.

With no evidence, physical harm on woman or anything to make fuss about the hunting for attacker withered and was forgotten.

A month or two later woman was found pregnant. Without previous children and his husband dead for five years for a mill accident woman started again to blame, that the seed she is carrying is from "it", the mysterious unsolved attacker. No one believed, and they thought now that woman tried to cover up her adultery, and she was spitted and outcast for giving her widow body for a stranger in a sinful lust.

Woman had to live alone, without support from his community. He was nearly forgotten for the sin he was committed.

The day came, when woman gave birth alone all by herself in late 1866. She had a baby boy, but soon woman realised, it was not normal boy. She hurried to town crying for a doctor and even though villagers told doctor to leave woman in sin alone, doctor couldn't but do his deed and listen to woman and he decided to look the baby. It was ethical way to do. But even though doctor was a respected member of society, from that night he was looked at suspiciously as he lost his reputation helping this sinned woman.

What doctor Matthew Smiths found, no one clearly knows. He did not write any official document about his inspection, but someone from the village has written:

And the boy was horrible. Not deformed as freaks you see in the circus, but something else. His head was not in right shape, eyes closed and ears a bit pointed. Guess there was little hard spots on his forehead, not bigger than the tips of my finger. Boy was of a strange color, what I don't know better of.
But the worst appearance of this boy was his back. Where his spine ended, there was skin flap like a small tail of a beast. And in his back, I heard him tell me, was wings.

No one knows who this writer is, and is it fictious or documental. It is speculated that "him" that writer referres is the doctor, and the writer would have heard this story from the doctor, maybe after few stiff's in a local pub.

It is also told, that local priest cursed the woman and her deformed bastard child, some rumors tell, that it was local witch, as priest was too afraid to go see a child what was told to be demon spawn.

No question, the village believed now that woman was violently attacked. Not by a man, but a demon or devil himself.

In 1874 the cattle was attacked at a ranch nearby. All of twenty sheeps were brutally killed and gutted. Butcher told, that it was not a knife used, but more likely talons or claws. Wolfhunt begun, but no wolves were found in the area. Killed sheeps remained a mystery. Whispers told, that it was same demon which attacked woman, or it was actually that child himself.
At this point no one had seen the woman or the deformed bastard boy anymore. They were forced to move away from the village, and were known to live nearby at a deserted old hunting hut.

It was 1876 when first human was killed in the streets of the village during night. Again, marks indicated wolf attack, but now people accused demon boy straight away and lit their torches and marched to that old abandoned hunting hut in the dawn. No questions, they just set the hut on fire and watched it burn, as priest chanted his prayers.

Villagers decided to keep their mouths shut about woman, demon baby and the arseny. "Tis' the way it should be," they told eatch other to make it right. "Ye must burn witch, it's the way it's always been."

People avoided the place where hut was burned down and told their children, that their sould would wither and they'd go to Hell if they go near the hut. So the hut's remainings were left alone, and village went back to normal life.

Some might say, that villagers killed innocent woman who did give birth to a child who got his life in violent attack from a male, and all superstition were just religious zealot. But it did not end there. It was just the beginning.

Few years after when village had it's peace during bright daytime they heard horrible scream outside the village. They did not know was it a man or an animal, but it was creepy enough to have attention. Night after the day it was raining hard when men in the pub saw a lady walk to the door. She was all wet, and her skin was ash gray. Her long dark hair looked like partially burned and her clothes were ragged and dirty. One of men told woman to go away, the pub is men's place, not women to set their foot in. Woman just stared them and grinned.
"You, are you proud of yourself? Burning down innocent and defenceless woman's and her baby boy's house? You, god fearing men, who tell yourself you are good christians tried to commit a murder?" Men gasped.
"Did you succeed or not?" Woman asked.

One of the men, Timmy Borgan escaped, and it is accounted that after those words pub's fireplace flamed and set it in fire. All doors and windows suddenly shut and could not be opened. Man did not know how he got out, but everyone inside the pub were burned to death and there was not much left of the building either. Man told, that maybe he was ment to stay alive to tell the story.
It was suspected, that maybe the man who survived was too shocked by the accident and was delusional. But in his death bed he insisted that he tells the truth.

Matilda Herrings was not seen since.

Timmy Borgan was old man and very ill several years later, when nurse downstairs heard him scream:
"It's the demon spawn! He is here to take revenge! Oh God give mercy for my soul and save me!" When nurse hurried upstairs rooms window was open and curtains waving. Man was laying on his bed his throat slit open. The wound was too rough to be from a knife and there was no way a beast could have got into the room what might have done that kind of damage.

But this was just only the beginning. One by one, people started to die. Those of old age in the village. They did not die in natural death, but allways ripped by a beast. Rumors started to roam to say, that Devil Boy was killing everyone who were involved in the arseny. They all died one by one by clawings even in places animals and beast have no access to. Some also claimed to see this "beast not a man nor animal, but a demon" in the village before or after deaths.

Panic started, as people believed that the deformed boy was actually a half demon, half human as they have expected back then. They knew in their heart, that it was a revenge it was after. Everyone was scared and hours before dusk they locked themselves in their houses and waited spooked by every little voice. But it was the elderly who died. At first.

Younger people started to move away at that point. They had borned in that community, lived their lives there and planned to die there, but nightly terror and murders were too much for them. Village started to wither. Elderly people was brutally murdered, younger people moved away and who were left were nerve wrecked. There was nothing left but church for them, but when old priest was murdered in his very own chapel, the villagers knew they were doomed.

Those who were left or stayed in the village died. Not a normal death, but everyone was clawed to death. Village was now deserted. Everyone murdered by this beast or moved away.

You can today find that village, or what's left of it but strangely there are no good documentations of it. Little is known who has lived there, or who has died.

At this point, devil boy was forgotten. He was not even an urban legend, just a story, almost no one knew. And those who left the village, did not talk about it.

But the murders did not stop there. When the village was destroyed, first died brutally in the New York streets. Police claims it to be assault, possibly robbery but still wounds stayed unexplained. Too rough to be knife made. Official explanation is, that it was a large dog robber had with him, but still the wounds didn't match.

When similar murders started to occur across the continent, FBI started to investigate how are those murders related. And they indeed were related, by blood. Seemed that every killed person was connected by relations or blood to this deserted village with next to none of information. Also at the places the murders occured, urban legends of a weird creature started. Half man, half demon with horns, wings, tail and talons. Like a humane devil.

Of course they were not taken seriously by FBI, but as just legends around the murders. But when private investigator, journalist Jimmy Smiths started to dig deeper into this urban legend, he was astouned and shocked. He was sure, that this is just a legend as it had not real documentary in the history, only words and a nameless letter describing a devil boy with no eye-witness account from the writer himself, he found out that he is a distant relative to a doctor named Matthew Smiths.
Then he started to study relationships and families of murdered people, and tracked their family ties back to the village. He then found out, that the monster in urban legend is like deformed baby born in the village, and how he was described in anonymous account. Similarities couldn't be coincidence.

Few years later, Jimmy Smiths was found ripped apart in his office at work the next morning he stayed at work late night. His studies were classified by the FBI.

For Roleplaying Game

Demon boy, sounds like an urban legend, but it might be true. Still, if it was just a story, how would one explain the murders in different parts of the continent and the fact, that all similarly killed people are in the way or another relatives back to the village? History tells, that there is no single natural death for these people. All were killed early by accident or murder, not even by dicease.

That might be the mystery characters might be solving.

Or maybe character/s is/are relative to the villagers, and people from his family start to die. One by one in unnatural ways. And he starts to investigate, what is going on.

Character or characters might even be in FBI or similar branch and take this mystery to solve. They might be in X-Files type of sect, unexplained mysteries type of sect or ordinary crime investigators.

And the Demon Boy? Deaths and villages undocumented history are just too strange. So is Demon Boy in modern world and it is like any other urban legend except this has a pattern. If Demon Boy was real, is he immortal or does he age slower than ordinary human? Is he just deformed human after revenge, or really supernatural monster? Or is it just a creative killer making legend true?

Man eating tree

Not my text, but taken from the Unexplained Mysteries forums. Original poster there is Kar-Zid. Text below is copypaste, but I thought I'd share it as it could be fascinating for roleplaying games.

MAN EATING TREES

A CASE STUDY

A tree which not only is capable of killing a full grown man, but uses the corpse to sustain it's own life. The Man Eating Tree is a fabled plant, and is one that dates back a long way. The earliest known report of the specifics of this botanical cryptid was all the way back in 1881. Carl Liche, the German explorer, wrote of what he had witnessed in Madagascar whilst in the presence of the Mkodo tribe:

Quote

"The slender delicate palpi, with the fury of starved serpents, quivered a moment over her head, then as if instinct with demoniac intelligence fastened upon her in sudden coils round and round her neck and arms; then while her awful screams and yet more awful laughter rose wildly to be instantly strangled down again into a gurgling moan, the tendrils one after another, like great green serpents, with brutal energy and infernal rapidity, rose, retracted themselves, and wrapped her about in fold after fold, ever tightening with cruel swiftness and savage tenacity of anacondas fastening upon their prey."

What he witnessed was the various parts of a tree attacking, strangling, and pulling in a woman. The account details a brutal crushing motion that the tree went through with it's victim, the member of the Mkodo tribe destroyed. However, there are only dead ends to be found with this account. This particular tree has not been seen again, and there are no reports of any sightings before hand. Another thing to note, the same can be said for the Mkodo tribe.

After a little digging around, I found that the Mkodo tribe only exists in that context, about Carl Liche and the man-eating tree. Nowhere else is this tribe mentioned. I decided to try my luck at a translation, perhaps this supposed tribe's name meant something in Malagasy (the native language of Madagascar). However, it means nothing, and isn't even recognized anywhere that I could find. It seems as if the Mkodo tribe was only ever witnessed by the one man, which is quite a stretch. He also claimed to be the first to discover this tribe, strengthening the skepticism possible against this.

In 1924, a book entitled Madagascar, Land of the Man-eating Tree written by the former governor of Michigan, Chase Osborn, was published. In this book, Osborn claims that both tribes and missionaries that reside in Madagascar know about the tree, and he quotes Liche. Unfortunately, his claim does not hold up either under simple analysis. For a start, if Liche's comments had been falsified (which is nearly certain), then the Mkodo tribe would not exist (also nearly certain), and thus this ritual would not exist with sacrifices to the tree. In turn, without these sacrifices and the Mkodo tribe, either the tree would not have been discovered or focused on, or it simply does not exist. Another strange, and convicting, fact about his book is that it was published at least six years after he came back from traveling the world. Six years is a long time, and he would've been 64 years of age at the time of publication. Memories do not stay solid for that long, especially so when at that age.

The account from Carl Liche is more than likely a fantastical tale with no basis on fact, the Mkodo tribe, the tree and even perhaps the character of Carl Liche were just parts of the story. The tale then grew as a factual account, as it had been advertised as such. The mythical Man-Eating Tree of Madagascar is but an object of imagination. However, even if this particular tree does not exist, that does not mean a tree of the same build cannot exist.

If adapted and evolved to this habit, a plant could theoretically sustain itself upon human blood. However, a plant of the size of a tree would require vast amounts of blood to live and grow, and this amount is unrealistic. Animals could, also theoretically, be another source of the blood but that just leads us to the simple Venus Fly Trap and other such real life small plants which feed off other living creatures. A tree which has the ability to swing it's vines or branches or any part of it, and use those normally fairly weak appendages to pick up and destroy a human being is also very very inaccurate and unrealistic.

To sum the study up, the original accounts of a Man-eating Tree from Carl Liche are pure fabrication. The subsequent comments from Chase Osborn are either fabricated or simply not true. The tribe of Mkodo is, likewise, falsified. A Man-eating Tree would not have the proper resources to grow or flourish into an actual tree, and plants inherently do not have enough power or maneuverability to capture and kill human prey and prevent them from finding a way to escape.

From mist there will come monsters

This post is inspired by movie The Mist what is based on Stephen King's novel.

So, if you haven't read the book or seen the movie before, this post will contain spoilers.

~DON'T READ FURTHER, IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT MOVIE THE MIST~

Okay, now that I got the warning out of the way, let's go to the serious business.

Story

Story told short: there is a mist. In mist people dies. In mist there are monsters. Mist aint' goin' away. You gotta survive.

So, basically this is survival horror, where you are trapped in only safe place - grocery store - where mist cannot get in. In the mist lurks monsters, what will eat you. Few try to get out, but after a while you just hear them screaming in agony and never see them before. After you see actual tentacles attacking the store, you start to believe. There is something outside. First night, and you actually start to see them creepers. And bad luck, they get even inside, but you can deal with them (with only minor losses of lives).

Mist is not going off, so you need to get a solution. One needs medical help, so you forge a crew to obtain meds from the apotechary next door. You get the meds, but find out, that there's no one alive. And you loose some people. And hear dying military police saying, that "it's their fault".

Back to the shop, and planning starts. The captured people divide in two groups. Those, who want to survive and those who go religiously nuts. Religiously nuts become dangerous and demand human sacrifice while you just wanna take few good people, your Land Cruiser and drive your gas tank to empty to... get out and hopefully find help.

You get out, you drive your tank empty. You make radical decision just to find out, that there is help marching out of the mist. Army with tanks and stuff. They even got saved people aboard. But you did the choise and now you cry in agony, even if you were saved.

In rpg?

This is the easiest scenario to use in rpg. Best working in one shot or few nights mini-campaign. I quess you can take some ideas from this post, but best result is, if you watch the movie yourself (reading the novel ain't bad either, but wild quess is, that by watching the movie you get faster the idea).
There are few points following to make this scenario experience great:

1. If possible, it would be best if none of the players know the story before. If they know, it might even be that they don't recognise it if you twist the storyline abit. You don't have to make it happen in a store, but almost anywhere. Hotel, family gathering at old farmhouse, hospital, even military base (if you want more action packed).
2. Make player characters to be normal people. No secret agents, military commandos and psychic wizards. Just ordinary people. There could be guns, but as in the movie, only one or two and third in really hard to obtain place. Shooting stuff doesn't make a difference against the mist, but it will be more horrifying when you're only weapon is a broomstick. No weapons = desperation = mood.
3. There is a couple of ways to handle deaths. No one wants his player character to be first to die and watch others play the rest of the evening. Still, making player characters untoutched eats the mood. Players will figure this out, as npc's die around but they don't even get a scratch.
Try to make things look, like pc's are just as invurnelabily (<- wtf word lol) as npc's. You might even give dead character's player a new character from the npc's. Try to balance in not killing pc's at all and slaugthering them without remorse. If everyone is dead in 10 minutes, it's hard to tell the story you planned, isn't it. And if one of the characters is the poor bastard who dies first, the game is ruined for him. 4. Make things desperate. Try to give the impression, there is no way out, but there is no point of waiting for help. Characters shouldn't run to dangers mindlessly, but they shouldn't avoid risks. They should know, there is danger, but they should even try to do things what are dangerous. There is no other way to survive than risking it. How does it end?

In movie things end quite bad. Well, main character survives, but others die. How will your game end? Does everyone die? Does someone or all surivive? How do they survive, if at all?

What kind of monsters are in the mist?

• Tentacles. You don't see what's in the other end, but there are many of them. Tentacles have little spikes what they use to grab and mouth like gap, what bites you. They can slash open wounds, bite and grasp to pull. Very nasty, but with few chops can be separated with an axe.
• Bugs. Flying bugs, size of a crow with a scorpion stinger. They seem to be harmless and are food for bigger creatures. They seem to be quite harmless, but when they sting you, it's nasty. In the movie one sting to the neck made whole throat to swallow with chins. Death by suffocation (and possible poison). Can be killed with few hits.
  
• Flying creeps. Bigger than bugs. Size of a dog these nasty monsters have four wings, long beak and sharp claws. Fast and quite agile to fly. Can be killed with a shot or a couple, beating. Few was set on fire, but the fire actually didn't seem to do that much harm but to slow them.
• Spiders. Size of a cat or small dog, these nasty critters shoot web what corrode through clothing and flesh. Could be also poisonous, as one got web around his thie but was dead not long time after. They aren't tough to kill, but quite fast to run. Their web spurts slowly and is easy to avoid. They lay their eggs in human bodies. When the eggs burst, the body collapses and little critter spiders run all over the place, eatign corpses. I bet, if they get hold of you, they might eat you alive.
• Gigas. Don't know name or description for this. Walks on four legs, but after hips it has a torso ending in possible four long clawed arms. Size of a three store building. It's reach is long, and it graps people from quite long distance to rip them apart and eat. Doesn't seem to be really fast (well, it doesn't need to run), but it's claws are quite hasty and accurate.
• Elephantic. 6-8 legged, huge, looks a bit like an elephant with upper body of wiggly short tentacles or appendages. Seems to be harmless, but getting step by it's feet may feel kinda bad. Size of a 8 store building. Slow.

Where did they come from?

In the Movie, army had this special operation and the monsters and the mist came from another dimension. That is a good plot for nearly every game. Some variations especially for fantasy setting could be magical port.

What games to use?

Franly, I think you can run this scenario in any game. There is no restrictions to the system. In non-horror games this could be more a surprise factor than when you tell players to do norms in this horror game you just got an idea.

But, here I list few suggestions:

Call of Cthulhu. Isn't this obvious? In modern Cthulhu you can use the military and it's top secret research that opened gate to another dimension. In 1920 Cthlulhu remote village can be under the mist after crazy professor did his research in his mansion laboratory.

Kult. Quite easy. The curtain that divides this illusion from reality is shattered.

World of Darkness. Especially mortals. Use the military research gone wrong. In other WoD settings (like Vampire, Werewolf etc.) you could also use this, but I think supernatural event is not as efficient when your characters are also supernatural.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten. AFMBE has character creation rules for norms, what will do well. Also AFMBE has rules to create zombie. You can also use those rules to create monsters, not just zombies. Use your imagination.

Science fiction. Military research gone wrong in some planet. Also can used in space ship or space station, where dimensional portal has opened and the creepy monsters come through.

Fantasy. Dimensional portal and fantasy go hand to hand. Wizard's research gone wrong, evil wizard's research gone right. Angry gods... what ever, but it will work.

Basically, with minor adjustments you can use this adventure nearly in any game. You just need to make minor backstory adjustments to fit the setting in question. Main point is, that characters aren't necessarily the hero types, but mere commoners. That will make things more interesting. Some games have rules for mentality like Call of Cthulhu, but I quess you go just fine without them.

How to stat the monsters? Well, in Cthulhu you could use several monsters stats to fit, just alter the description. Also in many game monsters are easy to make yourself. But main point is, these aren't necessarily player characters to kill but to fear and avoid contact with. Bugs, spiders and maybe flying creeps can be killed and tentacles chopped, but others should be big and scary enough to avoid in any cost. Will, player characters will avoid them if they see how npc's die in a blink of the eye in front of them. You don't kill these bigger monsters. You try not to be killed. Bigger monsters doesn't even need stats at all.