Brantai, you can go ahead and read this, because even though I'm running it, I'm not really sweating spoilers. OTOH, I am running this, and these are some pretty serious spoilers, so that's as it is...

I'm running a horror game in NWoD. I decided I wanted to do this after I played (and watched play of) the Fatal Frame games, The Ring (and its original Ringu) and reading some pretty interesting stuff. I spent a lot of time debating on how I wanted to run it, wavering in between my homebrew and NWoD with Second Sight, and I eventually went with the latter. It was pretty much a coinflip, though. But I like NWoD, and I'm not quite done formatting and working on Dream, so there it is. There's been a lot of talk about bitching lately, and I just kind of wanted to contribute because, well, I am gaming, and I'm enjoying it. So this might be interesting for others.

The premise of the game is based on themes; there are things that are scary, and things that make a game scary, and they're not always the same. It's not death, it's dreading death. It's not spatter, it's why things have spattered. It's not the inhuman, but the human. Natch. So the game has issues like inheritance (sins of the father), fear of mortality, and what people deserve. Also, ghosts and black magic and shit, because that shit is awesome.

I'm going to break this up, so it's easier to read. I'm nice, 'cause I'm taking extra effort like that...

Christ, but I'm picky about formatting. I must be ego-centric to require to posts just to tell you about my campaign world. [insert wild-eyed stare] But, getting back to buisness, I didn't want to leave a wall o' text.

The game takes place in modern-day Washington state, near the coast in a small private university town in the middle of a heavily forested region. Recently, a respected member of the university has gone missing, and nobody can figure out why. It was known that he was last heard undergoing some private research on the history of the region. The PC's play characters who are drawn to the region for various reasons. One must be a psychic, using certain powers found in NWoD, who lives in the area and is drawn to the site of the town through vivid dreams. When he or she sees the location in the paper, they go to the town in search of answers. All the other tie-ins are negotiable, but that's the premise, and I'll work with my players when I officially pitch the game (which is when we're not gaming other stuff - we're doing so very frequently at this point).

The Truth

Here's the meat of the game, what'll likely be useful to others, I guess. I'm purposely drawing on cliche to start the engine, so to speak, but I'm really enjoying it. Anyhow...

Back in the 1800's (I think. I'm doing some research to bear this out), settlers were just starting to move into the area. One group moved far ahead of the others in an attempt to get a foothold camp near the coast before everyone else settled, hoping to beat the winter. To their surprise, though, the area they'd hope to settle in was held by a tiny group of natives (whose name I have to puzzle out for reals) who safe-gaurded the area as a powerful mystic site. The geography of the area was such that it was a sacred place for spirits, a thin part of the world where they could traffic back and forth. A council of wise men, led by a powerful shaman led the group and made the decisions and placated the spirits.

But the settlers didn't understand this, and the natives didn't relay this information anyhow, so fighting broke out. Neither side had anything to lose - the natives refused to give up the site and the settlers had nowhere else to turn: they were all out of supplies. Desperation fueld both parties, and in very little time, they had murdered all their fighters and both groups wondered what to do. The settlers dug in, and began to prepare a final assault (fearing they'd be murdered if they didn't finish the natives off). The native warriors begged their wise men to call upon the spirits for salvation, figuring they'd already sacrificed so much to protect them. The wise men were reluctant, but facing extinction and needing to act before more settlers arrived, they finally agreed and called the spirits. Sadly, the carnage had driven the peaceful spirits aways, and anyhow, they didn't have the abilties to fight a battle. Instead, it was the spirits of cold and hunger that answered...

Out of the charnal void, the wendigo agreed to let itself loose upon the settlers in return for a sacrifice to it. What it wanted made the shaman sweat with fear, but he struck the deal. The remaining warriors ambushed the settlers, kidnapped a young child, and fled back to their camp, half of them left back amoung the settlers to die. By now, there were only five.

The shaman bagan the live sacrifice, whose details I'll spare, but in the middle of the ritual the settlers' rescue team arrived only moments late to save the child. Not too late to damage the ritual, however. Unbound, the wendigo possessed braves and remaining settlers alike and ran amok. No person was spared, as the possessed killed anything in their path, consuming everything.

When the next settlers arrived, there was nothing there at all. Despite the misfortune in the area, the town thrived.

Hey, shit you guys, that's a lot of stuff. Do you want the rest? You tell me.

Quote from: Thanatos02The premise of the game is based on themes; there are things that are scary, and things that make a game scary, and they're not always the same. It's not death, it's dreading death. It's not spatter, it's why things have spattered. It's not the inhuman, but the human. Natch. So the game has issues like inheritance (sins of the father), fear of mortality, and what people deserve. Also, ghosts and black magic and shit, because that shit is awesome.

Very interesting Thanatos. I did something very much like this using Unknown Armies. Looking forward to reading how it's all coming together with nWoD.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Thanatos02Do you want the rest? You tell me.

Keep it coming. I'm intrigued.

- Q

In terms of the setting, this bit...

Quote from: Thanatos02The game takes place in modern-day Washington state, near the coast in a small private university town in the middle of a heavily forested region.

...immediately made me think of Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA.  Here in Washington, the universities are mostly focused around the Puget Sound, and none on the Pacific coast where there are still truly heavily-wooded areas.

Aracata, though...if you don't mind shifting your focus southward about 600 miles, I think you may be golden.  Fog-shrouded redwood forests that stretch from the mountains immediately east of you, right down to the open sea immediately west.  A major university, and some of the most potent marijuana grown domestically.  Hippies, academes, and rednecks all rubbing shoulders.  Not many natives to speak of anymore, but you might be able to scare one up here or there for the purposes of your adventure.  Oh, and some really killer surf just north!  Perhaps most importantly, it is, effectively, quite isolated -- San Francisco is about a 5-hour drive to the south, and during the winters it's not unheard of to be locked in by flooded highways to the north and south and avalanches to the east, making an expensive airplane ride the only way out.

The other route that you might take, if you really have your heart set on having the adventure in Washington, is to do what David Lynch did with Twin Peaks, WA.  He just made up a town that is geographically impossible in the actual state, but is a pastiche of many different communities and locales that you might find around here.

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaThe other route that you might take, if you really have your heart set on having the adventure in Washington, is to do what David Lynch did with Twin Peaks, WA.  He just made up a town that is geographically impossible in the actual state, but is a pastiche of many different communities and locales that you might find around here.

!i!

That's the idea I was shooting for.
I think I'll finish the modern-day focus in the morning, though. I was at university for 8 hours and pleanty of time. ^_^

Quote from: Thanatos02That's the idea I was shooting for.

Cool. In any case, Arcata would be a lot like moving Evergreen State College out to Yelm or Forks -- out at the End of the Road.

!i!

A big reason why Thanatos considered using nWoD instead of DREAM is that despite my best efforts, I have trouble making serious characters with freeform trait systems.  Like, his game is inspired by jhorror, right?  So my first inclination is to grab up ranks in "Everything is Blue" and "Contains More Blood Than Is Humanly Possible".
Count me as another vote to keep on keeping on about the premise, Than.

Sounds like fun. I love this sort of thing in general (plus I've found the new WoD rules really pleasant to run). Hope you have a good time with it.

Ok, so I got back on my duff to finish this thing up. It's kind of a lot of writing for an rpg post, so bear with me...

So, the area is still a hotspot of potential supernatural energy, but a lot of it's pretty negative at this point. The spirits of hunger and cold have never really left, and the woods are dangerous, haunted places at night or far enough away from civilization. Plenty of hikers go missing every year, but they still keep coming because the area's reknown for its beautiful landscapes.

In the 1930's, a group of young academics were drawn to the area because of it's powerful energy. They were bright scholers in their own right, but they were also burgeoning mystics in their own right. Hoping to strike out and form their own group, they picked the tiny Washington town as a likely place to settle. They used subtle rituals to ensure material success, and once they felt secure in their wealth, they settled into middle age by attaching themselves to a local private university and using their magic to discover likely candidates for scholership and the like. Under their guidance, the university and the town flourished, though nobody ever became wise to the situation.

As they grew older, they began to take apprentices from the brightest the school had to offer. Even while they did this, the head of the order felt his own mortality deeply. Instead of taking an apprentice himself to pass down his knowledge, he scoured history, magical and mundane, for keys to a longer lifespan. He had no personal intention of passing on the knowledge he'd aquired by hard work, and instead withdrew from his scholatic and community duties.
Worried, the rest of the mystic circle began to question their head's wisdom in withdrawing. They were still in the dark regarding his intentions, but the head of the circle was wise. He agreed publicly that he'd been troubled, but re-emerged a nearly changed man. He took an apprentice, and by all accounts, he was free of wrong-doing. If only this had been the case!

Instead, the head had found the secret of immortality. In his research, he'd gone deep into the forest to speak with the spirits there, and had delved into the lore of the area. In doing so, he found the rumors of an antique extinction - the loss of the settlers and their gory remains. He bought up the property near the site with his own, carefully obscured funds, and announced his retirement. Taking his would-be apprentice with him, he dissapeared, but the apprentice never came back.  It seems the corrupted scholer had managed the sacrifice with her, and had bound the eternal hungry sprit to his own will, locked in his body. As long as he continued to feed to maintain it, he would remain alive and unaging though wracked with a gruesome need for sustainance.

To do so, he took in borders or kidnapped students from the university to eat,  but the circle - having been wary for a while, soon caught onto the ramifications of what had happened. With their apprentices, they planned to assault the property and put an end to the creature who had once been their leader. They wern't combatants, but in their hubris, they decided they would have to be the ones to put him down so they girded for mystic battle. But the head was ready for them. He had bound the spirits of the consumed and had lain powerful magical traps aside for the inevitable day. When the scholers and their apprentices marched on the house, nobody emerged the victor.

Despite his great and newfound power, the dark magician was destroyed and his spirit bound. But it took a great and final sacrifice on the part of the remaining circle members. The magicians had never planned on being cut down to the single individual, and so left few records of their involvement. It was 50 years ago that the dark magus' mind was consumed by the wendigo, and his soul bound to his alter struggling to break free. Now, it does so once again, for the third time. Students are going missing, and the one professor who dared to follow the clues has also vanished.

It's the PC's job to avoid temptation and put the spirits to rest once and for all. The lure of eternal life and great power is strong, and it is easy to play out the final assault on the wendigo again and again, but it must be finished once and for all.

The Truth

The truth of the matter is that the same essences are locked in a circle. Somebody needs the power of the spirits, and the spirits of hunger are only too happy to answer. Then there is the hubris of the investigators; first they investigate, and then they are forced to stay. What locks them at the scene? In truth, it is powerful warding magic that stops them from fleeing. In the settlers case, it was warriors run amok in the first place. There was no place to hide. In the latter case, it took a great and bloody sacrifice to finally satiate the spirits enough that they'd pause to rest so the last acolyte could seal the alter.
Now, in truth, there was a competition. One young student of history found snippits that suggested that eternal youth and great knowledge could easily be his if only he finished the ritual completely. His aging professor strove to put an end to it by breaking the ritual so the spirit couldn't be summoned, but it was a failure.

The wendigo was bound to the soul of the old magus, so when it was called, it came forth and consumed the student. The old professor strove to escape, but found himself chased by the spirit of the magus when night fell. I won't say if he's still there or not, still working on destroying the spirit bindings he discovered to send the spirit back. But, perhaps souls call to souls: even though the PCs arn't at fault, it may well be their responsibility has inheritors of the aging mystics legacy. (In my head, I had this concept that they were related relatives of the mystics, who were related to the settlers: bound to be consumed until they put the spirits to rest.)