Doll parts

[gospog]

Ok, I think I may be starting my Steampunk campaign up again in 2007.   

I have a theme for the first scenario, but I'm looking for some basic plotlines and ideas I can sift through and incorporate into my scenario. 

Basically, it goes like this: there are murders occurring all over The City, especially in the wealthier parts of The City.  All evidence points to a little girl as the murderer.

But she's not.  It's actually her doll, an evil magic item (more on this below).

Eventually, the heroes have to exonerate the girl, prove the guilt of the doll and track it back to its evil source.

For the latter, I have two ideas: an evil doll-maker or an artifact bought as a piece of art and brought into the girl's house by her parents.  The evil artifact then goes on to possess the doll and commit the murder of it's indigenous people by the creators of The City.

I'm leaning towards the second idea but I still need help on scene that lead up to that discovery.  Chase through a doll factory?  A dinner party gone horribly wrong?   I'm stumped.  Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

-Tom

[Rick_TWA]

I actually meant to write a short story once in which the protangonist realizes that all the "horrible accidents" that have happened to people close to him in his life are the work of his teddy bear who has only been trying to protect him from people who have hurt him.  I think the intellegent doll angle is pretty awesome.

Here's ome thoughts:

Whatever this doll is, weather it's possessed by an evil artifact or is itself evil, it doesn't have to be necesarily the first time this has happened.  The evil doll-maker or the evil artifact could have been used in the past to commit a similar string of grizzly (and unsolved) murders and then either the evil entity murdered, or betrayed it's owner or was put away until the natural death of the original owner.  This would allow an astute detective to find records of earlier, similar, unsolved crimes and trace the doll or artifact from the estate of the previous owner to the current owner.  In addition, the previous owner may well have been aware of the nature of the artifact or doll (especially if they created or used it) and their estate may well contain a journal or diary (now in the possession of a local library or college under lock and key because of age) that's assumed to be fiction or mad ravings, but is actually a detailed diary of the prior killings and how they used the doll/artifact to do it.

In addition, there's nothing stopping the girl from being completely aware of what's going on (at least that her doll is alive and that when it leaves her room at night and returns the next morning people have been killed) and is probably completely horrified and might be in a near-catatonic state.  If she IS aware, she's probably tried to get rid of the doll after she realized what was going on, only to find that it kept coming back.  If it's capable of speech and intellegent the doll probably intimidated her to stop trying to get rid of it, saying things like "Jenny.... Why don't you love me any more?  I thought we were best friends...  When you forget me at your friend's house like you did it makes me very upset Jenny.  You don't want to make me mad do you?  After all... your parents made me mad and look what happened to them.....".  In this case, the girl might try leaving hints for the investigators that lead them to as much of the truth as she knows. (Like crayon drawlings of her dolly standing over her bed with evil eyes, or of her parent's room with her doll peeking in evilly, or by dressing the doll in the torn dress with a small bloodstain on the hem that she wore on the night she killed someone.)  She might even just tell them if they can somehow remove the doll from her presence.  Of course her telling them things might be ignored or she might be assumed to be insane, and if the investigators, assuming there's no threat, divulge that the girl has told them it was the doll with the doll present, she'll likely break into hysterics and wind up dead soon.

Here's a link that might be helpful:
http://www.hauntedamericatours.com/hauntedstates/hauntedflorida/hauntedkeywest/

[Knight of Roses]

Also, check out the song "Creepy Doll" from Jonathan Coulton.  Might be some good inspiration there.

[logophylia]

Ideas on Doll's origins:

Perhaps the doll was originally created to be an animate golem "replacement" for a lost child, but as the parents slowly lost interest in the doll, the doll began pining more and more for the attention that it was not receiving. It eventually began to act out in stronger and stronger ways, as it's mentality was stuck at the mental age of 3 or so, and unable to learn it's way out of that stage in development. Eventually, the doll murdered it's owner/parents and then passed down hand to hand in estate sales, etc. until it got into the hands of it's current owner.

OR - for even more onioned-layered fun, perhaps the doll was made to be the child companion for a young woman who was mentally challenged. Her Drosselmeyer-like relative (see The Nutcracker) created the child-golem in part to be a wonderfull doll, but also in part because he knew the woman would never be able to have a real child. BUT the doll has mentality with no moral compass, so when the doll's owner got mad, the doll acted out ....

The doll's owner kept a diary, written as if in a child's hand. She details getting mad at the dolls first "Victim", and then regretting the violence done to the victim (not making the distinction that the doll had done the violence - she writes as if she had performed the violent acts herself).

This diary was in the box with the doll when the doll exchanged hands on and on until it reached the new owner.

The the new crimes were committed, and circumstantial evidence end up pointing the investigation towards the new owner.

Let the players eventually find the diary, which they may or may not recognize as older and belonging to the previous owner, BUT when they turn it over to the authorities,  the recent incidents are close enough that they thinkthat the dolls current owner had committed the crimes.  The diary becomes their primary piece of evidence against her.

then the players have to race against time to track down any folks who were there for the original crimes and or any evidence/ news items collected around the previous crimes so that they can show the new owner did NOT write the diary.

Once the new owner is exonerated, and the doll captured and brought to justice, the players may learn that the new owner DID in fact influence the doll's actions, and is in fact an amoral killer who used the doll as her tool.

You could skip the mentally challenged woman part and make the previous owner a child as well, if you want to keep it simple.

You could always skip the last part, but any of my players will tell you how deliciously evil a GM I am 

[logophylia]

BTW - hope you don't mind if I run this scenerio too !

[cedrictheblack]

Additional complications:
-Perhaps the doll possesses the little girl at night, and so the girl IS technically guilty, but it is the doll that forced her hand.

-Perhaps the little girl knows the doll is a killer and has been actively sending it out to do her bidding.  She plays innocent during the investigation, but stalks and tries to kill the Pcs with the doll or other powers at her disposal.

-What if the Doll and the girl have switched bodies completely and permanently?  Imprisonment in the doll slowly drives the soul insane and they possess the next child to own the doll.  The child is the murderer, takes the doll along to show the trapped soul the attrocities committed with their body.  The killer leaves intentional hints that the doll is the killer, if the doll is destroyed the possession becomes permanent.  A complicated ritual is required to reverse the possession.

Loads of fun here.

Are there other possessed dolls and toys?  A la the Friday the 13th TV show?

[PQR]

I ran a "creepy doll" in a Fairy Tale/Fantasy campaign recently.

In that game, the doll was a ragdoll the girl's dead mother had made to protect her. The girl's stepmother was trying to discreetly kill her (as is traditional in Fairy Tales) and was being inexplicably and sometimes bloodily foiled.

1. The doll itself was not really sentient but had been given come leeway to fulfill it's basic directive - protect the girl from harm. This could have led to a lengthy list of things that might conceivably threaten the girl being destroyed. Including the bullies, weird old men, the bus driver and the PCs.

2. The girl was put into a deep, unwakeable sleep whenever the doll was active.

3. the Stepmother never attacked the girl directly. Her minions and bystanders were the ones affected, so she never had blood on her hands.

This might not be useful, but it could spark some ideas.

[dreamborn]

Interesting idea.  Sounds alot like the old 'Chucky' horror movies.  My only question is I hope your players don't frequent TT as you just revealed alot of information.  ;^)

Kent Krumvieda
www.dreamborn.com