[D&D] Adventure Idea: The Cursed Carnival

[kungfusnwbrdr]

I've been trying to come up with an idea for an adventure to run for my D&D group as we take turns DMing and I've expressed interest in DMing next. I was originally planning on taking the group to another continent and laying the seeds for a much more epic storyline that I could pick up again on my next turn. However, I'm thinking that I would rather keep it more simple and fun since this is my first time DMing for this group and my first time DMing D&D 3.5.

So I was listening to some Nox Arcana albums I purchased off iTunes last night and their Carnival of Lost Souls gave me a really great idea for a simple and fun adventure to run the players through. The basic synopsis of the story is that the players have to fight a cursed traveling carnival that has besieged a town looking for souls for some diabolic purpose.

• As the players are traveling home from their last adventure they are forced to take shelter at the town because of a fierce (some might say unnatural) thunderstorm that begins to drop large hail and lightning strikes in the woods near the players.
• When the players wake up the following morning to see what kind of town they are in they find the town's inhabitants surprised and excited to see that a traveling carnival (think gypsy like) has setup at the edge of the town in a field. However, I don't expect the players to pay any real attention to this, however, as I'm going to simply play it off as background life in the town.
• During the day there is going to be a ceremony of some kind that the town's inhabitants are going to gather at, during the ceremony the town will be attacked by goblins or kobolds, or something from the woods near the town. The town's mayor will plead with the heroes to rid the woods of the evil that has cursed their town. This is really just a side story, almost a MacGuffin, to keep the players in the town during the day as the real fun with the carnival doesn't start until nightfall. I'm planning for this side story to really complete within the first session as the players will go into the woods, slay the evil, and go back for their reward...easy, right?
• Upon returning to town at night fall (which has come a little earlier for some reason) the players will find most of the town's people at the carnival, which is now alive with performers, shows, games, and music.
• During the first night there will be a scream from a house near the carnival, upon investigating they will find a young woman dead (this is about as far as I plan to go the first session, and about as far as I've planned out right now).

I still have a lot of fleshing out to do of the adventure, but I have some ideas of having the players encounter like doll golems, and that night fall will get successively earlier each night until it's night all the time. At the same time the town's inhabitants will act like nothing is really wrong (as the town has been placed under a spell to make the harvesting of souls easier). I still need to figure out the evil baddie that is needing the souls and for what diabolic purpose, and I still need to flesh out the story line to last 5-6 weeks total.

Any suggestions or comments?
[/list]

[Telas]

I like the concept .  Some ideas and advice (in D&D terms, because that's my primary system):

Build up the idea of the carnival as a place of evil slowly.  The party will be expecting it, so don't show all your cards at once.  Make sure the "distraction" (Ogre, goblins, etc) is enough to engage them. 

The carnival is a front for a demon of sufficient level to challenge the party.  The demon's been cursed to this plane of existence for some time, and came up with the carnival idea.  He (or she) is more of an "enchanter" kind of foe, one that can mentally dominate others. 

Mr. Demon is really looking for children, and the carnival casts some kind of "forget" spell on the populace, so they forget their children.  The innocent and "good" ones are consumed, and the evil or not-so-innocent kids are corrupted into working for the carnival.  Alternately, the not-so-innocent ones are eaten, and the innocent ones are slowly corrupted.  Pick whichever one sounds the most wicked. 

When the party first arrives, one of the local kids makes friends with them.  Perhaps his uncle is an adventurer, or perhaps she fervently worships the same deity as the cleric/druid, or maybe is overjoyed to find another half-elf, etc.  But at least one of the kids in town "connects" with one of the party.  Even if it's by stealing something from them, and getting caught.  Ham it up, and make the kid likable and memorable. 

When the party returns, the kid isn't there, and the parents don't have any idea what they're talking about.  "Our child has been dead for a while; I'd appreciate you not asking about her."   

Other options are a mother who just happens to have an amulet against domination, and who remembers her child.  Perhaps she's the corpse they find.  Perhaps she seems to be a raving dagger-wielding lunatic, going on about the carnival kidnapping her child, and the mayor asks the party to subdue her... 

Some of the villagers can be turned against the party, so nonlethal attacks may be necessary. 

Someone with Bardic Lore or Knowledge (the planes) might recognize some of the symbols the carnival uses. 

Perhaps the kid in Act I's necklace/ring/whatever is found on the carnival site.

Whatever else you do, have fun with it!

Telas

[longcoat000]

I loves me some evil carnivals.  You can actually easily turn this little idea into a pretty big story arc.  Check out the Blood Bayou supplement put out for Scarred Lands d20.

Something I always wanted to do but never had the chance to was to tie Hyskosa's Hexad to the Blood Bayou.  They're a set of six adventures that you can download from Wizard's for free:

1) Feast of Goblyns
2) Ship of Horror
3) Touch of Death
4) Night of the Walking Dead
5) Roots of Evil
6) From the Shadows

They're all old Ravenloft adventures, so they're filled with suitable levels of creepiness.

[Rick_TWA]

We had a thread on "stuff to have at a carnival" a while back.

We also had a thread on evil dolls.

We had a thread on stuff that's creepy.

and a blog post about writing horror.  The author of that post also recently dispensed a valueable addon to it in a post about zombies:  "...to make things creepy you have to first make them known in their normal state."  ie: if you're using demon-warped children, make sure they meet the children FIRST.

If you go with the demonic angle, Van Richten's guide to fiends had an excellent system on Transposition (fiends corrupting and taking over the bodies of people) that was semi-reproduced in the 3.0 Ravenloft Campaign setting.  I would recommend borrowing, but not buying either.  The guide to fiends because it's 2E even if it IS an excellent sourcebook, the Campaign setting because WotC gave the job of adapting Ravenloft to 3.0 to Sword and Sorcery , a division of White Wolf, and they managed to cram all of the standard White Wolf Cliches (I'll spoil it for you: Vistani have several distinct tribes and the world is ending Wooooooo!) into a book that's about the same standard level of crap as everything else produced by Sword and Sorcery.


I think the biggest issue you're going to have is the fact that this has the potential to be pretty huge in scope.  Since you don't want to make it obvious that the carnival is the "Real" hook, you're planning a standard dungeon-crawl distraction for them.  That's fine (and it's a good idea) but that means your dungeon crawl has to be big enough for several days of adventuring and maybe several sessions.  In fact, this could easily be stretched out to a mini-campaign.  I wouldn't rush the "the carnival is eeeevil" though just to shorten it if you want to do it right.

I'd consider the following:
1: Make the town(s) REALLY backwater.  The party is out here looking for something, chasing a criminal, hunting down the source of the raids that are plaguing the countryside, whatever and they're SO far off the beaten path that there's no inn in town.  Luckily, a widow with a young child could use the extra money and help with chores a few boarders for a few nights would bring.  (and if you want to wring it for every bit of emotion you can get when you off her later and your players seem to be playing with the idea, Well.... adventurers are awfully wealthy compared to the average joe and the one that's being friendly IS rather dashing....)  This ensures that the characters will at least periferally get to know an NPC or two.
2: Instead of using a protracted reason to keep the characters at a single town for several days, you might use a reason to keep them in the same REGION for a few days, hopping from town to town.  That way the carnival can simply follow them, consuming towns in their wake.  Before the big reveal they might even go back to a town that they had previously visited to find it's inhabitants butchered or vanished.  What happened here....?

[kungfusnwbrdr]

longcoat000,

Thanks for the recommendation of Blood Bayou. I stopped by my local hobby shop on the way home and picked up a copy and had a chance to thumb through it last night. Looks like there will be some good material in here that I can adapt!

Rick_TWA,

Thanks for the links, although the evil dolls link seems to be broken. Nonetheless I reviewed the post about writing horror, which I read a while back already although it was good to review it again. I like the idea of making the village backwater in such a way that it cuts the players off from the outside world (one of the main themes in a link on the writing horror blog post). I think you're right about not forcing the whole "carnival is evil" theme to quickly. With that in mind I have a few ideas I'll out line below...

Telas,

Some excellent suggestions! I especially like the idea of the small kid who befriends one of the adventurers. It will help the emotional impact once he/she goes "missing." I also like the idea of the villagers being turned against the players as it would provide them with a challenge to not want to actually hurt the villagers since they're under a spell.

-----

So, I was thinking that the side story that the players are going to be involved with is going to be crafted in such a way that the players will most likely think that this is the cause of all the problems. I was thinking that there might be a spell caster involved, so that over the few days to the big reveal that the carnival is evil, the players will think that it is this spell caster that is causing all the problems. There are two ways I could approach this:

1. Have the threat be real. Once the players vanquish the evil spell caster and thinking they've freed the village they return to find the effects of the spell caster still in effect and the strange happenings (disappearing people, people who don't remember lost loved ones) still occurring. Problem with this approach is that the players might run back into the woods seeking the evil spell caster, believing he is still alive.

2. Have the initial threat be real, but then as the demon begins to take control of the village he uses his powers to keep the threat going as some kind of powerful illusion, helped by the fact that the villages' mayor is also under the spell. Just as the players are about the fight, what they think is the main battle (which happens just about the same time the demon's control over the town is in full effect) he makes the threat disappear in a puff of smoke and the true evil is revealed.

With both of these options I still plan to leave clues to allow the players to figure it out on their own if they pay attention. I was also thinking that one of the NPCs early on might have a magical item they're unaware about that could be used to help defeat the demon, but only if the players remember about it later in the story.

[Rick_TWA]

1. Have the threat be real. Once the players vanquish the evil spell caster and thinking they've freed the village they return to find the effects of the spell caster still in effect and the strange happenings (disappearing people, people who don't remember lost loved ones) still occurring. Problem with this approach is that the players might run back into the woods seeking the evil spell caster, believing he is still alive.

Make sure he has some indistinguishable characteristic (scars, etc...) or tells them he's who they're looking for (with evil monolog or via his diary, etc...)  so they KNOW they're got the right guy.  To collect the bounty, they need his head (to prove they offed him).  Not much chance of him being alive with his head in their backpack, right?

You might also give other obvious clues that whatever he was doing is finished (he was operating at a glowing rune-covered stonehenge, thick with miasma and dark energy (excellent way to introduce some fun combat variables like 20% concealment from thick magic fog or slow hp/ability drain to anyone who doesn't have some kind of local supersition's fetish to ward off evil) which all slowly disappates after the big bad dies.

[Clayton]

HRMMM Now this sounds interesting!

Of course when I see Cursed Carnival I immediatly think of the Insane Clown Posse, which I dispise   No offense.

I would go with perhaps maybe a rumor or two about, a legend perhaps about a Carnival where the souls of the damned are put to work...

Just for a bit of flavor.  Make sure to drop it either after the first encounter (with a bard knowledge check) or maybe if someone tries to overhear something.  Maybe as part of a convo regarding something larger?

[Knight of Roses]

If you have time you might want to look at the Seven Faces of Dr Lao (or, even better the original novel, the Circus of Dr Lao), the HBO series Carniv?le had some good stuff in the first season (have not seen the second) but is rather slow.

You could go with agents of the trickster god fighting with agents of evil for control of the circus which could give the characters allies if they played their cards right.

[kungfusnwbrdr]

I've been thinking about some of the great suggestions made here and I think I've come up with the basic opening to the adventure (although I still have some fleshing out to do).

The players will be traveling to this part of the world for some kind of MacGuffin that I haven't figured out yet. Along the way the woods they are traveling through will get successively creepier, darker and foreboding. This is were they encounter the "hook" and first NPC in the adventure. It has started to rain with lightening and thunder when the players will come across a broken down wagon in the road. They find a young man in his early 20's cradling an older man on the ground. It is clear that the older man is dead, his clothing ripped and torn and his flesh covered in vicious lacerations that bleed profusely, running down his body and pooling on the muddy ground.

Upon questioning the man they will find out the old man is his uncle for whom he worked in his candle shop. They were on their way back from a local farmer with a supply of tallow when they were attacked by a pack of half man, half wolf creatures from the woods. He quickly stands up, grabbing his uncle under the arms and trying to heft him into the back of the wagon claiming that they must hurry, while the creatures may have been initially frightened away by the players arrival they will quickly return in greater numbers. As the players help the man gather his belongs and place his dead uncle in the wagon they hear piercing howl from the woods and soon find themselves ambushed by these half man, half wolf creatures.

This marks the first combat encounter of the adventure. Now, you might be thinking to yourself that these are werewolves. Well, you're half right, they're actually worgen from the World of Warcraft Monster Guide (a great book if you don't have it). These guys are very werewolf like, but are a little different too, which is what I wanted. One neat thing is that they have damage reduction and their weakness is something called truesilver (from More Magic and Mayhem, another World of Warcraft book).

After combat the NPC will guide the players back to his home town, along the way telling them of an evil curse that has befallen their land that causes their crops to wither and die, their livestock to be slaughtered, and the people to live in fear of the once tranquil woods. Along the way they will pass through a smaller village. The players will find flyers for the carnival that's been traveling the region that was recently in town. The NPC will run into an acquaintance, a young woman. He will inquire as to the woman's younger sister, to which she'll reply that she's been dead for some time now, don't you remember? This will prompt the NPC to comment that even the children are going missing and their family and friends are forgetting about them and that this has happened in all the surrounding towns and villages except his town (which coincidentally the carnival has yet to visit).

I haven't gotten much past this, but I think this begins to setup a false hook for the players, but at the same time begins to drop very subtle hints about the carnival. I'm not going to have the NPC say anything about the carnival not stopping at his town yet, although I might have him comment on the fly that it has been traveling the region for some time. I'm wondering if specifically calling attention to the old flyers at this town and not saying anything when the reach the NPC's home town will arise any suspicions. I'm partially counting on the fact that most players will tend to ignore these little details and unimportant since they will more be focusing on the worgen attack and the curse at this point and hopefully take the carnival for simple world fluff. This idea also takes into account Rick_TWA's suggestion of keeping them in the region rather than a single town. I think it opens up a few more possibilities for the false hook.

What do you guys think so far?

[Rick_TWA]

As neat as the worgen are (and they are) I'd be cautious about using something with damage resistance to a metal the characters have no way of carrying around.  It'd be different if Truesilver were something that was normally in the campaign world (and it may be, the way you say it just makes it sound like you've cherry-picked the worgen from the WoW book w/o including anything else).  Of course, depending on what that DR is, it may not be a huge issue. (don't forget that if the WoW book is 3e, DR has been overhauled and might need to be converted)

You might consider that the "curse of forgetfulness" is contagious and have the man inquire about the young girl, argue for a bit, then suddenly conceede.  He scratches the back of his head for a moment, blushing fiercely, "I'm sorry...  I guess.... It slipped my mind.  Sorry to bring up such painful memories."  After that, he "remembers" that she's dead too.  Though, unless the woman specifies how the girl died he can't seem to remember how exactly it happened (maybe the woman goes into an unusual level of detail during the arguement and once the man "remembers" he uses the exact same description if asked).  This might actually happen a few times (especially if his uncle is a toymaker, thus prompting questions like "How's little Johnny?  Is he still in love with that horse and wagon set I carved for him?", with a load of split and planed lumber from the mill instead of a candlemaker with a load of tallow from the farm.

The scene with the wagon in the woods is a great one from the angle of allowing some neat mechanical fun.  After the first round of worgen are dispatched, the characters can hear more howling from the woods and have to pass some asissted strength tests, to lift the wagon while the man puts on the spare wheel.  If they fail by too much, another round of worgen attack, and they have to start over.  Suceed, and they get it on just in time to see the wolf-men bursting from the trees as they ride away.  The driving rain is an excuse to use the "poor visibility" rules (essentially giving everyone partial concealment), and after the first fight (or a number of rounds into it) the dirt road becomes such a mess that some difficult terrain penalties are in order (maybe take only partial actions or make a dex check to avoid slipping and falling).

[kungfusnwbrdr]

As neat as the worgen are (and they are) I'd be cautious about using something with damage resistance to a metal the characters have no way of carrying around.  It'd be different if Truesilver were something that was normally in the campaign world (and it may be, the way you say it just makes it sound like you've cherry-picked the worgen from the WoW book w/o including anything else).  Of course, depending on what that DR is, it may not be a huge issue. (don't forget that if the WoW book is 3e, DR has been overhauled and might need to be converted)

Yeah, I thought the same myself, however the worgen I plan to use for the first encounter are only dr/5 (the books is for revised third edition) and since most of the player characters have magic weapons I don't think this will be too bad, especially since their CR is only 3 and the average group level is around 9. I might not use the truesilver and just make is silver like a true werewolf, or perhaps part of the scenario will be to locate a source of truesilver to help combat the worgen. Nonetheless having GMed other games before I have no problem tweaking the stats of the creatures to fit the circumstances. Still, I like the idea of some damage reduction for the whole idea of describing how the worgen pulls an  crossbow bolt from its chest as it heals immediatly, or how your longsword blow lands true and slices open the leg of the creatue, only to have it not bleed and begin to heal immediatly.

You might consider that the "curse of forgetfulness" is contagious and have the man inquire about the young girl, argue for a bit, then suddenly conceede.  He scratches the back of his head for a moment, blushing fiercely, "I'm sorry...  I guess.... It slipped my mind.  Sorry to bring up such painful memories."  After that, he "remembers" that she's dead too.  Though, unless the woman specifies how the girl died he can't seem to remember how exactly it happened (maybe the woman goes into an unusual level of detail during the arguement and once the man "remembers" he uses the exact same description if asked).  This might actually happen a few times (especially if his uncle is a toymaker, thus prompting questions like "How's little Johnny?  Is he still in love with that horse and wagon set I carved for him?", with a load of split and planed lumber from the mill instead of a candlemaker with a load of tallow from the farm.

Yet again an excellent idea!    I like the idea of the young man's uncle being a toy maker too, as it provides a really nice motivation to inquire about children. I also like the idea of the forgetfulness being contagious. Perhaps if a character is away from the cursed land long enough they begin to remember, or perhaps if they find some kind of magical charm to protect them they begin to remember too. Hmmm...

The scene with the wagon in the woods is a great one from the angle of allowing some neat mechanical fun.  After the first round of worgen are dispatched, the characters can hear more howling from the woods and have to pass some asissted strength tests, to lift the wagon while the man puts on the spare wheel.  If they fail by too much, another round of worgen attack, and they have to start over.  Suceed, and they get it on just in time to see the wolf-men bursting from the trees as they ride away.  The driving rain is an excuse to use the "poor visibility" rules (essentially giving everyone partial concealment), and after the first fight (or a number of rounds into it) the dirt road becomes such a mess that some difficult terrain penalties are in order (maybe take only partial actions or make a dex check to avoid slipping and falling).

Again, some great suggestions! I really like the idea of helping with assisted strength tests and perhaps some other checks and possibly also getting attacked again too!

[longcoat000]

My two bits (sorry, DarkSun on the brain): If you have the time, make up a flyer for the carnival to pass out to the players, with a large drawing of the carnival (or several attractions) prominently displayed.  If your art skills are good enough, you may want to make up several, each one looking the same as the others except that each is a slight bit darker (thematically) than the one before. 

For example, take the movie In the Mouth of Madness.  When John Trent (Sam Neil's character) first arrives at Hobb's End, he sees a group of happy kids running around playing with a dog.  Later on, he sees the same thing, only the kids expressions have gone from happy to slightly angry, and they seem to be chasing the dog instead of playing with it.  The third time he sees them, their faces look positively demonic and the dog that they're chasing now only has three legs...

If you go with the idea of having the carnival follow the characters from town to town, show them the progressively darker flyers as they visit each town.  Maybe have the flyers reflect changes that have occured in the story.  Maybe the flyer for town A showed a bunch of performers gathered around the ringleader.  The flyer from town B shows the same thing, but hey, doesn't Harold the Chicken-Boy look like little Jimmy who disappeared from town A?  And the flyer from town C is the same as town B, except maybe some of the performers have a slightly more sly look on their faces.  And town D's flyer is the same as C, except maybe the bright colors in the tents are a bit muted or mud spattered, and the performers now have a definite unhealthy look to them.

To really ramp up the mystery, don't let the players keep the flyers unless they purposefully take them from where they were hung.  They'll probably catch on to something being off by the second or third flyer, but won't be able to compare them to anything unless they've thought to take them from previous stops.  And of course, you'll be driving them batty by saying, "I don't know what you're talking about.  They all look the same to me..."

[Rick_TWA]

Yeah, I thought the same myself, however the worgen I plan to use for the first encounter are only dr/5 (the books is for revised third edition) and since most of the player characters have magic weapons I don't think this will be too bad, especially since their CR is only 3 and the average group level is around 9.

Entirely up to you, as long as the mechnical effect you think it'sll have (in this case minor) is right for the challenge rating you want to set.

[kungfusnwbrdr]

Suceed, and they get it on just in time to see the wolf-men bursting from the trees as they ride away.

What about a chase battle? If they succeed in re-attaching the wheel they ride away but some of the worgen chase after them, so the second attack isn't as many as it would have been if they failed the check to help re-attach the wheel, but a couple to provide a bit of drama and excitement...hmmm...have to think about that one for a while.

Anyway, the idea behind all the other evilness going on in this area is that it is a cover for the evil carnival. Basically to make things easier for it the demon curses the land and as a sideffect of this cursing other evil creatures are drawn to it, such as the worgen. This works to the demon's advantage as it takes attention away from them and makes it seem more like the people have simply been foresaken by their god and that an evil has befallen on the land. It has, it just happens to be the carnival's fault...but because of the "curse of forgetfulness" the people tend to not remember when the carnival started visiting the various towns and villages.

I was also thinking of making the demon of the right level to challenge the players, but then making him just slightly more powerful and giving the players a chance to discover his true name. If they do discover his true name and use it during the final battle, some of his power is sapped and he's a little easier. Otherwise he might be overpowered and might kill one or more of the players. This could also cause the players to retreat and rethink their strategy...maybe discover the demon's true name after attempting to face him once.

[Rick_TWA]

I was thinking that (up to a set amount) the worgen would keep coming in groups, as long as they kept failing to repair the cart.  I DO think a chase scene would be awesome, though I'm not sure if there are d20 rules for pushing speed (you'd have to find/make some) but it could make a cool end to the encounter as the worgen try to disable the cart (using the damaging objects rules) while the PCs try to fend them off/escape.  If the worgen suceed in breaking the cart, the PCs have little choice but to hunker down and face them until their numbers are exhausted.

Re: the big demon, I think that you've got a killer idea there too!  However, I've never had much luck with throwing a singular  big enemy at my players, even a few CRs over their heads.  The concentrated firepower of a group of PCs turns most things to mush quickly and if you get the CR high enough that it's gota chance to live, it mulches any individual PC in one swipe.  I found some advice on that phenominon on the wizards site, so I'll pass it on here, especially since you're going to be in an excellent standing to make use of it with all the freaks and performers in the carnival.

[nephlm]

I'm not sure if you were still thinking of having the red herring spell caster, but if you were you might have him trying to protect his turf.  He's exerting effort to keep the carnival at bay and when the players kill him the carnival grows more aggressive (less contained).  While he is alive fighting the carnival the townspeople might have brief moments of clarity, but after his death they quickly ramp up to full zombie mode.

The amplified red herring attacks are his atttempts to reach the carnival.  Perhaps the PCs might learn this and make 'deal with the devil' decisions.  Then there is the battle royal resulting from a last minute betrayal or the inevitable fight, once the mutual enemy is dead.

Just some thoughts.

[kungfusnwbrdr]

My two bits (sorry, DarkSun on the brain): If you have the time, make up a flyer for the carnival to pass out to the players, with a large drawing of the carnival (or several attractions) prominently displayed.  If your art skills are good enough, you may want to make up several, each one looking the same as the others except that each is a slight bit darker (thematically) than the one before. 

For example, take the movie In the Mouth of Madness.  When John Trent (Sam Neil's character) first arrives at Hobb's End, he sees a group of happy kids running around playing with a dog.  Later on, he sees the same thing, only the kids expressions have gone from happy to slightly angry, and they seem to be chasing the dog instead of playing with it.  The third time he sees them, their faces look positively demonic and the dog that they're chasing now only has three legs...

If you go with the idea of having the carnival follow the characters from town to town, show them the progressively darker flyers as they visit each town.  Maybe have the flyers reflect changes that have occured in the story.  Maybe the flyer for town A showed a bunch of performers gathered around the ringleader.  The flyer from town B shows the same thing, but hey, doesn't Harold the Chicken-Boy look like little Jimmy who disappeared from town A?  And the flyer from town C is the same as town B, except maybe some of the performers have a slightly more sly look on their faces.  And town D's flyer is the same as C, except maybe the bright colors in the tents are a bit muted or mud spattered, and the performers now have a definite unhealthy look to them.

To really ramp up the mystery, don't let the players keep the flyers unless they purposefully take them from where they were hung.  They'll probably catch on to something being off by the second or third flyer, but won't be able to compare them to anything unless they've thought to take them from previous stops.  And of course, you'll be driving them batty by saying, "I don't know what you're talking about.  They all look the same to me..."

This is an excellent idea and I may have to try and execute it somehow. I really like the idea of only showing the players the flyer and unless they specifically state they are keeping one don't let them keep it to compare against the others...mwahahahaha! >:-)

I think it's time to do some carnival poster Google searches for artwork ideas. I always liked handouts when I was playing in games. I think it adds just so much more to a game. When I ran a game of Hollow Earth Expedition at KublaCon I made old-fashioned pictures of the various players and NPCs, including some pictures of locales and then handed them out to the players during the game. It really helped to set the tone and paint a picture...they say a picture is worth a thousand words! 

[Rick_TWA]

My two bits (sorry, DarkSun on the brain): If you have the time, make up a flyer for the carnival to pass out to the players, with a large drawing of the carnival (or several attractions) prominently displayed.  If your art skills are good enough, you may want to make up several, each one looking the same as the others except that each is a slight bit darker (thematically) than the one before. 

For example, take the movie In the Mouth of Madness.  When John Trent (Sam Neil's character) first arrives at Hobb's End, he sees a group of happy kids running around playing with a dog.  Later on, he sees the same thing, only the kids expressions have gone from happy to slightly angry, and they seem to be chasing the dog instead of playing with it.  The third time he sees them, their faces look positively demonic and the dog that they're chasing now only has three legs...

If you go with the idea of having the carnival follow the characters from town to town, show them the progressively darker flyers as they visit each town.  Maybe have the flyers reflect changes that have occured in the story.  Maybe the flyer for town A showed a bunch of performers gathered around the ringleader.  The flyer from town B shows the same thing, but hey, doesn't Harold the Chicken-Boy look like little Jimmy who disappeared from town A?  And the flyer from town C is the same as town B, except maybe some of the performers have a slightly more sly look on their faces.  And town D's flyer is the same as C, except maybe the bright colors in the tents are a bit muted or mud spattered, and the performers now have a definite unhealthy look to them.

To really ramp up the mystery, don't let the players keep the flyers unless they purposefully take them from where they were hung.  They'll probably catch on to something being off by the second or third flyer, but won't be able to compare them to anything unless they've thought to take them from previous stops.  And of course, you'll be driving them batty by saying, "I don't know what you're talking about.  They all look the same to me..."

This is an excellent idea and I may have to try and execute it somehow. I really like the idea of only showing the players the flyer and unless they specifically state they are keeping one don't let them keep it to compare against the others...mwahahahaha! >:-)

I think it's time to do some carnival poster Google searches for artwork ideas. I always liked handouts when I was playing in games. I think it adds just so much more to a game. When I ran a game of Hollow Earth Expedition at KublaCon I made old-fashioned pictures of the various players and NPCs, including some pictures of locales and then handed them out to the players during the game. It really helped to set the tone and paint a picture...they say a picture is worth a thousand words! 

After the game is finished, you can frame them separately and give them as gifts to the players, or get them custom framed in sequence first to last and hang it in your game room.

[longcoat000]

Don't forget to post scanned linkage to the pics here as well!  I'm interested in seeing how it works...any chance of doing a campaign journal like drow's Eberron game?

[kungfusnwbrdr]

Sorry for the long post...

I did a lot of thinking over the weekend about the adventure. I'm concerned that while the carnival is the real hook, I don't want to give things away too fast. As the same time, I don't want to feel like I'm leading my players on a wild goose chase. Nothing is more frustrating from the player's side of th GM screen than not being able to make heads or tails of the adventure. Although good adventures should always have some kind of twist, if the players can't even come up with a hypothesis as to what's going on then your plot is too convoluted. I recently played in a game whose plot was a little to convoluted. The original hook was to have us travel to a mage's city to help figure out a powerful artifact we had in our possesion. Unfortunately the person we needed to see had gone missing, however this is where the plot took a turn for the worse. We spent the majority of the adventure going on errands for the head wizard. Along the way very little was revealed about the whereabouts of the wizard we needed to see, and another plot concerning a half-dragon, a necromancer, and attacks on the city took center stage. Then in the end we just happen to discover the missing wizard in suspended animation, and the necromancer that couldn't be found anywhere turned out to be a flesh-golem that was terrorizing the city. The plot was so convoluted that none of the players could really form a good theory as to what was happening. The game also ended in a deus ex machina at the DM's hand, which didn't add to our enjoyment of the adventure.

What I don't want to do is repeat the mistakes that were made in this adventure as I see some similarities between the two. Both have multiple plot lines. In the case of the above mentioned game the hook was the missing wizard, but the actual plot was a pact between the head wizard and the half-dragon and some strange bid to take over the city. To this day we're not even really sure what part the necromancer really played in this...but I digress. In my case the fake hook are the worgen attacks and the curse that has befallen the town and surrounding villages, farms, wilderness. The real hook is the carnival that has been travelling the area, which is actually cover for a demon that eats the souls of innocents, which is the actual source of the curse. The other evilness going on is really more of a side effect, although it is an effective cover.

I have probably the first half of the first session figured out, which is the party coming across the broken down cart of a young man who happens to be an apprentice toy maker at his uncle's toy shop. He is huddled over his uncle, who lays dead. They were attacked by worgen and just as the players begin to help him repair his cart the worgen attack again. After fending off the worgen and making their escape they make their way through a small village on the way to Ravenmoor, the main town in the area. There the young man runs into an woman he knows and asks about her younger sister, to which the woman replies that she's been dead for a while...don't your remember. The players also discover a poster for the carnival here and the young man talks about the missing people and the evil curse that seems to have fallen on them. By the time they reach Ravenwood it is nightfall and the rain continues to fall. An attempt to put the players up at the Hog's Head Inn is meet with failure as the innkeep doesn't allow strangers in during the middle of the night. The young man suggests an alternative. The widow of the town's marshal and her young son live in a large house just outside of town. He takes them there and the woman, somewhat reluctantly, only allows them inside after hearing they saved the young man's life. Here we meet the widow's young son who will be excited to see an actual knight (one of the player character's is a knight and probably the most likely to care about the boy when he goes missing later).

This is about as far as I've gotten. I've decided that the town's marshal has recently died while attempted to find the source of the curse and that he kept a diary that might shed some light on the curse, although it's gone missing. Additionally the town's mayor will ask the players for help upon hearing how they saved the young man the night before. I also have a few ideas for encounters with other evil and creepy creatures.

So my idea here is to make the adventure a series of interconnected "quests" that may at first seem unrelated, but each one unveils a new piece of information about the curse and the carnival. For example, the first "quest" will probably be to deal with the worgen threat, and upon returning from that quest the widow's son will be missing, although the widow will state that he's been dead for a while (although is asked how he died she can't remember). Was it a ghost the players encountered the first night? If the players investigate the cemetery they won't find a grave for the young boy and if they attend the carnival a couple of the players will catch a glimpse of the boy in the crowd. If they follow he will lead them into the tent of the one of the performers who will deny a little boy came in.

So I guess my question is what advice can people give me regarding running a plot like this without confusing my players? Would running a series of interconnected "quests" work?