Stranger Things inspired trek? (*TV show spoilers*)

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Joël of the FoS
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Stranger Things inspired trek? (*TV show spoilers*)

Post by Joël of the FoS »

Just finished season 2, and it was great again. Can't put my mind on the idea I'll be waiting a year for season 3 ;)

If you haven't seen it, and plan to, don't read this post!

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After watching season 1, I thought of an adventure inspired by the show. Season 2 reminded me of it.
But it will be Ravenloft inspired, not Lovecraft inspired, and those who know me for a long time will see I am bringing back an old idea of mine.
And this project can't be a straight copy of ST as many people have seen it!

What is not kept from ST : there is no gate to another dimension, no child with psionic powers, no government conspiracy, no Lovecraft aspects, and no Eggos ;).

So here's my idea :

The creature? Not a lovecraftish creature as the main ST villain, but a bogeyman (or a perhaps a fey). It lures kids to the Upside Down to terrify them and feed from their fears. Only kids can enter the UD. The Creature exists simultaneously in the real world and in the UD.

I like the Demo-Dogs :) concept too, so this Bogeyman creature could be accompanied by twisted wolf-like alien creatures.

What is the Upside Down? The RL concept of oubliette works well with it. Pretty much straight from ST : it is a shadowy realm, a copy of the real world where everything is dark, decayed, dusty. There are hideous black corrupted vines everywhere, strangling objects. Eerie flakes linger in the air.

Since the name Upside Down is linked to the show, I'll probably put another name to it (the Black Mirror? The Reverse? the Other Side?)

The UD location? Part ethereal oubliette, part real world underground tunnels ? Those tunnels were quite cool too.
From an underground source (yet to be defined - an object of corruption? The tomb of a recently dead child?), vines grow underground and create a maze of tunnels. They grow fast in all directions, like 100' a day? The size of their spread in the real world makes the size of the UD oubliette in the ethereal. There are signs in the real world that the corrupted vines are spreading underground (corruption in plants, many small animal life dead or corrupted, water source becomes brackish, explosion of ugly insects, etc.). That investigation is probably how the PCs are first involved in this.

I thought it would be fun if the Creature had to be defeated in the real world as well as the UD at the same time to be completely defeated (meaning the party should be split in two to solve this quest). Otherwise, it is back...

The twist? I bring back my idea of playing children, like in the Little Fears game. Half the players would play their usual PCs, the other half children. The curse of the children is that they can't explain or ask an adult for help, as no adult will believe them (except the PCs in a latter part of the adventure).

The child's part could begin a week before, with the Creature hunting them. Then, as week later, the PCs arrive in town and investigate corruption in the fields.

The child are stuck to enter the UD (as only kids can enter in it) to fight the Creature while the PCs battle the Creature in the real world. But they can be magically boosted or helped by the PCs to do so.

There could be a way for PCs to communicate with the kids while they are in the UD? (yet to be devised - I liked the blinking Xmas light thing from ST)

Ideas to improve this adventure sketch?
"A full set of (game) rules is so massively complicated that the only time they were all bound together in a single volume, they underwent gravitational collapse and became a black hole" (Adams)
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Re: Stranger Things inspired trek? (*TV show spoilers*)

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

Idea one: consequences
How about a lone survivor from the creature's previous hunt, to drop a few clues and maybe help out a little?
Maybe an autistic adult, their mind forever wavering between the here and now and the horrors they remember from childhood, one foot in this world and one in the other. Locked inside their tormented mind is a key fact, needed to defeat the creature -- because they used it to escape the last time this happened.
Or there could be a furious, child-sized Revenant wandering around the other world, initially a source of terror to the children, but only until they learn (partially due to research by the PCs, perhaps?) that this is all that remains of one of the previous victims.


Idea two: community
What made the boogiemen in Dark Tales & Disturbing Legends even scarier than just being what they were, was the fact that they worked together when they felt threatened as a group. Maybe as a sequel idea, consider what'll happen if the creature is defeated. Will other boogiemen descend on the community in force to discover who is responsible for the death of their comrade? Will they pursue the PCs?


Idea three: competition
If the creature has been terrorizing this same community for a while now, what are the odds that someone will have noticed, and believes they have found a way to profit from the boogieman's depredations? An insane necromancer or mad scientist could be in town, looking for a way to funnel the energies of terror the creature evokes to fuel an experiment or a formula to promote longevity for themselves. At any time, the creature and the profiteur could clash violently over the energy, threatening to trash a large part of town and perhaps (if the profiteur wins in the mortal world) prolong the cycle of suffering, as the part of the creature that lives in the oubliette goes dormant before it can be defeated -- or the profiteur could try to stop the PCs from helping the children with their battle to Ensure the energies will flow.

Incidentally, would you run this game here?
Last edited by Rock of the Fraternity on Tue Nov 07, 2017 3:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Stranger Things inspired trek? (*TV show spoilers*)

Post by Joël of the FoS »

Good idea, that locked-out person with important info.

No, thanks, I won't DM a pbp game here, I'm not good at it (all the times I have tried, threads die, this is my curse :cry: ).
"A full set of (game) rules is so massively complicated that the only time they were all bound together in a single volume, they underwent gravitational collapse and became a black hole" (Adams)
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Re: Stranger Things inspired trek? (*TV show spoilers*)

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

I edited in another couple of ideas just now. Have a look. ;)

Aw, shame. I would've liked to play if you had ...
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Re: Stranger Things inspired trek? (*TV show spoilers*)

Post by Joël of the FoS »

Thanks, but if anyone wants to use these, I'd cooperate to develop it, and watch the play with interest.

Good ideas, these three. What if the "autistic" (for a lack of better word) had a strange vision power and could be the link to guide the PCs and the children, as it could see both at the same time?
"A full set of (game) rules is so massively complicated that the only time they were all bound together in a single volume, they underwent gravitational collapse and became a black hole" (Adams)
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Re: Stranger Things inspired trek? (*TV show spoilers*)

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

Like Ethereal Empathy, for instance? A great and underused feat. ;)

Idea four: price
Killing a boogieman is never easy, so have you given thought to how this one might be undone? What if the price is a hefty one, say, a wooden stake soaked in the blood of the innocent, freely given. How far are the PCs and the kids willing to go to put an end to this nightmare?
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