Birthing Horrors

Got the guide to creating Horrors written today. It took a while, because I want to do a "how-to" guide for each of the elements of adventures: Places, Adversaries, and Treasures; and so the Horrors one has ended up being the template for them. The idea is to give as much practical, concise information as possible to make adventure-building as easy as it can be.

With that in mind, I think it'd be useful to get opinions on it, particularly as regards clarity and language. So here it is; let me know what you think.

BIRTHING HORRORS, A PRACTICAL GUIDE

Horrors do two useful things. They embody the ‘weirdness’ of sword and sorcery, reminding its heroes that the cosmos is wider and more awful than they can ever know, and they provide a serious challenge to people who - let's face it - are used to being the most dangerous thing in the room.

Traditionally, a Horror has one of three origins:-

1. Old: it survives from a previous age of the world, when other laws held sway.
2. Alien: it came to this world from another one: a different planet, or some hell under the skin of our own world.
3. That Which Should Not Be: it is the consequence of a forsaken branch of evolution preserved in some isolated pocket of the world, or a blasphemous mutation of sorcery.

There's no table to roll your Horrors on. They work best when they're tailored to the adventure, and allowed to slither/flap/thunder straight from the nastier corners of your brain. Here's how to build one.

Look back over the adventure so far for things to tie it to. A Place can be a Horror's lair, temple, or hunting ground. An Adversary can be a Horror's master, quarry, or worshipper. A Treasure can be a Horror's binding, possession, or dinner. Decide what sort of threat you want it to embody. Something lurking and sudden? Bellowing, frenzied brute force? Something that armies would break upon? A menace to mind and soul as well as body? The list of Horror qualities might be useful, here. Think of something about it that you find scary. It might be the hideous speed of a great serpent or the way a shadowed thing croons to you in the voice of you first love. Horrors should freak the players out a bit, and that's easier to communicate if it does the same to you.

Now the mechanics. A Horror doesn't have aptitudes. It simply rolls three dice (plus a bonus one if its descriptor applies) in any challenge, unless it has a quality that says different. It does have a descriptor. Make it vivid, and stress the scary thing about it. For added authenticity, garnish liberally with adjectives. Don't be shy. Throw a barrelful at it and see which ones stick.

Next, choose one to three qualities from the list on page XX. Note that some of them can be combined in deeply unpleasant ways (Power, Savage Blows, and Huge, for example). This can be fun in play, but make sure to unleash such beasties first on heroes that haven't used their mortality (or expendable Adversities), so everyone can see what they're up against without anyone being knocked prematurely out of the game.

Finally, choose a weakness for the Horror from those discussed on page XX. This says a lot about it - a tentacular monstrosity that can't leave its pit represents a different challenge to one that is more mobile but can't abide the touch of fire, or one that is blind. Very specific weaknesses (like a specific place or object) will tend to funnel play toward themselves, while more general ones (like being weak in Cunning challenges) are good for mobile Horrors you want to be able to drop into a variety of different scenes in order to increase tension.

There you go. One writhing, appalling monstrosity, ready to be loosed upon the world.