Happy Halloween!
I figured it’s been a long time since I’ve wrote anything here just for fun, and since Halloween is my favorite time of year I figured I’d lay down some quick hooks for your seasonal games. Whether you’re planning a one-shot or going to weave some horror into your pre-existing campaign, please enjoy rolling a d10 on the following table for some inspiration!
Quick 1d10 Horror Hooks
- A child in a nearby settlement is said to be possessed, upon investigation it becomes apparent that everyone but the child has been overtaken.
- The sentries of a nearby estate have become sentient and have begun murdering and experimenting on its residents.
- An unearthed obelisk has been brought back to town for study. The sun has not risen since, and strange, unspeakable deaths have become commonplace.
- A member of local government is rumored to never age, and are purportedly found in several paintings dating back centuries.
- A fallen star has crashed into the barrows. Starry eyed, long dead relatives return home and attempt to resume their lives where they left off.
- A small group of feral children is discovered in the nearby wilds, attempting to care for them has proved to be a bloody endeavor for locals.
- A mysterious stranger visits the players and leaves them with a velvet pouch containing an iron idol, said to be the sixth and final horcrux of God from a time beyond time.
- Local children have recently been committing suicide in various ways, after death, they reanimate and walk slowly, indomitably toward the abandoned manor house.
- The local job board contains a high-paying babysitting job for just one night which also happens to take place during an unprecedented astrological event.
- While traveling and passing through a thick, mysterious fog, the party finds themselves lost in a strange place . The lands here are home to cannibals and abominations who stalk them from treetop and cave depths. Grotestque effigies made of humanoid remains scatter the landscape.
Adventurer Alternatives
Also, just in case you’re running a one-shot instead of injecting this stuff straight into your campaign world, here are some starting party origin ideas which should make things more interesting than just generic “adventurers”. Bust out your d6 here and go to town.
1d6 Adventuring Party Hooks
- Paranormal investigators
- A family of deceased spirits returned to life in new bodies for a number of days to complete an unfinished task
- Acolytes of a new faith surrounding a paranormal being
- Con artists, performing unscrupulous seances and rituals
- Travelling performers
- Survivors of the same paranormal event / entity
These are great. Might be interesting to tweak into my Cyberpunk game.