The Gaming Den

I've been asked to run a campaign that is 'fucked up.' Specifically, they're looking for something in the high weird/horrific vein, like Legend of the Flame Princess or any of a number of games where enemies have four bums for a face. As the title mentions, I'm going to a classic for inspiration. I feel like any possible spoilers have long since expired, so if you somehow missed playing the game, proceed at your own peril.


So the PCs are memory-implanted homunculi grown from the flesh of a tyrannical caster in order to bypass all the defenses he has that are keyed to 'himself.' That'll be a good reveal. I don't actually plan to do a deconstruction of RPG railroading by having the PCs be mind-controlled, but I do want another personal-horror twist of some sort: suggestions welcome.

The mode is epic, so instead of being confined to a single city, the plot is going to take the PCs across the world doing fate-of-nations stuff. And that lets the horror be turned up in scale, with the midbosses standing in for the mad doctor and deranged artist having kingdoms as their playgrounds instead of city districts. The other part of epic is 'sweep-of-history,' so I need to work up a reasonably detailed world history that will also be in-game relevant to the PCs. Like maybe there's an elf midboss who's really angry about their race's origin-background as mage sextoys.

Now, I don't want the Bioshock influence to be too obvious, so the Little Sister/Big Daddy thing either has to be cut or seriously reskinned. Also, a lot of things that work really well in Rapture have a lot less resonance in fantasyland and will probably get cut/replaced.

I think the Ryan analogue is going to get a full mirror-flip. His (her?) story is that he grows up in a world of aristocratic caster-rulers, and invents the vigor-analogs as a way of bringing magic to the masses and ushering in a populist revolution. And it works, but the vigors are addictive-degenerative, the world starts to fall apart as a result, and his rule becomes increasingly draconian as he struggles to both keep the people safe from themselves and also find a fix for the problem.

Anyway, this is still in the preliminary stages, and I'm looking for other people's perspectives and ideas.

Central to the big brother/little sister frisson is the idea of "good guys i need to kill to advance my personal power". Because the big brothers are clearly good guys in Rapture.

I hadn't thought of it that way. I think I could get a lot of mileage out of an enemy type whose murder was the only source of magic item components or something.

More thoughts:

0. Before the Sorcerer-Lords
I'm not sure if I want to do anything particular with this time-period, but the transition from a world not ruled by casters to one ruled by casters might be interesting. How did they get their powers? Disgusting infernal deal? Ongoing disgusting infernal deal?

1. Reign of the Sorcerer-Lords
So there's a long period which is a lot like our own rule-by-landowners past, except the aristos are better than you because of magic as well as nutrition.
There's some sort of flesh-crafting thing they do (which produces the PCs later on), which is also good for producing multiassfaced opposition. Be nice if I could think up a proper treatment for that.

2. The Revolution
Okay, the revolution needs a revolutionary philosophy and also magic for the masses, and I don't think the same person came up with both. So that's two characters to start with: the philosopher and the inventor. The mass-magic (probably functioning like drinkable wands or something) is so successful at empowering peasants that it's deployed before the side-effects of addiction and degeneration are known. The newly empowered revolution overthrows the sorcerers.
I think something fucked up has to be done with the surviving captured aristos. Harvesting them for power is a bit predictable.

3. Post-Revolution
The various kingdoms are given to high-ranking revolutionaries to govern, theoretically to guide towards some sort of representative system. Practically, the arrangement is popular military dictatorship, and the encroaching massmagic-induced derangement means the rulers become more invested in their personal obsessions than with the orderly transfer of power.
The surviving free aristos and their loyal retainers form an underground counter-revolution, but simply do not have the strength to accomplish much.

4. The Breakdown
The revolutionary military relies on the massmagic for its monopoly of force, and the long-term side effects are becoming undeniable. The citizen-soldiers are becoming less and less stable; only a few have become gibbering-in-the wilderness lunatics, but irrational brutality is on the rise and undermining the legitimacy of the regime.
The counter-revolution sees this weakness and puts its plan into motion immediately, because while it would probably be easier to seize power from a post-collapse situation, they simply aren't very patient.

So, where Bioshock was an unflattering portrayal of neoliberalism, yours will be an unflattering portrayal of classic liberalism? Ballsy.

Eikre wrote:So, where Bioshock was an unflattering portrayal of neoliberalism, yours will be an unflattering portrayal of classic liberalism? Ballsy.

Only insofar as both support poor quality control on their magic juice.

Ryan was a douche whose system was terrible and also failing before the sploicers started going bananas. The leaders of this revolution were mostly genuine humanists and their system might well have transitioned successfully if it hadn't been derailed by mass insanity.

You could pull some ideas from Branden Sandersen's Mistborn, about the Branden Sandersen.

(plot/setting spoilers here)

The God-Emperor's Steel Inquisitors are men who have spikes nailed into their eyes and out the backs of their skulls--like an inch of steel point sticks out the back of their head. They have other spikes in their body--several in the torso and one in the middle of the back. The spikes give them a ton of abilities. They see magnetic resonance instead of colors, but they can basically see your blood flowing and crap. They get the setting's magic powers--ability to amp up senses, boost their physical attributes (they become stronger, tougher, faster), sense magical stuff, push and pull metal, fuck with the emotions of other people, the suite of abilities. They can be made from about anyone, too.

And all it takes is a person's life for each spike--moreoever, the life of someone with the abilities you want the Inquisitor in question to gain. For best effect, it has to be nailed through their heart and into the inquisitor, who will be positioned below them.

The drawbacks is the Emperor keeps them in line with inspiring fanaticism that takes a lot of willpower from the individual in question to break.

TL;DR: You could have magic spikes/other jewelry which grants you great power that turns out to have a lot of cost in lives. And slowly let the players in on this.