Children and asylum's - Creepy campaign

[seanadams]

Hi all,

I haven’t posted for a while as I have been running my campaign. Its been going really well, we have taken a break to allow another DM to run his game. At the moment there are 3 DMs trying to run games so we are doing them in 3 month intervals.
My game has proven really popular I decided to go with a quantum leap style game where the mists take the characters to different places. To start with I was a bit unsure about this but it went over really well.
I ran the Night of the walking dead and Blood in Moondale (from the book of crypts) modules, both were received really well. Although due to me getting really bad roles during both campaigns the PCs walked through them without too much hassle.
I had to change a few bits in the blood in moondale module as one of my characters was a Shifter from Eberron, he had the scent ability and his favoured enemy were Lycan. So I changed the killer from the Captain (although he did become infected later after an attack) to Cord a cleric from the local church, whom they didn’t meet until later in the game.

The reason I have posted is that I want to do a side mission, that I am writing but im stuck. To me the best thing horror films can have in them to make especially creepy is children and unseen evil forces (that’s why I loved the Paranormal Activity films, blair witch project and older films like the original The Haunting.) But I also love the background of an asylum for a horror setting.
So I thought about combining the two and having a children’s asylum, I have done some research and these did exist below is a link to a picture of an abandoned one in Scotland.



My initial ideas are that the PCs enter a village and they hear rumours about the local asylum and children going missing. If they choose to enter the asylum they are attacked by evil forces, they see ghost children etc. Everything I can think of that will work will attack them. They find information that leads them to believe that the children had been experimented on, but the children went mad and butchered the doctors, they come across some children skeletons I want them to work out that they need to burn the skeletons to destroy the ghosts, but in the end they realise that the evil has permeated the building itself and they need to destroy the asylum completely to lay the spirits to rest.

What do you think about this and any tips or advice on this will be really helpful?

[A G Thing]

Well burning the skeletons could be as easy as getting the PC's to notice that they were experimented on using heat or maybe some sort of flammable substance.

I would consider making the building also have a heart of sorts kind of like that one golem house in the Created book. The other parts are just to let it attack but have this sinkhole of evil be the point where the crimes against the children took place. The central area could be the chamber they experimented on them with.

If the PC's can defeat the children's ghosts you could have it be that the Doctors spirits will let them into the room where the sinkhole is so they can perhaps either allow them to destroy it or to take the PC's bodies or such to continue on.

The children while mad might be the only things that could keep the Ghost doctors contained easily. If the PC's can destroy the Asylum then the Doctors will fade. If you want to have a recurrence of the Doctors you could have the PC's find their corrupt research and show that some of it proved to possibly be going somewhere even though it was evil. Heat based research or chemicals could tempt a Magic user or fellow Psychoanalyst and may also be worth something to someone that a smart Rogue might want to sell it. If they accept such you could have that PC begin to manifest signs of possession or alignment change if they want to use it or become sicker as if dying from heat or poisoning with heat symptoms such as blisters cursing them for trying to profit still.

Hopefully these ideas are good! I really like the concept as it has some slight connections to an adventure I am working on in some regards.

[The Giamarga]

Check out Where Madness Dwells, a d20 adventure set in an asylum, and available for free at Drivethrurpg. (from the free RPG resources thread)

[seanadams]

Thanks for the replies. I'll have a read through Where Madness Dwells, but i really like the concept of the players finding a doctors diary stating his treatment of the children and what experiments he conducted. But I also want to play on the lore that you have to salt and burn the bones of a dead body to release the ghost (you got to love Supernatural).

I am trying to draw the map of the asylum. Its going to have 3 floors a top floor which will have wards/cells for the children, a ground floor will have the offices for the doctors, treatment rooms etc, and a basement level which will have a boiler room, a main treatment room where the doctors did their experimental treatments (the heart of the asylum). Can anyone think of any other rooms I could have or a suggested layout?

Thanks

[A G Thing]

Medical supply room, Chemistry Lab, Isolation Cells, Kitchen, Pantry, Attic, Library...

And depending upon the city CL Bathrooms or a Outhouse, Reception Area...

[Rotipher of the FoS]

As it was a place where children were kept, what about a playroom? The kidnappers might've set one up to keep their research subjects calm, while they did some initial observations before starting the experiments. Or the experiments, themselves, might have involved staged situations that took place in a playroom that's rigged to mess with the kids' heads (e.g. toys that deliver a mild electric shock when touched; wooden toy swords with genuine blades hidden inside, that pop out when the wielder gets angry enough).