What's the creepiest "normal" thing to find in a d

[Rucht Lilavivat]

Then I played Thief: The Dark Project. One mission has you infiltrating a manor house to get a valuable sword. The house's lower levels are pretty normal, but as you get higher and higher, the layout changes disturbingly. Corridors twist and change shape and even curve back on themselves like the branches of a tree, and moss covers the walls. One room has floortiles floating over an open star-filled void, and if you slip you end up falling endlessly. One room has a wonderful perspective trick that makes it look like four corridors head off from it, ending in doors. If you actually walk up to any, it is clear that one corridor shrinks and ends in a miniature doorway, while another one grows alarmingly ending in a giant doorway.

I, too, loved that level. I especially remember that part where you had to fire an arrow up into a hallway and climb up into the hallway which you could have normally walked down had it been designed normally.

That level inspired my design for the Vault of Quinn Roche. It made it similarly disturbing and twisted.

I think that the Thief designers outdid themselves with the "Shalebridge Cradle" level in their latest game. That is the single most scariest level I've played on a game yet...and not much came out and attacked you in the level, either.

The one moment that really got me in the Cradle level was this...I turned and saw an tiny little child's chair. But it was facing the corner of the room. I remember that tiny little chair casting a long shadow...which was impossible because it was in the corner of the room. That was the only object in the room.

[ScS of the Fraternity]

Neat detail.

Is there anything creepier than childhood? That great mysterious past that we all experience, but barely remember?
Steven King described his childhood as a misty ladscape, occassionally populated by trees (the kind that reach out and eat you).
Nearly anything related to childhood can be deeply frightening.

For example....

The players are exploring a dungeon, when they enter the next chamber. It is a dark room, but with torches, they can see that the walls are painted blue, white white fluffy clouds painted on the wall. The room is a nursery, with a cradel with a mobile hanging above it. Suddenly the players hear a creaking sound, and realize that there is a rocking chair, with a figure inside it. They cannot see a face, but the cloths look like an old womans, the figure appears to be cradeling a bubdle in its arms. As soon as a player touches it, the whole thing collapses into an empty pile of clothes. Amidst the clothes is a silver rattle.

or...

The players approach a staircase and hear a sound repeating, almost like a hopping creature. Suddenly a ball comes into view, bouncing down the stairs. The ball lands and rolls to the foot of one of the PCs. Down the hall echoes the laught of a small child.

[alhoon]

The players approach a staircase and hear a sound repeating, almost like a hopping creature. Suddenly a ball comes into view, bouncing down the stairs. The ball lands and rolls to the foot of one of the PCs. Down the hall echoes the laught of a small child.

I have used one like this, but it actually was a severed head not a ball.

[The Lesser Evil]

How about the party coming into a large cavern that has the remains of an old ship... miles away from any bodies of water. How it got there is left unexplained.

For something for mundane, how about a cave filled with bats and large amounts of bat guano. I've heard that these things are breeding grounds for many dangerous diseases.

[Dominique]

Neat detail.

Is there anything creepier than childhood? That great mysterious past that we all experience, but barely remember?
Steven King described his childhood as a misty ladscape, occassionally populated by trees (the kind that reach out and eat you).
Nearly anything related to childhood can be deeply frightening.

For example....

The players are exploring a dungeon, when they enter the next chamber. It is a dark room, but with torches, they can see that the walls are painted blue, white white fluffy clouds painted on the wall. The room is a nursery, with a cradel with a mobile hanging above it. Suddenly the players hear a creaking sound, and realize that there is a rocking chair, with a figure inside it. They cannot see a face, but the cloths look like an old womans, the figure appears to be cradeling a bubdle in its arms. As soon as a player touches it, the whole thing collapses into an empty pile of clothes. Amidst the clothes is a silver rattle.

or...

The players approach a staircase and hear a sound repeating, almost like a hopping creature. Suddenly a ball comes into view, bouncing down the stairs. The ball lands and rolls to the foot of one of the PCs. Down the hall echoes the laught of a small child.

BRR! Good ones.

One thing that I did last year when the PCs were stuck in Darkhaaven: After going through room after room of Malken's thugs and some gruesome and horrific "messages" he'd left them (the gnome rogue had seriously ticked him off, and they found several mutilated corpses of gnomes who looked almost exactly like her), they reached a room that contained nothing but locks of human hair. No bodies, no blood, no signs of violence whatsoever, just lock after lock of hair pinned painstakingly to the walls. It disturbed them much more than any of the obvious signs of violence did. Something like that could be very creepy--braids of hair, shoes in a variety of styles and sizes (only one shoe from each pair), or something else that isn't inherently upsetting but reeks of someone collecting trophies.

[ScS of the Fraternity]

Neat. The last two are really good.

The hair is a good one since its pretty gruseome. There can be no doubt what happened to the previous owners. And, since the hair is so neatly collected, it suggests that the killer was able to obtain the hair with ease. It sends the message that the enemy is so good at killing, that he can collect trophies for their own sake.

The shoes has that innoculous theme - for a good while a person would be thinking "Oh, that's weird" and then it hits them - "who did those shoes belong to? What happened to them?" - that has an element of the unknown too, which is extremly powerful.