The calls are coming from inside the house

>The calls are coming from inside the house

How do I replicate this feel while running a fantasy role-playing game?

Ask a friend to set up a clown statue blatantly visible from your bathroom window. When one of your friends go to take a shit they'll see it. When they come back they will be like "what the hell is up with that clown statue?". At this point you discretely text your outside friend to quickly remove the clown statue.
Deny that you have clown statue. Drag it out as long as you can. Finally lament and go with them to the bathroom window.
Your outside friend will have moved the statue out of sight. Your bathroom buddy will be confused, scared, and possibly even questioning their sanity

>party member(s) hear their name whispered at the end of the dungeon
>detection spells and other such checks imply the owner of the voice is not in immediate vicinity and is using some form of telepathy
>pc can reply but is compelled to do so audibly
>no response for 2 days nor repeats
>same voice whispers again at dusk on third day, once again just says Pc's name
>fourth day asks if pc has dealt with some loose end in their backstory they thought they dealt with
>keep on harassing pc daily, only respond 1/3 times
>introduce npc who tells them they have a ritual that allows scrying the location of any voice's owner they've heard in the last 24 hours once it's annoying and ominous enough they look for help
>ritual requires they are in a location that is sentimentally comfortable or with loved ones
>the ritual reveals the very area the pc is in

Of course don't drag it out if the pc is obviously going to dismiss it and ignore the voice. That's railroading.

One of the people at this very dinner party

IS A MURDERER

>Your bathroom buddy will think you're an asshole playing stupid games with him
ftfy

The monster you are scrying is in this house.

10/10

By setting it up.

>Your bathroom buddy will think you're an asshole playing stupid games with him

They're already playing fantasy roleplaying games user.

>Players come to a local mafia creating a massive scrying/near future ritual.
>They speak with the Don and he explains he's mostly using it to see his greatest competition's condition
>They see one dying on a battlefield somewhere.
>They see another being poisoned.
>They see him, standing over the ritual pit next to the pcs
>In the scry, she comes up behind him and stabs him in the chest.
>Everyone turns around and they see her about to strike
>She tries to kill him anyway, but only gets away with doing lots of damage.
Man, that was a fun moment.

>scratching on the door
>sneak up to check it out
>open door
>nothing outside
>close door
>claw marks on inside of the door

>ring ring
>"Hey it's your god, I need you to go on a quest for me"
>do a bunch of inane shit for your god
>"now that you have done all this shit, you may finally enter my domain. Now I have but one final quest for you, kill me."
>get to god's throne and face off
>manage to beat him
>With his dying breath he says "but why?"
>You say "because you told me to!"
>"What? I didn't tell you to do shit" he says and promptly dies

Then who was phone?

That's where the campaign ends.

GUNSHOT FADE BLACK

I've actually been part of a campaign that was almost this.

We were performing a series of rituals around the world to free the goddess of elves who was apparently imprisoned by her greatest enemy, a demon lord. our party's priestess recently lost her divine magic, so it appeared legit.

we were following the guidance of the alleged spirit of her deceased high-priest to uncover powerful artifacts that contained rare wish spells to unbind the "spiritual shackles" placed upon her via powerful wish spells.
and by "uncover artifacts", I mean "steal them from the vaults of arch-mages" and "plunder sacred burial grounds".

after using two wish spells out of the three needed, I had the notion that it was going way too smooth for us, so I used the third to reveal the true nature of the high-priest.
surprise-surprise! it was the very demon lord who allegedly cursed the goddess, and he used a ritual so that all our wishes had the opposite effects, so we effectively imprisoned the spring goddess of the elves, dooming the elven race to infertility and a slow extinction.

also, as it turned out, our priestess lost her magic due to her living an immoral life and falling from the goddess' graces.

Alternatively
>end session there
>"we'll pick up next week"
>fake death and leave town

I think the feel you want is that moment of horrible realization when the protagonist/s thought they were safe but then suddenly aren't.
>The dungeon... it's ALIVE!
>They're not here for the artifact... they're here for US!
>The dragon... it's waking up!

If you're feeling ambitious, you could try to leave clues and let the players work out the revelation rather than simply telling them at a dramatic moment. The correct way to deliver clues in an RPG is to keep dropping them, making them progressively more obvious, from the earliest point when it would fit for the players to realise what the mystery is (in this case, any point when it's too late for them to do something about it, e.g. when they're already locked into the living dungeon). Once the party realises the horrible truth, you can Schrodinger's Dungeon away all the other clues; the more obvious, superfluous clues simply don't exist within the game. The players get exactly the number of clues it took them to figure out the mystery; too few is confusing and too many is condescending.

This is an extension of that cheap way to stall the adventure you're running for a while if you need a break or just time to prep the next thing. Give the party an ambiguous puzzle and reject every solution until enough time has passed and you want to continue the game. Then act like whatever they come up with at the mark is really clever. You can do the opposite if you don't want to stall your game; ambiguous puzzle, don't make a solution, tell the players how clever they are once they come up with an answer you like.

Ah, cheap tricks for audience manipulation. The cornerstone of any cheap horror film.

If they ever make themselves the enemy of some mighty being have an associate call them from an unknown number and make some thematically appropriate noises and blare a warning to them.

The intellect devourer that the party is hunting has already replaced one of the PCs and is using their stolen memories to put up PERFECT imitation of thee original.

Even the players don't know which one of them is really already dead. They just know that one of them is.

Do as you will with this information.