I need tips on running a Dark Fantasy setting...

I need tips on running a Dark Fantasy setting. The world of my campaign has quite a bit of civilization and safety near cities but I want the party to really feel the terror of the world outside of those walls. I want them to know of the dangers that await them, the darkness that waits and to come to know the cruel hearts that both humans and the other races can hold.

Any tips to help promote this atmosphere are highly appreciated.

farmers and small village dwellers are considered reasonably badass(or crazy) by city-dwellers standards because of their willingness to NOT live in a city

Monster Hunters more-so because they actually go out looking for a fight against things that want to kill and eat them

there are cultural rules and practices for encountering dead bodies on the road because in such a world travel is dangerous

bandits are less common and far more competent(or lucky) because a man might think to leave a city to become one and subsequently get eaten by something.

Make the customs of the villages reflect the kind of creatures they face. Lycanthropes? Get inside during the night. Human looking monsters? No one is allowed to wear a hood/hat so all can see the face. Undead? Burn the bodies, salt them, or scatter the remains. Make the fear of these monsters a part of their lives, like said.

Don't forget the physical aspects. If the villages often face attacks have them build palisades, organize a watch, train all men/people to fight at some level. Those villages that can't fend for themselves are beaten back/slaughtered.

You can also portray the mental strain of the dangers on the villagers. Make them cold to strangers (read: people who weren't born in the village). Make them blame people that stand out if bad things happen. Have them do small things that don't do anything but serve as a comfort to the villager anyways.

If you're looking for a start then put the players in immediate danger of the monsters. For example, the group are travelling with a trade caravan to a city. The horses neigh and suddenly the merchants are acting worried. Then bam, werewolves emerge and the caravan speeds away as fast as possible to the city gate that is in sight. Torches become lit on the walls, bells sound, and men are yelling. The trick is to put the werewolves (really any monster, but for example) as a high level danger, something not meant to be beat by the players. It's the guards that emerge that drive the beasts off.

>a small detail.

external features of buildings or building complexes, like curtain walls, watch towers churches, communication relay(pony express) shelters, roadside inns, etc. are all simple and grey and for the most part not ornamented.

who has time to paint or white-wash on the OUTSIDE where the monsters are?
it's a small detail with some psychological effects on the characters/players...

>a couple of common practices

villages and cities use taxed goods to pay for one or more "status runners" individuals capable of running through even dense foliage without stopping for the whole of the distance to any adjacent community and potentially even outrunning minor threats.

it's a dangerous job that exists so that if a single village comes into distress it's neighbors may know and prepare either to defend or to come to the endangered villages aid. it also provides as a means of communication between villages and as a way for census and other data to slowly relay back to capitals.

one way to make money is to travel on empty carts to villages what have been wiped out and salvage whatever can be transported back. laws and customs surround this practice, as well as common practices like (pic related), or burying and holding services(albeit short simple ones) for the dead when they are found predominantly for sanitary reasons.

>Make them cold to strangers (read: people who weren't born in the village). Make them blame people that stand out if bad things happen. Have them do small things that don't do anything but serve as a comfort to the villager anyways.
I might suggest that while they ARE cold bordering on hostile to strangers, amongst themselves they can throw a DAMN FINE party or festival...god help any stranger or hooded figure walking in on such a thing though

Whenever the party comes to a city, be sure to describe the fortifications in detail. Basically stress that any large population center is only so successful because it has double, triple, or even quadruple walls.

Even little manor houses and farms should have palisades. These walls should always be getting rebuilt as they are battered against every night by some unknown thing in the darkness.

Have parents tell their children outlandish warnings about monsters in the woods within hearing distance of the PCs, then have adults tell other adults the same things.

Most importantly:
I think you might have more to work with if the PCs are from some peaceful and happy corner of the world. It gives them more to react to. You can only impress darkness, grittiness, and horror on a player as much as the player wants to (with a few exceptions). It's much easier to put the player in a position where they have something to react to than it is to try and shock them into a reaction on their own.

bump

I would take a look at Innistrad from MTG for some inspiration. The entire plane is basically a horror movie where venturing outside of town is super dangerous.

Bloodborne, as a whole, is very much like this. Any area far away from Iosefka's clinic is a haven for beasts and madness, and the closer you get to the area where a Great Old One resides, the more alien and otherwordly it gets.

The only real exception seems to be the Hunters Dream...or is it?

Away from the clinic, and in the woods, tainted beasts slither and prowl about, mindlessly going about their random routines, heedless of anything nearby. That all changes when they discover you. They lunge, squirm, shamble and shoot at you, some even going through open fire simply to get at you.

No man is spared once the madness takes hold, and it twists the mind and body into shapes grotesque and nonsensical.

The worst part is, the ones who settled in the very place this all happens in knew very well of the things that took up residence before them, and before those were beings so foreign that simply being in their presence altered you.

Even the architecture makes little sense, as windows will be half-covered by sides of buildings next to them, and some buildings almost seem to grow together.

Even inside of the City Walls, it isn't safe. Corruption and greed run rampant in all echelons of society. Crime is commonplace. Judgement is swift, and the punishments agonizing. Police brutality isn't just an everyday occurence, it's necessary for public safety.

Merchant Lords own much of the government, the politicians they don't control are blackmailed and threatened into submission. Secret societies and religious cults with destructive agendas are everywhere, you can't trust anyone, not even yourself.

The church is a shadow of its former self. Millennia ago, the Gods performed many miracles, but have been silent for ages. Now, doubt and decay are beginning to set in. Priests are either athiest, embezzling liars, crippled and driven mad with doubt, or unshakeable fanatics preaching for a crusade against the faithless.

Secretive Mages practice vile and blasphemous experiments in the deepest, darkest places, toying with life and death itself. Their twisted creations lurk unseen, and could strike at any moment.

Tone is everything, use it liberally and constantly.

that is why I used Bloodbornes aesthetic for this

>Any area far away from Iosefka's clinic is a haven for beasts and madness
I have some bad news for you user

Since other people have talked about about thematic elements, I just want to say that it's important to make sure the mechanics back it up. An easy way to kill a setting that's supposed to be dark and terrifying is to make encounters and threats easy for the players to overcome. You should make sure that whatever narrative or thematic elements you incorporate into your settings have mechanical interactions with your players that inform their behavior: hostile environmental features that will chip away at them over time, creatures that will threaten them while they sleep, weather or terrain that imposes additional challenges or disabilities on them.

There are a ton of cool thematic things you can do to promote the atmosphere you want, just make sure to back them up.

Let's not forget that the villagers would be marked physically and psychologically. Phobias of all kind (xenophobia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, nyctophobia...), paranoia, addiction, religious fanatism should be fairly common. Also, many people are injured (huge scars, missing limbs, missing eye, white hair, premature aging...).

I imagine you wouldn't really have "villagers," if life outside the cities is a constant warzone against monsters. You have to be able to guarantee some safety or they'd flock to the cities. Then you'd get massive slums where man preys on their fellow man while the elite watch from their high towers and we all learn a valuable lesson about who the true monsters are etc.

What exactly do these villagers do if they can't leave the walls of the villages

You guys understand why villages exist in the first place, right

That food needs to come from somewhere

You'd have armed battalions tending to farm-fortresses.

What base system would you recommend? And what are your thoughts on using Savage Worlds/Rippers?

a french man claims to have run it very weill in a modded d100 roll-under system.

This sounds fucking awesome. Imagine some kind of circular walled bastion/hill with really dense structures and machinery covering the top, with mortars and pikemen watching the smattering of intensive farms below. Lots of adventure potential in a really isolated/tightly controlled and curfewed 'village'.

How do you justify any agriculture/fishing in such a setting?

Just potato farmers

If anything, I think this setting better justifies fishing. Build a city with a stream or river running through it. You can have easy access to water without having to leave the town, and it can provide a nice source of fish.

You will have to wall off, dam, and bar things in order to ensure lake monsters can't slither in, but it could help offset the need for vast tracts of farmland.

Lazy, highly nutritious fish that stay near the shore due to worse shit in deeper waters.

Also, someone has to make all that rope somehow. Cant run out of rope in a dark fantasy setting.

by simply having farmers start with 4-8 class levels, one farmer cant take a single monster, but a dozen of them with pitchforks probably can with minimal or no casualties.

Better have the entire setting in a fucked up purgatory where people might eat once a few weeks and suffer no ill effects from hunger.

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