COMBINING HORROR AND FANTASY

COMBINING HORROR AND FANTASY

>how do you do it?
>have you ever done it? did it work out?
>good media examples/ images?

I am aware of "heroes of horror" for 3rd edition and I will re-read that, but I am looking for some more contemporary insights.
Should one restrict classes?
is access to healing and fantastic races going to lessen the effect of the horror-theme?

All supernatural horror it's fantasy
Or what do you mean?

KDM, Soulsborne, Berserk, etc

Obviously it is not reality.

But fantasy means like...FANTASY. You know, D&D. Sword and sorcery. such.

I would like to do horror fantasy someday. A lone skeleton should be spooky enough, walking without muscles and all, and seeing a dragon should affect you like seeing Cthulhu.
Media examples would point to usual suspects like Berserk, Claymore, Souls series and Bloodborne, even Conan has his share of Lovecraftianish stuff, but for me characters would be more victims and survivors than big guys and adventurers.
If you can make wounds and spooks and property damage all go away with magic that is readily accessible to the players and isn't costly, then at some point it doesn't look like horror that much so you probably don't want a Wand of Infinite Resurrections in the PCs' hands.

Fantasy just means supernatural elements.
Any supernatural slasher is a fantasy story.
I mean, if you want to set it in a made-up country with medieval tech you could. I don't see the added value of that though.

Don't use D&D. It cannot into horror properly. It just can't. I'd suggest Mythras/Runequest/BRP since its gritty and lower powered, plus shares a system with CoC

Really though it's a matter of tone and theme. The major thing you want to focus on is powerlessness and lack of knowledge. You never want your players to be able to beat the enemy, or at least not feel like they can without some loses. You also don't want to throw the old canards out like skeletons or vampires or whatever, because its really hard to make them scary instead of just goofy cliches. You want your players to not know what they're up against, what's lurking in the darkness. The night is dark and filled with things you ought not seek out, and you must remind them why humanity huddles around the light

>If you can make wounds and spooks and property damage all go away with magic that is readily accessible to the players and isn't costly, then at some point it doesn't look like horror that much so you probably don't want a Wand of Infinite Resurrections in the PCs' hands.

This is exactly what I am thinking. Even if i am very inspired by Castlevania and Van Helsing for this thing.

Wasn't there some horror-stuff for MTG some time ago? think I saw some pretty cool pictures from it on Veeky Forums last year?

Yeah, a couple sets actually. Innistrad was classic gothic horror and Shadows over Innosrtrad was Bloodborne style gothic-turning-cosmic horror. Also black tends to skew horrory as a general rule

...

right you are

Warhammer's shtick has been to fool players into thinking they're playing not-D&D, and then turn it into Call of Cthulhu.

Some good examples off the top of my head include Berserk and The Night Land. With some slight recontextualizing, Lovecraft can work really well in a fantasy setting to make powerful heroes feel small and week. For examples of that see Demons Souls/Bloodborne.

>bingo
It's a good shtick

Forgot pic

I don't think sword and sorcery stories play well with horror
Swords and sorcery are usually heroic, epic stories in a world larger and crisper than our own
Horror it's about facing the cold hard reality of inevitable death and pain, the monster's here to eat you and there's nothing you can do.

>fool players into thinking they're playing not-D&D, and then turn it into Call of Cthulhu
shit. thats what I do for d&d!

something like a dark monster slayer romp (van helsing style) can work.
or downbright Bram Stokers Dracula if the players are nonmagic.

i have toyed with the idea of having bloodlines instead of races. think that is a good idea?

If you want to scare your players with your games then you gonna have to work on your story telling, more than half of effective story telling its mood and tempo in the description rather than a detailed well build world (don't tell this to the autists) research the theory behind dramatic beats
About the world honestly do what you feel like doing and work with your troupe to fix any mistakes or things you don't like, instead of asking for approval as most people here don't really have friends to play with and only nitpick ideas out of boredom
O think the main problem with mixing horror and sword and sorcery it's that players need to feel vulnerable and impotent in the face of said horror and sword and sorcery it's exactly about facing these things face on with your power
It can work but horror has to come from other sources rather than just dangerous monsters

>COMBINING HORROR AND FANTASY

also forgot my image

What are the monsters in this? The only ones I recognize are the weeping angels.

Throne of Bones by Brian McNaughton is an excellent media example. Everyone interested in the subject should acquire and peruse it immediately.

Bottom left is the Amnesia monster.

I think it's mostly that there are elements of horror in the same corpus of legends and fairy tales that medieval fantasy is built on. Lots of superstitions and folklore, etc.

Beyond just werewolves, vampires, and ghosts though, you can find ripe material for horror in things that weren't originally presented in that way, like the Arthurian Questing Beast.

The problem is that every faggot and his mother thinks he's a big boy who's not afraid of anything and approaches horror media with the intent to not be immersed or scared.
Horror is not just scary stuff. Horror can be a theme or an aesthetic. I don't think anyone would argue that Castlevania is scary, but you'd have to be intentionally dense to argue it doesn't have a horror theme.
Horror and fantasy overlap in a hundred fucking ways
>vampires
>zombies
>ghosts
>mummies
>witches & curses
>demonic possessions
>death cults and elder gods

How does this transpire? Please elaborate, I really want to know. Plus I'm bringing popcorn.

>I don't think sword and sorcery stories play well with horror
>Swords and sorcery are usually heroic, epic stories in a world larger and crisper than our own
>Horror it's about facing the cold hard reality of inevitable death and pain, the monster's here to eat you and there's nothing you can do.

Really? Because when I think of sword and sorcery, I think of Robert E Howard, Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock... who all wrote some pretty bleak stuff with plenty of inevitable doom.

Illithids. It's always illithids. Especially when you think it isn't.

...

I'm no good telling the story, I'm afraid. Specially not in written form.

Hey, remember when we had the "dont rest your head" threads with that crazy (but also crazy-good) GM?

I just play DCC

don't argue with him, he's clearly brain damaged because he believes two very specific themes make up the entirety of a genre

Where can i download it for free? My google fu failed me

try libgen

My nigga
Wayne June (the Darkest Dungeon) narrator also did the audio book for it

mordheim is the horror

>Wayne June (the Darkest Dungeon) narrator also did the audio book for it
Honestly he's the only person I can see pulling off the tone.

No...? I'm familiar with the game, though. Link? Or do you at least remember what the thread title was?

i think he was called Awake...