Using Hook and Chance's "Bones of Horror" to prep Written in Blood
I’m going to be starting a Curse of Strahd campaign with my brother and sister-in-law (who have been playing with me for a while) and my sister and brother-in-law (who will be playing D&D for the first time). Before we dive into Strahd, I want to do a one-shot as a teaching adventure, and to dip our toes into horror as a genre. I have settled on using Written in Blood from Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel - it has a structure that is well suited for a good teaching introduction of the key parts of D&D (roleplay, skill checks, combat, etc.), and has some nice horror themes culminating in a fight against a spooky monster called a “soul shaker” at the end.
Horror is not really my comfort zone - I don’t really like horror media, so don’t read or watch much of it. As I am working on getting ready for this campaign, I have been trying to soak in some advice about running horror games. I haven’t yet had a chance to read Van Ricthen’s Guide or Horrors Within, although I’ve heard good things about the advice in there so it’ll be something I do soon. For Curse of Strahd specifically, I’ve been enjoying the deep dive walk through that the Critical Lit podcast has been doing. Something I did find that was really helpful was a three episode run of the Hook and Chance podcast on the “Bones of Horror”, and I want to try to apply some of those ideas to Written in Blood.
Hook and Chance: The Bones of Horror
I’m going to briefly summarize some of the key ideas that I want to use from the first two episodes (the third episode is also great, but is more focused on players). The first episode (Episode link, Show Notes) is about the structure of horror stories, and draws on the ideas from Ash Law’s The Trajectory of Fear. There are two major ideas that I want to use.
The first idea is that there are three types of horror that you can combine: psychological terror (questioning reality, hallucinations, feelings of confinement), the unnatural (violations of your expectations of natural behavior), and gross out horror. Combining multiple types in layers can help create a more complex and rich feeling of horror.
The second idea is that you want to have a deliberate progression through the 5 Stages of Fear, and that you want to do this slowly enough that there is a buildup of tension. Once you see and confront the monster, the tension is released - so that should likely be towards the end of the adventure. Before then you want to create an atmosphere of horror that points towards the final confrontation through description and events. The 5 Stages are:
- Comfort: this stage is about establishing what normalcy is, so that there is a sharp contrast with the abnormal that is coming
- Unease: this stage is starting to establish the threat through minor and indirect signals that something is wrong and strange
- Dread: at this stage you are giving clear signals that something is “not right”; you are signposting that something bad is nearby - but it hasn’t yet appeared
- Terror: here the audience/players know that something terrible is imminent and tangible, that the climax is coming soon
- Horror: the revelation where you meet the danger head on, and it seems like everything will end in disaster.
The hosts note that this doesn’t need to be a one-way ratchet: a lot of horror stories spend time alternating back and forth between unease and dread to build tension, and to create quieter moments as a contrast with the more intense scenes. Similarly, one can have an initial brief moment of horror, before dialing back to unease and dread to build tension before progressing to the climactic horror scene. Written in Blood seems well suited for this kind of ramp up - there is an initial fight at the festival that pushes into dread before things settle back to unease, and then the tension slowly ramps up again during the journey to the farmhouse where the soul shaker has its lair.
The second episode (Episode link, Show Notes) focuses more on the monster, and how you can incorporate elements of the Five Basic Fears (by Dr. Karl Albrecht, I found two writeups: 1 2). The five fears are:
- Extinction: death and associated ideas - severe illness, heights, darkness
- Mutilation: loss of body parts, infestation (e.g. by insects and vermin)
- Autonomy: loss of control, claustrophobia, debilitating illnesses and infirmity, even social forms of lost autonomy like poverty
- Separation: being alone and isolated, being abandoned, the ending of key relationships
- Ego Death: humiliation and shame, a loss of self-worth - particularly through failing at something central to your identity.
The episode then describes how to add features and abilities to a monster that represent these fears - so that even a regular D&D monster like a bugbear could evoke feelings of horror. For Written in Blood I’m less concerned about adding extra monster abilities, but I want to use these forms of fear to give me some guidance about how the monster will interact with the PCs and NPCs - and to use it as a source of ideas for the three types of horror. Mutilation fits well into gross out horror, while the last three fit into unnatural and psychological horror. I don’t think I’ll do anything specific for extinction other than the usual dangers of combat.
Written in Blood Summary [Spoilers]
The adventure takes place in Godsbreath, a farming community that has a “southern gothic” vibe. The culture of Godsbreath emphasizes community and fellowship, as well as using story and song to remember their shared history. The community is based in the once-rich farmland of the Ribbon, but as the fertility of that land has faded they have pushed out into the more dangerous Rattle - there have also been a number of spooky and deadly incidents. This includes the precipitating incident a number of years ago, where a young man named Culley disappeared and drowned in a haunted lake in front of his friend Kianna. The lake has been spawning crawling claws from its victims, who have now gathered together into a kind of crawling claw rat king called a soul shaker. The soul shaker has a twisted version of Culley’s personality and memories. It is emotionally manipulating Kianna and mind controlling other farmers in order to have more victims to consume.
The party enters the situation by attending a festival in the main community. The PCs can enjoy the food and crafts of the festival and learn a bit about the community - however, the singing of the Awakening Song is interrupted by four mind-controlled farmers attacking the celebration. After pacifying the farmers, the PCs find one clutching a sketch of Culley made by Kianna; they are sent off to check on Kianna (who did not attend the celebration) at her farm in the Rattle - potentially with some accompanying NPCs. Along the way they have various encounters that reveal both the strangeness of the situation (like Kianna acting recently as if Culley is still alive) and the dangers of the Rattle - including being attacked by crawling claws. When they get to the cluster of farmhouses where Kianna lives, the PCs find further spooky signs, mind-controlled farmers and crawling claws. They eventually find a cavern below Kianna’s farmhouse with Kianna and the soul shaker - Kianna is not mind-controlled but has been emotionally manipulated by the soul shaker using her guilt about not being able to save Culley. If the party can defeat the soul shaker, they can free Kianna and the other farmers from its influence.
Applying the Bones of Horror framework
How can we use the horror frameworks from above to amplify the horror foundation that is already present? A natural place to start is considering the three types of horror:
- Psychological horror: The psychological horror is mostly about questioning reality; as written this is primarily happening to Kianna (imagining that she did in fact save Culley), rather than the PCs. However, it would be easy to add some moments on the road to the farm where the players experience some of that reality questioning - especially as a way to dial up the more psychological forms of fear (separation and ego death). The soul shaker talks to the PCs telepathically during the final confrontation, but we could have more subtle “voices in your head” moments on the journey.
- The Unnatural: The main element of the unnatural is the soul shaker mind controlling the farmers. We can make this even creepier by dialing up the “unnatural” behavior - like having the farmers all react in unison. The adventure has a scene where a farmer is being attacked by coyotes (to show the danger of the Rattle) - we could make them stranger. People already find the sounds of real coyotes strange (often describing them like people screaming, crying or laughing) - so I can use that, but maybe they sound like voices familiar to the PCs. We could also describe them as moving in a strange way - maybe flowing almost bonelessly, like the wyrsa in Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar novels.
- Gross out: The main element of gross out horror is the soul shaker itself, as well as the crawling claws. But we could add some more along the way. There are a lot of crawling claws in the adventure, so perhaps before they meet one the PCs find a corpse missing its hands. For extra gross out we could have it that the person’s hands ripped themselves free from their arms before they died (tying into the mutilation fear). And of course, we can add flies and maggots on the body (hitting infestation) - perhaps showing the same color red as the glowing eyes of the mind-controlled farmers to tie it into the malicious influence of the soul shaker.
As I mentioned above, the psychological fears of separation and ego death seem like existing themes in the adventure that we can dial up. For separation, the key elements would be feeling alone and abandoned, like Culley as he was dying. There is some of this in the adventure, where the soul shaker asks the PCs “are you lonely?” and says “be with us forever!” Themes of loneliness and abandonment also juxtapose with the beginning scene of community and fellowship. One scene where we could dial up the fear of separation is when a sinkhole opens up below the party as they are traveling in the Rattle. In the adventure this seems mostly to serve as a reason why an NPC with a wagon who is accompanying the party would need to stop and get her wagon unstuck, and to have some resonance with the events that first created the haunted lake. But we could have this be a moment to hit the feeling of being alone and abandoned. We could tweak the mechanics so that the single PC with the worst DEX save falls into the sinkhole alone, and have some subjective stretching of time so we can stick with the lone PC as they deal with the pool of water in the sinkhole (maybe being pulled down by the crawling claws) where it seems like the other PCs aren’t noticing or coming to help. I think the key thing is to balance hitting the tone of being abandoned enough, while keeping the agency and ability to act for the PC (so it isn’t just a passive cut scene).
The main element of the ego death fear would be humiliation and shame from failing at something important. This is what the soul shaker is using to manipulate Kianna - that she failed to save Culley (and then offering her the comforting delusion that she actually saved him). The adventure has the party find a number of paintings that Kianna made processing Culley’s death - as written it is focused on just creepy vibes, but we could dial up the guilt and shame. Maybe what seems like the brushstrokes for the boy's hair in one of the paintings is “I failed” written in tiny letters over and over. But we could also turn this on the PCs. Perhaps when someone fails at an important roll, they get a feeling like everyone else was watching them fail and seems to react with an expression of “of course
Focusing on a few motifs that recur and develop
When I shared an early draft of this post on the SF Discord, I got some very helpful feedback about the value of focusing in on a smaller set of horror elements that can recur and potentially develop throughout the adventure. Here are the elements I really want to hit on - some from the adventure and some I am adding (but feel resonant with it):
- Red as a color of threat: the adventure has the red glow of the mind controlled farmers, and the red mud symbols on the farm house. So we can use red any time we want to signal the influence of the soul shaker. Perhaps the crawling claws have red traces along the skin, to show the connection with the soul shaker.
- Mind control: One of the key abilities of the mind shaker is its mind control. We’ve already talked about representing this with the glowing eyes and the synchronized movements. The soul shaker is using geas to control the farmers; with it taking 1 minute to cast, it won’t come up in combat. But we can add something combat relevant - like briefly dominating a PC (if they fail a save) so they have to use their reaction to make an attack on an ally. This avoids the feels-bad of longer term mind control, while hopefully still being a scary threat. Additionally, on the way to the farm we can have more subtle influence on the PCs - voices in their head, doing certain behaviors without noticing (e.g. tapping or humming the song I’ll describe below).
- The crawling claws: the soul shaker is made up of crawling claws, and the claws are a repeated threat on the way to and at the farm house. For the gross out horror above we have some additional ways to foreshadow them. We can also add in more signs of the claws tunneling underground next to the body with the missing arms - to foreshadow the sink hole and potentially add an element to the soul shaker’s lair (maybe there are some small tunnels in the walls of the cavern where claws join the fight, or when they defeat the soul shaker a few claws break free and try to escape).
- A foreshadowing song for Culley/the soul shaker: the festival starts with the Awakening Song, and at the end Kianna is trying to keep the soul shaker asleep with a song. So perhaps this is a song that Kianna and Culley sang together as children, and we can use it as a signal of the soul shaker’s influence (like Time Is On My Side in the movie Fallen). One challenge is that some of the early encounters aren’t well suited for singing - so perhaps it starts with a distinctive rhythm that the mind controlled farmers have as they walk (stomp shuffle shuffle stomp). And then later the crawling claws tap it out. Then as the party gets close to the farm an NPC accompanying them might start singing it to themselves without noticing - they can then reveal the source of the song. At other times perhaps one of the PCs finds themselves humming it.
Using the Stages of Fear
The last thing to think through is how to apply the progression through the 5 Stages of Fear to the structure of the adventure.
- The Festival [Normal → Unease → Dread]: The start of the festival is well suited to establish the feelings of “normal” - happy people enjoy community and song. The attack of the mind-controlled farmers is a moment of dread - a clear sign that something horrific is going on. The 5 stages framework suggests we need to add a moment of unease in between this, some signs before the farmers show up that indicate something is going wrong. One sensory element I have in mind, drawing on the southern vibe, is that throughout much of the first half of the adventure the PCs can hear this constant sound of cicadas in the background. In this moment of unease, maybe the cicadas go quiet. Then the sky goes a bit red, and the players hear the shuffle-stomp walk of the mind controlled farmers before they attack the festival (moving in unison).
- Travel to the Farm through the Ribbon and the Rattle [Unease ↔ Dread]: As the party is traveling through the Ribbon I would dial things back to a low level of unease - let the party see that the people working the farms are happy and healthy (if a little lean) despite the failing fertility of the farmland; let them have some nice roleplay moments with their companion NPCs. Then as the party enters the more dangerous Rattle, we can dial up the unease. Even though the crops are healthier here, the people look gaunt and haggard. Perhaps they are more wary, and the farm clusters have visible defenses (which also serve to keep the others in the community out). The animal sounds start to fade away - first bird chirps, and then eventually the cicada chirps stop, leaving just an eerie silence. We can then oscillate between unease and dread as we introduce some of the ideas from above: finding the dead body, the farmer being attacked by the strange coyotes, the psychological manipulations. Being attacked by crawling claws moves us clearly into dread - as a clear sign of an undead threat. Hopefully by this point the red streaks on the claws’ skin will tie things together with the previous warning signs. Just before the claw attack might be a good time for the NPC to start unintentionally singing Culley’s song - the distraction of the conversation that is likely to spark could be why the lone PC can fall into the sinkhole unnoticed for a bit (especially if all the other PCs have started hearing the song in their mind).
- Kianna’s Farm [Terror]: By this point the players should have a clear sense that the threat is somewhere at the farm. The crops have been left rotting in the field, there are marks of the soul shaker in crimson mud all over the abandoned farm houses (reinforcing the “red = threat” color motif). This amps up further at Kianna’s farmhouse: they can find her paintings and eventually more crawling claws and mind-controlled farmers holding knives and sickles - all swaying in unison, and the claws tapping out the song rhythm. Perhaps any creepy visions or whispers in their mind are getting more frequent, as well as starting to hum Culley’s song or hear it in their head. Finding the tunnel to the soul shaker’s lair should feel the confrontation with the monster could happen at any moment.
- Kianna and the Soul Shaker’s Lair [Terror → Horror]: However, we’ve got one last bit of terror to leverage when they find Kianna. We want to give their conversation with her some time to breathe - in order to communicate to the players how strangely she’s acting and the ways the soul shaker is manipulating her. A key element is that Kianna isn’t mind-controlled in the same way as all the other farmers (her eyes don’t glow like theirs) - there is at least some part of her that is going along with this, helping the soul shaker feed on the farmers. This might create some uncertainty in the players about whether she is a victim or another threat (especially since she is holding a knife). The fact that she oscillates between lucidity and delusion can strongly convey her fragile grip on reality (emphasizing the psychological horror). The fact that she is constantly looking towards where the soul shaker is sleeping, and singing the song the PCs have been hearing all along the way to try to keep it asleep, should help keep the tension high in the terror stage until we’re ready to kick it over to horror.
After the final fight, the adventure provides some good elements of a satisfying wrap up. The PCs can tell that Kianna is no longer being affected supernaturally by the soul shaker, but the DM is encouraged to emphasize that this was a harrowing experience that will likely have a lasting impact on her. The mind-controlled farmers are less psychologically affected, having little memory of their ordeal. Even if all the farmers that the PCs encounter have been killed, the adventure has some additional farmers be found in the field, so that there can be a scene of some of the other NPCs in the community welcoming the farmers back and ensuring they are supported - thematically shifting from the soul shaker’s feelings of loneliness and abandonment back to connection and mutual aid.
Final Thoughts
I found this exercise very helpful. As I said above, horror isn’t a genre I normally like or consume much of - so as a DM it feels outside my comfort zone. Having a clear framework both helped me better understand what the adventure was already doing, and see clear places where I can add more to reinforce that. Of course, I’ve got to actually put it in practice at the table, but now I’m feeling more ready to do that!