Title says it all. Say the GM wants to give clues to the PCs that there is an evil cult operating nearby (i.e., within 10 miles, or in town, etc.). Especially clues leading to a cult that tries to remain discreet/secret. I will begin:
01. People have been heard invoking in an unknown language, at night in the forest, while strange green lights were seen floating around. A couple of days afterward, a poacher who used to operate in the forest was found ritually murdered, his body bound to a dead tree trunk.
02. A chapel (dedicated to some honorable, official religion) was found desecrated, with satanic inscriptions and occult symbols written on the walls, and the deity's statue has been destroyed and covered in excrement.
03. The mayor (or any other rather well known local figure) has become somewhat different lately, being more aggressive, forbidding people to lurk near the circle of standing stones, and sometimes disappearing and never giving any explanation. He is also now always wearing a scarf around the neck in any situation. Someone pretends he once noticed a mark (like a tattoo) on his skin under the scarf.
Even if you just want to submit a variant of something already proposed, do it! :)
04. There's a site just outside of town where a cranky old hermit lives, goes by the name of the Pundit. Best keep away from him if I was you.
5. Welcoming committees, often with trays of pastry desserts to weaken resolve to their inevitable potluck invitations. Monstrous.
6. Arriving in town, everyone seems to turn to watch your car, or procession, then turn away as you face them.
7. Since arriving, one of the group's members has been plagued by horrible dreams of shadows dancing around a fire.
8. There is no fresh milk.
9. Birds do not sign in town.
10. Tap water tastes like eggs (or sulfur).
Quote from: Certified;89049010. Tap water tastes like sulfur.
uh... funfact: Some natural wells have a distinctive sulphur smell and taste. I spent a week at a nature camp one year and that was the case.
Back on topic.
er, whatever number we are at... +1: Groups wearing strange costumes. Possibly in broad daylight, more likely at night. May be carrying oddly shaped weapons.
er, whatever number we are at... +2: Lightning strikes at night all on one particular hill outside town.
er, whatever number we are at... +3: The local church or equivalent recently "mysteriously" burned down, or the priest or equivalent recently "moved away." and/or both.
er, whatever number we are at... +4: Meetings in town with someone proclaiming the coming of the "New Masters/Great Revelation/Bitchin Orgy"
er, whatever number we are at... +5 Vorpal: Four kids and their dog arrive in their van or caravan home.
(Redundant numbers won't be detrimental to the thread.)
11. Some houses have got a sign carved on a stone/brick/plank but always in a discreet location out of sight. This is neither a known (un)holy symbol, nor a rune or esoteric sign. The houses' inhabitants will pretend they didn't know about them, and didn't inscribe them. There is someone that once said he had seen some of the people living in such houses, discreetly meeting in a seedy tavern. However, this witness since then said it was a mistake, and he has preferred to stay at home lately.
12. An hermit settled in an abandoned chapel on the hill last year. Apparently some villagers have been seen paying him a visit at times. When asked they told they were just curious and went to make sure this wasn't a vagabond or bandit, or some other like-response. However, several of these people seem to have become somewhat vindictive (at least verbally), now making angry and disparaging comments about the authorities, clergy, and nobles who "exploit the population."
13: Everyone seems to end interactions with "May Drayzel's blessings be upon you and your children." The blessing seems rehearsed and nervously delivered.
14: Every door has a chicken's foot nailed in the frame. All the chicken feet point in the same direction.
15. A gypsy caravan's wagons are found just outside town, deserted, but all of their belongings have been left behind, except things made of (insert substance here).
16. the majority of NPCs are smiling. For no apparent reason.
17. All black or all white animals are found dead, with their throats cut, drained of blood, or dismembered.
Quote from: JesterRaiin;89050616. the majority of NPCs are smiling. For no apparent reason.
Oh, this just begs for this follow-up:
X. The NPCs are dressed poorly.
X+1. All food tastes ill seasoned and badly cooked or baked.
X+2. All food offered are bread and vegetables.
X+3. All NPCs take part directly or indirectly in the mandatory parade.
Quote from: JesterRaiin;89050616. the majority of NPCs are smiling. For no apparent reason.
joy to you friend (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao9Wxov9lQM)
it is the will of landru (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tw_8EDmP9I)
you are not of the body (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTUkzJbzdqU)
17. All the birds are dead.
Oh wait, that's a meth lab.
17a. Tertiary syphilitic face rot:
(http://ihazabucket.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/pesti01.jpg)
18a. There are no children below the age of 10
18b. There is nobody over the age of 50.
18c. There are no females over the age of 40.
(quite a few variants)
19. Chanting.
20. A magical ill wind moves about the town at night, causing fear.
21. Priests and nuns begin to levitate upside down, arms outstretched whenever they are in a room alone, but they cannot move or scream.
22. Gangs of possessed children begin to murder easy targets (homeless, old ladies, the disabled) throughout the town. Kids awaken, covered in blood, but without memory.
23. A wind brings the sickly sweet smell of rotting flesh like a charnel house.
22. Barmaids start doing naked dances in the inn.
23. That giant figure in the town square made of wicker...
24. Children in a playground, playing hopscotch & jump rope, singing cheerful nursery rhymes. (I guess you could make the rhyme lyrics creepy, but the scene is terrifying enough. :eek:)
25. All the locals wear a uniform.
26. All those of a given gender have the same hair style (including facial hair). Bonus: same hairstyle for both genders.
27. Even casual conversations include the invocation of supernatural beings.
28. In both private and group rituals, members of the community call upon magical creatures to perform their will.
29. Books in every home, works of history, philosophy, law, poetry and cosmology, exhorting the worshiper to accept their words as true or be damned to eternal torment.
30. Members of the community will attempt to kill nonbelievers.
Quote from: Catelf;890520Oh, this just begs for this follow-up:
Quote from: kosmos1214;890533joy to you friend
(https://s23.postimg.org/jjgm8f8a3/horror.jpg)
31.
STRANGERS... DESDEMONA... WOULD LIKE... TO MEET YOU... NOW... IT'S URGENT...
Heh, for openers, I'll recycle bits from far older posts of mine, in different places ...
46) There's a stereotypical country store (fitting into the milieu), with four elderly men sitting on the porch, smoking pipes. But they don't talk. They never talk, except when directly addressed, and then only curtly and briefly. They are always there, from just after sunup to just before sundown, they always sit on the porch in the exact same order, and they just stare at the street traffic ... including one who's plainly blind, with a cane, but staring anyway. Puffing silently.
47) There are no pets. Anywhere. No dogs, no cats, no parakeets. There is evidence of pets - the occasional dog house, the bird cage in Mrs. McGarry's window, the bin of rabbit food in the feed store - but no critters. Except by nightfall, one can hear the occasional cat yowl or dog bark ... but never see any. If the PCs bring a pet with them, it will go bonkers the moment it breaks the town line, berserk and doing its level and continual best to Get Away.
48) The perky young sales clerk behind the counter of the five and dime is a different one every day. She's friendly, wholesome-pretty, hourglass-figure, is always a cheerleader at the local high school, always an orphan (living with an uncle and aunt) and always a parishioner at the Congregational church over on the corner of West and Bridge Street ... and looks blank and confused if asked who was clerking there the day before.
49) Speaking of Bridge Street ... the bridge crosses the Mill River, where the old abandoned furniture mill is, right up against the mountain. No one ever goes there, and no one in town will talk about it except to reaffirm that everyone stays away. The local police will drive across the bridge once per shift, do a donut, and come right back across, losing no time to do so.
50) There's a modest town green, with a band gazebo, an old war monument, a public drinking fountain built a century ago ... and a weathered sandstone menhir entirely jarring and out of place amidst the 19th century granite and decor. On the menhir is a bright yellow ceramic 1950s style bowl. Broken. It's always there, no one will talk about it, and the villagers will gasp in horrified consternation if anyone touches it. Even so, they'll plaster strained smiles on their faces, won't talk about it, and try desperately to change the subject.
51) Every 66th day, the high school sports teams change IDs. In December it was the Red Raiders; now it's the Lakers. Completely new name, completely new uniforms, completely new mascots, for all the school's teams. Booster club jackets will suddenly change to conform. It will be as if there never was a difference. The town's weekly newspaper will have sections clipped out of the back issues at the library which would indicate the old names ... or they'll be replaced.
52) Something you tell one person seems to spread to the rest of the town instantly. Mention on your first trip into the town to the waitress at the diner as you're paying your tab that you're a writer for the Patriot Ledger, when you cross the street to get a pack of smokes at the corner store, the proprietor affably says, "My, bein' a reporter must be an excitin' job, eh, sir? I keep reading of all them criminals in your paper!"
53) At six minutes past 7:00 pm every day, all the residents above the age of ten, all at once, break into a couple of verses of a song popular on the charts ten years before. It is a different song every day (and a very discerning and musically apt PC will realize that the first initial of the song title the first day is "H," the second "G", the third "F", slated to count backwards to "A" during their stay), and no one sings for longer than about fifty seconds. If asked why they do it, the PCs will get answers ranging from "We just like it" to "This is just something we all do."
54) All the televisions in town, be they old-fashioned analog sets with dials or digital jobs with remotes, lack Channel 2; they all start at "3." The only exceptions are three sets, all with navy blue cases; one in Town Hall, one in the Congregational Church basement used for social hour, one in the local barber's shop. In every case, the PCs will be told the sets are broken, and they will be prevented from examining them, physically if necessary, violently if it comes to it.
55) There's some relatively common plant (dandelions, say) which grows right up to, but not into the town; the break is sharp enough to accurately demarcate the town line. Locals will shrug and respond " 'Tain't never tried, mister," or "Plant some your own self, if you've a mind," or some such; in any event, they're blandly incurious.
56) There's a popular vanished brand of consumer goods in town, one no longer extant in the real world. The men use Hai Karate aftershave, ailing children are dosed with Peruna, the local auto dealership proudly peddles 2016 model Packards and Nashes, the grocery store has Lucky Strike Green on sale and the breakfast cereal aisle has boxes of Quisp and Quake. The brand is plainly up to date, the product is new and sound, and the labeling carries all appropriate current dates, up to and including bar codes even for products that vanished decades before such things were mandatory. The locals react to questions about the same way you would if a stranger dashed up to you and blurted out "OMG you're drinking PEPSI, where did you get that??" If pressed, a salesman will say "well, mister, they come on the delivery truck every week with all the other new stuff."
57) Alternately, you could have a normal product with noticeable difference from standard brands: a cola drink with a hint of orange, a cigarette brand with a whiff of jasmine, a box of corn flakes where the color of the flakes is light green.
58) There aren't any local maps. Anywhere. Markets don't sell any, the police and firemen shrug and claim they don't need them, the clerk at the assessor's office sighs heavily and admits she spilled a coffee cup on hers last week, and they're still waiting for a new one from the printer's. Word is that you can scavenge one from the library, but it was printed in 1851 ...
59) When you walk into the five-and-dime, the store's playing musak - but the instant you walk in, the musak is stereotypical horror movie incidental music: cellos playing a loud DUM DUM DAAAAHHHH, oboes in minor keys, a quick violin pizzicato. After a short tympani roll, the horror theme music stops, and bland cheerful bubblegum pop incidentals more typical of such places resume. The aforementioned perky young clerk, if asked about it, says "Yes ma'am, I sure heard that. Last time they played music like that was, gosh, the day there was the accident at the sawmill."
60) The town's cemeteries prominently display war dead, whether through notable monuments, sections where Revolutionary War (WWI, Great Patriotic War, the Boer War, etc.) dead are clustered, wars noted on headstones. Plainly the town is heavy on military service - the aforementioned monuments list a few dozen names apiece - but one notable war is conspicuously and inexplicably absent. An American village will have a Civil War monument and a Vietnam War monument, but no WWII monument and no sign of WWII casualties or involvement, for example.
Quote from: Ravenswing;890590
52) Something you tell one person seems to spread to the rest of the town instantly. Mention on your first trip into the town to the waitress at the diner as you're paying your tab that you're a writer for the Patriot Ledger, when you cross the street to get a pack of smokes at the corner store, the proprietor affably says, "My, bein' a reporter must be an excitin' job, eh, sir? I keep reading of all them criminals in your paper!"
I admit, my first idea would be that the GM is simply metagaming, possibly without noticing:D!
61) There's a universally known historical fact or event that the town gets badly or weirdly wrong:
Oldtimer: Why, it's true, ma'am. Clark County only rejoined the Union in 1955. Big flap about it up around the county seat back in the day when them reporter fellas found out it'd been exempted from Reconstruction, yes'm ...
Bewildered PC: (interrupting) ... err, but, sir, this is Iowa - the state never seceded in the first place!
Oldtimer: (furrowing his whitened brow) Ma'am, I don't know rightly what to tell you. We never had much t'do with the lawyer fellas up to Des Moines. (takes a puff from his pipe) Anyway when the reporter fellas up at the county seat found out the county'd seceded in 1866, why they ...
62) The shabby Congregational church the PCs investigate (or the town clerk's office, or the Chamber of Commerce, etc ...) has two completely contradictory pieces of computer equipment up and running: a top-of-the-line Gateway FX quad core overclocked gaming PC and a WiFi hookup with a 25 year old Panasonic KP dot matrix printer. The clerk sees nothing amiss in this, claiming that she doesn't know much about these computer things, or where the wireless router might be ...
63) March only has 30 days. Every calendar in town says so, every reference book backs that up, and somehow all TV, radio, cell and transmission reception starts going on the fritz on the afternoon of the 30th ...
64) No one in town wears blue. No article of clothing has a scrap of the color in it, or wears any logo that would. Where such would be expected -- police uniforms, the uniform of the national military, standard clerical vestments -- they're a startling color like lime green or hot pink. (Inexplicably, "blue jeans" are still called that, even if they're scarlet or mauve.)
That aside, blue is used in common decor, draperies, paint, wallpaper and everywhere else about as often as it would be in anywhere else.
65) Any items made of silver or silver-plated that the characters bring with them start to tarnish, and tarnish unnaturally fast. Items that leave the PCs' possession cease to do so.
66) One of the town's two cemeteries is decommissioned now; graves started petering out in it after WWI, and dates on headstones thereafter became quickly and increasingly sparse. The second to the last date is 1955 ... but there is one single headstone, not in any unusual spot or sequestered at all from the other graves. According to the headstone, the person there died the day before his or her 100th birthday ... and though the date of death is 1986, no grass grows on the gravemound.
67) Cars are visibly around, about as many as the locale would normally support. Locals can be seen cheerfully washing and waxing them, they are in carports, driveways and on sidewalks as appropriate, and Slim down at Slim's Garage gives you a friendly wave before going back into the SUV's engine to finish the tuneup. Cars all see reasonable signs of use: baby seats set up, a styrofoam coffee cup in the holder, books and papers in the backseat, mud or frost in appropriate seasons. Yet no one is ever seen by the PCs to drive one, and none are ever visibly on the roads, although the town's one traffic light changes at appropriate intervals. The PCs can also hear appropriate car sounds ... horns outside their hotel window, the sound of an engine revving around the corner ... but they will never see one in motion, and should they dash to investigate, the most they'll ever see is someone getting out of a newly parked vehicle.
Should the PCs stake out a spot where they know a car should arrive soon - that friendly couple Dave and Karen, say, with Dave due home from work in a few minutes - either Karen will get a phone call from Dave apologizing, but his sister's not feeling well and he's going to run over her groceries, or Dave's silhouette will suddenly appear through the window, and he'll reply blandly that sure, he just got home from work, why there's his car in the garage right there.
The locals will universally assert that they do, indeed, drive, that deliveries are made, that the bus comes through twice a day to the city ... although they never will say "Look, there goes one now." They will react much the same way as you would if some nutcase came up to you and insisted that no cars ever drive by in your own hometown.
68) After school, every afternoon at the same hour, a bunch of kids are in the junior high's schoolyard, playing duelist with boffer weapons. One kid is plainly superior to the others, winning every fight, even against odds. The next day, that kid is still out there; all the other kids are different. The next day the same, and the next one after that ...
If that kid is ever to lose (either through PC interference or some other machination) the new winner is there the next day, all the kids are different, and the cycle begins anew. On that first day, the old champion stands at the edge of the schoolyard, looking on with bleak, redrimmed eyes, his fingers wound like grasping claws into the chain link fence. If approached, he'll run like the clappers. In any event, the PCs will never see him again.
69) There is no evidence anyone in the town has sex. No publications mention it, no children are seen, no products are sold pertaining to it at all (condoms, child care stuff).
70) Whenever you're alone, you start hearing a faint whisper at the edge of your consciosness. It's asking you about your family...but never when even a single local is within 15 meters (50 feet for you:D).
And it almost seems like the locals are trying to never leave you alone.
71) The only mirrors in the city are silver ones. All glass mirrors immediately break when you pass an invisible line around the city.
And if you look in another reflexive surface? Why, it almost doesn't look like it's you. Or at least, you'd swear you ain't got horns, fangs or tentacles.
72) Whenever you drop loose change, it tries to create a form. The form is, with enough change, that of an exquisite arrow pointing towards the old church in the city's centre;).
Eh, got a couple more than could fit ...
73) The local weekly newspaper is a county-wide paper, supposedly printed at the county seat ... but it doesn't actually exist outside of town, and the address on the colophon is on a street that was redeveloped into a ten-acre wide shopping mall (the clerk at the county Registry of Deeds snorts and says "Heh, Oliver Street's about where ladies' lingerie is at Steiger's now, pal") decades ago. Nevertheless, the local library has musty old issues dating back forty years or more ... and, doubly creepily, the paper's "Town Talk" section has ongoing columns and articles for at least three other towns that don't exist, but for which locals can be found to claim to have relatives living "up that way."
74) No family name in the town's two graveyards seems to have any living relatives in the town now; even townsfolk who claim their families have lived there for generations have no one buried there. If asked, they will say "Oh, Grandpa Leach was buried up around Ballardsville" or some such other location, but even if a PC goes to the Ballardsville cemetery to investigate, no such grave is found ...
From stuff I saw when a strange religious group came to my home town when I was a kid:
* All of a sudden there are a lot of women you've never noticed before walking around town. You never see them drive. They all wear flowers in their long straight hair and wear long plain dresses.
* These women congregate at the old Catholic church which was recently purchased. All visible religious symbols are taken down.
* Once a week at the old church there is a huge yard sale that always seems to feature a lot of childrens clothing and toys, despite none of the new women ever being seen with children.
* The new women are pleasant in casual meeting but all conversation with them is short and direct to purpose. Otherwise they keep to themselves and are often seen in small groups speaking in hushed voices.
* One day construction equipment arrives at the old church and tear it down, then erect an oddly shaped new structure that is raised off the ground on large columns. A couple of the construction workers (all from the next town over) mention the new structure is supposedly designed to be, "bomb proof" and has "a weird layout inside."
* A number of businesses in town close down and then re-open to different purpose... such as the theater stops showing movies but starts hosting events that only the 'new women' attend... the bookstore closes for a week and then reopens but now only sells 'inspirational' books by some prolific author no one has heard of.
75. Locals ask every new arrival about family, friends, business associates... but what they really seem to be after is whether anyone knows you're here, or will miss you if you disappear.
76. Everyone knows a single first level spell. All the same spell, and no spellbooks or holy symbols in sight. Adults know not to show off right away, but even some of the children know it.
77. Parents call their children in well before sundown, and everyone bars their doors heavily before the sun touches the horizon. Best get your business done before dusk, because no one is going to open their doors for anything from heavy pounding to screaming for help after that.
78. Children's games of tag or hide and seek seem weirdly serious. The one child left as "it" at the end is hysterical about losing.
79. Their potlucks feature an abundance of elaborate aspics and gelatin salads. :jaw-dropping:
(https://servingsplatter.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/fish1.jpg)
I ran an idyllic valley once in a post apocalyptic campaign. The players made there way in and found well tended fields, an effective militia, excessively friendly locals, and a strictly maintained curfew. They freaked the fuck out and wouldn't even stay in the town.
Happy days.
80. In other words, rather than specific clues, you might do better by making the local area tonally strange and unsettling (even if it's nicer than they expect). Then let the players' own fevered imaginations do the worst: "What do you mean I can stay here for free and they're offering me apple brandy? Don't they know what the world is like out there? What kind of evil is going on here!"
Quote from: Majus;890634I ran an idyllic valley once in a post apocalyptic campaign. The players made there way in and found well tended fields, an effective militia, excessively friendly locals, and a strictly maintained curfew. They freaked the fuck out and wouldn't even stay in the town.
Happy days.
80. In other words, rather than specific clues, you might do better by making the local area tonally strange and unsettling (even if it's nicer than they expect). Then let the players' own fevered imaginations do the worst: "What do you mean I can stay here for free and they're offering me apple brandy? Don't they know what the world is like out there? What kind of evil is going on here!"
There are times that a reputation as a GM can really work to your advantage. I'd mentioned the Arduin Grimoire monster "Kill Kittens" once to some of my players, and a couple months down the road, one of my groups encountered a crying kitten in the wilderness. My cat-loving foster sister immediately went apeshit, screaming "Kill it! Kill it!" with the other players wondering if she'd slipped her trolley ...
81. the sounds of loud orgys in the church every night after sun down
Quote from: kosmos1214;89077881. the sounds of loud orgys in the church every night after sun down
Nah, that's pretty much par for the course, if we believe history books:D!
82. Strange plants grow in certain areas nearby
83. Locals buy a lot of odd things from the markets and don't buy what you would expect
84. Old Folk Tales from the area have wizards and witches with the same family names as modern locals
85. There is a Temple to on the top of that there hill
Quote from: DavetheLost;89056222. Barmaids start doing naked dances in the inn.
23. That giant figure in the town square made of wicker...
You bastard! :rotfl:
86) No one knows much of anything -they're playing dumb for some reason.
87) They are annoyingly friendly and polite, but with a hint of insincerity.
Quote from: Ravenswing;89059052) Something you tell one person seems to spread to the rest of the town instantly. Mention on your first trip into the town to the waitress at the diner as you're paying your tab that you're a writer for the Patriot Ledger, when you cross the street to get a pack of smokes at the corner store, the proprietor affably says, "My, bein' a reporter must be an excitin' job, eh, sir? I keep reading of all them criminals in your paper!"
I thought that happened in every small town/village.
88. The TV set is permanently set to Fox News.
89. The radio is permanently set to Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly/Sean Hannity/Etc.
90. Everyone is wearing "Make America Great Again" hats and shirts.
Quote from: Doughdee222;89100688. The TV set is permanently set to Fox News.
89. The radio is permanently set to Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly/Sean Hannity/Etc.
90. Everyone is wearing "Make America Great Again" hats and shirts.
(https://33.media.tumblr.com/2274c4408b36556f9cb8fdd481b0a052/tumblr_inline_nef8wjgxpk1s460h4.jpg)
Quote from: Doughdee222;89100688. The TV set is permanently set to Fox News.
89. The radio is permanently set to Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly/Sean Hannity/Etc.
90. Everyone is wearing "Make America Great Again" hats and shirts.
Pretty much describes the town I live in.
Quote from: Ravenswing;89059156) There's a popular vanished brand of consumer goods in town, one no longer extant in the real world.
This is brilliant. Thank you for the many great ideas here!!
Quote from: Spinachcat;891129This is brilliant. Thank you for the many great ideas here!!
Why thank you! It's from a long-ago list on "small-town horror" items, but it occurred to me that almost all of them could be a hallmark of -- or else be attributable to the doings of -- an Evil Cult.
Quote from: AsenRG;890867Nah, that's pretty much par for the course, if we believe history books:D!
on the church lawn then :P
Quote from: kosmos1214;891322on the church lawn then :P
In a fantasy setting? If they are neither lynched nor slain arrested by local law enforcement, you know everybody is on their side and should get lost:).
In a modern setting, this might not mean anything sinister;).
This was a great thread!
Hrm. Never did get to a full 101.
91. Handmade missing child flyers stapled to trees. They read "if you find my girl, please leave town. Do not call the police." Any inquiry into this results in townsfolk dismissing it as an annual teen prank.
92. The public areas of town are pristine...except for the churches which are all abandoned, overgrown with weeds, dead leaves, obviously unused and not visited for decades.
93. Why is everyone in town wearing a name tag? A closer look reveals there are innocuous symbols (like dots, stars, lines, etc) on the tags and some people have more symbols than others...and appear to receive more deference from the other townsfolk.
94. Here's one for a big city: a cannibal cult has taken over a local mortuary. They skin the dead, eat the meaty bits and drape the skin over manikins for the funerals. They spread their faith through a local diner. As people eat at the diner, they develop their own love for man flesh and it results in a rash of cannibalistic murders randomly around the city with no apparent ties.
Quote from: Spinachcat;89336191. Handmade missing child flyers stapled to trees. They read "if you find my girl, please leave town. Do not call the police." Any inquiry into this results in townsfolk dismissing it as an annual teen prank.
Whoa, that's beautiful.
Anyway ...
95 . Every so often, radio frequencies are broken into by a slurred male voice. The transmissions are brief, rambling, barely comprehensible, and sound as if the speaker is loopy or high. Regardless of the content, they always end with "We are the Underground. Pray for our brothers. Chant for them. Unnnnnderrrrrr ... unnnnnderrrrr ... undddderrrrr ..."
(This actually happened one night when I was driving in Plymouth in the 70s; WBZ's feed was broken into with this.)
96. The local butcher is a really affable fellow, and he sells the best meat you've ever eaten. So good you just can't get enough of it. Really can't get enough of it.
(http://www.lunacynet.com/league/images/s1_hilary.jpg)
Quote from: Rincewind1;89348896. The local butcher is a really affable fellow, and he sells the best meat you've ever eaten. So good you just can't get enough of it. Really can't get enough of it.
Soylent Green is HOBBITS!!!
97. You hear chants whenever you lie down to sleep. The chants stop when you get up to check the roof, from where they seem to be coming.
98. A man accuses the PCs of having abused him for years. After they assure him they weren't born back then, he gets extremely agitated. As soon as he (mentions rituals and) grows agitated, the locals take him away. The next day, they see him by accident - he's the barber, but he doesn't seem to remember them.
99. You see a kid staring at a pile of roleplaying books on the ground in front of her. She wants to read them, but doesn't dare to open them, because the pastor warned them that the monsters will come out and eat the kids that dare read them. She objects to the PCs trying to open them for her, saying other girls had disappeared after she loaned them "Vampire: the Bloodsucking", the anniversary V30 edition.
100. People react... strangely, when you say specific word (s). For example, "Jesus", "police", or "women".
Quote from: JesterRaiin;893559100. People react... strangely, when you say specific word (s). For example, "Jesus", "police", or "women".
I can think of real world places like that:).
101. A big white dog with black spots seems to be following you everywhere. Nobody else seems to see it, nor hear its wailing;).
102. The PC's have to turn in their 6 shooter/swords and shields while in town, but all cutting and chopping tools from steak knives to axes and plows are made of brightly polished bronze.
103. There is a twice weekly local market that issues its own currency, it's accepted and even preferred in many of the local shops. On one side it a corn maze with the motto "the soil nourishes us and we nourish the soil"
104. There are no old people past 50 - 70 in the town. A look at the town's graveyard proves it to be oddly small for a town that size, and the only graves belonging to people who died at age 50 or over are at least 200 years old.
105. The only factory in town, a car manufacturing plant, is known for producing excellent cars. Every month however, there is a truly gruesome freak accident at work, after which, a new line of cars starts to roll off the conveyor belts, better than anything else on the market. The owner of the factory has not been seen for the past 20 years.
106. There are no birds in town. None whatsoever.
107. Everything is so ... normal.