ok so i just finished watching silent hill and the basic idea came to me for a scenario

* a little girl is born in a town on some backwater forgotten planet at the age of 16 her psychic powers manifest shortly after the local priest and his flock grab her for execution burning as a witch.

* a senior arbitrator after a manic meeting with the childs mother comes to the rescue but not before the child is severely burnt (the arbitrator believes that the child should go to the black ships when/if they arrive in her lifetime)

* while being treated for her burns a deamon corrupts her with promises of revenge (i havent decided on a suitable deamon yet) using her alpha level powers to transport the town into the warp for short periodes of time

this is straight of the top of my head so its full of gaps input would be great

This sounds like really fertile ground for an adventure! I admit, I am not very familiar with the Silent Hill series so forgive me if these issues are already answered, but right now I think you need:

A reason for the acolytes to get there. Maybe the Arbitrator calls for help or even better the man who tried to burn the Psyker has run off to tell his ecclesiastical superior about the "impiety" of the town and word filters back through the Inquisition's channels. I like this option more because it gives the Acolytes very little information regarding the strength of the Psyker or the true state of the town.

A bit more detail as to what the daemon is doing. Obviously the daemon can't just possess the girl and tear down the boarders of the materium immediately. If you have the Radical's Handbook I'd suggest making her a Daemon Vessel. I think it would be fitting if every time the girl uses her powers the Daemon slowly gains a greater clutch on her soul and Daemon Vessel is a way to represent that. A Dark Pact might work too as long as the Daemon has the ability to increase its influence over her.

I am not that familiar with "silent hill" (saw the movie, but I do not remember it).

- what are the pc to do to "solve" the mission (end the adventure)
- how did the =I= noticed the whole thing? Did they noticed at all or are the pc there "by chance"?
- if not by chance: are the pc the only thing the =I= will bring in?

The last question is due to the "a whole village going into the warp"-thing. I would Imaging something major like this to be senseable by psyker. You can (of course) bypass this with "the pc are to investigate a rumour. One of one millions of rumour withing the category "probably false".

On the other hand, you could have this for an "excuse" to give the pc one or two squads of soldiers/troopers/penal legionaires along to make it "survival horror" with every "mistake" (or sub-optimal result) leading to dead npc (first) and harm to the pc (perhaps later). If you are using "penals", some strange things could "block" the collars...perhaps the same "Daemon of Vengeance" that works the child. Talking "Enemy within" and stuff.

graycrow said:

I am not sure whether 'some backwater forgotten planet' would have an Adeptus Arbites presence. Maybe just leave the Arbitrator out of it and simply say some Astropath in the service of your Inquisitor receives weird disturbances from this far away backwater planet or maybe the Adeptus Astra Telepathica mentions this to your Inquisitor.
I would not use her powers to transport the town into the warp but rather would say she kind of weakens the veil to the warp so that the warp sort of enters real space (ie. the town) for short moments. This way it is more like 'hell on earth' - with the odd daemonic beast appearing from time to time and the walls beginning to bleed - than the other way around. In the end it doesn’t matter though, as the players most probably won’t find out either.
The daemon itself should suit the power level of your PCs. Maybe you can feature a confrontation at the end between the charred little girl and the PCs, where the girl is possessed by the daemon in form of a daemon vessel or unbound daemon host…

well i have been brainstorming all your input i greatly appreciated at the moment im thinking the girl makes a pact with a deamon with her alpha level powers which allows her to weaken the veil a for a short time but while the town is transformed into a hellish dimension time moves much faster meaning that the residents may have endured this for several months where as in reality only a thew days have passed.

as to how the investigation starts maybe astropaths sensing the warp tide ext

lastly the ending im thinking the acolytes will discover that once all the permanent residents are dead then things will subside or they could attempt to battle the girl now corrupt deamon vessel but my players not radicals always seem to take the easiest option will probally try to kill the towns people.

last thought maybe once killed the townspeople raise up as mutated zombies hell bent on killing the remaining townspeople when the veil is weak then falling back down as corpses when normality returns

graycrow said:

Another thought similar to your train would be to look back at the original Silent Hill storyline from the game.

In Silent Hill1, the girl was, as in the movie, the daughter of the crazy woman, hatted by her peers, etc. The difference, however, is that said crazy woman was the head sorcerous of a cult comprised of some of the heads of the township including a prominent doctor. She had the child as a part of an arcane ritual/experiment to (for some reason or anouther) grant her and her cult great mystic power or give them a source of power to call upon. While the child's soul had power, her mother demanded more. This was going to be achieved by her child giving birth to "God", though God turned out to be the demon Samael. However, as the child grew, she couldn't endure what she was made to endure especially at the doctors hands in the hospital. Her soul shattered and the innocent piece of it escaped and was born as the main characters daughter whom you spend the game looking for. The dark tortured half, however, remained in the girls body (now 16 or so) and lashed out at the town around her, pulling those who tortured her and worked the archaic rites into a mad and tortured version of Silent Hill, all the while, this tortured version she had created was trying to break into reality.

What wasn't explained too well in the movie IIRC is what exactly was happening when the sirens went off. It wasn't so much the tortured world entering our world. What was happening was more like our world being pulled into the tortured world. There was one scene in the game where the main character is speaking with the police woman who's been helping him. He asks her where she went (the last time they spoke, sirens went off, the world went dark, and she vanished like a ghost) and she informs him that she was wondering the same thing about him because, at that time, he just vanished into thin (or thick and fogy) air. So, to avoid the "why is a massive warp incursion going unnoticed?" line of thought, you can fallow the first games example and have things from our world pulled in more then things for the other world being pushed out. Still a severally weakened barrier with bleed over, but the major nastiness (the parts that happen when the town goes dark and the sirens go off) actually is anouther world/reality created by the witch within some kind of bubble in the warp, her own forming daemon world trying to come through to reality.

Finally, if you combine the movies answer to her torture and reason for her soul shattering and her madness to infect the town (she was tortuously burned for being a witch) with the games answer (a cult bred her to create a powerful soul that would be mother to their god) and you've got your self one hell of a messed up situation with no real "win". This way, the psyker still becomes a deamonhost, but it's not through her choice at all. She is simply the eternal victim at both the hands of her parents and their cult and the armature witch hunters who will seem like crazed and nasty loons (who in 40k isn't though?) who, in the end, becomes a threat to everything as a deamonhost through no fault or choice of her own. Cue grimdark by the bucket load. Likewise, it would add a nice complication to the story as now you'd have two factions who are opposed to one anouther those always make for interesting and fun games) for the PC's to deal with/interact with/purge/what-ever plus the madness of the tortured town that keeps sucking them in at pivotal clue moments. In essence, this will give you the The Monsters who Chose to Be (the remnants of the cult that created the girl for personal power and gain now being picked off by the monster they created), the Monsters who Needed to Be (the armature witch hunters), and the Monsters who were Forced to Be (the witch and her creations/summoned).

Oh, and if you haven't played the game, i strongly recommend you do so (SH 1... it's the only one I've played so i can't vouch for the others of the series). The movie on it's own is an okay movie, nothing to really write home about but watchable. However, with the game in mind, it's a bit of a nostalgia trip where you get to relive, to an extent, playing the game... and the game is way creepier then the movie (which really wasn't... there was just something in the atmosphere of the game...). Once you've experienced the game, the movie calls upon a lot of the creepiness from the game it's self to supplement what it's lacking. It really seems to be a movie for those who've played the game come to think of it.

The game, while old by video game standards and could very well put most kids off these days with it's primitive look, has so much atmosphere, you'll quickly forget you're playing a 3d game from the 90's and get sucked into the world and end up jumping at every odd sound, never mind the soundtrack w hat will put you on edge every time.

I had watched the movie, then played the game, then watched the movie again and there was a massive difference. Just the staticy radio that the movies main character found made my ass clench the second time through.

A lovely idea if i have ever heard one. Make sure that you wikipedia Silent Hill to see all of the games and characters and whatnot to get ideas for NPCs and enemies. i must suggest you create the ever loveable Pyramid Head. just watch out for barbed wire and giant swords.

Well if you want a God for her to make a pact with. Malal would work awsomely. A forgotton chaos god who works toward destruction of the other chaos gods, but also represents rebellion, revenge, outcasts, and individuality. Most of his followers tend to go for revenge, and are useally loners. You can find a good bit of info on Malal while surfing the web for it; plus doubt any of your players would reconize who he is till he reveals himself.

from france

i never played the game but i loved the movies. a scenario based on it has to be more chilling than gore even if the film is not without violence. the warp will be present of course. but i don' know any creatures that can look like the inocent of the population who were trap. so masterkit wil be useful here

Seeing the movie inspired a side adventure that I ran for my players after they unofficially adopted a little boy whose sole adult relative they'd accidentaly killed. The little boy went missing when the characters tried to deposit him at a scholar progenium. Initially the scenario was pretty cliche with ghostly manifestations and the emerging story of a girl who had developed psychic powers and consequently been murdered by the abbot and co.

The thing that turned the scenario into something more memorable was the moment the spirit of the dead little girl appeared to them and offeref to trade the life of the boy for the life of one of the staff members whom she revealed was an unsanctionned telepath and whose psychic abuse of her had catalysed the development of her own abilities. The players really hadn't been expecting this and it really raised the emotional temperature of the game, since their characters were pretty attached to the little boy and they suddenly began to sympathise with a warp entity. In the end I think they actually enjoyed watching her kill the telepath.

Looking back at the Silent Hill movie, which I thought was quite good, the thing that made it interesting after the initial horror theme began to lose its edge was the moment you realise that the apparently demonic presence isn't really evil as such. As Graver said, if you're going to run a scenario based more closely on the film it's certainly worth creating a couple of factions for the characters to interract with, but it might be worth going one step further and making the little girl a figure whom the players' characters might actually sympathise enough with to do a deal with her. Combine this with Graver's idea of three factions- the Cult, the amature Witch Hunters, and the Little Girl- and you have a scenario in which the characters have a viable (though not morally unambiguous) option turn against the witch hunters. This gives them a real choice of action, whereas if the little girl doesn't offer them a viable route to out of the situation they're likely to end up acknowledging the gimdark but feeling they have no option but to work with the witch hunters.

If you're player's characters are really morally bankrupt it might be worth preseting them a third option for getting out of the village alive; working with the cultists.

All three factions have their stories:

Little Girl- over a long period she was being prepared to become a demonhost, but through simple chance she escaped the cult half way through the months-long process. She went straight to the local priest and begged him to stop the cult. The priest agreed that the cult must be stopped and that the first thing to do was to burn her alive to cleanse her corruption. As the flames chared her flesh the priest's assistant snapped and dragged her out of the flames. He fled and hid her still living form somewhere safe. in her agony she wants vengeance on all those who hurt her, the cultists and those who witnessed her burning without lifting a finger to help her. So she has embraced her dark powers. The cultists will be hunted down one-by-one, but the witch hunters shelter in the Templum, which is consecrated so she can't get at them. She needs the acolytes to carry her essence inside so that she can have her vengeance. Then she will spare the acolytes and be able to rest in peace. The priest's assistant who saved her has gone mad with the horror of it all and will only be any use to the PCs if they can stand to listen to his babbling and try to pull the facts out from the rest.

Witch Hunters- discovered the presence of a dangerous cult in the village and acted to try and destroy it. The burning of the girl was unfortunate but necessary, it is a pity that they were betrayed by one of their own and that she escaped to create such terror. They have captured the book that the cultists used to work their foul rituals and though it has cost them spiritually they have learned from it that the demon could be cast back if the girl's body is finally destroyed. They are only pious villagers, however, and lack the werewithall to do this. Will the acolytes help them in this dangerous task?

The Cultists- are dedicated to the dark gods, and proud of it, but they also don't want to get eaten by the little girl's minions so they'll do a deal with the acolytes. Get inside (either by force, stealth, or deception) the now heavily fortified templum of the witch hunters and bring back the tome of rituals so that the magos can cast the demon back. What choice have the acolytes? The only alternative is going toe-to-toe with the demon, and she's a lot tougher than a buch of self-righteous farmers.

All of the stories are true, in their way, and the players will get a real choice about who to save and who to **** based on their character's sympathies for the various NPCs (or their own desire to find the path most likely to keep them alive).

All of the stories are true, in their way, and the players will get a real choice about who to save and who to **** based on their character's sympathies for the various NPCs (or their own desire to find the path most likely to keep them alive).

Mh... there's a problem with this: According to 40k Imperial morality, the Witch Hunters did the absolutely right thing. If your PCs are anywhere near puritan, there's no moral quandary, just the question of whether to compromise your morals in order to survive easier.

You'd need either a substantial threat to other regions (in order to have a "goal outweighs means" situation) or make the witchhunters somehow blameworthy as well. Perhaps they belong to a sect deemed heretical? The Temple Tendency comes to mind...

Cifer said:

Actually, with the setup Sands gave, the quandary with the witch hunters is there, it just needs a little work to bring out. 1st is the simple player vs setting in which the witch hunters, while Imperially in the right are not so to most modern outlooks. Add in a bit about the tome that they took having been burned by them (so the players can't get it and have to rely on the hunters) after the priest read and digested it and that same priest is quite insane with a good chance that he/she will screw the rite of banishment or what not up, and you have a bit of a quandary:

To side with the "right" group, they will have to side with the least (or second least, it's hard to tell) sympathetic NPC's there who offers the most dangerous option for ending this, and, through incompetence and/or insanity, stands the highest chance of getting the PC's killed or causing an epic failure of the plan.

On the flip side, the cultists, while vile by Imperial standards (and vile to the players as well, classic villains they are), offer the easiest path out: taking on a pack of overly zealous unsympathetic farmers, though it would obviously be quite high in spiritual and moral costs.

And then there's the only sympathetic side in all this, the eternally victimized witch who, to the players (if not the PC's), should feel like the traditional "good guy" (because, traditionally speaking, no one else is and she's the victim in all this). This would be helped considerably if the insane assistant is played up in a light that endures him to the PC's through his motive and character.

In the above way they would then, if they get a good handle on the situation, have three choices before them:

1. Assist the unsympathetic but right folks in killing the only sympathetic faction in the whole mess and potentially suffer heavy losses while doing such with the high chance of epic failure even after all that.
2. Take the easy road out, kill some easy targets, and end up creating a powerful deamonhost and increasing a cults power astronomically.
3. Or side with the only sympathetic faction in eliminating the others (the "good" and the "bad") but, in doing such, know they are siding with The Enemy, a witch who has become something even more...

Going strictly by Imperial morality, sure the right choice is crystal clear, but the right choice is also the hardest pill for the players (if not the characters) to swallow if not for sympathy and humanity, then for their own greedy need to not get killed in a horribly nasty fashion.