Themes of Horror

As Abyssal goes into the realm of Horror, we have to talk a bit about the different flavours and styles of horror. Most of the time the lines between them blur, but it is good to think about them. Not all of them are easy to play, as we will see later.
The more visceral ones are easiest, as they can be described using the five senses we have. They are about the grotesque and the gory experiences. It is the shrieks and the groaning in the dark that rattles the nerves. Using sensory descriptions, you can go wild and create a rich tapestry in the mind of your players.
The opposite of this happens in your mind. Paranoia and obsession, the inner fears that surface and drive the characters to the edge. Your task as a suit for this kind of horror is making the players insecure about their surroundings. Why is everybody smiling at you all of a sudden? Do they take pity on your sorry self? Maybe you can describe things that are only in the minds of the players. Or are they not?
The vastness of space, with its inherent terror, evokes feelings of insignificance, helplessness, and incomprehension. Confronting things that move beyond any comprehensible logic, that care nothing for the life and feelings of the characters and their players.
And this leads to survival. Going in, absolute sure of yourself with high moral and being slowly worn down by the surrounding and the strangeness will break down the players. When the time comes that the really dark things emerge and begin to hunt, you can be sure to have the players by their toes.
In the following sections, we will explore a few more concrete things we can create our horror experience around. Stay tuned.