Marks of Horror

How to use fear to make your campaign scarier. A frightened character is a careful player. Make a promise to your players by making dangerous areas scarier and proving to players that they can avoid danger by being aware of their surroundings. Do not break this promise.

7 Marks of Horror

1. The Unknown (horrific): Uses your players fear of the unknown to create terror of imminent attack and induce hopelessness.
2. Foreshadowing (horrific): clues and prophetic dreams to warn your players of encounters and secrets.
3. Age (horrific): Remindes players of death, decay and their own mortality.
4. Personification (horrific): turns mundain objects into malevolent entitties. Describing them with human like emotions, actions or appearances.
5. Details (neutral): Describing scenerey with increased details enduces paranoia and redirects attention away from other, perhaps more important, information.
6. Light (positive): Provieds players with occasional moments of hope and joy.
7. Humor (positive): Breaks the tension, allows players to relax and become susceptible to horror.

Sources of Inspiration:

1. Creature Statblocks
2. Monster Lore
3. Environmental Factors
4. Horror Tropes

The Trajectory of Fear - Stages

Try building these stages of fear numerically. Building Unease, then Dread and then falling back to Unease a couple of times before ramping it up to Terror and Horror creates a roller coaster of emotions, anticipation, and fear.

1. Unease - The start of fear.  It is the knowledge that something isn't right but, unsure what. (example: village who's streets are empty during the day)
2. Dread - Unconfirmed suspicion that something isn't right in the world and it is here. (example: fresh wounds in a corpse)
3. Terror - Powerful. The players know that danger is imminent, here and now but, not yet revealed. Uses the players imagination to drive the fear levels. (example: raspy breath on the other side of the door or inhuman footsteps rapidly approaching)
4. Horror - Moment when player's meet the danger at last, screaming and jumping back in fear. This releases the tension and dumps the players at the bottom of the rollercoaster. (example: The monster bursts through the wall or grabs you from behind and turns you to see its gruesome face)

Applying the Marks

1. Unease - Age, Personification, Detail.
2. Dread - Foreshadowing
3. Terror - Unknown
4. Horror - Gruesomely detailed reveal

• Use Humor to release tension and moments of levity and Light to give players hope. (example: Ireena Kolyana , moments of beauty and peace)