Treasures & Trinkets: The Creepy Doll
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One day, the PCs find an old doll while exploring an abandoned house. Whoever first touches the doll becomes cursed.
From then on, the doll will randomly appear around the cursed character, regardless of any precautions they may take against it. Destroying the doll or locking it away does not help.
When the doll makes an appearance, it is as though it had been lying there waiting for the PC. No one ever sees it appear. For example, it might be lying behind a tree in the woods or appear when the character wakes up in the morning half-sticking out from under the character’s bed, or sitting on the character’s nightstand as though watching her sleep.
The doll and its curse is completely harmless. If your PCs are so inclined, theoretically they could get the curse removed… But what fun is that?
Inspired by this Jonathan Coulton song
8 Responses to “Treasures & Trinkets: The Creepy Doll”
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Oh, man this is a great idea. I can’t wait to use it (or some similar derivative). Thanks for the idea.
I love messing with the player’s minds. If you really want to make them paranoid, have them make saves or skill checks periodically whenever the doll is encountered again. Nothing bad ever happens no matter what they roll, but it will freak out the PCs.
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I’m not sure that’s the best approach… Personally, I’d never even bring up the doll except to say when it appears and describe the PCs’ specific interactions with it.
I think making them make rolls would be a little like over-describing a monster in horror fiction… Best to leave it vague and let them come up with the details on their own. I don’t know about your players, but I can virtually guarantee my players wouldn’t need any extra motivation to be paranoid about the doll.
> The doll and its curse is completely harmless.
Then again….. perhaps it’s not. Perhaps it’s true origin, purpose, nature hasn’t been fully revealed.
On the other end of the spectrum, perhaps it’s actually helpful. The doll occasionally driving away or defeating supernatural enemies of the PC. It might be found just sitting behind a tree, but it could have just defeated a ghost in the forest.
To draw movie/TV show comparisons, it could either be like that creepy eye-ring from Beastmaster, or like Nibbler from Futurama.
I like the direction HappyFunNorm is going with this. Make the thing creepy and dangerous-seeming. Bait the PCs into hiding it, destroyed it, locking it in a safe and dropping it to the bottom of the lake, but it keeps turning up.
But every time they do that, things get MUCH, MUCH worse for them. Horrible, extremely unlikely events: if you use random encounter tables, just add +10 to every roll, or make up some similar mechanic. Long-dead enemies show up or meteors hit the ground nearby the party.
At some point they will give in and just keep the doll around at which point things quiet down, become even easier than before for a while. The creepy doll becomes like a good luck charm. They will fetishize it, do everything they can possibly do to protect it from then on. Until you put them into a situation where they must destroy it, or someone or something threatens it.
That’s when the real mindf*** begins; watch them sacrifice themselves to protect it because they’re so scared that something worse happens.
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I would say, just before the point at which the players are expecting the doll to turn up all the time, have it stop making an appearance. Did the players appease whatever spirits were behind the curse? Did they annoy them?! Then a few weeks later, just as the cursed player is starting to get used to not behind hounded by a creepy doll, there’s a knock at their inn room’s door…
(Just to preface, the only Pencil and Paper game I’ve played is DnD and the last edition I played is 3.5 so read my reply with that in mind.)
When I first heard this song I began to think the same thing. I listened to it over and over again until it drove me crazy too. Then I started thinking of fun ways that it could be used. So far Cory’s idea is the closest to what I’ve been thinking.
I’ve actually come up with a rather elaborate scenario involving the “Creepy Doll.”
The party is searching some old abandoned house, or other creepy location. Once they’ve gathered everything of value to them they start to leave. Just then, one of them hears something. (Pick a character at random or single out someone to toy with.) Hopefully he decides to go back and investigate. If the player goes alone, then that’s the best scenario. He enters a dark room and his torch light shows a creepy doll that wasn’t there before. At this point you can decide if you want to let the character make a will save or just go the more mysterious route and give him no way out. Either way, we’ll assume that he’s now stuck with the doll.
Alternatively, if the whole group goes back to investigate, whoever touches the doll first is the cursed one.
Now, if they take the doll with them then I think the best way to start the creepy portion is to wait for the night. Everybody goes to sleep but when they wake up in the morning the doll is outside of the pack. Whether they keep it or not after that, the doll will start to show up in random places.
-On a shelf behind the counter in a shop.
-Above the door at the tavern.
-On a stump near the trail on the way out of town.
Then it can get even worse. As soon as they try to damage/destroy the doll things get bad. Soon it may show up behind you in battle. The doll is so distracting to you now that it gives your opponent a flanking bonus. It doesn’t matter that nobody else can see it. I think that there was a spell in 3.5 that did something similar, a phantom flanker or something.
Any continued attempts to rid themselves of the doll could lead to Confusion (as the spell) or even Insanity.
I almost forgot, if they don’t go back to investigate the weird noise you can just have one of them find it later… in a locked wooden box… that has a silver key attached… with their name carved into it.
Anyway, at the point when the doll actually starts affecting game mechanics the players will probably want to try to get rid of it for good. (At least the cursed one probably will) This can be used as a hook for another adventure or as an opportunity to create a more fleshed out story for the doll. The one I’m working on has the doll as a cursed artifact (or if that’s too much, magic item) that has the souls trapped inside it of all of the other people that it’s driven insane.
I’d be interested in hearing if anybody uses this, and what sort of story you create for it, what sort of reaction it gets, things that worked, things that didn’t.
Nice! This reminds me of a campaign set in Ravnica I took a turn to DM.
One of the characters picked up a harmless frog, gave it a name, and carried it with him.
I hadn’t expected this, but I ran with it. I did, however, make some attempts to wrest it from him to keep him from getting too frustrating. Alas, he was too attached to that frog.
The frog was one Plaxcaster Frogling, and it was inadvertently causing all his spells to randomly fizzle.
This is another example of a game object having no immediately discernable effect, whether it has an effect or not. Hidden mechanics go a long way in adding a sense of depth and intrigue to any story.
(The frog, unmasked, still cherished, ultimately ascended to godhood as well as becoming a new plane. All hail Frogchak.)
Very cool