'Dark Dreams' One-off Campaign
'Dark Dreams' was a PRPG one-shot campaign, played on Dec. 28, 2017.
Setting:
'Dark Dreams' takes place in the year 3051, near the small village of Carrotpatch, which lies in the Eastern Dusts of the Isle of Yore southeast of the gap between the Red Mountain and the Little Mountain.
The Story so Far:
The haunting thoughts and images that trouble your mind came without warning in the dead of night.
You had been peacefully asleep until frightening visions intruded, turning happy dreams into nightmares: your loved ones appeared to you, only to rot before your eyes. Their skin dried and tightened into old cracking leather, while their flesh liquified and ran down into disgusting putrid puddles. Still-standing skeletons were left behind and animated by some foul, malevolent magic, turned to undead drones that existed now only to serve whatever sinister power had done this to them. Your friends and neighbors shared in this horror, watching helplessly as their families disintegrated. The living barricaded themselves against the dead, only to be relentlessly besieged inside their own homes. The town was sacked and burned. Destruction and ruin swiftly claimed all you knew and loved.
The raw emotional sensations accompanying these images in your sleeping mind were equally horrific: mental impressions of pain, helplessness, intense fear, and worst of all, sheer hopeless despair. It seemed these could only be the experiences of someone being tormented at length, much the way the things you were seeing would have tormented you.
Then, at the very end, one final image flashed vividly: the tower of the old monastery outside of town, forebodingly silhouetted in the sunset's dying light as if waiting for the cover of darkness to release something terrible from within.
The nightmare faded and you awoke from its grip, panting and covered in cold sweat.
And you soon found that you were not the only one who had felt it.
The next morning, everypony in Carrotpatch was on edge. They exchanged frightened glances and murmured in low voices, whispered suspicions and rumors circulating and intermixing with each other to race through the village like wildfire. Some ponies were understandably confused by what they had seen at the end; the tower was currently occupied by an old she-goat who was generally thought of favorably. While not many ponies had seen inside the tower, the kindly goat was no stranger. She had treated many injuries and ailments in the village over the years, and her medical skill and selflessness hardly made it seem like her home was a place that could be harboring evil.
But as the day wore on, some ponies weren't so sure anymore. A few came forth reluctantly with uncomfortable admissions of having seen strange lights and other odd goings-on at the tower in nights past. Others spoke of unnerving noises. The village apothecary, pressed by a growing crowd looking for answers, was forced to admit that in her visits to the tower to buy rare herbs from the goat's garden, she had seen much magic she didn't know how to explain. Until now she had shrugged it off as probably harmless, even if beyond her simple understanding. But truthfully... who could say what it was really for?
Thus, thread by thread, the tapestry came together, and it wove an increasingly grim mural.
Unrest grew hour by hour. Finally, near the end of the day, an agitated throng began gathering, led not by any one outspoken leader, but rather, you could sense, by an unspoken half-conscious understanding everypony felt in their minds, and by the commonality of what everypony had seen in their dreams. They gathered weapons, makeshift or otherwise. Hooves steered themselves toward the edge of town, uncertainly at first, but then with ever-increasing purpose as they marched down the several kilometers of old monastery road.
You joined them, for all throughout the day, you had felt an urge pulling at you, a call to action that was hard to ignore. It was a relief to discover that you were not alone.
An instinctive awareness from the deep recesses of your mind tells you there's something wrong, terribly wrong, in that tower. You're not sure how you know, but you're certain that the onslaught of visions and feelings that led you here was some sort of psychic cry for help. Someone is suffering horribly, in the grip of some unspeakable evil, and you know in your heart the only conscionable thing to do is rescue them. And now, with the crowd gathered before the gates to the monastery grounds, you stand ready to do your part...
Characters:
Because a wide pool Carrotpatch villagers is present and the party is forming itself in a very ad hoc manner without anypony screening down candidates ahead of time to only the most likely few, there is no short-list of pre-generated characters. Players are responsible for developing their own characters based on who they want to have step forward from the crowd to volunteer. Characters who might be good choices could include people such as constables, hedge mages, military veterans, or anyone else with some skillset or background that would make them useful. However, normally unadventurous or timid ponies might also volunteer if they feel sufficiently inclined, so people like eg. average farmers and shopkeepers are also options.
The village has the usual population proportions representing all three types of ponies (earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns). It currently has no bitypical ponies. There are a few zebras, and a number of zonies (who may be of any pony type), but no griffins, dragons, or other exotic non-equines.
Player Characters Currently Planned:
(Bryce) Silver Comfort, unicorn, stallion, about fifty years old, priest of the old religion, educated in a moderate-liberal seminary in Docktown and studying healing with a view to having that be his ministry, served as a healer/chaplain in a minor feudal military conflict with the Red Barony. He's grey with a white mane and blue eyes.
(Owen) May not be completely final: Golden Bread, pegasus, mare, around forty-five years old, retired mercenary who decided to get out while she was ahead, now lives with her younger sister, the village's miller, and her family, living on her savings, telling stories (some of which may be less than 100% true), helping out the village guards, and occasionally trying forms of art (none of which have stuck yet). She's white with a cyan mane and magenta eyes.
(Matt) Jade Snow, unicorn mare. Light green with a dark red mane and bright green eyes. Her cutie mark is a stylized snowflake and her special talent/magical focus is ice spells and sculpture. Jade mostly works in agricultural ends because forcing the water in the air into ice which can be melted into water is mostly helpful as a water source.
(Jelle) Night Trap, unicorn mare. Black coat with a dark blue mane. Had a sideline as a thief in another town until a bad reputation caused her and her husband to move to Carrotpatch to try to get a fresh start.