Thursday 21 July 2016

Horrible Mysteries!!!


So - the reason for the ghoul-blooded class write-up in my last post is that I have been reading Gothic novels. The original ones. From the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

They are super-weird.

If your players ever tell you they want more 'gothic horror' in your D&D game, roll on these tables and inflict the resulting plot on them in your next session. If they complain that it makes no fucking sense then smile and nod and explain that you are being authentic.



WHO IS THE VILLAIN? (roll 1d10)
  1. An evil priest.
  2. An evil aristocrat.
  3. A secret society.
  4. A ruthless outlaw chief.
  5. An evil aristocrat disguised as an evil priest.
  6. An evil aristocrat disguised as a ruthless outlaw.
  7. An evil priest disguised as a ruthless outlaw.
  8. An evil aristocrat disguised as an evil priest disguised as a ruthless outlaw.
  9. An evil aristocrat disguised as an evil priest disguised as a ruthless outlaw who also runs his own secret society in his spare time because why the fuck not.
  10. The Spanish Inquisition.
NO, SERIOUSLY, WHO IS THE VILLAIN? (roll 1d10)
  1. A demon.
  2. A demon disguised as a boy.
  3. A demon disguised as a girl disguised as a boy.
  4. A lustful monk.
  5. A lustful nun.
  6. A demon disguised as a girl disguised as a boy disguised as a lustful monk.
  7. A ghost.
  8. A lunatic.
  9. Some guy who sold his soul to the Devil.
  10. The Spanish Inquisition.
WHO IS THE HERO? (roll 1d6)
  1. A well-meaning but basically useless young Italian nobleman.
  2. A well-meaning but basically useless young Spanish nobleman.
  3. A well-meaning but basically useless young British nobleman.
  4. A well-meaning but basically useless young French nobleman.
  5. A well-meaning but basically useless young German nobleman.
  6. Victor Frankenstein.

WHO IS THE HEROINE? (roll 1d6)

  1. A beautiful, virtuous, and talented young Italian noblewoman.
  2. A beautiful, virtuous, and talented young Spanish noblewoman.
  3. A beautiful, virtuous, and talented young British noblewoman.
  4. A beautiful, virtuous, and talented young French noblewoman.
  5. A beautiful, virtuous, and talented young German noblewoman.
  6. Roll again, but they're disguised as a boy and carry a locket containing a MYSTERIOUS PORTRAIT with them at all time. (If you keep rolling 6s, just keep adding more MYSTERIOUS ITEMS until you roll something else.)
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? (roll 1d10)
  1. There's a beautiful girl in town and the villain wants to rape her.
  2. There's a holy man in town and the Devil wants to test his faith.
  3. There's a rich man in town and the villain wants to kill him and steal his estate. 
  4. There's proof of the villain's crimes in town and the villain wants to destroy it.
  5. There's a rich man in town whose only relative is his beautiful daughter and the villain wants to murder him and rape her and steal the estate while he's at it.
  6. There's a beautiful girl in town and the villain wants to kill her because she is the LIVING PROOF OF HIS CRIMES!!!!
  7. A secret society is trying to start a revolution. Their plan for doing this involves tricking everyone into thinking they have magical powers but actually they don't but maybe they actually do. 
  8. There's a castle which seems to be haunted but it isn't really haunted because the villain is just tricking everyone into thinking that in order to keep them away from his hidden secrets.
  9. There's a castle which seems to be haunted but then seems not to be haunted but then it turns out it actually is haunted HA HA GOTCHA SUCKERS and then a ghost pulls out everyone's eyeballs.
  10. NO-ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!
OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP (roll 1d10, or 2d10 if you want a twist ending)
  1. ...and then a giant ghost appears and kicks the castle over.
  2. ...and then the Devil drops the villain off a mountain and insects eat his brains and it takes him five days to die.
  3. ...and then it turns out that the villain's victim was ACTUALLY HIS SECRET DAUGHTER and he's so overwhelmed with grief and shame that he kills himself.
  4. ...and then it turns out that it was actually all just a trick with magic lanterns.
  5. ...and then an angry mob turn up and try to lynch everyone.
  6. ...and then this crazy noblewoman starts pushing people off cliffs.
  7. ...and then proof appears that ALL THIS WAS ARRANGED IN ADVANCE BY THE ILLUMINATI.
  8. ...and then it turns out that actually the villain was just crazy.
  9. ...and then everyone is OVERCOME WITH REMORSE and lives out the remainder of their days in penance and weeping.
  10. ...and then everyone is burned alive by the Spanish Inquisition, except the hero and heroine, who live happily ever after. 


(Reading list: The Castle of Otranto, The Hermitage, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, The Sicilian Romance, The Romance of the Forest, The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Italian, The Monk, Gondez the Monk, The Monk of Udolpho, Horrid Mysteries, Vathek, The Castle Spectre, Melmoth the Wanderer, The Abbess, Frankenstein, The Vampyre, St Leon, St Irvyne, Zanoni, Zastrozzi, Zofloya, Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, The Cenci, Manfred, Marmion, Tales of Wonder, The Monastery, The Bride of Lammermore, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, The Ghost-Seer, The Robbers, Klosterheim, Caleb Williams, The Inquisitor, The Three Spaniards, The Horrors of the Priory, The Abbess 2: Roman Catholic Boogaloo, Northanger Abbey.)

11 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. They're mostly available for free online, if you're interested. The only one I'd really recommend is 'Frankenstein', although 'Melmoth the Wanderer' and 'Zofloya' are appealing for their sheer craziness.

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  2. One of those titles is not like the other ones...

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    1. There are two different novels called 'The Abbess', OK? (I learned this when I read half of the wrong one by mistake.) I needed some way to tell them apart!

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    2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m-R8oashlg

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    3. See, if it was 'The 1790s Gothic Abbess' instead of just 'The Abbess', it'd probably sound more like this:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c6uMbP4--E

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  3. This table should be mixed with that one : http://talesofthegrotesqueanddungeonesque.blogspot.fr/2016/07/gothic-fantasy-adventure-generator.html

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    1. See, his table would work well for the more coherent early Gothic novels, like 'Wieland', where at the end of the story you could ask 'so, what was going on?' and get a clear, succinct answer. These tables will get you something closer to the rambly stream-of-consciousness nonsense-horrorshow narratives of novels like 'Melmoth' or 'The Three Spaniards'...

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    2. Ah, yes; I was rather thinking at Roleplaying games. Yesterday I made a "Gothic tale generator" out of various pre-existing generators, (half gothic half lovecraftian), including your table on the central plot. If you have a mail address, I can send you the PdF (it's in English; but I couldn't publish it on Scribd because of copyright restrictions)

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  4. I'm not certain if this was your intent, but that was the funniest set of tables I've ever read. Bravo, good sir.

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    1. I did want them to be funny, but I also wanted them to be AUTHENTIC. Fortunately, it swiftly became apparent that these two goals were not in any way contradictory!

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