Re: [DL] S. T. Coleridge based deadlands adventure, questions

["Dave Haendler" <DHaendl1@swarthmore.edu>]

> My Idea was to have an opium den that was forcing these visions on there
customers.  Some sort of fearmonger controls the den and is feeding off the
> nightmares it is causing.  The peoples addiction keeps them there, they
are free to leave otherwise.

     Howzabout this...a long, long time ago, there was an abomination in
China who was a little too successful at being a monster. This demon wiped
out most of the surrounding villages, decimating large portions of the
countryside. However, the beast hadn't really thought far ahead enough. As a
demon, he was dependant upon the fear and belief of humanity in order to
exist. As soon as nobody believed in him anymore (everyone who had seen or
heard of him was dead), he found himself beginning to fade out of existence.
Soon, he was just a disembodied consciousness, barely aware of its
surroundings and utterly unable to influence the world in any way. A
terrible fate for a being which had once been one of the greatest terrors on
the planet.

     Eventually, the land that this monster had ruled was settled by
opium-farming peasants. A little bit of the monster's consciousness made it
into the opium, and from there was shipped into America. The creature,
knowing that the only way for it to manifest again is to make people believe
in it, has been influencing the dream-lives of authors, poets, and musicians
who smoke the cursed opium, getting them to include representations of him
in their work. If they do a good job of it, the myth of the monster will
spread and its power will grow.

> I was further thinking the opium could be used to send the players to
other dimensions.  That sort of sounds dorky though, I am not sure on that.
I was
> just thinking I would do a "Dream Quest of the Unknown Kaddath" sort of
thing.

     Hmmm...maybe by performing a certain ritual as they smoke the opium,
the characters could find a way into the demon's subconscious. Since it's
just a disembodied consciousness, the only way to "kill" it is to attack and
break down its mind. That'd be tough, though. They'd have to travel through
the dreams and nightmares and ambitions of a demon to make it to the ego,
and the inner fears and hopes of a demon are bound to be nasty business.

                                        ---Ghoull