Ah, October. The days are cold and bright, the nights spooky; the perfect time of year for roleplaying. I've been gearing up to play for awhile, and it looks as if the pieces are starting to fit together for a Harn campaign. Brutal battles on drizzly moors, ambushes on muddy trails, whispers in the ear of the local baron, incantations mumbled in dark corners, things moving that out not to. I'm ready to cause trouble. The thought of mixing horror and sword and sorcery has been appealing for a long time, and so this year I'm sitting down and trying to see what will work in a medieval setting and what won't.

Exactly what constitutes horror? In the book store and theater, horror has managed to carve out a niche, and a lot of people have started to think of horror as a genre unto itself. But is horror really an element that can be applied to any genre? many ways the movie Scarface as well as The Godfather series had as many horror elements as straight "drama." At the same time, these movies did not contain supernatural or magical elements. And yet they did a wonderful job of evoking the primitive feeling we call horror. So why do they work?

The classic scene in The Godfather where the Hollywood director wakes up with a horse head in his bed evoked three strong emotions:

• Fear: Someone managed to place the head in the director's bed without him noticing. The director now knows the mafia has the power and ability to kill him as easily and as quietly.
• Revulsion: The director see the blood and knows it belong to his prized (and loved) pet.
• Helplessness: The director knows that he can do nothing to right the wrong.

The same emotions appear again in Scarface as the audience watches Al Pacino's character kill his best friend after he's married Pacino's sister:

• Fear: This brutal, insane man -- nearly a force of nature -- will not be stopped by any sense of common decency
• Revulsion: the knowledge that he would kill so close a friend
• Helplessness: The feeling that nothing can stop his primitive rages

In measured doses, it's these three emotions that will scare the bejeezus out of your players. I say measured doses because if you overdo it, it becomes overly serious and pretentious; the events lose their punch. Too little, and the players will most likely be asleep by the time you get around to the scary part. You can find the same elements in any number of "pure" horror movies -- The Exorcist, Carrie and The Omen are some of the better ones. The key is to look for the events that cause the emotions, and realize that each of those events will hook your players if you cast them in a different light.

There must be a build-up to these climactic scenes. Simply staging an unexpected killing is not nearly as frightening as having a sense that a killing could take place at any time. Foreshadowing -- subtle hints at what's to come -- goes a long way in putting players on the edge of their seats. Make them think something could come around the corner at any moment, and that they are vulnerable. Let nasty bits of bad luck crop up, like periodic gun jams, a sticky scabbard or creaky shoes. Then allow these moments to resurface at the worst possible moment.

Isolation is another way to make parties feel vulnerable. I've played in games where the party never once lost control of the situation; after awhile the players began to feel like they could part the Red Sea if they wanted to. Let them get lost for a change, or have the food supply go bad. Even better, make it seem as if there's "something out there" that's responsible for the events. Keep them off balance. Then when things at their worst, have the enemy strike from hiding, never letting the characters know who's actually responsible for their misery. He Knows You're Alone was a fairly standard shlocky horror pic back in the seventies, but it's interesting to note that the entire movie was based on the premise that the bad guy couldn't be detected. Once evil has a face, it can be dealt with. But up until that moment, it can be a lot of fun to keep the party guessing.

Once you've wound the tension up for all it's worth, then it's time to spring the bear trap. At this point, keep in mind two things: surprise and a sense of inevitability.

For the horse head scene, the director starts the tension early on. We watch a scene where the mafia's agent has come to speak "reasonably" with the director. He is rudely rebuffed and told, in essence, to piss off. The mafia man reacts coolly to the situation, a bit of a surprise, since the audience knows how ruthless the mob can be. The two of them talk more extensively, and the director shows the agent around the stables. Next, we pan gently over the director's bed, and watches as he wakes up. Finally, the camera zooms in on the dripping blood and the horse's head as the covers are lifted. Seeing the previous scenes showed how dangerous the director's stance was. We were expecting some kind of retribution, and yet we didn't know what form that retribution would take. We were surprised, and yet looking back, it was completely obvious -- inevitable.

Finally, remember that the GM can work all kinds of sinister events into the adventure, but the effect of these will amount to nothing unless the PCs gave a personal stake in the outcome. Referees not only need to know what gets to the PCs, but also to the people who are playing them.

For a good discussion on using horror and suspense, take a gander at a book put out by Writer's Digest called How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Medieval Horror

A movie made in the 70's called The Devils, starring Vanessa Redgrave, got me thinking about using horror in a Harn campaign. The movie revolves around the atrocities committed in a small church -- owned village during the inquisition. Medieval brutality and religious insanity rule the day, and there are many innocent victims that fall in its wake. The story tells of the persecution of a priest and a nun during a political bid to annex the church's land. The film was photographed in bleak autumn colors, and the final scene of people leaving the burning village to wander the corpse-strewn wasteland that is the countryside is as chilling as anything I've seen on screen.

But how does one incorporate the horror element into a medieval/fantasy campaign where monsters and magic can become so common that they lose their "scare" value? Well, there's plenty of horrifying things that went on in the dark ages. As in The Devils, religious and/or political inquisitions can leave who villages burned-out graves. Of course, in a fantasy setting, the demons can be all too real. But instead of using the typical horned demon, how about real possession? The Exorcist was pretty scary stuff, and possession can be used in unexpected moments to really throw the party for a loop. Cold, rainy weather can be used to good effect in any genre, but when you add the messiness of dirt roads and the chilly weight of chainmail, the backdrop becomes more striking than in a modern game. It's easy to make characters feel uncomfortable and vulnerable in a medieval setting -- things are always breaking or going bad: swords, wagon wheels, roofs, boots, trails, bridges, food. And, of course, the old standbys of was, plague and famine are always fun to throw in as a gloomy backdrop, or better yet, to center stage.

The difficult part is in the details, though. How about black looks from strangers in an inn? Or a shadowy figure who always slips away before being captured? A weeping statue? A bloody hand, still twitching after the battle? A line of crucifixions? Criminals being impaled in the town square? Rats moving through the gutters, leaving behind something...living? Once you get started, there are gruesome possibilities everywhere.

Add a few details to the scenes. What if the party recognizes the ring on the twitching hand as the signet of the king? What if the PCs know one of the criminals being executed? What if the weeping statue is of a benign deity, and the tears are blood?

If you've ever seen one of those old paintings showing the rise of the dead or hell on earth during the black plague, you can see what frightened the medieval mind. Black magic, the evil eye, witches, the power of the devil. In fact, the supernatural -- the fear of the unknown -- was a terrifying black abyss to the average peasant, and today's Halloween is but a mild tribute to that terrifying period. Black cats, old crones and long shadows are just a few things that cause the average peasant's mind to reel.

So, by all means, send your PCs places they've never been before, and make sure they don't trust anyone except their neighboring villagers (who may or may not be alive at the campaign's advent). Oh, yes. Avoid the temptation to give the characters a complete suit of armor, tons of magic and a small armory. Instead, dress them in rags, give them a hoe, and boot them out the door in the pouring rain. Much more exciting that way.

Harn is ideal for this sort of thing. The world is bleak and grimy, and only now is it striving to lift itself out of the much. There is still a big question as to whether or not it will succeed; there are plenty of those who prefer the power and pleasures of the darkness. the good guys aren't exactly gaining ground, and there's more than enough evil to keep them occupied. There's also a sense of mystery; the average peasant doesn't know much about what lies beyond the next couple villages -- might prefer it that way. If they did know what was going on, they might head for the hills. but then again, that's not such a good idea either...