WANTED: Dark Secrets

[DrunkonDuty]

Hey there, collected brains of ENWORLD.

I'm after a bit of help, specifically Dark Secrets for noble families (well, mostly for the noble families) in my new campaign.

Some background: the campaign is an Elizabethan/Reformation themed setting. It's a horror heavy game, with the horrors having a distinctly Lovecraftian style. (eg: Sahuagin will be treated like Deep Ones.) But the day to day life is intended to have a more Jane Austen style, all polite society and hunting parties and marriage brokering.

It's a low power, low magic game. I'm using Conan d20 sorcery rules so magic is low power/comes at a cost to your soul sort of thing. Using magic is illegal. So is being the wrong religion. And people are quite racist. Obviously this gives me things like: Great Uncle Harold was a sorcerer pagan half elf.

But I'm after others as well. From the Jane Austen social embarassment/petty scandal (Did you hear? She married into trade, poor thing) through the Bronte's Mad Wife In the Attic to the truly horrific, Lovecraftian sort of thing. These secrets could be old or new, doesn't matter.

All help greatly appreciated. And if I ever make a movie out of it your names will be in the credits as "the collected brains of ENWORLD."

thanks in advance.

 

[Ry]

In the family's past, someone tried to find a formula that would allow them to live forever, and succeeded. Unfortuantely, they kept aging, and now they're still acting as the patriarch, controlling the family from the shadows... a shrunken, dessicated husk kept in plush-lined chamber disguised as a large dollhouse.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Oh that's nice. Or nasty. Depending on one's POV.
thanks.

EDIT: I now have this image of the young children of the family playing with this doll house. Probably being forced to play with it.

 

[Ry]

Another family or organization: When they're struck about the head, a chip comes off the paint on their eyes, revealing dark stone orbs. If cleaned off (this involves some killing probably) their eyes are carved in runes of a language no one understands. Four other identical orbs are situated in different parts of the body.

 

[BlackMoria]

A senior noble family member of house whose star has been rapidly rising has made a Faustian pact with a powerful outsider. The terms of the pact is what has propelled the noble house to it's position of power, wealth and influence.

However, it is nearing time for the noble and his family to 'pay the piper'. Said family is now franticly trying to find a means or ways to renege on the deal before the outsider collects his due.

 

[Rechan]

Lord A keeps a half-orc girl locked away in his basement. She is his bastard child, and it would ruin him if it was discovered he had bred with an orc while he was out hunting. This is his only regret of his life. The shame, regret and paranoia about this discovery has spawned an entity known as the Wretched, a scheming guardian creature that goes at any length to keep the girl's secret safe. The Misfortune, its foil, has spawned from the girl's longing and tortured self; the Misfortune is a monstrous entity with the heart of a child that wants nothing more than to be loved. It has been going out into the surrounding community, kidnapping children to play with it/bring to the girl for companionship.

Lord B has sold his soul to evil forces (devils, rakshasa, etc). Not for earthly benefits (as those rarely work out), but instead he has requested a comfortable place in hell, in exchange for not repenting. This way, Lord B can go on doing his wicked, sadistic cruelty and debauchery that he so loves, while not worrying about the final destination of his soul. If he is discovered or stopped, he will commit suicide, then return from hell as a potent devil to seek vengeance on those that uncovered his secret.

Ara, the daughter of Lord and Lady C, is bethrothed to the eldest son of Lord and Lady D. Ara, a delicate and isolated girl, despises the man she is arranged to marry, and loathes her father for arranging the engagement. She has a secret romantic relationship with a female actress at the local Theatre. There, the up-and-coming actress has let Ara in on the thespian crowd, their relationship has given Ara strength, and the two are planning to run off together. Lady C (or Lady D) has discovered this, and plans on killing the actress, while framing her husband (who would benefit financially from marrying into the other family).

Some bored nobles (mainly teenagers and a few 20somethings) have formed a cabal of spellcasters. It's for the most part just for thrills, pawing over forbidden texts and playing with rituals. Except that they got their hands on some real magic, and it has unleashed something that Should Not Be, such as a potent entropy curse, a mutating disease, a creature that can possess others, or an entity that is stalking the cult members.

Lady E is indebted to a simple craftsman or shopkeep. He has done something to aid her or whatever he has done has put her deep in his debts, and she has been forced to do unspeakable things.

Here is an interesting character in a Sherlock Holmes story that might assist in coming up with future stories. Let me quote the most important passage:

"But who is he?"
"I'll tell you, Watson. He is the king of all the blackmailers. Heaven help the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and reputation come into the power of Milverton! With a smiling face and a heart of marble, he will squeeze and squeeze until he has drained them dry. The fellow is a genius in his way, and would have made his mark in some more savoury trade. His method is as follows: He allows it to be known that he is prepared to pay very high sums for letters which compromise people of wealth and position. He receives these wares not only from treacherous valets or maids, but frequently from genteel ruffians, who have gained the confidence and affection of trusting women. He deals with no niggard hand. I happen to know that he paid seven hundred pounds to a footman for a note two lines in length, and that the ruin of a noble family was the result. Everything which is in the market goes to Milverton, and there are hundreds in this great city who turn white at his name. No one knows where his grip may fall, for he is far too rich and far too cunning to work from hand to mouth. He will hold a card back for years in order to play it at the moment when the stake is best worth winning. I have said that he is the worst man in London, and I would ask you how could one compare the ruffian, who in hot blood bludgeons his mate, with this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen money-bags?"

 

[DrunkonDuty]

That's weird but I like it. Might use it for the village of strange "inbred" folk of my Innsmouth. COuld be the link to the Deep Ones who live in the reefs of the coast.

Or maybe for my Nature Goddess worshipping pagans. The stones could be linked to the Dolmens and other ancient standing stones. A way for the "Gods" to see through their worshippers eyes. Ooh: just had a flashback to a Dr. Who episode: The Stones of Blood. The stones of Stonehenge come alive when blood is poured on them, and they want more!!

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Black Moria and Rechan: thank you too. Lots of good stuff there. It's rapidly becoming very dangerous to be a noble in this game. Bad news for 2 of my PC's.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Skeletons in the closet

The eldest son of this family was engaged to marry the beautiful daughter of another noble family. Three months before the wedding she contracted a fever and passed away. Unable to cope with the idea of losing the love of his life, he dug up her grave and brought the corpse back to family home, hiding it in the cellars. He has since developed an obsession with trying to bring back the dead. He has travelled the world to seek shamens and other who might teach him ways to do so. At home he has experimented using bodies dug up from many graves in the area until he can unlock the secrets of death and bring back his beloved.

So far he has had only partial success. He has found ways to reanimate a body, but it is a soulless shell. He has also managed to recall the souls of several corpses, but has only been able to confine them within cut rubies. The souls within the rubies speak to him of secrets from beyond death's veil.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

The poor have secrets too...

The rundown slums and claustrophobic alleys of the Lost Quarter, stuffed between the tanneries and the midden, are home to the lowest of the low, the wretchedly poor and the simply wretched - if you have nowhere in the city you can call home, you end up in the Lost Quarter or the open road (and it's not like you'll have shoes). It's largely forgotten by the city fathers, the merchants, and even the clergy; the people in the Lost Quarter don't have anything to give to the city, so the city has no use for them. But in recent weeks, the Quarter has been flourishing by its own meager standards; bread is eaten most days a week, and the wine* has been nearly drinkable. It's all thanks to the Man In White**, a sorcerer of middling skill. Seeking refuge from the Church he has slipped into the Lost Quarter and made himself invaluable to the people, getting things into the Quarter that no-one who lives there can buy and providing them to the people.

His price is simple: each week he is given a child by the people of the quarter. What rituals and experiments he involves these poor souls in are best left to the imagination, given the occasional few who are seen again are deranged by fear, afflicted with unnatural hungers, or catatonic husks.

The kicker is, for the people of the Quarter, it's a monumental improvement of their lot. They don't want the Man In White gone; in the best case they go back to starvation and want, in the worst case Church inquisitors will burn out the Quarter entirely.

* Substitute with whatever poor people drink because water in the age is dangerous.
** Call him whatever you like.