Pen and paper horror is ideally made in one-shots. Two of these I have GMd before, using my crad-drafting little pnp-system. It's possible I'll make some of these into one page dungeons or something similar at some point. For now:
The Drillhole Trilogy
1. Oilfield
- You are the survivors of a plane crash. The engine of the passenger jet just cut out.
- Clinging to floating seat cushions the high waves carry you towards a darkened oil rigg.
- Inside, everyone is dead. There are weird symbols scratched into the walls.
- There is a shoggoth in the main tank. It's angry.
- Twist ending: The world has ended. You are among the few survivors.
- You must stop a second event. The source of the mass death is on this oil rigg.
2. Abyssal Entrance
- You are a group of urban explorers somewhere in the Russian hinterland.
- An old research installation is legendary among your ilk. It is completely abandoned.
- Radio picks up scratched transmitions. They turn out to be coded christian prayers.
- The bore hole that was used to explore the depths is at the bottom of a strip mine.
- Down there there is a record of a prayer powered by a radionuclear battery.
- In the 60s, the Soviets accidentally drilled a hole into hell.
- The record needs to be replaced. If it isn't or if it is turned off, hell will invade earth.
3. Icy Prison
- You are political prisoners in a penal outpost all the way out on Pluto.
- Every day you get to suit up and do geological exploratory digs.
- One of your fellow inmates catches something from the hole and goes insane.
- He infects some staff. They start killing people.
- You team up and try to survive.
- Can you fix up a space craft? Wait for help in several months time?
- Or do you stop the transmission of this mimetic disease before it spreads to other worlds?
