Give me a good adventure sets in a lighthouse, preferably a mystery/investigative one (best would be if mythos related).
>>47925720
Brown Recluse is living on the switch that turns the big light on.
>>47925743
>put only very thick gloves
>remove deadly spider
Gee, that was a hard problem to solve.
Interesting.
It really is a quite limited environment.
Maybe throw in some deep underground catacombs?
The sea receding every day until the lighthouse is a tower on the mountain that used to be the seabed?
Maybe the lantern is vital to light the darkness at night?
>>47925769
>Spider pulls out a gun
>>47925769
Where you gonna get very thick gloves from? You're stuck in a lighthouse, in the middle of the sea, during a typhoon, millions of miles away from the nearest glove shop.
>>47925720
What the fuck is that creepy thing's problem? It keeps trying to sit on the lamp.
Do not sit on the lamp to warm your butt!
You will extinguish it!
NO!
Also my dad just became obsessed with lighthouses and the sea over the summer and moved us here on the first day of autumn. Which was also pretty weird.
>>47925800
Shit, time to break out the flamethrower.
>>47925802
Are you telling me that you have no one in the party who always wears gloves thick enough to provide protection against spider bites?
>>47925790
Invert the third option.
The world is slowly flooding and the players need to make themselves a boat before the lighthouse goes under.
>>47926216
I like it.
>lower parts of lighthouse are slowly flooding
>unsettling sights are glimpsed out of the windows below the surface
>a mournful cone of light rotates still under the surface for minutes after the total submergence of the light house as the makeshift boat floats away
>>47926216
On the subject of timers, is it better to have a real-world clock counting down, to have a limited number of turns, or for the GM to arbitrarily mention how much time has passed?
I'm leaning towards a real-time clock that gets paused by the GM as needed. Turn-based clocks don't count discussion time after all.
Lighthouse you say?
It was all a dream.
>>47926403
The problem is that lighthouses don't really have anything interesting in them except of the top and bottom.
>>47925790
You can't forget about the nuclear lighthouses Russia built on the Arctic sea.
Why should I give it to you?
Make your own good adventure set in a lighthouse.
Read the southern reach.
THE LIGHTHOUSE IS A TOP-SECRET MILITARY LASER DESIGNED TO KILL ALIENS.
>>47926577
I think lighthouses are plenty interesting.
Many many floors that are small in area but stacked high. Or maybe a winding staircase in a hollow mid section. Not to mention harrowing ladders on the outside. Or why not a crazy winding stair on the outside, spiraling up to the top and ofc lacking any railing.
>>47926577
>The problem is that lighthouses don't really have anything interesting in them except of the top and bottom.
Disagree. That's only common on a lighthouse with a surplus of land.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Rock_Lighthouse
There's also the option of >>47926527 where it's not just a lighthouse, but possibly a lighthouse with subterranean or sub-oceanic areas. Suppose it was a lighthouse that was found to be in an oil rich area, and a semi-permanent diving bell was added, accessed by a mechanical elevator attached to the island.
Would it be a good place for a Wizard's Tower?
>>47926676
True, the lighthouse near me is a screwpile lighthouse in the middle of a bay.
I have high hopes for this thread.
>>47925790
>The moon is swallowed up, all the stars wink out of the sky, one by one, and the sun never rises. As even the glimmer of passing ships disappear, lighthouse's lights become the only ones left in the hungry darkness.
>>47926216
>>47926403
>There are things, below the water. Tremendous, titanic shapes that slowly circle the lighthouse as the waters rise. The things sing mournful, terrible songs to each other in the depths, filling the PCs minds with horrible, unsettling imaginings.
>>47926777
I'm stealing this idea for an urban fantasy game. The wizard is homeless and squatting in an automated lighthouse.
>>47926668
>After spending a long shift up at the top, tending to a mysteriously cracked lens, the PCs discover that the spiral staircase they must descend to reach the keepers' cottage has become, somehow, infinitely long.
>>47925720
There was that one quest in Skyrim where you go to a lighthouse and find the owners dead and there's this huge Falmer tunnel beneath it. Do something like that but make the monsters Deep Ones or whatever other Mythos monster of your choice. If it's Deep Ones maybe the lighthouse owners are in league with them, kidnapping people from crashed ships (easy to come across when you own a lighthouse) to give to the Deep Ones as sacrifices or breeders.
>>47926676
>subterranean areas
Is there any known way or reason to have a little cave under the lighthouse that a fresh water spring trickles into? It shouldn't work at all given the surrounding ocean, but I wonder if there's some mineral that would strip the salt out of the water.
>rising waters are first hinted at by increased salinity in the fresh water
>eventually more and more water is seeping into the cave until it's just a steadily rising pool of salt water
a fresh water source means a minimum of stored water. now the party needs to improvise some way of boiling the water and collecting the vapor for condensation.
>>47926906
Ghouls would work better.
You could set the lighthouse on a small, rocky island with a deserted fishing village or some other unsettling point of interest on it.
You could allow the PCs to maintain radio communication with passing ship traffic as they also struggle with supernaturally strange seas.
You could have anomalous islands, vessels or even another lighthouse show up in the distance, observable by telescope but unreachable.
You could play with the PCs' perceptions of time and space, changing things around them in weird and worrying ways.
>>47927117
>you wake up from a long sleep and see the sun rising in the east
>you light a candle inside the dark kitchen to prepare breakfast
>by the time your eggs are finished, the only light comes from the small flickering candle
>>47926989
It doesn't have to be Ocean; there are lighthouses in the Great Lakes.
Or if the island itself is tall enough to have dry caves, then rainwater would get into them and be preserved. There would also very likely be a freshwater lens above the ocean water. A lot of coastal cities rely on these for their supply.
>>47927253
>The Great Lakes are fresh water
Well fuck me. Time to go read up on why oceans are salty.
Cheers.
No one posted this yet? Seems like my solitude is indeed true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycgdj74oNwc
>>47927164
The days pass by too quickly and the nights never end, or the nights rush past and the days are endless. A bottle of fine old spirits somehow replenishes itself while the islet's only boat falls to rust and ruin when no one is looking. Clocks and watches are inaccurate and inconsistent, and even the passage of the sun and moon in the skies has grown erratic and eerie.
>>47925720
Have you ever, ever felt like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPxJ6RR40ZU
>>47927298
>When you see the skeletons
>of sailing-ship spars sinking low
>You'll begin to wonder if the points
>of all the ancients myths
>are solemnly directed straight at you...
I never was into art rock but daaamn
>>47926831
>It's the 14th night in a row
>Nothing but endless blackness exists outside the lighthouse beam
>The seas are black and wide
>The sky is dark and empty
>The radio plays only static, punctuated occasionally by a bit of song
>Help is not coming
>>47927336
Read Schrodinger's Cat by Ursala K. Le Guin. Here's a reading of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY4CTN31iyc
>>47927421
>There was a ship in the distance
>We shined the light on it and it shined a light back
>No response came from our hails
>Then it sailed on
>>47927421
>The sea has grown still. The sea has grown perfectly, unnaturally still. The sea is a dark mirror reflecting the lighthouse and its beam and its keepers' haggard faces.
There needs to be a mystery. Not the mystery of how mail keeps arriving. Or how there seems to be bright noon with sunlight through the windows when opening the front door only ever reveals the pitch dark of the night. No real human mystery, solvable. Understandable mystery. A mystery to keep you sane.
Like the mystery of the previous light house keeper. Diaries need to be sifted through. Clues looked for in the supplies in the cupboard. Hints found in the toolshed about the tools that are there and the tools that aren't. Can something be gleaned from the sketches and paintings in the recreation room?
Haha I must be delusional, what can be read from these simple portraits of landscapes? Cats, cute children, architecture. Simple work from an amateur's hand.
Yet I stare at them, hoping for insight to strike me.
I stare at them to gather courage.
For looking out the windows is draining my sanity. Working the light and moving outside is draining my sanity.
And noticing the minute changes made to the paintings every day is draining my sanity.
>>47927386
First thing I thought of seeing this thread.
>>47926989
>>47927253
Oh I missed this in my first reply:
>>rising waters are first hinted at by increased salinity in the fresh water
>>eventually more and more water is seeping into the cave until it's just a steadily rising pool of salt water
This really happens to freshwater lenses. A lot of islands and coastal cities' water supplies are becoming brackish or disappearing. Sea level rise makes the lens shrink and so a well that tapped drinkable water will start drawing ocean water. It affects millions of people.
So good job thinking of horror plots.
>>47925854
>>47926216
>>47925790
forever dm here. this will start ,my next campaign.
>party will be a group of orphans who moved to a lighthouse on the middle of the sea.
>as they grow up in session 0, we will design a level for each pc at the top of the lighthouse and live some episodes of them growing up.
> as they grow closer to maturity they notice that many children come and get adopted, but they never did.
> at session 1 they will find out that their father orphanguy did some fucked up shit to the adopted children and created some fleshgolemmeatgod type of thing that drains the ocean.
>dungeon appears in the lighthousemountain.
>when they reach down the god will flood the sea and lighthouse again.
it will be pure pandemonium in there.
>>47927606
edit.
>level as in an own room for each pc, should help with rp
>>47927421
>>47927549
>Francis is obsessed with the song that can sometimes be heard over the static on the radio.
>He's trying to piece together the whole thing from the snippets we catch every so often.
>He doesn't do much of anything else now but eat, sleep, keep watch and listen to that radio and try to complete that song.
>We had to bar him from the radio room and force him to keep his last watch.
>Joseph wants to try to call for help on the radio again, but Francis won't let him.
>We're starting to worry about Francis...
>>47927474
>Cutter spotted the ship first and alerted us
>He made himself hoarse from yelling
>He didn't want to leave the balcony for fear the ship might not be there when he arrived
>It drifted closer in silence
>Its hull scarred and slashed
>Something drifted off its railings and into the black sea
>Something long and ropey that we could not identify from such a distance
>We hailed them, to no response
>The ship sailed past us, unpowered, unguided, unmanned
Also, wasn't there a post similar to this about guards at a lonely isolated outpost?
>>47925720
PCs try to shut down the lighthouse so a ship approaching the coast sinks:
-ship may carry valuable treasure they want to salvage
-it's an spy ship carrying dangeous cargo
-ship carries the plage
Problem is lighthouse keeper is:
-an ex adventurer gone mad
-a recluse werewolf
-a mad scientist/wizard
>>47927825
I'm not sure if this is what you're thinking of, but I'm reminded of this early /tg/ thread describing a manned outpost atop a long wall stretching across a lonely frontier:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/1034444
>>47927825
>Margo says there's enough fuel to keep the generator running and the lamp lit for another month and a half or so.
>She says there's food, water and medical supplies enough to last longer than that.
>No one asked how much longer that might be.
>No one wants to talk about what we're going to do after we run out of fuel.
>No one wants to think about what will happen when the light goes out.
Why do we limit ourselves to just regular oceans?
>Lighthouses are celestial beacons used by ships to help them triangulate their position in known space
>Over the centuries many light houses have been risen and just as many have been abandonded and yet they still shine their lights
>Sometimes squatters will take refuge in Lighthouses and jury rig all manner of repairs to the delapitated structures to keep them going and some even receive funding from mercahnt captains and Corporate ships for doing so.
>There are some light houses that people absolutely refuse to go near believing them to be haunted, or worst.
So now you have the haunted lighthouse scenario, only now it's in space.
>>47928519
>the stars are lighthouses
eyy what up Anya?
Congratulations, I have been terrified. Good job /tg/
>>47928233
>Joseph took the motorboat and sailed off with it. He said that he was tired of sitting around, doing nothing to try and save everyone while waiting for the light to go out.
For some reason in imagining this all taking place in the 1960s or 1970s, before most lighthouses were automated and telecommunications were as robust as they were.
>>47928894
I thought you were alluding to To the Moon. Never mind.
>>47926527
Or the other way.
>>47928963
No worries. The idea is the Lighthouses are like space stations who purpose is to help guide ships but more or less take the haunted lighthouse scenario into hardmode where you litterally can't leave under normal circumstances because of the vaccuum that surrounds you while dealing with ghost and other paranormal shit
>>47928998
>Players solve the puzzle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_u18_BKczg
>>47928998
waidaminute, that card.
>>47926906
God, that fucking light house. Those poor people.
No matter what the actual storyline is, the main thing to remember when setting a game in a location with a lighthouse is to find a way to properly convey the overwhelming sense of isolation these places have become infamous for.
>Your boat becomes under attack from a massive sea monster, you steer for the lighthouse while the monster ravages your ship.
>It sinks/crashes into the lighthouse and you crawl onto the island.
>The lighthouse is completely deserted but still shining.
>Players fuck around with diaries etc
>Discover underground catacombs
>They were originally Wizards Towers for Aquamancers. The red fire typically found was a warning to stay away from them, rather then rocks and reefs they tended to gather around.
>Lighthouses are actually all connected and are used as means of traversing the oceans they stand by.
>After a war with the Ocean Gods, the Lighthouses were erected to cage the sea and prevent it flooding the planet.
Boom, your welcome.
The only copy I could find online was this English class book, but this story freaked me out as a child.
>>47929715
>>After a war with the Ocean Gods, the Lighthouses were erected to cage the sea and prevent it flooding the planet.
>>47929823
The sea is patient.
The sea gods can wait.
Year by year, inch by inch, the sea rises.
Stone crumbles, sand washes away.
And when the lighthouses are all washed away,
When the people forget,
They will return.
They make a pretty good setup for a low level under siege or murder mystery type of adventure. Nowhere to run, a small, enclosed environment where death could be lurking in any corner or hiding among the NPCS, and the monster can have an easier time in the water than the PCs, giving them an environment advantage over the PCs and forcing them to be clever.
>>47930955
>The sea is patient.The sea gods can wait. Year by year, inch by inch, the sea rises.Stone crumbles, sand washes away.And when the lighthouses are all washed away, When the people forget,They will return.
>>47926216
>The world is slowly flooding and the players need to make themselves a boat before the lighthouse goes under.
>>47926831
>There are things, below the water. Tremendous, titanic shapes that slowly circle the lighthouse as the waters rise. The things sing mournful, terrible songs to each other in the depths, filling the PCs minds with horrible, unsettling imaginings.
>>47925802
>millions of miles away
Is the lighthouse in space?
>>47932932
Which makes it all the more disconcerning when the airlock starts flooding.
>>47933123
Brilliant
>>47933123
I'm still fond of the idea of running something like this in a traditional, maritime lighthouse.
What about the undead angle? Thd lighthouse was originally for ships but after being decommissioned local evil wizards (or very irresponsible teenagers) used it to perform rites to raise the dead (the spiritual crossroads of land and sea allowed powerful chaotic forces to be tapped). Due to abuse of the local energy well a planar rift has been created to an evil dimension that fluctuates with the tides and lical moons. The local "light house keepers" were actually a secret society of clerics who were keeping the rift closed. When the local fishing village starts seeing abandoned ships with tattered sails on foggy moonlit nights off the coast the adventuring party is sent to investigate. All theyre told is they need to replace the bulb at the top and the lighthouse is far out to sea and only accessible at low tide. Many derelict ships crowd the long beach.....
>>47933496
Undead are overdone. As a player, they have no interesting motivations or interactions with me. If you want unnatural forces, take a gander at >>47922177 or just read some Lovecraft. The Colour Out of Space is good.
>>47933496
This would give backstory to all the sanity draining mysteries and also provide a timed run to beat tides past zombie undead squid whatevers. I think it would also be cool if there were a cave or secret entrance (one of the derelict ships is blocking the only door and must be travelled through to get into the lighthouse). Finally, blatant rip off of the Amber series, but make a section of the lighthouse only visible/traversable/existant when moonlight shines on it, and otherwise the lighthouse looks like a ruin. For extra creep factor make it the middle part so the top part is floating independently of the base. And the party thought they just had to screw a lightbulb in.....duh duh DUH
Listen to the Lore podcast episodes with lighthouses. Shit's fucked up.
>>47933612
Well it doesnt have to be undead but im not a huge fan of Lovecraft as ive seen it a lot. Sort of the edgy lolrandom alternative to undead. What you need is something weird enough to provide a cool play environment, justify the mysteries and scare the crap out of the villagers. One cool alternative is that extra-dimensional beings from a chaos dimension are getting trapped by the lighthouse but arent inherently evil - maybe theyre as terrified of us. You free them and go back and inform the village to stop fucking about with forces beyond their ken.
>>47933675
Fuck yeah nothing beats reality when it comes to messed up shit.
>having the corpse of your comrade stare acusingly at you from the cliffs for months without you able to do shit about it
>>47926611
Came here to post this.
>>47933675
Which podcast?
>>47934238
The best DM aide I have found in years.
>>47925720
What's with that metal gantry that extends off the top of the tower? Makes me think airship dock.
>>47934695
Because there's no actual place to dock a boat, that crane was likely used to unload supplies.
>>47925720
The lighthouse goes as far below ground as it does above. It serves a similar purpose as well....
>>47935036
I like it!
>Food, water an spirits are running low. Suddenly an ice storm hits. Temperature rapidly drops and you scramble to find something to burn.
What do, /tg/?
>>47937104
Huddle together for warmth.
A Darkest Dungeon mod with a light house sounds pretty friggin sweet, now
the lighthouse represents order among the chaos, safe passage between Scylla and Charybdis. to the deeper things that live beneath those waves, this order is anathema. they slink out at high tide with cold, flabby, webbed hands and long neck-snapping fingers, with huge eyes like distant moons, and they beat upon the great wooden door of the lighthouse. man's racial memory has not yet forgotten the sound of slimy skin scraping against wet timber, of deeper things nudging up against us from the insane bottom-places hidden from the rational sun. the lighthouse-keeper has kept them at bay for years, for should they succeed, should they turn off that narrow beacon of sanity, they would slither out of the lunatic mud and turn their dead, blind gaze up toward the light of the sun--and the light of man.
only the lighthouse-keeper has known these things, and he has borne this terrible burden of knowledge alone for many years. now that lighthouse-keeper has not answered radio calls from the mainland for some days. a ship has been lost. the beacon lies dark. you have been sent to find the truth. the truth is the lighthouse-keeper lies dead. the truth is the sun is going down for maybe the last time. the truth is deeper things are coming with squelching footsteps on the jagged island rock. drink of the black sea and touch the dead star fires that ships wreck upon.
>>47938219
>>47938494
>>47938744
>>47938752
>>47938762
Spoopy lighthouse story from Junji Ito.
http://qmanga.com/mangafox/uzumaki-2/reader?page=9
This is something you can totally expound upon.
>>47926906
>We finally did it. We bought the lighthouse. I thought Habd was just making idle promises all these years, what husband doesn't want to promise their wife the two moons from the sky, but I didn't think we'd actually manage to get it! Now if I could only find where we put everything.
>I can't find my favorite cooking pot and it is slightly infuriating. Sudi and Mani seem unhappy, but they're still young and don't seem to understand that we just want to spend a few more years with them before they leave us to see the world. I know they think their father will live forever, but I see his age creeping into his eyes. He made me promise again that when he died I would put his bones in the lighthouse fire so he could look out over the ocean forever.
cont.
>>47939399
>Oooh those two get to me sometimes! I went to unpack some of our keepsakes from the trading ships we used to sail but I can't find them!
>Sudi keeps saying she's hearing something in the basement at night and Mani suggested it was skeevers! They know I hate skeevers! Now I'm too scared to go down there at all. I'm glad I unpacked my favorite urn and put it safely on the mantle before those two started causing mischief. If they put a skeever in the basement I swear...
>>47939408
>I hate it here. Why did we have to move to Skyrim anyway? I miss the big port cities, there was always something to do and new people around. Or even being cabin girl on one ships [sic] we used to sail on would be better than this! Mani says we should run away, but I can't leave Mother and Father alone out here... Oh what to do?
>We've been here for two months now and there is nothing to do! From the top of the lighthouse we can see all the way to the College at Winterhold, but Father says that magic is for Daedra worshippers. The only interesting thing to have happened lately is that Mother snapped at us at dinner and accused us of stealing things out of the cellar. I did hear scratching down there the other night, but I thought it was just Father cleaning fish.
>I caught Mani in the cellar a couple days ago going through some the barrels and crates. At first I thought it was him all along making those scratches to play a trick on me, but I heard them again last night and Mani was in bed. Father finally said he would go get some traps and poison from town in case it's skeevers. I'm really scared, it doesn't sound like skeevers to me.
>>47939418
>Mani won't listen, he thinks I'm just making up the noises and keeps sneaking into the cellar! Oooh why is he so stupid some times? I don't know why he keeps going down there but I've found the cellar key he copied and hid it in Mother's favorite keepsake so he won't find it. The scratching is getting louder.
The last note
>I don't know how long we've been down here. Father came down to find us, but those things captured him as well. I asked him if he'd seen Mother or Mani, but I don't know if he could even hear me. One of those big bugs bit him when he tried to get free and now he's feverish.
>>47928951
>Joseph took too much food and water with him when he stole the boat and motored off alone into the darkness.
>Margo and Cutter went to try and scrounge up more supplies in the old fishing town on the south side of the island.
>No one's lived there since fishing the shoals around the island went sour sometime around thirty years ago.
>Folk couldn't afford to keep living on he island, and most couldn't afford to bring all their belongings with them when they left.
>Francis, at his radio like always, maintains contact with the scavengers as they pick the old burg over for loot.
>Margo reports that the whole town is filled with shadows, revealed by their flashlights, standing stock still in place.
>Margo says that the shadows are watching them and that they're coming back to the lighthouse with what they have.
>Cutter does nothing but curse, quietly but continuously, under his breath.
>>47940103
>Margo and Cutter return to the safety of the lighthouse, lugging along what food and supplies they could find before in town.
>Margo is shaken by what she'd seen, and Cutter keeps on cursing as he cracks open the whiskey he found, taking a long swig right from the bottle.
>Cutter says that he saw Joseph's shadow out there, standing in the stern of a sunken boat in the town's little harbor.
>>47933391
>as you step inside the lighthouse you realize that, in fact, you are in space.
>>47926577
>russian nuclear lighthouses
yessss
>>47937104
Snu-snu.
Alright, thread
I have stolen what I liked and put it all in here. Maybe I'll work it out some more later. For now:
Isolated nuclear light house
normally crewed by 6
previous shift lost the commanding officer and only permanent resident to pneumonia
characters can discover that his sickness also drove him mad and made him ramble about holy duty and invisible creatures on his death bed
Ice breaker every 3 months
Party sized crew (engineer, radio, reactor, wildlife, cook)
NPC in charge vanishes early
characters must report the incident and man the station until the ship returns, bad weather compromises the answers on radio
Mundane animal swarm (penguins, puffins, seals?)
underline isolation
seem to offer companionship
keep staring unphazed as horror wreaks havoc
characters could eat them if supplies are lost
their behavior could reveal a clue about an exterior location
Beasts around
supernatural infestation and vague threat in large numbers
only come out at night
kept in check by light house beam
cause obsession, paranoia, and hallucinations?
one character can spot one early on in the distance, then again a few more times, before it shows up inside right behind them
Mad scribblings
hidden by previous keeper/s
explains phenomenology
describes risk of light going out
characters can discover several versions of this, an official log that just hints at more, a hidden notebook with research and moon phase calendars, and an old text about the secret duty to guard against those things by keeping the light on
Caves beneath, only accessible at low tide
a nice low tide trip to some old cave art
ancient cultic site providing ritual power to the light house above
characters can discover how to use this place for a ritual in the notes
Lunar cycle
an important ritual can only be performed 3 times during the 3 months
the moon phase changes the behavior of the entities
>>47929028
Thing is, you can leave the lighthouse, and then you´re on a small rock on the middle of the ocean.
So close, yet so far. And in space you can look around you through any window, in any direction. But you can´t see what might be under the water, looking at you.
>>47934289
That looks great
Thanks anon
>>47941061
Very nice! You might be able to add something like an old whaling town or the ruins of a medieval Russian village if you wanted to add more layers to the story. I'm a big fan of many-layered histories and multiple-choice pasts in horror games.
>>47925720
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_Draft_(novel)
>>47941458
>>47941061
Also, those old nuclear lighthouses were often built above the arctic circle, so you could play with the fact that the nights are going to be very, very long there.
(Really, those lighthouses were nuclear powered so that they wouldn't need keepers living there in such awful conditions. They could be built, automated and left alone for years on end thanks to the longevity of their atomic fuel sources.)
>>47925720
Fraggle rock
>>47941533
Do you have any idea what they were used for? Commercial shipping? Where they a land claim? Did they secretly monitor US bombers skirting USSR airspace?
I figure that in the 80s at the latest a radio beacon would be more effective. Now there's sat nav.
So to set it it up maybe this is an early 50s test facility before they were automated?
I once read a book about a group if men working at a lighthouse. One day they see a ship out in the distance, heading straight towards the rocks. When they look out to see why the ship isn't turning away they see that the entire crew is gone, but all the lifeboats are still there. They were all eaten by rats, from the animals they had gotten to take care of rats to the last man. When the ship hits the rocks and sinks the rats are forced to swim to the only land around, the lighthouse. The book has the men desperately trying to outrun this ravenous horde that follows them up the tower slipping through the smallest cracks, chewing through wooden doors, and stripping the flesh off of any man who doesn't manage to escape them. When the last men reach the windows it's pitch black and they realize that the rats have climbed up and completely covered the outside.
I forget how it ends.
>>47941712
The article on this site will give you a bit of history about the Soviets' atomic lighthouses:
http://englishrussia.com/2009/01/06/abandoned-russian-polar-nuclear-lighthouses/
Essentially, it was easier to transport bulk goods from Eastern Russia to Western Russia by ship across the Arctic Ocean than it was to traverse Siberia Over land. To guide these ships, a chain of lighthouses were built along Russia's remote northern coastline that were automated and powered by small, disposable nuclear reactors that allowed the beacons to go unmanned and without maintenance or resupply for years or even decades.
>>47941824
It doesn't sound like it ended well.
>>47941824
>>47941937
Another anon posted it before
>>47929735
>>47939399
>>47939408
>>47939418
>>47939424
Damn, this makes me want to reinstall skyrim.
>>47942544
Meanwhile, in the witcher
>people suspected that a lighthouse is haunted by a nightwraith
>turns out there are no wraith, imps, jack-o-lanterns nor any other paranormal beings
>it was peasants who lit bonfires on the shoreline to wreck and loot ships
I'm not sure what I like better: a sea-washed lighthouse with no land for miles and miles, meant to drive home the themes of isolation and lonliness, or a lighthouse built atop a small island, allowing for more diverse exploration options.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXnl-rkw6do
>>47944610
>>47944623
>>47944671
>>47945827
Well, now I'm depressed.
Teach me how to enjoy lighthouses TG.
Every single time they come up I've always just tuned out because they're the most boring piece of architecture in existence.
>>47946727
watch song of the sea
>>47946727
Have you maybe fallen for the perceptual fallacy of assuming that the world ends at the coast and merely picks up again on the other side of the ocean?
There is stuff in between, you know. And the light house is the outpost of society which is closest. Ships are transient.
The barnacles/clams/other filter feeders which should only grow along tide lines not only reach up far higher than any tide is known to rise, but close inspection shows they group in strange sigils
Have an odd one.
>>47948239
>B...e...s...u...r...e...t...o...d...r...i...n...k...y...o...u...r...o...v...a.. l...t...i...n...e
Sonofabitch
>>47949481
...wat?
>>47949462
Anon, that's a bed & breakfast.
>>47949544
Shit son, get some culture. That's from A Christmas Story
>>47950430
I'm kind of amused that the real world apparently has a sea-locked B&B. It's like a less mobile version of that restaurant in Sanji's background from One Piece.
>>47941824
Sounds rather like the rats from Dishonored.
>>47925720
Bioshock.
>>47925720
Keepers disappear without a trace, one by one.
>>47954590
Then who is going to tell the investigators what happens?
>>47954620
The PCs are the keepers. One by one they're disappearing, and evidence begins to suggest that they're not simply falling into the sea.
>>47954652
In CoC the GM is called the keeper.
>>47954699
Good to know.
>>47954699
People who run a lighthouse are called "lighthouse keepers" fyi desu senpai.
>>47957114
We know you're a dumb shit.
You don't have to go out of your way to prove it every day.
fyi
>one day, light goes off just for a couple of minutes
>before PCs can get to the top, it comes back again
>top railing is covered by runes
>on the floor there are ashes
I really like the "Unending Night" scenario, because it makes the PCs dependent on the lighthouse and resource management for protection against the darkness, an enemy that the PCs don't know how to fight.
>>47941061
Rhythm and cycles definitely matter.
Moon phases
Tides
Arctic day/night
>>47943489
The latter. It gives not only a place for adventure to happen, but also something you can take away from players.
>>47959366
>something you can take away from players
Boat
Radio contact
Supplies
Weapons
Sleep
Working lights
Trust in each other
...
>>47959420
I like the way you think.
>>47933704
Ironically enough Stargate SG1 did this amazingly right.
>>47959420
Know what would be awesome? If they made a The Long Dark esk game like this. You wake up next to a life boat broken on the rocks of the lifeless tiny island. There a journal up in the light raving about thing in the water and keeping the light on. Not only must you worry about your own health you must also keep the light repaired and running.
>>47959420
Now, that's too expected.
Give them an abandoned village on the island, that's creepy, maybe a bit monster infected, but essentially it's something that is there and if you ever feel like you could go there and hunt for some resources.
One day they open the door and find the village has sunk.
Bumping with a couple of maps
>>47961636
>>47960947
>>47959420
I like the idea of the PCs whole world getting smaller and smaller and smaller till the only haven they have left is the lighthouse itself.
>>47940199
>>47940103
Reminds me of the shadows of the dead in the Metro series.
>>47941061
There are eyes in the dark.
You can see them when the beam of the lighthouse reflects back.
They never move when you can see them but they're never in the same place when the light comes back around.
As the nights get longer, there are more of them.
Each night they seem to get closer.
Sometimes they move further back. But they are steadily nearing.
One night the lights went out. We think one was inside, but we never saw it, only heard movement.
They keep getting closer.
The days are getting shorter.
The light must not go out again.
Go full Slenderman on this. The tiny, distant thing you see far away that very slowly gets closer. It's not an overt threat, nor is it in any hurry, but it is always there, always getting closer, and you are never not at the center of its attention. You might forget about it for a while, but it never forgets about you.
This is all great, I may use this. It's not a horror campaign so a sudden left turn into Mythos shit will catch my players off guard.
But let's look at something from the opposite perspective. You're not the lighthouse crew, you're sea travelers on a dangerous ocean, and you see the light in the distance.
You need a port and go there for safety, finding the lighthouse abandoned but largely intact, with a more wrecked village nearby.
Something damages your ship, maybe the storm, maybe not, hard to tell.
Strange things are happening, unexplained phenomena, tensions are high.
The premise being that instead of the light being used by the party to ward off evil, some evil force was on the island using the light like an Angler's lure light to draw in fresh victims, and now they must either escape or defeat whatever power has lured them there.
When they eventually escape, the island will sink back into the mist and fog, and vanish from view.
The last thing they will see of it is the light flicking back on, starting to slowly track around once again.
>>47962148
You know, you're right. You could construe the greentexted events in this thread as the PCs having slipped into some kind of dark spirit realm or, perhaps Davy Jones' Locker.
Dead seas, dead ships, and dead men all around them.
Maybe this might be one of the few times where you could pull the old "the PCs were really dead all along" trick and have it be meaningful. Maybe each of the PCs has a lesson they need to learn there on that lonely rock before they can move on to whatever afterlife awaits them. Maybe they're in limbo. Maybe they're supposed to stay there, keeping that lighthouse lit to help others.
One of the "Submachine" games takes place in a burried lighthouse. I could probably base a whole campaign off of the Submachine games in FATE or something.
>>47962302
I like the Purgatory route.
Much as I like the Mythos style (don't know much about actual Lovecraft) I wouldn't actually use it. If things are too hopeless then what's the point?
But if there is real hope it makes it all the tense when your chances are less and less.
But I think there's something really good to be found in there, fighting to keep the lighthouse lit because even in this shadow world, they are still fulfilling their purpose.
The shadows around them lengthen, the seas are unnaturally calm or tossed with storms.
Unnatural things whisper at the windows and the radio taunts them with silence or half heard songs.
But the light is still lit.
They still keep their house.
And travelers may yet find safe harbor.
>>47962445
I really like that, the pride and the sacrifice of the lighthouse keepers, keeping their light lit to guide others and keep them safe on those strange seas.
>98% ocean world but rusty downgraded future tech
>newly settled, mostly unexplored but whored out for its vast food reserves
>lighthouses aren't for navigating ships, they function like porch lights do for moths for attracting fish
>small factory for catching and processing the fish, almost entirely automated but things constantly breaking down, yours is one of the more outdated and ramshackle outposts
>lately there've been less and less fish
>you've been seeing larger and larger shadows under the waves, just circling and circling
>your companion AI says she's getting strange readings from the water around you but she hasn't had a disk wipe in years so she's probably just full of errors. or it's the salt water getting to her
>the nets caught something while you were asleep
>something big
>by the time you wake up and do your morning routine, it's already chunked, packaged, and shipped off
>but there's stains on the floor in colors you can't even describe, and some of the machinery looks corroded
>it'll be weeks before anything that isn't an automated transport barge comes by
>AI companion growing stranger by the day
>no more fish
>there's a hole in one of the synthalloy nets
>the planet is entering the year-long summer of its slow orbit
>AI reminds you how little is known of the indigenous species of this planet and their life cycles, only that they are attracted to light and the small ones are delicious
>something bumped the complex today
>something very big
>>47962807
Wow, that would make for a pretty amazing summer-themed sci-fi horror game. You could portray working at these automated fishing facilities as a lonesome but relaxing job, desirable to certain types of people who enjoy fishing, freedom, and fun in the sun and who don't mind a little alone time. People treat being stationed there like a kind of vacation, a reward for their service to the company. Perhaps there are many facilities like it run by many companies across the planet, and one by one, the closest ones to the PCs' facility are destroyed.
>>47962942
>>47962807
This kind of high tech setting could also bring sort of a new twist to the usual Lovecraft stuff. Instead of not knowing what's really going on because reality is being warped, it's a more mundane kind of paranoia where you don't know what's happening or what's real because you can't trust your instruments anymore, but there's no other source of information.
Are the other outposts actually gone, or are you just having a communications breakdown? Are THEY having radio trouble or is it you? Can the incoming signals be trusted? Is the AI on the fritz or is it you who isn't seeing the writing on the wall?
>>47962291
Also any feedback or ideas on this? I think I might try to use it sometime.
Lighthouse on an island, small abandoned town nearby, big stretch of uninhabited island, party lured there by malign entity for unknown purpose.
>>47963009
>Also any feedback or ideas on this? I think I might try to use it sometime.Lighthouse on an island, small abandoned town nearby, big stretch of uninhabited island, party lured there by malign entity for unknown purpose.
This would be a great situation to include various layers of history for the PCs to discover. The island is surrounded by dangerous waters, full of jagged rocks or sunken shoals, and as a result there are a LOT of shipwrecks around the island from different time periods and in various states of decay. Aboard these vessels, around the abandoned fishing village and inside the lighthouse would be things left behind by others that the evil presence has lured to the island. Backpacks, tents, supplies, journals. No bodies though.
>>47963193
That could be good. Many shipwrecks but isn't a lighthouse supposed to ward off ships from dangerous waters? Something doesn't add up.
Maybe one of those ships is what brought the evil to the island, some trapped horror being transported somewhere for imprisonment or disposal, and a chance accident has broken it free and given it a new hunting ground.
Itself unable to leave, or choosing not to, it now haunts the island, using the promise of safe harbor to lure in fresh prey, then trap them here to be tormented and hunted.
But it has grown complacent and cruel in its long stay, content to simply toy with them for a while before going in for the kill, giving them a chance to find its weakness, hopefully before they either piss it off or make it realize they're a serious threat.
Probably something with illusion powers to manifest all kinds of various scares and try to gaslight the party by changing things or their perceptions of things when they're not looking.
Learning about their foe from the demented scribblings of other victims in half destroyed journals, scavenging for supplies, and the dread moment when they realize there's something else on the island with them.
>>47925720
BRING US THE GIRL
WIPE AWAY THE DEBT
>>47963301
>Maybe one of those ships is what brought the evil to the island, some trapped horror being transported somewhere for imprisonment or disposal, and a chance accident has broken it free and given it a new hunting ground.
To be honest, the first thing I thought of when I read this was, "what if the ship transporting Dracula to England ran aground on a remote lighthouse island, trapping the bloodsucker there?"
>>47963009
>Instead of not knowing what's really going on because reality is being warped, it's a more mundane kind of paranoia where you don't know what's happening or what's real because you can't trust your instruments anymore, but there's no other source of information. Are the other outposts actually gone, or are you just having a communications breakdown? Are THEY having radio trouble or is it you? Can the incoming signals be trusted? Is the AI on the fritz or is it you who isn't seeing the writing on the wall?
That's fantastic.
>>47963301
>That could be good. Many shipwrecks but isn't a lighthouse supposed to ward off ships from dangerous waters? Something doesn't add up.
Sorry to multi-post, but looking over this line again gave me a thought: what if it's not the lighthouse that drew the PCs and the other shipwrecks to the island? You're completely right in that lighthouses are usually meant to warn ship away from dangerous rocks and shoals. What if the thing on the island, by itself or in conjunction with fogs and storms, wrecks the ships, and the light house is long-dark? The final confrontation with the thing could take place at the very top of the lighthouse' tower, and its defeat could be achieved by re-lighting the light, causing the thing to burn away?
The thing could be a being of storms, fog and darkness.
>>47963399
Maybe, I was thinking something more freaky than a vampire, might homebrew some kind of horror up for this.
As for the other idea, glad you like it. Can be a lot of wiggle room with well meaning, honest computers that are wrong but cannot understand that they are wrong, it's just a fault in hardware or software and an inability to comprehend more than that.
Like a sonar made for looking for fish swarms, sees a big sonar ping as 'large swarm of fish' but in reality it's one big thing. It's not intentionally lying to you, but it's unable to deal with a situation beyond the scope of its design and intended use.
Think of the kind of self inflicted paranoia of someone using Web MD to diagnose themselves with all kinds of horrifying ailments and then extrapolate that to the entire setting. There's some weird shit happening, equipment is breaking down and you can't keep everything fixed all the time, your AI is either breaking or is simply beyond the scope of its ability to adjust to the situation and the only source of information you have are potentially buggy sensors that weren't meant to see what they're looking at even when they were working properly.
So there really is no way to know how much of this is real and how much is imagined, all you know is that SOMETHING bad is happening but you trying to figure out exactly what it is, is like one of the blind men groping at an elephant and trying to describe it.
You're only seeing a little bit of it through fundamentally flawed senses, so who knows what might actually be happening.
>>47963503
I like the anglerfish thing but that might work. If perhaps the 'thing' infesting the island isn't an actual physical threat, but is instead a malevolent entity without physical form, essentially transforming the island into a genius loci which feeds by driving the party to madness and paranoia.
Only able to manifest more 'tangible' spirits in darkness which can be a direct threat, but during the daytime is still aware of the party's actions and capable of influencing and subverting the world around them for its own purposes. Mostly to sow paranoia and distrust among the party to soften them up for the attack.
>>47962807
I really like the diverging angle of this. I came for the traditional kind of spooky but this aliensesque sci fi flavour is really tickling my creative bones!
I just thought I'd archive this thread on Sup/tg/ in case anyone might find inspiration for their future games in it:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=Lighthouses
Vote it up if you've enjoyed the discussion.
>>47964556
There's definitely something really appealing about the idea.
Yeah it's been a fun thread, I think I'm going to use that 'lighthouse luring in the party' thing for my campaign sometime, glad people liked my ideas.
>>47965248
I've really enjoyed the "Endless Night" and "Waterworld" ideas. I'd like to brainstorm them both a bit more and maybe write some greentext tomorrow.
>>47965248
Make sure to tell us about it in the next horror general.
>>47965444
I dashed off the waterworld one before grabbing food but the more I think about it the more possibilities I find. Happy it stuck with other people too, and I'm interested in what you'll come up with.
>>47925720
You could throw in something like the black stone maze beneath Hightower in ASOIAF.
>>47965595
The Waterworld idea feels horrific and yet believable, and really satisfying in its own way.
>>47965497
Not sure when I'll get to it, but I am looking forward to it.
>>47965751
Yeah, no reality bending stuff, which is in a way even scarier because this is all real, but it's impossible to know what's 'really' real or what's just a figment of your imagination or a misinterpretation.
>>47965751
I think what makes it work for me is it has to have that dirty, rusty sort of future look. Cowboy Bebop's a good model for what I mean, if you've seen it. Inhabited worlds are far apart and sparsely colonized, so your parts are out of date, of wildly varying quality, often incompatible due to versions, and generally rusted all to shit from constant seawater. Things are always breaking down or going on the fritz, hence the human element instead of fully automated.
Otherwise it's hard to keep that sense of powerlessness and uncertainty/fear of the unknown if you've got lasers and spaceships and so on. Need to find a way to balance the setting with the desired lighthouse-type isolated-creepy atmosphere.
>>47929735
I think I'm gonna run this for my WFRP group.
>>47965944
>Yeah, no reality bending stuff, which is in a way even scarier because this is all real, but it's impossible to know what's 'really' real or what's just a figment of your imagination or a misinterpretation.
>>47965948
>I think what makes it work for me is it has to have that dirty, rusty sort of future look. Cowboy Bebop's a good model for what I mean, if you've seen it. Inhabited worlds are far apart and sparsely colonized, so your parts are out of date, of wildly varying quality, often incompatible due to versions, and generally rusted all to shit from constant seawater. Things are always breaking down or going on the fritz, hence the human element instead of fully automated.
This is exactly what I'm imagining as well. While the setting's tech is bound to be far, far more advanced than what we have today, it's vital that it feels rusty, crusty, old and worn-in.
The PCs here aren't going to be the roughest, toughest, gun-totingest folk either. They're going to be mechanics, company men and fisherfolk. Maybe one of them was a space marine, but if so he's long retired and out of practice. Maybe one of them is a scientist, but that science would be medicine, oceanography or maybe information technology.
I think it's a good idea to portray this world and the PCs' job as a highly desirable vacation-post at first. The fishing facility is almost entirely automated, so the Human crew is mainly there to oversee the A.I., keep the equipment up and running and maintain radio contact with other nearby fishing facilities.
I like to imagine that the first game session ort two would mainly be spent getting the PCs comfortable with the facility, letting them get to know the A.I. and the crews of the other facilities in radio-range, letting them fish, swim, drink and party.
I'm envisioning this facility as sitting on the precipice of an undersea plateau, with warm, sunny shallows on one side and a seemingly bottomless abyss on the other.
In all my experience with fiction, I have only ever encountered a single worthwhile lighthouse adventure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CWKscxUU00
>>47966275
Imagine this fishing facility being perched on the edge of something like Belize's Great Blue Hole, except the abyss on this waterworld is thousands of feet deep and thousands of miles wide.
Also, as a terrifying additional tidbit of information from Wikipedia about the Great Blue Hole:
>"In 2015 a person dove to the bottom of The Great Blue Hole and even recorded a short movie. Unfortunately, at the end the diver became ill and later died in an agonizing way. The video was found by the diver's co-workers, who didn't reveal what they saw."
>>47966275
You're readin' my mind, anon.
Though I guess I was working with a video game-ish mindset of a single player with some NPCs rather than a group, but you can really do neat things with a group.
Maybe you could split them up into two or more outposts? Run staggered sessions, give them the opportunity to send messages to each other but since the radio (or future-radio equivalent) is on the fritz maybe run them through google translate a few times or something.
Then things start happening at one outpost further out over the abyss, the players barely escape and rejoin the others and you get to merge the two sessions.
All just ideas, though. I'm more of an ideas guy than a practical guy so there's probably tons of holes in that.
That said I like the idea of a planet with extra-long seasons having life forms with extra-long lifespans and spawning cycles. The really big horrors of the deep only come out once every decade or two, right at peak spawning season for smaller fish, which of course is when the story would be taking place. But since the planet hasn't even been colonized that long no one knows anything about this.
If you've got someone playing a marine biologist or even just a casual alien-fish enthusiast you could really work the xenobiology angle if you're super autist about it like me.
Certain behaviors of the smaller fishies, the unnatural absence of most larger predators, confusing readings from the possibly malfunctioning AI; give the PCs a chance to solve the mystery before you throw giant sea-beasts at them.
>present day
>players are involved in smuggling
>go to lighthouse by the coast
>work as actual handymen, helping the family that live in the light house move out
>carrying boxes, packing and doing light renovation work
>"don't worry maam, the real estate agency paid for our services, we are at your service"
>husband, wife and players work by day at the light house while the kid plays within your sight
>you all retire by evening, family going to their temporary flat in the nearby village and players to the local bed and breakfast
>sneak back into lighthouse at night
>need to recon and prep for recieving a big shipment
>plan is to guide in ship with the big light and unload contraband
>one week to go
>sleepy village
>friendly older inhabitants, many retired artists
>always asking players to help with carrying a piano, replacing a door hinge, opening an old jar of paint
>generously repaying with home grown fruit, tall tales, smiles and sandwiches
>every day seems to hold some sort of event
>vernissage in town
>choir practice on the cove outside the light house
>poetry reading in the town square
>only the local postmaster seems suspicious of you
>he is also the police magistrate
>nobody listens to that fool anyways, always going on about conspiracy theories and the illuminati
>this is the easiest tax exempt coin you've ever made
>or so it seemed at first
Cont
>>47966575
>Maybe you could split them up into two or more outposts? Run staggered sessions, give them the opportunity to send messages to each other but since the radio (or future-radio equivalent) is on the fritz maybe run them through google translate a few times or something.
I could imagine it going several ways. Maybe there's a main surface facility for fishing, processing and shipping, and a smaller oceanographic research station below water, built into the wall of the plateau part way down the abyss. Maybe there are two fishing facilities within close proximity to each other belonging to the same company. They used to have a sort of aerial personnel carrier, but that's fallen into disrepair or no one currently working there is qualified to fly it.
>That said I like the idea of a planet with extra-long seasons having life forms with extra-long lifespans and spawning cycles. The really big horrors of the deep only come out once every decade or two, right at peak spawning season for smaller fish, which of course is when the story would be taking place. But since the planet hasn't even been colonized that long no one knows anything about this.
I'm reminded of the movie "Pitch Black," in which the planet on which the movie was set always has at least one of its several suns shining on it at all times, and bad things happen when they all go down at once, finally allowing night to fall.
>>47966633
I certainly hope there's more.
>>47966633
>sunny days with some occasional rain
>boss says the weather predicts a storm moving in though
>the schedule is moved up, you now only have 5 days to prepare
>no biggie
>small quests are accomplished
>finding the keys to the doors
>figuring out how to operate the lamp
>securing spare parts for the lens and fuses
>entertaining the kid
>seriously, one of you needs to hang with the kid so she doesn't snoop around
>just yesterday she was playing with her dolls
>chilled you down to the bone it did
>hearing what she made the dolls say
>repeating almost word for word your phone conversation with the boss
>how the hell did she overhear that
>so now one of you plays house with the kid, reads her stories, distracts her while you measure the tidal difference of the water depth around the cove
>the parents smile and blesses you for the nth time
>you are good people apparently
>somebody cracked the spare fresnel lens during the night you discover
>trouble
cont
>>47967044
I'm gripped anon, please continue.
>>47967044
>>47966633
Liking the mystery and intrigue here. Keep at it!
With all these lighthouses being posted, I just have to marvel at how beautiful those old Fresnel lenses are.
>you ask around the pub
>kids play at night around the light house? Smoke pot, hang out?
>"what kids" they laugh
>I think I saw some figures move around there two nights ago says one
>after some panic you realize they probably just saw you
>you need to be more careful
>one of you accidently broke the large mirror in the entryway while moving the old drilling equipment from the upper floor
>bad luck
>while checking the installed lens for sabotage and cracks, the lantern is mistakenly activated
>the searing lumination blinds one of you
>panic
>thankfully sight slowly returns within minutes but the blinded one is sensitive to the daylight for hours after
>he gets babysitter duty for the rest of the day
>the girl is building a lighthouse on the main floor out of cups and cardboard
>you help construct a working lantern with a small flashlight mounted on some lego
>more mirrors are broken
>what an unlucky day
>you all drink a bit too much that night
>this is when one of you confesses to breaking those mirrors today
>I had to
>they were fucking unnerving me
>they stared
Cont
>>47967452
The mystery is certainly deepening.
>>47967276
That looks really expensive.
>>47967894
They were tremendously expensive. A Hyper-Radiant Fresnel Lens like this one here cost roughly $27,000 in the year 1900, which equates to roughly $786,000 in today's economy.
>>47968087
Woe betide the dumbass PC who inevitably breaks it.
Now I'm imagining a PARANOIA campaign set in a lighthouse.
>>47967452
>"stared?! What the hell man are you losing it?"
>wait says the one of you who was nearly blinded
>The kid also talked about the mirrors being creepy today
>well she talked about bugs, cruise ships, being really hungry and crash bandicoot to so I dunno
>you all decide to fix the mirror problem tomorrow
>the morning brings rain and hangovers
>and a smashed lens
>the boss is furious and shouts obscenities over the phone
>mr and mrs haven't noticed and continue packing
>you mount the only remaining (and cracked) lens
>cleaning up the glass gives no clues to why it broke
>stresses in the crystal lattice structure spontaneously erupting?
>or a hand holding a hammer?
>you are going to stay the night from now on
>you begin to gather all the mirrors in the light house in the upper watchroom
>the mood must be contageous and you all avoid looking into the mirrors, neatly laying them face down on the floor
>the kid is playing with the mini lighthouse
>choo choo
>the boat goes crash crash
>she unloads the cargo of small happy meal toy treasure chests
>as she tries to stuff them in the much too small light house one falls open
>ants
>not many of them
>but a handful of ants in every toy apparently
>wiggle wiggle she says matter of factly as the ants start climbing the light house
>don't play with animals says mother as she passes with kitchenware in her hands
>ants arent animals
>I'm playing that the ants are gold
>she releases the rest of the ants from her toy holdings
>all pirates love gold, right?
>she looks at you as if expecting you to answer
cont
>>47968133
The larger ones, First Order Lenses, Meso-Radiant Lenses and Hyper-Radiant Lenses, were marvels of optical engineering and very beautiful.
>>47968228
I have to turn in for the night, but I look forward to reading the completed tale tomorrow.
>>47968228
Sorry guys, I was aiming to finish in two/three posts but the story got away from me. I'll finish up later tonight, this thread should hopefully still be up.
If not I'll start a new /lighthouse/ and repost.
Input and critique halfway through is welcome!
>>47968301
For those interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMwjoUzfBEs
>>47962445
>On a third session a ship arrives, crewed by three
>asking them you will learn they are not sailors, but they won't tell you where they are going to our from
>next day they are gone, leaving you a small package and a letter with the most sincere thanks
>>47941061
Here's a story book idea im doing about ocean settings.
the ocean's edge blended with the edge of the night sky, the vast of each multiplied in unison. The ripple of waters now stir above, while the stars blink inside the unfathomable depths below. Without the divide of sky and sea between them, gazing into the horizon stirs a uncomforting feeling among them, a slow gnawing upon their sanity. The waves crashes above, a storm that should never be rage among the heavens. Your minds' a blur towards this impossible sight, they look to the stars for solace and sanity but as they peered into the undersky, they saw that the countless stars looked to them instead.
And then you pc wakes or something. How about it for a insanity scene?
>>47969871
I forgot to edit. Sorry for the repost
The ocean's edge blended with the edge of the night sky, the vastness of each multiplied in unison. The ripple of waters now stir above, while the stars blink inside the unfathomable depths below. Without the divide of sky and sea between them, gazing into the horizon stirs a uncomforting feeling among the crew, a slow gnawing upon their sanity. The waves crashes above, a storm that should never be rage among the heavens. Your minds' a blur towards this impossible sight. They look to the stars for solace and sanity but as they peered into the undersky, they saw that the countless stars looked to them instead.
One last bump before I abandon this thread to its fate.
>>47970195
Thanks for the bumping, sir.
>>47970195
We got it covered.
Lighthouses are great isolated settings. Cabin fever, seafaring, oceanic creatures, all accessible. The symbolism of a lighthouse is top tier as well. The light in the darkness to warm the hopes of humanity, or a dwindling flame that draws in the unspeakable from the abyss (I would like to make angler fish parallels as well). If you are going for a a horror theme, you can make it so the characters start to question the safety of the light, whether they are repelling the dangers or drawing them in
>>47969890
>The ocean's edge blended with the edge of the night sky, the vastness of each multiplied in unison. The ripple of waters now stir above, while the stars blink inside the unfathomable depths below. Without the divide of sky and sea between them, gazing into the horizon stirs a uncomforting feeling among the crew, a slow gnawing upon their sanity. The waves crashes above, a storm that should never be rage among the heavens. Your minds' a blur towards this impossible sight. They look to the stars for solace and sanity but as they peered into the undersky, they saw that the countless stars looked to them instead.
This makes for a good insanity scene, I think. Sea and sky and everything is starting to blend together like a living M.C. Escher print for the crew of the Lighthouse. Everything but the lighthouse itself. The lighthouse is the only fixed point in this mad, tumultuous world that the crew suddenly find themselves in. Yes, it's small and it's cramped and it's running out of supplies, but it's REAL and it's PERMANENT and it doesn't CHANGE the way everything else around it has seemed to. It works well for a game about isolation and madness. Your PCs cannot stay in the lighthouse indefinitely, but they're too afraid to leave.
>>47968330
>Sorry guys, I was aiming to finish in two/three posts but the story got away from me. I'll finish up later tonight, this thread should hopefully still be up.If not I'll start a new /lighthouse/ and repost.Input and critique halfway through is welcome!
No worries! Sometimes the best stories get away from us. I know that we've been enjoying yours a great deal. I've liked the way you're presenting the tale like a heist story rather than a ghost story, and have slowly introduced your unexplained elements in amongst the mundane happenings up at the Lighthouse and down in Town. I'm looking forward to seeing where the tale goes from here.
>>47970288
Thanks. I wrote that up just now. I'll get to writing the full story someday. Lurking this thread for ideas. I was playing with the idea of a sudden placement of the lighthouse in the middle of a desert but it felt too jarring and too much of a shift in theme to do without breaking the established setting. Maybe you can do something with this?
>>47970365
>Thanks. I wrote that up just now. I'll get to writing the full story someday. Lurking this thread for ideas. I was playing with the idea of a sudden placement of the lighthouse in the middle of a desert but it felt too jarring and too much of a shift in theme to do without breaking the established setting. Maybe you can do something with this?
Good luck on the writing! As for having a scene in which the lighthouse is transported to the middle of the desert, it is fairly jarring, and would really fit best into a story in which things really get surreal. You might be able to pull it off though in a dream sequence, construing it as the dreaming Keeper's subconscious desire to be anywhere else but stuck in a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean. Also, it doesn't necessarily have to be an actual desert. You could get the same effect by having the ocean tides ebb and ebb and ebb until the lighthouse is left sitting high and dry above a waterless seabed.
>>47970396
>You could get the same effect by having the ocean tides ebb and ebb and ebb until the lighthouse is left sitting high and dry above a waterless seabed.
Thats great. Yeah, Im planning a huge surreal adventure. I love using havens as a reoccuring theme like oases in the desert or chapels in the city.
>>47968806
I like the idea of ships from different eras continuously passing the lighthouse in the night. I like the idea of the lighthouse guiding lost souls through this dark maritime spirit world. I like the idea of small clues and kindnesses hinting at the true nature of the endless night and the purpose of the lighthouse.
>>47970435
>Thats great. Yeah, Im planning a huge surreal adventure. I love using havens as a reoccuring theme like oases in the desert or chapels in the city.
One avenue you can explore is the blurring of dreams, daydreams and reality. Your character or characters are going to be stuck in extreme isolation without a whole lot to occupy their time and their thoughts. Is what they're experiencing really happening, or is it their imagination playing tricks on them, their minds filling the empty hours with strange occurrences and impossible things to try and deal with their boredom and loneliness?
>>47970441
>>47970288
>>47970365
I think this can be combined to a scale that slides up during the adventure...
>Out-of-place ships passing at night, hinting at a supernatural connection. Galleons with lantern signals, slave ships and explorers, even a dreadnought from WW1 with primitive Morse radio incapable of accepting where they appear to be according to the PCs.
>The ocean starts to drain, revealing the sea bed with possibly ominous features. No contact to the world beyond the horizon, is this really happening?
>The landscape has changed. The light house now sits on a dune in an endless desert with scorching sun.
>When the sun goes down, another, bigger sun rises. At night tentacles grow out of the sand and sway in the night breeze. Far above carrion birds circle, but are they really bird shaped?
>A shipwreck can be discovered in the sand. It appears to have been sitting there for Centuries. The whithered log cover in the buried captain's cabin reads "Flying Dutchman" (alternatively "Dawson's Christian").
>>47970573
>the crew has to make scouting parties into the ocean desert for supplies and clues
>there is another light in the distance
>after their longest trek they get to it
>its another lighthouse
>they explore inside
>its exactly the same as their lighthouse, save for the skeletons wearing the same clothes they have
>they look back to the light from their lighthouse
>it flickers away
>this is their new home
![393px-Cordouan_lighthouse_architectural[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/tFhAGMD.png "393px-Cordouan_lighthouse_architectural[1].png")
>>47925720
I remember a sci-fi story set into a lighthouse about dreams & hopes coming true at night during an astronomic conjunction. The first night the second keeper disappears, the second night he comes back a bit odd (and disappears again the next day), the third night the protagonist finds an emergency radio set on the shore; the fourth night he encounters a beautiful woman, that he decides to let outside because that shit is becoming too strange. Then the fifth night he remembers the local legends, and his mind begins to wander about sea monsters. Then he hears noises at the door. In the end he knocks himself out, and awaken safely the next day. It was a nice horror story in that the antagonist wasn't malevolent, simply a reflexion of the desires and fears of the hero.
Also, I give you the Cordouan lighthouse, the pimpest that I'm aware of. It got achamber in case the king wanted to visit, a chapel, and so on...
http://www.cordouan.culture.fr/en/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordouan_Lighthouse
>>47970706
>the antagonist wasn't malevolent, simply a reflexion of the desires and fears of the hero
Very Solyaris!
In fact, use Solyaris.
>>47970573
>>47970668
Nicely post-apocalyptic in feeling.
>>47970706
That is indeed a fine lighthouse.
>>47925743
Lure it in my boot and chuck the fucker out the window.
>>47971705
That picture reminds me of the ending of From Dusk Till Dawn.
As soon as the ocean is drained we can clearly see that this is just the roof a a gigantic ancient temple pyramid.
>>47970573
Maybe the changes in landscape can be lampshaded somehow, making them less obvious narrative devices.
The sea draining should start slowly with the tide not coming in and a few days where the water just seems low but not unnatural. Then one morning it is a few hundred meters lower and the light house now sits on a mountain peak.
The desert could be heralded by a massive dust storm, possibly explainable by the ocean receding. It swells up over a day, making it impossible to go outside by night. The next morning it is quiet and the desert sand has filled up the ocean basin.
The second sun could be ambiguous at first: Did we lose the night hours and it is already morning? Is this the polar day? It can't be! And that sun is bigger..
>>47971983
>As soon as the ocean is drained we can clearly see that this is just the roof of a gigantic ancient temple pyramid.
The stonework is warped and twisted in a whirling, swirling fashion by eons of the ocean's currents and tides rushing past.
>>47972096
Or they are transported to another /place/ where the temple is intact.
Insert non Euklidean architecture as needed.
The Tower of Hercules in Spain is the oldest lighthouse still in operation, having originally been built by the Romans.
Things I want to combine for a plot:
The RTG power unit contains a radioisotope which is deadly to humans if even small traces escape into the air. It should also serve as Chekhov's Gun, ultimately presenting an opportunity for the players somehow.
Animal colony > creature colony > creatures are just like animals
Basically I want puffins as a symbol from the get-go. Then a supernatural threat is discovered, a swarm of invisible creatures that come at night and move around the island, kept in check by the lighthouse's beam so they don't make the PCs hallucinate and become obsessed and paranoid. Then things get really strange as the island and the world around it change. Eventually the environment is the real threat and understanding how the light house moves the only way out. By that time the creatures should just be scenery, maybe a minor nuisance. And symbolically they are reminiscent of the puffins which are probably all dead now.
The lighthouse marks some relevance that extends to before lighthouses. I like the ancient temple beneath. But how does it come together with strange ships in the night and teleporting to other worlds? It seems obvious that the veil between worlds is worn thin in this location. Creatures appear, ships from other times and places turn up randomly, and the whole island eventually goes on a ride. But it shouldn't just happen, it should follow rules, this is a game. Tides, arctic daylight, and moon phases are great dials for this. Should the beam play a role in this? And how can the PCs get back home, or come to understand that they never could?
First and second act seem within grasp, but the third act is still elusive. Should the PC have to venture below for a temple dungeon? Should it just be a matter of surviving until the moon is right again? Should there be something else on the other side that takes an interest and must not be brought back?
>>47972337
perhaps the light keeping the creatures at bay goes out, and so the crew must retreat into the temple to retrieve what was brought to the surface and held in the tower. They must retrieve the light. You could make it so the research and deciphering of the temple texts reveal the link between the temple and the origin of light. Maybe parallel the dwindling of the lighthouse lights to the sun or moonlight going out as well, further bringing this into the realm of the metaphysical
basically a lighthouse
Absolutely terrifying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16Rknhfww2U
>>47946435
Why? Polish man was prepared to die there and sort of became removed from his own life as he sunk into that way of viewing himself. He thinks he will never see his home land again and will never wander again. Well turns out fate is giving him another chance to go back to Poland. I thought it was a pretty happy ending all things considered.
>>47925720
Generic idea: post nuclear Cape Cod. PC is a USCG Auxiliary conscript assigned to manage all the new three or so lighthouses in the area. Once a week, they have to walk in and check all the equipment and update the logbooks. However, due to the war law and order has broken down, leading to hill people/indians breaking in to steal the power sources (plutonium radioisotope thermal generators). Since they all have GPS tags, you'll always know where they are. Every day a lighthouse is not lit, there is a 10% chance for a ship running aground.
Gameplay would be that every 5 turns a day passes, and it takes the player 1 turn to go anywhere. Every day, there is a 50% chance an RTG is stolen and the lighthouse must be repaired within 7 days (35 turns). The player will have to fight, sneak, or negotiate their way into the camp and to the RTG. Local Civil Defense offices might spare some assistance (food, ammo for bribes etc) if they can get a few days of RTG use themselves. Also, local homeowners will want RTGs for their own personal use, and might offer favors (control over local militamen) for use. However they also have a 5% chance of "losing" it. There is are also a handful of ruined/bombed military bases/depots that might have spare RTGs in them.
>>47973935
In case it isn't obvious, this is basically Fallout 4's plot but not shit.
>>47973935
You could also go with a pre-nuclear-war option in which the keepers of a lighthouse on a remote island witness the apocalypse, and then have to deal with survivors finding / squatting on / invading their island.
Have another unusual lighthouse.
![62019593[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/MbhGpUv.jpg "62019593[1].jpg")
>>47975510
All the potential horror of a ship and a lighthouse, rolled into one.
![amedee-island-46922[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/7Uh9L2m.jpg "amedee-island-46922[1].jpg")
Sometimes I think about when we didn't have radar, sonar and gps. About the feats of engineering that most sea travel implies, and how maritime work has changed in little more than half a century. It's humbling.
And in some way, it's like cogs. You don't see them from the outside, but it's an extremely complex mechanism allowing modern commodities.
>captcha giving me pics of lighthousesAI uprising soon
