Defying Death in the Dark: Unleashing The Void's Horror in Your TTRPG
Bjarke's Bits: Quick Dives into Deep Horrors
In the latest installment of Bjarke's Bits, I’m veering off the beaten path of my usual deep dives to explore a topic that's both dark and enthralling: the art of weaving horror into the fabric of tabletop role-playing games. Inspired by the chilling narrative and unrelenting terror of the movie The Void, this post aims to illuminate the shadows of horror storytelling in TTRPGs, providing game masters and storytellers alike with tools to bring the same level of suspense and dread to their games.
(Spoilers below for the movie The Void)
Death is Not Always the End: An Overview of The Void
The Void follows Sheriff Daniel Carter, who finds a man named James crawling across the road. Carter rushes him to a local hospital, only to be followed by knife wielding, cloaked figures. As Carter and the other individuals in the hospital try to figure out how to escape, the world around them becomes much weirder. Things are not as they seem, as we find out death does not always mean the end. It was this element of the movie that felt very inspiring for some truly horrifying role playing game material.
Dr Powell
As our protagonists try to figure out how to escape the shadowy cultists that keep them trapped in the hospital, they come to discover that one doctor, Powell, is in fact the cult leader. After losing his daughter, Sarah, he found a way to “defy death”. Using powers beyond his understanding, he had brought people back after death, though often what remained was a hideous amalgamation of corpses.
As the movie’s action increased, one of the fact that some enemies are hard to kill or even unkillable. The antagonist, Powell, actually dies early on. That later on he appears, surprising both audience and character alike, helps increase the tension and add an extra level of uncertainty that we have seen as the least of a particular creature.
Not Dead Yet
Enemies refusing to die is a hallmark of horror. The zombie genre is full of examples of this. Though straightforward, we can break down the death-defying events into a few sections. Starting off are creatures that are resurrected, often brought back in gruesome ways.
One of the first monsters we come across in The Void is a Cronen-bergian monstrosity. This being formed out of the corpse of a nurse, Beverly. The creature, appearing to be a grotesque mixture of parts, is seeming unstoppable by normal means. This brings us to the next (and possibly most common) example of death-defying creatures: undead beings that seem to fight past when they should be able to.
Later on, the protagonists in The Void make themselves into the depths of the hospital, uncovering a secret facility where Dr Powell has been performing his experiments. As the group tries to fight through, they run into monsters that seem to fight past when they should. One particularly shocking moment is when the group sees a corpse repeatedly smashing its head into a pipe. Though the creature appears to have suffered severe damage, it continues on (possibly from the pain of existing). These creatures fight on despite missing massive parts of themselves, creating a horrific scene. Some of these creatures also fill in the last example: patchwork or constructed undead.
In the process of learning how to defy death, Dr Powell has done some horrific work. In his attempts to bring back corpses to life, he has stuck some creatures back together. Whether to better the process or to experiment with what could be done, Powell has created an army of Frankenstein-esque creatures, mixtures of stitches and exposed muscles. Besides these creatures being hard to fully kill, their bizarre anatomies defying what would make up a normal creature.
Tips for Defying Death on the Battlefield
Looking for some tips to run undead creatures in a truly horrific way? Looks at some tips below.
Embrace the Description: Part of what made the creatures so horrifying in The Void was their visuals. The exposed muscles, leaking fluids, and gruesome wounds helped push that these creatures would not go down easy. When describing the creatures as your table meets them or they fight against them.
Unnatural Resilience: The monsters in The Void were all unique in their own way, but the one thing that united them was that they were unnaturally resilient. Damage that would kill a normal being immediately only slowed these things down. They all took much more damage to take down. If your creatures take apparently lethal damage, describe how they keep moving forwards, relentlessly attacking.
Weird Anatomy: These being have returned from the dead, or will return so normally anatomy does not need to work. The Void had an assortment of patchwork monsters, with extra or missing limbs, or an unnatural flexibility.
Memorable Reanimation: One of the most tense moments in The Void was when the corpse of Dr Powell disappeared. The movie lead viewers to believe he was dead. When Carter comes across the bloody empty sheet, missing Powell’s corpse, you knew he was not gone forever. Doing this with creatures, either immediately to keep the tension high or later on to elevate to a scary moment, leaning into the creature returning will make your creatures truly terrifying.
Death-Defying Traits
Use the tables below to decide the characteristics of your creature. For a more horrific creature, trying mixing two of the types together.
Type
| 1d6 | Type |
|---|---|
| 1-2 | Horrific Resurrection - Creature was normal, but came back in a horrifying way. |
| 3-4 | Refuses to Die - Creature is abnormally resilient. |
| 5-6 | Patchwork Creation - The creature, either before or after undeath, has become an amalgamation of parts. |
Horrific Resurrection Traits
| 1d6 | Trait |
|---|---|
| 1 | When the creature dies, it immediately (and possibly violently) transforms into its undead form. |
| 2 | When the creature dies it returns silently and stealthily, probably after the party has moved on. |
| 3 | A new creature bursts out of the corpse of the deceased creature, presenting an entirely new being. |
| 4 | The creature resurrects after a particular celestial event or other significant amount of time. Afterwards, it will hunt down the party. |
| 5 | The creature’s death triggers the release of hazardous materials or energies, threatening those nearby. |
| 6 | Upon death, the creature splits into smaller, independent entities that continue the fight. |
Refuses to Die Traits
| 1d6 | Trait |
|---|---|
| 1 | The creature will be seemingly ignorant to all but the largest damage, losing parts of its body that would normally incapacitate or kill another creature. |
| 2 | Any parts removed from the creature (either by massive damage or by a slicing damage) will stay animate. They will fight on their own. |
| 3 | The creature already has massive damage that seems to not stop or hinder it, such as a massive wound or missing limb. |
| 4 | When reduced to 0 hit points, the creature enters a berserk frenzy. Until it is dealt damage, it will continue to attack. |
| 5 | The creature can absorb damage from certain types of attacks, only being vulnerable to a specific type of damage. |
| 6 | The creature can siphon healing and beneficial effects nearby, allowing it to maintain itself longer. |
Patchwork Creation Traits
| 1d6 | Trait |
|---|---|
| 1 | The creature is covered in thick stitches, holding it together. |
| 2 | The creature has extra limbs, in unusual places. |
| 3 | Skin does not entirely cover the creature, revealing bone or muscle. |
| 4 | Some parts of the creature are replaced with inorganic parts, like metal or brass. |
| 5 | The creature constantly emits a toxic or magical aura, affecting those around it. |
| 6 | Parts of the creature seem to act independently, sometimes even attacking each other. |
Death Defying Adventure Hooks
| 1d6 | Adventure Hook |
|---|---|
| 1 | Something is causing all the patrons of a particular bar to turn into undead monsters after they spend a night. |
| 2 | The local cemetery has had graves appear open. Most think it’s graverobbers, but the claw marks on the holes might hint otherwise. |
| 3 | A planar rift has opened up and its corrupting the land. Creatures that die nearby erupt into monsters at nightfall. |
| 4 | An ancient artifact discovered in a new excavation has started to resurrect animals and people as undead servants. |
| 5 | A local cult has begun experimenting with necromancy, leading to an increase in undead sightings and abominations. |
| 6 | A healer, stricken with grief over the loss of a loved one, is trying to reverse death. His failed experiments have escaped, and are threatening the nearby farms. |
Reflections on Horror and Humanity: Closing Thoughts
Though Benjamin Franklin once said “nothing is certain but death and taxes”, The Void made at least one of those untrue. A constant theme in this story, it enhances the horror of the story by making the viewers unable to trust that enemies that are dispatched will stay dead. This is a fantastic tool for game masters to bring the terror to their tables.
The Void uses a few different methods to have the forces
Have you ever had memorable death defying creatures in your game? What did you do? Share your stories and how it transformed your game’s atmosphere in the comments below.