Drop Dead Despair...Here There Be DREAD!

The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond boxed set has been in my hands for nearly 48 hours now, as such, I consider myself an expert on the features of this product. One of the most interesting features presented is the Deck of Despair. As written the deck works like this: as you spend time in the Shadowfell it's energy seeps into you causing apathy, madness, and fear. As such after each extended rest you take after an encounter in the Shadowfell you draw a card from the deck. The cards have negative effects but after each milestone you can make a saving throw to end it and if you succeed (getting bonuses if you're trained in the right skill) you get a boon until your next extended rest.

The bad effects are effectively bad that it sucks to have them, but not enough to make you useless for the two to four fights you're likely to be dealing with them (half surge value, unable to flank, etc.) and the boons are pretty awesome, so often worth the trade off while encouraging PCs to push through the five minute adventuring day and keep going (take a rest and you lose your boon). I really like a lot of this extra little offering a lot (compared to other card-based mechanics that I've been iffy on). That said, I think I can ramp this up to one step better...

This concept struck me as something similar to madness mechanics of other games, like Call of Cthulhu and this inspired me to do something different with the cards. You see, we're not in the Shadowfell in my game and aren't going there anytime soon...but we are playing through the Tomb of Horrors and the party was facing off against horrific things like an aspect of Orcus and Demogorgon. So I decided that upon seeing these demonlords the party was all subjected to their horrific presence (+30 vs Will attack...my party is level 22). If they are hit, they face a draw from the deck. From there things worked more or less as normal.

I also modified what was in the deck, however. Some of the cards, especially the apathy cards, might work well and make sense in the Shadowfell, but less so as a result of a horrific experience. So I just took out the cards I didn't want in the deck and left behind the ones that made the most sense.

I think drawing from the inspiration of the Deck of Despair you can create a Deck of Dread. In the short term it did a really nice job of giving a mechanical element to the horror of exploring the shrines of in a dead plane facing off against horrible foes. There is potential here to create an interesting role-playing opportunity, as well, that doesn't play out as much as it could because the effects are so short-term (and because I'm in a dungeon, not in a city talking to people). Ultimately, my PCs didn't act much different as a result of their paranoia or what have you, but they did often do what they were always going to do but point out "hey, it makes sense, I'm 'craven' after all".

That said, this could be used for inspiration even more to create curses with similar effects, but perhaps going longer term. You could use the cards or create your own effects just as easily, but in order to overcome the effect a quest must be completed, a potion created, or redemption achieved.

The Deck of Despair is a relatively simple concept, but one that is also innovative and interesting with loads of inspiration that can take you beyond the mechanics as presented and the rules as written.

Image available here.