Encounter Harbingers
This article contains affiliate links, meaning that if you decide to purchase a product through my link, I get a Commission at no additional cost to youI was having a chat with Sam Sorensen, editor of Aberrant Reflections (which I have an unhealthy obsession with) and author of Mothership’s Time After Time, when I asked him what modules should I look into getting to study for my upcoming Hex Feature module. Sorensen recommended a few titles but the one I went with for my first exploration is Luke Gearing’s The Isle.
The Isle is a very sparsely written module which perfectly projects the dreary Irish inspired mythology. Gearing writes loosely enough, intentionally, so that you can adapt the module in your own games easily. What absolutely intrigued me were his Harbinger Encounters.
That’s What I’m Calling Them
In The Isle, Gearing has a Random Encounter roll be called every ten minutes. Roll a d20 and on a 1-9, something happens. Some of these are pure mood, like the reverberations of whalesong or the sudden silence as if the waves stopped crashing because the island is holding its breath. Gearing’s evocative, short sentences cause your imagination to bottle up the writing until the pressure blows your mind’s eye wide open.
The Harbinger Encounters, are signs that the players pick up on now while the real Encounter is just around the corner. The slimey scraping of Deep Ones with the serial numbers filed off or the clacking of bones on rock of Ancient Dead set the stage for the upcoming Encounter. Hitchcock said the difference between surprise and tension is foreshadowing and the tension in your players’ minds will be ratcheting up.
The Unknown is the Scariest
An early lesson I learned from running my West Marches game is to never give names. I wanted my West Marches to be exploratory and the players were more frightened of a hyena when I only described it over a monstrosity I called by name. Unlike modern times when you can Google anything and everything, names should be hard fought as they are indeed power. Knowing that the savage spotted beast cackling with yellow glowing eyes is a mere hyena should be something won through either a Downtime Action or by bringing the body to the appropriate vendor.
To truly get under the skin of your players and into their imagination, if the hyena cackled prior to showing up, it would live in my player’s minds longer and more strongly. Those are the Harbingers of the Encounter. Instead of throwing an Encounter at my players, I could give them an opportunity to prepare. It would also give more experienced players a sense of game mastery and skill expression as they would be able to know what to do with a bit of information.
Curveballs
This also means that you can suddenly screw with the players. You shouldn’t do this all the time, especially if it is a player’s first time in the game as first impressions are very strong. My players are very fond of Gooseposting after my mistake with Gasdras — Goose Hydras. If I give them honking as a harbinger, they might expect a Gasdra as part of the Random Encounter, but I could sic Spelljammer’s Space Clowns onto them instead.
There are also creatures with Mimicry that provide another way to subvert your player’s expectations. A bog Hag might cackle like a group of Gnolls, hyena humanoids, and the players might ready themselves for that confrontation while the Hag creeps closer.
These creatures with mimicry could also be how you can jump scare your players. As the round the corner, there is nothing there. Just as the tension dissipates and the players turn to talk about what to do, that is when the Hag could strike. Even if it is an Easy Encounter, it would be one that sticks in your players minds long after the session.
Or it could always have been a parrot.
Surprise, Mother Truckers
With the less punititive Surprise rules in the latest version of Dungeons and Dragons, we can have telegraph ‘obvious’ encounters more strongly. If the players hear the cackling of Gnolls, then the players are given the opportunity to set up their own ambush or know that the Gnolls have locked on. If the Gnolls do not forecast themselves with a snickering giggle, then it might be because they are about to surprise the players.
Adding Harbingers to your Encounters means that when there aren’t Harbingers, the surprise is felt far more fair.
Gearing up for Sorensen
With Sorensen recommending Gearing, I must take a moment to recommend him. He wrote the Mothership module Time After Time which is great if you’re looking for a timey-whimey module to run. I may have even figured out where to place what is supposed to be sci-fi module into my ever expanding West Marches Sandbox. I wasn’t the most impressed initially but I blame that on Continuum: Roleplaying in the Yet which is a time travel roleplaying game. With my experience of running a time travel game, I found the module to be competently made. If you haven’t had a time travel game rot your brain, then this module will a superb introduction to playing with a timey-whimey experience.
And if any of the players decide to try to break time, bad news will Inevitably follow.
