Hi everyone,

Hope this is the right place to ask.

Basically, as the title says, I'm looking to run an RPG for my friends set in a haunted American house. Discussion of weird WASP American dynasties gives me the creeps anyway, so I figured I'd set it in something that scares me and hopefully that transfers to the players. Unfortunately, I'm not a yank so my knowledge isn't too good, and googling "spooky wasp dynasty stories" doesn't come up with much.

Sort of stuff I'm looking for:

  • My creepy WASP family, the... Vanderchilds... had a daughter that caused them difficulty so they had her lobotomised. Her vengeful ghost will be amongst the spirits in the mansion that the players must help have their vengeance on the cruel Vanderchild ghosts.

Would also like help coming up with a better family name than the Vanderchilds.

Thanks homies.

  • crime [she/her, any]
    ·
    4 years ago

    You should look at the Winchester house, basically was built to confuse ghosts which makes it eery as shit.

    Technically catholic but the kennedys famously lobotomized their problem daughter Rosemary if you want to look into that for some inspo

    Vanderchild sounds like a good old-money WASP name to me tbh, a lot of wealth Dutch put down roots in early New York

    Edit: again maybe not WASP but the most fucked up tale of rich Americans I can think of is Delphine LaLaurie in New Orleans, def NSFL, basically did mengele type shit on the people she had enslaved — serious warning about reading up on it, it still has me really fucked up

    • neverstopscreaming [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Winchester house looks great (horrible). I'm looking to have the house be really confusing to get around so I could probably just cheat and steal the floor plan!

      I did base the above plot point on Rosemary Kennedy. I tried to do further research but panicked so I'm going to have to make it up. I don't know, nonconsensual surgery scares me more than anything else for some reason.

      Delphine LaLaurie also sounds awful. I don't know, I have a feeling this game is just going to be me scaring myself with a spooky story while my friends patiently wait for the dice to come out.

      • PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS [he/him, they/them]
        1·
        4 years ago

        I don’t know, nonconsensual surgery scares me more than anything else for some reason.

        Jeez, I know what you mean. The account of them having her sing "God Bless America" while they dug around in her brain is horrifying