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.

  • BigPoopPalls [any]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    The Collyer Brothers story is pretty creepy. They're well educated, father is a doctor, they have good jobs and are a part of their community. They live in a four story brownstone building in Harlem, NY, they're father left it to them after he died. It's the two guys and their mother. Mother dies, she leaves them a big hunk of cash. They live it up in that big ass house.

    The depression hits, and the demographics of Harlem change from WASP to more and more black people. So the brothers stop leaving the house, they're scared shitless. It's 1933. Everyone in the neighborhood thinks that they're insane, so of course they start harassing them from outside, leading them to board up the house completely. They've horded a bunch of crap which leads to people trying to rob them thinking any of it is worth stealing (its really not). So they set up booby traps. Into the thirties, one of the brothers ends up completely blind and completely paralyzed, the other brother focuses on caring for him, only going out in the dark of night for food and essential trips.

    Forward to 1947. A report comes into the police precinct that there may be a dead body in the house, neighbors can smell it. The police arrive at the house to find it completely locked up. When they do get the doors to open, they find the entrance way completely stacked with crap floor to ceiling. They find the paralyzed brother had died of starvation. It's March 21st. There's no sign of the caretaker brother. They expect him to turn up. He doesn't. They set up a manhunt to apprehend him and find out what happens as they continue to clean out the 120 tons of trash from the house. The brother's body is eventually found, snared in his own booby trap, eaten by rats. He had suffocated in the dark, crawling through his trash maze. No longer able to care for his brother, the paralyzed brother died shortly after.

    You even have a fucking good dungeon in there!

    • Pezevenk [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      When you're so racist you build racist trash labyrinth and end up killing yourself in your own racist booby trap lmao

      This is like an Aesop myth but more gory.

    • neverstopscreaming [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      4 years ago

      Oh jesus that's so disgusting. Good inspiration though. I can have the players trapped in maze of the Vanderchild's hoarded possessions, but what is the mysterious smell...