u/EberhartEberbehaart

So a while ago i found two posts on r/CuratedTumblr that were meant as prompts for creative exercises. They really stuck with me because they seem like great set-ups for a Urban Fantasy/Horror campaign!

• The first one describes someone acquiring a property and finding a letter written by the former owner. The letter includes a long and evocative list of things to do/avoid doing in this house to keep you safe from the many beasts and entities that inhabit it: "Never pick flowers from the garden without leaving an exchange". "Cover your mirrors or they will be seen as an invitation". "Don´t touch the apple tree. You cannot afford what they cost". That type of stuff.
• The second one (could not find the link) had a similar concept: Finding a used map of your city full of mysterious scribblings like "Don´t walk this street at full moon", "The sewers???" or "Bus line 78 leads to a different place than expected".

I think prompts like these are a great way to start a campaign and to serve as a central riddle that must be solved. Where does this bus lead to? What is in the sewers? What is guarding the apples in the orchard?

I think players would love this! They get a lot of questions to solve at their own pace, they are thrown right into the action und have a solid grasp on how much of the mystery is already known to them.

To the GM this is great because you can just throw a bunch of leads on the table without overwhelming the party with too much exposition/worldbuilding. The city/house starts out as mysterious to the players AND the characters while the prompts while the prompts will spark the curiosity to explore.

I think this would work great for GMs who love worldbuilding but don´t want to monologue at their players and are looking for shorter/middle length campaigns.

So I am looking at systems that do these things:

• Urban Fantasy, but not the steamy YA kind. Also not a fan of these "let´s throw all kinds of tropes together and see what happens" systems. I am looking for some cohesion.
• Horror, but more folklore than lovecraftian
• open to creative worldbuilding from the GM
• handles mysteries well, not just about fighting stuff
• tone i am looking for: scary, mysterious, strange, not always hostile but potentially deadly
• Media that I think of: Hellboy movies, the book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel, the film Pan´s Labyrinth

I have played Urban Shadows 2e, which is Urban Fantasy but cares much more about relations, favors and politics. Also I don´t care that much about romance, I am no good at these kind of stories.
I have played CoC, but this feels more in tune with fairy tales, folklore and such than world-ending, mind-bending Lovecraft.
I played Brindlewood Bay und know of The Between, but am unsure if open mysteries und prewritten character stories would work in this concept.
I have heard of Vaesen, but am unsure if it is too focused on Scandinavia and too...bright?

Thankful for all kinds of ideas!