Into Hell is a modern day Trophy Dark incursion/hack based off a spooky dream I had a few weeks ago (the night of April 19th, to be exact). The dream took place in rings 2 and 3, and I came up with the other rings later.
In the dream I also had my dog with me, and when he started to transform in what became ring 3, I got so sad that I woke myself up.
System
Trophy Dark, but with slightly different character creation and conditions.
To create a character, start by writing down the numbers 6 through 1, counting down, with each number on a separate line.
Then, on the top line (6), write the reason your character is trying to make it to the end of Hell. After that, fill lines 5, 4, and 3 with a three from the following, in order of importance to your character, with duplicates allowed:
- Virtue
- Quirk
- Skill
- Item
Leave the bottom two lines, 2 and 1, blank.
Rather than being separate, conditions count up these rows, disabling anything on the same row. When taking multiple conditions, take the most extreme, then strike through the empty rows below it.
There’s also a character sheet here.
Introduction
| theme | Metamorphosis |
| warnings | Body horror, murder, killed by animals |
Everyone misunderstands Hell. It’s not fire and brimstone. It’s not darkness and the absence of joy. It’s not our world, but full of assholes and imps.
It’s an acid. A solvent. It reaches deep inside you and plucks out the deepest things that make you you, taking and replacing until there’s nothing left of you: body, mind, and soul.
There are no holy words to make it stop. No amulet that will provide you a shield. Nothing except getting in, getting what you want, and getting out, before you’re lost forever.
So whatever it is that brought you here, you’d better make damn well sure you want it.
Ring 1: The Freezer
The cold air of the walk-in freezer prickles your skin as you sit in a circle of nine on the floor: eight seekers (including yourself), and Kassia, who you found on the web. In the middle of the floor, she’s drawn a complex figure using the blood of a freshly slain rabbit. As the last drops of blood freeze, something in the air changes. She instructs you to get up and open the door that leads out to the restaurant, but opening the door reveals a completely new space entirely: a harshly-lit, grimy staircase, leading down into the interior of a brick building. Just looking into the space activates every single flight response in your body. If you truly want what you came here for, you’ll have to go through this doorway.
Terrors
As the door opens, one of your fellow seekers’ nerve breaks. He starts making inappropriate “jokes” about how there’s almost certain death inside that door, while Kassia, who tops out at maybe 5’3”, sits here with $40,000 in cash in a small lockbox. The still-bloody paring knife she used to kill the rabbit sits on the floor next to her hand, just within grasping distance…
The spell called down a portal for eight, so until eight enter, the portal will stay open, blocking the exit from the freezer. That doesn’t really affect the players though, technically, but it will mean that any NPC seeker who wants to second guess this will have to force Kassia in, and that Kassia can’t escape until everyone else goes through. Kassia isn’t unaware of this possibility, and has a handgun hidden in her clothes.
Temptations
The doorway feels terrifying in a deeply unnatural way that you’ve never experienced before, even before taking into account that you just walked through that freezer door coming from the other direction. Whatever lies beyond this door, it possesses powers beyond your imagination.
| ? | Kassia charged each of you $10,000 for this service, with $5,000 to reserve your seat here and $5,000 when you arrived. How hard was it for you to come up with the money? |
| ? | This is all happening in a pizza place walk-in freezer in North Platte, Nebraska. How far did you have to travel to get here? |
Moments
- The smell of fresh blood mingles with the smell of frozen food.
- One of your fellow seekers quietly says the same prayer under their breath, over and over.
Ring 2: The Stairs
Down and down, staircase after staircase, all within cramped, interior spaces lit by increasingly harsh white light. Some of these places seem almost familiar, in a hazy way. The floor is scattered with the detritus of forgotten things, goods and trash from brands and cities that never existed and never could exist. The raising of your hairs on the back of your neck tells you that you’re being watched by eyes from hidden passages that crisscross through this layer of Hell, but for you, the only way forward is down.
Terrors
The environments here are all interiors, but that doesn’t mean they’re direct. On many floors, navigating from the entrance to the exit can be dangerous, such as entering from the balcony in a theater and having to exit from a stair backstage.
Additionally, the other seekers will begin to change, sometimes in ways that are violent or inhuman. One of them will attack the players from behind. If they’re unable to permanently subdue the attacker, they can at least run faster than another seeker, who will be killed in their stead. The murderer will drag the corpse of the person they killed into a small side passage, vanishing forever.
Temptations
While several floors in a row will look identical, as the seekers travel down deeper into Hell, the lighting becomes harsher and more washed out. You’re on the right track.
| ? | One of the floors is a staircase that’s important or memorable to you. Why is it memorable? What does it look like? |
Moments
- A scrabbling, skittering sound is quietly audible from inside the walls.
- One of your fellow seekers refuses to go on, overcome with fear.
Ring 3: The Train
If it weren’t for the sound of train wheels on a track and the occasional shuddering jerk, you’d have no idea this city-sized building you entered from a nondescript staircase door was actually a train. For the first time in hours and hours, you get a chance to just sit and rest, and even talk to other travelers outside of your group! There’s food here, and beds, and the mutation here seems to take longer. You can’t get back to Earth from here, but for the first time, you feel like moving forward might be optional.
Terrors
Traveling through the train layers of Hell happens horizontally, not vertically like in the staircase. Since the only way to progress is to wait for the train to make it to its destination, the seekers might as well grab some food and a place to sleep and sit together for a spell.
| ? | One player’s item is found in another player’s possession. What’s their explanation for how they ended up with it? Does the robbed player believe them? |
| ? | By this point, most of the non-player seekers have transformed, died, or disappeared. Who do you think will change next? Will they be a threat? |
Temptations
A chance to catch your breath, have a snack, and chat with other seekers is just the break you need right now.
| ? | Everyone in the sleeping area is sharing the wish they’ll request when they get to the center of Hell. What’s yours? |
Moments
- One of the rooms is a convenience store, but regardless of packaging, everything on the shelf is only one type of food. What is it?
- One of the rooms is an emergency shelter with dozens of cots, half of which have desiccated corpses on them. You can never see them move, but every time you look at them, their heads are tilted to look right at you.
Ring 4: The Hunting Plains
The train stops with a shudder, and the next door the seekers open opens up onto the first exterior area they’ve come across since entering Hell: a large plain of rolling hills with dead trees clustered along small, meandering rivers. In the distance, you can see the source of the harsh light of Hell: a glowing spire on the horizon.
Terrors
This layer of Hell is home to the hunters, large demonic mammalian creatures that run down anything that moves in here and tear it to pieces. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, including dog-like creatures the size of bears and horse-like creatures with sharp, gore-soaked canine teeth. They’re faster than any seeker can sprint, but cannot enter the rivers. When they kill a seeker, the entire pack will stop to eat them, allowing other seekers a chance to escape to the safety of the water.
The rivers themselves contain the waters of change, requiring a Ruin roll every time they’re entered. Additionally, their mazelike paths join, split, and meander, requiring a Risk roll to successfully navigate.
| ? | The hunters used to be humans like you once. What clues are there that make this apparent? |
Temptations
The Spike of Hell is just ahead of you on the horizon! Its harsh white light is bright enough to be visible from any part of the hunting plains.
Moments
- A large patch of the plains has hair instead of grass.
- A hunter walks too close to a dead tree and screams in a human voice as it’s dragged beneath the ground by unknown forces.
Ring 5: The Spike
You’re finally here. The Spike of Hell. The center. All that remains is one more door, and then all of your dreams will be answered.
Terrors
The Spike is the unquenchable heart of Hell, from which the rest of it grew like a coral. In the very center of the Spike is the great chamber, in the center of which is the five meter shard of gnarled and broken bone at which seekers can address Hell itself. It will let every remaining seeker make their request before responding: “what will you sacrifice?”
| ? | Has that knife always been in your hand? |
Temptations
You’re finally here! You’ve come so far, and having your wish granted is your only way out. Promises aren’t good enough. Hell needs something now.
Moments
- It’s faint to the point of near imperceptibility, but the glow from the walls of the great chamber changes brightness at the same cadence as a human heart.
- When you look at your reflection in the knife, you don’t recognize yourself. Is this because you look so different, or because you no longer remember what you looked like?
Epilogue
Going around the table, each player takes a few minutes to describe what has become of their seeker in the days or years to come. Those who survived should narrate how they’ve taken Hell’s curse back with them. Those who were lost should narrate what their unlife in Hell is like, and how their absence is felt back home.
Conditions
Write conditions down in the first person. Reading each condition should feel like losing a part of yourself.
Slot 1 or 2
- What was your favorite song? Why is it special to you? You can no longer remember it. What did I walk down the aisle to again?
- Your eyes change color. My eyes weren’t always blue.
- I can hear the heartbeats of everyone around me.
- What’s your most noticeable scar from childhood? How did you get it? It grows and changes to become more visible. My old bike accident scar didn’t always go up to my thigh.
- Why do I sense a new darkness from my travelling companions?
- Your face changes shape, just subtle enough that you could be a sibling of your old self. Would my loved ones even recognize me?
Slot 3 or 4
- Why am I so tired all of a sudden?
- My canine teeth weren’t always this sharp.
- Why can’t I remember the faces of my family?
- The harsh light here no longer hurts my eyes.
- Everyone here is just waiting to betray me.
- When did I get flexible enough to squeeze into these tiny hiding places?
Slot 5
- Why is the only thing that makes me happy the thought of hurting others?
- Would staying here be so bad?
- The other seekers are just illusions, not real people. This is my personal Hell..