I love that Logan is confused at first then he starts trying to tell the weather??? baby boy is so used to Wade鈥檚 shenanigans (podcast | bachelorette) he just goes with it now
The Italian restaurant in my mom鈥檚 hometown WAS definitely a mob front. The owner briefly served in the Italian military, immigrated to America in his twenties back in the early 70s, mysteriously had enough money to open a chain of Italian restaurants and was convicted for trafficking cocaine across the Virginia/West Virginia area and spent 15 years in prison.
My mom had worked as a waitress at the place while she was a teenager and throughout her 20s and she realized that when she was sent to the restaurant鈥檚 sister location in West Virginia in a mysteriously packed car by her mysteriously nice boss, it probably wasn鈥檛 pizza ingredients she was hauling. It was the 80s. She was a tiny, very naive, conventionally attractive church girl with no criminal record so she was the perfect unwitting drug mule.
The thing was, this restaurant and the man who operated it were locally loved. Beyond large scale organized cocaine trafficking, food was his other passion. Everyone waited anxiously for him to get out of prison and when he did this guy started a crusade against the corrupt local sheriff鈥檚 office. He started doing anti-police brutality advocacy work WHOLEHEARTEDLY. Donating to local families who had been victims and participating in local drives and awareness campaigns.
Made men usually do local charity work but the balls on this guy to take up sword and spear against shitty corrupt ineffectual law enforcement. Incredible. One thing about Appalachians is that we hate the cops and we love social agitators. This guy lived a long eventful life and died recently of natural causes and the overwhelming outpouring of love for him on Facebook was incredible, a uniting force that the town had not seen in decades, everybody was sharing their favorite stories about him and I鈥檓 sure local law enforcement was fuming.
Remember to utilize fundamental human fears, like the fear there might be a ghoul around. Put in a second ghoul.
Undermine the player's sense of safety by introducing something dangerous to areas previously considered safe, such as a third ghoul (in a ghoul-proof room or the like).
Draw on modern social anxieties, such as political radicalization or global warming. You can easily personify these things as, say, a fourth ghoul.
Create a sense of unease by...fuck it, that sounds hard, fifth ghoul.
Sixth ghoul, just in case the first five aren't scary enough.
Create disturbing imagery like a seventh, eighth and ninth ghoul.
Something something sense of powerlessness something something the uncanny something something. Tenth ghoul.
Remember to study the horror greats - King, Poe, Lovecraft. What did they all have in common? All wrote about ghouls probably. Imitate them and put in an eleventh ghoul.
Well, if you have eleven ghouls already, you might as well spring for a full dozen ghouls. That's just good business sense.
Thirteen is the spookiest number! Obviously a thirteenth ghoul would be the scariest thing! Your players will be talking about this for months!
Ok, fine, I guess you could put in a werewolf or shoggoth or something. Just don't blame me when the players are saying "hmm, that was pretty scary, but you know what would have been really terrifying? A fourteenth ghoul!"
Make the game room fit the tone of your game by having sinister music, low lighting and a fifteenth ghoul under the table who will eat anyone who complains about the number of ghouls in the campaign. That'll spook 'em!
Happy spooking and always remember the three rules of horror: ghouls. Ghouls! GHOULS!!!!