Glamis Castle - the hell?, "Who ya gonna call?" Options

[Tiralee]

Ok, as mentioned in the everlasting bounty of run ideas that is Dunkelzahn's Bequest:

[Tanka]

How did Big D get it? He's a Great Dragon, that's how.

[Kagetenshi]

It probably got nastier after the Awakening. That'd provide a reason for it to become undesirable to the Lord Protector, and an explaination for the hazards of spending the night. Castles where unpleasant things happen to you don't bring in many tourist pounds.

~J

[Tiralee]

[Kagetenshi]

Given the events of Macbeth, a Wraith would be utterly appropriate. Perhaps take some of the blame off the Lady.

~J

[Mongoose]

As Nasty as any of those, and more appropriate to the region, would be a free-spirit type verion of the "Wylde Hunt". The quote does use the term "agents" and "prey", and its always been hinted that the hunt was some sort of dark magic used by the immortal elves tho whack thier enemies, the magical equivalent of a state sponsored terrorist assination.
If somebody was to survive an encounter with a free Wylde Hunt, it would probably be because the manged to communicate with it and put it to rest, likely discovering its origen, nature, and purpose in the process.
And that would probably leave one of Dunkies old enemies (or just some bad people) with thier pants around thier ankles... in a pool of rising water... full of pirananna...

[toturi]

I know what a pirahna is, but a pirananna? Nan na na, nan na na na... Can't get you outta my head...

[Connor]

There are a lot of ghost stories associated with Glamis Castle that give way to it probably being a funky place in the Sixth World. One of my favorites involves an old Lord of Glamis in the 14th or 15th century who is reported to have played cards with the Devil (yes, with a capital D) in one of the rooms. Supposedly the room was so haunted that it was sealed up a couple of hundred years later.

There are a few other 'sealed' room in Glamis. A couple of them have windows on the exterior but no room inside the castle contains said window. There are some pictures and things you can Google for and such. It's a rather interesting subject, and there are a ton of things you could do to the place in the Sixth world.

[Squire]

Connor is right on the money, and you can get confirmation on the existance of the legends (and all kinds of great tidbits) from the link above.

Glamis is billed as one of the most haunted places around, and that's in the 5th world. Imagine what it would be like in the 6th world.

Back in the days of the old brown "jive" forums, we had a great discussion on how to write a run based upon attempting to claim the prize on the Glamis entry of Big-D's will. Unfortunately, I can't get the link to come up, I guess the old jive forum archives have finally been purged. Hopefully someone has a copy offline.

[Reaver]

I've been toying with the idea of doing a Glamis Castle run and having it be inhabited by Cthulhu Mythos nasties. Just to be a truly evil GM. :D

[toturi]

I'll most probably populate it with Spectors and a Wraith or 2.

[Reaver]

[Gem the Troll]

So the Big D acquired the castle out of a love for literature and Shakespear? I'd imagine there's something that's not as common as a wraith in there (though I expect there to be plenty of your typical awaked haunting creatures). Try to be more creative. There was something(s) in there that Dunklezahn. What was it?

[MrSandman666]

What interests me even more: what would this place look like on the inside? I'm not looking for dscriptions but rather for maps. I already tried to find some in the times of the jive thread but didn't find any. The idea of running in there has been thrilling me ever since the discussion came up back in the day. It's really a pity the old thread is gone. There where some great ideas and pieces of naration in there...
Many, many haunts have accumulated there. I wouldn't even try to think of some canon stuff. I'd simply invent what I need. Most of these guys are for flavor anyways or immune to whatever the players do so they won't need any. There will be a few classical 'quests' to do with one 'main quest' to end the haunts, which was set up by Dunkie. I suppose he knew about the problems in this place and he knew that anybody who would spend a sufficient amount of time in the castle during a full moon would stumble across the problem and have to solve it to get out alive after that period of time.
The runners could also find the trapped souls of their predecessors or so...
The exact nature of the problem is of secondary importance but it should have a 'positive' outcome, a victory of the forces of good. After all, Dunkie must have had a goal with this. Maybe it's also some kind of retaliation or revelation.
Yet my problem is: I need a map! I can't run this if I can't describe the layout apropriately.

[Savior]

Perhaps there is some kind of Magical foci that is drawing the wraiths and various spooks to it. Kinda like a ghost magnet, and a good quest would be to find and destroy/sell/remove said foci.

[MrSandman666]

Or there are souls (read: ghosts) trapped there that need to/want to go free but can't free themselves. They can contact the mortal world only during a full moon and the PCs have to do something to free them. This could be anything. Banish a ghost that is keeping them trapped, destroy an artifact that is functioning as a seal or whatever. If they don't do it they get trapped themselves and return every full moon in hope to find a savior...

[Reaver]

[Dogsoup]

A GM ran a Glamis-mission for us once: Of the castle there were now only thouroghly flattened ruins left. By spending the night there you were sucked into a very nasty metaplane and from there our GM used a converted a Ravenloft adventure.

[kevyn668]

[nezumi]

I did some online searching. I didn't find any maps, and honestly, it's unlikely there are any anywhere. After all, making blueprints is expensive and time consuming, especially for a huge castle like that, and it really serves no purpose (except for curious people like us). Find the blueprints of any late age castle made for defense (most castles are actually 'luxury' castles, but that one looked more defense oriented) and it should work nicely.

Assuming there's no outside influence (like a bunch of shadowrunners with an affinity for demolitions), the castle will still be standing in 50 years, however it probably has fallen into severe disrepair and most of the modern luxuries will be worthless piles of rubbish.

If I had to guess, the castle is on top of the crossing of ley lines, or some similar point of magical importance. Perhaps ley lines with a background count? You'd probably have a half dozen random 'ghosts' (wraiths or whatever). Some would be hostile (for instance, the armored figure who's supposed to have been the earl who played cards with the devil), some would definitely not be (the grey lady) and some might just be loons (the woman with her tongue cut out). I think it would be fun if these people have stories to tell, and they're simply trying to share it, or there's something else they're trying to accomplish. But they lack the intelligence they had when they were alive; they're like a vague recollection or a recording, and that is the only clue they can offer you to finishing their quest. Most of the things they want you to find are horrible, terrible secrets of their own suffering, or they secret they've seen. They may all somehow link to the single mystery of the castle.

You might have some random monsters about; a vampire, 'Jack the Runner' could be just ahead of the Wild Hunt, stuff like that you'd be better off avoiding.

I think the biggest question is what is in the secret room? It might be 1-2 people playing cards with the devil, but that sounds like a story meant to scare little children. It might be a collection of Scottish ghosts, but come on... The only story I saw online that I liked was the story of the child who was born looking horrible disfigured. In which case, you have free reign to create any sort of monster you like, with any sort of goals you want to give him. (Is he a new species of monster? A troll 150 years before its time? A baby horror?)

All in all, this sounds like a great game to put away the dice. Even assuming these are highly charged versions of the present ghost stories, these creatures will appear only rarely, and mostly cannot or don't want to fight. There'd be all sorts of fun magical effects (I can imagine the magic in the air almost being oppressive; even the mundanes can sense it, and the magic users are overwhelmed by it. Spells get out of control, astral projection becomes difficult, at best. Normal equipment has an astounding failure rate. Guns jam, flashlights burn out...) It could be a lot of fun. Just remember to start making those sanity checks ; )

[Diesel]

Ammunition randomly cooking off is good for spooking people. Especially if said munitions are flashbangs.

"Oh shit oh shit OH SHIT! We're blind and it's gonna fucking kill us!"

[Nath]

[Dingus_McGee]

Tying into a thread mentioning Harlequin getting Richard the Lionheart's armor and looking for Excalibur, what if it was hidden in Glamis Castle? And there was somesort of circumstance preventing him from going in directly and getting it?

I think throwing in a bunch of ghosts, a wraith or 2, and maybe some free spirits, along with beasties roaming the castle grounds would be awesome.

Maybe teh full moon activates a magical artifact that opens teh door to the "hidden" room, where the sword is kept? And you have to get past the wraith somehow to claim it before you leave the castle?

I don't know if the writers ever intend to elaborate on this point of the will, but I have enough material and ideas to come up with an ineresting run myself.....

[Senor 187]

Perhaps there is a HORROR entombed in the basement?

[RedmondLarry]

Here's a link to a post on the old boards by Grimtooth regarding Glamis Castle. The Laughing Man (thelaughingman AT enter.net) says he has maps of the castle.

Here's a link to the Old Boards that works.