One bit of lore I like to use is the idea that you never see female trolls because hags have replaced them. There was once a fey/giant species called the 'Trow", and while they were very tough and healed quickly, they weren't ravening monsters who had to eat constantly to support rapid regeneration. At some point, a coven of hags started abducting and killing the female members of the species, and taking on their appearence to mate with the males to produce children they could corrupt into more hags. Over time, they started using the male trow as guardians, so they enhanced their strength and healing properties until they became the trolls we know today. They're horribly inbred so they can't think much and they're easy for the hags to manipulate and dominate. Maybe there are still a few original trow in hiding somewhere, kind of like the Irda of Dragonlance, if a player wanted to try playing a toned down, non-monstrous troll. Maybe they could be mostly like a goliath, but with some of the goliath's standard features replaced by slow regeneration, like half their proficiency bonus per minute.
Excellent video! I'm currently running CoS for some people, and they've (for now) skipped over the windmill, but I'm working on steering them back to it by making the number of people addicted to the pies getting worse and worse, and abductions getting more frequent as well.
That's a good idea. That story line in CoS O think is well worth treading and by ramping up the in world consequences of passing over it first ramps up the immersion. Let me know how it goes!
When I played through CoS I was playing a Paladin and we encountered the old woman telling a man that he had to pay if he wanted more pies while he begged for them like an addict, I used Divine Sense and detected that the woman wasn't what she appeared, I called her out and she cackled as she hurriedly pushed her little cart out of town. The guy was pretty upset with me because I had just "blown his chance to get some more pies so that he could escape the nightmare". That was our very first encounter after the mists and the point where we actually put together that we were playing CoS, as our DM had kept that a secret through character creation, the grin on his face as we were like "Is this CoS?!".
The DM running our game did something similar. He started us out in the Lost Mines of Phandelver, and then all of sudden we got lost in some mist on the way to stop some orcs and poof direwolf attack. We then found a peculiar letter on a body in the woods, but he ended the session directly after that without letting us read the contents of the letter. A few days later in the mail I get a postcard irl. The cover said, "Welcome to Barovia".
9:41 - Real world, sleep paralysis was interpreted that way; it was called being ‘hag-ridden’. Later, people interpreted the inability to move and the slowed breathing as having a demon sitting on their chest. A few have interpreted the experience as having a more angelic messenger come to deliver some command. In the last 70 years or so, people have interpreted sleep paralysis as alien abduction. In sleepwalking, motor control becomes active before consciousness, but sleep paralysis is the opposite. Your mind wakes up, or partially does, while the motor signals are still suppressed. Your breathing is slowed when you sleep, and that state persists as well. You can make some noise, but generally can’t form words. As far as I’m aware, I’ve never sleepwalked, but I’ve woken up with sleep paralysis a few times. In one, I was aware of being awake and not dreaming, but I could barely move and just made a few noises. Another time, I was still dreaming to some extent, but I’m not superstitious so I didn’t imagine there was a demon or extraterrestrial causing it. Instead, I thought I was swimming deep underwater and that’s why I wasn’t breathing normaly. I wasn’t moving because I had to freeze so I might avoid the notice of some huge shark I could see as a distant shadow. It was still a bit scary, but not supernatural. It was still a bit off in the sense that I know sharks that size went extinct before humans evolved, but at least the experience didn’t make me start believing in hags, demons, angels, aliens, or some other supernatural nonsense.
I've never heard "hag-ridden" before. Someone a long time ago told me the term Nightmare came from sleep paralysis as the rider of Death's horse hooves holding you down or some such as that. Never actually bothered looking it up because it sounded cool. I've personally never had such an experience, but an old roommate I had used to see "shadow people" or some such. The way she described it was terrifying, but she wasn't superstitious either or religious, which made it much more weird to her. She would just wake up sometimes with the shadows just looking down. Weird.
@@yugthebarbarian - The character 'Hagrid' was apparently named after the idea of being hag-ridden. Yeah, 'nightmare' is based on the same phenomenon. As to seeing illusory people, there's a thing called 'Charles Bonnet syndrome' in which people with some types of visual impairment see 'Lilipution visions' of tiny people. Shadow people are another type of hallucination that can occur for many reasons including schizophrenia and extreme sleep deprivation. Sometimes the 'shadowman' has a tall hat and/or is very tall himself. It sounds like Slenderman, but that's a more recent legend developed on the site Something Awful. Sometimes our brains apparently decide it's time to dream whether we're unconscious or not. You can mine psychology and brain anomalies for all kinds of scary sh¡t.
Excellent video! I enjoyed your commentary and the overall eerieness. It really sold the horror of the situation your character was in. Looking forward to more videos!
@yugthebarbarian I think its great, that's awesome that you do it. You put together a sick story. I get the shoestring Budget for sure im the same wat, but if you wanna dm and talk about it or bounce some ideas we could chat just lmk😊
One bit of lore I like to use is the idea that you never see female trolls because hags have replaced them. There was once a fey/giant species called the 'Trow", and while they were very tough and healed quickly, they weren't ravening monsters who had to eat constantly to support rapid regeneration. At some point, a coven of hags started abducting and killing the female members of the species, and taking on their appearence to mate with the males to produce children they could corrupt into more hags. Over time, they started using the male trow as guardians, so they enhanced their strength and healing properties until they became the trolls we know today. They're horribly inbred so they can't think much and they're easy for the hags to manipulate and dominate. Maybe there are still a few original trow in hiding somewhere, kind of like the Irda of Dragonlance, if a player wanted to try playing a toned down, non-monstrous troll. Maybe they could be mostly like a goliath, but with some of the goliath's standard features replaced by slow regeneration, like half their proficiency bonus per minute.
Ima remember you bro, and ima be hear when you get big as well. You spitting.
Shoot that's the most encouraging thing I've been told since I started. Made my day. Thanks
It is personal as soon as the villain starts sundering worn items such like spell books, component pouches or visible accessoires.
Taking a wizards spellbook is good way to play the alternate version of Dnd called "tableflip". I should try it sometime though
Excellent video! I'm currently running CoS for some people, and they've (for now) skipped over the windmill, but I'm working on steering them back to it by making the number of people addicted to the pies getting worse and worse, and abductions getting more frequent as well.
That's a good idea. That story line in CoS O think is well worth treading and by ramping up the in world consequences of passing over it first ramps up the immersion. Let me know how it goes!
When I played through CoS I was playing a Paladin and we encountered the old woman telling a man that he had to pay if he wanted more pies while he begged for them like an addict, I used Divine Sense and detected that the woman wasn't what she appeared, I called her out and she cackled as she hurriedly pushed her little cart out of town. The guy was pretty upset with me because I had just "blown his chance to get some more pies so that he could escape the nightmare". That was our very first encounter after the mists and the point where we actually put together that we were playing CoS, as our DM had kept that a secret through character creation, the grin on his face as we were like "Is this CoS?!".
The DM running our game did something similar. He started us out in the Lost Mines of Phandelver, and then all of sudden we got lost in some mist on the way to stop some orcs and poof direwolf attack. We then found a peculiar letter on a body in the woods, but he ended the session directly after that without letting us read the contents of the letter. A few days later in the mail I get a postcard irl. The cover said, "Welcome to Barovia".
The twins "Edward" and "Jacob"? lol...
Hey in the last campaign "Edward" was "Harold Byalzak"....He went by Harry.
9:41 - Real world, sleep paralysis was interpreted that way; it was called being ‘hag-ridden’. Later, people interpreted the inability to move and the slowed breathing as having a demon sitting on their chest. A few have interpreted the experience as having a more angelic messenger come to deliver some command. In the last 70 years or so, people have interpreted sleep paralysis as alien abduction.
In sleepwalking, motor control becomes active before consciousness, but sleep paralysis is the opposite. Your mind wakes up, or partially does, while the motor signals are still suppressed. Your breathing is slowed when you sleep, and that state persists as well. You can make some noise, but generally can’t form words.
As far as I’m aware, I’ve never sleepwalked, but I’ve woken up with sleep paralysis a few times. In one, I was aware of being awake and not dreaming, but I could barely move and just made a few noises. Another time, I was still dreaming to some extent, but I’m not superstitious so I didn’t imagine there was a demon or extraterrestrial causing it. Instead, I thought I was swimming deep underwater and that’s why I wasn’t breathing normaly. I wasn’t moving because I had to freeze so I might avoid the notice of some huge shark I could see as a distant shadow. It was still a bit scary, but not supernatural. It was still a bit off in the sense that I know sharks that size went extinct before humans evolved, but at least the experience didn’t make me start believing in hags, demons, angels, aliens, or some other supernatural nonsense.
I've never heard "hag-ridden" before. Someone a long time ago told me the term Nightmare came from sleep paralysis as the rider of Death's horse hooves holding you down or some such as that. Never actually bothered looking it up because it sounded cool.
I've personally never had such an experience, but an old roommate I had used to see "shadow people" or some such. The way she described it was terrifying, but she wasn't superstitious either or religious, which made it much more weird to her. She would just wake up sometimes with the shadows just looking down. Weird.
@@yugthebarbarian - The character 'Hagrid' was apparently named after the idea of being hag-ridden. Yeah, 'nightmare' is based on the same phenomenon.
As to seeing illusory people, there's a thing called 'Charles Bonnet syndrome' in which people with some types of visual impairment see 'Lilipution visions' of tiny people. Shadow people are another type of hallucination that can occur for many reasons including schizophrenia and extreme sleep deprivation. Sometimes the 'shadowman' has a tall hat and/or is very tall himself. It sounds like Slenderman, but that's a more recent legend developed on the site Something Awful.
Sometimes our brains apparently decide it's time to dream whether we're unconscious or not. You can mine psychology and brain anomalies for all kinds of scary sh¡t.
Excellent video! I enjoyed your commentary and the overall eerieness. It really sold the horror of the situation your character was in. Looking forward to more videos!
I'm glad you liked the video! I really enjoyed putting this one together, so I'm looking for another horror themed video to do.
That's awesome, waiting for more content about villains
I've got an idea brewing for another one from one of my homebrew campaigns. Hopefully can get it out in a few weeks!
So don't trust bakers or mainly ppl who make pie, got it!!!
DND is just paranoia simulator these days
Here before he goes crazy, he’ll yea Boi 282 sub
Thanks!
Hay great story bro just subd keep up the good work
Thanks! Welcome to the channel!
Bro this content goes hard as fuck definitely subbing for when you blow up
Ha! Thanks for the vote of confidence. Guess we'll have to see.
I'm super excited to see it. Also, idk if you edit yourself or if you use someone, but I'd love to work with you on the videos if you'd like the help!
@@theangry_wookie_man1830 haha nah I do all the editing, I've got a shoestring budget. What are your thoughts?
@yugthebarbarian I think its great, that's awesome that you do it. You put together a sick story. I get the shoestring Budget for sure im the same wat, but if you wanna dm and talk about it or bounce some ideas we could chat just lmk😊
@@theangry_wookie_man1830 sounds good. I might set up a discord this week
Twin BROTHERS? Edward's artwork is clearly female though.
Yup!
It's the closest I could find that matches his character.
Hate to sound rude (this hopefully won't be seen as such) but your pfp reminds me of Mr. House
Not rude at all and now that it's been said I don't believe I can unsee the resemblance haha