Tell Me About Your Horror Mark

[Flowswithdrek]

One of the characters in my game has acquired a Horror Mark. So while I dream up something fun but terrible, tell me about what you have done with Horror Marks in your game.

[Tanthalas]

In one campaign I had a horror that was slowly marking all the people within a Kaer. The creature was a subtle and long-minded one that feasted on conflict and negative emotions in general. His mark made it more difficult for Namegivers to ignore their baser desires. Eventually all of my players were marked and the comments that they joked about steadily became reality more and more often.

That Warrior who joked about punching someone who didn't agree with him? Suddenly he finds himself in a bar fight and isn't sure why.
The Troubadour that thinks he could probably lie his way through every problem? Suddenly nobody trusts him anymore because he has been lying about every little thing.

In practice I started making characters make WIL rolls whenever the made OOC jokes. Made for some hilarious low-circle entertainment.

[Mataxes]

My Horror Mark? I don't have one.

Really.

Honest.

Nebis.

[etherial]

In one of my games, the party's Elf was targeted by Ysrthgrathe. Ysrthgrathe likes to develop abusive codependent relationships with members of long-lived races. Ysrthgrathe allowed me to GM fiat the party out of a TPK because he killed all the NPCs while the PCs were unconscious.

YOU'RE WELCOME

he said to the PC he'd marked.

Every time the party was in dire straits, he'd offer to help yonder elf. And every time the elf accepted aid, he got a -1 to his Artisan Tests for the rest of the game as he let just a little more existential despair into his soul.

Eventually the elf managed to escape the horror mark inadvertently by merging with Jaron's sphinx and destroying the Orichalcum Pillars holding Great Thera's Pattern together. He died in the resulting Catastrophic Depatterning.