Running and Playing Dark Fantasy Campaigns

[Max_Killjoy]

So basically in a faith with many gods the gods aren’t their attributes, they become their attributes, the god of the underworld was not born the god of the underworld it becomes the god of the underworld, the god of lighting is not naturally capable of using lighting but uses it as a tool.

All these gods emerge from a meta-divine realm, something that is more powerful and responsible for the creation of all things, gods included, so even the gods must abide by the decree of this force, the nature of this realm changes from culture to culture but it’s often related to a common substance or object on earth like earth, water, blood, gold or fire.

Since the gods themselves are subjected to this force the human clerics use this substance to tap in the power of this meta divine realm, sometimes the gods act as a medium between humans and the power above all, some times the humans use these powers to protect themselves against the gods or even force them to do something, that’s why sacrifices of blood, gold or the use of fire are common in these religion's rituals.

There's nothing objective or historically universal about that approach to deities in any real or fictional setting.

[RazorChain]

But D&D clerics completely rub me the wrong way, the actually feel disrespectful to religion to me. But oh so may GMs won't let me play a priest without taking levels in the class, even if I want to be a Fighter instead. Let my god save me via coincidences, not via spell slots. (Although I have no problems with priests that learn magic, but it should be that way round not 'has magic because priest'.)

This kinda reminds me of a gaming story about how the D&Desqe cleric was prevalent. A friend of mine was running Gurps for a group who was mostly used to D&D, one loudmouthed player manages to get his character killed and demands from rest of the players that they get his character resurrected. So the party trudges to this remote village in the middle of nowhere. The loudmouthed player tells the other player to take him to the priest immediately and pay him for the resurrection so he can enter play once more. The other players oblige, go to this shabby church and kindly inquire of the village priest if he can resurrect their friend, they are willing to pay. The priest looks at the body they dumped in front of him and tells them he isn't able to resurrect their friend for money but he'll dig him a hole for free.

[Yora]

What DF media has committedly heroic heroes protagonists? At best, some become heroic (shortly before death).

Goody-two-shoes in shining armor are certainly out of place. You could say that the main point of distinguishing Dark Fantasy as a separate thing is to identify stories in which such type of virtous heroism doesn't work.
But there are plenty of characters who rush to save others from harm at a great danger to themselves and go to considerable length and efforts to do so while they could easily save themselves.
There is Jirel of Joiry, Geralt from The Witcher, Tyrion Lanister and Brienne of Tarth from A Song of Ice and Fire, Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke, Gerret in Thief, Alistair, Leliana, and Hawke in Dragon Age, and Hellboy and Abe in Hellboy/B.P.R.D. They don't fight evil for any personal gain, but out of a deep commitment to save others threatened by it.

[Lazymancer]

... rush to save others from harm at a great danger to themselves and go to considerable length and efforts to do so while they could easily save themselves. ... deep commitment to save others ...

Garret literally kills innocent people to steal money they protect (I know, I did). Someone needs to rush to save others from him. Geralt and Tyrion also are hardly heroic in the sense you described:

I think this might actually require that all the PCs are commitedly heroic. They can't be selfish ...

There are specific others whom they want to save, but those are their friends. I.e. not exactly selfless actions.

I'd argue Princess Mononoke is not fully DF. Unfortunately, I can't comment on neither Jirel, nor Hellboy due to total and absolute lack of familiarity with both (are you sure Hellboy is DF?). Sidekicks from Dragon Age are not exactly protagonists and they didn't leave much of an impression.

This leaves us with Brienne. Who - while fitting heroic trope to a T - is a deconstruction. Being emotionally dependent on Heroic values (and, arguably, mentally unstable), she demonstrates the unsuitability of Heroic values to the world of DF.

[Thinker]

I've been starting to think about planning adventures, which I always had difficulties with, regardless of setting and genre.

What are the basic ingredients that are needed to give a campaign a dark feel and also make well playable? The main purpose of a campaign and a setting is to have the players do things. Yet I think many aspects that are commonly considered dark in fiction actually tend to get in the way of players doing things. Unbeatable foes, unexpected treachery, no hope of success, villlains that are always a step ahead, extreme risk, lack of resources. Players don't want to play out a story that has been prepared for them in which their characters suffer for their poor choices. Players want to do the smart thing that makes their characters avoid traps that have been set up for them. If players think that their goal is to outsmart the GM you have a recipe for endlessly debating every tiny detail and ultimately deciding to do nothing and see what happens. It's already a big problem to begin with and the factors are even amplified when you let the players know that the risk is higher and their chances of success lower than usually.

That is common in heroic fantasy. You have to set the expectations for the game in the beginning. Make character creation fast and easy. Make sure people know that their characters can (and likely will) die. The quests won't be about stopping the bad guy; they'll be about reducing the damage. Some games even have the conceit that the bad guy is most likely going to win.

So what can be done about it?

Since overbearing caution and indecisiveness are likely to become major problems, I think it might actually be needed to give the players a lot of confidence in their ability to handle or at least survive almost anything they could run into. A game, and especially a dark one, needs tension. Usually in fiction it's the fake threat of the hero being killed, but in an RPG the threat is actually real, which leads to much more sensible caution than you have in books and movies. But what could work is to create tension by having someone else being at risk of getting killed? Whichever way the characters act, they will probably survive. But if they perform poorly or don't act at all, someone else is going to snuff it. Under these conditions, acting rashly is the better choice to staying put.
The big question is how to make the players care about other NPCs? I think this might actually require that all the PCs are commitedly heroic. They can't be selfish and they can't be too vulnerable, unless the theme of the campaign is to fight for your own survivial at all cost. (Which admitedly is also a valid option.)

Any ideas how to get the players invested in the people of a world that actually rather unpleasant and not too welcoming?

Giving the players a high confidence in their abilities only trivializes the dark nature of the game. "Oh, an ancient elder god? No problem!" You need to mechanically encourage the players to act. There are many ways that games can do this:

• Powered by the Apocalypse games say when the players turn to you to see what happens, throw something at them. Basically, whenever the players are at a loss for their next actions, either make an event that will create drama in the near future (a guard running into the manor bloodied and dying; an explosion heard off in the distance) or throw something dangerous at them RIGHT NOW (the tavern door is blown off its hinges and the room chills as the wraith stalks into the parlor).
• Dread does this by playing with a Jenga tower. Whenever the players perform an action, they remove a block from the tower. When the tower falls, the character dies. It is not uncommon for the monster to win in Dread. This mechanic also builds tension - the players can see the tower's base getting narrower. They can see it start to shake. They know that the next character to search a room or encounter a devil-dog might be the next one to die.
• The Angry GM recommended a tracker of some kind that is tied to 10-minute activities (like searching a room or interrogating a suspect). Each step on the tracker is a step closer to something happening.
• I favor using a deck of cards with a joker in it. Do an action, draw a card. If it's a joker, something bad happens and if not, discard the card. Shuffle after a joker is drawn. The players can again see the coming badness.

This suspense allows you as the GM to throw really bad things or bad choices at the players after a buildup of tension. Save the sacrifice to the dark god or save the village from the dark god's cult?

You also ask why the characters should care about the NPCs or the world in general. This is also answered by mechanics. Give the players XP for every one of their contacts still alive at the end of a session. Make them create some sort of in-character bonds with those contacts so you have something to pull on. Those times when something bad happens from the tracker above? Those are times you put their contacts into danger. Don't necessarily kill them right away, but if the dice work against the players, they'll miss out on XP by the end of the session (as a group).

[Satinavian]

[list][*]Powered by the Apocalypse games say when the players turn to you to see what happens, throw something at them. Basically, whenever the players are at a loss for their next actions, either make an event that will create drama in the near future (a guard running into the manor bloodied and dying; an explosion heard off in the distance) or throw something dangerous at them RIGHT NOW (the tavern door is blown off its hinges and the room chills as the wraith stalks into the parlor).

That produces fast paced action heavy games with lots of improvising. I don't think that is appropriate for dark fantasy.

This suspense allows you as the GM to throw really bad things or bad choices at the players after a buildup of tension.

That is stuff for narrative heavy horror games. I don't think that fits dark fantasy either

For dark fantasy you want bad thinks in the world, problems without easy solutions where you have to think before you act and maybe dilemmas with sacrifices. Throwing random bad things for drama in doesn't really help at all. The bad things have to result from the player decision to give those decisions weight, not from some timer.

[War_lord]

Goody-two-shoes in shining armor are certainly out of place. You could say that the main point of distinguishing Dark Fantasy as a separate thing is to identify stories in which such type of virtous heroism doesn't work.
But there are plenty of characters who rush to save others from harm at a great danger to themselves and go to considerable length and efforts to do so while they could easily save themselves.
There is Jirel of Joiry, Geralt from The Witcher, Tyrion Lanister and Brienne of Tarth from A Song of Ice and Fire, Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke, Gerret in Thief, Alistair, Leliana, and Hawke in Dragon Age, and Hellboy and Abe in Hellboy/B.P.R.D. They don't fight evil for any personal gain, but out of a deep commitment to save others threatened by it.

Geralt isn't heroic, he has a sense of right and wrong, and will intervene in situations where there's an obvious wrong being committed. But ultimately his only true loyalty is to his close friends and to Ciri. At one point in the books he is knighted after helping turn the tide of a battle... and then immediately deserts and loses it upon being refused leave to continue the search for Ciri. Tyrion Lannister's "good" acts all stem from his anger at being rejected by this father. Brienne's heroism and honor is constantly shown to be impractical in the face of the realities of Westeros. Garrett fights evil only because the city being destroyed would involve him dying.

One of the core themes of Dark fantasy is that the "heroic" solutions aren't the best solutions, and often the "evil" solutions have some merit or internal logic to them.

[Yora]

Then let's forget about the term hero if it makes you feel better. What matters is that characters care about bad things happening to others and will try to intervene if it seems to be within their power.
You can have PCs who care only for their personal gain in a dark setting of course. But I feel that it makes it very difficult to prepare for a campaign that lasts for more than a few sessions until the players get bored with random mayhem and avoiding any risks for a bigger goal.

I happened to find this fairly long article on running Dark Fantasy campaigns, though it seems to deal exclusively with the grimdark way of things, and doesn't seem very good for that purpose either.

But I did get a couple of good thoughts from it, which could work quite well for grittier high fantasy:
- Potions are always a somewhat revolting experience. Not just a simple stat boost in a bottle, but a strange poison whose side effects outweigh the harm they do.

- Efficient and powerful evil authorities make a good constant threat that forces the players to be careful and use restraint. Killing bandits and monsters wont cause them any trouble, but if players try to make any changes that benefit the common poor, it will always greatly displease those people who are benefiting from such structural injustice. And PCs usually move on quickly while townspeople stay behind and have to deal with the consequences of having angered powerful evil people, so most of them won't be too happy about players going after the local rulers, lawmen, and crime groups. Whatever the players are doing to be "helpful", don't rock the boat.
This allows players to make a real difference for the better, but still doesn't let them make any real improvements. I feel that this is one of the central aspects of darkness. Things always tend to return back to the status quo, even if the old players have been replaced with new players. Trying to bring real change only leads to trouble.

- Similiarly, if the PCs still end up getting popular for their small deeds, it's going to make them enemies who see them as a threat.This invites villains to come for the PCs personally.

Somewhat unrelated to that, when it comes to preventing indecisions, I think what's really needed is that players feel confident that they won't be killed as the consequence of opening a door or going around a corner. First they have to see a threat and then be facing the choice of engaging with it or trying to avoid it. And when it comes to engaging danger, their confidence to be able to deal with it should be low.
I think this is something that can be accomplished by not having dark elder gods hiding in random treasure chests, and also not any lesser threats in situations where the players don't have warning of immenent danger. Then they will hopefully get used to it that they don't have to be afraid to open a door or enter a room. But I assume that player will take such things for granted, especially when expecting a darker and more dangerous campaign. The only way I can think of is to straight up tell the players at the beginning that they won't be suffering lethal damage from random doors and cobblestones.

[War_lord]

Then let's forget about the term hero if it makes you feel better. What matters is that characters care about bad things happening to others and will try to intervene if it seems to be within their power.
You can have PCs who care only for their personal gain in a dark setting of course. But I feel that it makes it very difficult to prepare for a campaign that lasts for more than a few sessions until the players get bored with random mayhem and avoiding any risks for a bigger goal.

Most people care about bad things happening to others and will try to intervene if it seems to be within their power. That's everyone who's not a Psychopath. Dark Fantasy protagonists act over things that are important to them not out of any wider sense of heroism. Players carrying out random mayhem and avoiding risks is a matter of player investment, and can happen in any genre.

[Aneurin]

Then let's forget about the term hero if it makes you feel better. What matters is that characters care about bad things happening to others and will try to intervene if it seems to be within their power.
You can have PCs who care only for their personal gain in a dark setting of course. But I feel that it makes it very difficult to prepare for a campaign that lasts for more than a few sessions until the players get bored with random mayhem and avoiding any risks for a bigger goal.

A bigger goal does not necessarily mean the characters have to care about other characters. Or at least, not care about a bunch of strangers in a heroic fantasy save-the-world deal.

Take Glen Cook's Black Company novels; the Black Company don't do what they do to save people. They're in it for the Company, for their brothers in the Company. They join the White Rose in the fight against the Domination not because they plan on saving the world, but because the Lady would annihilate them if they found out they'd had the Rose and let her escape. They don't set out to save Taglios, or end piracy down river from Gea-Xle; they do it because it's another step on the road to Khatovar, and returning the Annals. They don't set themselves against the Great General, the protector and the Daughter of Night because it's the right thing to do, but because the Company's leaders hate them a lot.

Having a goal doesn't mean doing nice things. "We will save the world because the world is where we live," is a perfectly acceptable goal. "We will save the world because lots of people will die"... kinda doesn't feel Dark Fantasy, at least to me. I'm not saying people can't be altruistic in dark fantasy games, but they should have more complicated reasons for doing things than "it's the right thing to do!".

[Yora]

Most people care about bad things happening to others and will try to intervene if it seems to be within their power. That's everyone who's not a Psychopath.

Which is the difference between Dark Fantasy and Grimdark, I would say.

[Max_Killjoy]

For this sort of setting and story, the goals don't have to be big, they can be personal, and a heroic act can be something small instead of something world-changing.

[Thinker]

That produces fast paced action heavy games with lots of improvising. I don't think that is appropriate for dark fantasy.

It really doesn't produce fast-paced, action-heavy games, though it certainly requires improvisation. It's a mechanic to make sure that the game keeps on moving. Things happening doesn't always have to be an action sequence. It can be as big as an ancient god awakening from a ten thousand year slumber or as small as the bar being out of your favorite beer, but the barkeep knowing where you can find some. It can be as action-packed as you want it to be. The only requirement is that it make logical sense with what has happened thus far in the story. The dragon shouldn't awaken until the players have heard tell of the prophecy about it awakening.

That is stuff for narrative heavy horror games. I don't think that fits dark fantasy either

For dark fantasy you want bad thinks in the world, problems without easy solutions where you have to think before you act and maybe dilemmas with sacrifices. Throwing random bad things for drama in doesn't really help at all. The bad things have to result from the player decision to give those decisions weight, not from some timer.

First off, it's not random bad things. It's always a bad thing based on the fiction presented up until that point and it is always relevant to the current context. If you're infiltrating a goblin encampment, the badness is going to be related to the goblins in some way (or to another group). You can also use it as an opportunity to reveal a dark or unwelcome truth - maybe the goblins aren't simple raiders, but are followers of a secret cult who are kidnapping people, not as slaves, but as sacrifices. In that case, the "bad thing" might be the players stumbling into the sacrifice chamber. Secondly, dark fantasy isn't just fantasy where everything sucks. It's much closer to horror than to the heroics of something like Lord of the Rings. Like horror, there is despair, suspense, and a sense of the the world unraveling around you. Finally, pacing mechanics are beneficial regardless of the type of game you're playing. Tying it to mechanics that affect the players in some way is the only way for the pacing to matter.

You might not like having consequences to the pacing mechanics and that's fine, though consequences are entirely appropriate for dark fantasy. Tie it to something good. Draw a joker and get bonus XP - build anticipation instead of suspense.

[Anonymouswizard]

That sounds like a good idea. :)

Yep, especially outside a 'hp as meat' system. It means characters can recover from mistakes without being able to be reckless.

I think it's more a D&D thing.

The problem is that to most people the difference between 'fantasy gaming' and 'D&D' is nonexistent.

Now I love fantasy games without divine magic, where priests either don't get it or have to learn it the same as other people do. Or where priests have a monopoly on magic. But considering whenever I try to run such a game I get complaints about how it's not got D&D element X, which doesn't happen when I run science fiction, so I can't be asked to say 'D&D-style clerics don't fit, but that doesn't matter if you're using another system'.

Why not use normal magic for healing?

Honestly? Because it doesn't fit how most wizards in media heal people. It's 'my knowledge of the healing arts saved you', and while it could be represented by magic it could also just be having a really good Medicine skill, and I prefer the latter approach.

This kinda reminds me of a gaming story about how the D&Desqe cleric was prevalent. A friend of mine was running Gurps for a group who was mostly used to D&D, one loudmouthed player manages to get his character killed and demands from rest of the players that they get his character resurrected. So the party trudges to this remote village in the middle of nowhere. The loudmouthed player tells the other player to take him to the priest immediately and pay him for the resurrection so he can enter play once more. The other players oblige, go to this shabby church and kindly inquire of the village priest if he can resurrect their friend, they are willing to pay. The priest looks at the body they dumped in front of him and tells them he isn't able to resurrect their friend for money but he'll dig him a hole for free.

Yep, and sometimes people wonder why I don't rush into fights. My character might die, he's not going to want to be that stupid!

[Satinavian]

It really doesn't produce fast-paced, action-heavy games, though it certainly requires improvisation. It's a mechanic to make sure that the game keeps on moving. Things happening doesn't always have to be an action sequence. It can be as big as an ancient god awakening from a ten thousand year slumber or as small as the bar being out of your favorite beer, but the barkeep knowing where you can find some. It can be as action-packed as you want it to be. The only requirement is that it make logical sense with what has happened thus far in the story. The dragon shouldn't awaken until the players have heard tell of the prophecy about it awakening.

That is what tradidionally timeskips and downtime is for : Moving on to the next interesting event when nothing else needs to be done between.

But introducing new events for player inactivity means that the players don't get the opportunity to think things through, to let their charcaters do their everyday life inbetween or to process the things that have happened so far.
You need to have boring uneventful IT time to keep the important events rare and uncommon instead of just tuesday. You just don't have to play that out.

Secondly, dark fantasy isn't just fantasy where everything sucks. It's much closer to horror than to the heroics of something like Lord of the Rings. Like horror, there is despair, suspense, and a sense of the the world unraveling around you. Finally, pacing mechanics are beneficial regardless of the type of game you're playing.

I severely disagree with that. Sure, the sense of a world unraveling is usefull for horror. But for dark fantasy you want the players to be invested in the world so decisions and consequences matter more. You want a world that makes sense, not one that feels surreal and about to be undone.

You might not like having consequences to the pacing mechanics and that's fine, though consequences are entirely appropriate for dark fantasy. Tie it to something good. Draw a joker and get bonus XP - build anticipation instead of suspense.

Actually i don't see any need for metagame pacing mechanics at all for dak fantasy. Why would i want that here, what is the purpose ?

In horror games it is about adding tension. And having unknown bad events that are inherently unavoidable by ingame decisions but with ever increasing chance the more time goes by without one happening is usefull for horror But dark fantasy draws its tension instead from ingame events and works best as high immersion thing. Which means that unknown unexpected threats are useless, as the characters can't fear them, only the players can. And the threats should also not be unavoidable as that basically kills any tension and weight coming from the character decisions a player takes.

The problem is that to most people the difference between 'fantasy gaming' and 'D&D' is nonexistent.

A surprising number of players on this board come from countries where D&D is not and has never been the most successfull RPG system. And from the rest many have played other systems.

Yes, we all like D&D examples because they are most widely understood worldwide and expeccially on an English language forum based on a D&D comic. But i would not extract fom that that most players here actually play D&D foremost or even that often. Nor that they are unaware of the difference to "fantasy gaming".

[Mutazoia]

I severely disagree with that. Sure, the sense of a world unraveling is usefull for horror. But for dark fantasy you want the players to be invested in the world so decisions and consequences matter more. You want a world that makes sense, not one that feels surreal and about to be undone.

I think you are confusing "Dark Fantasy" and "Horror" here, as horror doesn't necessitate a (potentially) world ending plot, where as a (potentially) world ending plot is pretty much the staple for "Dark Fantasy". Think about every "Dark Fantasy" example you've heard of (games, novels, movies), and you'll find that a common trope is "the world is FUBAR unless the heroes do something". Now thing of every "Horror" example you've ever heard of. Horror most commonly breaks down into "Look at all that blood, wasn't that scary? The monster was behind the door, wasn't that scary? Are you scared yet?" Basically, "The Heroes run around fighting scarier monsters than usual."

In a (very basic) nutshell, "Dark Fantasy" is "there is something very wrong, and it's up to you to fix it, or it's going to get worse" where-as "Horror" is just going "BOO" over and over again.

In horror games it is about adding tension. And having unknown bad events that are inherently unavoidable by ingame decisions but with ever increasing chance the more time goes by without one happening is usefull for horror But dark fantasy draws its tension instead from ingame events and works best as high immersion thing. Which means that unknown unexpected threats are useless, as the characters can't fear them, only the players can. And the threats should also not be unavoidable as that basically kills any tension and weight coming from the character decisions a player takes.

Again, I think you might be a little off here.

Giving the players something to fear, whether they can do anything about it or not, is kind of the point. The characters are not going to sit around fretting about things...they can't....they only exist in our heads. So if WE are not fretting about things, neither are they. And you can build a hellofalotof tension in a game by giving the players a choice of stopping bad event A or bad even B, but not both. Letting them fret over which nasty consequences they get to deal with later does, in fact, build tension. Especially when those consequences start snowballing with other consequences. (Though you don't want to do that too much, or the players will start to get the feeling that they can't win, no matter what they do.)

[Yora]

In a (very basic) nutshell, "Dark Fantasy" is "there is something very wrong, and it's up to you to fix it, or it's going to get worse" where-as "Horror" is just going "BOO" over and over again.

That's not a good description of horror. That is merely bad horror. Slaaher gore torture porn.

You need to have boring uneventful IT time to keep the important events rare and uncommon instead of just tuesday. You just don't have to play that out.
I severely disagree with that. Sure, the sense of a world unraveling is usefull for horror. But for dark fantasy you want the players to be invested in the world so decisions and consequences matter more. You want a world that makes sense, not one that feels surreal and about to be undone.

Dark Fantasy seems like a prime candidate for long run, serial episodic campaigns. The players face a threat and deal with it, but months or years later it comes back or a new threat shows up to attack whatever they had previously protected. It's not powering through once and being done, but having to fight over and over with no specific end in sight.

There are some really good thoughts on this here.

[Yora]

I would like to hear some thoughts on monsters.

Somehow I feel like less is more. When I sit down to write up a list of monsters to populate a Dark Fantasy world, it ends up being really short. All the many types of fictional wild animals don't feel like they are contributing much.
Undead of course work great, in any imaginable combination. But what else would you be using?

[Lazymancer]

I would like to hear some thoughts on monsters.

Somehow I feel like less is more. When I sit down to write up a list of monsters to populate a Dark Fantasy world, it ends up being really short. All the many types of fictional wild animals don't feel like they are contributing much.
Undead of course work great, in any imaginable combination. But what else would you be using?

I'd be using humans, since I consider DF to be social flavour of setting.

However bad situation is, it's not DF unless someone is trying to stab you in the back.

[Thrudd]

I would like to hear some thoughts on monsters.

Somehow I feel like less is more. When I sit down to write up a list of monsters to populate a Dark Fantasy world, it ends up being really short. All the many types of fictional wild animals don't feel like they are contributing much.
Undead of course work great, in any imaginable combination. But what else would you be using?

Anything you think is scary/creepy, your players might think is scary, or something you can make seem scary or creepy. Invent stuff. Does physical horror get to you? Use some grotesque deformities and mutants or creatures that have grotesque features. Is Cannibalism/being eaten scary? Throw some of that in there. Alien weirdness and unfathomable monstrosities? Use something like blobs/ooze and tentacles and teeth in all the wrong places. You get the picture. Think about the creepy movies and stories you've read, stuff you find scary, and translate it into the game.

[Anonymouswizard]

I would like to hear some thoughts on monsters.

Somehow I feel like less is more. When I sit down to write up a list of monsters to populate a Dark Fantasy world, it ends up being really short. All the many types of fictional wild animals don't feel like they are contributing much.
Undead of course work great, in any imaginable combination. But what else would you be using?

My first thought is that monsters should be rare, because the more common something is the less scary it is. I myself tend towards humans and humanoid monsters, weird creatures are a bit too D&D for me to take them seriously, and I tend to restrict 'Eldritch Abominations' to the higher levels of both Law and Chaos.

Anything you think is scary/creepy, your players might think is scary, or something you can make seem scary or creepy. Invent stuff. Does physical horror get to you? Use some grotesque deformities and mutants or creatures that have grotesque features. Is Cannibalism/being eaten scary? Throw some of that in there. Alien weirdness and unfathomable monstrosities? Use something like blobs/ooze and tentacles and teeth in all the wrong places. You get the picture. Think about the creepy movies and stories you've read, stuff you find scary, and translate it into the game.

Oh yep. One of the thing's you'll notice missing from any monsters I create is any obviously missing parts or 'looks like it's rotting or wounded' elements, because I just find them icky instead of scary or creepy. I'm much more comfortable running a sentient gas cloud as a monster.

Although I do get weird ideas occasionally. Spoilered because I plan to use it if I ever run a fantasy campaign again.

Spoiler

Show

Someone asked on a Facebook writers group what a monster made of light and destroyed by light would be like. I decided to interpret monster loosely, and came up with a propagating information pattern carried by a certain wavelength of light.

The idea being if this wavelength hits something, I think the original version was just living cells but I could see it done with inanimate objects as well, then that thing absorbs some of the information. Absorb enough of the information and you get 'taken over', the infected cell becomes a new source, communicates with other sources it can 'see', and eventually the entire organism is infected, which moves somewhere and attempts to shine on other organisms to infect them. The only way to disinfect a creature is to shine enough 'natural light' (read: sunlight) on it to cause 'noise' and stop the information pattern from significantly disrupting the cell's. Yeah, it's a bit of a handwave I'll develop more when I have to develop the creature.

How to use it? I'm not putting that in here, other than drop a source somewhere without natural light and let it happen. I certainly have plans for it that'll case the pattern to be a reoccuring, hard to eliminate 'creature'.

[Lacco]

If we go by the Witcher, I would suggest to look up the "Eye of Yrrhedesh" book. An RPG published by Sapkowski - I'm not sure if it was translated into English, but if yes, it could offer an insight into his ideas.

Basically, the "monsters" are both animals (one of his suggestions for "special" monster is "swarm of hornets" - it can be fought off only by using fire, the other option is "run away") and things of legends. Since you come from Germany, you can check the large assortment of "beasts" (in Witcher, Sapkowski uses rübezahl from what I remember) from the local myths & legends. The important thing is to take what you know and change a thing or two for the players as surprise (e.g. the basilisk's sight does not do anything, but his breath is toxic/mandrake does not scream but produces a neurotoxin which causes hallucinations).

He even recommended creating "special" beasts (his example was a red "toxic" dragon IIRC).

Still, less is more, as you said, especially in dark fantasy. There should be only few of these mythical beasts, but they should be very dangerous if approached/fought on their own rules. On the other hand, there should be a lot of stories about such things (if we go by the rumors, every castle should be populated by an army of ghosts, the will-o-wisps kidnap a kid into marshes every week, and werewolves roam the countryside - but the ghosts are actually conspirators, the will-o-wisps are actually lazy parents and the werewolves are hungry dogs).

I observed that when they actually start finding evidence of a mythical beast after few of these, players tend to get really nervous...

[Yora]

Dark Fantasy is driven to agreat degree by treachery, deception, and the permanent threat of something waiting to jump you from behind. This is actually really easy to adapt to the design of monsters. You simply need some monsters that are not immediately obvious as such, being disguised as people or animals, or being outright invisible.
There's a lot of classics there: Werewolves, vampires, succubuses, wendigos, carnivorous trees, undead animals, swamp creatures, demon possession, changelings, witches, cults, animated corpses, and all of that.

[Thinker]

Dark Fantasy is driven to agreat degree by treachery, deception, and the permanent threat of something waiting to jump you from behind. This is actually really easy to adapt to the design of monsters. You simply need some monsters that are not immediately obvious as such, being disguised as people or animals, or being outright invisible.
There's a lot of classics there: Werewolves, vampires, succubuses, wendigos, carnivorous trees, undead animals, swamp creatures, demon possession, changelings, witches, cults, animated corpses, and all of that.

In addition to those, you might have some success with hive-minds or mind-control (or a mix of the two). Some examples:

• An ancient evil has infected the water supply, taking over the minds of the town-folk. The people don't know what is happening to them, though always feel tired and lethargic for some reason. It is only currently strong enough to affect them at night, but it is growing in power.
• An herb that was mistaken for a medicine rapidly regenerates peoples' wounds, but it warps their minds and can even take them over if they are close enough to the plant that served as its source.
• Voodoo-style zombies, complete with zombie master priest.

[Lazymancer]

Dark Fantasy is driven to agreat degree by treachery, deception, and the permanent threat of something waiting to jump you from behind. This is actually really easy to adapt to the design of monsters. You simply need some monsters that are not immediately obvious as such, being disguised as people or animals, or being outright invisible.
There's a lot of classics there: Werewolves, vampires, succubuses, wendigos, carnivorous trees, undead animals, swamp creatures, demon possession, changelings, witches, cults, animated corpses, and all of that.

Evil is still color-coded for your convenience, no?

[Lacco]

Evil is still color-coded for your convenience, no?

Nope.

In dark fantasy your local werewolf may be the guy who steals a sheep or two a year and "needs to be put down" because the peasants are afraid of him, but the real threat is the crazy fanatic who sends you on the mission to cleanse the area of evil/darkness because he wants to fuel his dark pact with demons with the deaths you cause...

[Anonymouswizard]

Evil is still color-coded for your convenience, no?

Certainly, if it's skin has a colour, including pink, it's probably evil.

[Yora]

Yesterday I had an interesting idea that somehow never occured to me but is really simple. Not having another world from which the supernatural creatures come and where magical powers originate, but simply make them regular parts of the world where people and animals live.
For actual demons you probably need some kind of hell, but all the other nasties could simply be walking around in the trees beyond the fields and stroll closer during the night.I feel this makes for a more pervasive feeling of danger than punctual incursions from another world.

[Anonymouswizard]

I don't think I have a 'monster dimension' bar Hell and Heaven with their demons and angels in any of my worlds, the closest is the void of space. Most creatures are natural to the world, the rest are artificial.

There is the portal to Australia, but that's to get rid of pesky high level PCs.

[Yora]

When it comes to hero tales, I can't really think of any examples in which a hero is transported to a supernatural world through a ritual. To reach the magical places, one simply has to know where they are and walk there. They are places you can go to, though generally far away, which is the reason almost nobody ever goes there.

Spirit journeys could be an exception, but I think in those cases the spirit always leaves the body behind and actually stays in the same place while being able to see things that ar normally invisible to the eyes.

Actually different worlds seem to be mostly places where the souls of the dead go to, which are effectively completely cut off from the regular world with no real interactions.

I'm quite undecided what pick I want to go this for my own campaign. Both have their merits and interesting implications.