DnD Child Plot Thing

Crossposting is love.

This is from this thread, on my second post in the thread.

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Since you were asking for more ideas, here is one: The PCs are in a village, and every night, very strange things are happening. Toy-like monsters appear out of thin air, attacks by tall shadowy figures, darkness is strongly increased (limiting PC sight is oh-so-fun), monsters are always lurking in the shadows (permanent total concealment, melee out of shadow, but as long as the shadow is lit, the monster isn't there), etc. Eventually, the PCs track it down to be the nightmares of a psychic girl, and have to solve why she is having nightmares (or kill her, I suppose - I'm pretty sure my group would do that, and justify it as good, too).

I'm using toy-like monsters (based on toys seen in the shadows, tall shadowy figures (adults), and un-see-able monsters in the darkness (fear of the unseen) as generic childhood fears, but throw in whatever ones you think are appropriate. Clues leading them to suspect the child could include seeing illusionary mirrors attached to walls where the PCs can see the child in a dark room, repeating "I'm a monster, I'm a monster, I'm a monster" in the dark - perhaps with another figure behind. This is working the child abuse angle, of course - perhaps a parent who thinks the child's powers are unnatural, and turns their fear of the child into hate for the child. But clues are probably easily disturbing bits, particularly when bringing light near them (or taking an active perception check on them - looking too closely) makes them disappear.

Big bad is... adult abuser, the angry child (in the fully real world)? Perhaps if they kill the abusive person (parent?) the next night they fight the child's horrible perceptions of the people who killed her abuser - twisted NPC version of themselves. (This assumes that the child is very much attached and dependent on the person who was abusing them, and/or had been brainwashed to fear strangers/outsiders.)

Perhaps the fact that ending the abuse still left an extremely dangerous unhinged psychic will cause the PCs to kill the child? I would hope most groups would recognize that it is a choice, and don't feel the justification that "I was just carrying out the plot, killing the enemies."

Actually, I hope they go outside the gamer's box to heal the child, however difficult that might be. That might lead to them protecting the child from authorities that want to destroy--or use--the child.

I kinda like the whole idea...

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I thought I should save this particular plot-line here. This is the sort of thing I prefer for DnD, but for stories too, in some ways.