Clearly there are a multitude of ways to work this in, from excerpts of the Books of Harrow to a dragon seeking a new weapon, perhaps having a second group tailing the first and collecting True Elements while the players collect Horror Elements. The dragon can then later bring the players in on the secret because the second group needs some saving.


Personally, in a campaign that ends with curing a Passion, I'd make Passions and their Questors center.


Questors of Garlen, Astendar, Mynbruje, etc., begin employing the players. Eventually, a Questor of Lochost puts them on the trail of creating Sufferance and Renewal, as a way to free the Passions enslaved by madness. At this point the players are probably used to Questors giving them jobs, but I'd play up the oddity of a LONE Questor seeking them out. This person also stresses the secrecy needed, as they fear one of the Mad Passions or Horrors finding out.


This Lochost Questor is actually a Questor of Vestrial who thinks Vestrial wants Lochost driven mad. In actuality Vestrial seeks to cure Raggok. Because reasons. (Perhaps a long-term plan to overthrow Horrors and take their place, or, ya know, Vestrial's nuts.)


Through their work, the Vestrial Questor is revealed. Ideally, this brings the players into contact with a Questor of Rashomon, or a player becomes one.


Yes, that's a Questor of RASHOMON.


As things move forward the players get to meet at a council of the Passions, something never before done. All of the sane Passions are there, plus one Questor each, and the Questor of Rashomon. They plead with the players "to cure our lost brother Rashomon", even though Vestrial wants it. Dis crashes the party and exclaims great rewards to whomever kills Lochost, or drives her Mad.


Later a Questor of Raggok, a skeletal figure wrapped in death and maggots, attempts to persuade the players to go after the other Passions, even agreeing to reward them if they help Dis.


Vestrial contacts them again near the close, crazily requesting, again, that they cure Raggok. His only reasoning he'll give is that he's always wanted to kill a Great Dragon.


If the players take on Raggok, the follow on adventure has Rashomon Questors leading efforts against Iopos.


Anything could happen, even curing Vestrial or just killing Astendar.


This all works even better if players are Questors, and it becomes even more likely that they will become ones during this adventure. If one becomes a Questor of Rashomon, all the better.


I'd even throw in Questors of Erendis and a sane Vestrial. They are possible because of the POTENTIAL of them being healed. When the players complete the quest and Sufferance and Renewal are destroyed, then the Questors of still Mad Passions are themselves driven mad and serve the Mad versions.

The Horror itself is a little eel-like grub or something that burrows it's way into dead flesh. It flays the soul back into the corpse but does not revive it. This type of Horror works best if the players knew the victim beforehand. My plan is to have the PCs make a hard choice during a difficult spot that causes them to leave behind an NPC helper, who will become infected by this Horror and later rejoin the group.

I'd debated dividing these into two types, drones that are like the Horrors with animal intelligence who would just go along for the ride and more intelligent queens capable of reproducing, puppeting their host at will and speaking on their own.

Description: The corpse continues to decay but much more slowly than normal. In the end it will mummefy but in the interim organs and some fleshy bits will rot or be devoured by parasites (yes rotting and mummefication are contradictory but it's a standard zombie trope so screw it, it's magic). Feel free to describe unpleasant odors, apparently unnecessary bits or parasites dropping off, momentarily mushy speech due to same.

The horror elements: Aside from the descriptive bits, the characters sense of touch is dulled as if their whole body were like a limb that's partially fallen asleep but the pins and needles of renewed circulation never come. Pain is a thing of the past but wounds will never heal; they require physical repair such as stitching, nailing splints into place, etc. All touch, temperature and pain information is at a remove, as though it's happening to someone else. The reanimated character always has a goal of some sort, whether it's to protect a loved one, get revenge, etc. You can decide whether that means the Horror influences the host or whether the Horror must gain the cooperation of the host to reanimate it. Once reanimated the host is stuck with their situation until they fall apart or someone else removes the Horror (the host cannot cooperate with this, the Horror and it's own fear will compel it to act out to avoid this fate).

What the Horror gets out of it: Primarily it feeds on the angst of the victim who's going through the process of watching their body rot around them and struggling to complete some goal. Victims also have some strong motivations of their own to lash out and this makes for a good secondary source of "food" for the Horror.

Ideas for system rules: This probably works better as a Mask (see the Earthdawn Companion: basically a template rather than a stand-alone creature write-up). It should get some significant armor rating added but wounds would degrate the armor. Maybe a little wound threshold boost? Recovery tests cannot heal wounds. They're going to slowly fall apart no matter what. Remove the Horror and the soul flees, leaving just a corpse at whatever stage of rot it had progressed to. Only Namegivers give the Horror sustenance but other creature might carry one.

Inspirations: The Crow, Laura Moon from American Gods, Sayaka from Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

the PCs are tasked with investigating the status of the life rocks trapped under the Theran behemoth, Triumph. When the discover the obsidimen are trapped inside and the Tehran’s are powering their defenders of Triumph with its magical energies, the horror makes the PCs an offer. He’ll leave them and remove his horror mark if they get him to the life rocks. If they get him to it, he will be able to unplug Triumph as it were and give Barsaive a fighting chance to drive the Therans out. The only cost is those obsidimen trapped inside will be consumed in horrible agony by the horror. Is it a price worth paying in order to rid arsaive of the Theran outpost?

The titular creatures feed off of energy and human emotions are their fare of choice. Later on it's revealed that their condition and their actions are due to a subsistence diet that barely lets them survive. If they had access to a stable food source large enough to keep them healthy, their actions and morality would be quite different.