Creepy Dolls
Creepy Dolls is here to take your nightmares and turn them into something worse, an ever-present, eerie force that haunts your players long after the session ends. If you're ready to inject a bit of unsettling horror into your roleplaying setting, this sourcebook has what you need. It's grounded in The Simple Approach, so it easily drops into whatever roleplaying game you're already running. No need to learn a new system or mess with a bunch of mechanics, just add these Creepy Dolls into the mix and watch the dread take hold.
We’re not talking about your average haunted toy here. These Creepy Dolls are agents of malice and psychological terror, each one capable of turning a straightforward adventure into a slow descent into madness. They aren't just objects to be avoided or smashed, they're characters with motives, personalities, and a disturbing ability to manipulate the world around them. And because Creepy Dolls are all about storytelling, they’re designed to get inside your characters’ heads, mess with their perception of reality, and turn even the most mundane moments into something terrifying.
Inside this sourcebook, you’ll find everything you need to make every encounter with a creepy doll a unique and horrifying experience. Every blank stare, every unnerving giggle could change the course of your story. Your players will be forced to confront their deepest fears and grapple with decisions that could have lasting consequences on their characters' psyches. If you’ve ever wanted to push your horror roleplaying into new, darker territory, this is your ticket.
The best part? It’s system-agnostic, so you can use it with whatever rules you prefer. And because it’s built on The Simple Approach, you won’t be bogged down by complex systems or endless tables. The focus is on storytelling, collaboration, and character agency, exactly what makes roleplaying so immersive and memorable. Your players will shape their own fate as they navigate the creeping terror, making choices that matter and facing horrors they’ll never forget.
Whether you want to introduce a single, cursed doll as the key to a larger mystery or unleash an entire faction of malevolent toys into your campaign, Creepy Dolls gives you everything you need. You’ll find archetypes, abilities, and dark magic items, along with story hooks and random encounter ideas to keep the tension high. These dolls aren’t just there to haunt your players, they’re there to challenge them, in ways both obvious and subtle.
So if you're looking to add a fresh yet familiar layer of horror to your roleplaying sessions, Creepy Dolls is the perfect fit. It's ready to slot right into your ongoing stories while giving you new ways to terrify and intrigue your players.
A Universal Sourcebook
You don’t need it to play any of our games using The Simple Approach, but it’s here to spice things up if you want. It’s also written to be functionally system-agnostic, so feel free to throw its elements into any other roleplaying system your choice.
If you’re looking to use it with a different roleplaying system, don’t worry. There are notes at the end to help with conversion, and if you’re need more advice in translating material between systems, grab the Lightspress Handbook,available wherever you found this book.
Navigating This Book
Inside this book, you'll find:
The Origins of Creepy Dolls: Explore the unsettling history of dolls, from their innocent beginnings as children’s toys to their transformation into vessels of horror, manipulation, and dread.
Doll Archetypes: A breakdown of the various types of creepy dolls, from the Possessed Toy to the Cursed Heirloom, each with its own methods of sowing fear and chaos.
Traits & Tactics: Learn the disturbing abilities and psychological tactics these dolls use, from subtly unsettling their victims to launching full-blown supernatural attacks.
Doll Factions: Discover the societies and groups that dolls form, like the Cabinet of Curiosities or the Dollmaker's Guild, and how they influence your world’s darker corners.
Cozy Horror: Tips on integrating Creepy Dolls into a cozy horror setting, where their subtle presence unnerves even the most peaceful and comforting environments.
Crime & Mystery: How to weave Creepy Dolls into crime and mystery stories, where they leave behind inexplicable clues, unsettling messages, and eerie coincidences that baffle investigators.
Dark Academia: Explore how Creepy Dolls can manipulate and corrupt knowledge seekers, turning academia’s quest for answers into a descent into madness.
Espionage: Creepy Dolls in the world of spies and secrecy, perfect for infiltration, surveillance, and manipulation, where their small size and unassuming appearance make them the perfect agents of chaos.
Heroic Fantasy: Incorporate Creepy Dolls into traditional fantasy, where they work behind the scenes to manipulate rulers, cast curses, and warp the hearts of even the most valiant heroes.
Magical Realism: Bring Creepy Dolls into a magical realism setting, where their influence warps daily life in subtle but deeply unsettling ways, leaving everyone questioning what's real.
Modern Horror: Tips for integrating Creepy Dolls into a modern horror setting, exploiting contemporary fears of technology, isolation, and the uncanny.
Romance: Discover how Creepy Dolls can disrupt love and relationships, using emotional manipulation, deception, and chilling displays to create tension and heartbreak.
Space Horror: Dolls in space? You bet. Learn how these sinister toys can infiltrate interstellar ships, twist AI systems, and turn cold, sterile environments into haunted nightmares.
Steampunk: Add Creepy Dolls to your steampunk world, where their clockwork bodies and unsettling presence turn even the most innovative societies into stages for terror.
Doll-Themed Artifacts: A collection of cursed and eerie doll-related artifacts that can be used to spread fear, confusion, and madness across any setting.
Supporting Characters: Not every doll is a villain. Here's a list of supporting characters like the Dollmaker’s Apprentice or the Broken Doll, adding depth and complexity to your horror narrative.
When the Whispering Starts: A final note on balancing the horror and absurdity of creepy dolls, ensuring that your players walk away with a mix of dread and satisfaction.
Reference: A comprehensive guide to the essential resources, literature, and films that inspired the concept of Creepy Dolls in various settings.
The Simple Approach
To understand this book, you need to know the context in which it was written and the philosophy that runs through it. At its core, The Simple Approach emphasizes the elements that truly matter in roleplaying: narrative depth, character complexity, and player agency. While plenty of systems are still obsessed with combat, loot, and grinding, we know roleplaying can be so much more. This system is all about immersive storytelling, meaningful choices, and characters you actually care about. Whether you're uncovering hidden secrets, solving a gripping mystery, or exploring the complexities of romance, The Simple Approach offers a fresh take on traditional genres like fantasy, science fiction, and horror, along with modern and underserved ones like crime & mystery, cottagecore fantasy, dark academia, magical realism, romance, and espionage.
Narrative-Based Mechanics
At the heart of The Simple Approach are narrative-based mechanics that are easy to learn and designed to grow with you as you play. They let you tweak what’s here and add things we haven’t thought of yet. The journaling system replaces those one-size-fits-none character sheets, giving gamemasters a flexible tool for organizing worldbuilding, adventure design, and session notes and players ample room to allow their character to grow. Every character, setting, and adventure becomes a unique creation shaped by your choices.
Seamless Integration and Flexibility
Clowns isn’t a standalone roleplaying experience. You can blend it seamlessly with other Lightspress publications to create one-of-a-kind stories and settings or bring elements from other systems into your Lightspress game. If you want to use our material with your favorite system or setting, go for it. The conversion notes in the Lightspress Handbook give you the flexibility to play how you want.
Our Philosophy
We believe the true essence of roleplaying happens around the table, where creativity and collaboration come alive. It’s not about a book, a brand, or a company. It’s about the people playing together, creating something special. Our focus on cooperation, interaction, and investigation ensures that every session is more than just a game; it’s a journey filled with compelling adventures and meaningful connections. We stand by our belief that the heart of roleplaying is found in shared experiences and stories crafted by the players. This philosophy drives everything in The Simple Approach and underpins our commitment to delivering content that champions the true spirit of roleplaying, free from superficial constraints.
Commitment to Creative Freedom
This philosophy also guides our belief that creators should own their work and not be beholden to licensing terms that only benefit fickle corporations. We draw inspiration from historical, mythological, and literary sources, tapping into our shared heritage to fuel creative exploration. We maintain full copyright ownership, ensuring that our work stays independent and true to our vision. Using style guides to keep a cohesive voice and narrative structure, we deliver exceptional content free from external influences, preserving the integrity and creative standards of our work.
Accessible and Affordable Roleplaying
We’re committed to keeping our games affordable so that more people can enjoy them. Our focus isn’t on producing overstuffed, expensive books filled with art to collect dust on a shelf. We’re here to create material meant to be played, not displayed. You won’t find us chasing awards or turning our games into glorified coffee-table books. Our goal is to facilitate roleplaying, pure and simple, keeping the price points low so you can focus on the game, not your wallet.
120 pages. PDF and epub files included.
Creepy Dolls is here to take your nightmares and turn them into something worse, an ever-present, eerie force that haunts your players long after the session ends. If you're ready to inject a bit of unsettling horror into your roleplaying setting, this sourcebook has what you need. It's grounded in The Simple Approach, so it easily drops into whatever roleplaying game you're already running. No need to learn a new system or mess with a bunch of mechanics, just add these Creepy Dolls into the mix and watch the dread take hold.
We’re not talking about your average haunted toy here. These Creepy Dolls are agents of malice and psychological terror, each one capable of turning a straightforward adventure into a slow descent into madness. They aren't just objects to be avoided or smashed, they're characters with motives, personalities, and a disturbing ability to manipulate the world around them. And because Creepy Dolls are all about storytelling, they’re designed to get inside your characters’ heads, mess with their perception of reality, and turn even the most mundane moments into something terrifying.
Inside this sourcebook, you’ll find everything you need to make every encounter with a creepy doll a unique and horrifying experience. Every blank stare, every unnerving giggle could change the course of your story. Your players will be forced to confront their deepest fears and grapple with decisions that could have lasting consequences on their characters' psyches. If you’ve ever wanted to push your horror roleplaying into new, darker territory, this is your ticket.
The best part? It’s system-agnostic, so you can use it with whatever rules you prefer. And because it’s built on The Simple Approach, you won’t be bogged down by complex systems or endless tables. The focus is on storytelling, collaboration, and character agency, exactly what makes roleplaying so immersive and memorable. Your players will shape their own fate as they navigate the creeping terror, making choices that matter and facing horrors they’ll never forget.
Whether you want to introduce a single, cursed doll as the key to a larger mystery or unleash an entire faction of malevolent toys into your campaign, Creepy Dolls gives you everything you need. You’ll find archetypes, abilities, and dark magic items, along with story hooks and random encounter ideas to keep the tension high. These dolls aren’t just there to haunt your players, they’re there to challenge them, in ways both obvious and subtle.
So if you're looking to add a fresh yet familiar layer of horror to your roleplaying sessions, Creepy Dolls is the perfect fit. It's ready to slot right into your ongoing stories while giving you new ways to terrify and intrigue your players.
A Universal Sourcebook
You don’t need it to play any of our games using The Simple Approach, but it’s here to spice things up if you want. It’s also written to be functionally system-agnostic, so feel free to throw its elements into any other roleplaying system your choice.
If you’re looking to use it with a different roleplaying system, don’t worry. There are notes at the end to help with conversion, and if you’re need more advice in translating material between systems, grab the Lightspress Handbook,available wherever you found this book.
Navigating This Book
Inside this book, you'll find:
The Origins of Creepy Dolls: Explore the unsettling history of dolls, from their innocent beginnings as children’s toys to their transformation into vessels of horror, manipulation, and dread.
Doll Archetypes: A breakdown of the various types of creepy dolls, from the Possessed Toy to the Cursed Heirloom, each with its own methods of sowing fear and chaos.
Traits & Tactics: Learn the disturbing abilities and psychological tactics these dolls use, from subtly unsettling their victims to launching full-blown supernatural attacks.
Doll Factions: Discover the societies and groups that dolls form, like the Cabinet of Curiosities or the Dollmaker's Guild, and how they influence your world’s darker corners.
Cozy Horror: Tips on integrating Creepy Dolls into a cozy horror setting, where their subtle presence unnerves even the most peaceful and comforting environments.
Crime & Mystery: How to weave Creepy Dolls into crime and mystery stories, where they leave behind inexplicable clues, unsettling messages, and eerie coincidences that baffle investigators.
Dark Academia: Explore how Creepy Dolls can manipulate and corrupt knowledge seekers, turning academia’s quest for answers into a descent into madness.
Espionage: Creepy Dolls in the world of spies and secrecy, perfect for infiltration, surveillance, and manipulation, where their small size and unassuming appearance make them the perfect agents of chaos.
Heroic Fantasy: Incorporate Creepy Dolls into traditional fantasy, where they work behind the scenes to manipulate rulers, cast curses, and warp the hearts of even the most valiant heroes.
Magical Realism: Bring Creepy Dolls into a magical realism setting, where their influence warps daily life in subtle but deeply unsettling ways, leaving everyone questioning what's real.
Modern Horror: Tips for integrating Creepy Dolls into a modern horror setting, exploiting contemporary fears of technology, isolation, and the uncanny.
Romance: Discover how Creepy Dolls can disrupt love and relationships, using emotional manipulation, deception, and chilling displays to create tension and heartbreak.
Space Horror: Dolls in space? You bet. Learn how these sinister toys can infiltrate interstellar ships, twist AI systems, and turn cold, sterile environments into haunted nightmares.
Steampunk: Add Creepy Dolls to your steampunk world, where their clockwork bodies and unsettling presence turn even the most innovative societies into stages for terror.
Doll-Themed Artifacts: A collection of cursed and eerie doll-related artifacts that can be used to spread fear, confusion, and madness across any setting.
Supporting Characters: Not every doll is a villain. Here's a list of supporting characters like the Dollmaker’s Apprentice or the Broken Doll, adding depth and complexity to your horror narrative.
When the Whispering Starts: A final note on balancing the horror and absurdity of creepy dolls, ensuring that your players walk away with a mix of dread and satisfaction.
Reference: A comprehensive guide to the essential resources, literature, and films that inspired the concept of Creepy Dolls in various settings.
The Simple Approach
To understand this book, you need to know the context in which it was written and the philosophy that runs through it. At its core, The Simple Approach emphasizes the elements that truly matter in roleplaying: narrative depth, character complexity, and player agency. While plenty of systems are still obsessed with combat, loot, and grinding, we know roleplaying can be so much more. This system is all about immersive storytelling, meaningful choices, and characters you actually care about. Whether you're uncovering hidden secrets, solving a gripping mystery, or exploring the complexities of romance, The Simple Approach offers a fresh take on traditional genres like fantasy, science fiction, and horror, along with modern and underserved ones like crime & mystery, cottagecore fantasy, dark academia, magical realism, romance, and espionage.
Narrative-Based Mechanics
At the heart of The Simple Approach are narrative-based mechanics that are easy to learn and designed to grow with you as you play. They let you tweak what’s here and add things we haven’t thought of yet. The journaling system replaces those one-size-fits-none character sheets, giving gamemasters a flexible tool for organizing worldbuilding, adventure design, and session notes and players ample room to allow their character to grow. Every character, setting, and adventure becomes a unique creation shaped by your choices.
Seamless Integration and Flexibility
Clowns isn’t a standalone roleplaying experience. You can blend it seamlessly with other Lightspress publications to create one-of-a-kind stories and settings or bring elements from other systems into your Lightspress game. If you want to use our material with your favorite system or setting, go for it. The conversion notes in the Lightspress Handbook give you the flexibility to play how you want.
Our Philosophy
We believe the true essence of roleplaying happens around the table, where creativity and collaboration come alive. It’s not about a book, a brand, or a company. It’s about the people playing together, creating something special. Our focus on cooperation, interaction, and investigation ensures that every session is more than just a game; it’s a journey filled with compelling adventures and meaningful connections. We stand by our belief that the heart of roleplaying is found in shared experiences and stories crafted by the players. This philosophy drives everything in The Simple Approach and underpins our commitment to delivering content that champions the true spirit of roleplaying, free from superficial constraints.
Commitment to Creative Freedom
This philosophy also guides our belief that creators should own their work and not be beholden to licensing terms that only benefit fickle corporations. We draw inspiration from historical, mythological, and literary sources, tapping into our shared heritage to fuel creative exploration. We maintain full copyright ownership, ensuring that our work stays independent and true to our vision. Using style guides to keep a cohesive voice and narrative structure, we deliver exceptional content free from external influences, preserving the integrity and creative standards of our work.
Accessible and Affordable Roleplaying
We’re committed to keeping our games affordable so that more people can enjoy them. Our focus isn’t on producing overstuffed, expensive books filled with art to collect dust on a shelf. We’re here to create material meant to be played, not displayed. You won’t find us chasing awards or turning our games into glorified coffee-table books. Our goal is to facilitate roleplaying, pure and simple, keeping the price points low so you can focus on the game, not your wallet.
120 pages. PDF and epub files included.
Creepy Dolls is here to take your nightmares and turn them into something worse, an ever-present, eerie force that haunts your players long after the session ends. If you're ready to inject a bit of unsettling horror into your roleplaying setting, this sourcebook has what you need. It's grounded in The Simple Approach, so it easily drops into whatever roleplaying game you're already running. No need to learn a new system or mess with a bunch of mechanics, just add these Creepy Dolls into the mix and watch the dread take hold.
We’re not talking about your average haunted toy here. These Creepy Dolls are agents of malice and psychological terror, each one capable of turning a straightforward adventure into a slow descent into madness. They aren't just objects to be avoided or smashed, they're characters with motives, personalities, and a disturbing ability to manipulate the world around them. And because Creepy Dolls are all about storytelling, they’re designed to get inside your characters’ heads, mess with their perception of reality, and turn even the most mundane moments into something terrifying.
Inside this sourcebook, you’ll find everything you need to make every encounter with a creepy doll a unique and horrifying experience. Every blank stare, every unnerving giggle could change the course of your story. Your players will be forced to confront their deepest fears and grapple with decisions that could have lasting consequences on their characters' psyches. If you’ve ever wanted to push your horror roleplaying into new, darker territory, this is your ticket.
The best part? It’s system-agnostic, so you can use it with whatever rules you prefer. And because it’s built on The Simple Approach, you won’t be bogged down by complex systems or endless tables. The focus is on storytelling, collaboration, and character agency, exactly what makes roleplaying so immersive and memorable. Your players will shape their own fate as they navigate the creeping terror, making choices that matter and facing horrors they’ll never forget.
Whether you want to introduce a single, cursed doll as the key to a larger mystery or unleash an entire faction of malevolent toys into your campaign, Creepy Dolls gives you everything you need. You’ll find archetypes, abilities, and dark magic items, along with story hooks and random encounter ideas to keep the tension high. These dolls aren’t just there to haunt your players, they’re there to challenge them, in ways both obvious and subtle.
So if you're looking to add a fresh yet familiar layer of horror to your roleplaying sessions, Creepy Dolls is the perfect fit. It's ready to slot right into your ongoing stories while giving you new ways to terrify and intrigue your players.
A Universal Sourcebook
You don’t need it to play any of our games using The Simple Approach, but it’s here to spice things up if you want. It’s also written to be functionally system-agnostic, so feel free to throw its elements into any other roleplaying system your choice.
If you’re looking to use it with a different roleplaying system, don’t worry. There are notes at the end to help with conversion, and if you’re need more advice in translating material between systems, grab the Lightspress Handbook,available wherever you found this book.
Navigating This Book
Inside this book, you'll find:
The Origins of Creepy Dolls: Explore the unsettling history of dolls, from their innocent beginnings as children’s toys to their transformation into vessels of horror, manipulation, and dread.
Doll Archetypes: A breakdown of the various types of creepy dolls, from the Possessed Toy to the Cursed Heirloom, each with its own methods of sowing fear and chaos.
Traits & Tactics: Learn the disturbing abilities and psychological tactics these dolls use, from subtly unsettling their victims to launching full-blown supernatural attacks.
Doll Factions: Discover the societies and groups that dolls form, like the Cabinet of Curiosities or the Dollmaker's Guild, and how they influence your world’s darker corners.
Cozy Horror: Tips on integrating Creepy Dolls into a cozy horror setting, where their subtle presence unnerves even the most peaceful and comforting environments.
Crime & Mystery: How to weave Creepy Dolls into crime and mystery stories, where they leave behind inexplicable clues, unsettling messages, and eerie coincidences that baffle investigators.
Dark Academia: Explore how Creepy Dolls can manipulate and corrupt knowledge seekers, turning academia’s quest for answers into a descent into madness.
Espionage: Creepy Dolls in the world of spies and secrecy, perfect for infiltration, surveillance, and manipulation, where their small size and unassuming appearance make them the perfect agents of chaos.
Heroic Fantasy: Incorporate Creepy Dolls into traditional fantasy, where they work behind the scenes to manipulate rulers, cast curses, and warp the hearts of even the most valiant heroes.
Magical Realism: Bring Creepy Dolls into a magical realism setting, where their influence warps daily life in subtle but deeply unsettling ways, leaving everyone questioning what's real.
Modern Horror: Tips for integrating Creepy Dolls into a modern horror setting, exploiting contemporary fears of technology, isolation, and the uncanny.
Romance: Discover how Creepy Dolls can disrupt love and relationships, using emotional manipulation, deception, and chilling displays to create tension and heartbreak.
Space Horror: Dolls in space? You bet. Learn how these sinister toys can infiltrate interstellar ships, twist AI systems, and turn cold, sterile environments into haunted nightmares.
Steampunk: Add Creepy Dolls to your steampunk world, where their clockwork bodies and unsettling presence turn even the most innovative societies into stages for terror.
Doll-Themed Artifacts: A collection of cursed and eerie doll-related artifacts that can be used to spread fear, confusion, and madness across any setting.
Supporting Characters: Not every doll is a villain. Here's a list of supporting characters like the Dollmaker’s Apprentice or the Broken Doll, adding depth and complexity to your horror narrative.
When the Whispering Starts: A final note on balancing the horror and absurdity of creepy dolls, ensuring that your players walk away with a mix of dread and satisfaction.
Reference: A comprehensive guide to the essential resources, literature, and films that inspired the concept of Creepy Dolls in various settings.
The Simple Approach
To understand this book, you need to know the context in which it was written and the philosophy that runs through it. At its core, The Simple Approach emphasizes the elements that truly matter in roleplaying: narrative depth, character complexity, and player agency. While plenty of systems are still obsessed with combat, loot, and grinding, we know roleplaying can be so much more. This system is all about immersive storytelling, meaningful choices, and characters you actually care about. Whether you're uncovering hidden secrets, solving a gripping mystery, or exploring the complexities of romance, The Simple Approach offers a fresh take on traditional genres like fantasy, science fiction, and horror, along with modern and underserved ones like crime & mystery, cottagecore fantasy, dark academia, magical realism, romance, and espionage.
Narrative-Based Mechanics
At the heart of The Simple Approach are narrative-based mechanics that are easy to learn and designed to grow with you as you play. They let you tweak what’s here and add things we haven’t thought of yet. The journaling system replaces those one-size-fits-none character sheets, giving gamemasters a flexible tool for organizing worldbuilding, adventure design, and session notes and players ample room to allow their character to grow. Every character, setting, and adventure becomes a unique creation shaped by your choices.
Seamless Integration and Flexibility
Clowns isn’t a standalone roleplaying experience. You can blend it seamlessly with other Lightspress publications to create one-of-a-kind stories and settings or bring elements from other systems into your Lightspress game. If you want to use our material with your favorite system or setting, go for it. The conversion notes in the Lightspress Handbook give you the flexibility to play how you want.
Our Philosophy
We believe the true essence of roleplaying happens around the table, where creativity and collaboration come alive. It’s not about a book, a brand, or a company. It’s about the people playing together, creating something special. Our focus on cooperation, interaction, and investigation ensures that every session is more than just a game; it’s a journey filled with compelling adventures and meaningful connections. We stand by our belief that the heart of roleplaying is found in shared experiences and stories crafted by the players. This philosophy drives everything in The Simple Approach and underpins our commitment to delivering content that champions the true spirit of roleplaying, free from superficial constraints.
Commitment to Creative Freedom
This philosophy also guides our belief that creators should own their work and not be beholden to licensing terms that only benefit fickle corporations. We draw inspiration from historical, mythological, and literary sources, tapping into our shared heritage to fuel creative exploration. We maintain full copyright ownership, ensuring that our work stays independent and true to our vision. Using style guides to keep a cohesive voice and narrative structure, we deliver exceptional content free from external influences, preserving the integrity and creative standards of our work.
Accessible and Affordable Roleplaying
We’re committed to keeping our games affordable so that more people can enjoy them. Our focus isn’t on producing overstuffed, expensive books filled with art to collect dust on a shelf. We’re here to create material meant to be played, not displayed. You won’t find us chasing awards or turning our games into glorified coffee-table books. Our goal is to facilitate roleplaying, pure and simple, keeping the price points low so you can focus on the game, not your wallet.
120 pages. PDF and epub files included.