Let’s Play D&D in ‘The Ring’
Your characters will have seven days until Samara exacts her revenge when you add The Ring to your campaign.
When I was younger (but still old enough to know better, let’s call it early high school) I sat down and watched The Ring for the first time. And it RUINED ME. For an entire summer, I could only sleep between the hours of dawn and whenever my mom decided it was late enough. I survived nearly three months of hardly any sleep because I was preeeetttty sure that Samara was going to break her 7-day rule and come to get me 75 days after I’d watched that stupid video.
It also became one of my favorite horror movies and my parents watched in absolute confusion as I went out of my way to read the book and the manga and even watched the movie a few more times with my friends – covering my eyes during the cursed video scene, of course. Couldn’t be too safe.
And so with the very specific brand of affection, you can only have for the first horror movie that almost literally kills you via extreme exhaustion I decided that it’s time you subject your campaign to some terror by having them play D&D with…
Samara from The Ring
This screenshot is triggering my fight-or-flight response.
There are so many weird, little things about Samara that would be so scary and cinematic in a D&D game.
Like a terrifying Santa, she knows where you are at all times and can get to you no matter what. Tracking is a pretty important part of her character and her ability to find your players. She has this in the form of “Seven Days” which gives her the basic ability to find somebody anywhere, but also in “TV Stride” which will let her come out of anything that can be used for scrying or watching.
In the source material, it’s specific to just TVs, but your D&D campaign might not have modern niceties and if that’s the case, you have a full license to get a little more creative with it. Scrying mirrors and crystal balls are a good place to start, but make sure your players don’t feel safe almost anywhere.
Her main weapon is left a little vague in the movies, but I like to think of it as a really concentrated ray of fear that explodes hearts. You can translate this over to psychic damage in your D&D session pretty easily, and that’s exactly what I did. Samara will also paralyze a character with fear for a small handful of turns, making it difficult to run or fight or really do anything useful.
But don’t fret if your party kills her before she kills them. She’ll be back. She’s already died once, what’s one more?
How would you make Samara for D&D? Would you play with this monster in your campaign? Should I watch The Ring again right now? Let us know in the comments!
Happy Adventuring!
