Here is a look into my Halloween 2013 Quest....which was a conglomeration of some spooky free quests I found online, and my own twisted mind.
They woke up buried alive.
You wake up, and find yourself in the cold darkness, inside a wooden box. You are barefoot, void of any jewelry or weapons, and wearing nothing. Your magic fizzles, your psionics fail, your connect with any deity seems to have gone dark. You feel dirty, you can feel the dirt in your eyes, in your hair. It's falling into the box from between the slats of wood that make up the pine box. You move around, there is very little room. Something writhes on your bare skin, you manage to reach up and pull the writhing thing from your nose, it is a maggot. You gasp for air. It finally dawns on you, you have been buried alive.
Athletics DC16 - to break out of coffin.
Fail - DC18
Fail - DC20
Endurance DC15 - you dig yourself out.
Fail - DC16 - 2d5 dmg
Fail again - DC17 - 3d5 dmg
Fail again - DC18 - 3d5 dmg
Instead of a gravestone above each of your graves, you find a box with your name engraved upon it. Upon opening it, you each find your normal adventuring gear and weapons inside.
[ My poor adventurers had such bad luck! No one could pass their Athletics until finally one person broke free, and of course no one puts points into Endurance so digging out proved to be extremely difficult. Our psion got out and helped those dying of no air still trapped in the coffins. ]
Upon taking note of where you were buried, you find yourself in a clearing within a veritable thicket of gnarled old fruit trees. There doesn't seem to be a straight or healthy trunk or branch in the bunch. A thick mat of fallen leaves, broken branches, and rotting fruit covered in flies and maggots cover the ground around you, leaving only a few tufts of scraggly weeds growing here and there. Every so often, there are scarecrows set up, though they are overgrown as well, their clothing in tatters. All three moons are crescent shaped, giving just enough ambient light for you to see around you.
[ During their search of the area, they found a few run down sheds, and a shed over a spring with fresh water. Then they ran into a super-easy baddie. The Raiment. They put it down easy. My goal was more about mood and setting, than spending hours fighting seriously tough bad guys. ]
Raiment - 2d50
The Raiment is nothing more than a possessed set of clothing. This Raiment was a pair of dirty, torn trousers and a long sleeved tunic. It tried to strangle them with it's long sleeves, or it's pant legs.
STR 5, QCK 5, END 0, WLP 0, INT 0, PER 0, CHA 0
(2) Coat Sleeve 1d3
DR 5 / magic
Mindless & Undead Traits
Immune Mind Effects
Blindsight / Darksight
THE MAIN ENTRANCE
[ After fighting the Raiment and looking around the orchard, they realize the only place around for them to seek help or find out where they are is the mansion. ]
This area once sported a curving drive surrounded by a small formal garden. Now the orchard grows right up to the eaves of the house. A few badly scarred statues are all that remains of the garden.
Spot - (Fail) - They briefly see a figure appear in an upstairs window.
Spot - (Pass) - They see movement over by the Stable area.
THE STABLES
One wing of the mansion served as a stable and carriage house. The place holds mounds of straw and hay now mostly rotted away into compost as well as a few broken down carriages. A door here gives access to the main house.
[ It became clear very quickly that cats were going to play a big part in this quest. The stables were packed with cats and once a few of them started mowling and hissing, they all joined in. This was not a formal combat, but a few did try and scratch them. It smelled foul, cat piss and all sorts of horrible things. Our druid (a feral human) used her Animal Friendship skill to make friends with one of the cats which began to follow her around. ]
BACKYARD and CRYPT
The family crypt could be seen at the back of the garden, all but concealed under a mound of ivy, rosebushes, and trees. The crypt's stone door is well and truly stuck. It no longer opens, but determined characters could bash through it. The building is fairly low, and it would be easier to punch a hole through the roof and climb inside through it.
[ No one bothered to check out the back yard, or the crypt. They might have thought it held a great crowd of undead, but all it held was a clue as to what was going on in the house. ]
Inside the crypt, every coffin has been opened and all the bones are piled in the middle of the floor within a circle marked with runes.
[ These evil runes would be found in chalk all over the walls of the house. ]
ENTRANCE HALL
All the ground-floor entrances to the house open onto this area, which features about a dozen suits of rusty armor, the main staircase, shelves crammed with knickknacks and thick with cobwebs, and many feral cats. Anyone walking in here finds a swarm of snarling cats. There is a foul, rotten scent coming from the slightly open door at the back of the hall.
[ Now about now they decided to split up, most of them doing searches of the first floor but one went down into the basement and got treated to a bit of a creepy ghostly experience, a cold hand on the shoulder and rippling walls. But, she also found a cursed witch's broom which began to follow her around. Still follows her around today as far as I know! They also began to notice the chalk-drawn runes on the walls of the house.]
KITCHEN
The first thing you notice is the rotten foul scent. Piss, shit, rotten flesh. The second is that blood is everywhere. As soon as you walk in, a cold blue flame appears in the hearth, lighting the area in shadows and blue-hued light. Open shelves hold all manner of jars and bottles, the glass is covered in thick dirt. A large wooden table is in the center of the kitchen, and huge meat hooks swing side to side above the table. Hocks of still dripping flesh hang from some of the hooks, but most is butchered into various sized pieces across the table, which are covered in flies.
END (Endurance) DC18 or begin puking, and seeking fresh air - door outside to backyard.
As you move around the kitchen, you hear the sound of mewling from a box in a corner. When that mewling starts, you notice another box. And yet another box, in all the corners, and under shelves, are boxes of mewling creatures.
They find boxes and boxes of kittens.... with bowls of curdled milk, and bowls of diced flesh, some bowls are full of maggots.
Insight Check - DC15 - It's humans. Skinned.
Spot - DC15 - Catch something moving in some of the jars.
When dirt is brushed aside to reveal what is inside various jars and bottles they will find: eyeballs, intestines in yellow liquid, a deformed fetus, jars and jars and jars of yellowed fingernails and toenails. Some are filled with what looks like thick blood. if they stare too long, an eyeball presses to the glass, looking at them.
[ Now, for a creepier monster than the Raiment.....the Shell! This monster was based on two similar monsters out of Libris Mortis, a d&d book. A conglomeration of two nasty critters made to work in our system. ]
Roiling and coiling, a long slender shape snakes forward from beneath the table. At first, it does seem like a snake, if strangely wide and loose skinned. But an instant later the creature is revealed in the light for what it is. An evacuated but somehow animated humanoid skin that continues to slither forward in what certainly seems an aggressive way. Beneath the table are piles of tangled skins, of man, woman and child - their dead eyes reflecting their last silent screams.
Shells
STR 12, QCK 5, END -, WLP 0, PER 5, INT 0, CHA -
Constrict - 2d6
Skin Slap - 1d6
Create Spawn - killed by shell, slough skin in 1d4 rounds
Power Attack
Darkvision
Undead Traits
Meld - on a successful constrict, it melds to the person's skin. does 1d6 dmg to peel it off. (Loses it's QCK so DC10)
Steal Skin - next round, can steal their skin by absorbing it into their body. 2d6 dmg each round till they are dead or someone removes it.
SECOND FLOOR
This area contained several suites of rooms for the family. It's mostly empty today, though the rooms contain reasonably good furniture covered with drop cloths. Suddenly a window opens, cold wind blows in along with the scent of the grave. One of the drop cloths flies off of a couch, dancing through the air, then stops... as if it hit something.... a humanoid shape for a moment appears, then the drop cloth dances off to land in a corner.
SEARCH (In order of importance, low to high)
--You find a beautiful grimoire tied with silver thread. You open it, and your name is written in blood. You die. DC15 WLP. Pass, you are brought within 1 point of death.
--Chamber pot beneath a bed, filled with a mixture of piss and shit, but you can see platinum coins inside it.
--Trap. Silence. You simply disappear.
-- You find a woman's blouse fitted with grotesque fetishes and trophies (Cackling Hag's Blouse)
-- Slender silver crown is decorated with a single cat’s eye gemstone as a centerpiece. (Cat's Eye Crown)
-- You find a dark brown, fuzzy cloak. (Cloak of the Bat)
-- You find a black cloak embroidered with silvery cobwebs. (Cloak of the Arachnida)
-- You find an old, but still in good shape man's dark brown bowler hat. (Gentleman's Bowler)
-- This glass monocle has a black rim with tiny runes incribed upon the metal.
-- You find a baldric of embroidered velvet. (Bane Baldric)
-- Inky black leather boots trimmed with crimson fur. (Nightmare boots)
--Dark metal bracers forged into the shape of ravens with wings extended around the arm.
[The door to the library was locked. They could bust it down, or find a key. One of the group - he'd rolled very low search rolls both times and ended up in the wall twice, so he was soaked and pissed off, just began hacking into the door, but a key was found. The druid found the book and ended up insta-killed. I also want to mention that I had the house doing poltergeisty things throughout. Things flying towards them, the walls rippling, hands pressing against the wallpaper, ghosty weird things.]
LIBRARY
This room is the heart of the house. All you see are books when you enter. Stacks and stacks, almost to the ceiling, creating a maze through the room.
At the center of this book-lined labyrinth is a sitting area which features a fireplace which is lit with that eerie cold blue flame, a desk, two locked trunks, and an armchair in which a desiccated body sits, with an open book on its lap and glasses with red lenses on its nose.
GLASSES: Deathwatch Lenses: Allows you to tell how close to death your allies are. (HP)
Poltergeist
No hp, can't see, can't attack.... if they have shroudsight.... can see into ethereal, they see a figure.
STR 0, QCK 0, END -, WLP 0, PER 0, CHA 0, INT
Books
Paper Cuts: 1d6
Flurry of Pages: AoE - 2d6
Choking Dust: the dust from it's pages fill the air with choking dust, END DC18 or spend a rough coughing, lose turn.
Supernatural Chill when it is active - 30feet -
Death Wail - once per night, all must save or fall unconscious DC15 WLP
Possess Item - can possess an item they have such as weapon
"Book of Poltergeists" - translate it.... says BURN THE BOOK
TRAP- WELL
You appear in the well, out in the garden, in water up to your chest. There are heads floating in the well.
Search- Find a golden cursed pocketwatch
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