Halloween adventure?


3.5/d20/OGL

Sovereign Court

I'm looking for a mid-level (4th-6th) game to run through October. I'm more interested in adventures involving classic monsters like zombies, ghouls and vampires rather than Lovecraftian stuff but I'll take a look at anything. Anybody have any good suggestions from 3rd party modules or Dungeon articles?


There's a Ravenloft adventure called Night of the Walking Dead. It's little more low level than what you're looking for but it would be easy to scale up.
I Googled it and found the PDF on Wizards.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/notwd.pdf

I hope this helps. Our group always runs a special one shot Halloween game and they're always a lot of fun.


I'm going to convert and run the old Ravenloft "A Light in the Belfry." I got hold of a copy, and it has a sound-effects soundtrack that goes with it.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, it was 6-8 lvl, as originally written.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 16

I've always been fond of the Dungeon magazine adventure Ancient Blood by Grant and David Boucher. Since it was published in Dungeon issue 20 (November/December 1989), it may be hard to track down and would need quite a bit of updating.

In Ancient Blood, a party of 3rd to 5th level adventurers must deal with the curse of a long-dead frost giant chieftain, venturing into the haunted halls of the giants. It's a tale of the restless dead and undying blood feuds, where the cruel arctic wasteland may be as deadly as a giant's vengeful curse.

Liberty's Edge

I want to convert Carnival of Tears to d20 Modern and have my players roll up KISS as the Pcs and Rock!!!!! It could be a sequel to that crapy movie they made in the 70s Phantom of the Circus or whatever it was called...

Paizo Employee Director of Game Development

Professor Frankln Von Wolfstien wrote:
I want to convert Carnival of Tears to d20 Modern and have my players roll up KISS as the Pcs and Rock!!!!! It could be a sequel to that crapy movie they made in the 70s Phantom of the Circus or whatever it was called...

Rock!

Do it.

Write it up and share with the class!

Liberty's Edge

Niiiiiiiice.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

Callous Jack wrote:
I'm looking for a mid-level (4th-6th) game to run through October.

The Dungeon Crawl Classics #48 from Goodman Games is "The Adventure Continues", a collection of pieces for characters levels 4-6. It includes "Dale of the Dead" which would seem to fit your bill, but might be a little short.

You might also want to take a look at "The Stink", from Dungeon 105. "Folks have been vanishing from the Stink, a disease-filled rubbish quarter of Sunhill. City officials recruit the heroes to investigate the disappearances, putting the PCs on the trail of scaly subterranean denizens with ill plans for the surface world. A Dungeons & Dragons adventure for 4th-level characters."

Sovereign Court

Thanks guys, I'll see if I can track down any of these!
Any other suggestions are more than welcome.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Hungry are the Dead I've read it but haven't run it yet.

Spoiler:
Seems fun, kinda night of the living deadish.. with waves and waves of undead.


You could always run a game of All Flesh Must Be Eaten.

Hero's Fantasy Battlegrounds had an adventure where the PCs all meet in an inn (no, really!). Unbeknownst to them, one of the other patrons opens a portal or summons some demon and the dead walk, converging on the inn.

Download any of the numerous tavern/inn maps, crack open your Monster Manual and game away.


To put a switch on the old tried and true…

A skeleton becomes self aware (does not have any memories of his previous life) and intends on 'going straight'. The PCs are traveling from point A to point B when a single skeleton comes running toward them followed by an angry mob. The skeleton pleads with the PCs to help him. If there is a cleric in the group, he is unable to turn the skeleton as the skeleton is no longer a mindless (or soulless) creature.


It all depends on whether you want to GM horror or not. Horror (particularly gothic horror) requires antagonists which would be suicide to face directly.

What level is your party?

If there's no cleric you can always put the fear of God in their hearts with little more than shadows.

Even if high-level, you can always play Dawn of the Dead on them if using more than 30 and using Mob Rules... and even if you don't use Mob rules, all you need is giving Ghouls the Accept Attack feat (BoXM) to make them into a considerable threat.

Sovereign Court

Dogbert wrote:

What level is your party?

If there's no cleric you can always put the fear of God in their hearts with little more than shadows.

Even if high-level, you can always play Dawn of the Dead on them if using more than 30 and using Mob Rules... and even if you don't use Mob rules, all you need is giving Ghouls the Accept Attack feat (BoXM) to make them into a considerable threat.

It's just a one-shot adventure that I want to do in October and the group is interested in starting in the area of 5th level. I realize that vampires and liches are too powerful but other lesser undead, hags, lycanthropes, wolves, bats, scarecrows, etc. might work so I'm hoping to get as much feedback as possible on potential modules to use.


There was a pretty decent short adventure in one of the AD&D2 Ravenloft adventures called Blood in Moondale featuring lycanthropes that was pretty good. It was in the supplement that was a collection of short modules - Book of Crypts I believe.

Of course, the original I6 Ravenloft has the classic feel, and several versions including House of Strahd and Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. Depending on the time you have for your session you could play that.

L


Do you guys actually play any Paizo stuff? :)

I find Tim Hitchcock to be creepy. The Prison one and Siege of the Spidereaters would both make good October fair. They're low level though.

The Styes and it's follow-up (the one with lots of spiders) would be good as well, but a little higher level and more Lovecraft than classic monsters.


DMFTodd wrote:
Do you guys actually play any Paizo stuff?

What is paizo? Is that some Itallian food?


How about "Tammeraut's Fate" from Dungeon #106?


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
DMFTodd wrote:

Do you guys actually play any Paizo stuff? :)

I find Tim Hitchcock to be creepy. The Prison one and Siege of the Spidereaters would both make good October fair. They're low level though.

The Styes and it's follow-up (the one with lots of spiders) would be good as well, but a little higher level and more Lovecraft than classic monsters.

Hey! My suggestion was both, made by Paizo and written by Tim Hitchcock! :-P


Not to pimp my own stuff, but it's several years old and I'm not getting royalties, so...

Brannon Hollingsworth and I wrote a couple horror themed adventures for the Oathbound setting by Bastion Press. There's nothing in them too particular to the setting so they can be used anywhere. They are also higher level and 3.0, but could be modified easily.

They are both collected in "Horrors of Penance" which was free on the Bastion Press website (and is still lingering at Archive.org) along with 12 horror adventure ideas.

The first adventure is "Craving Darkness" for 10th level (but mostly some traps to tweak and 2 undead that can be replaced). The PCs are trapped in a vacant house covered in magical darkness. Two skeletal undead hunt them while the PCs feel their way through the trap filled house. Very fun to get into PCs trying to navigate rooms described non-visually.

The other is "Totem" which is for 17th level and more demon focused, so I'm not sure if it's what you are looking for. A kindly old lady discovers a ritual to create a totem to ease the grief of those who recently suffered the death of a loved one. Unfortunately, unknown to her, it's an evil ritual that binds the spirit of the newly dead as a hollow shell of a corpse in service of a demon (balor in this case, but easily replaced). Once the demon reaches a critical mass of servants, his nasty lair will burst forth. Some creepy vibe, but more Clive Barker than Bram Stoker classic horror.

There's plenty of other great options in this thread (thanks for starting it!) but I thought I'd just throw that out there in case you'd be interested.

Dark Archive

Well, I'll mention this one becaue it is what I am going to run for Halloween. The Mists of M'Wanga from the PFS is an excellent adventure set in a haunted museum with ancient spirits, undead, cannibals and more.

Dark Archive

Ken Marable wrote:

Not to pimp my own stuff, but it's several years old and I'm not getting royalties, so...

Brannon Hollingsworth and I wrote a couple horror themed adventures for the Oathbound setting by Bastion Press. There's nothing in them too particular to the setting so they can be used anywhere. They are also higher level and 3.0, but could be modified easily.

I love Oathbound. It was one of the most inventive settings I have seen in a long time.

Liberty's Edge

You might also want to check out Cage of Delirium from Goodman Games. It comes with an audio CD to help make the mood. I was with a group that went through it and it was pretty creepy.

Cage of Delirium.


Night of the Walking Dead was the best module ever written in my opinion. I ran it two times for D&D and once I modified it and ran it in a Dark Ages Vampire game. It is for leveles 1-3 but could easily be modified for 5th level characters. Allow the characters to interact a bit with Jean Tarascon a bit too and have him appear normal, it will bug them out that much more later on.

There is also another adventure for 2ed Ravenloft called Hour of the Knife. Really cool Jack the Ripperesque module. Can get it pretty cheap on ebay. http://www.amazon.com/Hour-Knife-AD-D-Ravenloft/dp/1560768924

Have fun and Happy Halloween :-)

Dark Archive

S.Baldrick wrote:

You might also want to check out Cage of Delirium from Goodman Games. It comes with an audio CD to help make the mood. I was with a group that went through it and it was pretty creepy.

Cage of Delirium.

Legend of the Ripper is a other pretty good one from Goodman Games.Also very Jack the Ripperish.


S.Baldrick wrote:

You might also want to check out Cage of Delirium from Goodman Games. It comes with an audio CD to help make the mood. I was with a group that went through it and it was pretty creepy.

Cage of Delirium.

It should also be mentioned that Cage of Delirium was written by Paizo's own Wesley Schneider. If I remember correctly, if you order it through the Paizo store, he'll sign it before it ships off.


No longer available.

I wonder why some pdfs are still being sold, but not Gates of Delirium? Especially when the CD is still out there. Stupid world.


Professor Frankln Von Wolfstien wrote:
I want to convert Carnival of Tears to d20 Modern and have my players roll up KISS as the Pcs and Rock!!!!! It could be a sequel to that crapy movie they made in the 70s Phantom of the Circus or whatever it was called...

You're a bit early, I think; I believe this is the movie you're thinking of.

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