Cole Long 936's page

If your PCs are hellbent on burning the manor down, though, and if they STILL are when they're reminded that arson is a crime or that if they clear the manor it could make for a cool hideout or headquarters, the best solution is... [spoiler]... to turn to the timeline on page 23 for inspiration. In 4693 AR, Cyralie tried to burn the house down. She got the servants' quarters fine, but the house itself is protected by Vorel's infusion of the structure. In her case, the spirit stopped her by forcing Taver to murder her. It's not good gameplay to do the same to PCs by having Vorel possess another PC... but what you CAN do is say that the fire spring up and starts to burn, but suddenly the flames coalesce into their own entity, transforming into a towering humanoid form. This is Vorel's spirit taking control of the fire; he uses it to attack the PCs. You can treat this manifestation of Vorel's spirit as a Large fire elemental, and as the PCs defeat it it shrieks in rage and spirals up into a vortex that then races through the house, leaving scorch marks in its wake and eventually leading down to the cellar and into the caves below. The PCs can then follow the scorching trail left behind to find out where the spirit went... if THAT doesn't lure them...

I really like the Fire Elemental idea. Does anyone know if the old Ravenloft "Funeral Pyre Elemental" has been updated to OGL stats?

When they try to burn the place, the supernatural forces there say "Nay!"

It's an option, but having the house magically unburnable will start to feel forced. Half of the wooden structures in Burnt Offerings were unburnable per the module already. I'm all for it being *hard* and I'd love for suggestions for good mechanical approaches to make it hard.

The guy they really need to get there is in the caves beneath, so they can burn down the mansion, though they'll miss a level's worth of XP with all the haunts.

The fact that they have to go into the cave anyway to catch the Skinsaw man is what lets me think that maybe they ought to be able to get away with at least partial success in burning.

though they'll miss a level's worth of XP with all the haunts.

I'm trying to think of a reasonable ad hoc XP award if they do so. Just permanently being a level behind (and they've already got a lot of sidequests around just to keep them caught up and give them half a chance later on) and therefore getting killed due to burning down an evil house doesn't seem right. If the house were full of orcs and they died, or even fled out and were killed outside their lair, they wouldn't just miss a level of XP.

Maybe a "burned out" haunt could be "ejected" as a weak incorporeal undead.

You could even have Iesha survive and come running out of the house at them as she tries to get to the well to get to the caves.

She's a revenant, so I'm sure she will survive.

Consider that Aldern's mother tried to burn the place down too, and that Vorel's spirit possessed his father to push her to her death out the second story window.

I'd rather implement something in keeping with the house's history than saying it just won't burn. At the least, it's part of an issue of keeping the players in the scene versus thinking "does the module just say it won't burn?" Ideas?

I had the supernatural effect have something happen each time she tried to burn the place down, as well as something happen, an eerie effect, when she started talking about it.

What kind of effects did you use?

The best way to set fire to a place is inside it. Your fire is sheltered from the windy cliffs. And once it catches, it burns exterior and interior walls.

Plus, don't you have a murder of crows or two to deal with?

That's they way they tend to think. And yes, yes they do.

Thanks guys!

My players have just finished Burnt Offerings and are going to be moving on to Skinsaw Murders. I think it's very likely that they may, possibly after a room or two, possibly not even that late, try to just burn down Foxglove Manor. What suggestions do you have for the results of this attempt, and/or the XP impact involved? Thanks!

Okay, I really need a recommendation for a scary horror novel . . . and I mean scary. I read a lot of horror, and it's been a very long time since something really sent chills down my spine. No King or Lovecraft, please. I've already read just about everything they've written. Dean Koontz, Peter Straub, Bentley Little - eh. Shirley Jackson's Hill House, Dan Simmon's Song of Kali, F. Paul Wilson's The Keep, Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, Guy De Maupaussant's The Horla - all great.

C'mon, folks. Give me something good.

Wm. Hope Hodgson's "House on the Borderland" comes to mind immediately. Are you looking for novels only and no short stories? I've always felt that better horror material is usually found in short-form.

Inspired by mention of Yellow Sails in the Gazetteer, I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for where in the Golarion setting to place the various classic AD&D 1st Edition / Greyhawk and Basic/Expert /Companion/Masters / Mystara adventure modules, and if anyone had any tales of their experiments and successes or failures in doing so to share.

Thanks!

I see that there is a 50% off sale, so I am considering picking up four or five of these. Any recommendations as to which ones are the best?

I think that "Dread Crypt of Srihoz" is a real winner, and is the on that got me hooked on the DCC series after a couple of false starts. It has some issues with map scale and room size, though (e.g. Aboleth room), so you might want to tinker with the map a little bit before running, especially if you're going to play out the exploration on a grid.

Vault of the Iron Overlord is also great, but keep in mind that it depends on a map constructed out of three rotating wheels (think of an old style Copy Protection code wheel), so I'm not sure how that is implemented in the PDF...you'll have to do some cutting and assembling, I think.

Gates of Delirium is interesting, although I'm not sure how well the CD music would go over...I haven't run it yet.