I'd like to do a nice little romp through some minor horror themed adventure to use with my kids. Think around 11. Naturally undead and vampires come to mind, but would like to see what others think.
THanks,
-Dave
Mummies!
There's a fun little adventure set in Eberron a while back, I can't remember what it was called, but it was a short dungeon filled with traps and a mummy at the end. I'll look it up when I get home.
TK
Either of Richard Pett's Styles adventures probably fit the bill. Both have a lot of satire mixed in with fun/dangerous encounters and great role-playing moments for everyone at the table.
"The Styles" (issue 121)
"The Weavers" (issue 138)
-GGG
Werewolves are good -- maybe one they can cure rather than just kill.
Mummies!
There's a fun little adventure set in Eberron a while back, I can't remember what it was called, but it was a short dungeon filled with traps and a mummy at the end. I'll look it up when I get home.
TK
Crypt of Crimson Stars. It is the first adventure in a three adventure arc. Nice series. Short, sweet and to the point. Dungeon #123.
Shut In has a bit of a creepy feel to it, and should be something they can finish in one night.
Unfortunately, I can't remember the title of the other adventure that's coming to my mind; it wasn't that long ago - the last year or so maybe. It featured an oozelord. Definitely creepy.
I think the "Devil Box" from Issue 109 would be appropriate. It is humorous, but has darker elements. I think that the Styes adventures and "Shut-In" are fairly dark and maybe have few too many adult themes for an 11 year old (since they feature lots of investigation and NPC interaction, there may also be a problem with attention spans).
I guess it depends on what you're going for here..scary or fun..creepy etc.
Possible ideas....
A quest for gathering items for a witches brew. I would make this very interactive. Since we're talking 11 year olds...I might go more of a LARP direction for Halloween. Everyone in their adventurer costume. The house and outdoors becomes the dungeon and wilderness.
The plot, a goodly witch is trying to create a festive brew for the townspeople. She of course is opposed by an evil witch and a suitable vampire guardian (werewolf, mummy, whatever fits). The party (the kids) is asked to search for the brew (in the wilderness and dungeon)where the DM possess as various guardians and monsters to defeat as the stalwart players try to recover the brew and other little treasures (candy, etc) until the final fight with the evil witch and her powerful guardian.
The get the goods for the brew and return it to the good witch and the village (everyone) has a wonderful halloween.
Take a classic monster movie and update it for an adventure.
Creature from the Black Lagoon = use locathah/sahuagin/etc.
Man with a Thousand Faces = changeling.
Dracula = ...fairly obvious. :P
Frankenstein = ...yep, obvious.
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes = (silly fun) oozes/gelatinous cubes.
Thanks, Chris, for getting that one for me.
I can't think of what else to add (mostly because I'm extremely tired), but I just wrote up an Index for all Dungeon adventures from #114 onwards here, so that may help you on your quest. And good job for getting on the ball early! If it was me, I probably wouldn't think to start preparing for a one-shot adventure until the day of...
TK
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A friend of mine runs a Halloween adventure every year. Each is always a one-evening event. My friend always draws up and hands out characters and shoots us a little back-story by email before we arrive.
A couple of years ago he did one set in lonely country manor surrounded by moors, heath, bogs, and the essential ubiquitous ground-fog. (He actually set it in northern Victorian England, so we got to whip out our goofiest English, Scottish, and Irish accents, but a typical D&D setting would work just as well.) One of us had just inherited the manor from a little-known grand-uncle. The solicitor who advised us of the death and inheritance provided some papers, among which was a cryptic note suggested there was an enormous amount of treasure carefully hidden in the manor.
The DM then plopped our characters down in the manor’s music room simply saying, "You all arrived late last night, unlocked the great doors with the keys you'd been given, found bedrooms, went to sleep, and now its morning and you're in the grand music room deciding what to do next."
A house search uncovered all kinds of oddities suggesting the dead grand-uncle had been an adventurer involved in all kinds of unsavory events. Most unusual was that we frequently found that the most interesting treasures and objects were intermittently intangible. We concluded they were ghostly objects and kept waiting to be surprised by the ghost of the grand-uncle, or his staff, or someone he might have he murdered, etc. We even found some walls we could pass right through. We decided the ghost had to have been deeply attached to the manor to have so many ghostly items and even ghostly fixtures!
Finally, a journal hidden in a study (whose pages we could sometimes but not always turn) revealed that the grand-uncle was a necromancer who had been planning a ritual tonight in a secret chamber in the cellar under one of the estate's building. The ritual was to prolong the lives of the seven participants by feasting upon the souls of seven freshly-slain victims.
There were seven of us playing this adventure.
Then it all started falling into place. We asked the DM if we were hungry after so much searching. The DM said no. We asked if any of us remembered getting out of bed this morning, dressing, and coming down to the music room. The DM said no. We searched our bedrooms. Most had been recently and spotlessly cleaned, and all the sheets and blankets had been removed. But one bedroom had a lot of broken furniture and traces of fresh blood along the baseboard. We all congratulated the PC whose room showed signs of violence. “Looks like you put up quite the fight, laddie! Good show there!” We knew. The grand-uncle wasn't dead.
WE WERE DEAD.
We were murdered in bed the night before. Our bodies had been taken out in the sheets, and the rooms cleaned, before we arose as ghosts. The bodies were already underground somewhere, being prepared for the ritual. We were atypical ghosts in that we could move the manor's objects if we weren't focusing on them, but whenever we TRIED to manipulate a material object, we had to succeed on a Wisdom check with a high DC. We tried fleeing only to discover we couldn't pass the estate's boundaries.
It ended with a fabulous battle with the necromancer and his cultists in the cellar of the tool shed. We kept trying to pick up gardening implements to whack the bad guys, and kept failing. We nonetheless ultimately killed the necromancer with a rusty pair of hedge clippers. Grand-uncle promptly became a ghost like us -- so we destroyed him again. Fun! His followers fled, and our souls passed on to whatever glories lie beyond, satisfied with our last, big adventure.
Okay, probably too grisly for a bunch of 11-year olds, but I offer it for ideas. If being dead is too gruesome, perhaps you have them all dreaming the same dream or something.
That is FREAKIN' awesome!
It was our best Halloween event. I'm looking forward to this year's. It's one of my few chances each year to be a player. I'll take any chance to play I can get! Even if I have to play dead.
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I'd like to do a nice little romp through some minor horror themed adventure to use with my kids. Think around 11. Naturally undead and vampires come to mind, but would like to see what others think.
The House on the Edge Of Midnight is a great short adventure from Dungeon Magazine #76 (the Sept/Oct issue)that takes place in an old manor house and, if I remember correctly, the antagonist/villian is a 12 year old girl! Creeped my players out!
The House on the Edge Of Midnight is a great short adventure from Dungeon Magazine #76 (the Sept/Oct issue)that takes place in an old manor house and, if I remember correctly, the antagonist/villian is a 12 year old girl! Creeped my players out!
Considering the age of the OP's players, their response would either be camaraderie or "AH! Cooties!!!"
TK