Tomorrow night I am supposed to be running an adventure at a Halloween party for a group of players of whom only one of them has played before. I am having trouble coming up with a good scary adventure for first levels and am wondering if anyone had any suggestions. Please note that I am running this in a world I have built.Any and all suggestions are welcome.
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The characters are invited to a costume party where it turns out not all of the guests are in costume - rather they are monsters and always look that scary. But it's a party, everyone is celebrating, and... These details are easily missed. Despite the heroic efforts of the party, several of the guests are spirited away. Now the heroes must go door to door to figure out where the abductors are keeping the abductees, before something terrible happens. There might be some violent tricks and treats along the way. For a horrifying ending, make sure that the terrible deeds are but halfway through when found and party has to wade into the gore to save the survivors and finish off the monsters.
There are some good Pathfinder Society scenarios that could easily be adapted for another world. For instance, "The Penumbral Accords" (the owner of a museum wants to back out of an agreement that requires her to trade her own daughters to beings of the Shadow Plane), "Among the Living" (zombie attack at the opera), or "The Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment" (investigating a remote temple, taken over by a demon).
So far my only ideas are pretty generic, like a house with ghosts and poltergeists, or a graveyard fight with a cairn wight as the end boss.
Ciaran, I like your idea even though it confuses me a bit, I might need a simpler explanation, and RainyDay those sound good but I am pretty broke so can't get modules and when i do get money for PF stuff, I usually get sourcebooks.
Ciaran, I like your idea even though it confuses me a bit, I might need a simpler explanation, and RainyDay those sound good but I am pretty broke so can't get modules and when i do get money for PF stuff, I usually get sourcebooks.
Well the scenarios are on sale right now, for $2.79. That's not bad at all for a night of entertainment for several people.
Yea but when I say broke, I mean not even a dollar lol
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SoulDragon298, you might like this: Hangman's Noose. The PDF is $6.50. Its a creepy one.
I hope this helps. Oops I didn't see the post you just posted.
lol its fine
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SoulDragon are you familiar at all with stories like Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes?
If so you may want to draw inspiration from that. It's a great story if only for this line:
“Beware the autumn people… For some, autumn comes early, stays late through life…For these beings, fall is the ever normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir in their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eyes? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth. In gusts they beetle-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all moons sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters. The spider-web hears them, trembles- breaks. Such are the autumn people. Beware of them.”
- Ray Bradbury, “Something Wicked This Way Comes”
SoulDragon are you familiar at all with stories like Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes?
If so you may want to draw inspiration from that. It's a great story if only for this line:
“Beware the autumn people… For some, autumn comes early, stays late through life…For these beings, fall is the ever normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir in their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eyes? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth. In gusts they beetle-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all moons sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters. The spider-web hears them, trembles- breaks. Such are the autumn people. Beware of them.”
- Ray Bradbury, “Something Wicked This Way Comes”
Sorry the only Ray Bradbury I have read was A Sound of Thunder and a bit of the Illustrated Man.
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I really like Ciaran's idea too, an interesting twist on classic dungeoning.
I think how it's meant to work is that the party starts, everyone is in costume and having a good time all of a sudden the lights go out and screams are heard when they come back on some of the guests are missing and perhaps a few have revealed themselves to actually be, goblins or orcs or what have you. The party would be expected to fight off this attack on the guests then, worried about what might have happened to them, begins moveing out through the house searching the rooms one by one for the missing guests, each room leading them to, treasure/gear (to "borrow"), monsters that weren't seen at the party, or some of the guests, the party then needing to decide which one is in costume and which one is really what they appear.
Of course this sounds like quite a bit of work to put together before the weekend...
I really like Ciaran's idea too, an interesting twist on classic dungeoning.
I think how it's meant to work is that the party starts, everyone is in costume and having a good time all of a sudden the lights go out and screams are heard when they come back on some of the guests are missing and perhaps a few have revealed themselves to actually be, goblins or orcs or what have you. The party would be expected to fight off this attack on the guests then, worried about what might have happened to them, begins moveing out through the house searching the rooms one by one for the missing guests, each room leading them to, treasure/gear (to "borrow"), monsters that weren't seen at the party, or some of the guests, the party then needing to decide which one is in costume and which one is really what they appear.
Of course this sounds like quite a bit of work to put together before the weekend...
Ah I get it now but I got all day today to make it so I could figure something out.
Ciaran, I like your idea even though it confuses me a bit, I might need a simpler explanation,
Its an outline where you fill in the details.
1) The PCs all live in the same town, and they may know each other or not. A wealthy resident of the town throws a costume party and the PCs are among those invited. Obviously, weaponry is frowned upon UNLESS it is the gentile sort an aristocrat would wear or the costume is really, really good. So... a big weapon should be accompanied by an expensive, appropriate costume or a really great disguise check.
2) Everyone at the party has a great costume. Some of them seem almost real. Some of the wealthy party goers have paid for illusion spells to be cast in place of actual costumes. Some of the party goers are actual monsters (who are also dressed up). I think some low-level evil fey creeatures would be fun, but you could throw in a couple of goblins on stilts too and some duergar. At some point in the evening, after a bit of role-playing has been done and enough of the party-goers are intoxicated, there are screams and the actual monsters begin carrying people off.
3) The reasons for this are up to you, but if you're not above resorting to a bit of low-brow gore to give a little oompf to certain parts of your game, then I would go witth violent human sacrafice. If you and your friends are uneasy with that then making them hostages is fine too. Or their hair will be harvested. Dunno.
4) The monsters have covered their tracks well. Some are good at hiding, some turn invisible, some flew, some teleported, some are reallyy fast. Regardless, the PCs were distracted with a minor combat and were delayed. Remember that they will probably not have all of their armor and weapons. They will probably want those and that will further delay them. This is a good chance to have PCs adventure on non-traditional outfits, which doesn't happen often.
5) Now the search begins. Maybe a PC watched some of the monsters leave and has an idea where they went, or somebody tracked them. Make sure they don't know exactly what happened. The PCs have to go door to door to look and ask questions. Sometimes they will get a bit of info from a townsperson, sometimes they will get ambushed by a few monsters, who are hidden in an alleyway or in a house they have ransacked, killing (or subduing) those they can't carry off. Possibly a chance for some middle of the movie gore and murder, or not.
6) Eventually clues or noise leads the PCs to the lair. This could be the basement of a mansion in town, an abandoned castle in the swamp, a mine, or a grotto in the woods. Here we have the final showdown. Some (or half, or most) of the abducted townspeople have been sacraficed and streams of blood run freely, bodied hacked to pieces and carelessly discarded. Or... if you prefer their heads have been recklessly shaved for the harvest of spell components.
7) Its up to you if the monsters' motives are revealed (villains love to give speeches?), or if it remains a mystery (dead monsters tell no tales. Not for a few ore levels anyhow). Perhaps it leads to another adventure.
But more suggestions are welcome if you have them
I really like Ciaran's idea too, an interesting twist on classic dungeoning.
I think how it's meant to work is that the party starts, everyone is in costume and having a good time all of a sudden the lights go out and screams are heard when they come back on some of the guests are missing and perhaps a few have revealed themselves to actually be, goblins or orcs or what have you. The party would be expected to fight off this attack on the guests then, worried about what might have happened to them, begins moveing out through the house searching the rooms one by one for the missing guests, each room leading them to, treasure/gear (to "borrow"), monsters that weren't seen at the party, or some of the guests, the party then needing to decide which one is in costume and which one is really what they appear.
Of course this sounds like quite a bit of work to put together before the weekend...
This is great too. I like the idea of a huge house being used in place of a traditional dungeon.
Ah that seems kinda disturbing I like evrything except the human sacrifice part... i mean i know their monsters but dang
A bit of a spin on the above idea: a strange man passed trough the village a few days ago, selling exquisite and exotic masks for the yearly end-of-harvest festival this evening. The players' characters are either out-of-towners who arrived today or are villagers that are kinda bummed out because they were out of town when the mask salesman came through (they were out hunting, gathering the last harvest, whatever).
The whole day was spent preparing the food and drinks for the festival but when the feast is opened after sunset, strange things start happening; an eldritch music starts playing, the people go in a trance and weird imp-like creatures start wreaking havoc.
Brief outline of events:
1) Everyone that is outside becomes entranced with the strange music. The players must take Will Saves (DC 11 or something) or become a bit addled (25% of being Dazed each turn) unless they cover their ears. The villagers are completely entranced and will not awake even when their ears are covered (they will actively uncover their ears).
2) The town becomes overrun with goblin-like fey creatures in garish costumes. These wretches start playing around, drinking the beer, eating the food, committing vandalism etc... while not touching the entranced villagers. This is basically the first wave of enemies that the players can deal with. For stats, just pick some small (not tiny) fey creature or just use goblins with a different appearance.
3) After dealing with the imp-things outside, the players hear screaming from inside a house. They see the imps trying to drag the villagers that were inside at the time outside. The villagers kick, protest and resist as much as they can until the moment they can clearly hear the music outside. They then become entranced as well and will walk on their own to the village square to join the other villagers. The PCs must deal with a number of the imp things in several houses.
4) After the PCs have dealt with the imp-things, a garishly dressed tall figure with a bird-like mask and a flute appears. The figure is the source of the eldritch music and is seen dancing over the rooftops. When the PCs make a move towards him, the music changes and becomes more... violent.
5) When the music changes, the villagers that are wearing masks become aggressive towards the PCs. Their masks seem to fuse with their flesh and actually become a bit animated (animal masks start growling, bird masks start cawing etc...). The PCs must defend themselves from the villagers (just use Commoners or Warriors for the villagers), whether lethally or nonlethally. If a villager goes down (unconscious from nonlethal damage or into minus hit points), the mask becomes inanimate and drops from the face, turning the villager normal again.
6) When the PCs have dealt with the villagers or ignoring them to further harass the masked flutist, the figure becomes aggressive and drops from the rooftops and start combat with the PCs. (use whatever appropriate monster or class you like for a boss fight)
7) If the PCs have defeated the figure, the music stops, the imps disappear and the villagers recover. The PCs may be rewarded in some way.
ah ok that sounds good for some reason i imagined the figure as like a disgraced vulpinal or something
If you want to expand upon the adventure I described, you could also have the figure flee from the PCs at some point. The village will recover and the PCs will be told a tale that has been in the village for a long time. It concerns a Fey that lived nearby and fell in love with a girl from the village when she was out gathering mushrooms.
The Fey followed her to the village and watched her for weeks. When the harvest festival came, the Fey masked itself and pretended to be human to join in the festivities. When it saw the girl, it approached her and starting flirting and courting her. After several dances, the two hid away somewhere and things started getting... heavy. When the Fey removed its mask however, the girl was scared of its nonhuman appearance and pushed it away before fleeing away screaming.
The Fey was heartbroken and fled the village. Unfortunately, the villagers formed a mob and pursued it to its lair. While they wounded it, the Fey was able to get away by hypnotizing the villagers with his music.
The Fey had not been seen until now, more than sixty years later. The girl from the story had grown up, married, given birth and grown old in the meantime. As chance would have it, the girl, now an old crone, had died of old age a few days back. The village elders speculate that the Fey wanted revenge upon the villagers but kept his distance from the village while his former beau lived, to avoid hurting her or feeling the pain of heartbreak.
The PCs are told where the Fey's lair was and are asked to get rid of it. The lair is a dungeon with plenty of illusions and minions.
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Here's something WOTC put out a few years ago that might be useful..
https://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4alum/20111031
I'm being a bit lame this year. I'm giving my players a few through away characters as options and will be running a one shot zombie apocalypse in a frontier fort that's about to be overrun. :)
I may look into converting some existing module like Keep on the Borderlands to fit the scenario to do less work. I'll have to look at my options.
I like the idea Not-too-big BAD I'm still thinking of making him a disgraced vulinal for some reason.
How about:
Remember to have the witch also keep bee hives in her backyard and be involved in making sweets and candy for the local kids (and have some finished and wrapped once lying around in her hut--extra XP for the PCs who eats some)...
Ruyan.
I kinda like it and by tuned down you mean use the young template right?
This thead has given me a thought of much amusement (& slight horror): trick-or-treating Golarion goblins.
Not sure if it would be more fun with PCs chasing goblins or being goblins, though. :)
-TimD
This thead has given me a thought of much amusement (& slight horror): trick-or-treating Golarion goblins.
Not sure if it would be more fun with PCs chasing goblins or being goblins, though. :)
Definitely Goblins seeing children trick-or-treating and then rather innocently joining them the year after!
A 100-200 pg book of holiday themed, single session adventures. Is that marketable?
A 100-200 pg book of holiday themed, single session adventures. Is that marketable?
Might be, I'd rather go for them split up individually. Not everyone wants to commit to 3-6 distinct events a year in advance.
I kinda like it and by tuned down you mean use the young template right?
Thanks. Yepp, either use the young template or you could decide to not use some of their special attacks/abilities or go for lower saves.
Ruyan.
Take a look at Fingers of Death—No, Doom! by Lucien Soulban.
It's a great story for a horror-oriented one-shot.
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New idea: townsfolk are turning up strangled in their sleep. There's no obvious sign of entry, and no murder weapon has been identified. Investigation reveals that all of the victims have thus far been people who have slighted a misanthropic farmer who recently died. The farmer's spirit still haunts his dilapidated farm, but the source is the center of his pumpkin patch, where he has inhabited the largest gourd of the bunch. The strangulations are being done by assassin vines, and in order to save the day, the PCs must find the pumpkin and destroy it, then do some sort of ritual to return the farmer's spirit to rest.