This is a plot seed for low to midlevel PCs. It is unashamedly stolen from The Librarians, because it's a cool idea. Hat tip to John Rogers.
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The PCs are travelling through a forest or similar wilderness area when they hear the sound of distant shouts or screams. Investigating, they quickly encounter a young woman staggering through the underbrush. She is disheveled, covered in blood, and almost incoherent with terror.
"That... that thing! It has my friends! Oh, gods, they're still in there!" [breaks down sobbing]
Upon examination: she is well but not expensively dressed, and shows signs of elven blood. (She is, in fact, a half-elf.) Although her clothes have been slashed by what look like claws, her injuries are minor -- there's a lot of blood, but most of it is not hers. A simple Diplomacy check will calm her down enough to get her story.
She and her friends were a group of young people who dreamed of becoming bold adventurers. One day, they encountered an empty house in the woods and decided to explore it. Adventurers in training, right? And this seemed harmless enough... Alas, they had hardly entered the house when horrible, terrifying things began to happen. They tried to leave, but doors locked, windows suddenly looked out on vast terrifying otherplanar landscapes... and then the Bad Man came. One by one, they were taken. Except for the Last Girl: she remembered that she carried a magical scroll, a spell that opened doors. She's had just a little magical training (she wants to go to the Academae someday), so never dared try it before, but... it worked! She escaped!
But her friends are still in there.
(Additional wrinkle: she may mention in passing that they're from [city] in [country]. However, the PCs are traveling through [other country], and [city] is hundreds of miles away from here! If this is pointed out, the Last Girl will become a bit hysterical for a while. "We -- we can't be in Varisia! That's a /foreign country/!")
Okay, so the PCs investigate the house. Right off, this place looks creepy as hell; it's an ancient house, with a design from a couple of centuries ago, but the walls are cracked and stained, the yard is choked with weeds, strange fungi grow out of the woodwork, and so forth. Possibly some oversized moths are flapping slowly around... season to taste.
Above the door are wooden letters spelling out the words "R E F U G E". Give the PCs a moderately difficult Knowledge (history or local) check. If someone succeeds, they get
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The Legend of the House of Refuge
Centuries ago, a kindly wizard built a house to be a refuge for those in need. The poor, the hungry, the desperate, those fleeing from war or persecution... they would find the house magically appearing across their path. Once they stepped inside, all their needs would be attended to; it was warm and safe and food, drink and clothing would magically appear. The House of Refuge could move somehow from place to place, arriving wherever it was needed.
But then one day, the House went bad. Nobody knows why, but it changed. Now it wanders the world, luring victims inside, and then slowly and horribly killing them.
So now what? Well, greed and curiosity should nudge the PCs inside. If not, Last Girl will begin weeping: "My friends are still in there! Oh, can't you please help them? You're adventurers... isn't that what you do?" If the PCs still hesitate, she'll rummage through her pack and pull out a scroll -- "This is all I have. Take it! Just, please, help them!" The scroll should be a random first or second level spell. The goal here is not so much to bribe the PCs as to emphasize Last Girl's pathetic desperation.
Into the House:
Once the PCs go inside, stuff starts to happen. Things fly through the air and just miss them. Doors open or close when they're not looking. There are horrible disturbing visions. Words like GET OUT and DEATH appear in blood on the walls. Animated objects attack them, then fall to the ground. And they can hear something moving around upstairs...
Last Girl clearly does not want to go back in the house, but she doesn't want to be alone either. So she'll go in with PCs. At some point a muffled shriek will be heard from another room; Last Girl will yell, "That's my friend! John, are you all right?" and will run through a door. If the PCs follow, there will of course be something dangerous and horrible on the other side. In fact, Last Girl will show a positive talent for wandering off stupidly by herself. If not followed, she'll disappear, leaving only a pool of blood and a torn item of clothing.
Efforts to escape the house will be fruitless; opening the door reveals a formless grey void, or worse. In fact the House is its own demiplane, and can move from place to place or world to world. And it doesn't want the PCs to leave...
What's actually going on here:
The House of Refuge never changed; it's still a good place. Unfortunately, it's been taken over by a very bad person. Some years back, a very wicked young woman made a pact with the Abyss. She gained the services of a powerful demon... but in return, she had to murder an innocent at least once per month. This worked great for a while, but finally justice caught up with her. She fled, with the forces of good right behind her... and encountered the House of Refuge.
The poor House foolishly let her in, and since then everything has gone to Hell. The House is something like a construct; it's programmed to respond to need. And she *needs* to kill people -- if she doesn't, she dies and the demon takes her soul to the Abyss. That's a very powerful need! So the hapless House, thanks to a glitch in its programming, has been turned into a mobile base of operations for a Chaotic Evil serial killer and her demonic sidekick. The panicked, hapless Last Girl is, in fact, the BBEG.
Last Girl:
I see Last Girl as a sorceress with a level of rogue, but season to taste -- if you think something else will work better, go for it. I'd put her three levels ahead of the APL, plus the rogue level. So if you have a party of 3rd level PCs, she's a Rog 1 / Sor 6. If your party is bigger than the standard four, or the players are very experienced, add another level of sorceror or two levels of rogue. Her Bluff should be sky-high -- rakshasa bloodline is good here -- and she should have lots of illusion and misdirection spells, along with something to conceal her alignment. She'll probably have Still Spell and Silent Spell too. She's cocky and overconfident -- this is all a fun game for her. But part of the game is to stay concealed until the last possible moment, so she will make every effort to do that. If she fails a Bluff check, or the PCs become suspicious otherwise, her first trick will be to burst into hysterical tears and then faint.
As for the demon companion, at APL 1 or 2 it's a quasit. At higher levels it can be a babau, a shadow demon (recommended!) or a vrock. Add PC levels and/or templates to adjust, but you want a CR that's APL +3 or so. The demon is the sub-boss; the PCs should not confront the demon and the Last Girl at the same time.
Inside the House:
The PCs should be encouraged to think "haunted house, inhabited by a monster / magical serial killer". In fact there are three things going on here. First, the House of Refuge is trying to warn the PCs. Unfortunately it's not designed for talking, so it's limited to cryptic messages in blood and the like. It locks the PCs in and plane-shifts because it senses that they are powerful adventurers, and is hoping they will prove Last Girl's undoing. It will try to warn them if it can, but its programming won't allow it to attack Last Girl directly.
Second, there are restless spirits of Last Girl's previous victims. These can be anything from minor haunts up to seriously dangerous undead. The House reluctantly protects Last Girl from them, but they can be very threatening to the PCs.
Third, of course, there's Last Girl and her demon pal. Last Girl will try to lure or maneuver PCs into danger, softening them up; the demon will strike from the shadows and then retreat, using hit and run tactics. The demon's nature should not be immediately obvious; it should wear a dark hooded robe, cloak itself in shadow, make use of illusions, or otherwise take care to disguise what it really is.
For most of the session, Last Girl and the demon will be toying with the PCs. Only once the demon is revealed and defeated will Last Girl realize that there's a serious problem here, pull the gloves off and start striking to kill.
Environmental issues:
All light in the house is reduced a step -- normal darkness acts like no-darkvision magical darkness, low light requires darkvision to see, and so forth.
Oddly, the House does not radiate evil. (Clue!) Attempts to smash walls or doors will work, but the House will "heal" the damage within a minute as soon as the PCs backs are turned.
Healing spells don't work here. (It's a side effect of the House's extraplanar nature.) At your discretion, a paladin's Lay on Hands and healing potions might still function -- but normal healing, nope, you got nothin'. If these seems too much, you could allow healing to be impeded instead -- but keep in mind that this is an excellent way to crank up the tension. PCs suddenly get a *lot* more cautious when they can't just be healed...
Wrapping it up:
If the PCs manage to kill Last Girl, they win! A search will now reveal a cupboard full of treasure, taken from Last Girl's previous victims. The House quickly recovers, becoming a normal looking small house surrounded by a lovely garden. It rewards the PCs with hot baths and a Hero's Feast and then drops them off wherever is most convenient for them. The House is now an ally of the PCs, and may show up again some day when they are in particularly desperate need.
First off, I really like this. Tension, mystery, not the normal murderhobo killing spree.
Second, for the design of the house, have you heard of the game Betrayal at House on the Hill? I would use this as the design on the house, flipping the tiles over as the party explores. Have it arranged before hand, with a 30x30 grid to the side for the encounters (the demons, zombies, angels the party encounters and needs to fight)
Third, I suggest just giving everyone a resistance to healing. DC 10+the character level+wis mod. Potions should work fine. However, I see the house providing the following benefit.
Wrong One: When reduced to negative HP by anyone besides Last Girl, the player gains Fast Healing 1 and all damage they would take is non lethal. This effect ends when the player reaches 0 HP.
This means only the Last Girl can kill the players (expand it to the demon as well) but she can use the house to weaken the players. The house is not evil, and if it is there to help those in need, I would expect it to help the players, unless it hurts someone else in the house, thus why the Last Girl can kill the players. Anything can actually, but it is harder for others to do it.
Lastly, I would go witch and the demon is her familiar/patron. However, both work.
Yeah, one of my core tenets in both games and real life is if you see a child lost in the woods, it's a trap. Either take them out or go very much around, quietly.
Nice write up. As others mentioned, it seemed pretty obvious that the Last Girl was going to be evil/involved. Especially when she starts randomly walking into rooms.
Less obvious is that the house is actually good and trying to warn them. I'd probably try to create additional messages/acts that the house does that are actually beneficial to the players, but could be misconstrued as being evil.
Not taking anything away from you, this is a great idea for an adventure and it can pop up anywhere at any time, so it's applicable to almost any setting.
The problem is modern adventurers are mostly paranoid and heavily jaded. People who are not in the party (and even other party members) are never above suspicion exactly because shapeshifters and doppelgangers are the sort of thing DMs like tricking them with.
One would expect Paladins to still fall for things like this if they're properly roleplaying, but properly roleplaying a Paladin means knowing this classic pitfall because they're usually the prey of such fiends.
Oh, it could still work. It's been used on me to good effect, during a certain PFS adventure;
Spoiler:
Day of the Demon. It's a halfling murder-cultist, masquerading as a lost child.
Weirdly, only I and the player playing a halfling fell for it. In my case I think it was because the GM played "her" convincingly as a kid, and then made her very clingy in a way that tweaked my comfort zone. So my "there's a kid clinging to me for help, what do I say to reassure her" panic was blinding me to what was actually going on.
All the other players knew something was up, and when I was away on a bathroom break apparently all decided to not metagame and play along. So when the cultist turned around it was just my paladin and the halfling sorcerer who didn't see it coming.
"What, you mean the kid my halfling was about to adopt is actually an adult halfling murderer?!" He got payback though, lipstitching the spellcasting murder-cultist.
So I think the trick to pulling this off might be to first get your players off-balance with something that gets to them.
I've been in one too many parties with a pyromaniac. The usual response to haunted houses is "One arson house-fire, coming up.".
"My friends! My friends are still in there!"
If it seems your party might go that route anyway, consider hinting at treasure. Don't be obvious about it! Hint. Like, "It was a mess inside, and smelled bad, but there didn't seem to be anything dangerous... until we got to the room with the books. I told Bob, I told him not to touch anything, but..." I promise you, if there's the slightest possibility of a cool, interesting, dangerous, or valuable magic book in play, your PCs will not burn anything until they find out what it is.
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Unless it's Call of Cthulu.
Unless it's Call of Cthulhu. In which case "Burn the books, burn all the books, scatter the ashes and then run run run" is the logical response.
I just worry I wouldn't be able to pull it off, I think the PCs would immediately suspect the girl.
I think there are a couple of ways to inoculate against this. One, red herrings. The girl is part elvish; that's not relevant to anything, but it's a distraction. The House just moved here from Varisia (or wherever): again, not necessary, but it distracts (and also ups the weird factor).
Second, you want to sketch out a role for her that makes sense at a metagame level. First, she's a low-level adventurer (or adventurer wannabe) that walked into something much too powerful. If you like, you can nudge this a little: have her be very impressed with the party caster. "How long did it take you to learn that? I can do the Dancing Lights! Well, sometimes. Usually sometimes."
Alternately/additionally, you can get the PCs used to thinking of her as the infodump. Have her feed them information. If she's telling them what's in the house -- and, by implication, the shape of the adventure -- they'll be a bit less likely to suspect her. Let the PCs try Diplomacy and Sense Motive. "She's more comfortable with Billy Bob the Bard now. Still a little freaked by the rest of you." "Sense Motive -- panick, touch of shock, really worried about her friends. She seems sincere." Again, crank her Bluff to the moon. If she's APL+4, then her Bluff -- assuming precast Eagle's Splendor, and either Rakshasa bloodline or skill focus -- should be at least APL +20. That's not unbeatable, of course, especially if the party has a Sense Motive monkey on tap, but it should carry her through.
If the PCs seem suspicious, play her intelligently -- she won't want to face them outside. If they're really reluctant, have her announce, with trembling lip, that if they won't go in... *she* will save her friends. She saw someone cast the Protecting from Evil spell, once, so she's pretty sure she can do it.
If the PCs ABSOLUTELY refuse to take the bait... then they do. Any paladin in the party should be very ashamed, but a party of standard PC murderhobos can probably shrug and move on.
Don't punish them for this! In fact, quite the opposite. A few sessions later, the PCs encounter an adventurer who tells a horrible story: he's the last survivor of a party who met a desperate young woman in the woods. The rest of them followed her inside the house, but he stayed outside to keep watch. He heard them screaming... and then he heard the Girl's voice. Laughing. Laughing.
And then a few sessions after *that*, have the PCs travelling along, when suddenly Last Girl runs out into the path in front of them, screaming, "Help! My friends!" And then she looks at the PCs, says, "Oh, crap." And turns around and runs back to the House and in the door.
You won't have the advantage of surprise with that one, but you can still have a rousing adventure through the House, culminating in a fun boss fight with the Girl and her demon pal. Never waste a hook, amirite?
So what happens when the little girl faints and wakes up tied up, gagged, and stuffed in the pack of the partry's local barbarian?
Because honestly, I have a few characters who's first reaction on seeing her as an unreliable hysterical ditz would be to tie her up and stuff her in a sack to deal with once they had cleared the house.
And those are just the C/N characters, any character that was actually evil would use her to check for traps and as monster bait.
She isn't actually fainting, just faking it. Attempting to stuff her in a portable hole or whatever would precipitate a sudden recovery from unconsciousness.
She isn't actually fainting, just faking it. Attempting to stuff her in a portable hole or whatever would precipitate a sudden recovery from unconsciousness.
She's proven she can't handle the rigorous adventuring lifestyle. If she faints again, we have to save her.
Solution: Burlap sack.
If she succeeds in resisting the Barbarian's grapple, then she has ousted herself anyway.
Honestly, if your PCs are really that level of crazy paranoid, then don't bother with this scenario. (You might, however, consider a scenario where they encounter a hysterical injured girl who really is running from a monster -- and who is the child of a powerful, influential and extremely thin-skinned local nobleman. "You threw my daughter in a *what*?" Season to taste.)
Any paladin who puts on his X-Ray vision will see a very evil girl with surprisingly high aura strength.
Grant her the ability to mask alignment through 2 levels of the spy PrC, or giver her an 8,000gp ring of mind shielding. I favor mask alignment though since it can make her appear to be LG and worthy of help.
To be fair, that Barbarian just liked stuffing people into sacks. He did that to anyone he thought was going to slow him down, including the party cleric at one point.
Grant her the ability to mask alignment through 2 levels of the spy PrC, or giver her an 8,000gp ring of mind shielding. I favor mask alignment though since it can make her appear to be LG and worthy of help.
Oh, that's a good one. That PrC doesn't require rogue levels, either -- just skill ranks. So she could be a Sor APL+3 / Master Spy 2. And a +2 bonus on Bluff and Sense Motive to boot. Very nice.
Well, I have one character who would attempt (despite the size disparity) to intimidate the house, including threats to take it part brick by brick, board by board, nail by nail, leaving no stone atop another and plowing salt into the earth for good measure, whilst producing all manner of tools for the job from the bag of holding. So, cough them up, house, or face your certain destruction.
(if the house fails to respond, your friends are obviously already dead, and the demolition should commence)
I'm pretty sure this adventure would necessarily require a group where all characters are Good. It would definitely work well for my LG Magical Girl Trio (a Monk, a Paladin, and a Magus) for example.
So first off, you're using the wrong background information. When they make the knowledge check you should tell them about the Shatterbox, the haunted house that hops from place to place feeding on people and never stays past midnight. That way they know what they're getting into (and you can pad the description with all the treasure it would have from all the other people it killed). But it's very important you tell them ahead of time they're entering a haunted house.
Second, this all is entirely dependent on your players. You need to know what button to push to get them to go in. Saving innocent people? Getting treasure? Fighting something new? Whatever it takes you need them to think they chose to go inside.
Third, you need some way to get the last girl in the house without arousing suspicion. If they're the protective type have her run in while they debate how to approach the murderhouse. Any others have her wait outside until the bad man chases her inside. If you play it right you might get the party to blockade themselves in the house, if not you can always pretend the bad man seals them inside somehow.
Fourth, they're going to suspect her. They're PCs, I've seen less paranoia from conspiracy theorists. Of course, conspiracy theorists don't have walls, floors, ceilings, chests, chairs, tables, and dirty underwear trying to kill them. Give in to the suspicions with something worthy of hiding but not the real reason. Maybe she killed a noble who wouldn't take no for an answer and is on the lam. Maybe she feels guilty because she was trying to break up two of her (possibly) dead friends in the house. Maybe she's part of a resistance group. Let them investigate, push, and find out she did something bad she's trying to cover up... just not the whole serial killer thing.
Fifth, find a way to split the party. This is fairly hard, with protective types you can probably convince them to leave someone to guard the last girl while the rest explore (if they try to take her with them she has some minor freakout and won't go further in the house), greedy types would probably not want to give up their chance at loot (but also not be willing to leave her alone if she might take some loot they didn't find yet).
Sixth, you need some easy way to describe the room differently to different people. This works best on PbP or online games, in-person I'm not sure how best to describe something differently to different people. The idea would be that everyone gets the same description except for one player, who sees a giant bloodstain in the corner. When they speak up and say they should investigate the blood, everyone looks at them like they're crazy. A good mechanical way to do this is a very low DC illusion of the bad stuff. Everyone who makes the save sees an ordinary room. Everyone who failed their save sees the nightmare room. This would be the house trying to clue them in to what happened.
Seventh, not sure if you covered this, but one of the best parts of the episode was when the house was answering their questions. When they screamed "what do you want?" it would reply with the flaming letters the name of the last girl. Whenever someone asks a question or makes a request the house should respond (though what it responds with should be as cryptic as possible until near the end).
Eighth, having her constantly run off only works for protective types (and they may eventually keep a closer eye on her and/or stuff her in a sack). You instead want her to be useless dead weight that they eventually just stop paying attention to. If they decide to stuff her in a sack when it comes time for murder have her replaced with body parts of her most recent victims if they decide to look in the sack.
Ninth, she needs minions. The show ending works for a show, for multiplayer games you can't have a one-on-one fight and leave out all the other players. I recommend Attic Whisperers. Especially if some show up early enough to sneak attack the players and steal some voices.
Tenth, if you're already rolling with misdirection consider applying it to objects as well. Make sure to talk up how it might be a haunted object possessing the house and then point a doll's aura at the last girl (or the demon). The best betrayal is right after they think they've won.
Reminds me of betrayal at the house on the hill. Coolos. I like.
I think the Last girls victims can come back as shadows, allips..maybe have them go through each room of the house with different forms of death, ie, one room with a body hanging from the celling(make it that things don't decay in the house), the other room with someones flayed body on the demonic altar, with suitable monsters that are related to the cause of death, ie, a burnt body has a *insert burning skeleton template of appropriate cr* in the room.
About healing not working..a little too harsh. How about some reasonable caster level checks instead(aim for 50% failure rate from apl), or all healing is just halved(more of a resource sink really). Channels, lay on hands, halved healing.
So first off, you're using the wrong background information. When they make the knowledge check you should tell them about the Shatterbox, the haunted house that hops from place to place feeding on people and never stays past midnight. That way they know what they're getting into (and you can pad the description with all the treasure it would have from all the other people it killed). But it's very important you tell them ahead of time they're entering a haunted house.
I'm ambivalent about this. In the Librarian-verse, having multiple traveling houses is actually easier to swallow than in a standard D&D universe. I could see combining the two, though -- "Once it was known as the House of Refuge, but something went wrong and now it is The Shatterbox [reverb]".
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Second, this all is entirely dependent on your players. You need to know what button to push to get them to go in. Saving innocent people? Getting treasure? Fighting something new? Whatever it takes you need them to think they chose to go inside.
Firm agreement. You get people saying things like "Oh PCs would surely do X or Y", but in fact there's tremendous variation among parties. Some will charge right in, others will *never* go in there. Some will throw the Girl in a sack -- hell, some will torture and kill her -- but others will close ranks to protect her. It really depends.
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Fourth, they're going to suspect her. They're PCs, I've seen less paranoia from conspiracy theorists. Of course, conspiracy theorists don't have walls, floors, ceilings, chests, chairs, tables, and dirty underwear trying to kill them. Give in to the suspicions with something worthy of hiding but not the real reason. Maybe she killed a noble who wouldn't take no for an answer and is on the lam. Maybe she feels guilty because she was trying to break up two of her (possibly) dead friends in the house. Maybe she's part of a resistance group. Let them investigate, push, and find out she did something bad she's trying to cover up... just not the whole serial killer thing.
I like this and agree it's an entirely appropriate tactic, both for the GM and the Girl.
I thought the Shatterbox was the House of Refuge though. The Shatterbox didn't appear until 1883 (if this transcript I'm reading is correct) while the House of Refuge is much, much older. The House of Refuge also hasn't show up in a while, as he described is as benign, helpful even. The girl was from a family of serial killers in the 1800s so it makes sense.
The reason I say you need to emphasize the haunted angle is that you need them to go in expecting a haunted house. If you tell them the house is benign and helpful and then things start attacking them they'll get suspicious (well, more suspicious) earlier. It'll be good for one little scare at the start but the twist will probably fall flat. If instead you set it up as the awful haunted house that consumes souls before vanishing into the ether they'll go in loaded for a fight, hack their way through their enemies, and never suspect a thing. You tell them "awful haunted house", they see "awful haunted house". The helpful things it does will be passed off as "messing with their heads". Then when they bask in the triumph of their victory over the demon they'll wonder why there's a knife in their chest.
I thought the Shatterbox was the House of Refuge though. The Shatterbox didn't appear until 1883 (if this transcript I'm reading is correct) while the House of Refuge is much, much older.
You may be right! I was watching it while riding herd on kids, so I may have missed that.
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You tell them "awful haunted house", they see "awful haunted house". The helpful things it does will be passed off as "messing with their heads". Then when they bask in the triumph of their victory over the demon they'll wonder why there's a knife in their chest.
Agreed on all points.
Incidentally, the reason I recommend a shadow demon? Just look at that guy. Deeper darkness, fear, and telekinesis (!) at will, and then 3x/day shadow conjuration and shadow evocation. Combine that with insubstantial and this guy can hit-and-run a party pretty hard.
Thinking about it, I'd do something like this: in one of the first rooms, let the PCs catch a glimpse of a bloody (but apparently still living) young man. "That's Dave!" yells the Girl. Of course Dave immediately disappears around a corner, or all the lights go out, or some such. Dave is in fact the Girl's last victim, possessed by the shadow demon using its magic jar ability. The Girl will of course insist that the party try to rescue poor Dave, and may dart off after him.
The Dave-demon will pick at the party for a while, using its SLAs (and, really, those are some great SLAs), until the PCs are quite clear that the former Dave is now a deadly hostile. Then it will abandon Dave to slink into the shadows. Dave is, alas, completely insane at this point; he'll run right into the middle of the party, raving and screaming. In the *very* unlikely event that he survives this, a successful Heal check followed by some Diplomacy might stabilize him enough to get a few words of sense out of him. Of course, before he has time to say much, the demon will use another of its SLAs to attack, making sure that he doesn't ruin the fun too soon.
The Girl and the demon want to peck at the PCs until they're very low on hp and resources, confused, exhausted and preferably split up. (Most parties will be too sensible to split, but the demon's telekinesis and the Girl's illusions and Suggestions can help here.) The Girl won't show her hand until quite late in the game -- she's not much good in melee -- so the goal will be to whittle the PCs down first.
The CR 7 shadow demon is suitable for a party of 4th or 5th level PCs, I think. For higher levels, you would start giving the demon PC levels, or swap in a vrock instead.
I think that this is really neat. I'd totally try it with my group and I think that all- bar one- would be able to role play being concerned and wanting to help a young person in need.
No no, don't upgrade to a Vrock, it's just a fighting monster. Upgrade to two shadow demons. Have one fade through a wall and the other appear on the opposite side, fully healed. Convince them it's using the house to teleport and heal itself.
No no, don't upgrade to a Vrock, it's just a fighting monster. Upgrade to two shadow demons. Have one fade through a wall and the other appear on the opposite side, fully healed. Convince them it's using the house to teleport and heal itself.
Ha. That's pretty brutal! I can see the appeal, but I'd be more inclined to use a shadow demon with multiple PC levels. A shadow demon with PC stats and 4 levels of either rogue or sorceror makes a nice CR 9 opponent and an interesting challenge for a group of 6th level PCs.
As to the vrock, there are ways to make it more interesting, especially if you disguise it at first and maybe give it a level or two of rogue for stealth and such. But yes -- it makes this a more straightforward dungeon crawl sort of a punch-up.
Young girls 'waking' to find themselves tied up in sacks tend to scream and thrash. Last Girls do the same but at very inconvenient moments.
I for one would not put anyone I didn't implicitly trust in a Bag of Holding or Haversack. Might find they cut a hole in it to escape. Mundane sacks are not generally tightly constructed, tend to have small holes (i.e. peep holes) in them and are not sound proof (see above).
Last Girls with access to Silent, Still and Eschew might see being tied up inside a mundane sack as a wonderful hidey-hole from which to work mischief with minimal suspicion.
I might extend the House demiplane to a more vague point beyond the actual walls of the House allowing for some creepy/dangerous areas outside the actual House (Kennels, Outhouse, log pile, tool shed, family plot/cemetary, *cough* Gazebo's :p).
I might have fun if the characters did have extradimensional items of giving the House the special property to link extradimensional spaces to some similar small space within the House. Open a side pocket on the Haversack and find not only your stuff in there but some very memorable stuff from a cabinet in the kitchen of the House. And yes go check the cabinet and find your stuff sitting in said cabinet ... that ought to cut down on putting things in the Haversack especially if 'something' starts rearranging the things in the cabinet.
Also demiplanes are extradimensional spaces. Placing extradimensional spaces within one another is risky strictly speaking often leading to one of the spaces being locked away at minimum ... though I think having the result above is more fun for this encounter idea.
CRB, bolding mine wrote:
Demiplanes: This catchall category covers all extradimensional spaces that function like planes but have measurable size and limited access. Other kinds of planes are theoretically infinite in size, but a demiplane might be only a few hundred feet across. There are countless demiplanes adrift in reality, and while most are connected to the Astral Plane and Ethereal Plane, some are cut off entirely from the transitive planes and can only be accessed by well-hidden portals or obscure magic spells.
I just found something very similar to this adventure... The Librarians and the Heart of Darkness episode... basically has the same premise and the spirit of the house replaces the demon....
