A Special Halloween Session [Archive] - Wizards Community

A Special Halloween Session [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Jancarius
10-06-05, 12:14 AM You, players of mine that read these forums, STAY OUT. Unless you want to have the Halloween session totally ruined. Or at least mostly ruined. Either way, I'll be REAL mad if I go to all this trouble and one of you reads this thread. To help prevent this, I'm using this nifty spoiler block! Don't open it if you play in my campaign!Okay, now that we've kicked them out. One of my players (the one who said my game was the highlight of her week :) ) wanted to do a special by-candlelight D&D session the weekend before Halloween. I thought this was a great idea. Not only do I love any excuse to wear the cloak I bought some time ago, but I've been wanting to run a truly terrifying adventure for the PCs, with lots of vivid imagery, terrifying mysteries, etc. To this end, I've picked up this months Dragon issue, for the Origins of the Undead and the Hauntings articles. I've got Heroes of Horror and Magic of Eberron on pre-order (and they better get here before the game, or my wrath will know no end, Amazon.com!). I'm renting and watching every haunted house movie (that's good) and other such horror movies I can find. I'm taking ideas from Onimusha games and Resident Evil. Now, I seek advice on how to do this without SLAUGHTERING the party in a orgy of darkness, hatred and despair (and also, I really want to talk about how excited I am for all my planning).

THe hauntings alone are terribly dangerous to the party. One haunting that is. Putting the three or so that I was going to try and make is almost certainly a TPK waiting to happen. I don't know if any of the rest of you have read the hauntings articles, but they cover creating areas that are almost permanently tainted by long ago cruelty, slaughter, or other malice. Or perhaps you want to make something similar to The Ring? Rules for that too. A pretty neat article, I thought. But also, the kind of things that I want to throw at them would probably kill 4 L3-5 adventurers (We have 2 more sessions between now and then, it remains to see how challenging they are and what level they will attain).

The basic setup so far is this: On Halloween weekend, some of the players are arriving early to help decorate the room. Our original ambition involved covering up all the white walls in the room with black cloth, but our budget rapidly shrunk that plan to the gaming area itself. We're getting some dry ice, candles, and black lights, and we have some various Halloween props. Each player has a cup with a different theme. Mine is a 'stone' goblet with skulls on each facing, and the players whose idea this was has a skeletal hand rising out of a pentagram to grasp the main part of the cup. The other 4 have not yet been purcahsed. I intend to have spooky music (Boogiepop and Serial Experiment lain soundtracks, bits perhaps from Harry Potter 3rd soundtrack, and any other creepy mood music and noises I can find), and everyone is to wear as much of their costume as they can find (if appropriate... I know at least one player woul just look silly). The game will begin by me shifting the party (however contrived it may have to be... I have informed them of this planned contrivence) to a near-deserted town, where they will be approached by a local generic quest giver (old man/woman, blind seer, etc), who will tell them of the haunted mansion/hill/forest/terrain feature/structure. Something like this: "Yes, it has been long haunted. Many adventurers and mercaneries have tried to clear it out, only to emerge hours later, gibbering in madness, some homicidal, and some totally lost to the outside world, and often looking as if they'd aged years in the short span of time they were within. The local lord <name> has declared that whoever can clear the land of it's dark spirits shall be granted it as their own, to do with as they see fit." This is mostly just the IC hook, my players are wonderful about taking the bait when I present it to them. I would honestly be shocked if any of them did the 'smart' thing and NOT entered the forest (yes, a forest... with a mansion and a graveyard... a mansion that was once a place of horrible AGONY!!!) So of course, after buying supplies (in an usually well-supplied small town), they will head out into the forest. I'll let them wander around in the forest for a while (if anyone knows any free maps of forests or such, it'd be nice) and then be chased or stalked by something barely seen till they get to the House. They'll spend the night at the house, exploring it as they wish. In fact, I want them to find every non-secret room in the place. But once they rest for the night, the terror will begin. Some rooms may be low magnitude Planar Cankers, while the entire house is a Bad Place. A volume of spellbooks in the library are the Eidolon holdings of the mad wizard who resided here. Skeltons, ghosts, and zombies and any and all varieties of undead that I can justify will meander through the house at night... a night which seems to last eternity (in other words, till the PCs are dead or the house is signifigantly weakened). There's just one problem really, and that is that I'm pretty sure that it will be fatal to the PCs based on teh sheer number of undead (particularly incorporeal ones) that occupy the place.

I was thinking one solution might be to inform the players in advance that if they are annihlated, they continue next week from where they left off the week before, IE, as if this session never happened, but otherwise, gain the benefits of EXP and treasure they locate. Any suggestions on ways to run this, and any addtional measures to make the scenes more spooky?
mgmontgomery
10-06-05, 03:57 AM I promise I didn't open the spoiler. But I like the idea of a special Halloween adventure.
Millennium
10-06-05, 03:32 PM Give everyone free Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting (waiving epic requirements), Monkey Grip, and Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Greataxe, plus a pair of +5 Vorpal Greataxes of Holy Power. Add 50,000 zombies, shake well...

Oh; you mean a serious Halloween adventure? :D
Jancarius
10-06-05, 03:54 PM Yeah, I did :) What I'm working on at the moment is the town outside the forest.Eberron Advanced Campaign – Special Halloween Session
“For tonight’s session, we’ve made a few special preparations, just for you guys. A few changes in décor, and a change from the normal style of gameplay. Tonight, we are dipping into darkness, despair, and madness. Your party finds itself in a town none of you have ever seen before. Glancing around, you don’t see many people. The one or two you do spot quickly duck inside their houses. Mist flows through this village steadily, carpeting the ground beneath your knees in a gray haze and restricting your vision. For the Halfling, the mist is eye level. Another thing you notice is the lack of noises… this town is completely silent, except for the sound of a door closing or opening somewhere in the mists. There is one sound, that stands out however. A kind of scraping, tapping sound. It seems to come from no specific direction, but after a moment or two, an old man emerges from the mist, his walking staff tapping the ground in front of them. He is positively ancient, with a beard that flows from his chin all the way down to his knees, and scraggly, slightly wild gray hair. His skin is wrinkled and blotched in places, and his clothes hang loose on his thin body. He stares at the party with blank eyes for a moment, before blinking, once, then twice, and launching so abruptly into a speech that you are momentarily surprised. “WELCOME ADVENTURERS!” He practically shouts “Welcome to Fairmon, our quaint little village.” He waves his staff in a wide gesture, nearly hitting the leading members of the party. “We have everything adventurers could want in a town you see! Friendly people, good food, fine wines! Rest and be merry!” He cackles, and begins to hobble off into the mist.”

If the party makes any effort to stop him, a sudden gust of wind blows the mist around him completely and he vanishes. Otherwise he simply walks into the mist and disappears. The party now has a chance to explore Fairmon. If any player has a Knowledge (Geography) rank, he may make a DC 20 check to remember the location of this village (it is about 50 miles west of the Mournland)

Fairmon Village (Mistbound)
The village of Fairmon is locked in perpetual mist. This is because most of the inhabitants are in fact ghosts completely unaware of their state of undeath. They do not have any of the abilities of the ghost template from the Monstrous Manual and are ghosts only in the sense of being undead and incorporeal. The town otherwise functions much as a town locked in perpetual mist next to a haunted forest containing a haunted mansion that was once the sight of unspeakable agony, terror, desperation, and murder would. Oh. Hah. Anyway, the ghosts feel solid and move objects etc, etc, and are indistinguishable from regular people except by effects that would normally detect or affect undead (detect undead, disrupt undead, cure/inflict spells). The townspeople are slightly wary of the PCs, but will speak to them cautiously. If they ask about the old man, and describe him, the townspeople can identify him as the town’s mayor. If they ask about the mist, they shrug, and don’t really know why it’s misty. If they ask what services are available in town, there is an inn (The Traveler’s Rest), a general goods store (sells Basic Adventuring Equipment), multiple farms on the edge of town, bakery, blacksmith, a mill (they are told it is in the forest and abandoned), a butcher, and other basic village services.

In the town, the following people are actually alive, and aware that something at least is wrong: Eterias (Aristocrat 1/Commoner 2, the mayor of the town),

Anyway, that's what I have done so far. I need ideas for features (I intend to have a couple of the undead in a mansion be friends/family/love ones of townspeople that were lost), and just how much 'make this survivable' treasure to hand out vrs making it a monty haul.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Jancarius 10-06-05, 12:14 AM	You, players of mine that read these forums, STAY OUT. Unless you want to have the Halloween session totally ruined. Or at least mostly ruined. Either way, I'll be REAL mad if I go to all this trouble and one of you reads this thread. To help prevent this, I'm using this nifty spoiler block! Don't open it if you play in my campaign!Okay, now that we've kicked them out. One of my players (the one who said my game was the highlight of her week :) ) wanted to do a special by-candlelight D&D session the weekend before Halloween. I thought this was a great idea. Not only do I love any excuse to wear the cloak I bought some time ago, but I've been wanting to run a truly terrifying adventure for the PCs, with lots of vivid imagery, terrifying mysteries, etc. To this end, I've picked up this months Dragon issue, for the Origins of the Undead and the Hauntings articles. I've got Heroes of Horror and Magic of Eberron on pre-order (and they better get here before the game, or my wrath will know no end, Amazon.com!). I'm renting and watching every haunted house movie (that's good) and other such horror movies I can find. I'm taking ideas from Onimusha games and Resident Evil. Now, I seek advice on how to do this without SLAUGHTERING the party in a orgy of darkness, hatred and despair (and also, I really want to talk about how excited I am for all my planning). THe hauntings alone are terribly dangerous to the party. One haunting that is. Putting the three or so that I was going to try and make is almost certainly a TPK waiting to happen. I don't know if any of the rest of you have read the hauntings articles, but they cover creating areas that are almost permanently tainted by long ago cruelty, slaughter, or other malice. Or perhaps you want to make something similar to The Ring? Rules for that too. A pretty neat article, I thought. But also, the kind of things that I want to throw at them would probably kill 4 L3-5 adventurers (We have 2 more sessions between now and then, it remains to see how challenging they are and what level they will attain). The basic setup so far is this: On Halloween weekend, some of the players are arriving early to help decorate the room. Our original ambition involved covering up all the white walls in the room with black cloth, but our budget rapidly shrunk that plan to the gaming area itself. We're getting some dry ice, candles, and black lights, and we have some various Halloween props. Each player has a cup with a different theme. Mine is a 'stone' goblet with skulls on each facing, and the players whose idea this was has a skeletal hand rising out of a pentagram to grasp the main part of the cup. The other 4 have not yet been purcahsed. I intend to have spooky music (Boogiepop and Serial Experiment lain soundtracks, bits perhaps from Harry Potter 3rd soundtrack, and any other creepy mood music and noises I can find), and everyone is to wear as much of their costume as they can find (if appropriate... I know at least one player woul just look silly). The game will begin by me shifting the party (however contrived it may have to be... I have informed them of this planned contrivence) to a near-deserted town, where they will be approached by a local generic quest giver (old man/woman, blind seer, etc), who will tell them of the haunted mansion/hill/forest/terrain feature/structure. Something like this: "Yes, it has been long haunted. Many adventurers and mercaneries have tried to clear it out, only to emerge hours later, gibbering in madness, some homicidal, and some totally lost to the outside world, and often looking as if they'd aged years in the short span of time they were within. The local lord <name> has declared that whoever can clear the land of it's dark spirits shall be granted it as their own, to do with as they see fit." This is mostly just the IC hook, my players are wonderful about taking the bait when I present it to them. I would honestly be shocked if any of them did the 'smart' thing and NOT entered the forest (yes, a forest... with a mansion and a graveyard... a mansion that was once a place of horrible AGONY!!!) So of course, after buying supplies (in an usually well-supplied small town), they will head out into the forest. I'll let them wander around in the forest for a while (if anyone knows any free maps of forests or such, it'd be nice) and then be chased or stalked by something barely seen till they get to the House. They'll spend the night at the house, exploring it as they wish. In fact, I want them to find every non-secret room in the place. But once they rest for the night, the terror will begin. Some rooms may be low magnitude Planar Cankers, while the entire house is a Bad Place. A volume of spellbooks in the library are the Eidolon holdings of the mad wizard who resided here. Skeltons, ghosts, and zombies and any and all varieties of undead that I can justify will meander through the house at night... a night which seems to last eternity (in other words, till the PCs are dead or the house is signifigantly weakened). There's just one problem really, and that is that I'm pretty sure that it will be fatal to the PCs based on teh sheer number of undead (particularly incorporeal ones) that occupy the place. I was thinking one solution might be to inform the players in advance that if they are annihlated, they continue next week from where they left off the week before, IE, as if this session never happened, but otherwise, gain the benefits of EXP and treasure they locate. Any suggestions on ways to run this, and any addtional measures to make the scenes more spooky?
mgmontgomery 10-06-05, 03:57 AM	I promise I didn't open the spoiler. But I like the idea of a special Halloween adventure.
Millennium 10-06-05, 03:32 PM	Give everyone free Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting (waiving epic requirements), Monkey Grip, and Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Greataxe, plus a pair of +5 Vorpal Greataxes of Holy Power. Add 50,000 zombies, shake well... Oh; you mean a serious Halloween adventure? :D
Jancarius 10-06-05, 03:54 PM	Yeah, I did :) What I'm working on at the moment is the town outside the forest.Eberron Advanced Campaign – Special Halloween Session “For tonight’s session, we’ve made a few special preparations, just for you guys. A few changes in décor, and a change from the normal style of gameplay. Tonight, we are dipping into darkness, despair, and madness. Your party finds itself in a town none of you have ever seen before. Glancing around, you don’t see many people. The one or two you do spot quickly duck inside their houses. Mist flows through this village steadily, carpeting the ground beneath your knees in a gray haze and restricting your vision. For the Halfling, the mist is eye level. Another thing you notice is the lack of noises… this town is completely silent, except for the sound of a door closing or opening somewhere in the mists. There is one sound, that stands out however. A kind of scraping, tapping sound. It seems to come from no specific direction, but after a moment or two, an old man emerges from the mist, his walking staff tapping the ground in front of them. He is positively ancient, with a beard that flows from his chin all the way down to his knees, and scraggly, slightly wild gray hair. His skin is wrinkled and blotched in places, and his clothes hang loose on his thin body. He stares at the party with blank eyes for a moment, before blinking, once, then twice, and launching so abruptly into a speech that you are momentarily surprised. “WELCOME ADVENTURERS!” He practically shouts “Welcome to Fairmon, our quaint little village.” He waves his staff in a wide gesture, nearly hitting the leading members of the party. “We have everything adventurers could want in a town you see! Friendly people, good food, fine wines! Rest and be merry!” He cackles, and begins to hobble off into the mist.” If the party makes any effort to stop him, a sudden gust of wind blows the mist around him completely and he vanishes. Otherwise he simply walks into the mist and disappears. The party now has a chance to explore Fairmon. If any player has a Knowledge (Geography) rank, he may make a DC 20 check to remember the location of this village (it is about 50 miles west of the Mournland) Fairmon Village (Mistbound) The village of Fairmon is locked in perpetual mist. This is because most of the inhabitants are in fact ghosts completely unaware of their state of undeath. They do not have any of the abilities of the ghost template from the Monstrous Manual and are ghosts only in the sense of being undead and incorporeal. The town otherwise functions much as a town locked in perpetual mist next to a haunted forest containing a haunted mansion that was once the sight of unspeakable agony, terror, desperation, and murder would. Oh. Hah. Anyway, the ghosts feel solid and move objects etc, etc, and are indistinguishable from regular people except by effects that would normally detect or affect undead (detect undead, disrupt undead, cure/inflict spells). The townspeople are slightly wary of the PCs, but will speak to them cautiously. If they ask about the old man, and describe him, the townspeople can identify him as the town’s mayor. If they ask about the mist, they shrug, and don’t really know why it’s misty. If they ask what services are available in town, there is an inn (The Traveler’s Rest), a general goods store (sells Basic Adventuring Equipment), multiple farms on the edge of town, bakery, blacksmith, a mill (they are told it is in the forest and abandoned), a butcher, and other basic village services. In the town, the following people are actually alive, and aware that something at least is wrong: Eterias (Aristocrat 1/Commoner 2, the mayor of the town), Anyway, that's what I have done so far. I need ideas for features (I intend to have a couple of the undead in a mansion be friends/family/love ones of townspeople that were lost), and just how much 'make this survivable' treasure to hand out vrs making it a monty haul.