Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 BohoMojambo Jul 08, 2015 8:57:18	Hey all,   My players are currently traveling back to their home village through a wilderness area that has several abandoned farmsteads.  I'm planning on having a savage (Shadowfell fueled) storm sweep through the area forcing them to seek refuge on one of the abandoned farms. Anybody have any good ideas for encounters to use here. I'm definitely going to run a Scarecrow (with custom "blood crow" swarms) encounter in the fields. But I'm looking for other cool combats to run. There will be the standard locations (farm house, stables/animal pens, a small cellar dungeon etc) Whatcha got?
#2 Zortch Jul 08, 2015 9:07:16	Coackatrice with swarms of chickens - maybe nicely foreshadowed with a lovely sculpture garden of townsfolk out front.
#3 OoftaMeg Jul 08, 2015 9:27:42	Poultrygeists?
#4 OoftaMeg Jul 08, 2015 9:50:51	On a more serious note, it's a bit difficult to give specific monsters without knowing the style of campaign you're running and the level of the characters.  I normally take existing monsters and just refluff them as necessary.   Examples: Twig blights become "hay blights", animated swords are "animated pitchforks" in the barn. A skeletal minotaur is a good stand in for a skeletal bull out in the barnyard. Swarms of skeletal rats pour out of grain silos. The cellar has rows of preserves fruits that burst open and merge into your favorite ooze.   I would also think about having a central theme or source of the supernatural power.  Is the place cursed for a reason?  Are the PCs prevented from leaving the farm until they've solved the mystery of the family that was murdered here?
#5 OrwellianHaggis Jul 08, 2015 13:44:01	Banshee! Or several. Drop clues about an elf massacre in years past that led these spirits to drive out/kill the inhabitants. Give a leader-banshee the power to raise the old village folk from the grave as zombies (except they don't have graves, they rise in their houses, from the gutters, from the well, and so on).
#6 BohoMojambo Jul 08, 2015 13:54:17	Great suggestions. I love the cockatrice and demon chicken swarms idea. Pretty standard campaign. They are 2nd level. I'm running a very loose version of LMoP. They are currently on their way back from Wvrrven Tor. I'm leading the campaign towards some plane hopping eventually, and I'm having other planes bleed through into the prime material plane (through storms and other activities.) The farm was abandoned, like most of this region, due to orc invasions that swept across the land in decades past.   I would say the only thing preventing the PC's from leaving would be the dangerous storm raging outside. I'm trying to frame it as a "we need to hunker down somewhere real soon..." type of deal. LOVE the suggestions, particularly the preserves as ooze. Definitely using that!
#7 Varden_Khol Jul 08, 2015 14:14:35	A cool stand-in for the 'Blood-crows' would be to use the stats for Stirges. They're crows that latch onto their enemies and then continue to peck at their flesh furiously.
#8 BohoMojambo Jul 08, 2015 14:23:37	Great idea! I'll totally refluff stirges!
#9 OoftaMeg Jul 08, 2015 14:37:50	I can see it now ... driving rain from a thunderstorm outside ... realizing how dangerous it is in the house they go to leave. Opening the door they see a solid wall of scarecrows illuminated by the flashes of lightning.
#10 OGRE1984 Jul 09, 2015 0:21:44	shadow mastiff
#11 Imaculata Jul 09, 2015 6:19:50	The first thing any competent group of players would do, when they find a haunted farm, is leave. So better make sure that there is a very good reason why they can't leave. A mere storm, no matter how severe, might not be enough. Perhaps if they try to leave, they find themselves looping back on the same farms, no matter what direction they head into.   Then the next point would be, how do they solve the situation? What is causing the place to be haunted? Is it one or more restless spirits that need to be put to rest? Was a horrible atrocity committed here? Is it some supernatural being that is causing the haunting? Or did someone steal something from an ancient burial place underneath the farm, and do the players have to return this object?   Perhaps the players can find an ancient diary, written by the former owner of the farm. Perhaps this diary discribes what happened, and gives the players a vital clue regarding an ancient structure underneath the farm, which the farmer discovered?   For example:   The players find the farmer's diary, after following clues left by supernatural forces. The diary describes how a few days ago the farmer was visited by a stranger. The stranger asked strange questions. Questions regarding an old church and a cemetery. He said great riches await in a tunnel beneath the old church, and that he would gladly share the wealth. But the farmer did not trust the man, and lied to him regarding the location of the old church. But every night since that visit, the word "wealth" started to gnaw at his heart. Eventually he woke up in the middle of the night, took a lantern, and went into the stables. He lifted up an old hatch, and descended into a small cellar. There he overturned some of the old tiles of the church that used to be there. And behold, a tunnel was revealed, just where the stranger said it would be.   The farmer went down into the tunnel system, until eventually he stumbled upon an old tomb. He could not read the old writing on the tomb (nor could he read the warnings), but with a crowbar he managed to open the stone lid. And then his eyes lit up. Gold! So much gold. But the farmer became very scared. Would others come for this gold? Should he share it with anyone? He decided to keep it all a secret. He would stash the gold away underneath the hearth, and only occasionally spend a little of it. Whenever he bought something, his wife would ask him how he could afford such a thing. But he could not tell her. Eventually the gold started making him anxious. He started hearing things, seeing things. He started distrusting everyone around him, especially his wife, and the other farmers. They all came asking for things, as if they knew. As if they could smell the gold. At night he would see a shape standing in his bedroom, pointing at him, with accusing eyes. Even his own wife seemed to feel that something was wrong. She would always ask him leading questions. She was also after the gold, he knew. But she could not have it.   The gold started feeling like a curse, and one night he decided that enough was enough. He would keep only a little, and bury the rest underneath the old oak tree. But his wife caught him, and became angry with him for keeping all these riches for himself. He tried to make her understand how the gold was not a blessing, but gold fever had taken hold of her soul, and she was no longer the person that he married. She started talking about sharing the gold evenly, and about buying a new farm, maybe one for her own and for her family. In an act of desperation he hit her with the shovel, but one hit was enough, and she dropped dead on the spot. He ended up burying her with the gold. And that is when he saw the shape again, pointing at him from the door opening of the farm, and laughing. Was it the stranger? Or was it something else entirely?   The diary ends with just a few words of regret. The farmer talks about no longer wanting the gold, and about setting fire to the farm, but it doesn't seem like he succeeded. But if the players look towards the old oak tree at night, they might just see the body of the farmer dangling from a rope. If the players return all the gold to the tomb, then the curse will be lifted. This means digging up the gold underneath the oak tree, and finding the gold hidden underneath the hearth, and then returning it all to the underground tomb. After doing so, the farm lights up in ghostly fire, and is returned to its old burned state.There is nothing left of it but a charred crumbling ruin, and the haunting is at an end.