Friday, October 25, 2019

Top Ten D&D Monsters for Halloween

Oh how I love October and the lead up to Halloween. The cooler weather, leaves turning, ghost and ghouls roaming the neighborhood...such a fantastic time of the year. Like many other Dungeon Masters in the hobby, it is fun to run those spook and scary one-shots for Halloween, but there are so many monsters to choose from...what should your theme be. Well, here are my top 10 monsters for Halloween adventures, plus some suggestions of published work using them. This is definitely not the gospel and strictly my opinion, feel free to chime in on those you love as well.

10) Flesh Golem: not often used, but definitely iconic considering Frankenstein is one of the gothic horror tropes. Often used as the useful idiot, only killing by order of a crazed doctor who is pulling the strings; you can change this up by making the creature more horrifying...additional heads, arms or even monster parts. "Adam's Wrath" from 2nd edition Ravenloft is an adventure to consider, also "Trial of the Beast" from the Carrion Crown Pathfinder AP .

9) Zombies: you know this one would make the list. A good zombie adventure makes for a harrowing experience for a group of 1st level adventurers. I prefer a Night of the Living Dead approach....trapped in a house, survive the night from the zombie hordes, keep them coming until dawn and help arrives. "Night of the Walking Dead" from 2nd edition Ravenloft is another good adventure you could use.

8) Vampire: Sharp fangs hunting you in the night...oh the Vampire, another classic staple dating back to Dracula. Vampires can often feature as the main villain in an ongoing campaign...seductive, calculating and powerful...PC's beware! "I6: Ravenloft" if you haven't run this one for your group, go find a copy and do it, definitely an all-time great.

7) Gibbering Mouther: Straight out of Lovecraftian horror, the Gibbering Mouther is a favorite of mine. The ability to claw at and influence the mind of the PC's while this nasty guy closes in and devours their weak flesh...likely not a focal point of an adventure, but who says you can't do it. "The God that Crawls" from LoTFP would work for this one.

6) Green Hag: you can't do Halloween without some witches and the Green Hag is my favorite. Beware little children and player characters, this nasty gal has some stew to fix and she may need some of those body parts you're currently using. I've always wanted to add in a coven of hags themed around the women from Hocus Pocus.

5) Lich: Watch out for this bad boy. I've always been a huge fan of the scheming and mastermind Lich, often using them in my campaigns. To dial up the spooky factor, center your adventure around a wizard or cleric in the midst of their transformation into the undying lich...can the PC's stop them? Check out "Tomb of the Black Sand" a recent release from Jacob Hurst, an excellent OSR creator.

4) Wraith: Many will use ghosts for their haunting, but I really like the wraith. It is much more cruel and sinister. Let's not forget these nasty undead can level drain in the early editions of D&D...want to see some scared PC's, put a level drain creature before them. "Trial of the Beast" from Pathfinder, has a sinister little side-trek quest involving a wraith that had stolen away and killed many of a villages children, spooky indeed.

3) Devil: a lot of D&D is smash the monster get the treasure, but Devils are interesting creature to toss into the adventure. Often disguised or working along with the PC's, tempting them with offers perhaps too good to be refused. We all know your fighter won't turn down that flaming long sword of giant slaying +3, but eventually payment comes due. Hope your players are ready to fight for their very souls in Hell. "A Paladin in Hell" by Monte Cook is a great late 2nd edition adventure full of devils and demons to crush your PC's dreams.

2) Werewolf: Definitely my favorite iconic horror creature, the premise of man or woman trying to contain the beast within only to succumb murderous and animal impulses. For extra horror keep the PC's guessing whom the werewolf is in their remote village setting, perhaps their most trusted contact...maybe even someone within the party, evil indeed. 

1) Mankind (humans): Perhaps the most evil of all of the creatures. Cults and cultists are a favorite of mine. Worshiping their dark gods in the late hours under a full moon, sacrificing the village virgin for dark knowledge and gain, the allure of power and promise is often too much for man to refuse and these monsters blend in with the day-to-day surroundings of your adventure. "Against the Cult of the Reptile God" is a favorite adventure of mine, who in the village of Orlane can the PC's really trust.


Tuesday, October 22, 2019

The Best D&D Adventures you have never heard of: Stonehell

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What's that you say? You want to run a megadungeon and you have not prepped at all...well....we can fix that....here is Stonehell by Michael Curtis. This megadungeon is a master class in ease of use at the table. On one page you'll find the map for the section of the dungeon, on the other you'll find the room descriptions and encounters for that section. The levels of the dungeon broken out into quadrants, this is legit a megadungeon the DM could quickly pickup and hop into the action with minimal prep.

But the product is not just easy to use, it is really really good....tons and tons of factions within the levels, lots of items and room goodies for the players to interact with, and a fantastic story and subplot that encompasses the dungeon.

The basic premise is that an over-reaching ruler, in all his wisdom oversaw the construction of massive prison to contain the criminals and those who would oppose his rule. As the cells filled over the years, they continued to dig deeper and deeper creating a massive subterranean complex. For hundreds of years, Stonehell housed these poor souls, entire generations of families living out their existence within the halls of Stonehell. When the gates were finally opened and prisoners set free, darker forces moved in to occupy those haunted and troubled halls. Just how deep does the prison go and what treasure and relics were left behind? 

I'm a huge fan of this megadungeon and it is by far one of the best produced. Here if you're interested, you can find it in pdf and print on demand here:

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

The Best D&D Adventures you have never heard of: The Wizard's Amulet

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I am going to start a new series where I give the spot light to lesser known, but still really great adventures. The requirements for this series are that I own and have read and or run these adventures for my group. With the explosion of D&D from 5th edition, there is a lot of content out there, but a LOT of this content is pretty much garbage. The hope is that you will find some useful and really great options for your group.

First up is "The Wizard's Amulet" originally released by the now defunct Necromancer Games (Clark Peterson and Bill Webb). The Necromancer Games line of products has thankfully fallen under the umbrella of Frog God Games (Bill Webb), which is one of the finest 3rd party publishers going in the RPG community to date. This adventure was originally released in tandem with the release of 3rd edition D&D as a free RPG scenario. It has since seen updates and revision for Sword & Wizardy, Pathfinder and now 5th edition (link below).

The adventure was intended for use for 1st level characters and for that matter, 1st level dungeon masters. There is a lot of explanation and suggestions contained within the module itself and it does a great job of pointing alternatives and adjustments that can be made to fit your group. The adventure itself deals with the party escorting Corian, a young wizard, who can be played by one of the players or run as an NPC which I suggest given his importance to the adventure itself. 

Corian had recently come into possession of an amulet, formerly belonging to the wizard he had apprenticed. As luck would have it, this wizard had gone off to make himself a lich or some sorts, but by Corian's estimates had no where near the knowledge to complete the ritual. Corian knows that his former master had several magic items and spellbooks that would be of great interest and so has hired the party to escort and assist of the plundering of said tower.

But before we can get to the plundering....there are others who know that Corian now possesses the amulet and they want these treasures as well...

The adventure is rather short and can be run as an evening one shot with little difficulty, culminating with a final encounter where the other interested parties make their attempt to acquire the amulet. I'll avoid spoilers, but this will be an extremely lethal encounter for the group if they aren't careful. Necromancer Games had a motto: "3rd edition rules, 1st edition feel" and they aren't kidding! Grab your shovels, we've got some PC's to bury over here. 

All in all, a great introductory adventure and it's still really cheap. This was combined with the fantastic"Stoneheart Valley" book which has some follow-up adventures should your PC's survive this one. You can still find the pdf at Frog God Games website:




Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Call of Cthulhu: Dead Light, part 1

My group continued their Call of Cthulhu campaign this past weekend, given the time gap between the Peru section and when Masks of Nyarlathotep picks up in earnest with the New York chapter, I decided to run a one-shot to bridge the gap.

There were a few one-shot scenarios I considered, but Dead Light looked like the easiest to run and a lot of fun, and it did not disappoint at all!!!

I started off the scenario on a bit of red herring, having the group head to Arkham to fetch some books for Jackson Elias, whom had just departed overseas (start of the Carlyle research), from the Miskatonic University with the intention of delivery to his attorney back in New York. A few roleplaying encounters to obtain the books and the group departed Arkham, and that's is where the actual scenario picks up.

An early summer storm moving in as night falls, pouring rain, visibility cut down to a few feet and suddenly a girl is comes into view on the view. A failed driving check later as the vehicle swerves barely clipping the poor girl. The group was pretty scared at this point and somewhat delayed upon helping the poor girl, but eventually took action to get her in the car and headed up the road to a local diner and gas station. The girl, Emilia, was in shock and not communicating at this point. 

Arriving at the diner, the group of investigators discover a truck blocking the road, still running. The driver, also now in the diner, was being consoled by some of the others inside. He was claiming to have seen a "Dead Light" which frightened him off the road. There was some mild-brewing tension in the diner, as the waitress there, Mary, seemed on edge and stressed about something, having reacted to the group bringing in Emilia. 

My group was still set upon getting on with their business at this point, deciding to move the truck blocking the road to clear the way. Doctor O'Connor volunteered to go park the truck out of the way and an elderly patron of the diner went to go assist. As the good doctor wheeled the truck into a parking place on the side of diner, a flash of light over by the old man startled him. Upon exiting the truck, all he discovers is the poor man's hand still holding the umbrella seemingly burnt off and no sign of the man. The curious doctor folder up the umbrella, hand still attached, for future study. 

Delivering the news to his wife and informing the group that something wasn't quite right with the situation, the doctor was the first to be aware of the danger they were in. The PI of my group took this time to question Mary, the waitress, whom he had noticed was stressing about something. Some quick questioning quickly revealed some jealousy, anger and a sense of guilt towards Emelia, the lady, whom the group had taken in from the rain earlier.

Around this time, Emelia was coming around a bit and informed the group that two men had broken into her grandfather's home, attacking them with the intent of robbery and something had happened there, some creature had emerged from an old coffer her grandfather had kept at the house and that is when she had ran. With no where to go, the group steeled themselves and headed up the road to the cottage.

The rain had not let up, but the road up to the cottage was passable. Arriving the front door swinging open with the storm, muddy footprints fleeing the scene reveal that some others are not all accounted for just yet. Entering into the house, guns draw, the investigators discover a scene of horror. Emilia's grandfather lay dead, injured from an apparent shotgun wound, worse though an unknown man with his body seemingly consumed from the waste down by some means of fire?!?!? A smashed coffer, with a fine ashy substances is spilled between the two bodies, litters the floor his as well. The group wasn't able to fully understand what occurred, but they did discover a connection between the younger man and Mary, perhaps a boyfriend, now they are more suspicious of her.

The group split their search of the remaining house, discovering a journal with some instructions for containing the creature and dated entries of it's use on actual humans...creepy....a generator in the basement and bit of background information on Emilia, detailing some visits to the psyche ward. With enough information to be dangerous, the group decided to head back for the diner before whatever was out there could find them....about that....as the group hurried out the door, an unknown man come running out of the woods...."I'm so sorry..." his last words before the Dead Light emerges from is now consumed body...better run boys!




Tuesday, October 8, 2019

AD&D 2nd edition settings...I miss you

Oh TSR, how I miss you. Here several years into the reign of 5th Edition and WoTC is clearly firmly entrenched with Forgotten Realms, but in a way I hope they never touch some of the other beloved settings because I know how thoroughly they would screw them up. 

2nd edition AD&D is best known for the numerous settings launched, specifically through the use of boxed sets. Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Greyhawk, Birthright, Planescape, and Spelljammer. We all had our favorites that appealed to us, but I remember the days of envisioning a campaign or characters set in all of these settings. I tandem with the table top RPG setting splat books, TSR also published numerous novels with each setting. The Dragonlance Chronicles (Hickman and Weis) are what plunged me into the hobby in the mid 80's and Dragonlance will always be my first love because of that. 

To this day nearly 30 years later, these same box sets sit on my bookshelf awaiting more usage, which brings me to the point of this blog. I've been working up my next campaign...err....well what to actually do for my next campaign. I don't believe my group will finish all the way through Masks of Nyarlathotep and I don't think I have the stamina to run that much CoC through Roll20. So I want to start on another D&D campaign soon...I had been leaning towards doing a mega-dungeon, specifically Rappan Athuk from Frog God Games or the excellent Barrowmaze, but my group tends to enjoy the story based campaigns which brought me back to these beloved 2nd edition campaign settings.

So which to choose?....honestly I'm leaning towards Planescape. It is so open ended that I could toss just about anything I want into it, but as a DM you definitely have to scale it down to be usable without melting your brain with all of the possibilities a Planescape campaign could go in. I'm thinking maybe starting some where on the Prime Material plane and getting the group to Sigil, eventually working towards the "Dead Gods" module published in the late TSR era by Monte Cook. Let me know if you have any experience or thoughts on Planescape from your games, I welcome any input.

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Masks of Nyarlathotep: Peru...continued

So...where did we leave off....oh right. The group upon questioning and pressing Larkin, force out the aspect of Nyarlathotep that is inhabiting Larkin. A failed sanity check later and the group decided it was best to back off for now. I decided to toss a wrench into their plans though, as they were headed back down to the hotel lobby to leave and regroup, I brought de Mendoza in the front door of the hotel. The showdown in the lobby...both groups pausing waiting for the other to make a move, queue the Western music!

De Mendoza reveals his true aspect, the jutted jaw and rows of teeth, his monstrous form prompting a sanity check. The "muscle" in the group, a big-game hunter wastes no time, pulling his pistol and rolling an impaling strike, The Call of Cthulhu term for critical hit essentially. Instant kill...or so the group thought, upon examination, I reveal the wounds appear to be slowly healing. After some discussion with the authorities and some hotel clean up, de Mendoza is taken away to the morgue...for now. Also, can we talk about just how lethal CoC can be? Most investigators will only have between 10-15 hit points standard which will never increase through the life of the game. They are all just one bad dice throw away from instant death.

The expedition took off as planned on the following Monday, Larkin swearing off any knowledge of de Mendoza's roll in the killing of Riza, the professors aid, in the previous session. It was a 3-day journey to the Southern Peruvian city of Puno near the site of the pyramid. I had one social encounter during the journey with the player who was playing the PI of the group...I wanted to hint at Larkin's potential ability should Nyarlathotep take over. Casting a spell on him, that I conveniently had Jackson Elias interrupt. Hopefully the players are taking notes at these hints as I bread crumb them along.

Arriving in Puno, I gave the group a chance to load up on any supplies they may need for the final leg to the pyramid which mostly be on foot. Jackson was going to meet with the local spiritual healer and wise woman located in Puno, Nayra. This was the last chance for the players to gleam any bit of information about the pyramid...2 of the investigators tag along with Jackson to visit the wise woman. Traveling out to a small island village on the neighboring Lake Titicaca, the wise woman provided some insight into the lore behind the pyramid and that of the vampire menace plaguing the group. Once the discussion was over, with the fog rolling in on the lake, a group of vampire made their attack on the investigators and Nayra. One of the investigators suffering a bout of madness while watching one of the creatures feed upon the local villager. With Jackson help, they are able to kill off the creature before too much harm could be done, but the circle was beginning to tighten around the group.

In the morning, the group sets out for the last leg of the journey towards the highlands and the location of the pyramid, which only Larkin knows of, definitely not suspicious at all. A brief encounter with a local farmer and his son whom had recently had a run in with the vampire creatures, alerted the group to more trouble on the way, before coming across the pyramid itself, located in a forgotten valley...miasma of black smoke seemingly seeping out of the top of the structure.

As the investigators approached, Larkin became more anxious, ever closer to achieving the goal of his master's bidding in removing the golden ward currently containing the Father of Maggots within the structure. The group definitely played it cautious here to their credit, finally discovering a means down into the structure. Upon first entering they find two of the vampiric creatures sleeping in a room adjacent to the tunnels. Quickly dispatching them before they awaken, they also find a large treasure collection that creatures had nabbed from figures over the countless years of their existence. 

Larkin,ever so close to success, now fully takes on the aspect of Nyarlathotep. Commanding them to do his bidding, signifying this by casting a withering spell upon one of the players. At first they did not know fully what to do....I almost thought they would go for it, stripping the golden ward, but just as things looked bleakest, the big-game hunter of the group fires his sidearm and yet another impaling strike. Larkin is finished. It was at this point that the doctor, whom had discovered the broken section of warding long stripped from the pyramid, revealed to the group that he had it in his possession. The group cautiously hunted the base of the structure for the missing section, finally discovering near a pool of the foul fat that had been nourishing the Father of Maggots all of these years. Some careful planning and a suggestion from Jackson helped to clear the larvae infested pool and replace the missing piece of the ward and sealing the pyramid fully once again.

Overall, I had a pretty good time with the Peru section, I feel like my group of players is still struggling a bit to adapt to the CoC style of play. This chapter is certainly a pretty good intro to the game if for nothing else it felt fairly safe that all of the investigators would survive. Before I start the New York section of Masks of Nyarlathotep, I'm going to insert another scenario given the time break between those chapters, things are about to get a little more intense for the investigators.

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