Howdy, adventurers! As you may have gathered from the title of this piece, I thought I would fit some Thanksgiving-inspired horror into my schedule for those of you cooking up a session and looking to parody the gluttony and tension that the holiday is often known for.

What's that? Your Thanksgivings are peaceful and joyous and without opportunity for satire? Well please do not let me interrupt your one-dimensional bounty with my deliberate attempt to create seasonal irony for the rest of us. The older I get, the fewer people I know who actually celebrate the holiday, and if anything this is merely an excuse for me to put together a few ideas I've had for ancient creepiness that has some topical silliness iced on top. 

Also, this is obviously a "trap" and perhaps this is a time to stop reading if you are not the token Dungeon Master of your group. But before you go, I feel I owe you at least owe you a topical joke...

Q: Why did Guillermo Del Toro refuse to eat the turducken?
A: Because it was made with cheap ingredients, and Guillermo hates to see an insulting budget do harm to a proper trilogy.

Ahem. 

Now, down to the secrets. Personally, I find it impossible to enjoy a fantasy-feast without remembering that scene in Pan’s Labyrinth. If you missed that movie, do a quick Google Image search for “Pan’s Labyrinth Pale Man Dinner,” and good luck with your appetite!

And now for the rest of you, the trap is thus...

Setting the Table

Players are to be invited to a remote cabin the woods, home to a wizard named Archmage Wozzleson who has heard tales of glory related to the party and wishes to reward them with a feast. I know, I know, a remote cabin in the woods with a reclusive archmage in it. Maybe don't call it "remote" or a "cabin." It should have an isolated retreat kind of vibe, so maybe call it a "humble, private woodland residence" or "definitely not magical horror house." Misdirection, folks.

This should be relatively easy to work into a campaign. Have they players recently undone a pack of brigands like it's Hero Quest? Unseat a creepy baron like it's Witcher 3? Just let the party's reputation spread to this isolated cabin, and let a messenger deliver the invite. Ah yes, before Evite, Facebook, and Paperless Post there was the wandering messenger NPC. Like being a paperboy, but even more likely to get you killed.  

Neighboring towns have all heard of Archmage Wozzleson, who is known for being unusually warm for a cloistered archmage. If there is discussion amongst your players about this, inquiries reveal that the archmage is indeed an old man rumored to be hundreds of years old, but all who know him on his occasional forays find him helpful and pleasant if a bit absent-minded. Roleplay him like a cross between Radagast the Brown from the Hobbit movies and Guy Pearce in the Memento movies. You saw those 3.5 hour Memento sequels, right? Yeesh, talk about limited source material.

Pies and Lies

So yeah, not a great memory on that goofy archmage, and there's a secret reason for all this that only the dungeon master should know: the original archmage is long dead and has been replaced with an unwitting fool. You know, your favorite long-con, the ol' Wizardy-Swaparino gambit. Some 30 years ago he passed away in his cabin, but in his wake he left a series of wish spells that continue to reverberate even after his passing. The titular result is a recurring feast, looking much like the one originally served on his last day alive, that refreshes itself every night with slightly altered dishes and nary a speck of mold or rot on it. 

Also contained in the cabin is a speckled pseudodragon named Piebalta, the archmage's former familiar, who has gone completely mad from the effects of these wishes. There is also the current archmage, an ordinary human commoner who was once named Theodore Bloggins. His memory was wiped some 30 years ago and has been thinking he is Archmage Wozzleson ever since. The current Archmage is getting long in the tooth, and Piebalta has decided he needs replacing, and your players' party looks like it might contain a likely candidate or two.

Wozzleson and Piebalta will do anything to lure a creature into the position of "new archmage," which is essentially a memory-wiping curse.

The whole plan is overseen by Piebalta, a twitchy grey little wyrm whose very existence depends on the meal going according to plan. Once the characters are seated at the table, there's really only two parts to the plan, described below, but they will need to convince they party that everything is on the up-and-up, first. Piebalta and his patsy have done a great deal of research and prepared a fascinating conversation that plays to all of the party's interests—be it hobbies, clues, conspiracies, et cetera.  And the wish spell coursing through Piebalta's veins gives both him and his fake Archmage advantage on Charisma (Deception) checks.

Such is the power of the foolish spells the original archmage cast. He really wanted an inviting meal in his home, and let's be honest, it was a little desperate. C'mon, dead archmage, just hire a chef and pay them a reasonable wage. You don't need The Great British Bake Off to teach you the importance of a simple kitchen run on kindness.

Wish Meat

The sequence of wish spells cast in this home are so powerful that they cannot be completely undone. But the logic of them goes a little something like this.

The oven and stove in the Archmage's kitchen can, indefinitely, produce a never-ending replenishing feast of roasts, bread, and soups.  Each dish functions like goodberry, and restores 1d6 hit points when a creature consumes it. In addition, players who partake in any bread or starch-based pastry will not age for the next 24 hours. For the most part this is passive and players will only notice things (like subtle facial hair growth or no usual accumulation of unsightly skin oil and sweat) if they succeed in a DC 20 Wisdom (Perception) check the next day. Not quite a Heroes' Feast, but it has its own charms. What adventurer can resist a free, warm buffet of magic starch after a long day of... literally anything?

Sounds great right? Unlimited breadsticks that DON'T give you the garlic sweats? It almost sounds too good to be...

Well, here's the thing.

The archmage barely knows what's going on. He's listening to Piebalta and doing whatever the familiar says. The pseudodragon, functioning as a sort of host and maître d' while the archmage rambles his pre-planned script, will insist on being in the room when the big protein is brought out. As soon as a player character takes of a bite of a meat-based dish, Piebalta asks a very pointed question, "You'll save room for dessert, won't you?" This is to cover for a flush the creature eating the meat will feel in their cheeks as they are being hit with a wish-adjacent charm spell. Players biting the meat and hearing the question will not immediately know there is a spell taking effect—and all who consume the meat must make a DC 18 Charisma saving throw. In-character, they'll think they just can't resist such a great chance at a dessert. But really, they're being finessed right into Piebalta's trap.

Should everyone in the party fail, an entire day will instantly pass without them having a memory of it. They will only feel flush for a moment and blink, if they choose to ask what happened.

Should only some of the party fail, or none of them, nothing out of the ordinary will happen. But feel free to read this to failing players to cover your Wizardy-Swaparino gambit:

Suddenly, as if struck by the spirit of a long-forgotten holiday for the sedentary, you crave nothing but cake and pies. You then wish to follow this by crawling immediately into puffy furniture, and if possible, reclining while some sort of leisure sport is performed for your entertainment. You are full, ravenous, and tired at once.

Regardless of whether everyone fails the "dessert save," and regardless of whether they want dessert, be asked if they want to spend the night. This time there is no additional spell cast, but anyone who spends the night has a chance of being selected by Piebalta as the new archmage. Theodore will be set free, mad and incomprehensible to wander the wood, and the party member will be enslaved until Piebalta is slain and returned to the feywild, breaking the charm.

The rest of the party, should they choose to stay, will awaken a full week later (the charm will automatically succeed several days in a row as various memory wiping is performed by the old wishes) in a pile of leaves about 5 miles north of the cabin. Hit your players with all the delightful autumnal scents that come with awakening face-down in fallen leaves full of dew and grubs.

Should no one want to stay the night, they will leave with only pathetic pleas from Piebalta echoing in their ears like the pleas of a great-aunt after Thanksgiving dinner, urging you to come watch horse races on the TV. This of course means they dodged the main goal of the trap through luck or intuition, but I recommend Piebalta get real thirsty here. Have him offer the party a sending stone, which Piebalta will then use exclusively to whisper messages of warm, coma-inducing food. Have Piebalta show up randomly in public places, ready to shower them with compliments on their latest adventures. Your party is essentially marked as his nutso ticket to continued service to his beloved, deceased master, and he is not above cornering you at a party to get you to come back to his... "not a creepy cabin."

The Aftermath

 Should the party simply get creeped out by the thirsty Hansel and Gretel witch vibe and leave, good for them and their clean shaves.

Should they wake up in the woods minus a party member, a simple DC 5 Wisdom (Survival) check will lead a party through the woods and back to the cabin, where they will find their missing party member believing he is an archmage. Should they go looking it will also be easy to find a raving Theodore in rags, tripping through the underbrush, like an uncle drunk on Jeppson's Malört, obsessed with finding "magic breadsticks" that will restore his youth. Sadly, he's lost 30 years and there's not much you can do for him other than get him back on his feet and tell him how questionable never-ending breadsticks are in your experience with chain Italian restaurants.

Piebalta will be erased from existence if the archmage dies and there is no replacement, hence his desire to keep someone in the house who will answer to the title. And all he simply needs to do is pledge himself as a familiar to a creature (ideally asleep in one of the cabin's cozy guest beds) and the old wish spell does its instant memory wipe on the player. If the characters wise up to the ruse and want to fight their way out, doing so isn't so hard. Theodore uses commoner statistics, and Piebalta's pseudodragon statistics aren't much to speak of either.

If a character becomes the new archmage, they lose all sense of self unless Piebalta is slain. If you think this will make the character an unplayable mess, you can make them an NPC under your control. Or, you can pull that character's player into another room, get them in on the gag, tell them they are now a mind-wiped fool who believes they're an archmage, and have fun screwing with your other players together. Also, have Piebalta get unpleasant and aggressive enough about seeing the party again that it's clear killing him isn't the worst idea. It is the only way to un-enslave the player and break the charm, and you should make no small secret that this messed up familiar is a memory-wiping creepazoid.

Who knows, maybe your players will even find a way to pull a "worst case" scenario and drag their mind-wiped player away without slaying Piebalta. That way, you have one of those groups that refuses to take the storytelling bait they are offered, but at least have an interesting weirdo with no memories in the party now.

After all, overindulgent feasts have claimed enough victims, they don't need a player character.

I like the idea of this trap leaving everyone unfulfilled, forced to reflect on their gluttony in accepting such an indulgent free meal from manipulative weirdos. You know, Thanksgiving tropes, etc. But maybe you're an upbeat sort, and so is your party. If they somehow convince Piebalta to relent and accept his fate rationally, feel free to reward your party with a Bag of Bounty from the kitchen stores. But that's if you're nicer than I am.

Dan Telfer is the Dungeons Humorist aka Comedy Archmage for D&D Beyond (a fun way they are letting him say "writer"), dungeon master for the Nerd Poker podcast, a stand-up comedian, a TV writer who also helped win some Emmys over at Comedy Central, and a former editor of MAD Magazine and The Onion. He can be found riding his bike around Los Angeles from gig to gig to gaming store, though the best way to find out what he's up to is to follow him on Twitter via @dantelfer.