Hello! I've played DnD on and off for years but haven't DM'ed in a long time. I'm setting up a homebrew adventure that should hopefully be 4-6 hours in length, and I'm wanting to make it as terrifying as possible for my players. My current plan is to have them start by entering a village where NPC's all seem slightly off with people randomly dying in their sleep at night. Players will eventually be led by clues to the castle overlooking the town, where it will turn into a dungeon crawler culminating in a boss fight with a giant eldritch monster living underground who has been leeching the life force out of the town's inhabitants to sustain itself, finally consuming them during sleep through Nightmare on Elm Street-style nightmares. So far there are three lvl 1 players, and I'm thinking of adding 2 NPC's to their party to balance encounters out. Any really horrifying monsters I could add, plot twists, or other freaky details to keep things tense? Any advice is appreciated!
If its level 1 characters then they might find most things quite difficult to combat but here's my 2cp worth and fel free to change names etc.
"A Night Hag called Granny Kruger once made the castle her home after corrupting the family that lived there. The villagers eventually rose up to oust her leading to a mob weilding torches and pitchforks storming the caslte and laying waste to Granny Kruger and her minions (the corrupted family). Granny Kruger, being a fiend, dissolved and returned to the Nine Hells and her minions were apparently destroyed completely, but actually faded away into the Shadowfell where they became Allips (CR5 Undead). In the Shadowfell these Allips started to perform a grand ritual to restore Granny Kruger to the Material Plane, this is something they do without any conscious thought on their part, they just feel compelled to enact it. The result of this ritual is a thinning of the veils that seperate the Shadowfell and the Matreial Plane which causes nightmares in the villages around the castle and each person that dies form these nightmares has their soul taken by Granny Kruger and if she gets enough of them she can planeshift herself back to the Material Plane."
Possible encounters:
Pop in some areas where people feel cold, feel like they are being watched or hear strange babbling noises. Anyone using Detect Magic in those areas finds Necromantic magic radiating out from small rifts ranging in size form roughly the size of a gold piece to the size of a room. the rifts are noticably larger in places where people have died. In those area's ask for DC11 Wisdom Saving Throw, on a success people here the noise or feel something odd but otherwise are fine, on a failure they take 1d4 Psychic damage nad use their reaction to move as far away as possible and they can only babble nonsense for 1 minute (if this happens in any combat style encounter allow a save at the end of each turn to end the babble effect).
One night as the party are resting a mob gathers outside their lodging. Shouts can be heard for the party to leave the village and the mob gets increasingly angry until they try to force their way into the building and more villagers can be seen moving into the area. Allow some Perception, Insight or Arcana checks to reveal some sort of magical influence (Enchantment and Necromantic). This is not a combat encounter but a skill check encounter, choose a number and that is the number of successful checks the party need to achieve to escape the Mob and find a new safe haven, each failure brings the mob closer to corning the party, I would say this number of successes should be one higher thant the number of characters (not NPC's) in the party. The party need to use skill checks to escape the mob, they can decide which checks they use as long as they can give some narrative way in which it helps, examples might be an Arcana check where the user is tossing out cantrips to cause distractions or blast locks of doors as the party flees, Stealth checks to hide in the shadows whilst they catch their breath, Survival checks to recall where side streets are they can dash down etc. Failed checks result in the Mob potentially noticing the party, in that event who ever failed the skill check rolls a Perception check for the Mob, if the Perception check succeeds the Mob gain ground on the party. The idea here though would be that the Mob never quite catches the party, they may get close but hte party eventually get away. By getting the party to rolls their skill checks and the checks for the mob they will hopefully get a bit stressed as the successes and failures rack up. If the characters are level 1 I'd say keep the DC to 11 or 12.
The party come across villagers sleep walking, treat as is if they are under a level 1 Sleep spell. There is otherwise nothing else happening but Detect Magic would reveal Enchantment Magic at work.
Inside the castle have sleep walking villagers clearing away an area and setting up an obvious ritual circle, Arcana or Religion checks could reveal it as some sort of summoning circle.
The party come across the remains of the previos family of the castle. Poltergiest activity ensues and in order to stop it the remains must be laid to rest, I would suggest by use of the Ceremony spell and/or some Holy Water but see what the players can come up with.
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Thank you so much for the in-depth reply! I really like the rift idea and the the need for skill checks, I was worried the village section didn't have enough activity in it to keep tension up. Also definitely going to explore the sleepwalking / ritual idea!
This one might be a bit late for you but I did have another idea which could lead off into a campaign arc.
The eldritch monster is actually a beholder that is hibernating, part of the lore is a theory that beholders are dreamed into exsistence. It is dreaming and its dreams have infected the town. Anyone that has died in their sleep has died due the beholders dreams giving birth to a guath or spectator which burst from the dreamers mind, effectiely blowing a hole in their head as it did so.
You can have the sleep walkers manifest an eye ray if they are disturbed, maybe have strange creatures seen floating around the area and have some villagers act in a more cult like way as they have started to worship the sleeping beholder.
For the eye rays manefested by the sleep walkers just take the standard eye rays of the beholder and knock the DC for the saves down to 11 and knock any damage down to a single dice worth.
Whent he party find the beholder they should be aware that it is asleep and they have no way to kill it in one round and you can then spin this off into a camapign arc where they try to find something to either kill the behiolder or push it back into the far realm.
Add 3 npc's. Kill them off in horrifying fashion. On top, and in advance, have a word with a player, and swap his PC for one of the NPC's - so the other players will think a PC was also turned into people-kebob.
For enemies, I had an encounter a while ago, where we - the PC's - fought a slow moving juggernaut around a small maze. We could kite it, but not kill it (at least not until we figured out how). The GM had it slowly but surely demolish the maze, making it ever harder for us to get away from it. We couldn't leave the maze. I think there was another time factor too, I fail to recall, maybe the maze was flooding? Anyways, we were rather quite desperate towards the end, when we finally figured out it took damage from salt or some such.
The enemy was kind of ... the blob meets shambling mound?
For low levels, darkness works wonders. Another GM (a friend, I wasn't in the game, but he told me about it) had something as simple as a dark room. Magical darkness, so the PC's at level 1 had zero counters. In the dark were 5-6 relatively harmless skeletons (this was in 3.5). But the PC's didn't know that. They tied a rope to a wall, and ventured into the dark, fumbling along. Then the GM told the player of the character in front that his hand brushed something - something that moved. They fled in blind panic.
Eventually they managed to beat the encounter, but bruised, bloodied and terrified.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I had great success in the Ravenloft campaign I ran by adding in a ton of tiny, creepy details. A lot of them I strait up stole from old horror movies. But the best ones (imo) were when I would describe something as being other than it was.
Like, If they were to see a child in the distance I would instead describe it as a sinister form walking with a slow, lumbering gate as though it were stalking something... only to be revealed as just an "innocent" child on crutches. I would play up random NPCs as being shifty or cagey like they've almost been caught in the act of some horrible deed, only to be guilty of forgetting their wedding anniversary. Take an innocent thing and describe it as something abhorrent then reveal its true nature as non threatening. This has an added bonus that when something really is dangerous, the players will actually expect it to be something normal and be surprised when they are actually truly in danger.
Add in a good dose of seeing things in reflections that aren't there, shadows that don't match or act/move independently that only one character sees. Hearing whispers calling a characters name that no one else hears. Smelling a familiar perfume that a character associates with a friend or loved one (alive or lost) but no one else smells it. Randomly having the players experience a nightmare during rests. And just telling the players that they feel like they are being watched weather they are or not.
All those tiny details add up over time and if your lucky, one of your players will tell you they got chills over the most innocuous thing.
Also, I hope your game went well!
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Hello! I've played DnD on and off for years but haven't DM'ed in a long time. I'm setting up a homebrew adventure that should hopefully be 4-6 hours in length, and I'm wanting to make it as terrifying as possible for my players. My current plan is to have them start by entering a village where NPC's all seem slightly off with people randomly dying in their sleep at night. Players will eventually be led by clues to the castle overlooking the town, where it will turn into a dungeon crawler culminating in a boss fight with a giant eldritch monster living underground who has been leeching the life force out of the town's inhabitants to sustain itself, finally consuming them during sleep through Nightmare on Elm Street-style nightmares. So far there are three lvl 1 players, and I'm thinking of adding 2 NPC's to their party to balance encounters out. Any really horrifying monsters I could add, plot twists, or other freaky details to keep things tense? Any advice is appreciated!
If its level 1 characters then they might find most things quite difficult to combat but here's my 2cp worth and fel free to change names etc.
"A Night Hag called Granny Kruger once made the castle her home after corrupting the family that lived there. The villagers eventually rose up to oust her leading to a mob weilding torches and pitchforks storming the caslte and laying waste to Granny Kruger and her minions (the corrupted family). Granny Kruger, being a fiend, dissolved and returned to the Nine Hells and her minions were apparently destroyed completely, but actually faded away into the Shadowfell where they became Allips (CR5 Undead). In the Shadowfell these Allips started to perform a grand ritual to restore Granny Kruger to the Material Plane, this is something they do without any conscious thought on their part, they just feel compelled to enact it. The result of this ritual is a thinning of the veils that seperate the Shadowfell and the Matreial Plane which causes nightmares in the villages around the castle and each person that dies form these nightmares has their soul taken by Granny Kruger and if she gets enough of them she can planeshift herself back to the Material Plane."
Possible encounters:
Pop in some areas where people feel cold, feel like they are being watched or hear strange babbling noises. Anyone using Detect Magic in those areas finds Necromantic magic radiating out from small rifts ranging in size form roughly the size of a gold piece to the size of a room. the rifts are noticably larger in places where people have died. In those area's ask for DC11 Wisdom Saving Throw, on a success people here the noise or feel something odd but otherwise are fine, on a failure they take 1d4 Psychic damage nad use their reaction to move as far away as possible and they can only babble nonsense for 1 minute (if this happens in any combat style encounter allow a save at the end of each turn to end the babble effect).
One night as the party are resting a mob gathers outside their lodging. Shouts can be heard for the party to leave the village and the mob gets increasingly angry until they try to force their way into the building and more villagers can be seen moving into the area. Allow some Perception, Insight or Arcana checks to reveal some sort of magical influence (Enchantment and Necromantic). This is not a combat encounter but a skill check encounter, choose a number and that is the number of successful checks the party need to achieve to escape the Mob and find a new safe haven, each failure brings the mob closer to corning the party, I would say this number of successes should be one higher thant the number of characters (not NPC's) in the party. The party need to use skill checks to escape the mob, they can decide which checks they use as long as they can give some narrative way in which it helps, examples might be an Arcana check where the user is tossing out cantrips to cause distractions or blast locks of doors as the party flees, Stealth checks to hide in the shadows whilst they catch their breath, Survival checks to recall where side streets are they can dash down etc. Failed checks result in the Mob potentially noticing the party, in that event who ever failed the skill check rolls a Perception check for the Mob, if the Perception check succeeds the Mob gain ground on the party. The idea here though would be that the Mob never quite catches the party, they may get close but hte party eventually get away. By getting the party to rolls their skill checks and the checks for the mob they will hopefully get a bit stressed as the successes and failures rack up. If the characters are level 1 I'd say keep the DC to 11 or 12.
The party come across villagers sleep walking, treat as is if they are under a level 1 Sleep spell. There is otherwise nothing else happening but Detect Magic would reveal Enchantment Magic at work.
Inside the castle have sleep walking villagers clearing away an area and setting up an obvious ritual circle, Arcana or Religion checks could reveal it as some sort of summoning circle.
The party come across the remains of the previos family of the castle. Poltergiest activity ensues and in order to stop it the remains must be laid to rest, I would suggest by use of the Ceremony spell and/or some Holy Water but see what the players can come up with.
Thank you so much for the in-depth reply! I really like the rift idea and the the need for skill checks, I was worried the village section didn't have enough activity in it to keep tension up. Also definitely going to explore the sleepwalking / ritual idea!
This one might be a bit late for you but I did have another idea which could lead off into a campaign arc.
The eldritch monster is actually a beholder that is hibernating, part of the lore is a theory that beholders are dreamed into exsistence. It is dreaming and its dreams have infected the town. Anyone that has died in their sleep has died due the beholders dreams giving birth to a guath or spectator which burst from the dreamers mind, effectiely blowing a hole in their head as it did so.
You can have the sleep walkers manifest an eye ray if they are disturbed, maybe have strange creatures seen floating around the area and have some villagers act in a more cult like way as they have started to worship the sleeping beholder.
For the eye rays manefested by the sleep walkers just take the standard eye rays of the beholder and knock the DC for the saves down to 11 and knock any damage down to a single dice worth.
Whent he party find the beholder they should be aware that it is asleep and they have no way to kill it in one round and you can then spin this off into a camapign arc where they try to find something to either kill the behiolder or push it back into the far realm.
Add 3 npc's. Kill them off in horrifying fashion. On top, and in advance, have a word with a player, and swap his PC for one of the NPC's - so the other players will think a PC was also turned into people-kebob.
For enemies, I had an encounter a while ago, where we - the PC's - fought a slow moving juggernaut around a small maze. We could kite it, but not kill it (at least not until we figured out how). The GM had it slowly but surely demolish the maze, making it ever harder for us to get away from it. We couldn't leave the maze. I think there was another time factor too, I fail to recall, maybe the maze was flooding? Anyways, we were rather quite desperate towards the end, when we finally figured out it took damage from salt or some such.
The enemy was kind of ... the blob meets shambling mound?
For low levels, darkness works wonders. Another GM (a friend, I wasn't in the game, but he told me about it) had something as simple as a dark room. Magical darkness, so the PC's at level 1 had zero counters. In the dark were 5-6 relatively harmless skeletons (this was in 3.5). But the PC's didn't know that. They tied a rope to a wall, and ventured into the dark, fumbling along. Then the GM told the player of the character in front that his hand brushed something - something that moved. They fled in blind panic.
Eventually they managed to beat the encounter, but bruised, bloodied and terrified.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I had great success in the Ravenloft campaign I ran by adding in a ton of tiny, creepy details. A lot of them I strait up stole from old horror movies. But the best ones (imo) were when I would describe something as being other than it was.
Like, If they were to see a child in the distance I would instead describe it as a sinister form walking with a slow, lumbering gate as though it were stalking something... only to be revealed as just an "innocent" child on crutches. I would play up random NPCs as being shifty or cagey like they've almost been caught in the act of some horrible deed, only to be guilty of forgetting their wedding anniversary. Take an innocent thing and describe it as something abhorrent then reveal its true nature as non threatening. This has an added bonus that when something really is dangerous, the players will actually expect it to be something normal and be surprised when they are actually truly in danger.
Add in a good dose of seeing things in reflections that aren't there, shadows that don't match or act/move independently that only one character sees. Hearing whispers calling a characters name that no one else hears. Smelling a familiar perfume that a character associates with a friend or loved one (alive or lost) but no one else smells it. Randomly having the players experience a nightmare during rests. And just telling the players that they feel like they are being watched weather they are or not.
All those tiny details add up over time and if your lucky, one of your players will tell you they got chills over the most innocuous thing.
Also, I hope your game went well!
Welcome to the Grand Illusion, come on in and see what's happening, pay the price, get your ticket for the show....