Matthew Perkins
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Adventure Outline #003: Nice Work, Skeleton!
🕑 Added 2020-10-17 02:05:47 +0000 UTCHey everyone! This is a little adventure I'm prepping for my friends for Halloween. It's also a pretty solid look into how much detail I put into my one-shots. This is loosey goosey, mostly relying on everyone around the table having a solid understanding of cheesy horror tropes and riffing off each other. The only things I would add to this prep-wise is thinking of specific kinds of fun scares from movies, just so I could provide suggestions to the players if necessary. (Which means watching some horror movies! Yes!)
OPENING CRAWL
You are a skeleton. You and your friends are your master's favourite skeletons. You help him with chores around the lair and in return he showers you all with affection — but most importantly, he keeps you animated.
Master has been unwell though. His power is waning, and many of the enchantments around the lair have been fading. On Halloween, he calls you to his bedside.
"My children, I do not have the strength to renew the spells keeping you animated this year. Your very survival depends on this task I set upon you. Here is my Scare Jar, a powerful receiptical for pure terror. To power your enchantments, you each need to collect a scare from the village down the road tonight during their Halloween fesivities. But be careful! The Onyx Paladin is in town, and he is mighty smitey. To help with your task, you will need to find disguises to move through town unnoticed, and the gift of speech will prove invaluable."
Master casts the spell of Lesser Tongues on you, allowing you to speak and understand Common.
"Now, let me hear your beautiful voices, my children!"
THE SKELETONS
Everyone plays a seemingly-regular skeleton (or zombie) using the regular stat blocks. Intelligence is bumped to 10, and they can speak and understand Common. Each skeleton has a special talent — think like a circus performer. This is meant to be a simple little way to characterise each skeleton. Examples: fire eating, juggling, knife throwing, stage magic, comedy. The players have *insert session length here* to collect their scares.
WHAT IS A SCARE?
A scare is an intimidation check. Skeletons get a -3 to their Charisma checks, so the players need to set up scary situations to maximise their chances. Each target can only be scared once. A separate player takes the lead on each scare. A scare at any location causes such a ruckous that it's not viable for future scares.
- The Onyx Paladin Base Intimidation DC15
- Villager Base Intimidation DC10
- -1 if target is alone
- -1 for each scary element
- +1 for each non-scary element
- Advantage if it's a good jump scare
- Disadvantage if the target is particularly brave
A successful intimidation check means the target runs away white-knuckled screaming. A failed intimidation check means the target runs to get help.
THE ONYX PALADIN
This is our roaming threat: a 3rd-level paladin. If the party encounters the Onyx Paladin early in the adventure, perhaps he just Turns Undead. But if they encounter the Onyx Paladin towards the end of the session, feel free to start smiting these boney fools. Any skeletons who die can roleplay the scare victims moving forward. Play the Onyx Paladin as Lawful-Stupid, righteous as all heck.
POTENTIAL LOCATIONS IN THE TOWN
A Costume Shop
A Tavern hosting a frat-house kind of party
A haunted house attraction
A hay bale maze
A bobbing for apples/eating competition
A pumpkin carving event
A campfire with kids telling stories
An abbey
ENDING THE ADVENTURE
Not all of the skeletons are going to survive — that's OK. The remaining skeletons can bring their collected scares to the Master who will use them to renew their enchantments for another year.
Comments
Platypulogist
So, I finally played this! Amazing idea for Halloween c: Had four skellys: One who could become the biggest fear of a creature which was 5 feet or less of it (Boggart), one who could separate and control their parts (Chop-chop), the third one who could blend with shadows for 30 seconds straight and couldn't repeat it until 5 minutes later (Raven), and the last one could imitate the vocal cords of any creature who they could've listened to it (Tenor). It was amazing! Tenor went to a school theater when they were playing The Phantom of the Opera, replaced the actor and scared the living hell outta the girl whom they were playing with. Chop-chop tried to scared some kids at the park trying to become a ball, but didn't work and was kicked into a window, Shadow scared a teenager who was selling some candies to the kids and was chased by the Paladin and Boggart, who disguised themself as a lil' boy under a mat and entering a house, scaring the teen who was there and then hit by a flying chop chop. They avoided the Paladin as hard as the could and succeeded blending with the frantic people running, gave Chop chop another chance for scaring someone and made that man faint in horror. My last resort was saying that the Paladin thought that someone could come down from the hill and set a trap for the skeletons and made them all roll a Dex Save DC15 to jump a trap (to make them fight the Paladin) and. They. All. Rolled. Over. 16. Best Halloween idea! Thank you Matt!
W0RL0CK
Here is my idea for my skeleton's scare tactic: Spooky hay ride for the kidos Where: Hay ride leaves from center square. Kidos ride a hay straw full wagon pulled behind an old beat up horse-drawn wagon. The ride goes through a haunted graveyard, corn fields, and the old orchard! At one point the driver, who is a skeleton, but is in the best costume, says "oh we need a hammer to fix the wagon. The hammer is in the back of the wagon." Have a kido go get the hammer. When the kid grabs for the hammer there is a second skeleton. From that point the location of the care event is also staged, so a third (or more as available) skeleton will leap at the wagon from a nearby shadow. Then finally the driver will remove his costume and be yet another scare. Hopefully many screams will be harvested by the horror phylactery this night! EDIT: I allowed the party to choose one common magic item from a short list of common minor magic items. The items definitely helped with RP. I also allowed their skeletons to resemble their former profession; an apprentice (+2 on INT based skills), a thief (+2 to DEX based skills), etc. It was fun. Thanks Matt! If anyone needs more ideas, check out this Youtube series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1fLIzO-7JpZZnf4KuzjIElL9cHfT0lqi
