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As I mentioned in yesterday’s email, My Unfavourite Time Of Year & Price Increase Heads-Up, the price of The Demonplague goes up at the end of this week.
If you’ve been thinking of buying the complete campaign and getting all its loot, you can still get everything for $39 until October 11.
Click here to learn more about The Demonplague, a level 1-20 D&D 5E campaign.
Meantime, I got to wondering how I’d Halloween-ify The Demonplague.
Here are some ideas:
1. Monster Swap
Change your villain and their minions to undead.
Instead of Xancrown being a demon, make him a vampire lord, trapped for a thousand years in his chamber, à la Iggwilv.
We’ve already got zombies in the adventure, “survivors” of the apocalyptic disaster at campaign start, plus several new homebrew undead that come later in campaign. We’ve also got the dreaded Valok plague bearers for some Halloween scares.
I’d give some kind of mental connection between Xancrown and undead in Luna Valley, even if it’s weak or chaotic such as through dreams or instinctive urges, so that the creatures would feel more like a faction and pose greater challenge to strong parties.
Plus, it would give you a villain with more agency as the campaign wends onward.
2. Celebrate in Tomar’s Crossing
The beleaguered survivors of the unnatural catastrophe that turned the Luna Valley into a post-apocalyptic fantasy nightmare might still want to follow customs and try to make life seem normal again for a little while.
But, instead of trick-or-treaters pillaging for candy, the survivors celebrate All Hallows Eve in a different way:
- Festival of Spirits. Villagers light candles in carved potatoes and turnips to guide friendly spirits back from the spirit realm for one night. Music, food, and dancing celebrate the commune with spirits. Perhaps ancestors come to visit, warn, or scare.
- The Cleansing. Villagers hold a ritual to purge evil influences, which has never been more vital. They dress in frightening costumes, make noise with bells, chant, and burn herbs to scare away hostile spirits and bad luck before winter.
- The Harvest Feast. All crops, gardens, orchards, and even wild plants have been washed away by the river valley tsunamis. So the villagers make this year’s event a scavenger hunt. Everyone spends the day in groups, each group protected by one or two Order of the Last Bastion Knights, to scrounge up food, building materials, tools, and anything else. Then, as everyone returns, a big feast is made from what little could be found.
- The Haunted Hunt. The villagers are supposed to engage in a ritual hunt of an evil creature that PCs might later realize looks a lot like Xancrown. Villagemaster Bjalien Viadas dresses up as the villain and runs around a great bonfire while evading mock blows from children wielding sticks as “wooden swords”. Then the community sings and feasts after the villain has been defeated, though this year there is more singing than feasting, alas.
3. The Corn Maze Beast
By some fluke, perhaps from being sheltered by a terrain feature or having high ground, a small field of corn escaped the recent catastrophe that’s wiped out civilization in the Luna Valley.
Someone from Tomar’s Crossing discovers this field and rejoices for all the food it will bring to the village. But, as harvesting begins, a terrifying foe who is also hungry emerges to defend their territory. The PCs are summoned to help.
Room 1: The Scarecrow
In a clearing stands a creepy scarecrow with a pumpkin head. Imbued with leftover magic leeched from the glacier, it animates and attacks.
Room 2: The Cornfield
As the party explores the tall and obscuring rows of corn, stalking their foe, they hear ominous rustling sounds and spot empty corn husks and broken corn plants.
Then the PCs stumble upon goblin bodies, apparently slain by the creature, corn still in their hands and mouths. One goblin still lives, barely, and can give only a confusing-yet-terrifying description of the Corn Beast.
Room 3: The Corn Maze
Paths between uneven corn rows act like a maze, disorienting the party and potentially draining time so that dusk descends. Calling out to the creature will earn return snorts and whistles, encouraging the party to venture deeper and possibly becoming quite lost.
Footprints of goblins and the creature lead to Room #2 and Room #4.
Unfortunately, unless the PCs are being stealthy, a scarecrow from the field’s other side is roused and stalks the party, seeking opportunities for ambush but also potentially confusing players who might think it’s the Corn Beast.
Room 4: The Corn Beast
At the heart of the maze lurks the monster our party hunts a (d6):
- A monstrosity made entirely of corn stalks, corn husks, and pumpkins. It captures intruders with vine-like tendrils.
- Headless Valok or Valok Chosen, cursed with insatiable hunger for the living, a half-crushed gourd stuck on the stump of its neck.
- Giant moose or elk, majestic but dangerous, its haunting bugle terrifying and disorienting those who hear its dirges.
- Bulette that hates the taste of corn but loves eating corn roots. Its many tunnels under the field are like constant pit traps for the exploring PCs.
- Owlbear taking advantage of the dense cornfield’s shelter. It’s woven layers of stalks and husks into a huge nest and learned how to shoot corn cobs at high velocity with its beak.
- Giant spider, currently spinning webs amongst the plants to trap vermin, goblins, and large flying insects. It uses corn silk to become almost invisible and can walk atop the tall stalks in silence to ambush from above.
Room 5: Cornucopia
The corn beast has assembled and maybe buried a large cache of corn and several interesting or valuable scavenged objects, such as farming implements, some shiny jewelry, and a magic flask that pours 5 cups of wine every hour.
Twist: Cursed Corn. The magic from the glacier, Ice Tongue, has seeped into the corn itself. Anyone who eats too much of the corn (including the goblins) could slowly transform into a Corn Beast or plant type critter.
Celebrate Halloween this year by getting yourself The Demonplague and making some scary additions.
Whether you’re swapping out monsters, creating spooky events, or designing terrifying mazes, I hope these ideas make your game a hauntingly good time!
Cheers,
Johnn
roleplayingtips.com
https://discord.gg/6MxTRAqQ76
Have more fun at every game!
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