Haunted Manor fluff

[Talyn]

Hello, the Playground!

Right now, I'm building a haunted manor for my 1st level party of PCs (4th edition D&D, but that's rather irrelevant to my question), and I'm looking for suggestions for fluff, descriptions and rewards for the party.

The manor was originally designed as a summer retreat for an elvish duke. It's fairly small (only seven rooms and a grand ballroom on the first floor, which is all that remains), with extensive gardens. It was abandoned when the elven duke and most of his court (along with most of the rest of the nobility) died in a great war roughly 200 years prior to present day.

The "dungeon" itself is actually going to be the manor and the garden, which, due to the influence of an evil fae "overlord" has grown thick and fairly malevolent. The fae overlord has been kidnapping peopel from a nearby village, forcing them into servitude, and then turning them into statues when they cease to amuse him.

The thing is, I'm totally stymied as to what to put in the manor. After 200 hundred years, almost anything organic is going to be more or less gone, and I don't want to just have a bunch of bare stone rooms.

So, suggestions? Any thoughts as to some treasure rewards that are thematically appropriate and in line for a 1st level party would be appreciated as well.

[BRC]

Let's see, All the rooms of the house have been overgrown, covered with vines and shrubs and the like as the garden (under the influence of the Fae lord) kind of invaded. Also, some rooms should have, what looks like, tastefully arranged, incrediably lifelike status (The Villagers). Here is what you should do
First, Draw a map of the Manor as it once was, then, trace the path as overgrown garden moved in.

[angus cotton]

Personally, I find that haunted house adventures are better when there are very little monsters and all the things you put in each room are designed just to creep out the players....similiar to how you would run a Cthulu adventure. I have a tried and tested haunted house adventure that kicks---try these ideas (most are not original btw):

1) Once they enter the house, the door shuts behind them, and no amount of effort will get them out of the house (such as trying to hack through the door with an axe, throwing a table through a window only results in a cracked table with unmarred glass, etc. You get the idea---some "force" has trapped them there.

2) Have the manor or garden be possessed with the spirit of a damned soul

3) Occationally, have the party make listen checks. If they make it, tell them they hear whispers just beyond their hearing, but they can't make out what the whispers are saying. Sometimes, they might hear a child crying too.

4) Every few hours, have the party make a very easy Will Save (recommend like DC 11 for 1st level characters). If they fail, give them a random insanity roomed on a premade chart. Tell the player in private what the insanity is, and have them roleplay it...trust me, this part is quite fun! Immunity to Disease or Cure Disease blocks or cures this effect.

5) The garden theme fits with this idea (and from a video game I played back in the early 90s): have the party enter a part of the garden that is full of rose bushes full of beautiful red roses in bloom. At this, a housekeeper walks around the corner with a watering can. She looks at the party and says "Oh! Don't you just love my beautiful white roses?" While the party is wondering why she noted her roses as white, when they are clearly red, the housekeeper skips down with the watering can and starts to water her roses. The party then sees with horror that the watering can is dispensing blood onto the roses. The housekeeper (by now realized as an apparation) takes no further notice of the party no matter how they try to address her.

6) Also a goodie. The party comes to a room that is obviously childs room. ya know, blue or pink with ponys on the wall and a racecar bed (figuratively of course). Anyway, this particular room has long drapes on the windows that are drawn open so you can see the dirty glass behind it. Perhaps put a cheery animal motif on the drapes, to make it seem even more like a child's room. As the party enters or gets close, suddenly the drapes burst into flames, and they hear a child screaming in fear and agony (have your kid sister actually scream at the players without warning for full effect). As they watch the glass, encircled by the flames of the drapes, have the party see tiny childlike, yet bloody handprints appear on the glass, as if some child was trying to get out. The next instant, the fire is gone and the drapes look as if they were never burned.

7) In a kitchen, have another servant apparation preparing a meal. Looking at what she is preparing, it looks like she is taking moldly, worm infested meat and continually trying to roll it in flour. She takes no notice of the party, and may vanish at your whim.

8) In a library or study, have a few books with like just creepy titles, like:
"Haitian Voodoo of the Caribbean" and "Witchcraft and the History of Human Sacrifice in the 4th Century", or "Heretical Pagan Rituals of the South Islands" something like this...you get the idea.

That is about all I can think of right now. Enjoy

[angus cotton]

9) Oh ya, if they look out any of the windows (remember the glass is unbreakable), they see the surrounding land and garden as it was 200 years ago. They even see people moving through the garden with the clothes and fashions of people who lived 2000 years ago. You can also varies the time of day...if it was night when they came into the house, it is daylight now. Or winter/spring....whatever works.

[Prometheus]

I say pick a theme. It's one thing to have a dungeon, another thing to have a creepy dungeon, and another thing still to have a haunted dungeon. You have to figure out what happened in the past and why it is haunted still today. In general the scenario is the current haunting is a grotesque exaggeration of the tragedy of the past. If you like the prince-war story and also the garden-haunting effects, you have to find a way to link the two. Here are some ideas:

1)Everyone left the once vibrant manor to fight in the war, and never came back. At the same time everything was left in suspended animation (always expecting the prompt return) everything went into terrible disarray at their absence. So you want to exaggerate the loneliness of the mansion in several rooms of the house (say, ridiculously large and empty or with a cold draft blowing that deals small cold subdual damage). You want to show that it is on the edge of what could be, so you have the PCs hear sounds of live from other rooms, see figments waiting by clocks, come across warm drinks or other signs of life, and perhaps throw in a couple of unfinished puzzles (with small rewards for completing them). At the same time, the house should also have obvious signs of disrepair (stuck doors, broken floors, cold drafts, overgrown hedge mazes, rats or maggots). In the movie Ghost Ship, a popular tactic is to make a room look fresh, until the PCs start interacting with it and suddenly become horrified when it shows its real decay. If you do it right, the players should be struck with the feeling that this place is somewhere outside of time, and start to become afraid of being lost forever in it (again, make it maze-like and if you really want to get complicated, screw around with time and have a room change in time when they return to it). Perhaps the fey is the representation of a corrupt and evil lord that took over the house (managing it badly) when it was vacated by the war.
2)Perhaps the war came to the manor, where there was a horrible fight there. In that case, the PCs should simply always be bombarded by figment soldiers (and figment nobility defending themselves). In addition, images of decadence and peace should suddenly become juxtaposed with images of the terrible brutality of war. If you want something a little less combat intensive, than have the PCs be enlisted by ghosts to help them fight the others ghosts: Perhaps a small ghost child would require that they protect her and navigate the maze of the house so that she can escape to safety (which rewards the players but the ghost child ultimately dies-because she already did) or perhaps a large band of ghost soldiers forces them to stalk room for room looking for the nobility to slaughter in their hiding spots (just as a past member of the nobility was forced to - who later committed suicide). Perhaps the fey is a possessed by the maddened soul of the prince or the incarnation of the head of the opposing military.
3)In this scenario, it doesn't matter how the nobility died but only that they all died suddenly and an unprecedented number were buried in the grounds of the manor. In this case, you want to have the house be relatively unhostile, until the PCs accidentally disturb things (or instead have it be hostile and the goal be to undisturb things). Disturbing things includes walking over graves (that are not marked in any way), entering personal rooms, taking certain items, knocking over or tilting certain items, or failing to honor a marked grave, shrine or other altar. When the house is hostile, the dreadful realization you want to overcome them is that the plants are growing off the flesh and blood of the corpses and are the vessels of their wrath. Therefore the main antagonism is vicious plantlife and the main creepy scenes are showing how those corpses feed off of blood and are intertwined with corpses. The fey, of course, would be some sort of fiendish creature that profits off the misery of the ghosts and the parasitism of the plants and has to be disposed of to bring the house to peace.

There are, of course, ways to mix the thematic elements that I presented here, but the important part is to know what the story is. If the PCs don't figure out the mystery of the haunted manor before they leave, than the ghosts failed their main goal. In the beginning they probably just want to be left alone, but by the end they will even goad the PCs towards clues (old letters, rooms with visions, etc).