Homebrew adventure modules?

[Eladrinblade]

Does anybody ever make any on here?

Is anybody interested in being a part of making one or more? I think it would be a pretty cool community thing; we'd all have a bunch of material to use (like, say, over on the pbp forums).

[Morph Bark]

I've got one in the works that I plan on running for Playgrounders in chat games. I'd love to post it up once several instances of it have been run through, though. Fact is that each playthrough will yield a different dungeon, because the rooms will be arranged differently and each individual room will be slightly different as well.

I also have a half-finished one I worked on last year that was meant as a Halloween module, featuring Jack Skellington as one of the key NPCs.

[Eladrinblade]

Earlier this year, I ran an adventure for my irl group that I had made last fall. It used some pretty extensive houserules, but it won't be hard for me to convert them back to basic 3.5. It was made for a six-person party, and they went from 0 exp to halfway through 2nd level. It is a site-based adventure, something of a mystery, has plenty of combat, and is not linear. The setting was a fairly generic farms'n'forests area within a medieval-ish world - it could be Highfolk from Greyhawk, mistledale from FR, rural Breland from Eberron, etc.

Notes: The group I ran the module with used my houserules, had a six-person party, and all but one of those characters were well-suited to this particular adventure. Therefor, in normal 3.5, with a four-person party, I suggest the PC's be 2nd level right from the start.

I'll post it here in this post over the next several weeks. I'm going to make some fixes to it in a few places, since I didn't like the way it ran in a few places. Also, I ran it as the first adventure in a campaign, but the parts that lead to the next adventure can be easily changed or removed to make it a stand-alone. It took like half-a-dozen sessions to play through, many of which were 6+ hours, and one was 12. My group gave mostly positive reviews, saying that it felt like a published module, though they complained that the pacing is achingly slow in the beginning (which is one of the things I'm going to attempt to fix).

So, coming soon:

Elrah Manor:

Hook: The party crew is hired by their patron to travel to the next land over and search a location for a rogue alchemist, who has been supplying the enemies of their patron with alchemical weapons (a captured enemy was interrogated and gave up this location). The crew is attached to a merchant caravan and arrive a few weeks later in a town near the location (Elrah Manor).

Note: It could be any "find this person" quest, really, even a bounty. Some credible source has pinpointed the manor as the location of the alchemist.


Synopsis: The PC's gain entrance to the decrepit manor, explore it, find the alchemist, and get back out. Along the way, they must contend with a guilt-ridden sheriff, deceitful bandits, crumbling architecture, a tribe of goblins, an aranea (who has a strange connection to the manor) and her spider pets, the mute ghost of a young girl, and finally the kobolds who are behind it all. In a hidden section of the manor's basement, they find the alchemist in his laboratory, but all is not as it seems, and the true target is a surprise.


History: Elrah Manor was the home of Sir Viritan Morieth, a knight of the land the crew is from. Depressed by the death of his wife (Lady Elrah Morieth) and wishing to cease his role as an active warrior, Viritan was asked by the king if he would be the ambassador to the next land over, whom the king wanted an alliance with. Viritan, his daughter Eriale, and his best-friend/bodyguard Khazad Sunderstone (a dwarf fighter) left with a group of the king's subjects to build and staff the embassy (which was also eventually going to be a church of Heironeous, the official religion of the kingdom). Thus, Elrah Manor was established and built in the next land over, in a clearing in the woods just outside the small village of Shady Glen, about a dozen miles from a larger village on the other side of the woods which lies along a trade route.

Forty years ago, a Hextoran assassin brought an end to Elrah Manor during one of the many ball's Viritan threw with the rich and influential people of that land. The barn next to the manor (containing the horses, whom Eriale loved) caught fire, and the screams of a girl could be heard issuing from it. Thinking his daughter in danger, Viritan ran into the fire (overpowering Khazad, who was trying to stop him) to save her. Neither Viritan nor Eriale ever emerged from the barn, which burnt completely to the ground. Eriale was never in the barn. The assassin killed her and left her body in a hidden part of the basement, then started a fire in the barn and used an illusion to create her cries within it. Shortly thereafter, a civil war erupted in the kingdom (between Heironeans and Hextorans) which raged for years, and Elrah Manor was forgotten.

Khazad, in shame over his failure, evicted everyone from the manor, locked it up, and took up residence as a stonemason in Shady Glen. He was quickly appointed to town sheriff/militia leader, and is known by the locals as "Hammer" (since he wields a maul in combat, uses a hammer in his trade, and "lays down the law"). Hammer forbids anyone from going to the manor. It was looted over the next few years (including the wrought-iron double-gate), so he put up a strong wooden gate which is barred from the inside, and chained/padlocked the front door.

The manor quickly gained a reputation for being haunted, as many heard the weeping and wailing ghost that roamed around the field where the horse-barn had once stood (blackened spars still jut from the ground). Those who claimed to have seen it described a burning/smoking armor-clad skeletal man, crying tears of steam, wailing for his daughter. Less well-known: those who entered the manor to loot it never got very far without seeing the ghost of the knight's daughter, who would follow them, appearing and disappearing, walking into walls, trying to beckon them to the trap-door that leads to the basement.

The town priest, a pelorian named Nuril, secretly went to the manor one night a few decades ago and successfully put the ghost of Viritan to rest. He did not know of Eriale's ghost (as the looters wisely did not mention it in the village, where Hammer might catch wind). However, no one knows that he did this, so the manor's haunted reputation still stands.

Dungeon: Elrah Manor is a three-story house with about thirty rooms (including a large multi-room basement, a vast attic, and seven chimneys) surrounded with a 30ft cobblestone courtyard, ringed by a 12ft brick wall topped with hedge. The outer wall of the first floor is masonry, the chimneys are brick, everything else is timber and plaster. Visually, it is similar to this (http://www.idsnews.com/news/mfiles/photos/0000-p1-1490321017.jpg), though much larger, minus the bros with frisbees.

The basement contains a few hidden rooms and a hidden passageway that connects to a room on the second floor through a ladder. Also in the basement is a well/escape tunnel that leads to the creek (which is about two-hundred and fifty feet away). Newly connected to the basement via dirt tunnels is a goblin warren (constructed with help from kobolds).

It is in the middle of a mile-wide clearing in the woods, bisected with a small creek. A cobblestone lane flanked by tall overgrown hedges runs from the gate all the way to the road at the edge of the woods. The fields were once cultivated, but are now wild and overgrown. The house has been abandoned and left to the elements for four decades, and it shows. Holes can be seen in the room, windows are broken, collapses are waiting to happen (one corner of the house was struck by lightning during a thunderstorm and burned enough to cause a collapse).

Shady Glen:
Village (500)
200gp limit
NG town council

A small village located just inside the edge of the forest, Shady Glen is a collection of thatch-roofed wooden houses home to about 500 people (counting the nearby farms outside the forest). It has two dirt "streets" which meet at a "T" in the center of the village. At the "T" is the only stone building in Shady Glen, which is Hammer's workshop/home, which contains a couple of jail cells as well.

Two roads lead out of town, though one is somewhat overgrown. The overgrown one leads through the forest to Elrah Manor, and continues on to meet up with the other road further on. The other road leads just outside town to the church, then heads east around the forest towards Arafel, the nearest town.

The forest is known as Arrowfell Forest, named so due to the large amount of arrows that can be found within, often stuck in trees or sticking out of the ground. These arrows are said to come from hunters/rangers/bandits, and it is thought that a few elves still live within the deeper parts of the forest, and it is common knowledge that the forest contains centaurs.

Located about a quarter mile out of the village/forest, where several of the paths leading to various farms meet, is a second stone building, the only church in Shady Glen, which is dedicated to Pelor. It, like Hammer's workshop, is constructed of white limestone. It contains several small windows and a few carefully placed mirrors which ensure the altar is constantly within sunlight during the day. There is a room containing wood cots that travelers can stay in, should Nuril allow them.

Shady Glen contains a tavern, which the locals often gather at, but otherwise is not geared for visitors. It has a small militia of townsfolk and farmers that can be mustered within a few hours, via the bell at the church and a few horse riders. They consist of the strongest and toughest men, clad in leather armor and wielding spears. Some of the more dexterous townsfolk also contribute with light crossbows, a few own horses and can ride them competently, and several own riding dogs that know how to attack and track. A few hunters armed with bows can be mustered from homesteads further out.

Note: I didn't name any of the places within Shady Glen, and it never came up when I ran this adventure.

Khazad "Hammer" Sunderstone:
LG Middle-aged Male Dwarf Expert 2/Fighter 4/Commoner 1
W+6
Str 15, Dex 9, Con 15, Int 14, Wis 11, Cha 9
Sense Motive Focus, Iron Will
Intimidate +8, Listen +6, Sense Motive +9, Spot +6

Nuril:
NG Old Male Human Cloistered Cleric (Sun/Healing/Knowledge) 3
Str 6, Dex 5, Con 7, Int 13, Wis 16, Cha 14
Improved Turning, Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion

Halstar:
N Male Human Adept 4
Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion
2 - Scorching Ray

Notes: I made Hammer into a Maul & Shield fighter, and the party managed to convince him to participate in their final battle at the manor. Nuril is a noncombatant, though he aids the militia. Halstar is just a local who knows some magic.


Manor NPC's: