"Haunted" House

[Regitnui]

Right, play grounders, I need some advice on constructing a maybe-haunted house on short notice. I've seen the Guardian Portrait monsters from CoS, and I've got a story reason, but the actual layout and spookiness of the house is what I'd like advice on. I'm also not sure whether the house should be gaslit (fake haunted to drive people off) or benignly haunted. Considering the undead in the MM, an aggressively haunted house could probably ruin a neighborhood...

[X3r4ph]

You should check out the DND 3.5 book Heroes of Horror. It has tons of ideas for a horror campaign. Here is a list I stole from the book of ideas to freak out your players:

A wolf howls in the distance.
• The torches/fi re/lanterns fl icker and almost die, despite the
lack of any breeze.
• A PC awakens to chewing noises beside her bed or bedroll,
with no sign of what might have made them.
• A PC fi nds blood on his clothes or blankets, with no obvious
source.
• A PC finds an old ivory pipe; whether she keeps it or throws
it away, she keeps finding it again and again in new places.
• The PCs wake up one day without shadows; their shadows
return without explanation 24 hours later.
• All background animal noises, such as insects churring or
birds chirping, abruptly cease.
• Random patterns—frost forming on a window, ripples in the
water, dark clouds in the sky, spilled ale—form the symbol
of an evil entity, the face of a dead loved one, or the like.
• Every mirror a specifi c PC looks at suddenly cracks, always in
the same pattern.
• A storm brews up swiftly out of an empty, open sky.
• Animals (even domestic or even-tempered ones) suddenly
grow hostile at the PCs’ approach. Flocks of crows or other
birds start to attack them; horses kick, cats scratch, and dogs
bite. Small creatures perch on nearby trees or ledges or in rat
holes, glowering at the PCs as they wake up or pass by.
• Spiders (or some other innocuous vermin) are attracted to
a particular PC; they act like overfond pets who nestle into
his clothing, attempt to share his bed, bring him tiny gifts of
food (web-wrapped living flies), and the like.
• The PCs discover that perfectly preserved and fresh rations
have rotted overnight.
• A PC’s reflection in a mirror is out of sync with her actions,
delayed by a split second as if it had to wait to see what she
did before mimicking her.
• A PC discovers a piece of the last monster or person he
killed mixed in with his rations.
• A portrait, statue, or mosaic seems to have changed slightly
each time the PCs pass by it.
• Footsteps echo through a house or hallway, with no
apparent source.
• A PC has a sudden premonition of doom for the peaceful
village her group is currently passing through.
• Somewhere in the distance, a baby cries. In a matter of
minutes, the sound changes to a young child shrieking, then
a young woman screaming, then an old woman choking,
then silence.
• A priest in the midst of an important religious ceremony
suddenly becomes unable to speak his god’s name.
• A PC hears a voice scream in the distance; it sounds like her
own.
• A character eating a piece of fruit discovers that the seeds
he spits out are in fact human teeth.
• A PC encased in heavy armor feels the touch of something
that feels like cold, wet, blind mice squirming between his
armor and skin; removing the armor reveals nothing amiss.
• Curtains or furnishings move as though something brushed
against them, yet nobody is in position to have done so and
no breeze blows.
• No nonmagical attempt at creating fi re—be it with fl int and
steel, tindertwigs, or even rubbing sticks together—will
ignite even the driest piece of wood or scrap of parchment.
• A PC awakens and looks around; everything around him
seems two-dimensional and artificial for half a second
before the world reverts to normal.
• For a single long moment, a PC cannot remember her own
name nor what she looks like. She is fi lled with a conviction
that her real name, whatever it is, is quite different.
• A character hears the soft giggling of a little girl, or distant
music; nobody else can hear it.
• A PC’s holy symbol begins to weep blood or to bleed from
nonexistent wounds.
• The PCs awaken after camping or resting for a night; one PC
has bite wounds on her neck, arms, and legs, while another
feels far too full to eat breakfast.
• The smoke of a torch or campfi re coils around a specifi c
individual as though embracing or entrapping him.
• Screams, calls for help, or moans of ecstasy come from
beneath the ground of a cemetery.
• An item—perhaps a well-loved toy, or a parent’s favorite
necklace—turns up in the bottom of a character’s backpack;
the character hasn’t seen this item since she was a child.
• A PC feels suddenly nauseous and vomits; mixed in with the
half-digested food are recognizable humanoid parts.
• The PCs awaken after camping one night to fi nd an extra
horse, saddled and ready to go, tied with theirs; it travels
with the PCs if not prevented but is gone after they camp
the next night.
• A character begins to dream of his companions each dying
horribly; as the dreams progress night after night he realizes
that he’s the one slaying them.
• A character begins to hear a whispering voice that none of
her companions can hear. Sometimes it repeats everything
she says in mocking tones; sometimes it warns her against
treachery from other party members.
• A PC’s horse abruptly turns carnivorous. Its personality has
not changed; it simply will no longer eat anything but meat,
preferably raw.
• Everyone in town stops what he or she is doing, stares
intently at the passing party, and hisses softly. They then
resume their normal business, continuing conversations
broken off in mid-word. If questioned, the townsfolk have
no memory of the incident.
• A PC coming home, or returning to a safe refuge such as an
ally’s home or a concealed cave, finds footprints leading into
her room or area. Investigation reveals nobody present, but
the footprints only go in, not out.
• A character opens his canteen and fi nds it brimming with
blood.
• The sound of a whetstone sharpening a blade can be clearly
heard not far off, yet neither the direction nor location can
be determined.
• A strange moss grows somewhere it shouldn’t, such as
along the blade of a PC’s favorite weapon or on her tongue.
• Something scuttles across the floor just behind the last PC
in line; when he turns, it’s gone.
• Rats are either being driven away from a certain place or
fl eeing on their own; no one knows why.
• The PCs see a vast sailing ship, shrouded in mist, crossing a
landlocked meadow as it sails toward them, passes through
them, and dissipates.
• Each time a PC glances into a mirror, her peripheral vision
picks up someone else’s refl ection; when she turns for a
second glance, she sees only herself.
• Characters who make Knowledge (history) or (nature)
checks realize that the wood of the floorboards in one
particular room is ancient, far older than the rest of the
house.
• The PCs keep hearing what sounds like muffl ed sobbing, but
there’s nobody around.
• After entering a long-sealed tomb or abandoned house, the
PCs find a bowl full of fresh fruit.
• The wind seems to whistle a nursery rhyme to one of the
PCs.
• The PCs hear a door with a squeaky hinge; when they reach
it, it swings silently.
• The PCs seem to age at an accelerated rate (about one year
per day) while they stay in a certain area; they revert to their
normal age after leaving the area.
• A small, elaborate, highly decorated door has been built into
the corner of a closet pantry.
• The eyes of a portrait on the wall track a specifi c PC.
• The PCs stumble across an area so dark that light spells have
no effect, but it does not radiate any magic.
• A doorknocker, when touched, triggers a magic mouth full of
bloody shark teeth.
• A single window of a fine house has been boarded up for no
discernible reason.
• A successful Search or Spot check reveals that all the
furniture in a particular room was recently moved around,
then meticulously put back in place.
• All the clothes in the closet are stained with blood, but
there’s no blood anywhere else.
• The only door to the cellar is reinforced with iron bars and
locked from the inside.
• As a PC stares at a portrait on the wall, its features change
until they depict her own, but she is clearly older in the
portrait. If a second PC does the same, the portrait again
changes to mimic his features, but this time the face
shown is clearly that of a long-dead corpse in an advanced
state of decay. The portrait then slowly reverts to its
original state.
• While a PC is looking at herself in a small round mirror,
her image is suddenly attacked from behind. She sees her
reflection die in agony only inches away on the other side of
the mirror, leaving behind only a blood-splattered surface,
without ever seeing what attacked her image. Thereafter
she casts no reflection for three days, after which her image
appears as normal.
• A PC’s touch suddenly withers and blackens living plants,
then the effect ceases as suddenly as it began.
• A cleric awakens to find he’s gripped his holy symbol so
tightly that his hands are cut.
• A rogue awakens to fi nd that her fi ngers have been stained
an inky black while she slept and her forehand branded with
an odd mark that quickly fades.
• A fighter awakens to find himself panting and sweating, his
blade covered in gore, although he’s fought no enemies.
• A wizard opens her spellbook to fi nd pages covered in
ramblings in a foreign language, all written in blood in her
own handwriting; after a minute the strange writing fades
and the pages resume their normal appearance.
• The PCs find that all their rope has sprouted leaves and
thorns.
• A PC wakes gasping for breath and fi nds he is throttling
himself with his left hand while his right hand lies numb and
inert; it takes a round or two for his numb right hand to pry
the left hand off, whereupon both return to normal.
• At the stroke of midnight, all animals in a small town begin
to shake uncontrollably, howl, and attempt to hide.
• The PCs enter a valley where it never gets brighter than dusk,
even at midday.
• One (or more) of the PCs hears the soft but insistent
buzzing of flies over carrion.
• After a night of troubled sleep, one of the PCs wakes to fi nd
himself in a strange place—an alleyway, swimming in the
middle of a lake, embracing a long-dead corpse on a slab in
a masoleum.
• One part of a house or town has an unpleasant, not-quiteidentifiable
smell.
• The PCs hear whispered conversation coming from around
a corner but turn it to fi nd nobody there.
• The local church appears gray and decayed, although the
townspeople seem cheery.
• Smoke trickles from a chimney, but when the PCs enter the
fi replace is cold and dead.
• The PCs glimpse a cheerful roadside hamlet not far down
the road, but when they arrive they find it a long-abandoned
decaying ruin.
• After a few hours in a new town, it slowly dawns on the PCs
that there are no children.
• One word: Fog.

[Isidorios]

Brownies or other feys inhabiting the manse of an Arcane trickster who was their good pal in life.
Tricks traps and spooky fey shenanigans.
"Why can't I turn these spooks"
They are just some wee folk with a sheet over them and some thaumaturgy to make it effective.

You can have animated furniture/armor/rugs/whatever for combat.
The cloaker is just a cloak, that sort of thing.
Kind of like Poltergeist, but with drunken little bastards replacing pissed-off dead people. The Kobold Press Tome of Beasts has a nasty wine-cellar dwelling Leprechaun type. Make the wine cellar their main lair.

[Draco4472]

CoS has something similar to what you want called the 'Death House', which acts as an introduction for level 1 characters to the Domain of Dread. It is a deadly place for low-leveled PC's, and something you might want to look at for inspiration. As for gaslit versus actually haunted, that is up to you. A town may suspect a house with a terrible history as haunted when strange things begin to happen when in actuality a group of bandits or an illusionist wizard seeking a quiet place to study has taken refuge there. An actual haunted house would most likely decimate the moral and publicity of a town, but can be toned down with minor spirits for a low-leveled party to gain their first level or two in. Again, I'd look to the CoS hardcover for inspiration.

[Plaguescarred]

A haunted house could have Lair Abilities type, such as being permanently obscured by mist or frightning creature coming too close. It could have incorporeal undeads haunting it but otherwise never leaving its perimeter such as specters, banshee ghosts or wraiths depending on the power level you prefer that often could be heard wailing in the distance. Will-O'-Wisp could haunt the garden at night, leaving sightings of strange lights. The vegetation around could perhaps not grow, having vines and trees twisted and decrepit. A foul smell could leave people coming too close nauseous and poisoned. Resting inside could be impossible due to cacophony of ghatly murmurs etc...


Obscured: The area within 20 feet of the haunted house has a permanent lightly obscured fog hanging, that never seems to go, giving it an eerie look.

Ghastly Murmurs: No creature can sleep or otherwise benefit from a rest while within the haunted hosue.

Terror: Living creatures within 20 feet of the haunted house must succeed on a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened for 1 minute. A frightened target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, with disadvantage if the haunted house is still within sight, ending the effect on itself on a success.

[D.U.P.A.]

Now it reminded me of the "tutorial" adventure of Call of Cthulhu RPG. I am not sure how they would work in d&d, but there are many well done haunted houses.

[KnightSteve]

I ran "the Mad Manor of Astabar (http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1011)," which was a free campaign to download. It's level 1-3, and it was pretty cool. Probably not alot of undead for what you're looking for, but maybe the puzzles and such would work for you.

[Regitnui]

All good suggestions. I particularly like the idea of the house itself being the monster, or at least an independent lair that acts on its own. Animated objects are always a good choice to creep people out, and I can pull off a lot of those sound effects from the HoH book. I do want to save a lot of the real creepy stuff for the actual Halloween quest; a malevolent, ever-expanding forest; but I'll definitely use a lot of these suggestions. Nothing like a last-minute change of plans to inspire you, huh?