Desiging a "Haunted" House for my players

[dantiesilva]

So while going through the Monster Manuel the other day I came across the wonderful creature known as a Ravid. Looking at its unique ability to animate objects I thought wouldn't it be fun to have my players go on a side quest for the town to clear out a spooky house on the hill type deal. The players would be looking around for a ghost, undead, anything typical of a haunted house. However instead they would begin to be attacked by carpets, and coatholders and other such items that are simply defending the Ravid's home. How would you go about doing this in a fun way, so that the players do not simply just want to kill the Ravid but perhaps help it either move on, or explain to the townspeople that it really is not haunted. Bonus points if you can work a small fey into it to help with the fun. Think a beauty and the beast type ideal old manor on the hill ordeal.

Edit
-4th level party (Dwarf Ranger, Human Barbarian, and Elf Cleric)
-Possibility of a Human Necromancer being recruited to prove she has nothing to do with the haunted house
-Ravid Named Adam CR 5
- 2 Pixies (Lilith and Puka) CR 4 and CR 5 respectfully
-Animated objects from the Ravid
-Possibly a few Dread Guards fluffed up as walking suits of armor that the Ravid animated so many times they stayed alive? Like how you see in movies with old castles that long hallway filled with suits of armor, same idea.
-A rat swarm and some Dire Rats to keep with the creepy haunted house feel?
-Use the Pixies permanent image spell to cover the entire floor with a light mist giving concealment for the Ravid if it flies low enough to the ground as well as the rat swarm and dire rats.

[flappeercraft]

So assuming that you are playing on a tabletop and not online. Design the haunted house after the household you will be playing in but get some twists. Literally have every piece of furniture to be the same or equivalent. Instead if staying in one room for the house move around as the PCs do and so on. This could add for a fun little twist.

[Zaq]

So assuming that you are playing on a tabletop and not online. Design the haunted house after the household you will be playing in but get some twists. Literally have every piece of furniture to be the same or equivalent. Instead if staying in one room for the house move around as the PCs do and so on. This could add for a fun little twist.

I both love and hate this idea (moving around in the meatspace house). It’s an interesting twist and could be memorable if you have an appropriate environment, but I feel like either lugging around character sheets and dice (and finding rolling surfaces—easier in some rooms than others!) or running back to the game room to get them is going to kind of spoil the mood a bit, and by a bit I mean a lot. (And those sheets and dice are going to be necessary. If nothing else, the characters are eventually going to want to make perception-based checks and Knowledge checks. This is to say nothing of actual combat.) And I hope the GM has their notes memorized and their rolls pre-recorded for the same reason.

It’d be cool if it worked, but I can’t see past getting bogged down in the logistical details.

[Inevitability]

The 5th-edition Death House adventure (freely available online) might give you some ideas.

Memorable inclusions are a couple of ghost children who don't know they're ghosts and an abandoned cradle containing a baby-sized, tightly wrapped bundle... which turns out to be just cloth.

[Gruftzwerg]

the mansion of an old wizard that passed away a long time before:

- make everything a permanent Animated Object, the doors, furniture, the entire house itself and every item. The wizard was lonely, you know^^..

- Illusionary walls, hidden rooms, teleporter, bring em all

- Maybe the wizard ain't really dead and just is trapped into one of his experiments and his house still tried to keep any harm for him, while looking for nice guys to help him out. And maybe the familiar is still around and in charge of the house now.. (make it a Raven that can UMD the hell out of some magic items/scrolls left for extra fun).

[dantiesilva]

The 5th-edition Death House adventure (freely available online) might give you some ideas.

Memorable inclusions are a couple of ghost children who don't know they're ghosts and an abandoned cradle containing a baby-sized, tightly wrapped bundle... which turns out to be just cloth.

Okay now that I am home from work and have time to read through it quickly this is very intriguing. My main problem is that this is dealing with a Ravid and Pixies simply playing tricks on people, and not undead/truely a haunted house.


the mansion of an old wizard that passed away a long time before:

- make everything a permanent Animated Object, the doors, furniture, the entire house itself and every item. The wizard was lonely, you know^^..

- Illusionary walls, hidden rooms, teleporter, bring em all

- Maybe the wizard ain't really dead and just is trapped into one of his experiments and his house still tried to keep any harm for him, while looking for nice guys to help him out. And maybe the familiar is still around and in charge of the house now.. (make it a Raven that can UMD the hell out of some magic items/scrolls left for extra fun).

While this could have once been a wizards house (why not a tower?) having all the objects animated would defeat the whole purposes of the Ravid which is the whole idea behind this side quest. At level 4 I do not think it to wise to throw teleporter's around inside a haunted house. Illusionary walls, to a lesser extent maybe, after all pixies like playing tricks, but saying the floor is already going to be covered in a mist that doesn't rise past the characters shins I believe this would be overkill.

As for the last part of your post, if you read my very first post it has the information of importance. Nothing in the last bit of your post seems even remotely usable.

[unseenmage]

My prefered fake hauntings are Animated Objects & Minor Servitors (SS) or Mimics & Doppelgangers.

That said for pixie trickster haunting... hmmm. At some point the fake haunts should probably reveal the fey nature of the party's tormentor


For example, the tightly wrapped cloth bundle from earlier could be leaves instead. What looks like a suddenly roaring fire and thick choling smoke is a puffball mushroom and some illusions. The creepy ghostly voices could be a flock of ravens in the tree outside repeating things theyve heard at the local market.


EDIT: I misunderstood. If its a Ravod perpetrator I definitely suggest a GM custom variant Ravid that has Minor Servitor in place of Animate Objects just for the versatility of Int "hauntings".

That said, all Consttucts all the time can be frustrating for sneak attackers and such so I agree that a rat swarm.or something similar would help.

A Raven swarm the sound of whose words bounce around the house oddly could be a fun idea. I imagine it would sound chaotic and almost Gibbering Mouther like to try to make sense of.

Alchemical items and special materials are explicitly not magic items and thus can be affected by Animate Objects/Minor Servitor.

Aninated dolls or mannequins could be wondrously effective. So too could Animate Object corpses, or parts of corpses be fairly horrifying. They would appear to be undead.
If you opt for Minor Servitor-ed hauntings they could Bluff the PCs into thinking that Turn Undead worked just fine but in reality the Int Construct was faking it.

Stretching the rules a bit and letting some particulate or liquid get animated could be cool too. The washbasin water suddenly envelopes a PCs head and they start drowning. The ashes and coals from the fire start whipping about setting the PCs clothes ablaze. The grain is in the bin when they go though the room the first time, later it lies in piles ready and waiting to attack.

[dantiesilva]

I hope everyone had a happy holidays, and I thank you all for your help.


My prefered fake hauntings are Animated Objects & Minor Servitors (SS) or Mimics & Doppelgangers.

That said for pixie trickster haunting... hmmm. At some point the fake haunts should probably reveal the fey nature of the party's tormentor


For example, the tightly wrapped cloth bundle from earlier could be leaves instead. What looks like a suddenly roaring fire and thick choling smoke is a puffball mushroom and some illusions. The creepy ghostly voices could be a flock of ravens in the tree outside repeating things theyve heard at the local market.


EDIT: I misunderstood. If its a Ravod perpetrator I definitely suggest a GM custom variant Ravid that has Minor Servitor in place of Animate Objects just for the versatility of Int "hauntings".

That said, all Consttucts all the time can be frustrating for sneak attackers and such so I agree that a rat swarm.or something similar would help.

A Raven swarm the sound of whose words bounce around the house oddly could be a fun idea. I imagine it would sound chaotic and almost Gibbering Mouther like to try to make sense of.

Alchemical items and special materials are explicitly not magic items and thus can be affected by Animate Objects/Minor Servitor.

Aninated dolls or mannequins could be wondrously effective. So too could Animate Object corpses, or parts of corpses be fairly horrifying. They would appear to be undead.
If you opt for Minor Servitor-ed hauntings they could Bluff the PCs into thinking that Turn Undead worked just fine but in reality the Int Construct was faking it.

Stretching the rules a bit and letting some particulate or liquid get animated could be cool too. The washbasin water suddenly envelopes a PCs head and they start drowning. The ashes and coals from the fire start whipping about setting the PCs clothes ablaze. The grain is in the bin when they go though the room the first time, later it lies in piles ready and waiting to attack.

It is actually both a Ravid and Pixies that are causing the haunting, not one or the other. Think of the pixies as following the Ravid around because it makes things come to life which is exciting and new. Imagine them seeing flowers dancing and such so they continue to follow him for the fun and excitement they can create together. They protect the Ravid because to them its like a pet, and the Ravid leaves them alone because they do not seem to harm it, and possibly even leave it small offerings.


I see no problem with replacing Animate object with Minor Servitor though given its caster time it begs the question of why didn't this house become known as haunted a lot sooner, or if it did why couldn't anyone deal with it? The longer the Ravid and pixies have been there the more items brought to life, and longer it has been known to be haunted.

Perhaps A raven swarm on the outside of the house in a dead tree or something stopping the players from being able to flee easily. Inside the house it would seem odd to have so many, a few sure, but a swarm would be hard to explain except an attic. And once the players go inside the ravens fly to all the windows and doors, and simply start tapping on them, cawing and such so looking outside any of the windows all you see is Raven's trying to get in?

Animated dolls, I like that, very much. Maybe even a few spiders near a crib on a ceiling having the bundle move around to make it look like something is inside, when really its attached to spider webs that the spider is controling to make it seem alive, the pixies using ghost sound for the cries of a baby?