pathfinder haunts Archives

Posted on February 5, 2014February 11, 2014 by Mike Myler — Leave a comment

Alleyway of Blood

Alleyway of Blood CR 7
XP 3,200
NE haunt (manifestation) (10 ft. by 50 ft. alleyway)
Caster Level 7th
Notice Perception DC 32 (to hear the faint rustling of swift running feet)
Hp 14;Trigger special (see text);Reset 1 day

Effect The manifestation appears at the will of the Exsanguinator and can manifest anywhere, anytime, as long as the location is not wider than 10 feet. One day must pass between each manifestation.
1d6+3 ghostly humanoid shapes jump out of the walls themselves or rise up through the ground—they are cloaked and have no facial features that can be made out in the short duration of the assault. Each of the shapes darts down the alley with supernatural speed and delivers one attack to every person in the area of effect, after which they fade back to whatever realm spawned them. The shapes use a variety of short-bladed weapons from daggers to scalpels. and resolve their strikes as melee touch attacks (+7, 1d6+3 and 2 bleed; this bleed damage stacks).

Adventure Hook This manifestation represents the Exsanguinator’s memories of the blood hunts held in his honor before he was banished to a prison plane for seven centuries. As a ritual to free him nears completion the seals in his prison are weakening and allowing his will to manifest across the planes to help his faithful, albeit manifested weakly.Destruction A manifestation is indestructible permanently unless the entity behind it is slain or banished back to whatever realm they came from. To read more about the Exsanguinator and how to bring an end to his malevolence, keep reading the AaWBlog as more of Cultus Sanguineus is revealed!

[Submitted by Brian Wiborg Monster]

Do you have a chilling idea for a haunt or cursed item? Send it along to us at submit (at) adventureaweek.com, but please, bear the following in mind before you submit anything for review:

1. Anyone can submit an entry.
2. One entry per person at any one time. An entry must be your own work, not being published previously or considered by any other publisher, and it must original and not infringe upon copyrighted material.
3. All entries become property of Adventureaweek.com, LLP.
4. By submitting an entry you authorize the use of your name and likeness without additional compensation for promotion and advertising purposes in all media.
5. Adventureaweek.com, LLP reserves the right to withdraw or terminate this endeavor at any time without prior notice.
6. All decisions of Adventureaweek.com, LLP and their arbiters are final.
7. There is no compensation provided – any entries are given freely by their creators for use by Adventureaweek.com, LLP in perpetuity.
8. Your statblock must be properly formatted (compare to similar content on the AaWBlog for correct formatting).

Posted on January 29, 2014February 11, 2014 by Mike Myler — Leave a comment

The Ghostly Couple

The Ghostly Couple CR 6
XP 2,400
NE haunt (30 ft. radius)
Caster Level 6th
Notice Perception DC 26 (to hear the faint giggling of a lady)
Hp 12; Trigger proximity; Reset 1 day
Effect: When the haunt manifests the ghostly figures of a dancing couple appears—the woman is dressed in a finely-embroidered dress, the man in the practical clothes of a hunter. They dance to the music of an unseen musician, only the melody of his lute can be heard. Smiling at each other and enjoying their dance, suddenly the lute hits a false note and the dancing couples’ faces turn to burning skulls which lash out at any person within the haunt’s radius. The skulls have an attack bonus of +8 and deal 4d6+4 fire damage; the attacks are resolved against the targets’ touch AC. A target can only be affected by one skull during the haunt’s manifestation. All persons within the radius are attacked on the same round.

Destruction: The two skulls must be recovered from the roots of the tree where Mariel and the huntsman died; they must be buried in hallowed ground. The tree in the castle’s garden must then be burned to ash and scattered to the winds.

Adventure Hook: In the past two months there have been several sightings of a ghostly dancing couple and onlookers claim to have been attacked by burning orbs of fire. What started as a few sightings have recently increased in frequency, as have the injuries from the burning orbs. Panicked whispered rumors suggest that it is only a matter of time before the ephemeral lovers claim innocent lives. The party overhears the locals talk of it while in Xavenholme on other business—perhaps the town will give a reward for removing the couple.

History: More than a century ago, old Count Xaven entered into an arranged marriage with a noblewoman many years younger than him: Mariel. The marriage was a disaster—the count was a cold and ruthless man while Mariel was his exact opposite. As the months passed she yearned for her freedom but was bound by her family’s honor to stay married to a man she came to despise. One day her eyes fell on a young huntsman attached to her husband’s court. After several months they finally had a chance to talk in castle Xavenholme’s. Their relationship grew and they even had a retainer play the lute in the gardens so they could dance, but alas no secret lasts (especially behind the castle’s walls). Count Xaven flew into one of his notorious rages and demanded that the huntsman and his own wife be summoned to the place of their musical respite. The hunter was seized and had his hands bound to an overhanging branch—Count Xaven then oversaw that the hunter’s head was covered in tar and set alight and as her lover died in agony, Mariel cried silent tears of sorrow. As she turned to leave, the count is said to have remarked, “why leave my love? We are not out of tar.” Soon her anguished screams rang off the walls of Xavenholme.

Bonus Info: In the town of Xavenholme today, the visitors have no idea about the story behind the name of the inn they frequent: The Empty Tar Jar. The rowdy drinking song, “We are not out of Tar” refers to the dark spicy ale for which the inn is famous and of course the count’s last word to his wife.

Raise it up
Drink it up
Fill it up
Let the tar flow
Till the cask is low
Guess what?
We are not out of tar
We are not out of tar

(One of 27 verses in We Are Not Out of Tar)

[Submitted by Brian Wiborg]

Do you have a chilling idea for a haunt or cursed item? Send it along to us at submit (at) adventureaweek.com, but please, bear the following in mind before you submit anything for review:

Posted on January 15, 2014January 21, 2014 by Mike Myler — 2 Comments

Werewidow

Werewidow CR 6
XP 2,400
CE haunt (40 ft. by 10 ft. alleyway)
Caster Level 7th
Notice Perception DC 23 (to hear the coughing of an old woman)
hp 12; Trigger proximity; Reset 1 day
Effect When this haunt is triggered, creatures within its area suddenly see an old woman hunched in the shadows. Any interaction (speaking to, looking at or acknowledgement otherwise) with this apparition incurs a gaze attack—creatures that fail a DC 16 Will save are unknowingly stricken with Werewolf Lycanthropy. This affliction can be removed with a break enchantment or remove curse, or by destroying the Werewidow haunt. Afterward the old woman disappears with a mournful howl.
Werewolf Lycanthropy
Type curse, injury; Save Fortitude DC 15 negates, Will DC 15 to avoid effects; Onset the next full moon; Frequency on the night of every full moon or whenever the target is injured; Effect target transforms into a wolf under the GM’s control until the next morning.

Destruction While in the haunt’s radius, light aflame a bowl filled with twenty silver and the blood of an alpha wolf mixed with drops from a descendant of the Werewidow.

Adventure Hook The Werewidow was once a kindly druid beloved by the settlement that has outgrown the little part of it she still resides in. As the town became a city, natural resources grew scarce and the wildlife began to suffer. She began to placate the wolves in the region, but the older she grew and the larger the settlement became, the more wolves came and the more attentions she garnered from predatory canine spirits. Eventually these spectral beings possessed her charges, killing her—while a rash of adventurers brought low the lycanthropic plagues that soon followed, in her death throes the druid remains, causing werewolves to appear for centuries.

Do you have a chilling idea for a haunt or cursed item? Send it along to us at submit (at) adventureaweek.com, but please, bear the following in mind before you submit anything for review:
1. Anyone can submit an entry.
2. One entry per person at any one time. An entry must be your own work, not being published previously or considered by any other publisher, and it must original and not infringe upon copyrighted material.
3. All entries become property of Adventureaweek.com, LLP.
4. By submitting an entry you authorize the use of your name and likeness without additional compensation for promotion and advertising purposes in all media.
5. Adventureaweek.com, LLP reserves the right to withdraw or terminate this endeavor at any time without prior notice.
6. All decisions of Adventureaweek.com, LLP and their arbiters are final.
7. There is no compensation provided – any entries are given freely by their creators for use by Adventureaweek.com, LLP in perpetuity.
8. Your statblock must be properly formatted (compare to similar content on the AaWBlog for correct formatting).

Posted on January 8, 2014January 21, 2014 by Mike Myler — Leave a comment

The Blessing of Zagn

The Blessing of Zagn
CR 8
XP 4,800
CE Persistent haunt (10-ft. radius circle)
Caster Level 9th
Notice Perception DC 22 (to hear otherworldly chittering from all around you)
hp 31; Weakness tricked by invisibility;; Trigger proximity; Reset 1 week
Effect When this haunt is triggered, any creatures inside of its radius must succeed on a DC 14 Fortitude save or transform into a small sized creature of the vermin type (though not of this world) as the spirits of insects swarm across and through their body.
Transformed creatures gain a +2 size bonus to Dexterity, a +2 natural armor bonus, a climb speed of 30 ft., darkvision 60 ft., scent and a +2 resistance bonus to all saving throws against mind-affecting effects. Creatures that fail the Fortitude save must also make a DC 17 Will save or their Intelligence and Charisma scores drop to 1. These effects persist until the creature receives a heal, limited wish, miracle or wish spell; the single application of any of these spells reverses both effects. After 1 week, any transformed creatures return to their normal form, Intelligence score and Charisma score.
Destruction Coat the haunt’s area in holy water, acid and electricity within the same round.
Adventure Hook There isn’t a scholar in Aventyr that can reliably explain the exact nature or behavior of these bizarre anomalies, but whenever found by the hoyrall, the creatures obsessively worship and protect the area. Some legends claim that the souls of particularly devout followers of Zagnexis create these apparitions, and others postulate that they are droplets of the god’s ethereal being made manifest in the Underworld. They are sparse, but explorers of the endless caves beneath the surface that find a Blessing of Zagn and survive to tell of it often sell the information for a handsome price.

Posted on January 1, 2014January 27, 2014 by Mike Myler — Leave a comment

The Mute Maiden

The Mute Maiden CR 2
XP 600
NG persistent haunt (20 ft.-radius circle)
Caster Level 1st
Notice Perception DC 15 (to get the feeling of being watched)
Hp 1; Trigger proximity; Reset 1 day
Effect: When this haunt is triggered, the spectral image of a young woman in a servant’s dress manifests, her chin and the front of her clothing covered in blood. She merely stands in front of the party and points towards a nearby settlement with a sorrowful look in her eyes. The haunt continues to trigger every night, each time pointing to a new location related to her quest for justice. The party can choose to ignore The Mute Maiden and travel on; if they do so three times, The Mute Maiden stops and seeks out other champions of justice.

Destruction: Serving justice for the Mute Maiden three times, or finding and burning her cut out tongue.

Adventure Hook: The Mute Maiden was a servant girl in the local mayor’s manor; after an illegitimate love affair she got pregnant and upon telling the mayor the news he flew into a rage, assaulting the poor girl. After beating her he cut out her tongue and walled her up in her chambers to die. The guttural cries that came from behind the wall were attributed to rats and otehr vermin, the mayor convincing his other staff that the girl had run off with a minstrel to the big cities of the north.

[Submitted by Brian Wiborg Monster]

Posted on December 25, 2013December 31, 2013 by Mike Myler — Leave a comment

The Christmas Spirit

The Christmas Spirit CR 6
XP 2,400
CG haunt (40-ft. radius)
Caster Level 6th
Notice Perception DC 25 (To hear laughter, ho ho ho, and sleigh bells in the distance)
Hp 12; Trigger touch (the sack of goods); Reset special
Effect: A full sack of goods is found as part of a hoard or other cache of treasure.
The haunt manifests when it is touched, forcing everyone within its radius to make a DC 22 Will save. On a failed save, the character must give 10% of the gold and jewels currently in their possession to the first orphanage or group of street urchins they come across; this 10% of gold and jewels cannot be spent on anything else other than charitable causes that directly benefit children. Evil characters must donate twice as much as neutral and good characters.
The sack then teleports to a random place in the multiverse, continuing to spread joy by exploiting greedy adventurers.
Destruction: Indestructible; you can’t destroy The Christmas Spirit. Legends do tell, however, that the tradition of caroling will appease the haunt and lower the percentage it takes by half.
Adventure Hook: You really don’t need one do you? Have fun watching greedy players squirm around. Make sure to have the caroling tradition played out live at the table, if you’ve got the requisite cheer to demand it.

[Submitted by Brian Wiborg Monster]

Everyone at AdventureAWeek.com wishes you and yours a very merry Christmas, the happiest of holidays, and a fine new year in 2014!

Do you have a chilling idea for a haunt or cursed item? Send it along to us at submit (at) adventureaweek.com, but please, bear the following in mind before you submit anything for review:

1. Anyone can submit an entry.

2. One entry per person at any one time. An entry must be your own work, not being published previously or considered by any other publisher, and it must original and not infringe upon copyrighted material.

3. All entries become property of Adventureaweek.com, LLP.

4. By submitting an entry you authorize the use of your name and likeness without additional compensation for promotion and advertising purposes in all media.

5. Adventureaweek.com, LLP reserves the right to withdraw or terminate this endeavor at any time without prior notice.

6. All decisions of Adventureaweek.com, LLP and their arbiters are final.

7. There is no compensation provided – any entries are given freely by their creators for use by Adventureaweek.com, LLP in perpetuity.

8. Your statblock must be properly formatted (compare to similar content on the AaWBlog for correct formatting).