The Spooky Season
What’s this? Van Helscion lives! If memory serves, we haven’t seen Handbook-World’s fanciest half-orc since her origin story last October! It’s almost as if she’s drawn to monster-hunting season, emerging along with the scent of pumpkin spice on the autumn air. I suppose that tracks. She’s a bit of a basic rich girl after all. I could totally see her nibs getting up to some vampire stabbing with latte in one hand and a new pair of Ugg boots of striding and springing on her feet. (On the other hand, where Priest has been all this time is anybody’s guess. +2 XP to the first adventurer who can link our NPC clergyman’s last comic appearance.)
Any dang way, I thought I’d get an early start on the seasonal comics this year. We’ve talked about creepy sessions on a couple of occasions, and I know we’ve had our fair share of X-mas type comics. But for some reason it seems as if we’ve never talked about Halloween one-shots. And that’s a pity. Like the melted-together glob of candy corn at the bottom of your plastic pumpkin in the back of your mom’s minivan, they’re simultaneously the strangest and most flavorful nuggets of fun you’re likely to find.
There’s already a hearse-load of overlap between your average monster manual and the spooky season. Vampires, werewolves, mummy lords, and flesh golems (along with Bride of flesh golem), all feature in prominently in our favorite bestiaries. Add to that the ever-growing library of monster movies, mythos monstrosities, and SCP Foundation spookems, and you’ve got a near-endless supply of critters dying to populate your pumpkin-spice adventures.
And so, for our question of the day, what do you say to a twofer? First, tell us all about the best Halloween one-shot you’ve ever had. Second, pick an obscure monster from pop culture, then tell us why they deserves a job as the antagonist of such an adventure. If we’re lucky, we might just inspire some session prep. And if we’re very lucky, some industrious citizens of Handbook-World might just stat up a few new creepy critters for our mutual spookertainment.
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It used to be my tradition as a DM to go out shopping the day after Halloween and buy up some discounted candy. The next session, all the monsters on the map were different pieces of candy. If you killed it you got to eat it. I never saw my players go so blood thirsty so quickly than when I started putting down food on the map. And the boss for the night? King-sized candy bar.
The closest I ever came to running a Halloween themed game/one-shot was when my players were trapped in a demi-plane and had to progress through the seasons, Spring to Summer to Autumn to Winter, in order to escape. Autumn had a Tim Burton Nightmare Before Christmas feel to it.
A monster to serve as an antagonist? Umm… How about The Mad King’s Guards from Guild Wars 1? Though they may be more of an elite mook than anything else.
I’ve seen the “big doughnut as the boos in front of a hungry group of college kids” thing before. Tying that to Halloween seems like a no-brainer. Good call!
As for the Guild Wars thing… I’m not familiar. What’s special about these particular mooks?
Just that the Mad King’s Guards were made of candy corn and part of that game’s Halloween celebration each year. 🙂
From time to time, I’ve dusted off Nigel Findley’s “The Light of Lost Souls” from Dungeon Magazine #12 (1988) for an update to whatever system we’re currently using.
…But one year in particular I gave it a (un)healthy infusion of Robert E. Howard’s short story “Pigeons From Hell,” “Pirates of the Caribbean,” and John Carpenter’s “The Fog.” My players ate up the opening ghost story about wrecked ships and an abandoned coastal village. They figured out what was happening when one PC went AWOL (possessed) and headed to the abandoned lighthouse.
My only regret was that by the time the PCs heard the sound of a ship’s bell from the deserted mudflats and the black night outside the tower, the fright-o-meter had already buried the needle in the red and they responded with merely a sigh, not a shriek. “Yep. Ghost pirates. We’re screwed.”
As for a creature-feature: I don’t think that the leucrotta gets enough use. Having something that leaves tracks like a deer, slinks around the villages, eating stragglers, then calls out in the nighttime with the voices of trusted villagers and past victims to lure out more prey? In the right hands, THAT is some serious nightmare fuel.
Found it!
https://annarchive.com/files/Dungeon%20Magazine%20%23012.pdf
I appreciate how a “single encounter” like Danelon’s haunt can become a whole session. Honestly, that strikes me as a refreshing change pace for game night in this world of five-room dungeons.
> As for a creature-feature: I don’t think that the leucrotta gets enough use
Despite Pliny the Elder’s best efforts, I had never heard of the things until my GM sprung ’em on us in our mythic game. They are the quintessential D&D monster for me: weird, inventive, and uncanny.
…ah, and I almost forgot, I threw in a little bit of Edith Nesbit’s spooky classic, “Man-size in Marble” for extra seasoning. Considering the players’ reactions, I may have put in a little too much pepper, but everyone had a good time and I’m not aware of any lingering nightmares. 🙂
Re: Question 2: The creature from Frankenstein. I don’t mean Frankenstein’s Monster, the inarticulate corpse-monster of Universal Movie fame which is a core part of modern Halloween mythos. I mean the one from Mary Shelley’s novel, often called Adam (because the book doesn’t really give him a name).
Adam is not a monster driven by violent impulses, an overtly inhuman thing worth driving out of town with pitchforks, a clumsy fool only dangerous for its strength and endurance. He’s almost human, enough that he falls into the uncanny valley. He is driven first by childish curiosity, then driven into hiding by the aforementioned pitchforks (and a shotgun). He educates himself as well as he can when potential teachers shoot him on sight. He’s strong and agile, though not bulletproof. When he lashes out at the world, it’s a calculated response to how the world lashed out at him.
Also: While the novel deliberately avoids giving any details on how Adam was created, it required Agrippa’s alchemical knowledge and something from slaughterhouses.
Aside from paying respect to one of my favorite 19th-century novels, this would make a pretty good subversion of expectations. Your players hear about the doctor’s problems and expect some big dumb flesh golem, but are taken aback by a monster which is articulate, cunning, and very angry. Heck, maybe he found a spellbook next to his copy of Paradise Lost—wouldn’t that be a surprise?
How would you portray the monster mechanically? Flesh golem with a higher Dex stat and wizard levels?
I don’t know if I’d make Adam a construct at all. The way I interpret what little the text has to say about it, it sounds like he’s less a reanimated corpse than alchemically-created life. Like a homunculus, except big instead of small.
(remembers that D&D/PF homunculi are constructs)
…Whatever the type, I’d probably homebrew it. If I was in a hurry, I might do something like tweak an ogre’s stats to make it a better wizard-type and throw some wizard levels on it.
“Hi! My name is Adam.”
“You mean Frankenstein’s monster?”
“Excuse you. I’m a real boy.”
“I thought you were a re-flavored ogre mage?”
😛
Yeah, everyone knows that the monster was made by re-assembling stolen body parts — except that the book isn’t actually specific about it, and I’ve always thought that the “body grown in a cloning vat” approach was much more fitting thematically. Adam isn’t described as a walking corpse… my take is that he’s human, but as you say, something a little uncanny-valley about him.
We actually do kinda have something like that. In Ravenloft one of the Dark Lord’s is based off of the intelligent Frankenstein’s Monster (who is also named Adam), and in 3rd edition Ravenloft I believe there was the dread golem template that gave intelligence to any golem.
I can’t say as I’ve ever specifically run a seasonal one shot of any variety, but I can say that I ran a session that featured a Monster Manse-that’s like a Haunted House, but there’s more than ghosts in there. One of the traps was a box filled with Disembodied Hands, like Thing from the Addam’s Family. The party would fell great beasts a plenty. But a box of 100 5 hp +0 scrub enemies nearly killed them.
A monster I feel that actually doesn’t get enough play is the Giant Spider. And I like to marry it with the idea of ‘otherworldly beauty,’ so my terrifying giant spiders are polished ivory white, dripping in gossamer curtains with stealth and intelligence scores just a bit too high. And like any good insect monster, they summon up swarms of course. In fact, there is a particular scene from The Brothers Grimm which comes to mind.
Maybe sprinkle in a decadent ‘wHy HeLlO dEaR mOrSeLs. So WoNdErFuL tO hAvE yOu FoR dInNeR.’ Maybe subvert expectations and have a feast set out. Go so far as to paint the whole thing to the players as partaking in another culture-after all, what sort of villain is not cultured? …really, from here, you can push the horror in so many directions, particularly if they partake in The Feast. Pscyhological mind games, body horror transformations, obscure cult practices. Probably need to file a disclaimer or two before game, though.
And here I was thinking a specific scene from Krull:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyzWBEToQw8&t=292s
More like this. IMO, there’s a difference between horror and scary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUa7X4iH6ZI
I’ve grown to hate “Spoopy-season” because everything feels obligated to do Halloween-tie in shit, and it just takes over the whole month. I resent anything that takes over an entire month.
How about Christmas decorations and Mariah Carey, which take over two months?
Black Friday is a crime against the most American holiday of Thanksgiving. Christmas should contain itself to one week, and we as Americans should get boxing-day discounts!
And they keep pushing for three. Gabe may be against Spoopy Month, but the Halloween Army is the only thing holding back the Christmas Front from marching down the calendar.
If we must have theme-months (And we shouldn’t) why can’t we just let November be Thanksgiving month?
Because Black Friday ate the month then got steamrolled by Christmas sales
Because Thanksgiving can only hold down the US front. If there was more coordination between regional harvest festivals they might have stood a chance, but as things stand, it’s no surprise that the unified Christmas front rolled over them.
Because stores can’t make bank on Thanksgiving decor. Even just in the US where Thanksgiving is actually a thing in November, people don’t usually decorate for it, and a single day’s specialty meal is nothing to the big stores compared to all the ludicrous amounts of decor people buy for Christmas, not to mention the really expensive gifts they basically sell their souls to afford.
The Gabe hated spoopy
The whole spoopy season!
Now please don’t ask why,
No one quite knows the reason….
For us on the patron, we’ve seen Helscion a wee bit more, if you know what I mean 😉
As for Halloween One-Shots… don’t think I’ve ever really played one. As much as I’ve wanted to (I remember trying to design the best Madness system with elements from other games, but I never got to use it) any and all spooky games were just generally sprinkled around. The only truly spooky themed game I can remember was a convention one-shot with the Powered By the Apocalypse system, in a world of Gothic horror we played heroic monsters. I played a Frankenstein which, due to the description of him, I played with an Arnold Schwarzinagger accent.
Now, as for a monster for a Halloween one-shot… that’s tricky, because many of them can be found in the Monster Manual, or are already kind of an offshoot of an established Monster (just look at all the variations on vampires.)Half my ideas that I think for my own campaigns are more ‘What if this character became a monster’ which isn’t the same (Vampiric Snow White versus Lich Queen Grimhilde).
> For us on the patron, we’ve seen Helscion a wee bit more
I have a hard time remembering who shows up when in which continuity. Makes it hard to give everybody their due.
> Vampiric Snow White
You ever read that Neil Gaiman short story?
https://thedreaming.moteofdust.com/1999/10/10/snow-glass-apples/
> You ever read Neil Gaiman short story?
Yes, in fact I own a copy of the illustrated graphic novel version. It was one of the inspirations for this campaign idea (with Prince Charming being a prince from the dwarven kingdom, so just imagine an immortal vampire ruling an underground city and the horrors that could be unleashed on this fairytale realm.)
> Second, pick an obscure monster from pop culture, then tell us why they deserves a job as the antagonist of such an adventure.
Alright, I think I got something. Vampire Pumpkins (and technically watermelons). A folk legend from the Balkans, to explain why some of them have ‘blood’ appear on them.
In a one-shot, pumpkins would signify Halloween but nobody would suspect them themselves of being the threat. Give them some additional abilities and tricks, like biting the heads of their victims and then taking control of the body (the pumpkin head of the Headless Horseman is now the actual threat.) And the way to destroy them is not a stake but a flaming torch shoved into their mouths ( you kill them by turning them into Jack O’Lanterns)
And if you want to connect it with a pop culture figure, then Bunnicula the vampire rabbit would be perfect (unless you want to avoid the obvious Monty Python joke)
> +2 XP to the first adventurer who can link our NPC clergyman’s last comic appearance.
Might as well grab the free exp. https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/confessional
I’m still waiting for my last year’s Xmas suggestions to get their turn! 😀
What was that, outta curiosity?
Wait… What now?
*checks archive*
I honestly don’t remember. Got a link or a hint for me?
Here you go!
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/respectful-remembrance#comment-131186
I’ll even add one idea that cropped up:
The village of Brie is under siege by Artificer’s Nutcracker Golem(s)! Turns out filling her stocking with coal only helped to fuel her steampunk forces!
I always liked using Halloween oneshots to flip the normal script. My first oneshot had the players picking monsters out of the bestiary to attack a human city with and compete for kills (with increasingly difficult residents / guards / adventurers to mow down). Second oneshot was about witches assisting an elder witch with an Evil Ritual while it attracted the forces of good to try and stop them (basically wave-based defense).
Going with that theme of taking time on the evil side for All Hallows Eve, my vote for an “obscure monster” would be an Angel. Not the dove-winged humanoids, but full old testament “Be not afraid”-style angels. After all, most parties don’t typically face angels as common foes, and the description of those good-aligned eldritch abominations seem like something that can give a good fright (especially when clearly hostile towards your wickedness).
Getting everyone on the same page for Evil is always the hard part.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/cartoon-villainy
The difference between “Frankenstein” and “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” is one ill-placed one-liner.
I’ve tried Halloween one-shots twice now, both years that I’ve been DMing, and neither of them worked especially well.
The first was meant to be simple – a quick dungeon, then go fight a witch. Go explore the ancient tomb and find the magic flowers you need to stop her ritual, and also a magic sword you can use to summon ghost warriors to help you. This fairly simple concept ballooned into 3 or 4 sessions taking up the entire month of November, and the final fight was an anticlimactic slog.
The second one I figured I could adapt a module – Blood In The Chocolate, for the Lamentations of the Flame Princess system. It’s rather notorious, but I figured if I strip out the racist caricatures and inflation fetish, I’d be left with a pretty solid core of body horror in an eldritch Willy Wonka factory. (Which is the answer to your second question – that would make a hell of an adventure.) I wanted to run it in Call of Cthulhu, which none of us had ever played before, and decided to tack a brief mystery onto the beginning, about cocaine-laced chocolate being used to lure people in the factory and sacrifice them. Due to not being very familiar with the system, and being overly ambitious, the investigation took up nearly the whole session, and the brief time in the factory was anticlimactic, and didn’t get to any of the fun body horror stuff.
As you can probably guess, pacing has always been an issue for me.
I’ve since worked on being less ambitious and more focused with my one-shots, so I have high hopes for this year’s turning out better. I might try Blood In The Chocolate again, with a bit more experience and a better idea of how to approach it. Jump straight to the dungeon, and start throwing sanity rolls around like confetti. Or, a few months ago on Reddit, I took up the challenge of redesigning the specter as a solo monster for a level 1 party, and that’s been hanging around in the back of my mind since then. Either way, I think I’ve figured out how to stay focused and keep to the core spooky experience.
I think I mentioned before the haunted house session my group once did. And kinda ruined. Our dwarf got a nat 20 on his Perception with a nice high mod and immediately found the object we were looking for. So no spooky house hijinks for us. And when we heard the chains rattling and started running, said dwarf decided not to. It took about 7 or so turns for the rest of the group to realize it and turn back to help. I almost felt sorry for the ghoul. The one guy it pounced on was the one guy that could tank it.
The best Halloween monster session I’ve ever done was run at the age of fifteen, a fusion of the classic Gulthias Tree plot, It and a little dash of my own imagination. Years ago, a human had sought vampirism so that he could be with his dryad lover forever, but she had been horrified and imprisoned him within a tree before fleeing. Now, a carnival of disguised Blights sprung from the tree’s roots had returned to the region as they did thrice a century to free it with a blood sacrifice, and only a small group of rag-tag local youths knew that anything was going on. That session’s characters were so beloved that they went on to spawn their own campaign, and some clever tricks with the lighting and props genuinely scared my players on a couple of occasions (the vampire or something like it would manifest in the dark.) In the end, they triumphed of course, burning down the tree and the thing within it in a great bonfire which also claimed much of the church through the floor of which it was pushing. Ah well!
As for monsters, might I recommend the Elf? For me, the autumn harvests are a time of immaculate Dark Fey vibes, and the Call/Lords and Ladies style Faerie aristocrats can be utterly terrifying if done right.
I mentioned it on the Patreon, but Strahd Must Die… IN SPACE! is an extremely fun one. It took me a while to find good top-down maps and annotate them in Foundry, but once I got it all done?
It’s structured the same as Strahd Must Die Tonight! and Strahd Must Die Tonight… Again!, giving players 4 hours to storm and search Castle Ravenloft as Strahd toys with them until his plan comes to fruition at Planar Midnight… unless they find his weakness, in which case he begins to take them seriously.
The difference with this one, though, is that Strahd has found a spelljamming helm, and has decided to use it to rip Castle Ravenloft from its foundations and fly it to Oerth, where Mordenkainen has hidden Irina away. It also has rules for adjusting length, player level, and player number to balance difficulty.
I ran it virtually, in Foundry and over Discord, so I was able to stream a Tarokka reading using the Tarokka website that let me get rid of cards referencing areas outside the Castle, and stream a countdown timer so the players knew how long they had in real time before Strahd showed up to harass them again—or something else weird happened. The grandfather clock noise going off always meant something fun.
My players ended up only getting three hours before Castle Ravenloft crashed on Oerth, tumbling out of one of the towers (and taking damage) and confronting Strahd with Irina at their side. As they finally defeated them, the wizard used a wall of force to prevent his misty escape, trapping him as the sun rose over Castle Ravenloft to burn him away.
It was a good time all around.
My budy runs a Halloween one-shot almost every year, and the final boss is always Actual Cannibal Shiah LeBeouf.
I… I’m very tempted to do this myself now.
I am surprised to see that no one have claimed the XP for finding Priest yet, I thought for sure I’d be far too late when I couldn’t post the first few days.
We last saw him explaining to Drow Priestess that the temple was non-denominational but that she could still fuck right off with her divine demand of human blood. https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/rites-and-wrongs.
That was 2 years ago now, so it’s good to see he made it through that bit of defiance instead of getting “volunteered” to provide the blood.
As for todays main topic I can’t really add anything to the conversation Halloween isn’t really a significant thing in my corner of the world. (through I hear the gravity of American Hegemony on culture has brought made halloween a thing among school-age children and their parents, so perhaps Halloween oneshots will be a thing for the next generation of gamers)
I’m afraid Michael Zemancik got it a little further up the page:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/confessional
Have +1 Consolation XP for trying though! 🙂