The Misgivings Haunts

Here are the Haunts in several rooms of the Misigivngs (Foxglove Manor).

((Hey - Real Talk.  I didn't write these, but I adapted them from someone else's campaign, and mostly left them as-is.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to track down who wrote them originally - if it was you then Thanks!  My players had a blast with these!  Let me know and I'll take them down or give you credit or whatever works best.))

Burning Manticore: 

As you enter the foyer again, the smell of smoke is heavy in the air. Before your very eyes, the stuffed manticore's mane bursts into flame, quickly engulfing the centerpiece in a massive conflagration. It roars in pain with a hoarse, painful voice, and turns to face you with its cold, glassy eyes. By this time, the entire beast is engulfed in the flame, and you can feel the heat upon your skin as it leaps for you. The creature is loathsome to your eyes, but no more so than its face, a twisted and cruel visage of humanity, but with growing horror, you realize the face has changed since your first viewing of the beast. The deformed features have smoothed and refined into the face of a woman. It is a familiar face to you. It is your face.

It is close now. The heat from the manticore is painful to be near, but the fire gives you the same small comfort it did years ago. You had no other options, after all. For six years, you'd seen this damnable manor darken the soul of your husband, taking what was once a good and ambitious man and change him into something dark and secretive. It had changed him, and it probably had changed you too. Six years ago, you would never have thought you had the inner courage to set the house ablaze, and take your children back with you to Magnimar. Traver couldn't be saved, you knew that. You had no choice. He would be sacrificed to save your children. To save yourself.

The servant's quarters were your proving ground. When you set the blaze, when you watched it erupt and consume the building, you felt free at last. Free from the yoke you have lived under for too long. Free from fear, free from guilt, free from him. All that remained is to set the blaze in the manor house proper. Set it, and be done with it.

But he comes! He yells your name, and you lash out at him with your firebrand!

(At this point, the burning manticore attempts to strike you with its burning stinger. Make a touch attack against yourself. The manticore has a +4 bonus. If it hits, you take 4d6 points of fire damage, and need to make a Reflex DC 15 to avoid catching on fire.) 

Worried Wife: 

What does he get up to down in the damp below? You asked him that once. He didn't respond, and that was worse than any answer you could have received. That and his glare. It was like he was looking beyond you, as though he was trying to will you out of existence. How could he not care about you? How could he not care about Lorey, his own flesh and blood? What has become of him? What will become of you?

No more! If you and Lorey stay here, then you will be caught up in whatever madness Vorel is working on. If you don't leave now with her, you may never leave. She is beside you, and he is downstairs, as he ever is. Go, now! This is your chance!

(Make a Will save (Fear, enchantment), DC 14. If you fail, then you are under a suggestion spell. You believe that Antwon is your child, and you both need to get out of this house before something horrible happens. Please feel free to ham this acting up as much as possible!) 

Dance of Ruin: 

Ah, the flamenco! You rarely get to dance it these days, living so far from the people. The last time you danced it was in this very room for your husband, though he was just a noble at that time. You leap into the air, twirling about the room in tight fast circles, and a cry of joy is upon your lips as you let your soul be free, even though he has imprisoned you here alone while he is off in Magnimar.

But not today! You don't know how someone else has stolen into the manor, but you quickly begin dancing with her as well. She is a beauty, a vision of Varisian beauty if ever there was one. Long curled hair, dark pools for eyes, curvaceous and graceful – she would be a catch for any man! But tonight she dances with you, and she matches your step beat for beat.

As the dance continues, she proves to be a remarkably skilled dancer, almost anticipating every step you take about the parlor. And why wouldn't she? After all, she is you. Who else would know your next move? You take her/you into your/her arms, and you dance even more frenetically to the increasingly fast tempo echoing from the piano. You don't notice the change upon your partner at first. The mark upon her skin is tan at first, but quickly resolves into an angry blue-black bruise about her throat. Her eyes begin to bulge and water, her mouth contorts in pain, and her tongue protrudes as she gasps for air.

(You will be dancing for the next 2d6 rounds – go ahead and roll it. You take 1d6 hit point damage from exhaustion right now, and will be taking that damage every round until the dance ends. You may make a DC 15 Will save (Fear, enchantment) at the start of each turn to end the dance early.) 

Iesha's Vengeance: 

He is dead! Your husband, Aldern, has killed him! Not one moment ago, you were seated by the fire with the carpenter, the two of you reading a treatise on the founding of Korvosa, and the next, the carpenter was struck from behind! Aldern was there, his face a mask of fury as he struck the carpenter with a stone bookend. He discards his bludgeon and turns to you, his face red, his eyes accusing. “You harlot!”, he cries, grabbing at your dress and pulling you to your feet. “I am your husband! You are mine, and no other man shall lay a finger upon you! Not now, and not ever again!” He grabs the scarf you wear about your neck, and pulls it tight around your throat. Silently, you plead with him, scratching at his arms and kicking with your feet, trying to show him the book. But the carpenter fell upon it, and your vision swims. As the light fades, your husband is the last thing you see. The man you fell in love with has taken your life. How could he do this to you? Your last thoughts before you black out are those of rage.

(Please make a DC 16 Will save (Fear, enchantment). If you succeed, congratulations, you're safe! If not, you are paralyzed with fear as the ghostly image of Aldern Foxglove appears before you and seems to be pulling the scarf around your throat tight. Additionally, since you failed this first save, you need to immediately make a DC 16 Fort save. If you succeed, you take 3d6 damage – go ahead and roll that right now. If you fail, then you are suffocating. You are reduced to -1 hit point and you are dying.) 

Frightened Child:

"Quick!”, Sendeli says as she ushers you and Zeeva into the room. “Hide under the bed! Mommy won't find us there!” The three of you crawl under the bed, and cower in the darkness. You don't know what's going on. Mommy came into the house, a torch in hand, and started shouting Daddy's name. She went upstairs, and the screaming and crashing started. The three of you snuck into Daddy's observatory to see what was happening, and saw Mommy and Daddy fighting. Mommy had her torch, and she was waving it around, trying to burn Daddy with it. Daddy had a knife, longer than the ones the servants use in the kitchen to cut meat, and there were things on his face. Ugly black bulges. Even your young mind knew what was happening. They were trying to kill each other.

Sendeli grabbed you both by the hand, and the three of you raced here, to your room, to hide. You shivered in the dark. You might only be six, but you know that tonight, you and your sisters are going to die. Either Mommy will kill Daddy, and she will burn you alive, like she burned the servant's quarters, or Daddy will kill Mommy, and then he will carve you three up with his long knife. You sob, knowing that you are going to die. Zeeva whispers to you. “Shush, Aldern! Or they will hear you!”

Then there is a crash. Followed by a scream that dies away into nothing. Then footsteps, loud ones down the stairs. You begin to scream in fear, but Zeeva and Sendeli place their hands over your mouth to muffle you, to avoid giving away your hiding place. The footsteps turn before they come to your room, however, and the double doors to the gallery are thrown open, followed shortly by the doors to Mommy and Daddy's room. Those doors slam, and then everything is silent. Silent, except for your sobs.

(Please make a DC 16 Will save (Fear, enchantment). If you fail, you are shaken as long as you remain in this house.  Shaken gives you -2 on attack rolls, saves, skill checks, and ability checks.)

Phantom Phage: 

“What's on your face, Mommy?”, Lorey asks her mother. The damnable woman! You were close – close! - to finishing the great work, finishing your glorious transcendence, when she came barging into your laboratory at the worst possible moment. Your attention was distracted, and it all went wrong immediately. The ritual consumes you with a horrible affliction in a moment, and your body dies, deformed and ridden with tumors and boils.

But something of the original work still went right. The bitch had no idea what she saw, and you were too far along for the ritual to fail completely. It may not have worked as you intended, but you live on. This was not the transcendence you were hoping for, but you can make this work.

First, though, revenge. Kasandra has taken your dream from you. Now, you will take her life. Her, and that whelp. You reach out, and stroke your wife's cheek. Her skin blackens where you touch, and the infection begins to spread. Lorey screams, and backs away from her mother in fear. She may be able to escape her mother's grasp, but she cannot escape yours. Another touch, and the infection spreads to her.

Within minutes, both your wife and your daughter are dead from your hand. Good riddance. You remember the pain they must have felt, as it was your last experience. Growths on your face, foulness bubbling forth under your flesh, filled with pus and cancerous flesh, choking on the tumors in your lungs, blind as the growths swell your eyes shut. It was a gruesome way to die. The least you could do was share it with them. You tried to tear the corruption within your body away, just as they did. It helped them as much as it helped you. It only helped to disfigure their bodies further.

(You tear at your own flesh, dealing 1d6 points of damage to yourself. Make a DC 14 Will save (Fear, enchantment) at the beginning of each round to snap out of it.)

Misogynistic Rage: 

The horrors! The things you have seen in the deeps! Your husband is a monster wearing the guise of a man! You have no idea what he was doing down there, but you know blasphemy when you see it. The gods must have cursed him for his actions, as he was consumed by a horrible sickness and decay before your eyes. As he died, he spat such horrible curses at you! Words that you had only heard from sailors in Magnimar, and worse. “Damn your sex!”, Vorel gurgled as the plague took him. “Damn your curious nature, and your need to stick your noses where it's not wanted! I'll kill you for this, whore! You first, while our daughter watches. And then I'll kill her, just for the crime of being female!”

(Make a DC 14 Will save (Fear, enchantment). If you fail, you must attack the closest female using all of your capabilities to kill the target. This lasts for 1d4 rounds, or until the target is slain. This is an effect like dominate person, which is an enchantment (compulsion) effect with the mind-affecting keyword. Any bonuses or penalties that would apply to those effects apply here.) 

The Stricken Family: 

None. See, here's the thing - while the other haunts are personal, this one is formed by all of the spirits haunting the manor. The other universal haunt, The Worried Wife, is more keyed to Kasanda than any of the others, and is able to evoke the dread she was experiencing leading up to confronting Vorel. This one, though, is clearly more overt than the others, and affects anyone inside the room. Therefore, there's not a single handout to give to the PCs - they start up the haunt through their own actions, and experience it at the same time. 

Suicide Compulsion: 

You have killed her! By the gods, you have killed your Cyralie! Monster, she called you, as she tried to burn you and the house, like she set the servant's quarters ablaze. And perhaps a monster you have become. You put a hand to your face, and feel the cancerous growths. He has been in control. He forced you to kill your wife. He was the one that used his sorcery to redirect the fire's flow to her. He was the one that set her ablaze. He was the one that shoved her through the window.

You realize this now. That's why you ran from the observatory. For the first time in months, you are free of his corrupting influence! As you ran, you heard his raging bellow behind you. “Who are you to escape me?”, he thundered, and he was upon your heels in a moment. You fled for the front door, but as you cleared the stairs to the upper floor, you knew escape was impossible. You turned for your bedroom, racing through the gallery and slamming the doors to the room shut behind you.

“No way out!”, he cackled, and the doors buckled with the force of his blows. “You will be mine again!” You feel him already, taking control again. In a matter of moments, you will be Vorel's vessel again. You don't have time to make it to the window. But you can make it to the desk. There, on the edge, your dagger! You have time for one last act of defiance.

Your last thoughts are your children. Sendeli. Zeeva. Aldern. May they forgive you for everything he has made you do.

(Make a DC 15 Will save (Fear, enchantment). If you fail, you move to the desk and pick up the dagger, preparing to do a coup de grace upon yourself. This will automatically do 2d4 plus twice your Strength modifier in damage to you. Continue making DC 15 Will saves with another coup de grace if you fail – you snap out of your suicidal raging when you make one of these saves.

If someone attempts to stop you from killing yourself, you instead make an attack against that person versus their flat-footed AC. If you hit, it is automatically a critical hit, dealing 2d4 plus twice your Strength modifier in damage.  Make a new DC 15 Will save each round – failure means you continue to attack your friends.) 

Plummeting Inferno: 

There he is! He wears a hood, but your husband cannot hide his deformed face from you. “No more, Traver,” you say, your voice breaking from the exhaustion you feel. “This all ends tonight. The madness that has taken you over – taken over this place – it will be fuel for the fire.” You thrust the torch into a chair, and the fire begins to feed upon it. “This place killed your great-uncle and his family. I won't let it kill ours.”

“What are you doing, you incompetent whore?”, he bellows, pulling a long knife from his belt. “Damnable woman, you're just like Kasanda – you don't know what you are meddling with!” He slashes at you with the blade, but you keep him away by thrusting the torch towards him.

“Listen to yourself, Traver!”, you cry, backing away, watching the flames begin to consume the rug in the center of the room. “You've gone mad! Please, let me help you! Put down the blade, and we can leave this place, never to return!”

“Leave? When I am so close to finishing what I started so long ago?” Your husband laughs a cruel laugh, and slashes at you with the blade. Again, you leap away, but it was a feint. He chants some words that echo with power, and the fire begins to dance to his words. With a gesture from his free hand, the fire engulfs you! You stagger blindly as the flames begin to devour you, Traver's name upon your lips as you beg for mercy. The water! It is your only chance! You leap through the stained-glass window. The fire has burned away the nerves on your skin, so you don't feel the glass tearing your flesh as you crash through onto the roof. You slide down the slanted roof and plummet over the edge. The manor shrinks above you as you plummet to the darkness below. You land hard on the rocks several hundred feet below, and your body crushes at the impact. You die instantly – a mercy, compared to the inferno you had become.

(Make a DC 16 Will save (Fear, enchantment). If you succeed – whew!  The haunt’s effects pass through you.  If you fail then you have caught on fire!  Take 2d6 fire damage.  You may attempt a DC 14 Reflex save each round to attempt to put out your burning clothes and skin.

Additionally, if you catch on fire, make a DC 14 Will save.  If you fail, then you feel compelled to leap through the intact stained-glass window, in order to douse your burning skin in the waves below. I'll take it from there. If you succeed, you still feel the urge, but you can beg someone to restrain you.  You’re still on fire, though!)

Unfulfilled Glories: 

Ah, the life of a wanderer! The world is filled with a trillion wonders, and a man could live a thousand lifetimes, and never see them all! You remember your first sea voyage vividly – a trip across the Inner Sea from Cheliax to Thuvia. You were a minor attachment to a powerful Chelaxian Dottari who wanted to purchase a vial of the sun orchid elixir. It rained the whole way there, but if you hadn't been at the rail on the third day, you wouldn't have seen the sea serpent crest the waves a hundred leagues away. Nobody believed you, but that didn't matter – you had seen it, and that was enough.

That was only the first of many travels. The dusty tombs of Osirion. The enchanting operas of Taldor. The savage beauty of the Mwangi Expanse. And Absalom! Ah, Absalom, the City at the Center of the World! No place in the Inner Sea could ever hope to match its splendor!

But that was over a decade ago. You settled down with your wife, back in your homeland of Varisia, to start a family. That meant sacrifices – no more wandering, no more travels. Someone else would have to negotiate with the rajahs of Jalmeray to ask for entrance to the Kingdom of the Impossible, someone else would have to arrange to sneak into the isolationist island enclave of Hermea, the utopian society. You, however, would become a father to three children – two daughters and a son.

More travels assault you in flashes. The hideous beasts of the Worldwound, crawling out of the hole in the world. The technological marvels that lumber about in Numeria. The oppressive society of Nidal, its people kept safe during the long climb back to civilization by the dark god, Zon-Kuthon. The Eye of Abendego, the massive hurricane has swirled off the coast of the Sodden Lands since Aroden's death a hundred years ago, and the secrets it keeps in its eye. All these travels – and now your lot is to spawn, and to die. It took Cyralie two tries before that shrill harpy was able to produce an heir, but she finally got it right the third time. At least your bloodline is assured, but how much have you missed? What wonders could you have found, what secrets could you have learned, had you kept wandering? Why did you ever settle down? What have you done with yourself, Traver?

And what can you do to fix it?

(Please make a DC 16 Will save (Fear, enchantment). If you fail, you are shaken as long as you remain in this house.  Shaken gives you -2 on attack rolls, saves, skill checks, and ability checks.)

Origins of Lichdom: 

You slip the chime back into your pocket, and quietly push the door to your husband's workshop open. He is not here, however, so you begin to look around. One of the books on the workbench is open, and you read through its worn pages. Your husband's hand is unmistakable.

The text is shaky at times, and the terms he uses are occasionally indecipherable, but there are large portions that become clear to you as you read. He's written long treatises on two people – Arazni, the Harlot Queen of Geb, and Socorro, the Butcher of Carrion Hill. “In both cases,” he writes, “there are many differences, but a few things remain constant. A receptacle. A potion. A lengthy ritual. Failure at any moment would be disastrous.”

What follows are several pages of metaphysical jargon that you fail to understand, but the intention is quite clear – he has spent years learning what steps he needs to take to replicate this ritual, and carry it out himself. A veritable laundry list of fantastic items take up several dozen pages, almost all of which are crossed out. Nine remain – four are names of monstrous creatures, and a long academic-sounding name next to it: treant, roc, sphinx, kraken. Five make a list of unusual reagents: scorpion venom, vampire's breath, deathwing moth tongue, belladonna, the heart of a poisoned maiden.

The last page is written in triumphant script. “At last! The great work has been completed! Arazni! Socorro! I follow in your footsteps! Tonight, Death itself shall be denied! Tonight, I take my last step in this world, and my first in the next! Time shall have no meaning to me. Death shall have no claim upon me. I shake off such concerns as morality and humanity. I will be reborn in glorious undeath!”

What has he done? You race down to his underground laboratory, finding the door locked. He does not answer your cries, so you pull the chime from your pocket, and ring it. The door opens. You prepare yourself for the confrontation…

But it is too late! Your Vorel – what has he done!  You must find Lorey! You must get her safe, and away from here!

(Make a DC 14 Will save (Fear, enchantment). If you fail, you know that your husband has succeed at his blasphemous ritual, and must flee upstairs at top speed to find your daughter and rescue her.)

Ghoulish Uprising: 

“For you.”

“For you.”

“For you.”

Over and over, that's what you say. Your limbs ache, your throat is dry with thirst, your fine clothes are sweat-soaked and covered in dirt and grime, but you keep at your task. You lift the pick again. Your arms protest, but the thought of him gives you strength. “For you,” you cry again, and strike at the stone with the pickaxe.

The stone yields to you, just as you know he will. You sigh as your toil pays off, but you notice that there is not just darkness beyond the hole. A stench of rotting flesh reaches your nostrils, and a dozen decaying arms reach through the hole, pulling the hole wider. You stand there frozen as the creatures reach for you. They grab you and drag you down, down into the dark with them. You look back, and see him a few steps away. He saved you once, back when the goblins attacked and killed your dog.  He cane into your life with HIS dog, just as the goblins took away YOUR dog. The goblins had torches with them. Just like Mommy did.

Something is happening to you, down here in the dark. You are changing. The weak-willed boy who was orphaned is dying. You are becoming something stronger. Something confident. Something better. You will claim him. He will be yours, just as you made Iesha yours. He will know that all of this that you do...it is for him. You send your minions out after him. They will bring him to you, so you will be together for all eternity and live underground happily ever after. The end.

(You are being attacked by a pack of ghouls! Make a DC 16 Will save (Fear, enchantment). If you succeed, you shake off this vision and regain your senses. If you fail, the ghouls grab you and tear and bite at your flesh. You take 6d6 points of damage, Fort save DC 16 for half. Additionally, if you fail the initial Will save, make a DC 16 Fort save. No reason. Honest.) 

Vorel's Legacy: 

There! The shadowy fungus! You have seen it before. It is the last remnants of your mortal form! If you feed upon it, you can reclaim your lost essence! You can finally take human form again!

(Make a DC 14 Will save (Enchantment). If you fail, you must eat some of the delicious black fungus. This is an enchantment (compulsion) effect with the language-dependent and mind-affecting keywords, so any bonuses or penalties that apply to these effects would apply here.)