For this adventure I wanted to break out of the mold of "PCs are able to defeat whatever is in front of them", and give them a threat that is genuinely beyond their abilities. In their encounters I wanted them to start to think more realistically about whether it makes sense to attack or retreat, rather than just assume for narrative reasons that they can win any battle they are part of. I also wanted to give them a bit more freedom in deciding how they respond to the threat, and have a wider range to the action that includes multiple towns and interested parties. For this reason the write up for this adventure is looser, since you can't really say at the outset how the PCs will respond. Instead I'm just listing some of the likely players and threats in this scenario.
Note: There's a lot of really tough monsters that the PCs could meet in this adventure. Depending on the PCs power level you might want to hold this adventure back until later in the campaign. I ran this early since my players are all deadly min-maxers and needed to fear the Forest more, but use your best judgement.
The Forest wants revenge for the clear cutting that happened in the last adventure, and is sending out some of its bigger guns on a retaliatory raid. So there's going to be several conflicts up and down the Frontier. Most relevant to the players, an ancient and feared Witch known as The Spindly Man is going to be attacking towns and villages in their area. He is bringing his horde of monsters with him. Additionally, the Spindly Man is capable of rapidly turning slain humans into fresh Monsters, and he use any slain villagers to strengthen his horde. The question for the PCs is not "can they stop him before he destroys any villages" but rather "how far will the Spindly Man ravage before they can pull together enough force to turn him back".
In the previous adventure, it has been foretold in the stars that the village of Orsiano is doomed and will be destroyed before the month is out. The PCs probably know this. If they did not learn this in the previous adventure, have a relevant NPC come raving to them with this information. The PCs probably do not know that the doom is the arrival of the Spindly Man, a powerful, ancient, and feared Witch. So the adventure has 2-3 phases:
decide what to do about Orsiano. Evacuate the village, or try to somehow avert fate? Then deal with the arrival of the Spindly Man, and with him killing or sending into flight anyone still left in the village.
try to stop the Spindly Man before he destroys the Terracina, the next town further West. The further West you go, the larger the towns and garrisons, so the Spindly Man will face stiffer resistance here and it is possible to turn him back. If the Spindly Man's forces seem to be losing, he will flee back to the Forest rather than stay and fight to the death.
If the PCs fail to stop him at stage 2), the Spindly Man destroys Terracina and starts his horde back to the Forest, but will try to take out one more of the border villages (Bellil) on his way out. This gives the PCs one last chance to fight him if they wish. The Spindly Man will have bolstered his forces from the corpses of the previous town, but the PCs will have the aid of the more mobile elements of the regular army who will have arrived by now to aid in the defense.
Border villages: Orsiano - 400 people - larger market town Bellil - 200 people Florien - 200 people
2nd-tier towns: (forming a rough line to the West of the villages) Terracina - 1000 people - small glass industry Potensa - 800 people Tricario - 800 people
1st-tier towns: (forming a rough line to the West of the towns) Casselacaraco - 3000 people Nova Tursi - 3000 people Armantea - 3000 people
So, this did not at all go as expected. I told the players that the town was doomed. Doomed doomed doomed. 100% doomed, as foretold by the stars above. I expected that their initial challenge would be to evacuate the town, and how best to convince people to leave their homes behind. Instead the PCs made no effort to do that, and hung out and investigated there. Which, ok, fine, the investigation was not a bad idea at all, they don't have the same knowledge I do about the actual threat. In any case they were at the town when the Spindly Man attacked, leading to an extended battle. The PCs chopped through the Tier 1 monsters, made me bring out the Tier 2 monsters, and then defeated the Tier 2's with only moderate fudging on my part. It was a bit of a game of chicken; I wanted them to retreat in the face of overwhelming odds, but I didn't want to actually kill any PCs and I think they can tell. Anyway! Twitch had a brief run in with the Spindly Man and his triple cleaver, before retreating with the rest of the party.
For the second run in things went slightly more according to plan, as they gathered allies. They were also more pro-active, and went out to meet the Spindly Man as he was between towns resting under the ground. The Spindly Man has to burrow during the daylight hours, so they used that time to bring up their gathered guard forces to try and make a bonfire over him, forcing a fight under better terms than if had made it to a town. This also greatly reduced the civilian casualties and the opportunity for the Spindly Man to harvest them. So smart move on the PCs part, but also less dramatic of a fight than if they had to defend multiple positions in an ongoing town battle. This was (ever so slightly, kind of) something that Iris Murdoch wrote about in her evaluations of her own work, the tension between "crystalline" (railroady) stories where there is structure, foreshadowing, counterpoints, direct meaning, etc. and "organic" stories where she gives her characters room to live and grow and be messy. So, this time around I did better about letting the players shape the adventure more, but I'm still having trouble combining that with, you know, interesting and challenging battles.
All of the Monsters in this section were crafted by the Spindly Man using the 3 basic essences of blood, bone, and spirit. If you want to be simulationist about it, the Tier 1 Monsters each require a single essence to create, the Tier 2 Monsters require 6 essences, and the Tier 3 Monsters require 50 essences. A single slain villager provides the Spindly Man with 3 essences, and so could be used to create a skeleton Monster, a blood Monster, and a spirit Monster. The PCs will usually face numerous Tier 1 Monsters, backed up by 1-3 of the higher tier Monsters. The Tier 1's are usually used as cannon fodder, while the higher tiers act as champions and heroes of the enemy contingents.
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
Basics:
A sausage shaped sack of blood, wrapped in the misshapen skin of its former owner. Slorches along the ground towards its targets.
On death, will lose coherence and spill out its blood on the ground in a great gush.
Combat:
Ability: slow and ungainly, but persistent. Can squeeze itself into small spaces
Attack: Blood Whisper: Calls the blood out of the target's body and into the blood slug. The victim will leak blood from their eyes, nose, and ears. This blood is pulled away in small streams that float through the air to the Blood Slig, slowly strengthening it and draining the target. Short range, smallish damage, make a Con check to resist
Attack: Blood Freeze - slows the target's blood in their body. Short range, make a Con check or be immobilized as the target is not able to move its legs.
Weaknesses:
needles, being stabbed, thunder
Motivations:
drain the blood from the vulnerable and grow larger
surround, freeze, and drain the powerful
squeeze into an area that should be safe
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | 2 | 6 |
Basics:
A gleaming skeleton that has been newly stripped of the flesh and organs that were weighing it down.
Combat:
Defense: Resist piercing damage
Ability: Nimble - very light on its feet, easily does flips, hand stands, climbs walls, etc.
Defense: Acrobatic dodge - once per combat, the skeleton performs an absurd acrobatic movement in order to gain a temporary bonus to its defense.
Attack: Rake a target with its bony finger-claws - poor chance to hit, and only minor damage
Weaknesses:
Hammers
Motivations:
to move and claw and dance
to use its acrobatics to attack its enemies from above, or from unexpected angles
to distract enemies from attacking more important targets
to steal something valuable and run off with it cackling into the night
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
Basics:
The pale shade of the newly dead. Appears as a almost entirely transparent, light blue and lightly glowing shadow of a human
leaves cold air behind it
Combat:
Ability: Insubstantial - can phase through non living solid objects
Defense: Spiritual. Ignores cold damage and damage from non-magical weapons
Ability: Possess - Can enter and take over bodies that have been reduced to 1 HP or less. Will drive these bodies to attack their friends, until the body is destroyed or the ghost is banished
Attack: Premonition of death - scares the target. Short range, Will save or be at disadvantage from disabling fear
Attack: Soul drain - touch attack. Make a Will save or take a modest amount of psychic damage.
Weaknesses:
fire, terrified of it in all forms. also not a fan of AoE magic.
Motivations:
to terrify, drain, and possess. To pick off the weak and crippled in a combat
to appear out of walls and attack when you feel safe.
To escape into the ground in order to avoid & survive likely attacks
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
Basics:
A very large, very long blood balloon. Contains the blood of 6 people, wrapped in their own skins
Combat:
Attack: Big blood Gulp - Calls the blood out of the target's body and into the blood viper. The victim will leak blood from their eyes, nose, and ears. This blood is pulled away in streams to the Blood Viper, strengthening it and draining the target. Short range, moderate damage, make a Con check to resist
Defense: Virulent Blood - when wounded, this creature's poisoned blood sprays out in a wide arc. Creatures in melee range must make a Con save or else take modest damage and be at disadvantage from the poisoned blood
Ability: On death, the blood stored in this beast spills out in a gush, covering a large area and making it into slippery and difficult terrain
Weaknesses:
thunder
Motivations:
Crash through barriers and walls, and into the midst of a group of enemies
Act as a suicide bomber, draining and paralyzing everyone around it before expiring in a gush of blood
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
Basics:
A large and only vaguely humanoid ghost, with quite real blood circulating through its transparent blue body
Combat:
Defense: Spiritual. Ignores cold damage and damage from non-magical weapons
Attack: Bloody Scream - affects all targets in short range, Will save or be paralyzed with fear
Attack: Soul drain - affects all targets in short range, Will save or take modest damage as spirit is drained away to feed the ghost
Weaknesses:
Fire
Motivations:
to find masses of people, and terrorize and drain them
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 6 | 5 | 5 |
Basics:
A 8 foot tall skeleton formed from the combined bones of many people. Its bony fists are wrapped around by the glowing blue aura of two malevolent spirits
Combat:
Defense: Resist Piercing
Defense: Acrobatic dodge - once per combat, the skeleton performs an absurd acrobatic movement in order to gain a temporary bonus to its defense.
Attack: Fist punch - punches an enemy with its massive fist. Does moderate physical damage, as well as some psychic damage from the ghost. If the target is reduced to near health by this attack, the ghost leaves the skeleton's fist, enters the target's body, and possess the target immediately.
Weaknesses:
Any fire damage will destroy the ghosts wrapped around its fists
Motivations:
To duel strong enemies, and ideally punch and possess them
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | 6 | 2 | 5 |
Basics:
A ball of floating, rainbow swirled light. About the size of a soccer ball. Somehow the light seems dense and carries an aura of threat about it
Combat:
Ability: Insubstantial - can phase through non living solid objects
Ability: Spirit Sight: Can see life directly, and ignores invisibility, illusions, obstructions, etc.
Ability: Death Drain: Thin tendrils of rainbow light reach out to all corpses in a large radius. The corpses age and decay into old bones, the tendrils pulse, and The Orb is restored in health and power and glows with new light.
Defense: Resistance to all magic
Attack: Death Merge - Simply floats directly into the chest cavity of the target, dealing enormous damage. If killed, the target instantly explodes in a spray of rainbow light and gore. Mostly used on NPCs
Attack: Spectral beam - a beam of prismatic light lances out from the orb. The target struck takes a large amount of damage, and is in ongoing, terrible pain as dire energies flicker up and down their body for minutes. The target feels burned, frozen, stabbed, in a painful cascade.
Attack: Death Pulse - There is a flash of greenish black light that momentarily transforms the world into a nightmare. Everyone in a large area is affected and takes moderate amount of necrotic damage, Con save for half.
Weaknesses:
Motivations:
To murder everyone, eerily and serenely
To float up out of the ground, serenely, and murder everyone
To murder masses of low level defenders using its area of effect attacks
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 5 | 8 | 5 |
Basics:
A gigantic coiled snake constructed from a swimming pools worth of magically animated blood. It is wrapped in the skins dozens of slain villagers, and a deep and foreboding red light glows out through them.
Combat:
Attack: Spitting blood: fires a high pressure stream of malevolent, rotted blood at a single target. Long range, moderate damage, Con save or be knocked prone. Leaves a pool of blood on the target area.
Attack: Drain blood: causes blood to gush out from every orifice of the target, and stream through the air to join the Blood Wyrm. Long range, large damage, Con save for half damage
Ability: Bloody Pressure - the light from the creature waxes in power, covering the battlefield in a terrifying red glow. All of its allies have advantage for this round
Ability: Reforge: Every pool of blood on the ground is animated with magical energy, gathers itself together, and forms a blood imp.
Weaknesses:
Motivations:
to stay behind lines, sniping at dangerous enemy targets.
At key moment, re-forge every blood-pools on the field
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
Basics:
A small homunculus built from spilled blood and animated by dark magic. Roughly humanoid, but lacking any real features
Combat:
Attack: grabs any impromptu weapons around; a rock, a piece of glass, a tooth, a shard of bone, and viciously attacks with it
Weaknesses:
Motivations:
to swarm and bear down defenders through sheer weight of numbers
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | 6 | 7 | 7 |
Basics:
A long and gigantic centipede woven of ribs, small bones, and ghost-matter. Flows across the ground on innumerable tiny finger bones, while rhymically weaving and shaking its body. The top of the creature is covered in hundreds of waving tendrils of ectoplasm
Combat:
Defense: resist piercing, resist cold
Defense: Smooth movements: resists all attempts to slow or stop the creature, through magic or physical force. The skeletal centipede slides around obstacles, or simply de-attaches bits of itself that have been hooked or grabbed
Ability: Bone Sympathy: The magic of the creature reaches out to all nearby bone matter, and tries to take control of it. All creatures in a medium area make a Con save on their turn; on a failure they lose control of their leg bones and the GM moves them instead.
Ability: Tendril drain: If a living creature is near the Bone Shaker, one of its ectoplasmic tentacles will latch on to them and start draining their life. Moderate psychic damage, and heals the Bone Shaker. If a creature is killed in this fashion, its skin and muscles slough off, leaving a new gleaming white skeleton ready to join the fight
Attack: Rip and Tear: The femur-mandibles at the front of the creature rip into the target and try to shred it. Large amount of damage on hit.
Weaknesses:
Music that is out of time and off beat. Sends the creature into graceless spasms and cancels its magic
Motivations:
to dance through the battlefield, causing chaos and murdering people
sweep people up in its wake, forming a conga line of the newly dead
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 8 | 8 | 7 |
Basics:
A very thin, 10 ft tall man with absurdly bad posture, hunched up and bent over until he is only 7 feet tall. An old man, he a wears large black over coat that covers his S-shaped form. Has rough, sparse black hair. Strongly smells of mothballs and age and rotted blood.
His arms are hidden inside the large sleeves of his overcoat. His right hand is made of yellowed and skeletal bone, and is absurdly over large, about 2 feet diameter. His left hand holds a very large, triple bladed cleaver. Lines of dark magic crackle between the blades of the cleaver.
Takes long, slow, delicate steps that cover distance surprisingly quickly
During the day, if he is outside the Forest, uses his creatures to dig a large underground chamber where they all rest during the day. Sort of like an ant-lion, but on a larger scale. The hole will be marked with blood and gore, smeared from the undead creatures who did the digging.
Backstory:
Hundreds of years ago a creepy old man went into the Forest and he has been becoming creepier every year since then
The Spindly Man is relatively well known, and has raided the Frontier once every 20-30 years for the last 180 years
Roleplaying:
friendly in, a creepy way. Converses the same whether he is making introductions or chopping a player in two. Not opposed to talking, but talking will usually not make him interrupt his murder spree. Has a body count in the 4 figures; really not phased by anything at this point in his life.
calls people "child". Has tiny sugar candies in blue wrappers that he occasionally throws out of the fog as a bit of a foreboding introduction
Combat:
Ability: Living Fog - surrounded by a very dense, thick, foul, yellowish fog that rolls out for hundreds of feet around him. Difficult to see through the fog for others (vision limited to 50ft). The fog is actually part of his body/aura, and acts as a sensory apparatus for him. He has perfect knowledge of everything in the fog, and it allows him to perfectly "see" invisible creatures, hidden creatures, illusions, etc. that are in the fog. Also gives him a slight degree of pre-cognition, since the fog lets him sense even slight muscle movements that people make, giving him a small warning about any actions they are going to take. The fog is continuously generated by him, so while it can be temporarily rolled back it will quickly replenish itself.
Ability: Choking fog - the particles of the fog concentrate and try to fill the lungs of targets within the fog. Difficult to fight/move/exert oneself with the limited oxygen supply. Can use this to attack a half dozen targets at a time.
Attack: Triple cleaver - this foul and cursed artifact is used to separate mind, body, and spirit. The cleaver does a large amount of damage if it hits. This damage is then applied three times, once as physical damage, once as psychic damage, and once as necrotic damage. A person killed by the cleaver is immediately separated into their components parts of blood, spirit, and bone, to be used as crafting ingredients by the Spindly Man. Physically this looks like the person's body tearing itself apart in an explosion of gore and a flare of magical energy, before rapidly reassembling into a ball of blood and meat, a ball of crumpled bone, and a ball of glowing spirit. The Spindly Man can quickly and expertly craft these into new Monsters.
Attack: Grabby hand - his enormous skeletal right hand shoots out, and then just keeps going, followed by an endless chain of vertebrae. The hand has a range that is slightly beyond that of the fog, and will violently grab anything it touches and yank it back to the Spindly Man. Difficult to dodge because the fog gives it an element of surprise, and difficult to resist due to the Spindly Man's immense strength. Should be used on NPCs multiple times before targeting a player, since being drawn close to the Spindly Man is a deadly proposition.
Defense: his overcoat hides softly glowing lines of concentrated blood magic and spirit magic that follow along the chi paths of his elongated body. If he is damaged, he can feed the blood magic into his body to rapidly regenerate the damage. If he is the target of spells or magical energies, the spirit magic will absorb most of the force of the spell. In practical terms, this results in the spell either not having an effect, doing half or less damage, or just sort of wilting when it touches the Spindly Man. The red and blue lines of magic energy will dim as they are used up. Both of these defenses can be burned through with enough effort, but they do give the Spindly Man an extra and unexpected layer of resilience.
Weaknesses:
Paralyzed by strong, direct sunlight. Even weak sunlight will put him at a disadvantage
Motivations:
To murder whole settlements and use them as the ingredients for new monsters
to arrive at night, and use darkness, fog, and hordes of monsters to spread chaos and terror
to use his skeletal hand to grab NPC defenders and yank them into the fog, and immediately slay them with his cleaver to the sound of agonized screaming and then organs tearing
To stay protected in his fog and behind the lines, while his monsters range out ahead and kill for him
To retreat back to the Forest in the face of danger, to survive and emerge again 20 years later
| Health | Defense | Strength | Agility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 7 | 5 | 4 |
Basics:
Undead dwarves, armored in heavy plate, and covered over with gore-streaked white robes and hoods. They wield cleavers in both gauntleted hands and attack with manic glee.
The personal guard of the Spindly Man; he brings them out if faced with a threat, or to act as hounds to find and drag people out of their hiding places. They stay in the background until called to act.
Combat:
Defense: Heavy Armor, small size, undead flesh. Difficult and annoying creatures to kill
Attack: Cleaver someone madly
Attack: Rush at someone and collide with their knees, bowling them over onto the ground
Weaknesses:
Fire. Their robes are pretty flammable, and burning them will distract and damage them even if it probably won't finish them off
Motivations:
find prey and drag it out screaming and bleeding to their master
interrupt and interfere with those that would try to threaten their master