[BF3] House of Coldarius

[Solomoriah]

This adventure is now in BF3 on the Downloads page.

I've decided I can't find a module that works for me for Sunday (yes, two days hence) so I'm going to roll my own. Here's the setup:

Predmore Coldarius is a wizard, and a vampire (though his vampire state isn't common knowledge). He lives in a fortified but dilapidated tower in an old part of the city of Callidaro, in a country lousy with wizards. He deliberately became a vampire (with a clever arrangement to avoid being enslaved by a "lesser" creature) in order to live long enough to complete his research. Dark, nasty research.

He built a flesh golem to be a literal "meat shield" should he need defending; mostly, the golem does the heavy lifting, as nobody ever bothers him. He also employs a wererat to bring him victims to drain; the wererat, Nerstly, butchers and eats the victims' drained corpses so that they do not become vampires (burning the leftovers, of course). He targets the poor and homeless, and is very cautious about his work, so that no one suspects that he is kidnapping people to be murdered and eaten.

The local citizens think the whole place is creepy, maybe haunted even, but there isn't enough evidence to convince the city watch to either raid the place or report it to the wizard-king's men.

After many, many years, Predmore is nearing the completion of his research. He will need to sacrifice a woman who is related to him, and it turns out that there are few indeed of his relatives living; his great niece, Rafaela, is the only one Nerstly has been able to identify. She is trying to work her way through wizard school as a bartender, and will be known to the player characters; her abduction is the hook that will draw them in.

SO... I have 40 rooms to fill with stuff. Help me out here. I've attached the maps (which may look familiar to you... if I decide to publish this, I'll have to redraw them). I need two things:

1. What was each room used for originally?
2. What's in there now?

It is entirely possible that urban-friendly monsters may be living in the house. They would be those creatures that are able to coexist with a vampire who is distracted by his work and his wererat servant. They might be sycophants, or pets, or vermin. They do not all have to be challenges for the PCs; they may be there just for "color."

Also, there is a staircase that runs continuously from bottom to top of the place. I need a few ideas to distract them from their usual blind rush to the last room.

[Solomoriah]

Here's where I've gotten so far:

The House

Level 1

1. FRONT PORCH:

2. ENTRANCE HALL:
Nerstly, Wererat Doorman

3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

Level 2

11.

12. KITCHEN:
Nerstly butchers his master's kills here, then eats them. Lots of knives and gore.

13. PANTRY:

14.
15. GREAT HALL:

16. ARMORY:

Level 3

17. CORRIDOR:

18.
19.
20.
21.
22.

Level 4

23. CORRIDOR:

24. BARRACKS:

25.

26. BARRACKS:

Level 5

27. CORRIDOR:

28. BEDROOM:

29. BEDROOM:

30. BEDROOM:

31. BEDROOM:

32. BEDROOM:

Level 6

33. CORRIDOR:

34. BEDROOM:

35. LABORATORY:

36.

Level 7

37. CORRIDOR:
Flesh Golem

38. LABORATORY:

39. PARLOR:

40. MASTER BEDROOM:
Predmore Coldarius, Vampire Wizard

[SmootRK]

Room 10: Servant Commons
The door to the stairwell is open (norther doorway). The chamber contains a table, chairs, and some various odds and ends for a meager living space. Nerstly uses this area to eat and stay in between tasks. Pinned to the wall are so many various bits of belongings from past victims (very Texas Chainsaw Massacre -like). Keys, grocery lists, writs and decries, interesting (but non-valuable) pieces of ornamentation, clothing, and various other odds and ends can be randomly found about the area.

Room 11: Kennels
Lining the walls of this chamber are a number of cages, each holding a Plague Hound (Field Guide), 6 in total. The cage doors are each hooked to a chain and pulley mechanism that is operated from the northern section of the room. A single skeletal guard is posted in that location that has been given the simple instructions that if anyone other than Predmore Coldarius or Nerstly enter the room, he is to release the lever that will pull open the latches of the cages, releasing the hounds which will immediately move to attack living creatures.

Nerstly will occasionally throw scraps from the kitchen into the cages, but he otherwise avoids the hounds (as they will attack him). Predmore, being a Vampire, can command and control the hounds (as well as the skeletal guard). If Predmore is near this chamber, he can mentally command the skeleton to release the hounds and open the door to allow them to deal with intruders that may be present in the lower levels and stairwell (door between area 10 and stairwell are left open).

The chamber is clearly nasty with filth from the hounds, but they do not mind. The overall stench is nearly overwhelming having the effect of nauseating anyone within the area (equal to Troglodyte stench). Each character in the room must save versus poison. Those failing the save suffer a -2 penalty to attack rolls while in the chamber. Leaving the chamber negates the penalty, while re-entering will reinstate the penalty, and will cause any who successfully saved previously to re-roll their save.

The hounds have no treasure, but Nerstly has placed a small pouch under a loose stone near the southern corner of the room. A secret door check in that section will locate the loose stonework. The pouch contains 20 pieces of platinum, 3 - 100gp gemstones, and a ring of hematite worth 100gp (optionally make it magical).

Monsters:
Plague Hounds (x6) from Field Guide
Skeleton (normal variety), not meant as a threat, but as a logical mechanism for opening the cages and releasing the hounds. If the characters are fairly powerful, perhaps change the guard to a Leaded Ogre Skeleton (also Field Guide - making it a 4HD and doing 1d10 damage (but striking last each round). It will attack after opening the cages.

[dymondy2k]

Room 3: The Gallery
This room has two ornamental suits of armor against the west wall, one on each side of the door, and various pieces of art hanging from the wall, many of them portraits of different people, that if not royal were at least all well to do.

Room 4: Guard Room
This room was originally used to house the guards who were on duty and tasked with guarding the tower. However instead of regular guards there are 5 skeleton warriors standing at attention against the east wall. They will make no move to attack the party unless they make an attempt to open the door to room 5. At that point they will attack whoever is near the door.

Monsters:
Skeletons (5)

Room 5. Makeshift Cell.
This heavy door reveals a room being used as a makeshift cell. There is a pile of dirty moldy hay in on corner and bucket overflowing with human waste in the other. The whole room stinks of a combination of bodily waste, human sweat and decomposition. Nerstly would use this room to hold prisoners on those occasions when he was able to grab more than one. However he wasn't equipped to take care of them so many of them would die in here before he could feed them to his master. This however did not keep him from eating them. The room contains a few empty burlap sacks and a broken barrel indicating that this may have been used as a storeroom at one time.

If the hay is checked it will disturb a nest of giant rats inside of it and they will attack the party. Inside the hay is a small sack of coins and a tarnished silver cup that looks to be of a decent value if it was cleaned up.

Monsters:
Giant Rats (7)

Treasure:
6 EP (in small sack)
SIlver Cup worth 900 gp

[Dimirag]

Level One

4: Library

5: Pantry (Housekeeping tools)

6: Greenhouse: What once was a beautiful place filled with a great variant of flowers and other plants now looks like a creepy and shadowy forest. The place is currently used for gathering ingredients. The Garden-keeper is named Florencio. -The city has an Italian-sounding name, and Florencio is an Italian/Latin name that means "flowery"- Some plant-monster or wood/plant golem (maybe florencio?) roams the place.
Note: The place could be really high having a second floor (room 16)

7: Access to 8
8: Stair Access
9: Guard's Room

Level 2

11: Trophy Room: In this place one can see bizarre creatures everywhere. Maybe theres a Hunter lurking around or maybe not all the creatures are really dead...

Level 3

19 & 21: Burning Devices.
20: Crematorium.

[Solomoriah]

Wow, excellent, guys!

I had to move some of the room descriptions around a little bit, but I've incorporated all of it. I've also added a few more things of my own. I'll upload the current version in just a bit.

[Hywaywolf]

I was thinking the third level could be an abandoned level due to an infestation of a large ant swarm in room 22. So the door into room 17 is boarded up. So:

Room 17 - door is boarded up from the stairwell side, but the bottom has been chewed out. The room is dusty with the floor loosely covered with bits of ground stone from the walls and loose sand from room 20. Nothing of value in the room.

Room 18 - a library with books on plants, gardening, herbology, etc. Several comfy, but dusty chairs, side tables and one large table for serious study. On one of the shelves is a book on dangerous plants such as the Blood Rose found in room 20.

Room 19 - this room has an open passage running from the door to south wall. on either side are 4' high pools of water with a wild growth of water plants growing within. The plants are climbing the walls and spreading across the ceiling. In the water are several poisonous water snakes. But one of the plants is well known(to clerics and characters with wilderness experience) for its healing properties.

room 20 - This room has extra wide windows to let in plenty of sunlight. The floor is raised up several feet from the floor in room 17. this is because there is 2' of good soil covering the entire room. Plants have grown wild in here. In a clearing right in front of the window is a Blood Rose with 3 canes. In the soil under the blood rose is the decomposing body of a warrior. perhaps he has a magic weapon/armor or just some gold. The plants on the west wall have taken root in the stone and have broken through to room 21 is several places. Perhaps an oiled up halfling could slip through one of them.

room 21 - This room was once was a storage room. Here you will find barrels of potting soil, differing size containers full of seeds, plant bulbs, roots. clay pots, broken and whole, etc. Coating over it all is a greyish white substance spread around liberally (bat guano, perhaps coming in contact with it could turn you bat shit crazy for 2d6 rounds). 4 giant bats hang from the ceiling. There is no treasure here.

room 22 - This room was the potting room. Scattered around the walls are tables littered with clay pots, buckets of compost, rich soil and animal manure. Shovels, hand tools, and other implements abound. In the north west corner is a large pile of sandy soil. Inside are 7 giant ants unless some have been encountered and killed in other areas of the house. They could be found in the stairwell or in any of the other rooms on this floor. Inside the pile is some treasure.

[Solomoriah]

Thanks, Hyway! I'll sweep up your material and work it into the module tomorrow. In the meantime, I've attached the current version to this post.

You guys rock! This may be the quickest adventure writing project ever for the Basic Fantasy Project!

EDIT: Dropped attachments, see later post.

[Solomoriah]

Okay, I've gone ahead and worked in what I could from Hyway's information. I dropped the giant ants... those things are big, so I don't think Predmore would allow them to hang out here. Also, his research is into the antithesis of life. He may have experimented on living, growing things at one time, but his obsession with his research and his transformation into an undead monster have robbed him of all interest in plant life. So his greenhouse languishes, untended.

This is really looking good! In case you haven't figured it out, this is a Halloween adventure...

[Hywaywolf]

I was going to edit my stuff to make the snakes water pythons. that would make them 5 hd creatures. And the ants I originally thought of as just being a swarm to harras the party but then I remembered you wanted something to slow down the party on the stairs. A couple ants coming under the door to check out the sneaking noises of a party coming up would do just that.

I know that giant ants in the basic D&D book are 6' long, but you didn't have a size description in BF so I thought maybe you liked them smaller. I also thought that Predhome's research would have taken him through naturally occurring plant fauna. The Blood Rose was just an affectation of his own transformation ... how he sees himself, beautiful, but deadly. Once he was through with that area of research he just closed up the floor and forgot about it. The ants are a recent infestation and have only recently chewed through the door. Nesrstly has been tasked to get rid of them, and has plans to do just that once he finishes with the barmaid.

Haha, one of the rooms can have some big barrels of Raid and huge ant poison pellets