The Nightmare Castle
Hello once again, and welcome to Grave Plots, your online source for adventure ideas and plot hooks. This week, instead of a small collection of little hooks that fit a general theme, I thought I’d write about an adventure I’ve been wanting to run for a few days now. This adventure was inspired by a Savatage song called “Castles Burning,” which I recently heard for the first time, though the adventure has nothing to do with the song per se. This adventure, tentatively titled “Nightmare Castle” (I’m no great shakes at naming my adventures), provides an intriguing dungeon crawl with horror and mystery elements. Below is a potential hook for the adventure and a basic outline for running it. I’d love to see how this plays out at the table, so if you try running it, feel free to write me and tell me how it went.
Ok, so for this hook, the PCs have just accomplished a suitably impressive quest for a high lord. As reward, they receive stewardship of a castle and the small, out-of-the-way community attached to the castle. The land in question has passed from lord to lord, never settling with any one steward for more than a few years. Perhaps because of this, it has gained a reputation for its stewards suddenly and inexplicably vanishing. However, the high lord assures the PCs that’s all in the past, as the castle has been in the possession of the high lord’s family for generations – at least nominally. They’ve never been very involved in the day-to-day affairs of the estate, however, preferring to leave it to the care of stewards. His lordship has finally decided that the title needs to be passed on, either because it’s no longer cost effective to continue allocating resources to keep the area defended, or because he was running short of liquid funds when he needed the PCs to go out on a quest for him, and this is the only way he has to reward them. When the PCs arrive at their new stronghold, they may be surprised to find that the estate, described as a “backwater fort supporting a few homesteaders,” is actually a massive castle close to a large and thriving township; while the structure of the castle is clearly ancient, it is equally obvious that it’s still in quite excellent repair.
As the PCs begin to pass through the town on the way to their new castle, they are immediately greeted by an old beggar, who seems to be raving. He cries out a warning to the PCs, telling them that if they know what’s good for them then they should stay well away from the castle, as they will only find despair, madness and death within. A short while later the PCs are greeted officially by the town’s local government, who offer the PCs congratulations on becoming local lords and welcome them to their town. If asked about the fate of the previous lords, the townsfolk are evasive and claim ignorance of the lords’ fates. In truth, it has been more than a generation since the town has seen a lord of the castle, so chances are good that many of the townsfolk honestly don’t know what happened to the previous lords, knowing only the local legends which state that those who enter the castle are never seen again. Still, while most of the townspeople dismiss these rumors as tall tales, they fear angering the new lords by relating the tales. If the PCs inquire about the beggar they receive reports that no one in town recognizes anyone fitting that description.
Once the PCs enter their new castle, the door slams behind them and is sealed shut against them. Immediately thereafter, mocking malevolent laughter echoes through the hall. The source of the laughter is the ghost of either an extremely powerful devil or a great wyrm dragon, and it was due to the magic of this creature that the castle has sealed itself against the PCs. Locked inside the castle, the PCs must explore its many rooms in search of the source of the malevolent laughter or some kind of way out. The PCs will soon note that the structure is truly enormous, perhaps even bigger on the inside than on the outside, and it should take days to fully investigate. PCs who try to just skip the adventure with teleportation magic or something similar find that, while they can escape the castle’s wall in this fashion, they find themselves in a strange nightmare-scape that looks to be a lot worse than the castle: a barren wasteland whose howling winds that seem to whisper the PCs names, filled with twisted rocky spires that seem to form impossible helixes. Every step in this bizarre place alters their spacial orientation and seems to alternate between taking them miles or inches forward, apparently at random. Place ridiculously powerful monsters out here, and maybe an evil demigod or two, and the PCs should run right back to the castle with their collective tails between their legs (thank you, Tomb of Horrors).
During the first day of exploration the PCs should encounter little in the way of monsters, but should experience much in the way of ambience. Emphasize features exemplifying the grim grandeur of their new home/prison; for instance, you can describe the many roaring fires, which should have long gone out, filling nightmarish fireplaces whose frames and mantles resemble the distorted faces of toothy demons. In the various rooms, the PCs may find stone statues with just a little bit too much detail, seeming too life-like to have been sculpted by human hands. Add in grand halls with floors of polished veined marble, lit by witch light and filled with suits of armor in various fantastic designs. Maybe you could include a few dining halls with tables filled with fresh food, in all the PCs’ favorite varieties. And of course, you can throw in some portraits of the ancient inhabitants of the castle and similar classic indicators of haunted manors.
The next day is when things really start to heat up, as the castle fills with ghosts. These should include members of the PCs’ past: villains they slew, dead relatives, and perhaps even a few people they know can’t possibly be dead. Some of these ghosts will be hostile and some friendly, but all should be able to offer some kind of information on the castle that could be useful to the PCs, or at the very least be flavorful in some fashion. These ghosts have a special feature: each has a certain time limit, after which it will become hostile towards the PCs, possibly going mad and attacking them. So, a ghost that was friendly one day might suddenly attack the next, or be unreasonably restrictive with information it would have given up easily the day before. This also works in reverse: a spirit might be hostile one day and chummy the next, with no recollection of the previous attitude. Additionally, every ghost should have a method to send it onward to eternal rest as well as a way to dismiss or destroy it without granting the spirit sanctuary, and the cooler, more interesting characters should be set up with the potential to return to life. In addition to the ghosts, the PCs are occasionally attacked by other incorporeal undead, though they can recruit ghostly allies to help them against these foes.
Ultimately, the PCs may learn of three ways to escape the castle: 1) A basement fireplace is a portal to a lake of fire somewhere in the hells; 2) A twelfth story window connects back to the PCs’ home plane, but jumping through it inflicts some kind of terrible curse (this should be a very hard piece of information to come by); 3) Addressing the tormented spirit of the castle’s “true master” will grant the PCs that title and allow them to return home to rule uncontested. Unfortunately, the castle’s master is a very powerful foe, dwelling bound in the castle’s catacombs. It is said that none can stand against him, and unless the PCs are exceptionally high level it should be all but laughable that they should be able to overcome the beast by ordinary means. Fortunately for the PCs, the castle’s first ruler knows the method to set the beast’s soul to rest, but he won’t talk while his daughter’s soul remains trapped in the castle; save her soul and he’ll tell the PCs how to banish the ghostly monster and return home. Once the PCs succeed in this task he explains that they must destroy the castle, as that is the unfinished business of the ghostly monster – do that and they set his soul to rest and can return home safely.
For especially clever and dedicated PCs, a final method of defeating the castle’s master without resorting to destroying their cool new stronghold can be found at the end of a very, very complicated puzzle. Either way, when they return home they find that only 24 hours have passed since they left the town; even if the castle was destroyed, their title of rulership is still good, and so perhaps they could set about building a new stronghold. Or maybe they will choose instead to pass their title off to the village mayor, deciding that this governing business is a little too dangerous.
So, please tell me what you think, and until next time may you have great success in your future gaming endeavors.