Halloween One-Shot Maps
Lorelei
🖼️ 46 images Mapmaker
So a long while back i created this simple cemetary map as a backup - in case my players throw me for a loop i usually have a map or two prepared for "random" quests, etc. I've posted it on some forums for fellow gamers to enjoy printing out and playing on recently and I got a lot of thank yous with responses of ideas for cemetery encounters. So, with Halloween coming up I was thinking of doing a One-Shot with my group and using the cemetary map - but i thought, well, how boring. Just a cemetary??? My Rogue is most certainly going to loot the place if he can, so i thought i'd create another "extension" map to go along with it. I made this one up Sunday evening after i completed my current installment of my WK maps.
So my players will be sent to this cemetery to retrieve a family heirloom for a client. Turns out the client has sent them there to "feed" souls to his dearly departed family. As the players enter the cemetery, the dead rise and attack. They will continually respawn until the players discover in one of the crypts a secret room that leads to the caverns below where a list of names carved into the base of a strange statue. Some names will be crossed off, others will not. The dead will rest when their names are crossed off the statue....
So my players will be sent to this cemetery to retrieve a family heirloom for a client. Turns out the client has sent them there to "feed" souls to his dearly departed family. As the players enter the cemetery, the dead rise and attack. They will continually respawn until the players discover in one of the crypts a secret room that leads to the caverns below where a list of names carved into the base of a strange statue. Some names will be crossed off, others will not. The dead will rest when their names are crossed off the statue....
Comments
Excellent map, Lorelei
Hope that helps!
LLAP
Nacon4
My players are, oddly-yet-satisfyingly, motivated by progress in the main plot of the campaign and in, again strangely-but-gratifyingly, helping NPCs, particularly their friends. The players get visibly agitated when the politics of the game world shift in the 'wrong" direction and when the machinations of the villains bear fruit. It's awesome. I could, seriously, motivate them to go to that cemetery just by having an NPC say he (or better, his daughter!) is afraid to go to the cemetery to pay respects to his dead wife because of the undead activity. Or, heck, even something as vague as she's afraid because "something spooky" is going on there. That's literally all it would take. Heck, the NPC could just be someone they overheard in a tavern, who wasn't even talking to them.
I'm so proud of them.
On the other hand, they did follow a lead into the "City of the Dead" in one of the biggest, most-important cities in my campaign (Falstaffe, settled on an oceanside cliff) and then, during a desperate melee under the city Founders crypt, a drow priestess unleashed an Earthquake spell (from a talisman) that dropped half the cemetery into the ocean... So, there's that.
On the other, other hand, I never pass up a chance to bring it up to the players.
Diplomacy is the art of letting others have your way.
I tend to keep magic and treasure on a very low level, but what they find is really special. (I can't stand mass-produced items).
Each PC has one or two unique or special items but mostly they have some fairly "standard", but neat, magic items. And they really make the best use of them. They can get pretty creative.
That's awesome. Good luck! In 20 years I've been able to host a game that coincided with a "matching" holiday once! (a "comedy" game session on April Fool's Day)
LLAP
Nacon4