A week or two ago Paul asked me to write some quick room descriptions to use for a Haunted House in his campaign on the off chance his players decided to enter it (despite being warned not to). I wrote up the following rooms. They are all non combat puzzle type encounters.
Room Number 1: This room is shrouded in darkness. No light source illuminates the area. A long table sits in the center of the room, set up with the remains of a feast long since eaten. There are utensils, broken plates, tureens, and mostly empty platters on the table. The entire room smells of decaying trash. Indeed, the floor appears to be covered in trash: rotten fruit, broken pieces of furniture, and tattered pieces of paper. Less savory elements are also scattered about the room: a chunk of wet meat, a human hand, and a skull still moist with flesh and skin! The room is littered with human body parts.
If anyone is determined enough to root through the slurry of rotten decay (Easy Perception Check), they recover a potent cursed magic item: A tome infused with the blood of those who died here that communicates with its bearer by writing. The bearer may ask it questions, but it always tells the bearer exactly what it thinks they want to hear, which may or may not correspond to the truth (Hard Insight Check to tell when it is lying).
Room Number 2: This is a small nursery, complete with all the trappings. There is an infant in its crib in this room. It is crying and shrieking at the top of its lungs. Strangely, its crying could not be heard outside the door to the nursery. If someone picks it up, it stops crying immediately. However, should it leave that persons grasp even for second, it immediately begins crying and shrieking again until it is back into that person’s grasp. Only finding the baby’s original mother and giving it to her will wean the baby off of its rescuer and break this strange enchantment.
Room Number 3: This room is bare, save for a thick rope hanging in the center of the room tied into a noose. There is a trap door in the floor right under the noose that swings open if anyone puts their head in, killing them instantly (No Check. This is some old school D&D shit). However, the trap door reveals a small cache where a VERY potent magical weapon is hidden, perhaps an artifact of some kind.
