D&D General Favorite Halloween One-Shots

[jayoungr]

I have run the following adventure for two separate groups, both of which have had a blast:

Title: A Night in Seyvoth Manor
Edition: D&D 5E (2014); D&D 4E
Starting Level: 6
Link(s): The 5E version is available at DriveThruRPG; the 4E version appears to be out of print but might be archived somewhere if you poke around.
Summary/Why it's Great: This is one of the best-organized adventures I've ever run. It requires a bit of prep to print or set up the cards, but once you've done that, you're home free. Each room has its own map, which is very handy for VTTs, although not every room has combat. Everything you need to know for each room is on the information page for that room, or clearly cross-referenced.

The PCs are tasked with entering a creepy old mansion that has been shut up for years in order to rescue two missing girls. Nobody really knows what's been going on at Seyvoth manor ever since Count Maltus shut the place up following the deaths of four of his six sisters. It might be abandoned, but then again, maybe not... The story's tone is nicely balanced between the spooky and the lighthearted, and a DM could easily lean more heavily on whichever flavor the players prefer. It's also chock-full of Easter Eggs referencing classic monster movies and even things like Everquest.

The adventure seems to be designed for tourmament play, with a time limit and a scoring system. However, it works just fine if you ignore the time limit and allow the players to explore freely. There's so much in the house that it's highly unlikely a single party could solve all its mysteries within the four-hour time limit anyway.

 

[Desdichado]

"Exit 23" from the Dark•Matter setting book.

 

[Remathilis]

Title: Cage of Delirium

Edition: Third

Starting Level: 6-8

Link(s): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/15702/dungeon-crawl-classics-34-cage-of-delirium

Summary/Why it's Great: A haunted asylum that burned down years ago holds terrible secrets. Ghostly inmates roam the halls. Patients trapped by their torment yearn for freedom from beyond the grave. This isn't a typical dungeon crawl. As you explore the shattered remains of Haverhold, assisting helpful spirits and destroying malevolent ones, you come closer to unraveling the mystery of what happened that fateful night...

I love this module. Ran it twice (once in 3.5 and once in 5e). It's written by Wes Schneider (who helmed the last two Ravenloft books) and offers mystery, exploration and combat to solve. Plus it comes keyed to Midnight Syndicate's Gate of Delirium CD (the original came with the CD) for extra mood. The only downside is that it can be a little long for a one-shot. You may need to trim down how many points they need to unlock the finale.

 

[jdrakeh]

Prince Charming, Reanimator. A really fun 0-level funnel for DCC.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Title: Bonds of Forced Faith (one-shot bundled with the adventure path ZEITGEIST: The Gears of Revolution)
Edition: 5th (also 4e and Pathfinder 1e if you buy Act Two of the adventure path's compilation)
Starting Level: 10th (pregen characters)
Link(s): https://www.patreon.com/posts/9012627 or Roll20
Summary/Why it's Great: The PCs - a king, his advisors, and two foreign allies - have a mission to stop a witch known as the Red Contessa, who intends to use the power of a lunar eclipse to link her life force to the lives of everyone in a city, effectively making her invincible. The party ascends to her mountaintop lair, facing members of her coven along the way. The witches all know a suite of curses, and all have used a lesser version of the Contessa's ritual to link them to a group of innocents, so any injuries that would befall them instead kill bystanders and hostages.

Every fight is a bit of a puzzle, and all the enemies do gruesome things to evoke a horror vibe. For instance, the party starts with a stack of 'remove curse' scrolls, but the witches throw out curses like candy, so eventually they'll have to just deal with being cursed. Also, the mayor of the city is a deva (a race from 4e that resurrects a few days after you kill them with most of their memories gone), and over the years of the Contessa rising to power, she has come to really enjoy killing the mayor over and over. So during early fights, the enemy minions all refuse to attack him, because their boss called dibs.

And all this happens with the backdrop that the king's popularity is waning after a recent war went badly. He's not trying to look like the hero, though. He wants his preferred successor to be seen as a hero, because in this country the monarchy is not inherited, and the ruler must have the people's support.

Meanwhile, the various pre-gen PCs all have their own agenda during the mission -- they all want to beat the witch, but there might be small betrayals, especially in the climax when the Contessa reveals the real reason for her ritual.

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An early mission in the ZEITGEIST adventure path involves a haunted mountain called Cauldron Hill, the site from which a coven of witches had ruled the city a century earlier. Halfway through the adventure path I had a need to run a one-shot at a couple conventions, so I devised Bonds of Forced Faith, which takes place a hundred years before the campaign starts. I've run it four different times, and each time a different person ended up king.

since this thread has been necro'd anyway i'll say i've run this before and it was great. we had highlights like the successor high jumping off her horse to yank a witch out of her flying cauldron and suplex her into the dirt so the strength wizard could snap her staff in half in front of her, among other things. not the scariest thing ever but definitely a ton of fun.

 

[jayoungr]

since this thread has been necro'd anyway

Guilty, but it's my own thread! And I think it's better to have one thread with lots of adventures than multiple smaller threads with only a few each.

 

[jayoungr]

Title: Escape from Scarecrow Mansion
Edition: D&D 5E (2014)
Starting Level: 3 or 4
Link(s): DM's Guild, Adventure Lookup page
Summary/Why it's Great: If your group loves puzzles, this is the Halloween adventure for you! Virtually every location in this module contains at least one puzzle. There are opportunities for combat and even social interaction, but the puzzles are really the centerpiece here.

Like A Night in Seyvoth Manor, this adventure contains many nods to classic horror tales and movies. The overall tone is pretty light as Halloween adventures go, though it could certainly be tweaked if you want a more disturbing tone. The written adventure also includes numerous suggestions for tailoring it to your table's needs in terms of time, difficulty, etc.

I participated in the playtest for this adventure and can attest that it is loads of fun!