D&D 5E (2024) Help me flesh out this adventure idea: The Skull

[BookTenTiger]

There's a book my son loved called 'The Skull' by Jon Klassen.

It's a folk tale in which a girl runs away from home to a castle where she befriends a talking skull. The only problem is that every night a headless skeleton comes to the castle, trying to capture the skull.

I thought this would be a fun premise for a one-shot adventure! I've been generating some ideas of how to structure this as a D&D game.

I think it needs to start with an inciting event outside the castle. Maybe the characters have been pursued by enemies, or maybe they have followed a dangerous beast there. Something to draw them to the castle.

The Skull can be a friendly and intriguing NPC. In the book you learn he used to be a human who lived in the castle, but you don't know any more than that.

Maybe the skull used to be a baron who was well known for both his intellectual pursuits and his greed? He was cursed at some point and in his death his spirit separated. His intellect came to live in his skull and his greed inhabited his body.

There could be some kind of treasure hidden in the castle that the headless skeleton wants, but cannot access without the skull. The skull agrees to give the treasure to the characters if they help defeat the headless skeleton.

Now of course any fight in which the players have time to prepare an ambush is going to be a push over, so there needs to be some extra twists to this adventure.

What do you think could happen during or after the ambush? How else can I flesh out the bones of this adventure idea?

(Let's say it's a 3rd-level adventure.)

 

[aco175]

There are two skeletons. The players will think there is only one, but the head talks about the body trying to get him and wishes to be reunited with his body. The players will think that they need the body attacking the castle, but his body is hidden in the cellars.

 

[Richards]

Please tell me the baron didn't fall for the old "Head of Vecna" ruse, and somehow his head and body somehow magically survived the decapitation.

Johnathan

 

[ezekielcroe9]

Sounds like a fun adventure in the making! Perhaps there can be two intersecting paths to the treasure:
(i) The floor-level path where the Headless Skeleton traverses, trying to retrace its old path through muscle (heh) memory to get to the treasure. If the players go through this level, they must battle Mimics, baby Cloakers, and the Skeleton itself. But each time they are just about to defeat the skeleton, it retreats and disappears, waiting to strike again with minions once the heroes cross another milestone. There are secret passageways that also open up to...
(ii) The Underground path. Here, there are more traps and riddles, and fewer monsters to fend off. However, Baron Skull's memory of the solutions are hazy, and he might give weird or wrong answers. Everytime they get it correct, they gain little items or a path that helps them skip or ambush the enemy. But if they get a riddle wrong, they are shoved back up to the Floor-level, dumped into a combat scenario, and in a surprised condition (kinda a bit like the old scooby-doo cartoons)

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I think preparing like 5 ground-level paths and 3-5 Underground puzzles will be good, and then you can mix and match based on how the party advances.

 

[Steampunkette]

 

[BookTenTiger]

I went on a long bike ride today and came up with some ideas...

Baron Von Holst was legendary for his academic prowess and endless greed. He wanted everything, including knowledge of the universe and its workings, and the countless treasures of history. When he mysteriously vanished a half-century ago, a rival baron took over his lands, and his large manor has sat abandoned in the middle of a dark and dangerous wood.

The characters have been hired to retrieve one of Baron Von Holst's treasures, a gold-plated iron chain studded with precious rubies. It was once used to bar the doors of a Czar's pleasure palace, and has been passed from ruler to ruler since.

The characters will first have to pass through the Frostburne, the dangerous forest surrounding the Baron's manor. This will be a chance for them to introduce themselves and share a skill they are using to get through various challenges, such as freezing winds, an icy lake, and hungry wolves.

At the manor, the characters will meet The Skull. He will be happy to give them a tour of the manor, and explain his predicament. He was once the head of Baron Von Holst. He made a deal with a devil to gain all the secrets of the universe, but of course the devil tricked him. His head and body were separated, and his spirit split in two: his spirit of intellectual curiosity still resides in his skull, but his undying greed rests in his body. Every night the headless body comes to hunt the skull down, trying to reattach it so that it can open the magic door of the vault, which can only be opened by a password (which only the skull knows) and the beating of the Baron's greedy heart (preserved as a golden heart in the skull's body).

The characters will have an hour to prepare and ambush for the skull, which arrives at nightfall. They can search through the various rooms of the manor in order to find helpful items, such as a big net in the Hunter's Study, potions in the Laboratory, plants to hide behind in the Greenhouse, and magic scrolls in the Library.

When they fight the headless skeleton, it will take three forms, each of which needs to be defeated in turn. First it will be a headless skeleton clad in golden armor; then it will break into three enemies (the head and spine forming a snake, the arms and legs joining together to make weird bony crab / squid creatures). Finally it will be just the pure spirit of greed, an amorphous creature surrounding the Baron's golden heart.

When they are in possession of the heart, the characters can open the vault to retrieve the chain. That's when they're in for a surprise! The chain is binding the arms of the demon who originally cursed the Baron! As he gets free, the characters can fight him or make a deal with him!

Anyways, those are my thoughts right now.