Scooby Doo(tm) - inspired Plot - help!

[fba827]

Okay, I am a big geek (if not dork) and want to make a plot slightly light hearted but serious enough that I can stick it into the regular campaign.

I want this plot to carry themes inspired from Scooby Doo (why? because Scooby is cool and I am a dork )

1) The bad guy is a wizard or sorcerer with illusions
2) The bad guy uses his illusions to make the locals think location X is haunted
3) PCs are traveling through the area enroute to another place but lo and behold one of their horses breaks a leg and so they need to stop for the night (and, the place they need to stop is right near location X)
4) While staying they hear rumors from the locals about location X being hauted
5) The PCs decide to investigate
6) They eventually learn that there is not a real ghost (much to the dismay of the cleric who rarely gets to use his nifty turning abilities and anti-undead spells that he preped)
7) The bad guy who putting on the facade because he learned that there is a gold mine (or some special magic field or something) that he wanted for himself. Thus, he wanted to scare away the locals and buy the location cheap (if not free)
8) It must end with "And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you pesky kids, and that wolf"
(there is a wold animal companion for the ranger PC )
9) Gonna try and make this for about level 6 PCs

This is what I have so far. I'll post more details as I think of them. But if anyone has any input/ideas, feel free to share

 

[Marvin the WarLord]

"Shraggggyyyy....

Your villian has to make liberal use of a powerful fear-causing item on the Ranger and his wolf, making them flee while the rest of the party gets to simply stand there. DOn't overdo or belabour it, of course, but use it to grant that Scooby Do versimilatude.

 

[BlackJaw]

The danger with this kind of adventure is that you need to make some very creative use of spells and such to get some REAL danger into the adventure.

Illusions that make a real NPC/etc look like a ghost (transparent) this way you get a dangerous encounter with a not so undead ghost. A summoned monster(s) could work well.

Well planned use of Shadow Conjuration (you can cast it if the Illusionist is level 7) and maybe even a Phantasmal Killer.

Also, some fun can be had with magic traps (craft wonderous item) and lots of secret doors and passages. (Scooby style)

Also, a theme in many Scooby Doo episodes is the bad guy, and then the helpful REAL ghost.

You could make the house REALY hunated by a ghost that first used the goldmine/magic node/etc. The illionist is using the story of his murder/sucide/etc as the Huanting's background, but the house is really huanted by this actually good aligned ghost. In trying to stop the illionist, they could also release this ghost to finaly move on.