The 2025 Pumpkin Spice RPG Contest (Closed)

[Gradine]

Of course I find a few typos after immediately after I post it

Edit: Oh n/m, the no edit rule doesn't kick in until the polls open

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

You have but twelve hours to get your entry in!

Repent, Harlequin! said the Ticktockman.

That's right- if you don't submit an entry, you are implicitly submitting to the bland tide of conformity that will destroy us all.

FIGHT THE POWER!

 

[CleverNickName]

Of course I find a few typos after immediately after I post it

Edit: Oh n/m, the no edit rule doesn't kick in until the polls open

That's right, just be sure to delete your typo-laden post after you post your fresh, new, corrected version.

 

[Gradine]

It didn't keep my formatting this time, for some weird reason

 

[Gradine]

Official Submission​

Autumn Bastion Facilities​

A new addition to the rules of Dungeons & Dragons in 2024 are the inclusion of Bastions; home bases that characters can build and expand to provide additional benefits to the party. This stronghold-like system allows for facilities that can be given specific orders to provide those benefits. Want to add a little autumn flair to your Bastions? Consider adding the following options:

Pumpkin Patch (Garden Type)
Level 5 Bastion Facility
Prerequisite: None
Space: Roomy
Hirelings: 1
Order: Harvest

The Pumpkin Patch is a special kind of Garden Type that you can select when building your first Garden or a new Garden. Under normal circumstances, the Pumpkin Patch is the equivalent of a Food Garden, and the Harvest order produces 100 days of rations, as usual. However, once during each Fall season you may instead issue the following special order.
Harvest: Harvest Festival. When you issue the Harvest order in this facility, you commission the facility’s hireling to collect and prepare the following items: 20 jack-o-lanterns, 5 scarecrows, and 1 corn maze. A late-night party lifts the spirits of the hirelings within the Bastion; characters who are present may place one additional order at one special facility of their choice in the following Bastion turn.

Costume Shop
Level 5 Bastion Facility
Prerequisite: None
Space: Roomy
Hirelings: 1
Order: Craft

The Costume Shop is a special location that often provides costumes, makeup, and other decorations to help fully deck your Bastion out for an appropriate autumn celebration.
Costume Shop Charm. After spending a Long Rest in your Bastion, you gain a magical Charm (see “Supernatural Gifts” in chapter 3 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide) that lasts for 7 days or until you use it. This charm allows you to cast Disguise Self without expending a spell slot of using Material components. You can’t gain this Charm again while you still have it.
Craft Options. When you issue the Craft order to this facility, choose one of the following options:

Craft: Disguise Kit. You commission the facility’s hireling to craft a Disguise Kit. The work takes 7 days and costs no money. The Disguise Kit remains in your Bastion until you claim it.
Craft: Padded Armor. You commission the facility’s hireling to craft a set of Padded Armor. The work takes 7 days and costs no money. The Padded Armor remains in your Bastion until you claim it.
Craft: Clothing. You commission the facility’s hireling to craft on set of the following pieces of Adventuring Gear: 3 robes or sets of traveler’s clothes, 2 costumes, or 1 set of fine clothes. The clothes remain in your Bastion until you claim it.
Craft: Magic Item (Arcana). If you are level 9+, you can commission the facility’s hireling to craft one of the Common or Uncommon Wondrous Items that are worn as clothing (such as boots, belts, caps, cloaks, clothes, gloves, hats, mantles, robes, and slippers) but that are not jewelry, chosen by you from the Arcana tables in chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. The facility has the tool required to craft the item, and the hireling has proficiency with that tool as well as proficiency in the Arcana skill. See the “Crafting Magic Items” section in chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for the time and money that must be spent to craft the item. If the item allows its user to cast any spells from it, you must craft the item yourself (the facility’s hireling can assist), and you must have all those spells prepared every day you spend crafting the item.

Boutique Café
Level 13 Bastion Facility
Prerequisite: None
Space: Roomy
Hirelings: 1
Order: Empower

The Boutique Café is a spot for comfort and relaxation, where guests can enjoy a warm beverage and warm company.
Boutique Café Charm. After spending a Long Rest in your Bastion, you gain a magical Charm (see “Supernatural Gifts” in chapter 3 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide) that lasts for 3 days. This charm is extended to 7 days if your Bastion’s Boutique Café has been expanded (see below). This charm grants you immunity to the effects of extreme cold temperatures. With an expanded Boutique Café this charm also grants resistance to Cold damage. You can’t gain this Charm again while you still have it.
Empower: Pumpkin Spice Season. When you issue the Empower order to this facility, you enable the facility’s hireling to produce special seasonal beverages that people flock to from far and wide to have a taste. For the next 7 days, the Boutique Café serves the drinks that are listed below. A character cannot benefit from more than one such drink at a time, and can only gain the benefit from each individual drink once for each Bastion turn.
Hearty Pumpkin Mocha: Drinking a grande cup of this beverage grants you temporary hit points equal to 3 plus your character’s level. These temporary hit points disappear after 24 hours.
Salted Maple Latte: Drinking a grande cup of this beverage grants you the effects of a Barkskin spell that has a duration of 24 hours.
Hazelnut Nutmeg Cappuccino: Drinking a tall cup of this beverage grants you the effects of a Longstrider spell that has a duration of 24 hours.
Doubleshot Chai Espresso: Drinking a small cup of this beverage grants you advantage on saving throws against any effect that would cause you to fall asleep or gain a level of exhaustion. This effect lasts 24 hours.
Pumpkin Spice Latte: Drinking a grande cup of this beverage grants you the effects of a Bless spell that has a duration of 24 hours.
Enlarging the Facility. You can enlarge your Boutique Café to a Vast facility by spending 2,000 GP. If you do so, your Boutique Café adds hot tub and sauna facilities for their guests. This expands and improves the effect of the Boutique Café Charm, as seen above. A Vast Boutique Café gains three additional hirelings, for a total of four. These new hirelings are bright young baristas and one deeply strange middle-aged janitor from Icewind Dale (or your setting’s equivalent) that maintains the new facilities and doles out sage but inscrutable wisdom in broken Common.

Graveyard
Level 13 Bastion Facility
Prerequisite: The ability to use an Arcane Focus or Holy Symbol as a Spellcasting Focus
Space: Roomy
Hirelings: 1
Order: Harvest

The Graveyard is a place to store the bodies of the dead, and is a necessary addition to any Necromancer’s home.
Where The Dead Lie: This facility can house up to 6 undead creatures that are under your control due to magical effects, such as those of the spells Animate Dead or Create Dead. While housed in this facility, you do not lose control of these undead due to the passage of time. You must magically reassert control of the undead housed in this facility before removing them from this facility.

Harvest: Corpses. When you issue the Harvest order to this facility, you enable the facility’s hireling to produce dead bodies that are capable of being targeted by the spells Animate Dead and Create Dead. This work takes 7 days and costs no money. At the end of this work roll 1d6; this is the amount of usable corpses your hireling has been able to procure.
Harvest: Rare Component. When you issue the Harvest order to this facility, you commission its hireling to procure a rare spell component composed of human remains, such as a pickled eye, a desiccated kidney, or a hand of glory. This work takes 7 days and costs 250 GP. You can use this component in the place of one spell’s Material components. If the spell’s component has a cost of 1,000 GP or more, it is consumed by the spell. Otherwise the component is not consumed, even if the spell normally consumes its components. You cannot possess more than one component produced in this way at a time.

Enlarging the Facility. You can enlarge your Graveyard to a Vast facility by spending 2,000 GP. A Vast Graveyard can accommodate up to fifteen undead creatures under your control.

 

[CleverNickName]

Thanks Gradine, you're on the list! We are up to a total of eight entries.

Anyone else looking to win some cool prizes: you've got just eight hours to get your entry posted to this thread!

 

[CleverNickName]

Just a quick heads-up: you've got only three hours to get your entry in! All entries posted after midnight (Pacific Standard Time) will be ineligible for any prizes, so don't delay!

 

[GMMichael]

Encounter:
The Beorn's Annual Gourdgoyle Hunt

Setup:
While traveling through a foreign land in autumn, the PCs encounter signs of a special event. First, there are fanfares heard from far off. Then they spot, along the road, brown-and-yellow standards adorned with winged pumpkins.
Finally, they meet two commonfolk in a heated argument. They've accepted a quest from Beorn Niccol, the lord of the land, to hunt a migrating alpha gourdgoyle and return it to the First Huntsman for stuffing and mounting. The tracking has been arduous, and all other hunters have given up the chase but these two.

Unfortunately, they've lost track of the alpha gourdgoyle, and can't agree on how to proceed. Emerton, the pleaser, just wants to make the beorn happy, providing the carcass of any gourdgoyle that comes along. But Laynci, the hunting purist, insists that there's only one specific procedure that must be followed or the beorn will not be pleased. This means finding not just any gourdgoyle, but the pack leader (the alpha).

Characters:

Emerton, the merchant
A tattoo-covered merchant in pleasantly black, non-offensive clothing. Has a small pack and wears a dagger on his hip. He immediately greets visitors, whether he's looking at them or not, and then typically proceeds to attend to other matters for at least five minutes (arguing with Laynci, in this case). He has a wooden whistle that simply "sounds delicious" and is "perfect for cozy Sundays or getting the attention of gourdgoyles." Upon inspection, PCs cannot find anything special about the perfectly common whistle. Regardless, Emerton offers to sell it for no less than 6.95 gold pieces.

Laynci, the hunter
Sporting a handlebar moustache (which might be drawn on) and vest pockets for her comb, a tiny scale, and a portable spice grinder, she looks much more suited to hunting and tracking than Emerton, but she has no weapon. It seems that she thought that she saw the alpha gourdgoyle and threw her javelin, custom-crafted to slay gourdgoyles, at it. The javelin has been lost in a thicket for hours now. She's arguing with Emerton, and refuses to hunt gourdgoyles with any other weapon because a lesser weapon wouldn't puncture the creature's head properly, causing what she calls "overextraction."

Gourdgoyle 2 (Modos 2 compatible)
A gourdgoyle is a distant relative of bats, known for its bulky, orange-furred head and grotesque, black, leathery wings and body. They typically measure two feet tall and can weigh up to 40 pounds, most of which is their heads. It is currently unknown how their little bat wings achieve flight. Gourdgoyles prefer elevated, warm perches. This results in them choosing to land on people's heads fairly frequently. It also results in the illusion that someone with a pumpkin head has lost that head, when the victim swats the gourdgoyle away and it topples to the ground.
Goals: perch on warm heads and find food (worms and insects). Migrate south. Flaw: awkward body shape results in lots of falling down and bruising.
Physical: 10
Mental: 14
Metaphysical: 8
Skills: movement 2
Perks: owl's eye, armor training (natural)
Gear: bite/claw d4, thick head (physical protection) d4

Quest options:
PCs choosing to pursue the beorn's quest must choose to capture any gourdgoyle or the alpha gourdgoyle. If they choose neither, gourdgoyles of various sizes will infrequently attempt to land on their heads anyway.
The following action options are suggested:

• Purchase Emerton's whistle. Emerton will thank PCs and wish them a happy day if they purchase his whistle, but without his lucky hunting tool he's likely to consider his quest a failure. (Not a complete failure though: he did gain at least 6.95 gold!)
• Take Emerton's side of the argument. The beorn doesn't know how big the alpha gourdgoyle is. Agree with Emerton to catch any gourdgoyle and he'll join the PCs' party in catching one. This causes Laynci to forfeit her quest.
• Find Laynci's gourdgoyle slayer. A full party of PCs can reduce this search to about five minutes in the woods. Keep it, and use it as a weapon that kills a gourdgoyle with a single hit, making only a small hole that won't upset the beorn's First Hunter. Return it, and Laynci will join the PCs in hunting only the alpha gourdgoyle.
• Take Laynci's side of the argument. There is only one proper way to do this, and it must be Laynci's way. Laynci will tag along with the PCs, offering hunting advice as thanks for the argument help, but she will continue to be a snob and insist that when the PCs find the alpha, it must be captured with a "french net" and periodically doused in boiling water to maintain the perfect temperature for taxidermy.
• Buy the whistle, find the javelin, and request both Emerton and Laynci escort you to hunt a gourdgoyle, whether they can resolve their argument or not.
• Take neither side. Emerton and Laynci continue to argue until sunset, when they finally decide to admit defeat and go home. PCs hunting for gourdgoyles or continuing to travel will meet d4 gourdgoyles, approximately one per hour. Roll a d4 for each encounter. A 4 result is an alpha encounter, and all results but the first 4 (result) are smaller, common gourdgoyles.

Resolution:

• Returning a non-alpha gourdgoyle to the First Huntsman requires some persuasion/deception rolls. Successes result in an award of 40 silver. Failure results in the Huntsman declaring the quest a failure.
• Returning the alpha gourdgoyle to the First Huntsman results in an immediate 50 silver reward and an invitation to the celebration banquet to follow.
• Return Emerton and Laynci to the lord's keep without a gourdgoyle. If PCs somehow resolve their argument in the course of the day, the PCs gain Emerton and Laynci as friends.

 

[CleverNickName]

Awesome, @GMMichael! The Modos 2 rules set doesn't get nearly enough love.

Your entry is on the list; may the odds be ever in your favor!

 

[CleverNickName]

Only 30 minutes left!