Voadam
Legend
Haunted - A 5th Edition Sourcebook of Horrific Haunts (5E)
5e
Ghost: ?
Ghostly Resonance: ?
Ghostly Apparition: ?
Angry Ghost: ?
Dimwitted Ghost: ?
Ghostly Carpenter: ?
Ghostly Woman: ?
Unquiet Ghost: ?
Ghostly Duelist: ?
Ghostly Brute of a Man, Phantom Pugilist: ?
Ghoul: A creature that drops to 0 hit points while within the cloud [from a devouring mists haunt] dies after failing two death saving throws. One minute after the creature dies, it rises as a ghoul.
Ephemeral Horror: ?
Phantom Noise: ?
Phantom: ?
Phantom Wasp: ?
Phantom Voice: ?
Phantom Crowd: ?
Potergeist: ?
Shadowy Apparition of an Elegantly Clothed Dandy: ?
Screaming Apparition: ?
Shadowy Figure: ?
Shadowy Shape: ?
Mischievous Spirit: ?
Spirit: ?
Old Man's Spirit: ?
Frightful Spirit: ?
Angry Spirit: ?
Panicked Spirit: ?
Spirit of Donovan's Kiln: ?
Spiritual Vestige of a Wrathful Custodian: ?
Judge Agar Wargrave, Spirit: ?
Mugglesant, Spirit, Spirit of the Dead Thief: ?
Lesser Spirit: ?
Master Swordsman Spirit: ?
Thirsty Spirit of the Wasteland: ?
Merchant's Spirit, Possessing Spirit: ?
Malign Spirit: ?
Haunt, Haunting, True Haunt, Typical Haunt: A haunt is a ghostly resonance that can affect a creature that triggers it. Such haunts are very likely to occur in places of death and psychic distress, such as torture chambers, mass graveyards, and battlefields.
There are many reasons why a haunt comes into existence. Most of these reasons, sadly, involve tragedy, pain, suffering, and horror. Deep, overwhelming emotions are most likely to create a haunt, especially when accompanied by death and tragedy.
Typically, a haunt begins when a creature dies in a painful or unusual way—especially a lingering death. If the creature perished alone, forgotten, or unmourned, the haunting may well involve feelings of sorrow and a need for closure, such as proper burial or being memorialized. If, however, the creature died because someone stood by and refused to help or took pleasure in the death, then the haunting often carries with it a desire for revenge and justice.
A haunting usually requires a focus. This focus may be an object important to the person in life, like a child’s favorite doll, a family heirloom, or a gift from a loved one. The focus could revolve around a specific place, such as where the person died. A weak haunting can often be cleansed by burning or otherwise destroying the focal object, or purifying the locale. A more powerful haunting, on the other hand, may require more unusual methods.
Other circumstances at the time of death may play a role in the formation of a haunt. The time of day the person died, the means of their death (e.g., a murder weapon, an accidental fall), and the reason for their death all can contribute. Did the deceased have unfinished business, such as family left behind, a need for justice, or an oath they failed to keep? These elements, once known, can provide vital clues to cleansing a haunt.
Not all hauntings involve death or murder. A haunting can come about due to a mischievous spirit (e.g., a poltergeist) or strange energies suffusing a place. A haunting can develop simply because a deceased person refuses to accept the truth about their death. These hauntings are usually more of a creepy nuisance than a threat to life or limb.
Weak Haunting: ?
More Powerful Haunting: ?
Setback Haunt, Setback Haunting: ?
Dangerous Haunt, Dangerous Haunting: ?
Deadly Haunt, Deadly Haunting: ?
Faster More Violent Haunt: ?
Slower Haunt: ?
Haunting Left By a Person's Murder: ?
Elusive Haunt: ?
Latent Haunt: ?
Tenacious Haunt: ?
Haunted Building: ?
Proximity-Triggered Haunt: ?
Haunt Triggered by Touch: ?
Minor Haunt: ?
Strange Pungent Haunt: ?
Persistent Haunt: ?
Haunt Baron Culver's Balcony: Baron Archimedes Culver was a pathetic and lonely man towards the end of his long life. His vast fortune long since squandered, his political capital equally reduced, Baron Culver found himself banished from the royal court and the intrigue he so loved. The old Baron died, halfway senile, in a tattered silk bathrobe after falling from the balcony of his equally ragged country home. Today, Baron Culver’s lands lie mostly fallow, as the solicitors struggle to untangle the old man’s will. The home he died in was emptied by his heirs and shuttered, but occasionally a burglar makes the mistake of slipping inside. Weak willed tomb-raiders find themselves singing the praises of the small mansion’s last master before leaping from the same balcony where he died.
Haunt Bell Tower: A bell-ringer fell down in this tower. Before he died he wished that the fall hadn’t happened…
Haunt Bigot's Spire: In life, the half-elven wizard Comas Delesas was defined by his bigotry. The arrogant mage despised regular humanity as barely civilized idiots and openly called for the extinction of what he called the “underfolk”: dwarves, gnomes, goblins and kobolds among many other burrowing species. His adventuring days long past and his fortune assured, Comas eventually murdered those who helped him gain his wealth and retired to a library-tower he built for himself on the edge of a major human freehold. The local folk saw his servants occasionally when they went into town for provisions, but Comas himself refused to associate with the common herd.
When a blast of lightning as brilliant as the sun struck the tower one rainy night, most of the townsfolk said good riddance. The matter would have rested there, if not for the fact something of Comas Delesas’ hatred remains, and occasionally, the broken tower belches lethal black smoke that emits the faint scent of burning ink and almonds. Depending on the wind, this lethal mist might roll down the blasted hillside and into the city Comas shunned, or it may drift into the now shockingly depopulated and quiet forest.
Haunt Black Taskmaster: The Black Taskmaster is an old ironshod whip taken from an infamous slaver and displayed in the library of the Sandoval College of Necromancy. Senior students and prefects alike know to avoid the display case bearing the bloody old weapon, though a common hazing ritual forces underclassmen to endure the frightful spirits surrounding the whip.
Haunt Bloody Handprints: A murder or other violent death left behind a permanent stain on a wall or similar surface.
Haunt Boartooth's Righteous Rampage: When Brom Boartooth’s sons died of a disease that 10 gp worth of medicine would’ve cured, he finally became the monster that his fully human neighbors feared all his life. Previously a simple rancher, the half-orc found depths of hatred and violence in himself he never knew existed. He slaughtered his home town’s hedge wizard and the alchemist who refused to treat his sons, the town’s sheriff and three of the settlement’s wealthiest merchants before an angry mob finally ended his rampage. That was a year and a day ago. Now, the townsfolk of Boartooth’s small farming community are plagued with hideous visions. Before the horrified eyes of their friends and family, the afflicted become the species they once shunned. Half Orcs that were once humans hide within their homes, wrapped in shawls and blankets to cover their shame, and Boartooth’s community has become, literally, a ghost town.
Haunt Butcher's Hill: The Butcher’s Hill had another name before the war between two neighboring fiefdoms ended there. By the time the day long battle was over, more than 3,000 men and women lie dead atop the hill, and the ground was literally stained red with their blood. Even though priests from a dozen temples sanctified the ground, that much anger and pain never truly goes away.
Haunt Camel's Graveyard: There is a point of no return in the Gronnel Desert, a place almost exactly between two oasis cities, where supplies are far more than half exhausted and the only way to survive is to press forward. Over the years, hundreds of caravans have ended somewhere near this mythical point of no return, and the bleached and sandblasted bones of hundreds of camels lie half-buried by the dunes. Animals fear and hate this place, and so they often turn on their masters, leading to their death and the deaths of those whom depended on them for survival.
Haunt Cast Upon the Rocks: The merchant galleon Escarda Din went down in a sudden squall and its sunken frame now rests on an undersea plateau. So clear is the water that the wreck can almost be seen through three hundred feet of warm water Though the Escarda Din went down in a common shipping lane, no brave soul has attempted to salvage the wreck, and common sailors avoid its last known position. The ocean near the wreck site has ‘gone bad’ and regularly kills sailors with impossible weather.
Haunt Creeping Ectoplasm: ?
Haunt Dead Tree: The Dead Tree is a haunted leftover of a garden, orchard, or the last patch of a forest and includes a lone dead tree standing amid a barren landscape.
Haunt Devil's Anvil: This black iron anvil sits in a back corner of the ruined remnants of a smithy, half-buried in rubble. According to local legend, the blacksmith, a fat and ignorant man named Hodge hammered swords for pit-fiends on his anvil. Eventually, doing hell’s work caught up with him, and Hodge and his three idiot sons died in an unexplainable blaze. Whatever the truth of Hodge’s life, in death his small shop has been uniformly shunned.
Haunt Devouring Mists: A pack of ghouls ambushed and devoured a group of people as they were passing this bridge on a foggy night. Memory of this event still lingers and hungers for flesh of the living.
Haunt Doors to Damnation: A soldier guarded this door against overwhelming forces and cursed the invaders with his dying breath when he finally fell.
Haunt Donovan's Kiln: Ten years ago, this ruin was a busy potter’s shop. In better days, Bria Donovan was a fat and cheerful woman who, with her two nephews, ran a profitable business out of a small, neat cottage at the edge of town. The center of Bria’s business was the enormous wood burning kiln that took up most of the cottage, and which she kept stoked day and night. She died along with her youngest nephew Micah when the kiln exploded. Bria’s surviving nephew rushed to help, but was badly scarred by the blaze. Not wanting anything to do with his ruined inheritance, Andrew Donovan let the ground lie fallow. Over time his aunt’s pottery shop fell into memory and then into local legend, while Andrew grew into the town’s premier drunkard. The matter would have rested there, if not for the fact that on days when the temperature rises during the worst part of summer, the kiln burns again with ghostly white fires.
Haunt Fatfinger's Last Dance: Terkin Fatfinger, brigand, rapist, counterfeiter, and cattle-rustler, was the last thief to hang justly on the old oak gallows outside Fort Nails. When asked for last words, the bastard laid down curses so vile, so profane and so tarrying that the garrison’s master-at-arms didn’t wait for him to finish and kicked the stool out from under him. Three days later the master-at-arms was dead from a broken neck after falling from his horse. Three days after that, his grieving wife slipped in the privy and cracked her skull open. A few weeks later, the judge who sentenced Fatfinger jerked his hand while shaving and sliced open his jugular. After that, the law of Fort Nails gave up on hanging folks, and instead sent their criminals to their graves courtesy of a heavy axe and a block of wood. The disused gallows still stands, mostly because nobody is brave enough to break it down or burn it, but the locals shun it.
Haunt Forbidden Library: Some books are not meant to be read, and some people dedicate their lives to prevent others from reading such forbidden books. Sometimes such dedication extends beyond life.
Haunt Foreboding Mist: Foreboding mists lurk in ill-kept graveyards, drawing their substance from the unrest of all who are buried below.
Haunt Gremlin's Hovel: ?
Haunt Grigori Chair: The Grigori Chair is a massive oak throne once used by the nation’s royalty. The entirety of the chair was originally carved with scenes from a great battle- heroic knights battling back barbaric foreign armies. When the last rightful scion of the bloodline was murdered- on the chair itself- the crimson oak cracked and blackened. The heroic carvings became something horrible. The chair was locked away in a forgotten storeroom, and even after the dynasty was restored, the original throne was forgotten and left to darkness.
Haunt Guts' Revenge: When the ancient slime the tavern-folk called simply “Guts” was finally ended, a fragment of the ooze’s simple hunger-based consciousness survived extermination. Guts’ ghostly presence still lingers along the treacherous and rocky shoreline where its vast amoeboid bulk eventually washed up.
Haunt Hangman's Jig: A desperate prisoner was incompetently hanged in this small cell. An echo of his painful death lingers and haunts anyone visiting the room.
Haunt Heart of Embers: ?
Haunt Hungry Grave: A petty villain was punished by being buried alive in this grave. Now his soul desires to share his misery with others.
Haunt Judge Wargrave's Bench: Judge Agar Wargrave was a peevish old man but had an uncanny knack for ferreting out the truth about defendants brought before him. He died of a stroke before passing sentence in the case of a man who murdered his family, and by virtue of a legal oversight the murderer went free. Now, the old judge haunts the courtroom he once ruled, a shadowy figure in robes and wig, and forces all who see the haunt to speak nothing but the truth.
Haunt Last Dance: A mad aristocrat was isolated in this lavish chamber. The inhabitant’s spirit still haunts the room, yearning to dance, an obsession which was denied to him during his many years of isolation.
Haunt Laughter Freezes: Nestled against the side of a forested mountain, the noble estate “Laughter and Gold” has been a hunting lodge of excellent reputation for generations. Owned by one of the kingdom’s most prominent families, the 23-room mansion is best known for its massive grand ballroom, where the trophies of a hundred hunts or more are proudly displayed. The heads of great beasts, taxidermic recreations of impossible monsters, and the captured arms of noble-born humanoid foes line the walls—all lit by a chandelier made from the bones of a juvenile green dragon. The newest trophy to be displayed though, is one the owners of the house wish would simply go away. On an expedition to the far north, one of the lodge’s greatest hunters brought back the dorsal ganglia of a polar worm. Since the dramatic trophy was hung on one wall, the temperature within Laughter and Gold has dropped by a few degrees each night. Already bitterly cold, occasionally the ballroom is sheathed in a carapace of killing ice and the roaring of the great northern worms can be heard.
Haunt Lessons of the Past: This was a place of teaching, a place where a respected sage told didactic stories to children and youngsters.
Haunt Master's Admonition: A cruel and petty teacher of wizardry left a painful imprint on his long-abandoned study, still lashing out against anyone who messes with his things.
Haunt Memory of the Late Mistress: A woman died, choked to death by her jealous lover on this bed, forever tainting it with ghostly malice toward the living.
Haunt Might Over Magic: A magician was killed here by brute force, leaving a spiteful vestige driven by hatred of the magic that failed him.
Haunt Mugglesant's Endless Anger: The goblin Mugglesant was a good thief but eventually her luck caught up with her. While burgling a mansion in the city of Ulstar, a spider bite ended the tiny thief’s life. She choked to death in the space between the house’s walls, and all the inhabitants knew was that some vermin died in the walls. They hired a local hedge wizard to purify the air with a few cantrips, and forgot about the whole matter. That indignity, more than her accidental death, enraged Mugglesant’s spirit. Now, the house is plagued with gigantic spiders that seemingly come from out of nowhere.
Haunt Old Jonas' Critique: Old Jonas the woodcarver had a reputation as one of the finest craftsmen in his small village. He made tools, toys for the settlement’s wealthiest children, shelves, fence posts, and a dozen other useful things, earning a tidy living in the process. After his death, Jonas’ nephew took over the business, but his lack of skill angered the ghostly carpenter. Now, the haunt of Old Jonas has its fun by twisting his successor’s work into uselessness and playing other ghostly pranks.
Haunt Purple Pig Tavern: The Purple Pig used to be a decent tavern, until a payment dispute between the barkeep and a wandering gnome troubadour ended in the little minstrel’s murder. The barkeep stuffed the gnome and his rat familiar feet first into a keg of rot gut and rolled it into the cellar. The barkeep thought that solved the problem, but in the last few weeks, horrors have killed three of his patrons and driven most of the other drunks off.
Haunt Quarry of the Endless Toil: This old quarry was a place of misery and death for numerous prisoners and slaves. Even now their spirits are bound to suffer, sharing their weariness with the living who disturb their endless toil.
Haunt Rapist's Mile: This stretch of forest marks the place where a gang of brigands brought down a peasant girl or boy, violated and eventually killed them. The peasant’s bones still lie half-buried under the leaf mould beneath one of the towering pine trees. Their angry spirit, coupled with the psychic echoes of their murderers’ lust have cursed this place: those venturing through this stretch of forest become as slow and exhausted as they were when the thugs finally ran them to ground.
Haunt Scribe du Rayneil's Odd Bequest: The scribe Claudette Du Rayneil died in the library she had tended her entire adult life. Her death wasn’t murder or tragedy; she was simply found one early morning fallen amid the stacks, her 90-year-old heart having finally given out. She was buried with minor honors, her private collection of more than 30 texts donated to the library she so loved and life went on. And a few months after her death, strange things began happening in the library. Quiet little curses that smelled like old dust would freeze patrons as they browsed and scribes as they worked.
Haunt Screams of a Forlorn Mother: The screams of a forlorn mother formed because of a woman that died a sudden death while mourning her child.
Haunt Spectral Screams: Some spirits take joy in terrifying the living. Spectral screams are collections of lesser spirits who have banded together to increase the amount of terror they can spread.
Haunt Stores of Goodwatch Keep: Three summers ago, an earthquake transformed a limestone quarry into tomb for a dozen human and dwarven miners. Since then, the mine has been reopened, the dead recovered and buried, and life in the mining town nearby slowly and painfully returned to normal. Limestone harvested from the quarry has been shipped across the realms to make mortar, but structures built with mortar from the Winter Fall Mine have been plagued by bad luck. The mine’s current generation of workers hear the tales from travelers, and among themselves, whisper that the unquiet ghosts of their former colleagues are having their revenge.
No structure built by from the cursed mortar has suffered worse luck than the remote Goodwatch Keep. The small fortress has an ill air, and twice now servants have disappeared, only to be found suffocated or starved behind walls that should not have been there. The folk of the keep never go anywhere alone anymore. Most flee the keep if their duties allow it. Meanwhile, the provisions store beneath the keep is shunned by all…
Haunt Surbicah The Apostate's Stone Pyre: Long ago, the druidess Surbicah [renounced] her faith and accepted the teachings of a passing cleric, even allowing some of her circle’s most sacred mysteries to be transcribed into the common tongue. The druid grove she betrayed took its vengeance on Surbicah, lashing her between the stones of their great stone menhir, where she was cruelly tortured for a day and a night before a bolt of lightning ended her misery.
Haunt Swordsman Betrayed: Here a master swordsman fought and won many duels until he was betrayed and stabbed in the back by an ally. A trace of his spirit still lingers here, mistaking anyone entering the courtyard for a challenger.
Haunt Thirsting Gorge: Years and years ago, a prospector and his mule fell into a desert gorge. Miles from any assistance, they died alone and unremembered from thirst and starvation. Those familiar with the desert avoid a certain out-of-the-way gorge, claiming that it is haunted. Nomads and prospectors tell dark stories of unprepared travelers possessed by the thirsty spirit of the wasteland, who abandon their supplies and die themselves.
Haunt Touch of Hunger: The denizens of this dwelling starved to death, their last thoughts focused on the empty pantry, which to their deluded minds appeared filled with supplies.
Haunt Unsolved Murder: After a merchant was murdered at a party being held to celebrate his latest venture, his spirit became obsessed with finding his killer and exacting vengeance. It has clung to his body for years, hoping for a hapless grave robber to inadvertently become the pawn of his unfinished business.
Haunt Warlock's Doom: This haunt is the lingering residue of a powerful magician’s final stand—slivers of his spirit and the last spell he ever cast bound together in a volley of destruction unleashed against the world.
Haunt Wyngarde Manor: Over sixty years ago, Baron Wyngarde and his wealthy family dominated both the social scene and politics in the region. Known for their opulent, even decadent, balls and celebrations, the Wyngarde family did what they wanted, when they wanted, and how they wanted—no one dared speak against the man who owned their land, their labor, and even their very tools.
Attitudes changed, however, when Wyngarde’s three sons came of age. They became infamous for rounding up local men and women to fight in their cruel pit fights. Those who performed well in the games were given coin and accolades, while the losers were never seen again. When the Wyngarde boys kidnapped the teenage son of the local vicar, the people of the region marched on the mansion, broke down the doors, and proceeded to execute every last member of the Wyngarde brood where they found them, including a number of children.
The elder Wyngarde, his blood pouring out to the floor, called out to his fiendish patron for vengeance against all those who dared enter his home. The dark powers listened and cursed the home and all those foolish enough to pass through its doors.
Since that night, the mansion has been haunted with a malignant, malevolent host of spirits. For a time, treasure-seekers and looters entered the house in search of gold. Some of these poor fools escaped alive but insane, but most of their ilk vanished.
While most people in the nearby town do their best to avoid the manor, the haunting has proven more pernicious than that. Three times a year—once for each of Wyngarde’s slain sons—the mansion calls out for a new victim. Someone in the vicinity hears this summons and, compelled to obey, travels to the mansion and enters through its accursed doors. This sacrifice has continued for two decades now, but no one knows how to put a stop to it. The locals have set fire to the mansion five times, but it reappears undamaged at midnight the next day, angrier than before.
5e
Ghost: ?
Ghostly Resonance: ?
Ghostly Apparition: ?
Angry Ghost: ?
Dimwitted Ghost: ?
Ghostly Carpenter: ?
Ghostly Woman: ?
Unquiet Ghost: ?
Ghostly Duelist: ?
Ghostly Brute of a Man, Phantom Pugilist: ?
Ghoul: A creature that drops to 0 hit points while within the cloud [from a devouring mists haunt] dies after failing two death saving throws. One minute after the creature dies, it rises as a ghoul.
Ephemeral Horror: ?
Phantom Noise: ?
Phantom: ?
Phantom Wasp: ?
Phantom Voice: ?
Phantom Crowd: ?
Potergeist: ?
Shadowy Apparition of an Elegantly Clothed Dandy: ?
Screaming Apparition: ?
Shadowy Figure: ?
Shadowy Shape: ?
Mischievous Spirit: ?
Spirit: ?
Old Man's Spirit: ?
Frightful Spirit: ?
Angry Spirit: ?
Panicked Spirit: ?
Spirit of Donovan's Kiln: ?
Spiritual Vestige of a Wrathful Custodian: ?
Judge Agar Wargrave, Spirit: ?
Mugglesant, Spirit, Spirit of the Dead Thief: ?
Lesser Spirit: ?
Master Swordsman Spirit: ?
Thirsty Spirit of the Wasteland: ?
Merchant's Spirit, Possessing Spirit: ?
Malign Spirit: ?
Haunt, Haunting, True Haunt, Typical Haunt: A haunt is a ghostly resonance that can affect a creature that triggers it. Such haunts are very likely to occur in places of death and psychic distress, such as torture chambers, mass graveyards, and battlefields.
There are many reasons why a haunt comes into existence. Most of these reasons, sadly, involve tragedy, pain, suffering, and horror. Deep, overwhelming emotions are most likely to create a haunt, especially when accompanied by death and tragedy.
Typically, a haunt begins when a creature dies in a painful or unusual way—especially a lingering death. If the creature perished alone, forgotten, or unmourned, the haunting may well involve feelings of sorrow and a need for closure, such as proper burial or being memorialized. If, however, the creature died because someone stood by and refused to help or took pleasure in the death, then the haunting often carries with it a desire for revenge and justice.
A haunting usually requires a focus. This focus may be an object important to the person in life, like a child’s favorite doll, a family heirloom, or a gift from a loved one. The focus could revolve around a specific place, such as where the person died. A weak haunting can often be cleansed by burning or otherwise destroying the focal object, or purifying the locale. A more powerful haunting, on the other hand, may require more unusual methods.
Other circumstances at the time of death may play a role in the formation of a haunt. The time of day the person died, the means of their death (e.g., a murder weapon, an accidental fall), and the reason for their death all can contribute. Did the deceased have unfinished business, such as family left behind, a need for justice, or an oath they failed to keep? These elements, once known, can provide vital clues to cleansing a haunt.
Not all hauntings involve death or murder. A haunting can come about due to a mischievous spirit (e.g., a poltergeist) or strange energies suffusing a place. A haunting can develop simply because a deceased person refuses to accept the truth about their death. These hauntings are usually more of a creepy nuisance than a threat to life or limb.
Weak Haunting: ?
More Powerful Haunting: ?
Setback Haunt, Setback Haunting: ?
Dangerous Haunt, Dangerous Haunting: ?
Deadly Haunt, Deadly Haunting: ?
Faster More Violent Haunt: ?
Slower Haunt: ?
Haunting Left By a Person's Murder: ?
Elusive Haunt: ?
Latent Haunt: ?
Tenacious Haunt: ?
Haunted Building: ?
Proximity-Triggered Haunt: ?
Haunt Triggered by Touch: ?
Minor Haunt: ?
Strange Pungent Haunt: ?
Persistent Haunt: ?
Haunt Baron Culver's Balcony: Baron Archimedes Culver was a pathetic and lonely man towards the end of his long life. His vast fortune long since squandered, his political capital equally reduced, Baron Culver found himself banished from the royal court and the intrigue he so loved. The old Baron died, halfway senile, in a tattered silk bathrobe after falling from the balcony of his equally ragged country home. Today, Baron Culver’s lands lie mostly fallow, as the solicitors struggle to untangle the old man’s will. The home he died in was emptied by his heirs and shuttered, but occasionally a burglar makes the mistake of slipping inside. Weak willed tomb-raiders find themselves singing the praises of the small mansion’s last master before leaping from the same balcony where he died.
Haunt Bell Tower: A bell-ringer fell down in this tower. Before he died he wished that the fall hadn’t happened…
Haunt Bigot's Spire: In life, the half-elven wizard Comas Delesas was defined by his bigotry. The arrogant mage despised regular humanity as barely civilized idiots and openly called for the extinction of what he called the “underfolk”: dwarves, gnomes, goblins and kobolds among many other burrowing species. His adventuring days long past and his fortune assured, Comas eventually murdered those who helped him gain his wealth and retired to a library-tower he built for himself on the edge of a major human freehold. The local folk saw his servants occasionally when they went into town for provisions, but Comas himself refused to associate with the common herd.
When a blast of lightning as brilliant as the sun struck the tower one rainy night, most of the townsfolk said good riddance. The matter would have rested there, if not for the fact something of Comas Delesas’ hatred remains, and occasionally, the broken tower belches lethal black smoke that emits the faint scent of burning ink and almonds. Depending on the wind, this lethal mist might roll down the blasted hillside and into the city Comas shunned, or it may drift into the now shockingly depopulated and quiet forest.
Haunt Black Taskmaster: The Black Taskmaster is an old ironshod whip taken from an infamous slaver and displayed in the library of the Sandoval College of Necromancy. Senior students and prefects alike know to avoid the display case bearing the bloody old weapon, though a common hazing ritual forces underclassmen to endure the frightful spirits surrounding the whip.
Haunt Bloody Handprints: A murder or other violent death left behind a permanent stain on a wall or similar surface.
Haunt Boartooth's Righteous Rampage: When Brom Boartooth’s sons died of a disease that 10 gp worth of medicine would’ve cured, he finally became the monster that his fully human neighbors feared all his life. Previously a simple rancher, the half-orc found depths of hatred and violence in himself he never knew existed. He slaughtered his home town’s hedge wizard and the alchemist who refused to treat his sons, the town’s sheriff and three of the settlement’s wealthiest merchants before an angry mob finally ended his rampage. That was a year and a day ago. Now, the townsfolk of Boartooth’s small farming community are plagued with hideous visions. Before the horrified eyes of their friends and family, the afflicted become the species they once shunned. Half Orcs that were once humans hide within their homes, wrapped in shawls and blankets to cover their shame, and Boartooth’s community has become, literally, a ghost town.
Haunt Butcher's Hill: The Butcher’s Hill had another name before the war between two neighboring fiefdoms ended there. By the time the day long battle was over, more than 3,000 men and women lie dead atop the hill, and the ground was literally stained red with their blood. Even though priests from a dozen temples sanctified the ground, that much anger and pain never truly goes away.
Haunt Camel's Graveyard: There is a point of no return in the Gronnel Desert, a place almost exactly between two oasis cities, where supplies are far more than half exhausted and the only way to survive is to press forward. Over the years, hundreds of caravans have ended somewhere near this mythical point of no return, and the bleached and sandblasted bones of hundreds of camels lie half-buried by the dunes. Animals fear and hate this place, and so they often turn on their masters, leading to their death and the deaths of those whom depended on them for survival.
Haunt Cast Upon the Rocks: The merchant galleon Escarda Din went down in a sudden squall and its sunken frame now rests on an undersea plateau. So clear is the water that the wreck can almost be seen through three hundred feet of warm water Though the Escarda Din went down in a common shipping lane, no brave soul has attempted to salvage the wreck, and common sailors avoid its last known position. The ocean near the wreck site has ‘gone bad’ and regularly kills sailors with impossible weather.
Haunt Creeping Ectoplasm: ?
Haunt Dead Tree: The Dead Tree is a haunted leftover of a garden, orchard, or the last patch of a forest and includes a lone dead tree standing amid a barren landscape.
Haunt Devil's Anvil: This black iron anvil sits in a back corner of the ruined remnants of a smithy, half-buried in rubble. According to local legend, the blacksmith, a fat and ignorant man named Hodge hammered swords for pit-fiends on his anvil. Eventually, doing hell’s work caught up with him, and Hodge and his three idiot sons died in an unexplainable blaze. Whatever the truth of Hodge’s life, in death his small shop has been uniformly shunned.
Haunt Devouring Mists: A pack of ghouls ambushed and devoured a group of people as they were passing this bridge on a foggy night. Memory of this event still lingers and hungers for flesh of the living.
Haunt Doors to Damnation: A soldier guarded this door against overwhelming forces and cursed the invaders with his dying breath when he finally fell.
Haunt Donovan's Kiln: Ten years ago, this ruin was a busy potter’s shop. In better days, Bria Donovan was a fat and cheerful woman who, with her two nephews, ran a profitable business out of a small, neat cottage at the edge of town. The center of Bria’s business was the enormous wood burning kiln that took up most of the cottage, and which she kept stoked day and night. She died along with her youngest nephew Micah when the kiln exploded. Bria’s surviving nephew rushed to help, but was badly scarred by the blaze. Not wanting anything to do with his ruined inheritance, Andrew Donovan let the ground lie fallow. Over time his aunt’s pottery shop fell into memory and then into local legend, while Andrew grew into the town’s premier drunkard. The matter would have rested there, if not for the fact that on days when the temperature rises during the worst part of summer, the kiln burns again with ghostly white fires.
Haunt Fatfinger's Last Dance: Terkin Fatfinger, brigand, rapist, counterfeiter, and cattle-rustler, was the last thief to hang justly on the old oak gallows outside Fort Nails. When asked for last words, the bastard laid down curses so vile, so profane and so tarrying that the garrison’s master-at-arms didn’t wait for him to finish and kicked the stool out from under him. Three days later the master-at-arms was dead from a broken neck after falling from his horse. Three days after that, his grieving wife slipped in the privy and cracked her skull open. A few weeks later, the judge who sentenced Fatfinger jerked his hand while shaving and sliced open his jugular. After that, the law of Fort Nails gave up on hanging folks, and instead sent their criminals to their graves courtesy of a heavy axe and a block of wood. The disused gallows still stands, mostly because nobody is brave enough to break it down or burn it, but the locals shun it.
Haunt Forbidden Library: Some books are not meant to be read, and some people dedicate their lives to prevent others from reading such forbidden books. Sometimes such dedication extends beyond life.
Haunt Foreboding Mist: Foreboding mists lurk in ill-kept graveyards, drawing their substance from the unrest of all who are buried below.
Haunt Gremlin's Hovel: ?
Haunt Grigori Chair: The Grigori Chair is a massive oak throne once used by the nation’s royalty. The entirety of the chair was originally carved with scenes from a great battle- heroic knights battling back barbaric foreign armies. When the last rightful scion of the bloodline was murdered- on the chair itself- the crimson oak cracked and blackened. The heroic carvings became something horrible. The chair was locked away in a forgotten storeroom, and even after the dynasty was restored, the original throne was forgotten and left to darkness.
Haunt Guts' Revenge: When the ancient slime the tavern-folk called simply “Guts” was finally ended, a fragment of the ooze’s simple hunger-based consciousness survived extermination. Guts’ ghostly presence still lingers along the treacherous and rocky shoreline where its vast amoeboid bulk eventually washed up.
Haunt Hangman's Jig: A desperate prisoner was incompetently hanged in this small cell. An echo of his painful death lingers and haunts anyone visiting the room.
Haunt Heart of Embers: ?
Haunt Hungry Grave: A petty villain was punished by being buried alive in this grave. Now his soul desires to share his misery with others.
Haunt Judge Wargrave's Bench: Judge Agar Wargrave was a peevish old man but had an uncanny knack for ferreting out the truth about defendants brought before him. He died of a stroke before passing sentence in the case of a man who murdered his family, and by virtue of a legal oversight the murderer went free. Now, the old judge haunts the courtroom he once ruled, a shadowy figure in robes and wig, and forces all who see the haunt to speak nothing but the truth.
Haunt Last Dance: A mad aristocrat was isolated in this lavish chamber. The inhabitant’s spirit still haunts the room, yearning to dance, an obsession which was denied to him during his many years of isolation.
Haunt Laughter Freezes: Nestled against the side of a forested mountain, the noble estate “Laughter and Gold” has been a hunting lodge of excellent reputation for generations. Owned by one of the kingdom’s most prominent families, the 23-room mansion is best known for its massive grand ballroom, where the trophies of a hundred hunts or more are proudly displayed. The heads of great beasts, taxidermic recreations of impossible monsters, and the captured arms of noble-born humanoid foes line the walls—all lit by a chandelier made from the bones of a juvenile green dragon. The newest trophy to be displayed though, is one the owners of the house wish would simply go away. On an expedition to the far north, one of the lodge’s greatest hunters brought back the dorsal ganglia of a polar worm. Since the dramatic trophy was hung on one wall, the temperature within Laughter and Gold has dropped by a few degrees each night. Already bitterly cold, occasionally the ballroom is sheathed in a carapace of killing ice and the roaring of the great northern worms can be heard.
Haunt Lessons of the Past: This was a place of teaching, a place where a respected sage told didactic stories to children and youngsters.
Haunt Master's Admonition: A cruel and petty teacher of wizardry left a painful imprint on his long-abandoned study, still lashing out against anyone who messes with his things.
Haunt Memory of the Late Mistress: A woman died, choked to death by her jealous lover on this bed, forever tainting it with ghostly malice toward the living.
Haunt Might Over Magic: A magician was killed here by brute force, leaving a spiteful vestige driven by hatred of the magic that failed him.
Haunt Mugglesant's Endless Anger: The goblin Mugglesant was a good thief but eventually her luck caught up with her. While burgling a mansion in the city of Ulstar, a spider bite ended the tiny thief’s life. She choked to death in the space between the house’s walls, and all the inhabitants knew was that some vermin died in the walls. They hired a local hedge wizard to purify the air with a few cantrips, and forgot about the whole matter. That indignity, more than her accidental death, enraged Mugglesant’s spirit. Now, the house is plagued with gigantic spiders that seemingly come from out of nowhere.
Haunt Old Jonas' Critique: Old Jonas the woodcarver had a reputation as one of the finest craftsmen in his small village. He made tools, toys for the settlement’s wealthiest children, shelves, fence posts, and a dozen other useful things, earning a tidy living in the process. After his death, Jonas’ nephew took over the business, but his lack of skill angered the ghostly carpenter. Now, the haunt of Old Jonas has its fun by twisting his successor’s work into uselessness and playing other ghostly pranks.
Haunt Purple Pig Tavern: The Purple Pig used to be a decent tavern, until a payment dispute between the barkeep and a wandering gnome troubadour ended in the little minstrel’s murder. The barkeep stuffed the gnome and his rat familiar feet first into a keg of rot gut and rolled it into the cellar. The barkeep thought that solved the problem, but in the last few weeks, horrors have killed three of his patrons and driven most of the other drunks off.
Haunt Quarry of the Endless Toil: This old quarry was a place of misery and death for numerous prisoners and slaves. Even now their spirits are bound to suffer, sharing their weariness with the living who disturb their endless toil.
Haunt Rapist's Mile: This stretch of forest marks the place where a gang of brigands brought down a peasant girl or boy, violated and eventually killed them. The peasant’s bones still lie half-buried under the leaf mould beneath one of the towering pine trees. Their angry spirit, coupled with the psychic echoes of their murderers’ lust have cursed this place: those venturing through this stretch of forest become as slow and exhausted as they were when the thugs finally ran them to ground.
Haunt Scribe du Rayneil's Odd Bequest: The scribe Claudette Du Rayneil died in the library she had tended her entire adult life. Her death wasn’t murder or tragedy; she was simply found one early morning fallen amid the stacks, her 90-year-old heart having finally given out. She was buried with minor honors, her private collection of more than 30 texts donated to the library she so loved and life went on. And a few months after her death, strange things began happening in the library. Quiet little curses that smelled like old dust would freeze patrons as they browsed and scribes as they worked.
Haunt Screams of a Forlorn Mother: The screams of a forlorn mother formed because of a woman that died a sudden death while mourning her child.
Haunt Spectral Screams: Some spirits take joy in terrifying the living. Spectral screams are collections of lesser spirits who have banded together to increase the amount of terror they can spread.
Haunt Stores of Goodwatch Keep: Three summers ago, an earthquake transformed a limestone quarry into tomb for a dozen human and dwarven miners. Since then, the mine has been reopened, the dead recovered and buried, and life in the mining town nearby slowly and painfully returned to normal. Limestone harvested from the quarry has been shipped across the realms to make mortar, but structures built with mortar from the Winter Fall Mine have been plagued by bad luck. The mine’s current generation of workers hear the tales from travelers, and among themselves, whisper that the unquiet ghosts of their former colleagues are having their revenge.
No structure built by from the cursed mortar has suffered worse luck than the remote Goodwatch Keep. The small fortress has an ill air, and twice now servants have disappeared, only to be found suffocated or starved behind walls that should not have been there. The folk of the keep never go anywhere alone anymore. Most flee the keep if their duties allow it. Meanwhile, the provisions store beneath the keep is shunned by all…
Haunt Surbicah The Apostate's Stone Pyre: Long ago, the druidess Surbicah [renounced] her faith and accepted the teachings of a passing cleric, even allowing some of her circle’s most sacred mysteries to be transcribed into the common tongue. The druid grove she betrayed took its vengeance on Surbicah, lashing her between the stones of their great stone menhir, where she was cruelly tortured for a day and a night before a bolt of lightning ended her misery.
Haunt Swordsman Betrayed: Here a master swordsman fought and won many duels until he was betrayed and stabbed in the back by an ally. A trace of his spirit still lingers here, mistaking anyone entering the courtyard for a challenger.
Haunt Thirsting Gorge: Years and years ago, a prospector and his mule fell into a desert gorge. Miles from any assistance, they died alone and unremembered from thirst and starvation. Those familiar with the desert avoid a certain out-of-the-way gorge, claiming that it is haunted. Nomads and prospectors tell dark stories of unprepared travelers possessed by the thirsty spirit of the wasteland, who abandon their supplies and die themselves.
Haunt Touch of Hunger: The denizens of this dwelling starved to death, their last thoughts focused on the empty pantry, which to their deluded minds appeared filled with supplies.
Haunt Unsolved Murder: After a merchant was murdered at a party being held to celebrate his latest venture, his spirit became obsessed with finding his killer and exacting vengeance. It has clung to his body for years, hoping for a hapless grave robber to inadvertently become the pawn of his unfinished business.
Haunt Warlock's Doom: This haunt is the lingering residue of a powerful magician’s final stand—slivers of his spirit and the last spell he ever cast bound together in a volley of destruction unleashed against the world.
Haunt Wyngarde Manor: Over sixty years ago, Baron Wyngarde and his wealthy family dominated both the social scene and politics in the region. Known for their opulent, even decadent, balls and celebrations, the Wyngarde family did what they wanted, when they wanted, and how they wanted—no one dared speak against the man who owned their land, their labor, and even their very tools.
Attitudes changed, however, when Wyngarde’s three sons came of age. They became infamous for rounding up local men and women to fight in their cruel pit fights. Those who performed well in the games were given coin and accolades, while the losers were never seen again. When the Wyngarde boys kidnapped the teenage son of the local vicar, the people of the region marched on the mansion, broke down the doors, and proceeded to execute every last member of the Wyngarde brood where they found them, including a number of children.
The elder Wyngarde, his blood pouring out to the floor, called out to his fiendish patron for vengeance against all those who dared enter his home. The dark powers listened and cursed the home and all those foolish enough to pass through its doors.
Since that night, the mansion has been haunted with a malignant, malevolent host of spirits. For a time, treasure-seekers and looters entered the house in search of gold. Some of these poor fools escaped alive but insane, but most of their ilk vanished.
While most people in the nearby town do their best to avoid the manor, the haunting has proven more pernicious than that. Three times a year—once for each of Wyngarde’s slain sons—the mansion calls out for a new victim. Someone in the vicinity hears this summons and, compelled to obey, travels to the mansion and enters through its accursed doors. This sacrifice has continued for two decades now, but no one knows how to put a stop to it. The locals have set fire to the mansion five times, but it reappears undamaged at midnight the next day, angrier than before.
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