St. Severine’s Skull Dungeon Crawl

The following notes are for a Pathfinder dungeon crawl in a gothic fantasy vein, although the material could easily be adapted to other systems (it would particularly suit older editions of D&D and/or OSR retroclones).

Introduction

The cathedral of Saint Severine – patron saint of spiders, weavers, trappers, the starving, coffin-makers, and repentant cannibals – has hired you to retrieve the skull of their Saint, along with any other relics you can discover.  Severine was put to death some centuries ago by the Aquilan Empire, who deeply resisted the influence of the Church until their dissolution.  For long ages the location of Saint Severine’s body was lost, but recently discovered documents indicate the place of her death as Hexenburg Castle, a large Imperial fortress in the Wulfswald region now shunned by the local populace for its dark reputation.  Some claim the abandoned fortress and the dungeons beneath it are haunted, while others insist it has become the dwelling-place of Ogres, Trolls, or worse.  While Hexenburg Castle has been reoccupied at various times throughout its history – most notably by the noble family known as the House of Wulfheim – the skull may still be somewhere in the forsaken labyrinth of tunnels, dungeons, and catacombs beneath the ruined fortress.

Inspiration

This module owes a great deal to the following games and adventures: James Raggi’s Death Frost Doom, Nicolas Logue’s The Hook Mountain Massacre, Tracy and Laura Hickman’s I6: Ravenloft, Frictional Games’ Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Gremlin Interactive’s Realms of the Haunting, and Blizzard’s Diablo (the original).  In addition, the film The Name of the Rose and Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast novels were in my mind as I wrote this.  The influence of the Warhammer World cannot be overstated.

Characters

Since the characters are working for the Church, some of them may be members of it themselves – especially Clerics, Paladins, Oracles, and Inquisitors.  Others (like Bards, Rogues, Fighters, or Wizards) might be mercenaries, relic-hunters employed by the Church to retrieve their artefacts.  Fighters, Cavaliers, and Paladins might also be Knights who are seeking to retrieve the relic as part of a holy quest.  Rogues, Bards, and other ne’er do wells might be repentant sinners trying to retrieve the relic as part of their atonement.  Barbarians and similar “wild folk” might be recent converts seeking to prove their faith.  Sorcerers – or, for that matter, other characters – might be wards of the Church.  If these motivations don’t appeal to the players, some alternative adventure hooks are presented below to help get them into the adventure.

General Module Philosophy

A few things to keep in mind while running St. Severine’s Skull:

• This adventure isn’t shockingly original.  It doesn’t attempt anything immensely experimental or innovative; in fact, it’s a bit of a throwback.  It was designed as an introductory dungeon crawl scenario for new players who’ve never played D&D.  As a result, it’s designed around monsters and set-pieces which experienced gamers may well find old hat, but which nonetheless are quintessentially “D&D” – a Goblin-infested keep, Undead-infested catacombs, a bandit-infested forest, etc.  It relies on some fairly bog standard monsters, if only for the reason that the intended players haven’t encountered them before, and wouldn’t know a cloaker from a chuul if it came up and bit them.  Nonetheless, I still wanted something that still felt unique and creepy, a style of D&D injected with a certain sepulchral weirdness and sprawling gothic grandeur.
•  Atmosphere is key.  Cultivate a mood of oppressive gloom, great age, solitude, darkness, and terror.  Lush (and extended) description and gothic, eerie music are useful aids.
• The pace should be slow.  Horror is a genre of slowness and suspense.  Amnesia, not Van Helsing.  Things should build.  The players should wander through a sequence of mostly empty rooms feeling certain there’s something just through the next door.  There should be a palpable sense of the unknown, with occasional bursts of spectacular, grotesque horror.  Hit them when they don’t expect it.
• Rearrange monsters ad hoc as needed.  Rearrange encounters and NPCs as needed.  Rearrange items as needed.  Duh.
• The players should feel unsafe, harried, and paranoid.  However, they also shouldn’t feel powerless.  This is a Pathfinder game, not Call of Cthulhu.  They should feel threatened, not impotent.
• Things to stress: the cold, the darkness, the dust, the emptiness, the moaning wind, the moss, the vines, the crumbling stone, the layered nature of the ruins.
• Keep fights ugly.  Blood, viscera, breaking bones, ruptured eyeballs and organs.  Battle isn’t pretty.
• There are areas of extreme wealth (the lower catacombs, the lowermost laboratory, the Aranea lair), but a lot of the Castle is empty and devoid of much treasure.
• The monsters should be very challenging, and should be played intelligently.  They retreat if wounded.  They set traps and ambushes.  They call on allies for aid.  They know Hexenburg’s layout better than the characters and use this knowledge to their decided advantage.

Alternative Hooks

For Druids, Witches, Rangers, Barbarians, etc:

The omens are clear: you have read them in the trees, in the river, in flocks of birds.  The ancient fortress of Hexenburg Castle has long been a place of darkness, but of late its evil has been growing.  There is something unnatural about the ruins: animals shun it, and even plants that grow about the ruinous stone walls are blighted and etiolate.  You have heard strange sounds coming from the forsaken castle, sounds made by neither men nor beasts.  The sacred barrow-mounds in the hills around the fortress have been disturbed, and the forest around the ruin is growing sickly, befouled.  You have resolved to cleanse Hexenburg Castle of whatever unclean force has made its home there.  Strangely enough, a group of like-minded travelers has recently arrived in the region, intent on seeking some treasure in the Castle.  Taking their arrival as an omen, you have resolved to join them as they venture in Hexenburg’s shadowy halls.

For Wizards, Alchemists, Maguses, and the like:

Your College has dispatched you to the backwater region known as the Wulfswald in order to procure a certain object – the spellbook of Count Manfred von Wulfheim, a noble and reputed mage of considerable power.  The Count vanished under mysterious circumstances two centuries ago shortly before his familial estate, Hexenburg Castle, was attacked by barbarians from the north, its inhabitants slaughtered; the Castle has been abandoned ever since.  The Castle, a former fortress of the long-defunct Aquilan Empire, has grown ruinous over the past two hundred years, but your superiors in the Mage’s College believe that the Count may have left his spellbook and other materials behind: rumour holds that the Castle was abandoned due to a summoning-gone-wrong, when some spirit or demon the Count conjured forth broke free of his control.  As you made your way to the Castle, you found yourself sharing the road with a band of relic-hunters employed by the Church, seeking the skull of some Saint said to rest in the ruins.  Your goals may be different, but if there is any truth to the dark rumours surrounding Hexenburg, their company may be useful.

For Rogues, Bards, and other thieves:

The Nachtheim Thieves Guild has sent you on a mission to the miserable, snowy wood known as the Wulfswald on a tomb-robbing job.  According to their sources, the local ruin, Castle Hexenburg, has an extensive series of crypts and catacombs beneath it, used by the House of Wulfheim for the burial of their noble dead back when they inhabited the mouldering old fortress.  The Guild think that there might be a healthy store of gold down in the old tombs, as well as a valuable artefact known as the Frost Crown, a circlet set with sapphires also said to grant its wearer power over wolves and winter storms.  While the supernatural abilities of the Crown may be nothing more than superstition, the Thieves Guild has contact with collectors who would pay handsomely for this object.  As a fairly new recruit in the Guild you’ve been chosen for the dubious honour of trudging into the woods and rooting around in the decaying Castle for the Crown, and anything else you can turn up.  On your way to the Castle you’ve fallen in with some relic-hunters also headed to Hexenburg Castle; at the very least they’ll make good monster-fodder for anything that’s crept into the dungeons over the years…

Information:

Religion

Knowledge (religion) DC 10 on Saint Severine:

Accounts of her martyrdom claim that first she was placed in a box full of deadly, venomous spiders.  The box was opened, but Saint Severine was unharmed, and the spiders had even woven her a gown of finest silk.  Next she was thrown into an underground pit along with a number of criminals.  The inmates were given water but no food, and so, eventually, they began resorting to cannibalism, until finally they devoured the Saint herself.  Legend says, however, that despite her body’s destruction Saint Severine’s head remained alive and pardoned those who had devoured her.  The cannibals, converted by this miracle, repented of their awful crimes.  Her head was removed from the pit and boiled; her skull was then marked with a glyph indicating her “heresy,” and thrown into a mass grave.  They say that despite the skull’s fleshlessness, it still murmurs holy words and sings softly of the Light.

DC 15:

Saint Severine is frequently invoked for protection against poisons, and an amulet of Saint Severine is said to protect the wearer from venomous vermin.  Few are aware of Saint Severine’s personal history, but certain apocryphal texts indicate she was a prostitute who repented her sins when she found her faith.  These same texts suggest that she was, in fact, the concubine of Hexenburg Castle’s commander and the governor of the Wulfswald, Gnaeus Magnus Lentullus.  Another text claims she was actually a Hexenlander, the daughter of a powerful Witch who was captured by the Imperials and forcibly wed to the governor.

DC 20:

Saint Severine’s spider-silk gown was never recovered, but is claimed to possess extraordinary properties of its own, granting its wearer the ability to speak with spiders and summon them to her aid. Other artefacts associated with the Saint include a lock of her black hair shorn from her head on the eve of her martyrdom (whoever carries the hair is said to need no nourishment, neither food nor drink), her prayer beads, which she is said to have left to one of the redeemed criminals in the pit, and her heart, which the cannibals did not devour.

History

Knowledge (history) DC 10 on Hexenburg Castle:

Hexenburg Castle was originally established as a border fort or “castra” to protect the Empire against the ferocious Hexenlanders, tribes of painted warriors led by matriarchal Witches who wielded terrible sorcerous power, transforming their warriors into beasts, raising armies of flesh-eating trees, commanding storms and flocks of demonic ravens, and performing similar acts of magic.  The fortress is nestled high in the hills, with extensive underground catacombs, secret tunnels, storage chambers, and dungeons.  During the bloody decline of the Empire, the villages around Hexenburg Castle were sacked and burnt, and eventually the fortress itself fell to siege.  It was later reoccupied by the local nobility, ancestors of the current Count Ulrich von Wulfheim, who repaired the fortifications and added major extensions to its keep and outbuildings, as well as (reputedly) digging tunnels even deeper below the fortress for unknown purposes.  Hexenburg Castle has been abandoned for over two hundred years, following its sack by barbarians from the north.

DC 15:

The lower halls of Hexenburg Castle are said to be riddled with secret doors, hidden passages, trapdoors, sally ports, and secret chambers, some dating back to the time of the Aquilan Empire, others constructed by the House of Wulfheim.  There are also a series of natural caves deep beneath the castle; plague victims were sometimes quarantined in these caves, with food and water lowered down to them from the passages above.

DC 20:

During the height of the Wolf’s Head Rebellion, a peasant uprising spearheaded by local outlaw-heroes, the so-called Brotherhood of the Wolf’s Head, many rebels were imprisoned and tortured in the dungeons of Hexenburg Castle, their heads displayed on pikes to deter other would-be dissidents.

Nobility

Knowledge (nobility) DC 10 on the House of Wulfheim:

The House of Wulfheim is a relatively minor noble family, a House in deep decline – in ages past they were closer with various royal Houses and wielded great influence, but their current power is much diminished following their decimation.  Their heraldic sigil is the head of a black-furred, red-eyed wolf on a checkered red and white field.  They have not dwelt in Castle Hexenburg for over two hundred years, after most of the family was butchered by savages from the northlands.  Only a few of the House survived, reputedly escaping through secret tunnels under the Castle.

DC 15:

The House of Wulfheim can ultimately trace their blood back to the Hexenlander Witch-Clans to the north, and have always had an unsavoury reputation.  Recently, rumours have been circling in Nachtheim, their current abode, that Ulrich von Wulfheim is a Vampire, and that in fact Ulrich has been living under aliases for centuries as various patriarchs of the Wulfheim bloodline.  During the House of Wulfheim’s tenure in Hexenburg Castle, strange lights were sometimes seen from the east tower (the so-called “Black Tower” from which the castle’s gallows was displayed) leading some to accuse the noble family of practicing witchcraft.  An Inquisitor was even called in, but the official history of his findings has been covered up.  Rumour holds that Therese von Wulfheim seduced and bewitched the Inquisitor into giving a false report of the family’s innocence so that she could continue her witchcraft.  Of course, the truth behind these rumours has not been verified.

DC 20:

An ancient and legendary weapon, the Wolf’s Fang, has been missing from the House of Wulfheim’s halls for many years, and the family would pay very handsomely for its return.  The Wolf’s Fang is said to have the hunger of a feral wolf, and to deliver wounds that never close.  It is distinguished by the pommel of black iron sculpted into a wolf’s head, set with red rubies for eyes.

Local

Knowledge (local) DC 10 on Wulfswald:

The Wulfswald region is notorious for its bandits and its beasts.  From time to time, both have found shelter in the woods around Hexenburg Castle, or even within its walls.  Wolves give the forest its name, and large packs of the beasts often descend out of the wooded hills to prey on local livestock.  Local legend claims that some of these wolves are actually Barghests, foul hybrids of Goblin and Wolf that grow larger and more powerful by devouring the flesh of the innocent and the righteous.  This rumour may have some truth, for priests and children seem to be frequent targets for the wolves.  As for bandits, the most infamous brigand in the region is One-Eyed Sally, an accomplished swordswoman who robs carriages and merchant caravans using the roads in the Wulfswald.

DC 15:

Apart from Hexenburg Castle, the hilly Wulfswald region is riddled with barrows, dolmens, and standing stones, some of them reputedly infested by Ghouls or converted into Troll-holes.  Tomb-robbers have plundered a number of these crypts.  There are many stories of Druidic cults and Witch-covens taking to the menhir-marked hilltops to perform ancient and sometimes unwholesome rites.

DC 20:

A strange, misshapen figure has sometimes been glimpsed on the castle battlements or in the nearby woods.  No one has got a good look at this person – or creature – but most accounts describe it as hulking, twisted, and bestial.  Some locals claim he must be an Ogre, while others think he is simply a hunchback squatting in the ruins.  Trolls and other Giant-kin have been known to dwell in the region, as have Goblins, Kobolds, and a variety of mischievous and often unwholesome Fey, creatures that steal children from cradles or play gruesome practical jokes on farmers and traders.

A Note on Religion

The chief religion depicted in this module is centered round the “Light,” a deliberately vague pseudo-deity revered by the Church as an omnibenevolent force, of which the Saints are servants.  While in practice this amounts to a kind of monotheism, technically the faith is henotheistic, though certain sects may be more strictly monotheistic in character, viewing other gods as demons in disguise.  Of course, the details of the faith can be tweaked very easily.  On the one hand, if you decide to set the module in historical Europe (somewhere in the Holy Roman Empire, probably during the 14^th century or so), the church could easy be the Roman Catholic Church.  If you set it in a secondary world, simply pick a deity you feel fits best.

A Note on Cosmology

The cosmology of the setting is deliberately vague.  For the purposes of the module, Devils and Demons can be treated as essentially the same thing rather than two extremes.  If you wish, their alignment can be shifted to Neutral Evil.  Unifying their weaknesses/vulnerabilities (silver is probably the best bet, to distinguish them from evil fey vulnerable to cold iron) would be wise.