Homebrew - Haunts
Maybe I have the holiday spirit in me. Maybe the cold and cruel world is finally starting to settle on my psyche. Or maybe I listen to too many Pathfinder podcasts. Regardless of the reason, I’ve noticed a distinct problem that Dungeons & Dragons has is that their undead rooms of death are just rather bland. When you walk into a desecrated room… not much happens. Undead gain advantage on all saving throws and… well, that’s it.
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Why?
Where is the thrill in taking on the threats of undeath and sorrow? What about horror traps that are more than just glyphs of warding or a simple guillotine trap? How do we shove as much horror and supernatural energy into an encounter as possible? If you’ve ever wanted to bring in the horror and supernatural, haunts are for you. Powerful forces of sorrow and danger, these haunts are quite haunting and should make for an exciting trap that is unlike any a rogue has ever stumbled upon.
This piece of homebrew is about creating a new type of trap that is missing from Dungeons & Dragons. We are used to the idea of a rogue going in, flipping a few daggers, winking at the ladies, and disabling traps, but what about the idea of a holy man walking into a haunted mansion and destroying the ghosts that possess it?
What is This?
Haunts are the traps designed for clerics, for those who want a mystery when it comes to traps, and wants to help others. Haunts can be bypassed with a Channel Divinity, but it's only temporary before its back - making a cleric’s ultimate job to find a way to permanently pacify the haunt, which isn’t too easy for some haunts. Haunts can provide a ton of roleplaying moments as well as brushes with danger and the spirits of the undead that can’t simply be bashed away with a war hammer or spells. Die rolling isn’t the answer to these haunts and rely on puzzling out the answer and finding ways to appease the spirits who make them.
Customizable
Every haunt is going to be different based on the circumstances surrounding them. I’ve gone ahead and given 4 examples to give DMs an idea on how to incorporate them into their games. Each haunt should be tied into the story of what's going on, or to deepen the danger in a dangerous location. A haunt where adventurers begin drowning doesn’t make much sense when they are investigating the tomb of a lich, but a haunt of damaged souls rotting the adventurer’s flesh does as a representation of the lich feeding on souls.
Supernatural Traps
Because they are based on the sorrow and anguish of those who have died, they don’t make the typical traps adventurers are used to. There are no trip lines or pressure plates, but necrotic spells and horrible effects that give the cleric a chance to shine. Instead, when adventurers are investigating an area, they stumble across a room that is haunted. While perception checks will reveal a horrible sight to them, it’s meaningless unless they can pass a Religion check to realize the signs they are seeing.
If they succeed on the Religion check and want clues on how to bypass or ease the suffering of this haunt, it then requires them to make an Insight check. Using their empathy, and the context clues of the room, it reveals the effects of a haunt and how it was possibly formed. It is then up to the adventurers to use this information and find a way to pacify the haunt, or they might simply choose to expend a use of their Channel Divinity and nullify it for a few hours. Of course, that is the easiest way of dealing with a haunt, but it could be a room that always hangs over them or they have to travel through it multiple times meaning they have to waste resources on it until they can figure out how to let the spirits come to peace.
Sample Haunts
I created four haunts you can drop in your games.
Cold Touch
A rather straightforward haunt, it is focused on pain and misery. It inflicts damage and is formed from murderers and serial killers. Parties can find a quite dangerous room filled with untold horror and lots of pain to spread around the room.
This is probably one of the more generic haunts in that most adventuring parties can quickly grasp and understand the concept here. Besides, it helps that every adventuring party is made up of murderhobos, and if we are being honest with ourselves, it's probably one of them that formed this haunt in the first place!
At lower levels, this haunt is quite dangerous, especially at an average of 22 damage a round, but at higher levels, it should be fairly easy to nullify this room… so long as the cleric has volunteers. Might be difficult to convince someone to let you kill them so you can bring them back.
Famine Feast
This haunt is focused on starvation and the need to feed. The haunt casts a rather fun spell, phantasmal force, and forces creatures to gorge on illusionary food to their stomach’s content. This is a rather fun little haunt, though if you are unable to get your allies out of the room before the minute is up, they are looking at taking 10d6 damage which is… well, it's nothing to sneeze out.
The key to solving this haunt is rather fun and quite tasty, just have to drag 100 gold worth of food with you to the haunt, spill it in the room, and hope there are leftovers!
Shadowfell’s Glum
Can’t go anywhere in the Shadowfell without stepping in some undead, haunted ruins. Even the atmosphere of the Shadowfell is enough to make an adventurer quite glum and this haunt is no different.
Using a rather overlooked spell, antipathy/sympathy, this haunt isn’t so dangerous as it is an issue that needs to be overcome. While you aren’t going to take damage from this haunt, it can be a rather big hindrance if it happens to grab a few important party members and you have no way to drag them out of the room. The solution to pacifying this haunt also provides a ton of options for a DM looking to offer a side quest, provide backstory on a story arc, and more! A restless spirit that needs a favor done makes for quite a fascinating NPC!
Water of the Damned
Probably my least favorite of the haunts, but it's only because I hate the idea of drowning… like most people I assume. This haunt was formed by someone who was killed by a friend or loved one by drowning, maybe it was in the ocean, a bathtub, or a well. This haunt simulates the fear at the end of that person’s life by causing anyone inside of its area to immediately begin drowning and to start quickly losing air until they can break free of its hold and reach pure air.
The key to this haunt is you get to become bounty hunters. Maybe this haunt starts a murder mystery where the adventurers decide to track down who killed the spirit who formed the haunt and help them find peace, or maybe there is a piece of a valuable treasure at the bottom of the ocean but its currently protected by the haunt and a platoon of sharks. This haunt can go in a wide variety of locations… so long as they are water themed.
Haunts & Adventures
I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at haunts and come up with a few of your own supernatural traps. Especially with Halloween right around the corner, now is the time to get in those spooky stories before all of your adventures become focused on the winter holidays! If you are looking for more inspiration on haunts, I recommend checking out Pathfinder as it was the originator of haunts, which is such a great idea I had to bring over into Dungeons & Dragons and share it with more people!
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