House on Crane Hill

A Gods & Monsters Adventure

Crane Hill

some houses are born evil

A Gods & Monsters adventure suitable for four to seven 1st level characters.
Particularly designed for convention use.

by Jerry Stratton

Copyright © 2025

https://godsmonsters.com/Crane

“He fashioned hell for the inquisitive.”

September 26, 2025

Originally played at the North Texas Role-Playing Convention 2017 and 2019.

Go to godsmonsters.com/Guide for more great adventures!

1. Lost Castle of the Astronomers, for 1st to 2nd level

2. Haunted Illustrious Castle, for 1st to 2nd level

3. Vale of the Azure Sun, for 3rd to 5th level

4. The House of Lisport, for 4th to 6th level

5. Helter Skelter, for 5th to 6th level

6. The Coriandrome Circus, for all levels

About this adventure

Convention introduction for players

The following is for reading or otherwise relating to the players at a convention game, or to any players who are unfamiliar with the Gods & Monsters roleplaying game. The Adventure Guide should tailor the introduction according to the relative experience of the player group.

Experience

Each of your characters starts the game with 500 experience points. Your characters all know each other either through friendships or through the Stratford Caravan Security. You have all either adventured before on your own, or as part of Stratford.

Action rolls

Every action is a d20 roll under or equal to a target. Reaction rolls and abilities are on your sheet; attack rolls are against 11. To speed things up, you can’t keep trying the same thing over and over again: every action can have one roll by an individual, so choose that individual well; and one roll by a group working together. After the group has used those two rolls to attempt to resolve an action, you can’t try again except by coming up with some new way to tackle the problem—or by coming up with a way of tackling the problem that doesn’t require a roll.

Mojo

1. Each of your characters has some mojo. Mojo can be used on archetypal rolls: if the Adventure Guide tells you that the roll has failed, you can tell the Guide how much mojo you’re willing to spend to make the roll a success. If your bid is successful, you pay the amount of mojo needed, which may be less than the amount you bid. Using mojo on a roll may result in adding or improving fields or skills within fields. If only one mojo is spent on the roll you can also spend an extra to gain a full field plus skill, instead of just a field bonus or just a new skill in the field.

2. Your character gains 50 experience per mojo used on archetypal rolls. If this advances you to 1,000 experience, your character will immediately gain the benefits of second level, which is, mainly, increased verve, that is, archetype-related hit points.

3. Throughout first level, sorcerors may use mojo to gain spells and monks to gain psychic fields and skills.

4. Throughout first level, mojo can be used on equipment or money during play. One mojo provides 30 shillings or its equivalent in equipment that your character has always had.

Preparing for the game

Blurb

Some houses are born evil. Delarosa Manor is a mashup of Hill House, Phantasm, and more. It uses the Gods & Monsters rule set. If you're familiar with AD&D 1 or 2, you're familiar with it.

Warning: creepy children.

Checklist

1. Visual representation of Woke Count: a large d20 or d30.

2. Visual representation of highest lamina: a large and obvious d6.

3. Miniatures.

4. Large maps of house.

Background

The locals speak of Delarosa Manor only as “the crane house” for its location at the edge of Crane Marsh, or “the woke house” for its behavior, and no longer remember its original name or owner. A simple search of records in the nearest city will provide only that it was built 143 years ago by a Lord Steffan Delarosa. His daughter was the last person to live there. Legends and rumor may of course provide more information.

The house is alive because it has become an extension of Steffan Delarosa’s evil. He was corrupted by the Night Priests to worship Hetae, Queen of Insects. Steffan’s seduction to the ways of Hetae and the Night Gods by Louis Merrikitt was not a difficult task. Louis Merrikitt’s spirits were order, death, charm, prophecy, and prophet.

Steffan Delarosa’s corpse lamp is still alive in the house, physically weak, and ancient. It draws power from the house and from the corruption he can engender within its walls.

History

Steffan Delarosa was cruel long before he met Louis Merrikitt. Steffan and Louis were a stunningly charming pair of rogues who delighted even as you threw them from your daughter’s bedroom.

The Delarosas were an influential family in Crosspoint. It was a great tragedy when Anthony Delarosa and his eldest son Tony died in a freak fire in the family manor. It was even more of a disappointment to the great families that this left younger son Steffan in charge of the estate.

Steffan’s control of the Delarosa estate included the care of his mother, Parnassa Grace Delarosa. Steffan personally supervised the construction of a secluded manor on Crane Hill in the marsh between the villages of King’s Head, Richard’s Cross, and Jacksonville. Lord Delarosa purchased the lumber for the inner walls and roof and had it delivered in the night by unseen men. The red bricks were fired in secret with ingredients only he knew. Legends say the house was built of the forests of nightmare, and mortared with the blood of dragons.

Legends also say that the death of Steffan’s father and brother was not an accident, that the investigation was abruptly ended; and that Steffan personally transferred the old Lord’s body from the family’s crypt in Crosspoint to the new Delarosa Manor.

Whatever the truth of the legends, Steffan, his mother, and his dedicated servant Merrikitt all moved to this remote and secluded new home in the marsh.

Steffan chose his wife from the Mountjoy family south of Fork in West Highland. Crosspoint’s families were both scandalized and relieved.

Steffan carried on a three-year courtship by letter, exchanging courtly poetry, portraits, and finally majordomos to arrange the engagement and marriage. Steffan’s majordomo was Louis Merrikitt. The result was that in 859 Laurel Mountjoy began the two-month journey from Mountjoy Manor to Delarosa Manor. She was accompanied by her mother, her two maids, two coachmen, her brother, Louis Merrikitt, and her dog Violet. Violet was a gift from Steffan.

The caravan was attacked on the Leather Road by Night Trolls. Merrikitt was able to rescue Laurel (and Violet) but not before the rest of the party was killed. Laurel was devastated, and also very impressed by Louis’s resourcefulness and loyalty. Long after her marriage turned sour, Laurel took solace in Louis’s protective guardianship.

Steffan had many visitors to Crane Hill. Laurel found her husband’s guests less and less likable as the years wore on. She initially tried to find friendship with Parnassa, but Steffan’s mother had long slipped into the twilight of her memory. Her husband’s death and the death of her first-born preyed on her. Parnassa even claimed to be visited by her dead husband, sometimes in his court finery and sometimes in his burial sheets. Steffan eventually relegated her to an attic room. Laurel dutifully cared for her mother-in-law despite Parnassa’s ravings and her husband’s exhortations to let the servants deal with the madwoman.

Steffan and Laurel’s first attempt at a child ended in stillbirth; the memory of her cold son haunted her for years. She did not become pregnant again until after Parnassa’s death seven years later. Steffan and Laurel then had two daughters: Ruby, and two years later Mary. Ruby was named after an aunt of Laurel’s, and Mary was a nod of gratitude to Louis. Neither were named after Steffan’s mother, as he had always hated that name.

Ruby died when she was eight. Laurel was devastated. Her health and her sanity deteriorated. Laurel died four years later in the same attic room her mother-in-law had died in. Mary Delarosa was ten years old.

Louis Merrikitt left Delarosa Manor at the turn of the century, leaving Mary and Steffan alone. Steffan became more violent and loud as he aged, demanding immediate obedience from his dwindling staff and his long-suffering daughter. Mary remained in Delarosa Manor for the rest of her life. She was forty when Steffan died. People from Jacksonville and Richard’s Cross provided servants, but none stayed long despite Mary’s generous pay. Mary also had many suitors; none survived Delarosa Manor intact. Either their nerves or their lives were lost.

“Shadows walk in that house,” servants said. “And whisper in the walls. The house has awakened.” Suitors and visitors alike whispered that Lord Delarosa’s house was poorly built. Doors stuck at inopportune times; floor boards loosened, railings broke, and furniture slid when no one was looking.

Mary died at 81, some forty years ago. Her remaining servants boarded up the house and returned to their homes. Whatever walks in that house now, walks alone.

The real backstory

Steffan Delarosa wanted eternal life, power, and riches—in that order. He knew about personal dimensions such as the Vale of the Azure Sun, but he had no desire to study magic his entire life and benefit only in old age cut off from the mewling human herd. He wants to rule that herd.

Delarosa befriended Night Priest Louis Merrikitt, as much as such evil can be friended. He learned to summon an ember of shadows which, in turn, told him the ritual of waking.

Through this ritual, fed by the sacrifice of his wife’s first child, Crane House exists now in slumber and in shadow. But the ritual is not complete. Steffan has eternal life only in the woke house. To venture forth again into the world, he requires a massacre and a legend. Seven people have been murdered so far, including his family. Six more, and he can complete the ritual in shadow, and the indestructible woke house will become his base of power in the light, eternally.

He will be able to leave the house at will, command the demon it harbors, and draw upon its powers to influence, threaten, and surveil the world.

Timeline

Delarosa Manor was populated for a year shy of one hundred years.

These dates (and dates and ages elsewhere in this book) assume that the current year is 996.

Player character knowledge

An easy search on the name Delarosa in Crosspoint will find most of the history. A player character might also be a relative of Laurel Mountjoy or a distant relative of Steffan Delarosa. And the player characters might find Laurel’s diary in her 2nd floor bedroom.

Treasure-hunters have occasionally tried to find the Delarosa treasure, but have returned only with tales of horror—or haven’t returned at all.

Technically, relatives of Steffan Delarosa still live in Crosspoint and one of them owns Delarosa Manor. Nobody wants it. Even without its history, it is in the middle of a marsh in the middle of nowhere. They would certainly like to have any money that is hidden in the house, but they’ve already lost several treasure-hunting family members to the swamp as they fled the manor in the night. The treasure hunting stopped decades ago.

Running this adventure

What is this place?

Delarosa Manor is a lamination, a series of psychic/spiritual planes built around a temporary place of power. Because it uses psychic/spiritual power, the laminae are potentially infinite, drawing on the psychic health of the people in its grip to feed the emotional demon at its core.

The place of power was drawn forth by a mass murder, with Louis Merrikitt performing the spirit manifestation, and captured slaves and infants in the marsh, bought from pirates, providing the deaths.

Why are the players here?

1. They are hired to retrieve a child, woman, or person who went in previously. That person is now a ghost.

2. They are hired to retrieve some item lost inside by a previous team, all of whom either went crazy or died. These may also be ghosts—or be called in by the house even though they’re still alive.

3. They are hired by the current heir to find treasure.

4. They are scouting the house for its current owners.

Stages

1. Hand out the handouts and describe the rules.

2. Leave Crosspoint to King’s Head.

3. King’s Head to Delarosa Manor.

4. Meet Farmer Giles.

5. Delarosa Manor.

6. T-90 minutes: Steffan starts to come to kill them, with whatever assistance (cranes, fetal spiders, goldwing harriers) is coolest. They will hear heavy steps; the house will breathe. Blood seeps from the walls.

What about the movies?

This is a role-playing adventure, not the movies. In the movies that inspired this adventure, the protagonists do blatantly stupid things such as sleep alone in a haunted house even after the house tries to kill them. Your players are likely to play smarter than that, and that’s good. Let the house adapt to these smarter victims, and allow the players the thrill of playing through a horror “movie” where they are in control of the roles.

Holy water vs. blessed water

If the players think ahead, they’ll have their characters bring holy water, or, if they have a prophet, blessed water. (Along the first level, of course, the players can have had their characters think ahead.)

Undead take 2d4 points of damage from blessed water, that is, water blessed by a prophet with the bless spirit manifestation. Demons take d6 points of damage from blessed water. If used as part of a called attack, one point from each die is an injury.

Most holy water in a temple or church has not been blessed by a prophet. It is the result of a holy rite, performed by a priest who is not a prophet. This holy water causes one point of damage to undead and demons, and may also be used in a called attack to turn it into an injury.

Holy water must have been created by a priest of a real religion; what constitutes a real religion will depend on what gods are in your game, but most likely it will require some combination of worshipping real gods that have worshippers who take the gods and the priest seriously.

Inspiration

No living organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

Thus Shirley Jackson began The Haunting of Hill House. Many works about malleable haunted houses and malleable realities have inspired this adventure. The first such story I read was in issues 34 to 37 of Werewolf by Night in Marcosa House (available in Essential Werewolf by Night, volume 2). Doug Moench’s Marcosa House was heavily influenced by Richard Matheson’s Hell House (and the movie, The Legend of Hell House). Matheson was inspired by Shirley Jackson’s book which became the 1963 Robert Wise film, The Haunting.

Later, in college, I saw Phantasm, which was very influential on movies of this type. Stephen King has written several evil buildings, including The Shining (Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation is also inspirational), the short story 1408 (made into a great movie with John Cusack), and the Rose Red TV miniseries, a not-at-all disguised Hill House. While A Nightmare on Elm Street isn’t set in an evil building, it captures the fluid reality inside these evil houses. They’re very dream-like. Dario Argento’s Suspiria will also provide inspiration for the Adventure Guide.

Several years ago I toured the Winchester house in California, an odd bit of architecture which to some degree inspired Rose Red.

And, of course, there’s a lot to be said for Scooby Doo as well.

Crane Marsh

Crane Marsh is a small swamp, grey and misty against the sea. At the edge of the marsh is a low hill, and on this hill Delarosa Manor broods. It is a two-day journey by horse from Crosspoint to the hill. This adventure begins on November 1. There will be a new moon on November 4.

The marsh is bounded by Jackson Village on the north, King’s Head on the south, and Richard’s Cross on the west. The road between King’s Head and Jackson Village through the marsh is technically part of the main road between Watertown and Crosspoint, though many take the long way through Richard’s Cross to avoid the marsh.

King’s Head

Fishermen, farmers, and a storm port for ships crossing between Crosspoint and Watertown. The farmers grow squash, beets, rutabaga, and rhubarb.

The people of King’s Head are quiet and taciturn. They’re happy enough to listen to visitors but don’t have much to say. They do not talk about Delarosa, other than to recommend crossing to Jackson Village by either boat or by land through Richard’s Cross, avoiding the marsh.

There is a simple inn, Marcosa House, with no tavern. The selling of liquor is forbidden in King’s Head. Root beers (beets or rutabaga) are sold or traded by farmers outside of town, and everyone has medicinal alcohol purchased on the dock or from farmers in the hills. The town trades very little with the outside world; the bustle of the cities daily pass it on the bay.

The servants of Mary Delarosa

Several servants of Mary Delarosa survive in King’s Head. Anne Darby (83) and Thomas Darby (88) are the only surviving servants who were still employed at the house when Mary died.

Henry Farnshaw (75) quit in 945 after his wife Joan Farnshaw died in the marsh. Her hands and face were blistered, he says, and she died drowning in the murky water of Crane Marsh.

Matthew “Matty” Briskit (59) was fifteen when Mary died. He was never employed but he did odd work around the house from the time he was twelve. His father Matthew Briskit Sr. stayed on for Mary till the end. Matthew Sr. died three years ago at 79.

The Darbys and Matthew know about the chapel and the locked room, keys lost, downstairs.

Farmer Giles Matheson

The journey to Crane Hill is bleak and cold. Flies and mosquitos buzz up from the wet grasses as you follow the winding path through the marsh. An hour from the hill you pass an old farmer walking next to his ox. He grunts as he passes, not looking at you.

Should they try to talk with him, he will be willing to talk for a few minutes, but not longer; he wants to get out of the marsh by nightfall. He left Jackson Village just before dawn, and plans to stop an hour or so past the southern edge of the marsh.

“I was up visiting my sister in Jackson Village. Had some extra rutabaga, and some extra pears, thought I’d bring them up. Not entirely selfless. She’ll be bakin’ some pies, I’ll be pickin’ ’em up next week.”

He looks nervously up at the sun—or where you think the sun is through this haze.

“If’n I keep going I reckon I’ll be out of the marsh by sundown.”

If he likes them, he’ll tell them:

“I’d turn back if I were you. No way you’re going to be through by nightfall.”

“You don’t want to be in the marsh when the sun goes down, stranger. If you pick up speed and turn left at the crossing, you might be able to make Richard’s Cross by nightfall. Wouldn’t reckon on it, though. Still recommend turnin’ back.”

He won’t repeat the recommendation to turn back if he doesn’t like them—it would mean they travel with him the rest of the way. If they mention going into Delarosa Manor, he’ll say:

“Shadows walk in the woke house. Whisper in the walls.”

Weather

There will be snow tonight, a slushy, wet snow that freezes to the bone. This is November. The trees are bare, and rotten leaves are on the ground.

Encounters in the Marsh

The encounter chance is 40%; the rate is every eight hours toward the edge of the marsh and every thirty minutes near the house.

For sensory encounters, such as coldness, fog, a voice, or a dimness in the stars, listening carefully or searching stretches the boundary of the woke world. Make a second encounter roll.

For random directions, roll d8. One is north, three is east, five is south, and seven is west.

Ancient Chants: You hear, far in the distance, a chanting, and, perhaps accompanying the chanting, a short whimper, a cry, or a sob.

Coldness: The temperature falls to about forty degrees.

Giant Cranes: A beautiful singing voice, reminiscent of a nursery rhyme, precedes a golden-feathered bird with blood-red legs.

Giant crane: demonic 1; move 9/15; attack beak d4/kick d6; defense +2; song.

Ghostly Victim: When a victim cries out, a women or newborn dumped in the marsh by Steffan cries from far away. A begging victim crawls, bleeding, out of the marsh, then disappears.

Harriers: See the Encounters in the Sleeping House for more about harriers.

Lights in the Distance: The lights will be in a random direction. House lights will remain far away no matter how the characters move. Lantern lights initially move laterally to the direction seen and change direction randomly every few minutes.

Skeleton Victim: The characters are attacked by an undead skeleton. The skeleton is a child (3 in 6);woman (2 in 6) or man (1 in 6). Whether it’s a woman or man will require examination under the character is skilled in recognizing skeletons.

Skeleton: undead 1; move 10; attack d4; defense +3, thrusting 1pt, slashing ½.

Tall Man: You hear the faint sound of autumn leaves crunching in the marsh. Out of the corner of your eye, a gaunt man slips quickly into and out of sight.

Voice in the Wilderness: In the distance, a barely-audible voice is heard, calling a name. Laurel? Or Steffan? or Mary? Or perhaps one of the characters!

Delarosa Manor

You round a bend in the road and the house is there, on a low hill in the festering marsh. It is covered in gables and windows jutting up from the mass in a variety of styles, brooding over the bog.

The sky is grey toward the sea. The water beats steadily against the high grass, and a low mist rolls across the waves toward you.

Entering the woke house

There are two houses: the sleeping house, and the woke house. Every room in the sleeping house has an alternate in the woke house that is creepy. Each room has three states: sleeping (lamina zero); woke room, (lamina one), and woke room in the woke house ( lamina 2+).

Characters can enter rooms in the woke house through a random encounter in the real house, by sleeping, and by several other actions. Every time the opportunity for entering the woke house occurs, roll d20. If it is less than or equal to the house’s woke count, the characters enter the woke room rather than the sleeping room. The house’s woke count begins at zero.

When characters enter the woke house, characters who are together enter together and stay together. But if characters enter a woke room separately, they will never meet—they will enter at a different lamina. They cannot see each other, though they can, if they listen carefully, hear each other faintly. The person or persons entering the room second (or third, etc.) enter a different, more eerie room which becomes the default for that room from then on. The house’s woke count also increases by 1.

There is a bonus of 1 to the woke roll at night, and a bonus of 4 at twilight (sunset to ten minutes after sunset; and ten minutes before sunrise to sunrise).

The exits of any room on lamina 1 lead back to the base lamina, which is zero at the start, that is, the sleeping house. If the characters drag anything out of a higher lamina room the house’s woke count increases by 1. Very large items, or items integral to a room’s function (such as mirrors, or furniture) increase the woke count by 2.

Characters who are injured may enter the woke house earlier than the group: if the woke roll fails, but a character is within their injury total of it succeeding, that character enters the woke room even though the rest of the characters enter the sleeping room.

Here is a summary of actions that can trigger entry into or out of the woke house. On a trigger, the woke count increases regardless of the roll; if the roll is successful, those affected enter the next lamina up.

Leaving the woke house

1. If they are in lamina 1, going into the next room brings them to lamina zero. At this point, they can leave the house.

2. Entering Louis’s mirror can reduce the lamina by one.

3. Healing from the chapel or divine guidance in the chapel drops them to lamina zero. Lighting the candles in the chapel anchors the chapel to lamina zero.

4. Prophets can use the first-level hearth spirit homeward bound to drop toward lamina zero.

5. Monks with Dimensional Science can have a skill to change lamina.

6. Second-level or higher sorcerors can use the second-level spell delamination.

7. A ritual could also allow them to delaminate, but it will require a sacrifice of something important related to delaminating or home (see the Adventure Guide’s Handbook).

Breathing

Any time the woke count changes and someone is in a woke room, the house can breathe to draw power. The walls breathe, cabinets breathe, and mirrors breathe. Characters looking into a breathing mirror, or between breathing walls, must make a willpower roll or faint; the house gains another woke point if at least one person faints. This does not trigger a lamina shift.

Maximum lamina

Keep track of the maximum lamina, as some methods of traversing lamina will not increase a room’s lamina beyond the current maximum. The maximum lamina starts at 2.

The house

Daily meals

Food is provided from the garden. Dr. deMontagne has hired a swamp dweller, Adam Farrier, to provide daily meals. The man will not stay overnight. He will arrive in the morning an hour after sunrise to clear out the previous night’s mess and make breakfast. He will immediately leave, and arrive again two hours before sunset to lay out a dinner.

Destroying the house

In the monk Spiritual Art, either spirit host or spirit summons can summon assistance from the ghosts that the house has devoured in the past. In Spiritual Art or Dimensional Science, sensitive can provide information from objects within the house.

1. Steffan Delarosa’s corpse lamp can be temporarily defeated.

2. If the child is given a funeral by a priest or Christian prophet, the demon’s power source is gone. It now takes three extra points per day to keep the house woke. The proper funeral is a funeral for the unbaptized with the ceremony of naming and signing the child pulled from the baptismal rite. A conditional baptism will also work, since the child is only semi-dead. As will carving a name into the tombstone, especially “Daniel”.

3. The players may well come up with other options. Evaluate them generously.

If the characters somehow destroy the sleeping house, this does not destroy the woke house. The woke house will be weakened, but still exist, and appear on special nights to lure travelers, when they draw near. The woke house has a bonus on reaction rolls equal to twice the lamina, and a bonus to survival of ten times the lamina.

The woke house shadow will appear to them the first dawn or dusk after it is destroyed (or immediately, if it is destroyed during dawn or dusk).

If there is no real house, anyone in the woke house will be trapped if they remain in the house when it disappears after dawn or dusk, until such time as the house reappears.

Breaking the walls will lead to increasing the lamina, and so to stranger effects in the room beyond. Breaking down walls, floors, windows, ceilings is a prime opportunity for the house to cause an accident.

Contacting the spirits

If there is a monk in the group, the monk may use psychic skills such as sensitive within the house. Possible clues from such attempts can be:

1. The house knows we’re here.

2. It’s the house! The house is feeding from our resentment! It feeds from envy!

3. The answer is in the basement!

4. The house is awake!

5. And of course, the presence of a ghost.

If a monk with Spiritual Art tries to play spirit host, the ghosts of the house can take over.

Rebuilding

Both the sleeping and woke house continually rejuvenate. If the characters destroy anything on lamina one or higher (which is difficult), that night they’ll hear hammering and sawing from the area they destroyed. If they try to reach that area, the house won’t let them. It will send them somewhere else until the room is restored. The woke house can restore one full room per night, or several merely damaged rooms, depending on the level of damage.

Rebuilding the sleeping house takes more time: one injury per night.

Ghosts

Any captive soul can appear anywhere in the house, and will do so at the command of Steffan Delarosa. The common ghosts of Delarosa Manor include, in order of death:

Ghosts will be physical in lamina 1, and may be interacted with as if alive; in lamina 2, they are physical but will act under the control of Steffan Delarosa, that is, evilly.

Anthony Delarosa is buried under the hearth; Anthony is the first victim. Only the dog and the second daughter, Mary, are independent of Steffan Delarosa, because they were not killed as part of the ritual. Their ghosts will be friendlier and more easily talked with. They are still frightened of Steffan, however. Some ghosts can provide clues. Laurel Mountjoy-Delarosa kept a diary in room 33, and can tell the characters to look for it. All ghosts are frightened of Steffan except the tall man; it will be difficult but not impossible to turn them against him, either as spies or as aides.

A great place to get Steffan Delarosa’s maniacal laugh is Vincent Price’s laugh at the end of Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

House powers

The house begins the game session with zero points, so it can’t do much except randomly (random encounter rolls do not require power points).

Whenever the house uses its power, the woke count drops by the cost.

Let’s split up, we can take more damage that way

If the characters split up, a woke House will try to take advantage of it by creating two or more shadow simulacra. It will send a harrier to each group, attempting to steal a shadow, and then use whatever shadows it steals on the other groups.

Windows

The windows in any woke room look out normally on the mist and marsh and ocean, but characters might see carriages and people from the house’s heyday, or the people who have disappeared since then happily entering the house.

If someone attempts to leave through the windows they will find themselves on a great wall with tiny windows far apart, a mist obscuring the ground and strange low rumblings emanating from the distance. Successfully scaling to another window is very difficult.

If they do get to another window, you’ll need to choose where it leads; looking through the window they’ll see scenes from the past of that room. Only remnants will remain when they enter. The scenes from the past should provide clues to the house and to the riddle.

If they fall, they will fall two to five floors into the garden, taking damage as normal for falling.

Cemetery

Encounters in the sleeping house

Encounters are rolled for at 40% every thirty minutes on lamina zero.

Blood: The house activates itself with blood. It will cause small accidents that cause one to two injury points; an evasion roll is allowed to avoid the accident. A harpsichord string snaps, for example, or splinters in anything made of wood.

Coldness: It feels about forty to fifty degrees. The barrier between the houses is weak. Trying to breach that barrier, such as by listening carefully or searching, will automatically get another encounter roll or action roll. If a woke roll occurs within the next ten minutes, it is at +5.

Dimness: All lights are dimmed by fifty percent. Otherwise, like coldness.

Ghost Flickers: Ghosts appear in the corner of your eye, as flickers. They cannot be heard, except when not listening, and then only faintly. Roll ghost.

Ghostly Presence: Roll the ghost as for the woke house, but the presence is auditory, not visual.

Harriers: Choose d4 characters, and there is a flapping of wings going past them. If the harrier “brushes”, then something brushes them, something like a bat, smooth, hairless, winged, a rodent feeling. If the harrier “nips”, it also feels like teeth on their neck, then it’s gone. Along with their shadow! An evasion roll or willpower roll is allowed to avoid loss of shadow.

Encounters in the woke house

Encounters are rolled at 50% plus twice lamina plus woke count every thirty minutes. Effects, such as floods, remain only on that lamina, and disappear once the characters shift up or down; if the characters return to that lamina, the effects are gone.

Woke house room, out of order: Roll the room randomly on d60+1; the next entrance they pass through leads to that room.

Doll’s house: Loud steps reverberate around you, as if giants were walking in the walls. It resembles, but doesn’t look quite like, Delarosa Manor. There are small versions of the characters going from room to room, fleeing something. A shadow chases them. If the player characters reach inside, a great hand reaches for them—and attacks for d6 damage. Then, everything disappears and they are one lamina lower.

Elongated hall: Hallways can elongate, as in a dream. This is most likely to happen precisely when the characters are in a hurry, such as when rushing to a room to save a friend.

Floods: Floods can be backed up sewage in the bathroom, pulpy and grub-filled food in the kitchen or dining room, or just general marsh water filling up the room. Snow, feathers, and insect swarms, and fast-growing plants are also possibilities.

Ghost loops: Roll d6+1 for the number of rooms in the loop. Then roll that many rooms. No matter which doors the players use—or even if they separate—they will enter those rooms in that order. Woke rolls are not made for rooms. Ghost loops last 2d6 times ten minutes.

Hell of insects: Hetae’s gears and mirrors and water behind reality. A palimpsest of bugs and plants. There are sounds of things crawling in the walls.

Steffan: Steffan is accompanied by shadow simulacrums, gaunts, goldwing harriers, cranes, or fetal spiders. He is preceded by a mist on lamina 0 and 1, or a swampy flood on lamina 2+.

Stolen shadows: In lamina 1+, the house can create simulacrums of anyone whose shadow its harriers have stolen—as well as immediate family members and close friends of that person.

Strange animal statues: Strange animal statues at entrance, at base of stairs, etc. Birds. Dogs. Cherubs. Cranes. On higher lamina, they are replaced by insects, strange creatures, and strange hybrids. The higher the lamina, the more statues are replaced and the stranger the replacements become. Spider-babies. Gaunt animals. Gaunt versions of the characters.

Rooms

1. Balcony (indoor, second floor)

A balcony surrounds the first floor hall, and the doors on each side lead to serviceable bedrooms. In the center, wide doors lead to a hallway.

Lamina 1: Human-like lights form along the railings.

Lamina 2+: Panels in the hall push in and slide down, revealing glass peepholes. Beyond the peepholes, dusty with age, people are moving, dancing, fighting, and dying.

2. Balcony (northwest, second floor)

Looks out over the garden.

Lamina 1: Child playing, a dog running.

3. Balcony (southwest, second floor)

Looks out to the road.

4. Balcony (outdoor, gallery, second floor)

Lamina 1: See people on the northwest outdoor balcony.

5. Bathroom

The outhouse is outside the house, attached to the kitchen addition.

Lamina 1: They’ll hear howling of creatures outside them after another minute or so.

Lamina 2+: And then the sewage erupts. The door is stuck. They’re going to drown!

6. Bay Room (ground floor)

Circular stairs.

7. Bay Room (first floor)

Circular stairs.

8. Bay Room (second floor)

Looks at the ocean. Thin, cobwebbed stairs, circling down.

The door to Louis’s room is secret from this side as well. It slides open.

9. Bedroom 1

There are two beds in this room. Mirrors and brushes on a vanity.

Beds and chairs rise. At night they hear the sounds of hammers and saws.

The bed is haunted. Whoever sleeps there feels only the presence of a woman next to him or her. She is never visible, but the air moves as if someone were there, and the bed sheets ripple and scrunch as if someone were lying on them.

10. Bedroom 2

A man hanged himself here to avoid becoming a sacrifice. He knows Steffan’s secret, but is trapped in this room. There are two beds in this room. Mirrors and brushes on a vanity.

11. Bedroom 3

Woman looking out over the ocean.

There is one bed in this room. Mirrors and brushes on a vanity.

Mary Delarosa slept here once she left the nursery.

There is a hidden door in the closet leading to Louis’s secret room.

Lamina 1: Crane feathers like snow.

12. Bedroom (attic)

This bedroom kept visiting Night Priests from public view. It also became Parnassa’s bedroom in the months before her death, and Laurel’s as well. There is one bed in this room. Brushes on a vanity (no mirror).

Hanging on the wall next to the brushes is the soup-spoon of health.

13. Buttery

Beer, wine. The beer is bad, but the wine is good. However, on lamina 1 or higher, the wine from here will bring visions and contact with ghosts.

14. Cemetery

Through some of the windows, and through the back door, there is a porch overlooking a jagged cemetery. The cemetery is walled, and mist flows like rivulets around the cypress and stone. A tall man with a lantern walks through the cemetery. He gazes at each tombstone, reads the name, and moves on. He is looking for his daughter, who was killed here; he was killed here, too. See the list of tombstones for the names and dates of deaths.

15. Chapel

A child sleeps in a creche in the middle of the room. It is a Christ-child. The child holds a golden basin in his hands.

A large wooden crucifix is on the southwest wall, a yard tall, [capturing light from the setting sun]. Two candles in sconces flank it.

A mural covers the northwest wall. Jesus in glory, on a cloud, with Elijah and Moses next to him and the twelve apostles, six to each side, at the edges of the cloud. The Holy Ghost is at Jesus’s feet as a dove; God stands behind his throne. Above, on either side, angels blow their trumpets. Below the cloud, on a marble square overlooking the ocean, people stand and worship heaven. In the background, a lighthouse seems to rhythmically reflect the light of your [torches/lantern/sorceror/prophet].

Stairs lead up.

Written above the mural:

“Truly I tell thee, none may enter the Kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.”

The mural is Rafael’s Disputation of the Sacrament.

The door to the washroom is secret from this end as well, although the door to the library is not. A small crucifix in the east corner pulls down to unlatch the door to the washroom.

A secret door leads under the stairs to stairs that go down to Steffan’s Den.

There is a riddle here, on a panel below the Christ-child.

There is no hell without heaven;
There is no pain without balm.
Drink, and believe in the goodness of God.

Balancing the evil of the woke chapel, the creche can heal 10 points damage once per day and once per night. Water or wine must be placed in the basin, and then drunk by the person who needs healing. When it heals someone, anyone in the chapel drops to lamina zero.

Lighting the two candles anchors this room to lamina 0.

The corners of this room are special, and spiders crawl up and down them.

Lamina 1: The dove representing the Holy Ghost is a pearl. Jesus and the apostles have become half-fish, half-men creatures sitting on a clamshell while, below them, strange plants in various stages of undulation stand in the water. In the background is a large two-horned trident-like monument. Written above the mural is:

“The veil of truth is a never-ending tune. Above each veil another lies, in the harmonic reality of death.”

The “trident” is removable; it is the tuning fork of normality and emits a solid tone that identifies normality. It will match the left-most bell in room 36 when on lamina 1.

Lamina 2+: A webbed Christ-child, where real blood seeps in tiny rivulets down the wall. This is their first child, aborted post-birth, never allowed to breathe, sacrificed with his umbilical cord attached. Like a bloated spider-child at the center of a bloody umbilical cord web. The riddle is:

Always waking, always sleeping,
Never living, never dying,
Unnamed, unborn,
Resents breath covets grief.

The holy symbol of Hetae, on lamina two. Attached to the pearl.

If divine guidance is manifested in the chapel, the advice comes from the Christ-child. Anyone in the chapel is returned to lamina 0 if not there already.

16. Closet (servants/housekeeper)

Lamina 1: Clothing.

Lamina 2+: Clothing attacks.

17. Corpse Room

An ornate obsidian table in the center of the room. Traces of blood.

Lamina 1: The flywheel ring is on the table.

Lamina 2+: The corpses of women, pregnant women, and infants.

18. Dining Hall

An ancient oak table, scratched. Ornate chairs. High stained-glass windows. Crystal chandeliers. Candelabra on the table, and dishes in a side cabinet. Cherubs on walls.

Lamina 2+: This dining hall looks exactly like the dining hall in the entrance rooms—but it is set with steaming meats of strange animals.

19. Drawing Room

Harpsichord. Many chairs. Bookshelf with sheaves of music, some handwritten by Laurel Mountjoy.

A painting of the sea, and a masted ship.

Lamina 1: The ship is in a storm.

Lamina 2+: The ship and the sea are tilted.

The tuning fork of lamination is here, on the harpsichord, but only in lamina one or higher.

20. Dressing Room (first floor)

Bowler hat of peace? Robes. Hats. Masks.

21. Gallery (first floor)

Statues; paintings of family, still lives, and landscapes. A man overlooking mists on a rocky landscape, mountains in the distance.

Lamina 1: Paintings of the dead.

Lamina 2+: Night myths.

22. Gallery (west, second floor)

An empty water basin, with a hollow-headed cherub for pouring water through. During parties, this might hold fruit or ice.

Lamina 2+: Fruit. Ice. Partiers. Should anyone eat the fruit, something strange will happen, and stranger things at higher laminae. Roll d6; if the result is greater than the current lamina, nothing happens. Otherwise:

1. The character receives a flashback to a memory of one of the ghosts. Roll on the Ghosts table on page .

2. The character receives a vision of the future, in which the house is overtaken by the insect mesh of Hetae, in a spider-web-like cracking across their consciousness.

3. The character can see and hear ghosts for d6 hours—and the ghosts can see and hear them. They’ll be able to hold conversations depending on the ghost and it’s manner. This includes the party-goers, who know rumors about Steffan, Louis, and Lauren.

4. One of the ghosts takes over the character’s body for d6 minutes. Roll on the Ghosts table on page .

5. Black blood seeps from the character’s hands and feet for d6 rounds; a health roll is required each round; if successful, they lose one survival, otherwise, they gain one injury.

6. The character gains, temporarily, the Psychic Talent specialty and the Spiritual Art field.

A secret door slides for entrance into mother’s room.

23. Gallery (east, second floor)

Statues. Toys. Dousing bird. Cuckoo clock. All rundown, but might be started.

24. Garden (southeast, marsh)

Roses. A fountain. Statues of bronze, marble, and plaster.

Lamina 1: The garden is run down, but the plants are odd. And the sky, though dark, has a faint violet tinge to the edges.

Lamina 2+: A bright moon shines down; and then a second one rises slowly above a pointed roof. Meteors streak across the sky. Statues become animals, and so forth.

Lamina 3+: Hideous insects fly overhead.

25. Garden (northeast, ocean)

Maze, overrun and tangled. At the same time makes it harder to get through but easier to solve.

26. Garden (southwest, road)

Large, overgrown rosebushes.

27. Housekeeper’s Room

Bed. Dresser. Simple clothing.

28. Hall (First Floor)

The ballroom is columned; the balcony overlooks it. People at each end can whisper and hear each other, from the first floor northwest end to the east window.

29. Jail

Shutters, thick; iron bars. Necklace of endurance on lamina zero, hanging on the wall.

Lamina 1: People looking out. Carving knife of last sight.

Lamina 2+: Characters are locked in. The lock turns when any characters walk into the jail.

When characters randomly arrive here, such as via an encounter roll, the house will also lock the door on any lamina.

30. Jail Access

Manacles. Record book of inductions. Notes about family of captives. If their being missed would be noticed, killed elsewhere to look like accident or goblin attack.

31. Kitchen (southeast)

The kitchen still has one or two large pots in the fire; the great chopping block is stained pink with ancient blood.

Lamina 1: The remains of the dining room food’s preparation shows what it was made from.

32. Kitchen (northwest)

Can see through fireplace to adjacent kitchen. Pots. Utensils on wall. Recently used. (By the cook who makes their meals.)

33. Laurel’s Room

Mirror. Silver brushes. Gold-inlaid brooch. Silver memento locket. Steffan’s silhouette in ivory.

Laurel Mountjoy-Delarosa slept here until she went mad and was moved to the attic room.

Her diary is hidden here, in a secret drawer in the writing desk.

Lamina 1: Laurel in a nightgown.

Lamina 2+: Laurel after sacrifice.

34. Linens

Looks out over the garden and cemetery. Towels, napkins, sheets, duvets.

Lamina 1: ghostly cloth movements.

Lamina 2+: suffocation from cloth.

35. Library

A magic orb of light, first level of effect, indestructible object +2, on the table in the middle of the room. Chairs around it. Place a hand on the globe for ten seconds to turn on or off.

1. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Charles Dodgson

2. Magical Auras and Their Identification, Measure

3. Phantasmal Realities, Charles Dodgson

4. Residual Auras of Human Writing, Lawrence Bisson

5. Wise Words About Magical Research, Charles Dodgson

6. History of the Pre-Christians

7. Biblical Remembrances of Bishop Andros

8. Survey of Possible Geographies of the Holy Roman Empire

9. Brewing Barley and Wheet

10. Herbal Lore of the Celts

11. Plant Cycle of the Chaotic Mist

12. Spices of the Phoenix: A Catalog

There is a secret door from the library to the chapel. A bookshelf opens into the library, as a door, on pressing a latch hidden in the corner of the shelf above and behind the books.

Lamina 1: Books for the ritual, hidden among the woke version of the real library.

1. Discussing Lesser Families

2. More When Doors Mow Spun Gifts

3. The Fit May Rule

4. Lord Thew’s Family Tales

Hetae’s leg, on a bookshelf.

Lamina 2+: As the lamina increases, the books become stranger.

1. History of the Cockroach Empire

2. The Languages of the Catwomen of the Star of Lucifer

3. Philosophy of the Insect Mesh

4. Rituals of the Insect Queen Hetae

36. Louis’s Room

A mirror; a writing table; a bed. A bell hangs from a hook on the right side of the mirror.

Serious clues should be here. But remember—Louis left. Or did he? In a longer-running game you might put him in as the tall man, or perhaps even Adam Farrier.

The mirror is a secret door to the bay room. The mirror slides right.

The closet also has a hidden door in the back, for getting into Bedroom 3.

The table has a dust spot on it where the coffer resides.

I take you where you never were,
And where you always be.
Bells toll rising, Bells toll falling,
The bells now toll for thee.

Lamina 1: In lamina 1+ there is a bell to the left of the mirror also. The bells fall in pitch as the lamina rises; the left bell is always higher-pitched and leads them down one lamina. When on lamina 1, the tuning fork of normality will match the higher-pitched tone of the left bell, as that bell causes the mirror to lead to normality.

The coffer of dirt and bones is on the writing table.

Walking through the mirror without sliding it, while a bell is pealing, enters the bay room at a lamina one lower (the higher-toned bell, on the left while looking in the mirror) or one higher than the current lamina (the lower-toned bell, on the right while looking in the mirror). The lower-toned bell will not go lower than the house’s maximum lamina; the mirror cannot be walked through at zero lamina or at maximum lamina.

37. Marsh

Lamina 1: You see a light in the distance, and the vague shape of a building.

At the far end of the cemetery is the swamp. The swamp itself is a dangerous place, but once the house awakens the swamp’s passages always lead back to the cemetery and Delarosa Manor. They can even, watching from the cemetery, see the lights of the manor across the swamp, when the fog over the swamp thins. The house can do this to give them hope and then dash that hope when they discover they’ve crossed the swamp only to end up back at the house.

The swamp is filled with the undead skeletons and ghosts of the women and newborns dumped in it by Steffan and his minions.

Also, giant cranes. There is a 40% plus 10% per lamina chance an encounter every thirty minutes. On 1-10, the encounter is with d4 giant cranes. On an 11+, use the marsh encounters table on page , increasing the weirdness of the encounter according to the current lamina.

38. Mother’s Room

Bed. Dresser. No mirrors. Brushes, ewer, basin.

A rust-red stain in a square on the ceiling. Could it be blood? There’s a trapdoor, but it’s stuck—unless they’re in the woke room.

The secret door to the gallery is secret on both sides, and can be moved by hand, sliding it open.

Parnassa Grace Delarosa was kept here after her husband’s death.

Lamina 2+: A skeleton in a four-poster bed. In the attic is a body, and maggots fall from the ceiling if the trapdoor is opened.

39. Nursery

Crib. Rocking horse.

Lamina 1:

Frost covers the windows, letting in a cold blue light, and icicles on the windows refract blue and violet in bands against the walls. The floor is glazed with a thin layer of ice. A cougar and an owl in frosted obsidian ceramic stare at each other across the room. A rocking horse begins to rock, slowly. You hear, faintly, a sing-song, a child.

Roll a children’s nursery rhyme.

A small room with a simple crib bed. The windows overlook the marsh. The floor requires an evasion roll to accurately walk across at a normal speed. Strange reflections in the frost do not follow the characters’ movements.

Lamina 2+: Inside, several puppy skeletons of various breeds and ages. Killed with blunt blow to chest on hard surface. Of which none exist in this room. Where were they killed? Why were they kept afterward?

Ruby Delarosa and Mary Delarosa were both raised here, and their ghosts will often appear here as young children. Violet, the dog, may also appear with Ruby.

40. Ocean

Cold. Fog. Whitecaps.

41. Pantry (kitchen)

The pantry is almost bare, and there are dead cockroaches. If he’s feeding the characters, Adam Farrier has put up some hams, dried vegetables, root vegetables, and fresh fruit and vegetables.

42. Pantry (servants/housekeeper)

Bare.

43. Parlor

A fireplace. Over it the portrait of a furious old man, his white hair a halo around his red face, a walking stick in his hand and a large dog at his side. A wide window looking out over the mist.

Crystal chandelier. Pipes. Ashtray stands. Sofa. Plush chairs—a little worse for wear.

A sea-green mantelpiece adorned with nymphs, scrolls, and Cupids in low relief.

Pictures that are crooked at first. The pictures will change to more sinister pictures, and they will be impossible to straighten. Busts of plaster.

An organ.

Lamina 1: A cloudy human shape wrapped in a shroud appears from the waist up, slowly as a cheshire cat, in front of the fire. Anthony Delarosa? He is buried beneath the stones of the fireplace. Of course the organ plays itself.

Lamina 2+:

Flies buzz in a cyclone before the fireplace. Big, thick flies that languidly evade you as you wave them away from your nose, your eyes, and your mouths. There’s a smell here, an acrid odor, sour, far away, and a carpet on the floor woven into concentric ovals, faded in the sunlight that shines momentarily through the window, then fades as the fog once again covers the sky.

And there is, of course, a damp spot under the carpet in front of the fireplace.

Anthony Delarosa haunts this room, because it is his painting and he is buried under the hearth.

44. Passage (ground floor)

Bare walls, brick. Slightly red in your light.

45. Portico (northwest)

Marble columns on marble stairs. The door is closed, but leans slightly to the right. Above the door words are carved in faded scrollwork on the wooden lintel.

If they look closer, it will seem more as if the house leans to the left. The words on the lintel are:

Above the house, inscribed among the flowing vines—or are they spider webs?—is:

Abandon hell, ye curious who enter here,
For you we have created a new heaven on a new earth, sleeping.

Christ with John, forever denied Jordan,
Before Jordan, Before Jericho, Before Eden.

Awaken!

46. Portico (southwest)

Marble columns on marble stairs.

Looks at road. Adam Farrier will meet them here if they knock.

Lamina 1: Carriages

47. Reception Room

Adam Farrier offers to take their coats (if they have any) and offers them drinks. He will also explain when meals will be served.

48. Servants’ Bedroom 1

Lots of crosses carved into corners and out-of-the-way places.

49. Servants’ Bedroom 2

When he lived here, Matty Briskit scratched deaths dates in the wood of one of the walls.

Parnassa Grace, 868 May God Protect.

Ruby, 877 May God Protect

Laurel, 881 May God Protect

Steffan, 911. Hell take him far from here.

Mary, 952. May God Protect

Matty Briskit left here in 952, with Mary’s death. May this house sleep forever.

50. Servants’ Waiting Room

Wooden chairs. Creaking noise.

51. Steffan’s Den

Steffan Delarosa sits, dead, in the center of a magic circle, still controlling the house from the basement. Dressed in robe and scarf, like a modern university professor.

The sitting room cannot be entered by its doors. On lamina 0, they are locked but pickable. Entering Steffan’s den on lamina 0 adds one to the woke count. On lamina 1, they are unlocked, but the doors always lead to a room other than Steffan’s room. Roll randomly for which room.

Steffan’s room can be entered (1) on a random room effect; (2) breaking or walking through the walls or ceiling; (3) through the secret stairs in the secret chapel or (4) normally, on lamina 2+.

Breaking the walls will attract d6 goldwing harriers per round during the destruction, and gives the house power as normal.

In Steffan’s pocket is the golden skeleton key that opens any door in this house.

Shillings in a treasure chest.

Stephen’s body can be destroyed fairly easily; it is dead, and his undead essence is in his corpse lamp, not his body. However, destroying the body automatically raises the current and maximum lamina by 1 and increases the woke count by 1.

You hear a maniacal laugh emanating from the walls and above you.

The laugh is heard throughout all lamina, even on lamina 0.

On a piece of paper on the desk, in Steffan’s hand:

The dead behold the son,
made manifest by the illusion of life.

The sage look beyond the pearl of truth,
the sagest desire the end of lies.

The Son bears the lamination of death;
the Insect Queen speaks it within the wombs;
forever in the place of sacrifice,
the veils of the Queen obscure even death.

I beheld the Queen of Insects, ever-spinning,
going by her paths within the laminate veils;
clothing the quarters of heaven with her silken veils.

Through the sacrifice of the never-son spins
the laminations of the mind.

52. Steffan’s Room

Bed. Dressing table. Mirror. Bronze brushes. Laurel’s silhouette in ivory. Steffan slept here, and easily moved between here, the chapel, and his ground-floor den.

There is a copy of the Hetae ritual behind the mirror.

Lamina 1: The balcony looks over a mass murder of families and children.

Lamina 2+: The balcony looks on other worlds, flaming worlds and dark worlds.

53. Staircase

A marble spiral staircase on each side leads up to the second floor bedrooms and down to the ground floor.

Lamina 1: Human-like forms moving up and down the stairs

54. Storage (kitchen)

Pots, pans, cooking utensils.

55. Storage (servants/housekeeper)

Brooms, mops, whisks, buckets and baskets.

56. Storage (ground floor)

Rugs, furniture, art, and statuary.

57. Theater

Curtain. Stage. Chairs. Stained glass windows.

Lamina 1: A stage, and a play performed by gaunt actors.

Lamina 2+: Spectral insect-head ushers.

58. Theater Dressing Room

Strange costumes, even on lamina 0.

59. Washroom (first floor)

The washtub has oxfeet and a bull’s head.

Lamina 1: The tub and basin are draped in ancient, dry spiderwebs. Water seeps into them, brown—and then a gloopy red—before stopping.

There is a secret door from the washroom to the chapel. The washtub’s prow twists to unlatch a panel in the wall.

60. Washroom (second floor)

The ivory sex figurine.

Lamina 1: Mary washing Steffan’s mother in the tub.

61. Workroom

Saws, hammers, planers. Worth quite a bit, actually.

Resources

Resource files

1. Mansion and Gate PNG files by William Miller, from Wikimedia Commons.

2. Map of the house as Inkscape and PDF files.

3. Player maps of the first and second floors as PDF files.

4. Map of the area around Sea Haven.

5. Pre-generated character sheets as Scribus file, plus each character as a PDF.

Creepy nursery rhymes

1. Three blind mice

Three blind mice. Three blind mice.
See how they run. See how they run.
They all ran after the Manor Lord’s wife,
Who cut off their heads with a carving knife.
Did you ever see such a thing in your life,
As three blind mice?

2. Rock-a-bye baby

Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop.
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all.

Hush-a-bye baby, lying in state.
When envy flows, then baby will wake.
When baby wakes, the Family will rouse,
And down will come Eiron into the House.

3. Hush little baby

Hush little baby, don’t say a word.
Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.
And if that mockingbird don’t sing,
Mama’s gonna you a diamond ring.
And if that diamond turns to brass,
Mama’s gonna buy you a looking-glass.
And if that looking-glass wakes up,
Mama’s gonna buy you a sleeping cup.
And if your sleeping lips grow cool,
Mama’s gonna go to church for you.

So hush little baby, don’t say a word,
Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.

4. Goosey, goosey, gander

Goosey, goosey, gander
Whither dost thou wander?
Upstairs and downstairs
And in my lady’s chamber.

There I met an old man
Who wouldn’t say his prayers.
I took him by the left leg
And threw him down the stairs.

5. Breath and bell (London Bridge)

Who has stole my breath and bell,
Breath and bell, breath and bell;
Who has stole my breath and bell,
My fair lady.

Moldy prison you must go,
You must go, you must go;
Moldy prison you must go,
My fair lady.

6. Jack and Jill

Jack and Jill went up the hill,
To fetch a cup of water.
Jack fell down
And broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.

7. Mary, Mary, quite contrary

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells
And seven pale maids in a row.

8. It’s raining, it’s pouring

It’s raining, it’s pouring,
Old mama’s snoring,
She went to bed and bumped her head,
And couldn’t get up in the morning.

9. Candle, chopper

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

10. Old Father Long-legs

Old father Long-Legs can’t say his prayers.
Take him by the left leg and throw him down the stairs.

And when he’s at the bottom, before he long has lain,
Take him by the right leg and throw him up again!

Things to find

Book of inductions

This is a record of the sacrifices. It does not specifically say sacrifice, but it is an obvious subtext. There are notes about entire families of captives. If their being missed would be noticed, captives were killed elsewhere to look like an accident or goblin attack.

The dates of record include their first son, who Laura’s diary records as stillborn; it also includes Parnassa Grace Delarosa in 868 and Ruby Delarosa in 877. It ends with Steffan Delarosa in 911. These years match the dates on the tombstones.

There are 67 people in the induction list, of which three sets of twenty were murdered on the same day twenty two years apart in 853, 875, and 897, to create a bloodbath for a place of power.

On lamina 1+, the character names will be listed, with no date.

Bowler hat of the peacemaker

Only warriors may use this magical bowler hat. It confers the ability to speak with any intelligent creature or read any work regardless of language. It contains the spell learn language at the sixth level of effect. It is permanent but may be used on only one work or creature at a time. It has indestructible object at the sixth level of effect, for +12 against destruction.

It also allows the wearer to see into other planes, and grants them a +1 to hit and the ability to attack creatures that require +1 or greater to hit.

Carving knife of last sight

This carving knife with an alabaster (white marblish stone) handle contains the spell last sight at the fourth level of effect. On carving into meat, it shows what the creature saw in the last four seconds before death. It may be used once per day and once per night. It also acts as a +1 magical knife. It has indestructible object at the fourth level of effect, for +8 against destruction.

Coffer of dirt and bones

This small tarnished silver coffer, about three by two inches, contains dirt and bones from the Delarosa cemetery. It confers the ability to see into other planes, and into other lamina of this plane. The bearer must dig their fingers into the dirt. While observing the extra-planar dimensions, anyone in that dimension can also see the bearer. This is a psychic item, and easily destroyed. It is marked with the Greek Psi Delta. ΨΔ

The diary of Laurel Mountjoy Delarosa

The diary of Laurel Mountjoy begins in 854, on Laurel’s 19th Christmas. It covers the trials of a well-born woman on Fawn River. At age 21, Steffan Delarosa begins courting her; she is unsure at first—he’s so old, he’s nearly forty! But he convinces her and her family.

It covers the trip to East Highland and Delarosa Manor, in which she is captured by goblins and rescued by Steffan’s majordomo, Louis Merrikitt. Her mother and servants died; her dog, Violet, did not.

It covers her marriage, and Steffan becoming more and more distant; the people of the town, which is not much of a town, becoming more antagonistic to the manor.

The mosquitos when she goes for a walk.

Her son, stillborn while she was unconscious; she did not awaken for several days. She would have named him Daniel, after her father. Sometimes he talks to her. From the walls.

Her daughter, Ruby, and then her daughter Mary.

An affair with Louis.

Secrets are also in this diary, if read carefully. The existence of a magical mirror in Louis’s room, for example. She doesn’t know what it does, but he has mentioned its existence.

Flywheel ring

This brass ring has two parts; the outer part is covered in two rows of intricately-carved flies. When the outer part is set to spinning, it will spin for d6 rounds; when it comes to a stop, the wearer is subject to a random magic transport at the eighth level of effect: the wearer is transported d8 times ten yards in a random but safe direction, rolled on d8. If the destination is within a building, also roll randomly for which available floor the wearer is transported to.

The ring may be used once per day. The effect can be canceled by stopping the outer wheel from spinning; this still uses up the day’s charge, however.

It has indestructible object at the eighth level of effect, for +16 against destruction.

Golden skeleton key

This golden key opens any door in the house. If the character using the key is in the normal house, using the key opens a door into the woke room.

The key also allows the bearer to impersonate any moral code. For targeting effects, the bearer is not the moral code required for targeting. For getting into places, the bearer is the moral code required for entrance.

This is a divine item.

Hetae’s leg

This giant cockroach leg is a divine artifact of Hetae, Queen of Insects. Rubbing hetae’s leg calls forth a swarm of 2d6 giant cockroaches, about three feet long each. They will hover around whoever called them; and attack whoever or whatever that person points at. Cockroaches cause d2 damage, have ½ survival, and +3 defense. A swarm may be called once per day. The leg is eighteen inches long.

Hetae’s ritual of waking

1. Red bricks of blood.

2. Wooden planks that have never known the sun.

3. A murder victim’s corpse under the hearth.

4. A first-born, forever in darkness, never knowing breath nor blessing.

5. A virgin, by her father’s hand, unbruised.

6. The lawful wife, by the seducer.

7. The mother, by the son.

8. The Demon Wakes.

9. Prepare the sign of the insect queen.

10. The lawful husband by his own hand.

11. Thirteen victims one by one.

The wooden planks are from underground wood.

There have been seven murders so far, and several more to create the “red bricks of blood” that create the place of power. Six more complete the ritual. Upon completion of the ritual, the house is permanently woke; Steffan can take his living form again, though with the power of the house behind him. As the house gains power, he will be able to venture further and further from the house, first the swamp, then the nearby villages, and so on.

Steffan’s copy includes a note about how the first-born “must not be named”.

Holy symbol of Hetae

This hybrid ant/cockroach creature of tarnished silver confers the ability to speak with insects at any time; a +1 to agility and charisma; and the ability to sprout wings and hover up or down at movement 14 and move horizontally at movement 8 for up to twelve minutes once per day.

This is a divine artifact, and will corrupt the user over time.

Ivory sex figurine

Made from some unknown underwater animal, such as a narwhal, this four-inch figurine depicts a man and a woman having sex. It causes strange dreams which will give clues to the house. Dreams may include:

1. The building and consecration of the house.

2. The killing of Laurel Delarosa’s unborn son Daniel.

3. The killing of each PC.

Memento mori necklace

This divine necklace, with a bronze and spider-silk chain and ivory pendant, provides a +4 bonus to death rolls (both against unconsciousness and against death) as well as a bonus of twelve survival that refreshes every day at midnight.

The ivory pendant is a head, about an inch and a half high, with two faces; one face is of a child, and the other of a skull. It is yellow with age.

This is a divine item.

Soup-spoon of health

This brass spoon’s handle is a cherub’s face and body. When warm liquid or soup is eaten with the spoon, the eater heals d4+4 injuries or survival. The spoon may heal up to three times a day.

This is a divine item.

Tuning fork of normality

This tuning fork is not magical. It emits a solid tone that matches the tone for lamina 0. This means it matches the left-most bell in room 36 when on lamina 1 and is one tone higher than the single bell when on lamina 0. It also matches the tone from the smallest tuning fork of lamination.

Tuning forks of lamination

A leather pouch with seven tuning forks of various sizes, all slightly off real notes in a very disconcerting way. The smallest (highest-pitched) tuning fork corresponds to lamina 0; the next lower pitch to lamina 1, and so on.

Each tuning fork, when sounded on an immediately adjacent lamina, switches all who hear it one lamina higher or lower.

The tuning fork cannot increase the lamina level of the house’s lamination, although it can increase the lamina of a room up to the level of the house’s lamination.

The chosen fork must match the closest lamination, up or down; this will mean it must match one of the bells in room 36. A lower tone brings them further from lamina 0, and a higher tone brings them closer to lamina 0.

A character can attempt to use a non-adjacent fork to jump multiple lamina; this requires a charisma roll, which can be aided by a laminations skill in Performance Art, in Dimensional Science, or in Spiritual Art.

If more than one fork is used at once, this will set up dangerous harmonics. Everyone who hears the multiple notes must make a Willpower roll, at a penalty equal to the number of extra forks used, or go into an insane coma for d6 minutes for every extra fork used. This insane coma will resemble a high lamination, but the characters’ real resources are unaffected by their use within this coma; a character who dies in this coma will awaken immediately.

Ghosts can interact with affected characters, and are likely to give them clues.

This is a psychic item, not magical, and may be easily destroyed.

Spirits

Homing

When in a lamination, homing orients the prophet toward the weakest border between the current lamina and the next homeward lamina, often a portal or doorway of some kind.

Homeward Bound

When in a lamination, homeward bound sends the prophet and the targets down one lamina for every two spirit levels, to exit the lamination into or toward lamina zero.

Spells

Delamination

When in a lamination, delamination drops the target by half casting level laminae toward their home plane. All target creatures must have the same home plane for this spell to work.

Laminate

When in a lamination, laminate shifts the target up or down by half level laminae, but no lower than lamina zero. If the increase exceeds the current maximum, then the laminae count increases by one and that new and stranger lamina becomes the destination. If this increases the area’s woke count, the injury to power the new lamina is paid by the caster unless the caster designates one of the targets as the source of psychic health and that target fails its evasion roll.

Monks

Monks with the dimensional shift skill in Dimensional Science can buy the technique shift laminae that shifts one lamina for every two levels used.

Monks who know any Spiritual Art can buy the technique through laminae and exercise their Spiritual Art skills through one lamina per level used.

Psychic Talent specialty

Requirements: Intelligence, Charisma, or Wisdom 13 or higher.

The character has one psychic skill within a psychic field. The psychic field must match whichever of their intelligence, charisma, or wisdom meets the requirement for this specialty. For example, a character with a 15 intelligence, 12 charisma, and 12 wisdom must gain a Dimensional Science skill; whereas a character with 13 intelligence, 13 wisdom, and 10 charisma may choose skills from Dimensional Science or Psychokinetic Craft.

The character starts at +1 in that field. They can use mojo as normal to increase their field bonus, but may not add new skills or gain another field (except by taking this specialty a second time).

The character has only one configuration of skill use; they are unable to allot their levels dynamically as a monk would. At each new level after gaining this specialty, the character can either gain one new technique (paying mojo for it) or one new configuration of skill use. Each configuration has one aspect that improves with an increase in field bonus.

If the player takes this specialty more than once, they can either choose a new psychic field and skill as normal, or add +1 to their field bonus and a new skill to an existing psychic field.

When in a psychic-heavy environment or in a place of power, the character may involuntarily use their psychic skill; this will cost verve as normal. The player is allowed a willpower roll (with a bonus equal to their field bonus) to avoid involuntarily using their psychic talent.

Creatures

Cranes, giant

Blood-red legs. Golden feathers. Beautiful singing voice, that often sings in rhyme or nursery rhyme. The song of the giant crane can calm anyone hearing it; if they are not active, they must make a willpower or fortitude roll to remain awake. If they are active, listeners must make a willpower roll or have a penalty of one to all actions. The crane does not sing and attack at the same time, but in a group of attacking cranes one or more may choose to sing rather than attack.

Eiron

Eiron is the baby protodemon in control of the house. Steffan Delarosa summoned Eiron to give the house power and life. Eiron is an emotional demon. It feeds off resentment and self­ishness. The more resentment outsiders bring to the house, the more power Eiron and the house have.

Fetal spider

Creatures created from the fetuses and infants sacrificed by Louis and Steffan. Fetal spiders have eight arms and legs (3+d4 arms, 5-that legs) and crawl up walls and across ceilings at the same speed they crawl across floors. They can burp a white viscous sticky burning liquid once every ten minutes that causes d4 damage the first round, d3 damage, and then d2-1 damage. They can be attacked by non-magical weapons.

One in six fetal spiders have two heads, are level one and can burp twice every ten minutes.

gaunt

A gaunt is an undead ghost from a person killed by a demon but maintained in shell. Their corpse is rotting, but concealed with a gaunt glamor. The house will create gaunts from any of the ghosts, as well as any dead characters. Gaunts attack with thrown objects and automatically induce a coldness of the soul causing -3 to any action and half movement on a failed willpower roll. They are semi-solid and can be attacked by non-magical weapons.

Goldwing harriers

A goldwing harrier is translucent and reflective, allowing it to easily blend with its surroundings. A harrier in motion looks like a tarnished or rusty bump moving along the walls. On closer examination their golden-smooth skin can be seen for what it is: skin drawn so tight it’s translucent, and some slimy substance taking on a gold-toned hue of its surroundings.

Harriers first appear as nearly spherical golden balls with bat-like wings, and no other sensory organs or appendages. They move by flying, preferably, or by crawling using the claws on their wings. When they attack, their spherical body neatly separates to display a huge gaping jaw and razor sharp, jagged teeth. They can hover in place and easily turn sharp corners.

They almost always attack as a group effort. For example, ten harriers fighting together will be a level 3 group effort: +3 to attack, d4+3 damage, +8 defense, 4 attacks, and 4d4 survival.

Their main purpose is stealing shadows so that Eiron can create shadow simulacra. They will thus often attack at the feet to cut the victim’s shadow clean away. Stealing a shadow requires a called shot to the feet; the target must lose survival on the attack and then fail an evasion roll.

When a harrier dies, their tight skin draws tighter, becomes paper thin, dries, and crackles. Within d12 rounds they are a pile of tan dust. This dust is worth about ten shillings to ritual-aware alchemists and sorcerors.

Harriers do not themselves speak, but their mouths can be a conduit to their master’s voice if their master desires. In a swarm, all harriers speak in unison.

Goldwing harriers are visible only on lamina 1 or higher; they only show their teeth on lamina 2 or higher. When on lamina zero, they can be sensed only through non-visual means.

Stolen shadows

Stolen shadows are simulacra that can speak simply, but cannot carry on conversations, and are immaterial. The house can spend one point to make a stolen shadow material for up to ten minutes. Creating a stolen shadow requires the shadow of the living guest who serves as the simulacrum’s model. The simulacrum can take on the appearance of the source of their shadow as well as of close friends and family members of that person. However, the shadow cast by a stolen shadow always remains that of the original—who loses their shadow until the stolen shadow is destroyed.

Stolen shadows can be hurt by magical attacks and magic weapons, sunlight, complete darkness, silver, wood, unarmed combat, or any attack from the shadow’s owner. Sunlight causes d6 damage per round, and complete darkness extinguishes the shadow temporarily.

Stolen shadows cannot go through walls, but can go through windows, doors, and secret doors without opening them.

Steffan acquires the shadows to create stolen shadows using shadows stolen by his goldwing harriers.

Steffan Delarosa

Steffan Delarosa’s evil survives as a corpse lamp that haunts the house and the marshes around it. It lives off resentment and hateful jealousy. Its special “place of danger” is Delarosa Manor.

Corpse Lamp: (Undead: 4; Survival: 22; Moral Code: Evil; Movement: 16; Attacks: none; Defense: +6; Special Attacks: spark for d6 4 times per night; Special Defense: +1 to hit required and immune to most attacks, including fire, cold, and lightning)

A spark automatically hits its chosen target, which must be within two yards of the lamp.

Besides tempting unwary travelers into a lonely death, corpse lamps may also tempt jealous, seething, or resentful victims into torturing and eventually murdering the object of their festering emotion. When a corpse lamp finds victims who harbor a grudge against each other, it will nurse this resentment and build it up slowly action by action, so that the victims’ anger is never checked until they destroy each other. Wary victims are allowed a willpower roll against this effect, but the effect itself never goes away. The urge to greater and greater retribution may only be held in check; it will not disappear until leaving the house.

Steffan Delarosa can walk invisibly through the halls of Delarosa Manor. It will bang walls to cause fear, and it will shine to attract characters to dangerous encounters.

In lamina 1+, Steffan Delarosa appears as he did in life, though gaunter, and can be hit by normal weapons. He can attack with his hands for d6 damage.

Steffan’s level is equal to the current lamina. He regains one survival per round per lamina, or heals one injury per maximum lamina per night. If killed, he only regains one survival per hour per lamina, and the house is unable to act while he is dead.

Player characters

If there are only three players, Charlotte Kordé or Colton Evcot can replace Gralen Noslen.

Second level

Any character that reaches second level will gain +1 to each reaction and +12 mojo. They will also gain extra verve and potentially some special ability increase.

Ghost characters

Players whose characters die can continue to play, as ghosts. Ghost PCs cannot move through the walls of the woke house, although they can move through doors and windows without opening them. They can knock things around—very light things on lamina 0, and progressively heavier things such as ashtrays or lamps on lamina 1+. They can listen on lamina 0, and speak on lamina 1 or higher. They can appear on lamina 2 or higher.

You remember someone, you thought it was a child but they lifted your broken body with ease, carried you into the attic; you felt less of being carried than of floating. The child may have tried to feed you with a silver spoon. Then, darkness and silence.

You felt like you died. But you are clearly still here.

Sometimes you can talk to your friends and sometimes you cannot. They need to be in some sort of special state to perceive you.

A mysterious invitation

Many of you know each other through the Stratford Caravan Security company. Recently, you have each been contacted by Dr. Jean deMontagne, some of you directly, some of you after a friend recommended you, to take a seaside vacation at Delarosa Manor. The locals call it Crane House. It is forty miles up the coast from Crosspoint and situated between King’s Head and Jackson Village. You should set out on Monday, November 2, and thus arrive on November 3 or 4.

This is a working vacation. Dr. deMontagne asks that you search the house for a small, brass coffer once owned by Louis Merrikitt and marked with two strange symbols. He offers you ten shillings each to compensate you for that small task, and he offers another hundred for the coffer, should you find it. He tells you that the manor is yours for the month of November as you wish, although the actual task should take no more than a day or two.

ΨΔ

On acceptance, they each receive a second letter providing detailed directions for reaching the house from Crosspoint. Dr. deMontagne provides them with a cart and a horse, giving it to Will Stratford. The cart should be able to hold any equipment that they wish to bring with them.

By default, the coffer is on lamina 1 in Louis’s room on page . All of the ghosts contemporary with Louis will know that it was Louis’s. Laurel knows that it is in Louis’s room.

Thank you, my friend. Your company at the house will be appreciated. The house is two days journey up the coast, following the roads as I shall now describe. I am making these directions as precise as possible since, I am sorry to say, information about the house is extremely difficult to find in the nearby villages, nor in any case is it advisable to stop and ask your way once you are near King’s Head. Do not mention that you are looking for Delarosa; the locals are loathe to discuss the manor. Bring everything you need from Crosspoint. I shall provide food daily, but if there are any delicacies you desire, by all means bring them.

Meet your comrades at the Market Gate on the northeast of the city. Take the seaward road out of the Market Gate. Follow it 25 miles; the road will veer to the left, away from the sea, to enter into the environs of King’s Head. You shall begin to see farms. Follow another six miles and you will come to the village. You may wish to stop for articles you did not remember to bring from Crosspoint, but heed my advice regarding the locals. There are two inns here, should you arrive in the afternoon. The more reputable is Markhouse. You are now nine miles from Delarosa Manor; the road north is marshy, and it is inadvisable to traverse it after dark.

When you are ready to finish your journey, go through King’s Head to the little church at the north end of the village. From here the road veers left to Richard’s Cross. There is a sign to Richard’s Cross and a sign to Jackson Village pointing the same direction, as if you had no choice but to go west, but in fact there is a choice. The sign to Jackson Village has been altered, and a little-used road continues north toward it. Examine the area around the sign, and you will see that farmers occasionally use the hidden road. Follow it north. Do not rely on advice from the locals, who will tell strangers to go to Richard’s Cross even if you are traveling north to Jackson Village. Delarosa Manor is on the northward path, halfway between King’s Head and Jackson.

The road shall meander, as you are moving through a marsh and the road must follow solid ground; do not deviate from it. Eight miles up, a path leads to the right, into some low hills that separate the marsh from the haven. Delarosa Manor is on the other side of those hills.

When you enter Delarosa Manor, congregate first in the parlor. It is immediately to your left after you enter the main doors. Once all have arrived, go upstairs to the bedrooms surrounding the balcony. The bedrooms to the southeast are most comfortable.

Jean deMontagne

Player Maps

First Floor

Second Floor

Adventure Guide Maps

East Highland

First Floor

Ground Floor

Second Floor

Attic

Delarosa Manor:

the house on crane hill

curiosis fabricavit inferos

A haunted house for 1st level Gods & Monsters adventurers.