From: [s 316903] at [student.uq.edu.au] (Travis Hall)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Re: You are ambushed by 1d6 castles... (Re: Worst Spell in PHB)
Date: 29 Jan 1996 04:11:44 GMT

I've never done a castle, but I did actually run an adventure not too 
long ago in which the PCs went to investigate the haunted village which 
had appeared a couple of miles away from an ordinary village. The people 
of the ordinary village were terrified of the place, since it had never 
been there before and those who went to investigate didn't come back. It 
turned out the haunted village was a pack of house hunters. Those are 
oversized relatives of mimics, which only imitate buildings. They are 
listed in the first Monstrous Compendium annual.

The PCs wandered up the hill to the haunted village and set about 
investigating the smallest of the new buildings - the outhouse. Of 
course, being small, it was a child, and when they eventually killed it, 
Mommy and Daddy got pissed off. The entire village started chasing the PCs.

This was when they had a bright idea. They knew they were faster than the 
house hunters (buildings which move in a manner similar to snails don't 
exactly gallop) and there was this army setting up for an assault on the 
village (well, not really an assault, since the village wasn't going to 
be putting up much resistance, just riding in a restocking supplies. 
There was a war on at the time.) so the PCs decided to lead the houses 
into the army. Unfortunately, the army was on the other side of the 
river, so they had to head for the bridge. The bridge was a spanner 
(Fiend Folio MC appendix, for those who can still find it), an 
intelligent creature which imitates a bridge (hey, when you've got a good 
theme, stick to it). It saw the PCs coming. It saw the mansion (biggest 
house hunter) close behind. It said to itself, "I'm not letting that walk 
on me," and started wandering down the river. So now we have the houses 
chasing the characters who are chasing the bridge. Luckily, the PCs could 
outrun the spanner and crossed it, even as it moved downstream. The 
houses just went straight through the river, although a couple of the 
smaller ones had to be fished out by bigger ones, and followed the PCs 
straight into the army camp as night fell. The army, having no idea what 
was going on, attempted to defend itself from the houses. The houses, 
already annoyed, fought back. The PCs disappeared in the confusion. The 
next morning saw elements of the army scattered all over the countryside, 
with many companions dead and nobody taking charge, the houses wandering 
off in a random direction, having sated themselves on soldiers, no sign 
of the spanner, the villagers looking confused and considering plans to 
build a new bridge and the PCs packing up to move on. All in all, a very 
successful, fun and incredibly silly adventure.
                                               The Wraith