Seven Spooky Skeletons - Ubbe the Spooky

Seven Spooky Skeletons is a short series running until Halloween, showcasing a different unique skeletal villain each night.

Tonight's Spooky Skeleton is Ubbe the Spooky, a cavorting skeleton bard who plays his own ribcage as a xylophone. Ubbe is named after legendary animator and Mickey Mouse co-creator Ubbe 'Ub' Iwerks, who animated the classic Silly Symphony, "The Skeleton Dance," which is mandatory Halloween viewing.

Happy Halloween!

The following text is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2017 Jonah Bomgaars.

This bare skeleton dances rhythmically as it plays out a chilling xylophone solo on its own ribcage

Ubbe the Spooky           CR 6

XP 2,400

Human skeletal champion bard 8

NE Medium undead

Init +8; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +14

DEFENSE

AC 19, touch 17, flat-footed 12 (+4 Dex, +2 natural, +3 dodge)

hp 95 (10d8+50)

Fort +14, Ref +10, Will +10; +4 channel resistance, +4 vs bardic performance, language dependent, sonic

DR 5/bludgeoning; Immune cold, undead traits

OFFENSE

Speed 35 ft.

Melee percussive bone club +6/+6/+1/+1 (1d6+1 plus 1d4 sonic)

Ranged returning percussive bone club +11 (1d6+1 plus 1d4 sonic) 10ft.

Special Attacks bardic performance 29 rounds/day (countersong, dirge of doom, distraction, fascinate, inspire competence +3, inspire courage +2, suggestion, unhallow)

Spells Known (CL 8^th)

3   3^rd (3/day; DC 18) – blink, fear, thundering drums

4   2^nd (5/day; DC 17) – allegro, distressing tone, haunting mists, mad hallucination

5   1^st (6/day; DC 16) – cause fear, ear-piercing scream, expeditious retreat, hideous laughter, vanish

6   cantrips (at will; DC 15) – daze, ghost sound, mage hand, open-close, prestidigitation, summon instrument

STATISTICS

Str 12, Dex 18, Con --, Int 12, Wis 13, Cha 20

Base Atk +7; CMB +8; CMD 22

Feats Dodge, Double Slice, Extra Performance, Fleet, Improved Initiative^B, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Fighting

Skills Acrobatics +17, Bluff +18, Diplomacy +13, Escape Artist +9, Intimidate +18, Knowledge (local) +9, Knowledge (religion) +9, Perception +14, Perform (dance) +18, Perform (percussion) +18, Sense Motive +9, Spellcraft +5, Stealth +12, Use Magic Device +9

Languages Common, Necril

SQ bardic knowledge +4, lore master, versatile performance (dance, percussion)

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Loose Joints (Ex)

Ubbe the Spooky can separate the joints of his bones at will and come back together a moment later, allowing him to, for example, dodge a sword blow to the neck by throwing his skull up into the air. This grants Ubbe a +2 dodge bonus to his AC.

Play Dead (Ex)

Ubbe the Spooky can collapse into a pile of disconnected bones as an immediate action, granting him a +10 bonus to his Bluff check to pretend to be destroyed. This bonus applies only for the first time he uses it against any given observer. Ubbe can reassemble himself as a move action that provokes attacks of opportunity.

Percussive Bones (Su)

Ubbe can use his own bones and the bones of other skeletons as percussion instruments. Any bone he wields as a weapon counts as a club and deals an additional 1d4 points of sonic damage. Any bones he throws as a weapon gain the returning weapon quality.

Unhallow (Su)

Ubbe the Spooky has access to a special bardic performance called unhallow. While ubbe makes an unhallow performance, all undead creatures within 50 feet gain 5 bonus hit points and channel resistance +2. This channel resistance stacks with any existing channel resistance.

ECOLOGY

Treasure none

Ubbe the Spooky is a cavorting skeleton bard. In life, he was a morose and ill-tempered performer who, while talented and beloved by his fans, despised himself and his work. It is said that, while in one of his fits of depression, he heard a joke that caused him to break out into such raucous laughter that he died instantly. In death, he found new purpose in his performances which had eluded him in life. He has devoted his unlife both to poking fun at death and to reminding mortals of their inevitable demise through song and dance. He takes special delight in scaring people to death. He sees life as an elaborate practical joke to which death is the punchline.

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-your seventh spooky d20 despot 

Grasping Dead, Skull Bomb, and Gaze of the Dead: Three New Necromancy Spells

Just in time for Halloween, here are three new necromancy spells.  The first, grasping dead, is the necromantic equivalent of entangle.  It causes corpses in an area to become uncomfortably handsy, grappling any nearby creatures.  The second spell, skull bomb, charges a skull with volatile amounts of negative energy, turning it into a dangerous bomb, trap, or thrown weapon.  The third, gaze of the dead, turns the eyes of basilisks, medusas, and other gaze-happy creatures into floating, necromantic weapons.

pixabay

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL.  Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars and d20 Despot.

Horrors of the Floating Gardens - a d20 Despot Halloween Adventure

Illustration by Kent Hamilton

Happy Halloween, players and GMs!  In the spirit of the season, I've created a brand new nautical horror adventure that you can play tonight!  Or any night, really.  Even during the day, if you wanted.

Apologies for the lateness of the post - I promised on Monday to post this sometime before Halloween, but it took a lot longer to get ready than I expected.  I suppose, technically, as Halloween stands for All Hallows'  Eve, and it is not yet evening where I live, I'm in the clear.

The adventure is available below as a PDF, with a series of maps as separate images.  One of the reasons I took so long is that I had ambitions of creating a professional-looking, publishable adventure, but after much lost sleep and hasty statting-up, I have decided to wait and pretty it up later.

I began playtesting the adventure last night, and it went quite well, though we were only able to make it about half-way through in five hours, so be warned that this one-shot adventure is pretty long.

You many notice that one of the pre-made characters is a swashbuckler, but not the swashbuckler that they've released in the Advanced Class Guide.  This swashbuckler is a sneak peak at my upcoming, original homebrewed class that I hope to have available to you sometime soon.  My patrons on Patreon can currently view a PDF of the Swashbuckler on my Patreon page.

Alright, the adventure is below!  I only ask that people who are currently playtesting this with me, or who are likely to play this with me in the near future, not read the adventure.

Horrors of the Floating Garden: Teaser

Illustration by Kent Hamilton

You awaken, as you have ever since the shipwreck, in your small rowboat.  The seas around you are placid and waveless, as smooth as a silver mirror, but the fog is so thick that you cannot tell whether it is day or night.  The lamp hanging from the prow of your boat still burns, casting a shimmering golden disc on the water around you.  Bobbing alongside your boat is a corpse, floating face down, a hole the size of a gold piece bored into the back of its skull.  The boat striking it must have been what disturbed your slumber.  In passing, you think it strange that the sharks have not come to feast on the body.  But then, maybe the sharks know something you do not.

Just then, you notice a massive hulk of a ship rearing out of the fog.  Could this be your salvation, at long last?  You silently rouse your companions and point out the dark vessel.  As you draw closer, you notice that there are no lights aboard the ship, and the whole thing is covered with vegetation.  Thick vines wind up the three masts, blankets of moss hang from the forecastle, and mushrooms sprout from the hull. 

There's no post today because I'm working on a Halloween one-shot horror adventure called Horrors of the Floating Gardens.  The adventure is designed for 4-6 third-level characters, and it will be available on this website as a PDF sometime later this week.  

If you're a GM on the lookout for a Halloween adventure for your group, check back later this week!  If you are in my gaming group, I will be running this game for you later, so maybe don't check back later this week.  

-your derelict d20 despot

Happy Halloween! Murder Mystery D&D Session

Happy Halloween, everybody!  If you're like me, you really want to play in a Halloween D&D game where all the players are classic monsters: a mummy, a flesh golem, a vampire, a ghost...  Man, that would be fun.  Anyways, this post isn't about that.  I was thinking about what to post for Halloween when I remembered a murder mystery session of D&D that I once ran.

I had never run a murder mystery before, but I knew that I wanted to do one.  It required a lot of preparation, and more improvisation than I had done up to that point, but it really helped me learn how to run a roleplay-based town adventure that wasn't 'on rails'.  Essentially, I created a small village and everyone who inhabited it.  I gave them names and personalities, suspicions and secrets.  I made up rumors about them and gave some of them motives for the murder.  I made sure to throw in plenty of false leads, red herrings, and unrelated secrets.  I tried to make the village feel alive, and part of that was making sure there was plenty of small-town drama.

The adventurers were told by the authorities of a nearby city that they were needed to investigate some killings performed by an unknown monster in the small village of Moulle.  When they arrived at Moulle's only tavern and inn (The Giant's Bag), they were to learn that, although belief in the 'Monster in the Woods' was widespread, there was rumor going around that these killings were being performed by a townsperson.