Case of the Lady in White part 1 - Background

[DarkCrusader]

Okay, so here is the first adventure my adventuring group had. I figured it would be easiest to chop this up into digestible bits for more casual reading. This entry will detail the monster and the adventure set up.


The monster is a Porcelain Lady from Van Ritchen's Guide to the Walking Dead. I modified her and pumped her up to be more of a stand alone boss monster. For those of you not familiar with that particular monster...

1. An extra-ordinarily vain lady dies and becomes a resilient zombie.
2. Her skin made of porcelain. This grants her unearthly beauty and protection against attacks. However, to move her limbs or open her mouth, the skin breaks in painful and noisy cracks.
3. Black pits for eyes, that weep blood when she drains blood.
4. She can enchant people to dance with her.
5. When her skin is contact with another's she can drain their blood via osmosis.

Adventure Background

Back before Borca had a recorded history there was a woman obsessed with maintaining her youth. She bathed in the blood of young women to try and achieve immortality. Finally, the people had enough and turned against. She was tried and sentenced to live in a sealed off piece of her own basement. There would be a hole big enough for a jailer to pass her food and that would be it. Turns off she didn't live long, as her jailer had a personal grief with her. Every day he fed her slightly less food. Eventually, the food plate stopped coming back out.

Her mansion lay abandoned, and soon the toxic forests of Borca overtook the grounds. She lay there for generations. Eventually, four thieves broke into the mansion. Unusually for Borca, they were freelancers and looking for a big score. They cracked open her tomb. Two died right away when she grabbed them and drained them of blood. The other two got away temporarily while she busied herself with killing her two captives.

Once outside in the daylight they thought they were safe. Wrong on two counts. The Porcelain Lady does not like daylight, but is not adversely affected by it. She considered keeping her mansion a secret important enough to protect. Also, turns out the Porcelain Lady is a fast runner unaffected by things like branches or poisoned mushrooms. She eventually ran the two remaining thieves down. She bludgeoned one to death with her fist. The last one managed to escape.

Current events

The Porcelain Lady stalks the country side. Sometimes she ambushes travelers, but she has also been attacking small cottages. She most targets the young or beautiful, draining their blood. Others who get in the way or she just doesn't want, she shatters their bones with her rock-like fist. Rarely, she'll take the dead body of an attractive male back home with her. She keeps the corpses in a giant dance hall filled with mirrors so she can watch herself dance with them.

The last thief has gone deep into hiding. He is terrified of being caught by the authorities and by the Porcelain Lady.

Meanwhile, a nobleman from Levkarest is on his way. Normally, this area would be beneath his notice. However the attacks on trade and the terror of the peasants has reduced his income substantially. This has gotten him into hot water back home, and he's desperate to put the matter to rest quickly.

Finally, the peasants have sent for the Van Ritchen Society. They do not trust their tyrannical overlords to solve the problem and are hoping a group of adventurers can.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Sounds like a nice intro adventure. Simple, but with a good backstory. Extrapolates nicely from a little-used monster. Feels very Ravenloft. I like it!