The Cabin in the Woods.

An Encounter For Shadowdark RPG.

The exact hook can be left for the GM to decide. The group stumbles upon a quaint, quiet cabin in the woods as they prepare to camp for the night. A little whisp of smoke rises from the chimney, but the door is closed and there appears to be no one home.

The outside of the cabin is what one would expect to see from a regular hunting lodge or woodsman’s cabin at the current time of year. A small garden grows off to the side, maybe a dozen paces or so from the door. There is a large stack of split firewood stacked up next to the cabin. The thatched roof seems to be in excellent condition. The front door is closed, and all of the windows are shuttered closed.

As the group approaches, they might notice a well-worn path leading to the door. The doors and shutters are not locked or bound. If they knock, the group discovers no one is home.

If they enter the cabin, they will see it is well-kept, clean, and quite spacious on the inside. The dying embers of the fire provide little additional warmth, but the interior is quite cozy and inviting. A wooden staircase leads up to a loft with a made double bed, nightstand, and oil lamp.

The downstairs is a single room with a plain wooden floor. A large rug sits in front of the fireplace. There is a worn down part of the floor that leads around to a kitchen area. The pantry is well stocked with grain, vegetables, and spices. A wooden table with two chairs sits near the window.

Not far from the rug sits a rocking chair with a small table next to it. A book sits on the chair along with a candle in a brass holder, about half used. The book is a tome of common local history. Across from the chair is a moderately sized wooden bookshelf with several books on it. Many of them are historical. Some are written in strange languages and aren’t translated.

Next to the bookshelf is a small writing table with a full bottle of ink, two quill pens and a small stack of paper can be found in the table’s drawer. They are all blank. The windows, one on each wall, are simple adorned with basic white curtains.

Once the entire group is inside, roll 1d12:

The door to the cabin suddenly slams shut. A large sucking sound can be heard in the center of the room in front of the fireplace. Then a large Pop! And everything goes black. The characters awaken to a man, woman, and small girl cowering in the corner.
“Are they demons, Mommy?” the young lass asks.
“I-I don’t know darling.” She looks anxiously toward the man. “Do something, dear.”
“Who…who are you people and how did you arrive here?” he asks.
The door to the cabin creaks closed and seals itself magically, not to open again until morning. The windows, door, and even the roof become temporarily indestructible and sealed shut. The sun seems to set more rapidly than usual. Outside, the cabin is surrounded by a dense fog that rapidly turns to a thick mist.

The characters are forced to make the best of it indoors. During the night, thunder can be heard in the skies overhead. The silence of the thunderclaps is occasionally broken by the braying of large wolves or an unearthly moaning from beyond the grave. The characters’ sleep are interrupted by shared nightmares of innocent people being terrorized by vampires, ghouls, zombies, and other frightful creatures.

The early light of a dreary, overcast morning is when everything unlocks. The characters emerge to find themselves in front of the same cabin only in a clearing with wilting, flaccid, vegetables barely staying alive in the garden. The landscape appears to be soaked in perpetual autumn. Their arrival in this new land of mists may have been uneventful, but finding their way home won’t be.
The door slams shut as the cabin begins to spin rapidly. During which time the characters may lose their balance or even their last meal. Soot and dark ashen sand spew from the fireplace and coat everything in the room. As soon as the spinning stops, the door opens to reveal they have arrived in a vast barren wasteland. The sand of this desert is interspersed with what appears to be ash, carbon, and charred bone fragments. Occasionally the characters may come across a tiny cactus or other desert plant. Wherever they are, the three suns are beating down relentlessly and water is becoming a precious commodity.
The characters hear someone whistling a merry little tune as he walks up the path. An overweight, balding, elderly gnome wearing red and tan robes walks up the path. He is genuinely amused to see the group assembled in what might appear to be his cabin. He is reluctant to give his name but tells the PCs they may call him Gary.

He invites the characters to get comfortable and invites them to stay for a meal. He prepares a simple vegetable soup from ingredients in his pantry and offers some wine from a jug in the kitchen. As he cooks, he hums to himself and entertains any questions the group might have by always giving simple yet cryptic sounding answers. He keeps talking about the local area, but it’s nothing like the characters know it to be.

If anyone should happen to go outside, they notice the landscape changing around them. The cabin and its tiny owner stay the same, but the grass becomes more vibrant, the sky brighter, and the air cleaner. He tells the group not to worry about the world they’ve left behind. They’re in a much better place now. He walks around the corner of the cabin (or just out the door) and vanishes.
If the group stays in the cabin overnight, nothing happens until around 3:33AM when a beam of bright light shines down briefly on the house from a point in the cloud cover just above it. One character, chosen at random, disappears until just before sunrise. The character who disappears will remember nothing of what happened other than waking up outside of the cabin in the yard. The GM and player may decide what, if anything, happened to the character during the missing two and a half hours or so they were missing.
The door slams shut as a portal wreathed in crackling electricity opens into a dark void. If a character is foolish enough to step through it, they are immediately transported 14 levels down into the Shadowdark and deposited in a 10’ x 10’ cell. The portal then closes after the first character steps through, and the door opens again. This effect occurs at the same time once per day, always opening into a new empty cell.

The jailors are strange, yellow-skinned humanoids with huge eyes and long spindly limbs, the likes of which the characters have never encountered before. The food is okay, and the sanitation is acceptable. The other prisoners recount similar experiences in the same cabin. (The player may wish to roll a new character until a rescue can be attempted.)
As soon as darkness falls, a portal to the mushroom kingdom opens in the middle of the room. It can be traversed at will until sunrise. Once it closes, it will not open again for one month.
After an hour or so in the cabin, a venerable human woman shambles in the door from outside the cabin. Her name is Lorna and it’s her cabin. She makes strange gestures as she approaches the group. She appears to be carrying a basket of strange herbs and roots. Lorna says some things that make no sense to the group, and always seems to know more than she lets on.

Lorna gives off the appearance and smell of being a hag, but she is not. She is incredibly superstitious and dislikes strangers. She is a regular human woman, however. The cabin has been in her family for as long as she can remember. (The GM may wish to bring the group back to this character in later adventures.) She is a skilled apothecary and very knowledgeable about history.
Same as Number 8 above, only Lorna is a Weald Hag. See Shadowdark rulebook for details.
The cabin is haunted by three ghosts. They will begin to torment the group after nightfall and continue until daylight. Their goal is to drive the group from the house or drain them dry.
Just before dark, a young girl comes skipping up to the cabin with a fresh apple pie in the basket she carries under her right arm. She askes if her grandma is home. She has come to spend time with her grandmother.
Ed and Lorna return to the cabin. Ed is carrying a basket containing mushrooms. Lorna is carrying a large bouquet of roses. The couple is extremely pleasant to speak with. They have no intention of harming the group, nor the ability. Ed is mellow and sage beyond his years. Lorna is light-hearted and optimistic.