The Lost Lady

Background: This side adventure can take place at any party level, in any region or location where the road passes through a wooded rural area. The first event occurs as the party are making their way down a road on any regular day of travel.

Note that these encounter descriptions will be a bit vague and may have multiple stats depending on which edition you are using. Use only those stats that apply, and ignore those that don’t.

GM Note: Trecia is not alive. She’s a ghost who doesn’t realize that she had died. The only way she can be put to rest is if she is confronted with indisputable proof that she had died with her husband. She will not accompany the party to the farm, nor anywhere past this immediate area. She has a habit of disappearing suddenly when no one is paying attention, and reappearing out of the woods begging for help the next day. Until she is at peace, she will show up on the road every day, asking why the party isn’t continuing to help.

1: Help!As the party enters this area, a beautiful human woman in her

30s will stumble out of the woods to their left, begging them to help her. Her clothing is worn and somewhat dirty, but in decent shape. She is very distraught, and will try to get the PCs to follow her into the woods immediately. If an attempt to calm her (medium difficulty CHA check) is made and she is questioned, she will say that (x from table) ambushed her and her husband as they were visiting their nephew at his farm just up ahead. She begs them to hurry and help her find her husband, who was dragged into the woods.

2: Helfer’s FarmThis is the farm/inn of Helfer, a man in his late 50s. He is friendly,

and has three bedrooms for rent at the inn. Inhabit the inn with any visitors as you wish, but it should not be too full. Mostly from local farmers.

If asked about Trecia, he and anyone in the inn will become very somber and quiet, and try to avoid any further conversation with the party. If pressed, they will admit that Trecia is his aunt, but she disappeared decades ago.

3: Haunted ShackEveryone avoids this shack, as they view it as haunted. They

aren’t really wrong. It appears as a long abandon building falling apart, but the door does still function, albeit sticking. An aura of doom and death emanate from the shack. Anyone nearing the shack must make a hard difficulty WIS check or be too afraid to enter.

If Trecia is with the party, she will hang back and not enter. As soon as a PC has entered the shack and no one is looking at her directly, she will scream and the PCs will see a blur of a shadow as if some creature flew out of the woods, taking her. There will be no tracks, as the entire thing is part of her ghostly illusion.

Investigation of the shack will reveal many humanoid bones lying strewn about. Dark bloodstains mar the wooden and rotted floor. One set of bones, a man, grasps a golden locket in his hands under his tattered remains of clothing. If opened, the locket will reveal two pictures: one of a handsome young man, and the other of Trecia.

If confronted with this locket, Trecia will at first accuse the party of stealing it. Only a moderate CHA check will convince her that her husband is dead. But that will not set her at rest. Her body is not found, so she thinks she is still alive, and will demand the party take vengeance with her as she hunts the killer.

In addition to the body and locket, there is another body of a dwarf. He is dressed in miner’s clothes, and looks to have been dead for decades; thick cobwebs cover his body. In his bony hand is a rusted pick and a leather journal. The pages are in dwarven, and describe entries of him looking for the mother lode in the hills to the northeast.

4: The LairA stench hits the party long before they actually get to the area

marked #4 on the map. This area is the lair of the creature(s) as described by the table below. A small cave under a huge tree is home to the creature(s). Once defeated, if the cave is searched they party will find among the various bones another female corpse with a matching locket to the one in the shack. When confronted with this, Trecia will be nearly overcome with grief. As the realization hits that she is dead too, she will begin to fade. Upon completion of this mission, each PC will be awarded 100xp per PC level.

Creature List

Character Level Creature Encountered1 1d6+1 old goblins

2-3 1d6+1 ghouls4-6 wraith7-9 3 ogres or 2 hill giants

10-12 horned devil13-15 vampire17-20 lich

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