Prologue: The Nightmare's Bridle
Building Characters
When your players begin building their characters, have each player choose an archetype, motivation, arc, and bond for their character from the lists provided in Character Creation. (If you'd like, you can work with a player to craft a unique and suitable addition to any of these tables.)
Tuning Difficulty
Before you begin the campaign, ask your players what level of difficulty they prefer. This adventure offers three axes of difficulty, which can be tuned independently.
Power Difficulty | Description |
|---|---|
Easy | The players will be significantly stronger than most enemies they're expected to fight and will be able to finish most adventuring days without spending many of their resources |
Normal | The players will be somewhat stronger than most enemies they're expected to fight and will be able to finish most adventuring days without spending most of their resources. |
Hard | The players will be evenly matched with most enemies they're expected to fight and will need to spend most of their resources on most adventuring days. |
Deadly | The players will be somewhat weaker than most enemies they're expected to fight and will risk running out of resources on most adventuring days. |
Nightmare | The players will be significantly weaker than most enemies they're expected to fight and will run out of resources on most adventuring days. |
Strategic Difficulty | Description |
|---|---|
Brute | Enemies fight stupidly and make obvious mistakes. |
Novice | Enemies fight with no particular tactics. |
Journeyman | Enemies take advantage of their capabilities in fair, obvious ways. |
Veteran | Enemies take advantage of their capabilities in abusive, non-obvious ways. |
Tactician | Enemies use the terrain to their advantage (e.g., chokepoints or focus-fire). |
Strategist | Enemies manipulate the battlefield to their advantage (e.g., ambushes, feints, or tactical retreats). |
Mastermind | Enemies target player logistics and capabilities directly (e.g., ammunition, components, or spell slots). |
Lethality Difficulty | Description |
|---|---|
Ruthless | Players die normally. |
Persistent | Each time a player kills a creature, the party gains a number of Souls equal to that creature's Challenge Rating (rounded up). Each time a player dies, they can spend a number of Souls equal to their level. If they do, their body vanishes and they're restored to life with all of their belongings, 1 hit point, and any remaining spell slots at the next dawn or dusk in the last place they finished or began a long rest. |
Forgiving | Each time a player kills a creature, the party gains a number of Souls equal to that creature's Challenge Rating (rounded up). Each time a player dies, they can spend a number of Souls equal to their proficiency bonus. If they do, their body vanishes and they're restored to life with all of their belongings at the next dawn or dusk in the last place they finished or began a long rest. |
Players can't spend Souls unless they've received Madam Eva's investiture empowering them to do so.
Beginning the Campaign
Before the first session, provide each player the following information:
Over the past several weeks, you've had strange, dark dreams. Every night, it's the same.
You stand in clearing amidst a dark, twisted wood, clouds of mist curling about your feet. In your hand rests the relic you bear. Here, it seems alive, shimmering with light. In the underbrush, away from that light, shadows lurk, hungry and waiting.
Across the clearing stands a silhouette, a raven perched atop its shoulder. Its voice echoes strangely through the air, as though calling from far away or underwater. Then, its head twists over its shoulder, the raven shrieks, and the woods vanish—and then you wake up.
Every night, it's the same—until three nights ago.
On that night, for the first time, you could hear the silhouette's words. It said:
What you seek lies beyond the mists, amidst dark woods beneath darker skies. You must travel to the nightmare's bridle at the dagger's ford, on the night before harvest's wake. When the sky splits thrice and the night falls silent, the mists shall guide you to the door. The feather will show you the way.
When you awoke, you found an unfamiliar item upon your pillow: a black raven's feather. That morning, you set off on the road for the city of Daggerford, determined to find what awaited you there.
The Nightmare's Bridle
When the first session begins, read or paraphrase:
It’s the night before Highharvesttide, and a storm has descended over Daggerford, with dark clouds pouring cascades of rain down upon the town below. Despite the weather, however, the town buzzes with anticipation of the impending falltime festival, each home filled with warmth and joy. Bright, cheery candlelight twinkles from every window, and the sounds of song and dance echo throughout the wet and muddy streets.
Amidst the merriment, however, you stand apart. Neither locals nor visitors, you’re vagabonds—travelers, ghosts passing through an unfamiliar town. As laughter rings out from inns and homes, you find yourself somewhere else: the ramshackle Nightmare’s Bridle tavern.
Yet, in light of the forthcoming celebration, every room in this town has been claimed, every hearth filled to bursting—and the Nightmare's Bridle is no different. Nonetheless, upon your inquiry, the tavernkeeper offers you a grudging reprieve from the storm: the hayloft above its stable. It’s nothing to boast about, leaving the biting cold and the lingering scent of musty hay as your only companions. But it’s a roof over your heads nonetheless—a small mercy on a night such as this.
One by one, you find a home amidst the muck and hay. Overhead, rain lashes the stable, thunder punctuating the rhythmic drumming on the roof. Flashes of lightning lance across the skies, casting the stable’s interior in stark lights and darks. Rainwater drips steadily down through a leak in the roof, snaking its way across the floor until it pools in the corner.
Here, then, you find yourselves: huddled in the darkness amongst strangers, while joy and mirth dance just out of reach.
Invite each player to describe their character's appearance and countenance, how they’ve positioned themselves, and how they’ve arranged their belongings.
Arrival of the Mists
When the players have finished introducing themselves, and have had an opportunity to interact to their satisfaction, read or paraphrase:
Three searing bolts of lightning rend the sky outside, illuminating the evening in a blinding flash of stark white. The booming thunder that follows is so loud it shakes the very ground beneath you, causing the timbers of the stable to creak and groan. And in its wake—the night falls silent.
No rain pelts the roof above; no wind howls through the skies. The merry sounds of Daggerford's distant festivities are now but a memory, leaving naught but the chill autumn air behind.
The horses in the stable beneath stir uneasily, their whinnies echoing loudly in the stillness. For the light of the strikes lingers unnaturally, silhouetting small wisps of fog that twist through the air. A thick, ankle-deep mist gathers outside, shrouding the earth in a ghostly veil. Its tendrils curl invitingly, as though beckoning you to the darkness beyond.
One by one, each player's relic reacts as follows, in the following order:
The Stone Crest. The crest emits a low hum and smells of pine needles and earthy soil.
The Broken Blade. The blade emits a high-pitched hum and begins to tremble violently, spinning like a compass needle before locking in place toward a point across the street.
The Dragon's Scale. The scale burns icy cold and pulses with a bright, silver light.
The Sunrise Medallion. The medallion thrums with a warm, golden glow.
The Amber Shard. The shard glows with amber light and tugs its cord toward a point across the street.
The Wolf's Tooth. The tooth lengthens, glowing with silver moonlight.
The Silver Locket. The locket's surface glimmers with burnished silver light, a faint and distant silhouette appearing upon its surface.
The Tattered Banner. The sound of distant war-drums fills the air, and the banner blows in an unseen wind toward a point across the street.
The Angel's Feather. The feather rustles in an unseen wind, its barbs glimmering with golden light.
The Wanderer's Scarf. The scarf rustles in an unseen wind, its patterns shifting and turning in iridescent patterns.
The Electrum Coin. The coin lands on its edge and begins rolling across the muddy cobblestones toward a point across the street. (Unless stopped, the coin lands at the bottom of the stairs ascending to Death House.)
Ascending to Death House
If the players exit the stable, read or paraphrase:
You emerge from the hayloft into the swirling mists beyond, the stones of Daggerford's streets slick and gleaming beneath your feet.
The fog swallows the town around you, buildings reduced to looming, distant shadows. But across the street waits a tall, eerie silhouette that towers in the gloom before you.
Where once sat a row of townhouses and shops, a stair-stepped hill now climbs through the fog. Atop it stands a grand manor: four stories of cold, soot-stained stone, tall narrow windows, and high peaked roofs forming a picture of austere, chilling grandeur.
This is Death House. The effects of the players' relics grow stronger as they approach the house's front door.
If the players climb the stairs, read or paraphrase the following once they reach the top:
At the top of the hill, you're met by the centerpiece of this imposing facade: a stone arch standing sentinel before the house's oaken doors. A wrought-iron gate fills this arch, its rusty hinges creaking as it sways in the wind.
On either side of the gate, oil lamps hang from chains, their light dim and flickering, casting a sickly glow that barely pierces the surrounding fog.
Beyond the gate, a set of sturdy oaken doors stand closed, framed by the gate and the lamps. The doors are old and weathered, their wood darkened by time.
With a low, agonized groan, they creak open to bear you inside.
If the players enter the doors, proceed to Arc A: Escape From Death House.