100 Creepy Things and Events to Find in a Spooky House

Continuing my Haunted House theme, Azukail Games very kindly has given me a copy of 100 Creepy Things and Events to Find in a Spooky House.

Before I start I will say that Azukail Games is a friend of this blog and they gave this copy to me for free. I have the PDF version and the presentation is very clean and attractive. The lay out is very simple. After the introductory preamble you have a table with the descriptions of literally 100 things you could find in a haunted house. The haunted house genre does really lend itself to the 18th Century to present day and a few of the items and events reflect that. Before the 18th century you are into a fighting the undead type of scenario because the basic premise of the haunted house is that the victims do not believe the protagonist exists and are looking for a mundane explanation. In a fantasy setting show the party a ghost and they break out the holy water and silver weapons.

My ‘need’ was for the fantasy style haunted house and looking at this resource through those eyes I can easily see how useful it is. As the title says there are 100 things here so that lends itself to roll a d100 and pick an item or event. I think that sells it short though. I have read though this a page at a time, just taking random pages and I could build entire adventures around a page in this booklet. I dont’ want to give example away but there is one quoted on the RPGNow website…

Door – As a player passes a door, it slowly opens, revealing the room beyond. When the room is entered, nothing is in it. If the door is closed after it opens, as the player leaves it behind, it gradually opens again behind them. The room behind it is still empty.

Now is that a ghostly event or is it a mechanical pressure pad or a spell caster trying to keep an eye on the party (Telekinesis I would be sufficient to open and close a door, infact the Essence Hand list in conjuntion with Essence Perceptions and Invisibly Ways would give a spell caster everything they needed to haunt a house!).

There are 100 (obviously) ideas in here that you could drop into a game as a throw away ‘special effect’ or there are 100 potential adventure hooks.

In preparation for my haunted house adventure I will definitely be using some of these ideas.

The booklet costs $1.99 which is pocket money for American gamers but after the idiotic Brexit vote is probably about £16Million here in the UK (or £1.53 depending on your point of view). I do definitely recommend this if like me you just want an input of ideas, some of them classics, some cliches and some twists you may not think of.