Returning to Room 3 and taking the left-hand path leads to another long tunnel.
On their way through the passageway, the party encounters 2 large cave bears.
They are a mated pair returning from an unsuccessful hunt. They are agitated and hungry.
There is a nearby cave on the left with its stash of treasure (Vx2).
Growing up the shows I really loved (in addition to Doctor Who and Star Trek) were the various horror anthologies that came and went during the 80s, 90s, and before. "The Twilight Zone (all versions)" was chief among these, but so were shows like "Night Gallery," "Monsters," "The Outer Limits (both versions)," "Amazing Stories," and two of my favorites, "Tales from the Crypt" and "Tales from the Darkside." It was "Tales from the Darkside" that influenced me the most. I wanted my games (at the time largely AD&D) to be more horror-like. Even in sci-fi, I could not help but notice how many of the elements in The Outer Limits would also appear in Star Trek, or more to the point the other way around since I watched Star Trek first.
In the end, I got my wish. NIGHT SHIFT is the perfect distillation of both Horror and old-school adventure rules. A rule system I have been doing in one form or another along with a horror-filled background that is perfect to model the horror and dark sci-fi I grew up loving.
The only thing missing is the anthologies.
I spent my weekend (like every weekend in late spring early summer) out in the garden helping my wife. I was doing some weeding and thought I needed to do a set of themed adventures I could publish. They are unrelated to each other, but all have a common thread of horror.
Then I realized something. I had already started this.
I have written a lot of adventures for many different games. All of them (for the most part) have a horror feel to them.
So to get the ideas rolling for Tales from the Other Side, I figure I will talk about the adventures I have already done and how they can be used with NIGHT SHIFT. I am just going to focus on ones that are readily available. I am looking back at some of my old docs and seeing which ones I own outright and can re-do and which ones never saw the light of day.
This adventure was a prequel adventure to what was called "The Djinn Arc" that never got going. It's purpose was to introduce new players to the game, and it featured the original cast of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." It focused on Willow and Tara as the reincarnations of Bohdmal and Liath (respectively) as the foster mothers of the great Irish hero Fionn MacCumhail (Finn McCool). It features the return of an ancient evil and two new kinds of vampires. The biggest issue with it is that it is an introductory adventure for what should be a "season" of related adventures, not an anthology.
So much of my writing from that time is baked into the DNA of NIGHT SHIFT that converting the game's tone is minimal at worst.
Mechanics changes:
This adventure gives some argument of while the stories are anthologies, the characters remain the same throughout.
This adventure has been successfully converted to NIGHT SHIFT many times. Since it uses Labyrinth Lord rules, conversion is trivial. I ran this both at Gary Con 2021 and Gen Con 2021 as a NIGHT SHIFT adventure where I changed the name to Willow Crest Manor. Both manors are based on a real-life place from my old hometown known as Maplecrest.
The biggest change here is to update when and where you put it. Personally, any small town will do. It just needs to have about 100 years worth of history. Dark woods are good too, so somewhere above the 40ยบ North Latitude line is good in my mind. When I did it for Gary Con I set it near Rockford, IL.
I do adore Blue Rose, I love the optimism and the feel of the game. So of course I bring horror to it. I must be damaged. This adventure requires that you find and rescue five psychic children. Trouble is there is a monster that wants to eat them (thinking they will make it more powerful) and a demon lord of storms that thinks they are his children. In Blue Rose this is all set in the town of Garnet, but in my running of this using NIGHT SHIFT, I set it in Alton, IL. It features another member of the unpleasant Meacham family and my homage to the Piasa Bird.
For changes, there is the tone and location. Use the demon stats from NIGHT SHIFT and one of the many versions of the Piasa Bird I have posted here.
My most recent adventure is horror through and through. A night hag, or in this case a dab tsog, has been attacking members of the local Hmong community. There is also a Will-o-the-Wisp feeding off of the dying energies. Tone wise this is perfect for NIGHT SHIFT.
Chill's skill checks are little different than that of NIGHT SHIFT, but as a rule of thumb, and roll pf +1 above what a character makes in NIGHT SHIFT is 5%. The Nightmare, in addition to being written for Chill, is fairly self-explanatory and can be used as is with a variety of systems.
For the Will-o-the-Wisp you can use my stats for them here. For the Night Hag you can use the hags in the core rules of NIGHT SHIFT.
The next two are total cheats since I did not write them but I did do the D&D 5e conversions for them.
This adventure is a conversion of the Labyrinth Lord adventure created by Peter C. Spahn. The horror elements here are light, but as St. Aleena is the patron Saint of adventurers she is still a good choice. The characters come here and then the horror ensues. There is still an evil cult and still unnamable evil spawn here.
The Shrine of St. Aleena has thematic connections with my own Dark Druid, or at least, it did when I ran it for my group here.
To update this adventure change it over to some modern location, I would say on the outskirts of some town, but it has to be old. So East of the Mississippi River. Otherwise you are good to go.
This is even a bigger cheat than the Shrine of St. Aleena above. But it is solid horror. Death's Ride is an old-school TSR adventure for Basic (Companion) D&D for characters 15th level and above. It has all sort of nasty things going on and really tough monsters.
My D&D 5e conversion scales them down a bit (but not much). It fits with the whole "weird shit going on in far off places" horror. I mean in this respect it is not much different than "The Children of the Corn."
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Almost enough for a mini-campaign.
I'll have to work on some more and see what I have that I can resurrect.
Hopefully there will be more Tales from the Other Side.
A hidden alcove on the far right of this room has another visitor looking for food, though the food only just walked in.
A large Ochre Jelly moves towards the party. This one has been feeding a lot lately and has 7 HD.
The jelly has no treasure.
Nice new mail call. Especially when it is a book I worked on. I have to admit this never, ever gets old to me.
My "The Nightmare" and a great one, "Medieval Mysteries" from Scott George set in a medieval monastery.
Yeah, I am pretty happy with this, to be honest.
You can get all the Fright Night Classics Adventures on DriveThruRPG.
A secret room in the back of the Thoul hole leads to a larder, but this is no Troll or Thoul hole.
This is no larder of a troll or thoul. This is the storeroom of the Shadow Elves. There is food and water enough for five for a week here.
There is no treasure or weapons, but the characters gain 100 xp for finding this room.
No new monster today because I am working on the final bits of my new Monster Mash II: A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Monster Mash II: A Midsummer Night's Dream
More Monster Classes for Basic-era Games
For years brave adventures have been going into the dangerous wilderness and fighting monsters.
Now the monsters are fighting back.
Monster Mash II is an Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy compatible game that allows you to take on the role, not of a stalwart hero, but as one of the monsters.
This book features 12 faerie and sylvan-based classes.
Bugbears, Centaurs, Hamadryads, Leprechauns, Nymphs, Pixies, Pรบcas, Satyrs, Werebears, Werefoxes, Woodwoses, and the Faerie Witch.
New spells for Clerics, Druids, Illusionists, and Magic-users.
New spells, occult powers, and ritual spells for Faerie Witches.
All are completely compatible with Basic-era OSR games and my previous witch books.
Coming this Midsummer!
Going back and taking the central tunnel goes on for a long time (100') it leads to another room that appears to be another troll hole. Though in this room are not trolls, but Thouls.
These thouls (4 in total) are distantly related to the trolls in Room 5. They are not sure how, but they know there is a kinship there, so they do not attack each other.
They can cause paralysis (like ghouls) and regenerate like trolls.
There is Treasure Type C x5 here. The thouls have been very successful here.
Note: The shadow elves are immune to the thoul paralysis.
