Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
Today we continue the Halloween Mini-series.
Like last time, we’ll be looking at a non-human villain. But unlike Cujo, this isn’t even a living thing. This is the Amityville House AKA High Hopes!
Amityville House
The Amityville House is a haunted house, but not so much in the normal sense that it’s occupied by ghosts or haunted by demons. Oh no, the Amityville House is ITSELF the source of all the evil that happens in and around it.
It is capable of casting summoning, enchantment, and illusion spells as a 10th level wizard, strongly preferring spells that involve fear and madness. It doesn’t want to directly KILL its occupants, at least not right away, but it needs to feed off the psychic energy of those driven mad inside it.
Goals
The House is looking for something, though it is unable to communicate what it’s looking for. It is trying to resurrect the body and soul of its first inhabitant, a man named Jeremiah Ketcham. Ketcham was a reverend, one infamous for his methods of torture and interrogation of “witches” in the area. Unknown to the public, he was in fact the source of these evil magics and was using the poor girls and women as his cover. His goals were unknown at the time, and still are, so it’s possible that he simply did it out of cruelty.
The House is even worse in many ways. It drives the inhabitants insane and eventually kills them. Absorbing their souls, and trying to use these to fuel a ritual in the basement for resurrecting Ketcham. Each inhabitant is only strong enough to complete a small part of the ritual, and the House knows this, using and replacing them as quickly as possible. At least 20 people have died in this manner, and the House is getting stronger – though no one knows how many are needed to restore Ketcham.
Methods and Means
The House is unable to move or attack directly, having to rely on its spells to affect anyone and anything on the grounds. It has, however, managed to gain enough power that any summoned creatures now stay until killed or dismissed, without having to worry about spells expiring – though it can only control them through the use of more spells – and it does not gain power from destroying them. As a consequence, it doesn’t normally keep these creatures around, unless it discovers that an inhabitant has a particular phobia.
When it has killed inhabitants, it makes sure to not kill them all. It needs more victims and therefore some of them have to survive. That means that any victims that it has are usually killed in ways that look like accidents, no matter how unlikely these seem.
So how to use it in-game?
Well, in Pathfinder 2 terminology, you need illusions, you need demons or devils, and you need haunts and traps. You need to play on the paranoia of anyone visiting. Let doors suddenly lock themselves. Let rooms seemingly move around (see illusion spells above. 😛 ). Let them hear noises and see things – and make sure only one person at a time sees them. And then, when they feel that they’re beginning to get the hang of it – strike at the one who DIDN’T see anything and who you have yet to manipulate. This will increase the fear levels in the others, because “I thought X was the safe one!” In short, use all the means you’ve seen in horror films, in horror books, and twist them to your advantage.
Next week, we look at a slightly more human villain. See you then, and don’t forget to check if that door really IS locked.
Kim Frandsen
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