Authors Note: Welcome to “There’s an Adventure in That!” Many times I have listened to a song or watched a scene in a movie and cried out, “there’s an adventure in that!” And I’m willing to bet that some of you have as well. Each installment of this column will strive to give you an adventure hook that you can take, and, with a little bit of expansion and work, use it to fill an adventure session. In addition to the adventure hook, I’ll also give you my thoughts on which game system would best work for this particular adventure. To make your GMing even easier, I’ll provide you with some stat blocks to use for the scene.
Please note that while the inspiration for this particular song comes from a very violent and politically/religiously charged time in Ireland’s modern history, nothing in this article is representative of my, or d20 Radio’s political or religious views. I simply enjoy the song and thought it would make for a good adventure. Thank you.
In 2006, The Decemberists released their album The Crane Wife. This album featured a track titled The Shankhill Butchers, in which they told a micro version of the reign of terror that the eponymous group held over the town of Belfast in the 70s. The group was responsible for at least 23 deaths while they were active, and were most notorious for kidnapping and violently murdering Irish Catholics off of the street. I was first introduced to the track through folk artist Sarah Jarosz who released her version of the song on her 2009 album, Song Up In Her Head. I won’t go into any further details about the gang or their activity, because while it’s a fascinating look at escalating paramilitary violence and brutality in a country that was already so hardened to it, it is also truly horrid. I will let you conduct your own further research into the topic through the link above should you so choose.
I recently rediscovered the song the other night, and my wheels started to turn. I came up with a dark fantasy adventure idea that could be run from the content of the song. So without further ado –
As the PCs are heading to their next location, they pass through a good sized village as night is falling. They enter, only to find everything closed down tight. They are barely able to get someone to answer them at the inn to get a room. When they get inside, they are told of the story of the Shankhill Butchers, a gang that has taken up residence in Fort Shankhill a half day’s ride from the village. For the past few weeks they have been terrorizing the village, kidnapping over a dozen people and hauling them back to their base of operations, injuring or killing several more who have tried to fight back against them. The bodies of the victims always turn back up outside the village several days later, badly beaten and their throats split almost to the spine. There is no rhyme or reason to the timing of their attacks – beyond happening at night – or to the selection of their victims. If you are unlucky enough to be caught outside when they come into town, you are in danger of being taken. To make matters worse, the dozen or so gang members are all local boys. No one has been able to explain what caused them to suddenly turn violent and murderous. They simply rode out of town one day. The attacks started happening about a week later.
In reality an otherworldly creature has taken up residence in the old fort, and is using the boys to bring it a steady supply of victims so it can take their life essence in an effort to reenter the physical realm. It entered the boys’ thoughts through their dreams and called them to the fort where it was able to more directly exert its will over them and control them, turning them into its servants and puppets.
During the night, the Butchers ride into town. In the ensuing chaos, they drag off the daughter of the village mayor, killing several people who tried to defend her. But one of the Butchers was subdued while the rest rode off, and is being held in the jail. The longer he is away from the fort, the more the creature’s hold over his mind lessens, and the whole story comes out pretty quickly. You can also use this as an opportunity to introduce a scene where the PCs must mediate an argument between the villagers. Some want to hang the young man for his involvement in the attacks on the village. There is another, smaller group that believe that his actions were not his own, and that he should be absolved. Whatever the outcome or the PCs involvement in the argument, the villagers plead with the PCs to go to the fort to try to rescue the young girl and destroy this creature that seems bent on destroying their village.
This presents the PCs with an interesting situation should they choose to go after the Butchers. They can safely guess that whatever is controlling the boys will use them to defend itself. This puts the PCs in a difficult decision of defending themselves with lethal force or attempting to subdue the boys without killing them and putting themselves at greater risk in the process. The creature also has numerous other defenses in the keep – summoned spirits, wild beasts it has drawn to the area, and any number of other things that you can think up and justify. Finally, the creature has an acolyte that has been serving as its intermediary while it is still incorporeal, leading and conducting the ritual murders. This acolyte will also serve as the creature’s mortal vessel once it has taken enough life essence through the murders. Impress on the PCs the importance of time in making their way through the Fort, but the climax of the adventure should be the PCs facing off against the creature’s final minions while the acolyte conducts the ritual, with the life of the village mayor’s daughter hanging in the balance. Pull no punches, and force the PCs to make some hard decisions in this fight in order to save the girl and prevent the creature from entering reality. Destroying the altar will break the creature’s power and prevent it from entering the physical realm from this location, staving it off for now. But the PCs will have earned the ire of a powerful enemy by doing so – one that may come back to haunt them…
Next week I will go over my recommendations for what system I feel would best handle this adventure and provide you some game statistics that you can use to jump start your adventure planning, as well as a few possible ways to adapt it to other genres should you so choose, so be sure to check back for more.
Ben Erickson
