FEAST OR FAMINE

Feast or Famine
Hunger Breeds Hunger
Written by: Jonathan McAnulty
Feast or Famine is a short adventure for a party of four 3rd level PCs. Any
race or class is suitable for the adventure, although an elf or a cleric in the
party would be good as ghouls are the primary foe. Having a character
capable of tracking would also be helpful, but it is not completely necessary.
The adventure may be placed in any wooded area of any campaign world.
Adventure Overview
The PCs enter the village of Lavender
Springs only to hear tales of
cannibalism, disappearing corpses and
dangerous woods. Investigation reveals
that there are indeed ghouls in the
woods north of the village. Nightfall
brings the PCs to the home of Silyna, the
source of the evil. Feigning innocence,
Silyna offers hospitality only to attempt
an assassination of the PCs while they
are asleep. If killed Silyna rises as a
ghoul herself.

Background
Lavender Springs is a secluded forest
village (AL CG; 200 gp limit; Pop. 732)
with a growing problem. One month
ago, a young man, Denjin by name, was

captured and killed after he was found

eating the body of one of the villagers.
Denjins body was left to hang
overnight, but come morning it was
gone. Since that time a growing number
of people have been disappearing.
Local hunters have found blooddrenched scraps of clothing and animal
skins but never any bodies.
The
villagers are afraid that ghouls now
haunt the forest.
The
people
of
Lavender
Springs
have
grown
increasingly frightened of entering the
forest, and this has threatened their
livelihood. The people of this village
live off of hunting and gathering the
wild fruits and nuts of the forests, and
harvesting the wild grains in a large
clearing south of the village on the other
side of the wood.

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For the GM

FEAST OR FAMINE
Beginning the Adventure

It is left to the DM to
Approximately three miles
determine
why the PCs are in
north of Lavender Springs a
Lavender Springs. Whatever the
sorceress named Silyna is engaged in
reason, they are drawn into the
a bizarre plot to achieve immortality.
adventure as soon as they enter the
Knowing she lacks the power to
village. Amazed that someone made
achieve full lichdom, Silyna has
it through the woods alive to reach
decided to become a powerful ghoul
their isolated town, the PCs will be
instead. She has long studied the
overwhelmed by curious
matter and through a
Adventure Area
townsfolk.
They do not
combination of potent
potions and dark pacts she The details of the know that the portion of the
is well on her way to location and layout of woods the PCs came
achieving success. One of Lavender Springs are through is relatively safe
left to the DM in order
(see Adventure Area).
the requirements put upon to fit his campaign.
Drawn by the crowd and
her by the various dark
recognizing the PCs as
entities she has bargained Lavender
Springs
should
be
possible adventurers, the
with is that she actively itself
a
surrounded
by
mayor,
Girkin
Rothfell
engages in cannibalism.
forest, but be closer to
Human
Exp4
This Silyna willingly did the edge the PCs are (Male
and encouraged her son traveling from, and (Blacksmith)) will introduce
Denjin to do likewise. He thicker through the himself. He and his people
moved
to
Lavender other side to Silynas are growing desperate. The
total number of dead and
Springs at her behest to cottage.
missing has risen to fortyhelp recruit followers who
five. Many, including the mayor, are
she could lead in worship of these
beginning to believe that the area is
dark entities and rule area.
cursed. The PCs are offered 150 gold
Silynas plans recently came
pieces each if they will end the
to a head when Denjin foolishly
menace. It is a sizable sum by the
murdered a man in the middle of the
standards of the small village.
village and was caught. It was
The villagers can offer little in the
Silyna who cut down Denjin in the
way of clues. They can relate the tale
dead of night. To Silynas delight,
of Denjins execution, which they
Denjin had already risen as a ghoul,
rightly associate with the present
retaining a good portion of his
problem, but all they know about
human memory in the process.
him was that he came to the town
Hand in claw, the two returned
several months ago, built a hut on
home and the nightmare began for
the edge of town and kept to himself,
the people of Lavender Springs.
fashioning simple leather goods for a
living. A few villagers can tell the
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FEAST OR FAMINE
PCs that Denjin seemed too big for
his britches and often began
conversations
bordering
on
blasphemy; questioning the role of
the gods in the lives of these people.
Denjins hut was razed after his body
disappeared
and
the
other
disappearances soon started.
Questioning the families of those
who disappeared, the party should
be able to discover that most of the
disappearances happened early in
the morning or later in the evening,
and in the portion of the woods
north and west of the village.
They can also tell the PCs that
many animals have also been found
dead, that the woods have been
generally free of monsters and that a
witch lives by herself somewhere
north of the village beyond the
woods. They do not know her name
and only know she rarely comes to
the village to trade and began to
appear a little over a year ago.
None of the villagers have ever
connected Denjin with his mother
Silyna, as the two of them were
never seen speaking together.

Encounters in the Woods

The ghouls now haunting the
forest have killed or driven off many
of the local animals and the PCs will
soon find the forest unnaturally
quiet. Characters with wilderness
skills will be especially unnerved.
The GM may play this part of the
adventure as fast or as slow as seems
right, though some time should be
spent building suspense. Encounters

in the forest may include the

following:
(EL 0) The corpse of a bear,
most of which has been eaten.
Flies buzz around the few
bones and scraps of fur that
remain. The bear has been
dead a few days.
(EL 0) Noisy black crows take
off into the air just east of the
party, breaking the stillness.
Investigation will turn up
nothing.
(EL 0) Scraps of bloody
clothing are found, as is a
gold ring (10 gp).
(EL 0) A bloody boot is
wedged into some rocks. A
human foot is still in the boot.
(EL 1) A mutilated body of a
rabbit is spotted, just recently
killed. Boot prints lead away
from the corpse. A ghoul lies
waiting in ambush.
(EL 3) The party sees a pack of
3 ghouls feasting on the
corpse of a man in a ravine.
As soon as the ghouls spot or
hear the party, they scatter
and attempt to flank the PCs.
The DM may create other
encounters of a like nature if is
seems appropriate. Eventually the
PCs spot a cottage through the trees,
just over the next hill. Ideally night
is closing in even as a heavy and
cold rain begins to fall.

The House of Ghouls

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FEAST OR FAMINE
The cottage belongs to Silyna. Silyna
is a middle-aged woman with a
pleasant round face, graying hair
and bright blue eyes. She greets the
PCs cordially at the door and urges
them to come in out of the rain. She
mentions that there have been
strange sounds lately and that the
forest does not seem safe anymore.
Likewise she offers them food and
shelter for the night. Her house is
cozy and warm, but filled with
strange and pungent odors. Many
herbs hang on the walls of each
room and the PCs may decide that
they are the source of the smells.
If
questioned
about
the
disappearances and ghouls she will
say the following:
She has seen and heard
figures wandering around
outside at night, but keep her
door tightly bolted. Once or
twice they banged at her door,
but obviously no one came in.
When she searches for herbs
in the early morning she has
never been attacked or seen
ghouls, but she has seen dead
animals.
She says she knows about a
Black Tree Stump in the
woods that she gets creepy
feelings from and that may be
the source of the evil. She
promises to shoe the party the
place in the morning. (This is
a lie. There is no stump.)
(If questioned about the
portrait in her bedroom): She

explains that is her son, who

is a ranger and stops by every
few weeks, she has not seen
him in at least three weeks,
but he spends a great deal of
time in the wilderness.

The rooms of the cottage are as

follows.
C1 - Entry-hall and stairway.
The wooden floor boards of the this
hall are worn and warped. Simple
wooden doors flank to the left and
right, while a wooden stairway leads
up to the upper floor. Beneath where
the stairway turns a beaded curtain
creates a small storage closet.
The small closet under the stairs is
filled with boxes, brooms, buckets
and the like. The stairs lead up to
the guest room. The doors to the
rooms are thin and have no locks
and can be closed from the inside
with simple wooden slide bolts.
C2 - Kitchen.
Pans, knives and spices hang from
the walls. A fire is burning in the
fireplace. The table can seat six. The
floor is covered in a layer of
sawdust, and the several sausage
strings hang from the ceiling by the
pot-bellied stove. The smell of herbs
and incense that fills the rest of the
house are almost overwhelming
here.
Many of the spices on the wall rack
deadly poison, but only someone

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FEAST OR FAMINE
with knowledge of plants will be
able to recognize this (DC 19). They
are mixed in with the normal spices,
so grabbing a random bottle of
spices has a 1 in 8 chance of grabbing
a poisonous one. Silyna knows the
contents of each very well. There are
32 different bottles of poison/spices
and the GM should choose poisons
he feels are appropriate to his
setting.
C3 - Bedroom.
This is obviously a bedroom. A
broad bed stands in one corner, with
a small chest at its foot, and a chest
of drawers in the other corner beside
it. There is a low bookshelf in the
corner opposite the door, with
various knick-knacks atop of it, and
a throw rug on the floor beside the
bed. There is a portrait of a young
man with dark hair and green eyes
above the chest of drawers
The portrait is of Denjin. If
any of the PC got a description of the
young man that was hung, they can
make an Intelligence check (DC 18)
to be fairly certain that that is who
the portrait shows. The painting is
not well done, but could garner as
much as 5 gps for a collector of rural
art.
The bookshelf only has six
books. They are:
One is an illustrated guide on
local plants and herbs (worth
60 gps).
One
is
a
book
on
mummification (worth 90
gps).

There is a four book set on the

worship of Wee Jas (or other
god appropriate to your
setting), going into a great
amount of detail on undead
and necromancy in general
(worth 400 gps as a set, or 80
gps each if sold separately).

The knick-knacks are local crafts and

statuettes of animal forms. They are
all made of wood or stone and can
be valued between 1 and 9 sps each.
Beneath the throw rug is the trap
door to the cellar.
C4 - Guestroom.
The odors of the house are less
obnoxious in this room. There are
four beds squeezed in here and a
throw rug in the middle of the floor.
This is where Silyna will put the PCs
up for the night. (see An Attempt at
Murder below).
C5 - Cellar.
The stairs creak loudly as you
descend, and the strange underlying
smell of the rest of the house
becomes distilled here to be none
other than the well-known smell of
death. The floor is made of packed
dirt and the walls are stones of
various shapes and sizes fitted
together. The place is scattered with
human arms, legs and heads. In one
corner, a young man sits chained to
the wall, sobbing. His leg seems to
have been removed at the knee.

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FEAST OR FAMINE
This room is the real source of the
odors in the house above. Body
parts of no less than 20 people (plus
an assortment of animals) provide a
larder of sorts for Silyna and her
ghouls. If not already encountered
elsewhere, Denjin and two other
ghouls will be met in this room.
The young man is Thomas
Grodman. A young shepherd from
Lavender Springs, he was the last to
disappear. There is a tourniquet
applied at his knee to keep him from
bleeding out. He is in shock and a
lot of pain and is basically
incoherent. He is being kept alive to
provide fresh meat for the ghouls
until more people are captured.
An attempt at Murder (EL 6)
Silyna has a simple plan for
dealing with visitors.
She feeds
them drugged food causing them to
become drowsy and eventually fall
into a deep sleep. PCs who eat any
of Silynas food must make a
Fortitude Save (DC 14) to avoid
falling soundly asleep for 1d8 hours.
Those who make their save
are unlikely to notice anything, since
it will be late and the party should be
tired anyway.
Those who fail
become increasingly drowsy and
then fall asleep, so there is no
immediate
descent
into
unconsciousness to raise suspicions.
While the PCs are asleep in
their beds, Silyna, Denjin and the
other two ghouls in the house enter
the guestroom with murder in mind.

They enter after the PCs have been

asleep for 2 hours.
Anyone who is asleep and not
effected by the poison may make a
Listen check (DC 20) to hear Silyna
and the ghouls coming up the
creaking steps, and another check
(DC 18) to hear the door creaking
open. Anyone who is fully awake
need only make a check against DC
10, and automatically hears the door
creak open.
In combat Silyna makes great
use of invisibility, attacking only to
disappear again. Denjin and the
other ghouls are less subtle in their
method of attack. Silyna fights to the
death, but the ghouls attempt to flee
if they feel they are losing the battle.
Note: This can be an
extremely deadly encounter for the
PCs. If they all failed their saves,
they can be killed outright, unless
someone is affected by the poison for
only two hours or less. And unless
they set a guard, they will not be
armor or have weapons ready
(unless they specifically make
precautions for this).
She Only Lives Twice
It is likely that the PCs will
kill Silyna, possibly as she is
attempting to assassinate them in
their sleep. If nothing is done to
destroy or purify her body, Silyna
will rise as a ghoul with sorcerous
powers in the space of twelve hours.
If the PCs are still around, she hunts

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FEAST OR FAMINE
them down. As her ultimate goal is
to live forever, if she feels the PCs
are too powerful for her, she flees
and bides her time while creating an
army of ghouls loyal to her. If this
happens, it is entirely possible that
the village of Lavender Springs is
doomed.

devoured by a ghoul will become

ghouls in 1d4 days.
SQ Undead: Ghouls are
immune to mind-influencing affects,
poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning,
disease,
critical
hits,
subdual
damage, ability damage, energy
drain and death due to massive
damage.

Silyna, Denjin and the Ghouls

The potions and pacts that
Silyna has ingested and made make
it possible for both her and Denjin to
become ghouls while retaining their
human abilities. Both also have the
ability to command ghouls that they
have created.
The ghouls encountered, excepting
Denjin and Silyna are all standard
creatures.
Ghoul: CR 1; Medium-sized undead;
HD 2d12; hp 13; Init +2; Spd 30 ft.;
AC
14;
Atk
+3
melee
(1d6+1+paralysis bite), +0 melee
(1d3+1+Paralysis
clawsx2);
SA
paralysis, create spawn; SQ undead,
+2 turn resistance; AL CE; SV Fort
+0, Ref +2, Will +5; Str 13, Dex 15,
Con -, Int 13, Wis 14, Cha 16.
Skills: Climb +6, Escape Artist
+7, Hide +7, Intuit Direction +3,
Jump +6, Listen +7, Move Silently
+7, Search +6, Spot +7.
Feats:
Multiattack, Weapon Finesse (bite).
SA Paralysis: Those hit by a
ghoul must succeed at a Fort Save
(DC 14) or be paralyzed for 1d6+2
minutes. Elves are immune. Create
Spawn: Victims killed but not

Denjin in life was a 3rd level

warrior. As a ghoul his statistics are
as follows:
Denjin Ghoul War3: CR 3; Mediumsized Undead; HD 3d12; hp 32; Init
+3; Spd 30 ft.; AC 17; Atk +6 melee
(1d6+3+paralysis bite), +3 melee
(1d3+3+paralysis
clawsx2);
SA
paralysis, create spawn; SQ ghoul
friendship,
undead,
+2
turn
resistance; AL CE; SV Fort +3, Ref
+4, Will +6; Str 16, Dex 16, Con -, Int
11, Wis 14, Cha 18.
Skills: Climb +12, Escape artist
+7, Hide +7, Intuit Direction +3,
Jump +6, Intimidate +4, Listen +7,
Search +6, Spot +7, Swim +2. Feats:
Multiattack, Power Attack, Run,
Track, Weapon Finesse (bite).
SQ ghoul friendship: Any
ghoul that Denjin meets is affected as
if Denjin had placed a charm person
spell on them.
The affect is
permanent.
Possessions:
Dagger,
Longsword (both unused but worn
out of habit), Leather Armor.
As a human Silynas statistics are as
follows:

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FEAST OR FAMINE
Silyna, female human Sor4: CR 4;
Feats: Multiattack, Weapon finesse
Medium-sized humanoid; hp 14; Init
(bite).
+6; Spd. 30 ft; AC 13; Atk +2 melee
Concluding the Adventure
(1d4 dagger); SA spells; SQ ghoul
friendship; AL CE; SV Fort +2, Ref
If the PCs kill Silyna and the ghouls,
+3, Will +4; Str 11, Dex 14, Con 13,
they will have save the town
Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 15.
Scaling the
of Lavender Springs from
Skills: Alchemy +7,
Adventure
the dangers. However, if
Concentration
+6,
Knowledge (arcana) +5, As written, house of Silyna or Denjin escape,
they will eventually return
Knowledge
ghouls
is
most
(necromancy/ghouls)
+7, suitable for parties to wreak havoc and get their
rd
th
on
Lavender
Move Silently +5, Spellcraft of 3 5 level. revenge
However, a few
Springs and the PCs (if they
+6.
Feats: Brew Potion, adjustments
can be
Improved Initiative, Silent made to make it are still around). If this last
scenario
occurs,
it
is
Spell.
suitable for other
st
nd
perfectly possible that if the
Spells: (6/7/4) 0 levels. For 1 or 2
level
character,
party ever passes through
Disrupt Undead, Flare, Ghost
Sound, Mage Hand, Ray of Silyna and Denjin this area again the town of
become
normal
Frost, Read Magic; 1- Cause ghouls and the PCs Lavender Spring will be
Fear, Chill touch, Magic only ever meet one razed and overrun by
or two ghouls at a
Missile; 2 Invisibility.
ghouls.
time.
For
characters
Possessions:
+1
amulet of natural armor, +1 of a higher level, Expanding the Adventure
Silyna and Denjin
dagger, potion of invisibility.
transform
into
If the GM chooses to he can
ghasts with suitable
When she transforms into a character levels. As easily add many hooks to
DMs
can
ghoul, Silynas statistics will well
expand
the
adventure
increase the number
remain the same except as
and/or make it a recurring
ghouls
of
follows:
theme in his campaign.
encountered
to
Some of the things that
better challenge the
could be expanded include:
Silyna, ghoul Sor4: CR 5; level of the PCs.
HD 4d12; hp 26; Init +7; AC
Who are what is the
16; Atk +6 melee (1d6+1+paralysis
dark force(s) behind Silynas
bite), +3 melee (1d3+1+paralysis
powers?
claws x2); SA paralysis, create
Silyna could be part of a
spawn; SQ undead, +2 turn
broader cult who worship a
resistance; SV Fort +1, Ref +4, Will
ghoul god and seek to create
+6; Str 13, Dex 17, Con , Int 15, Wis
a world populated by ghouls,
14, Cha 18.
with living people being
Skills: Climb +6, Escape Artist
treated like cattle for their
+7, Jump +6, Listen +7, Move
feeding.
Silently +12, Search +6, Spot +7.
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FEAST OR FAMINE

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15 COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Open Game License v 1.0 Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
Feast or Famine, Copyright 2001, Jonathan McAnulty
Midgard Copyright 2001, Osvaldo Oyola Ortega / Matthew Schouten
Maps Copyright 2001, Christopher Kennedy (aka (contact))