95102_RAA_Hasselberger2024_R1_PROOF

with briny seawater. This effect deals 3d4 points of damage on a failed save and half of that on a successful one. Inside the chest is significant wealth – a smaller, unlocked box containing 56 gp and 200 sp; a finely made compass worth 35 gp; a conch of gull summoning (functions just as if a summon swarm had been cast; gulls act as bats; 2 charges left); and a deed to the house , making it clear the house was purchased by Elzabeth’s parents for the couple as a wedding gift. The Climax These gourd folk will freeze the blood in your veins. By now, it should be clear that “Ma and Pa”, though salt-of-the earth by all appearances, are somehow behind the deaths. When the characters return to the boarding house, Ma puts on a disarming smile. “Piece of pie and a cup of tea, dearies?” she asks sweetly. “Pa and I told our little girl that that man was trouble. But the heart wants what the heart wants, I suppose. We were right. He was terrible to her. Until he wasn’t…” Her voice trails off, then she laughs. “Pa saw to that.” She then attacks with a wicked kitchen knife. She looks like a frail old woman but treat her as a ghoul. Pa is out back, in a ramshackle shed in the middle of the pumpkin patch. The fields are dotted with large, plump pumpkins that grow at the end of thick, gnarly vines. A successful Wisdom check allows characters to notice that, unusually, the vines originate from inside the shed, seeping through cracks in the siding and creeping down the hillside. A scarecrow leers menacingly at anyone intruding on the field, and a murder of crows caws their displeasure. A roll of thunder shakes the heavens. The secret behind Ma’s tasty pies is discovered inside the shed – the pumpkins are feeding on human corpses (travelers and other outsiders 34