Intro

Bride of the Black Manse is one of the best DCC adventures available, which is no surprise as it is penned by Harley Stroh. This is a level-3 adventure with a in-game timer which pushes the players to complete the adventure within a 4-hour timespan. At its heart, its a dungeon crawl through a spooky manor that becomes weirder and more haunted as the clock ticks closer to midnight. The first print run included Blood for the Serpent King as a bonus adventure, which is so fantastic that it was later released in a standalone format. The bonus adventure was later replaced with Floating Oasis of the Ascended God. More on that later. Here you be warned: spoilers abound below! With that said, keep reading if you want to learn more about what makes this adventure perfect for a spooktacular Halloween game.

Overview

Hundreds of years ago, Lady Ilse bargained with the archdevil Mammon for leadership of House Liis. All she had to do was deliver her immortal soul and her hand in marriage. In an attempt to save herself, she was willingly buried alive under the protection of every kind of holy symbol and similar warding that she could arrange. Mammon was denied his bride until perhaps tonight…

As it happens, one of the PCs is the reincarnated soul of Lady Ilse, and each other PC is associated (or perhaps also a reincarnation) of another family member. I would definitely recommend determining who beforehand, associating them with the family member who they most resemble. If, like in my game, there’s more family members than there are PCs, it’s simple enough to eliminate red herrings by removing some of the tapestries from the entry hall (use a Sharpie and say mold got those ones). I also told my PCs that they felt strangely drawn to the tapestries that were associated to their specific family member.

But judge’s prep doesn’t end there! This is a pretty dense adventure and you should fully read it before running it. Each room has its own description, all standard with other DCC adventures, but there’s also additional effects that the PCs encounter once enough time passes. For example, ghosts start appearing, certain areas may be more dangerous, or offer more obvious clues. But if you get something a little wrong, don’t worry too much about it. I didn’t run it perfectly and my players still had a blast. It’s an incredibly memorable adventure. Somewhat related, the adventure suggests having a thief and a cleric in the party. While both would be very helpful, I ran the adventure without a thief and it was fine. Traps were handled by players describing cautious actions that made logical sense and with judicious use of a laser sword scavenged from their previous adventure that involved a sojourn to MCC’s Terra A.D.

So what’s the adventure actually like? Well, it’s big. Players who tend to be “completionists” are going to find it very difficult to fully explore it in the time limit. This should probably be something that you communicate to your players so that everyone has reasonable expectations. There are several suggested adventure hooks for what has brought them here so use what you like and adjust the hook as needed. When the adventure starts, the PCs are greeted by a spooky Seneschal in front of the manor. This NPC really establishes a lot of the mood. You see, a haunted house is best when your know why its haunted, but slowly unravel the whole story over the course of the adventure. So do your best to keep continual drip feed of story in each new area.

Without going over each room, which would be far too length of a review, the adventure allows players to blaze their own trail. After they get inside, they can immediately go one of 3 directions (though one has a well telegraphed and deadly trap that likely turns the PCs towards easier paths). As they go along, the PCs will begin to find different masks, also associated with different family members. Some judges may want to move these masks around so that each PC can find the correct mask for them, possibly by eliminating masks associated with unused family members. Other judges may want to not do so, as there’s a reason why each mask is where it is. These masks become more and more helpful as time progress and ghosts and demons emerge.

By the end of the adventure, the PCs should have put together at least the majority of Lady Ilse’s conundrum, but having Mammon himself reveal that he intends to take one of the PCs as his “bride” was quite the reveal in my game. The barbarian (and his player) was horrified in all the right ways. Fortunately, the adventure describes 6 different ways to resolve this. One is to say yes to the dress and get hitched. One is to fight. But the 4 others include returning a magical betrothal ring, banishing Mammon, offering a severed hand in marriage, or striking a new bargain if they found Mammon’s hidden soul stone. If Mammon is tricked in any way, he rages as he opens a portal to hell which begins to pull in the manor and everyone inside. It’s a mad dash out. The PCs have 4 rounds to escape (did I mention that there’s lots of tempting gold around) before their soul is damned. In the end, they’ve likely gotten some sweet magical items and learned some new truths about their characters. If you used the deed “a PC is given the deed to a manor” hook, they’re least still a landowner if not a homeowner!

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Bonus Adventure: Floating Oasis of the Ascended God

Yes, a bonus quick review! I ran a loosely adapted version of this adventure a couple years ago. It’s 4 pages of text and a full page map. So it’s a quick one with a lil intro and 6 keyed areas. For one reason or another (and several possible hooks are given), you are floating up high in a basket held aloft by a sky squid. Yeah, the intro is just that going wrong. You land atop some clouds that you can walk on. It’s got a very strange and “Dr. Seuss” type vibe at several points (the Sky Orchard, for instance).

I particularly enjoy the Judgement Chamber, which has an interesting use of character language knowledge (something often underutilized). There’s an interesting bit of interaction here that can lead to some interesting shenanigans, but I also feel like it could have been more fun with an expanded word count. I would encourage you to add and tweak the adventure however you want to. When I ran it, I reflavored the how thing and made it into an adventure above the Purple Planet. There’s only one real path down to the surface below.

The PCs can’t return to the oasis, as it’s only there for a few short hours. An some of the magical rewards only last until the PCs level up the next time. I’m not sure how I feel about that though. I feel like there’s a better method for making magical rewards temporary. But again, it’s your game! Change it if you want! It’s a tight little adventure that’s not perfect, but it’s a ton of fun.

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