So my first two adventures were Dead Dragon Peak and The Immortal Ooze Engine. Both were made freely available and I like to think of both as “good” adventures. However, I don’t think either are “great”. The Hills That Hunger is the first one I wrote that I think is a great adventure. So how’d I get better?

Well, it took practice and study. If The Hills That Hunger had been my first adventure, it wouldn’t have been as good. Writers need to write some “bad words” before they are able to start writing “good words”. Anyway, I had this idea for a “cannibal hillbilly” adventure for Weird Frontiers, mostly inspired by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, with a bit of The Road thrown in for good measure. At one point, well after a first draft was complete but before publication, Mike Curtis said (on some stream when talking about his own WF adventure, Nest of Snakes) that anybody could write a “cannibal hillbilly” adventure so he made sure to do something different. Well by golly, anybody could have done it, but I was the first to do it for Weird Frontiers! Fair warning folks, The Hills That Hunger is certainly the darkest and grossest thing I’ve written, so only continue if that’s what you’re in the mood for.

Writing The Hills That Hunger

The idea started with having miners who because deformed degenerates after finding a giant egg with a gestating skinwalker in a natural cavern. The silver mine had run dry, but the desperate few who stayed were forever changed by the psychic energy of the dark creature. But that’s just the core idea, not an adventure. How did I start writing it? I looked at one of my favorite adventures, Sailors on the Starless Sea.

SotSS begins with the PCs on a path that leads directly into the main area where the adventure begins. On that path is a “trap” that can provides a lot of information about how dangerous this is going to be. SotSS has it be two villagers, known to the PCs, now dead but their bodies are controlled by vine horrors. Now, the PCs can circumvent this by simply looking for a secondary entrance, which has its own dangers. I emulated this by having a woman practically crucified upon a wagon wheel and with a piece of dynamite half-sewn into her stomach. The danger is obvious, a bit of roleplay is possible, and the PCs immediately learn that this is a very serious situation where enemies within should probably just be killed with extreme prejudice. It’s also an opportunity for someone with a medical occupation or healing abilities to shine, and possibly teach the Luckburn mechanic!

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Once PCs are inside the main adventuring area, they have several options, each with a bit of risk and reward. Both adventures have a water well, though I made mine less immediately dangerous, only prompting a Fort save or become sick for a while (introducing the dice chain!). It also gives visions of what lurks below the earth, serving to guide PCs to the “planned finale”. SotSS’s well instead is often flat out lethal, but survivors gain corruption!

The ominous well, and other fixtures in this area, all are different kinds of “encounters”: traps, combat, puzzle, exploration, etc. I used Sailors to feel out what would be a good mixture of those different encounter types. Having a good mixture of encounter types can make for good pacing and offer different groups an environment to select from that offers the most for own play style. So while all the content within is different, I was more paying attention to how the type of content was structured in relation to the likely exploration paths that players choose to take. A bit of combat here, a puzzle there, a trap over yonder, etc. All the common elements mixed and placed on the map in the best way I could figure out.

Also similar to SotSS, there are two avenues to reach the horrors beneath the earth. In early drafts, I only had one path: the mine entrance. But I said “yes” to some players in one playtest and improv’d what became a second path that connects the ol’ Rumley House’s basement to the mining tunnels. This adventure isn’t very Jaquays’d, but I did my best to provide exploration options for an adventure that’s meant to be completed in a 4-hour game session.

Staying above ground for a bit longer, the Rumley House has a main floor, upstairs, and basement to explore. Plus, some more hillfolk who do their best to ambush the PCs. This is my “beastman tower”. Upstairs, you have the creepy living quarters of the hillfolk, an opportunity to learn that one of them has a bounty on his head, and a spot where some classes can use their “speak with dead” ability to great effect (a.k.a, a chance for Sin Eaters and Calaveras to shine). The main floor’s most memorable location is a grotesque table centerpiece, made from amputated arms. Each hand holds a “black egg”, which PCs may be compelled to eat in the right situation. This is a wonderfully disgusting moment that is super memorable. Down in the basement, its basically that scene from The Road where the Father goes down into a basement and finds some prisoners. I’ll refrain from describing it further, as its very dark. A connecting tunnel leads to a trapped room (hey, I need a regular trap) that contains all the possessions of the hillfolk’s many victims. But if you go through all this, you can bypass the largest group of hillfolk and can head straight to the “boss”.

Alternatively, the PCs don’t take this path and instead go down the mine’s front entrance. Now, there’s an overturned wagon and the dead horses arise to fight the PCs if they approach. They’re nasty creatures, but they’re just “skins” piloted by creatures that have eaten their bones from within. The PCs have encountered these same creatures before (so I get to reuse a stat block), but they were in people skins that time. Is this my Felan’s Tomb? I guess so? But we don’t need to be thinking in strict comparisons. It’s another path down and its nice to give PCs options. The PCs can maybe find a few more items here (mostly notable, magical snake oil, to provide a bit of connection to the Mountebank class, and a lucky rabbit’s foot to provide a connection to the Gambler class), but they’re able to now go down into the mine.

At this point, its very easy for them to realize that the first big room in the mine has a lot of hillfolk, including my “beastman champion” equivalent. It’ll be a a tough fight, but they’re got some tools at their disposal. There’s a mine cart they can use and they’ve probably picked up some dynamite along the way. This can put a big dent in the hillfolk, and possibly collapse part of the mine! If searched, there’s also a cool pickaxe that appears to be a bedlamite (aka, mad scientist) type contraption. I tried to put plenty of little pieces in here so that players can find a story driven piece of inspiration for choosing a class (if run as a funnel) or give a little bonus to their class (if level-1).

Next new location is a caved-in passage. It can just a be a dead-end, though PCs can dig it out a bit to find some more items, or it can be a place to link more tunnels for future adventures.

Finally, we get to the finale. There’s a hand-crank elevator shaft going down, serving to isolate the PCs similar to the longboat in SotSS. In the final chamber, we have a few remaining beastmen and the skinwalker. It’s a tough fight, but PCs probably have some cool items (dynamite, baby!) and there’s a bit of guidance given for PCs attempting to flee, though that doesn’t seem to ever happen at the table. I always wanted to see the PCs attempt to drop the elevator on the skinwalker or trap it below with dynamite, but alas, not in any of my playtests. So not quite the 24 beastmen, but it’s 3 hillfolk and a big boss that’s similar to if Molan arises.

So that’s it! I hope y’all can see how I took the structure of the adventure from Sailors, but then twisted and reused it to create something very new. If you find some other similarities between the two adventures, then ask me about them in the comments! I’ll confirm or deny your theories!

What’s else is going on?

Joey Royale’s Pizza Party

Grab a slice and get ready for a pizza party at 8PM EST on 10/25! David Matalon, a New York native, is firing up the brick oven and getting ready to the hang out!

Prisoners of the Secret Overlords!

Check out this sick cover piece!

You’ve heard plenty from me about this by now! We’ve hit our funding goal but the quest continues for more stretch goals so we can keep making it bigger and better! Yesterday we unveiled a Facebook share stretch goal! If we can get 35 more shares on Facebook then we’ll include another digital reward in form of a new PC class: the Hyenar!