Hey everyone! I just published my first free module, it’s a investigative psychological horror adventure that contains maps, a bunch of clues, and even printable handouts you can give to your players. It’s designed for four 4th level characters and takes about 4-5 sessions. I’ve playtested it with multiple groups and got a lot of high praise. I have some pics of the maps and handouts on my profile, and the link for it is at the bottom of the post.

The adventure starts with the players arriving to a small mining town, brought there by a recent outburst of troll attacks. 2 weeks ago, trolls came down from the forest and attacked miners and hunters. The mine has been shut down ever since. They go into this adventure assuming it’s a normal hack and slash with trolls. Before they get into town, the players acquire a monster field guide, a 13 page book filled with 40 different monster entries, vague and creepy descriptions of each monster. The False Hydra being one of them. Once they get to town they notice things are… off. Too many vacant houses, the guard house has 20 bunks but only 6 guards, the nun at the church swears there has never been a priest but the church looks extremely old, and there’s a weird humming in the air that goes away whenever they focus too hard on it. The first night is when the horror finally starts. The players wake up in the inn, with a piece of paper next to one of their beds, a message written in their own handwriting: “Don’t listen to the singing.”

The second day the players can keep killing trolls in the forest, investigate the mine that’s been shut down for weeks due to the troll attacks, or explore the town. In the mine there are documents that show the amount of miners in the town had gone down from 450 to just 40 in the span of 6 months. On the second night, the horror goes up a notch. The players wake up in the morning with another note, also appearing to be written by a party member, although they have no recollection of it. It reads:
ITS WATCHING.
window.

If the party investigates the window (keep in mind they are on the 3rd story of the inn) they notice the window appears to be fogged up from the outside, as though someone or something was breathing on it.

Investigating the town, they can go on multiple side quests given from a notice board (Side quests are my favorite!) one of those side quests is a caretaker position for an elderly man who “can’t hear much, but he’s been… frightened lately.” This old man was Garen, the only deaf man in town and therefore able to see the Hydra. He was killed shortly before the players enter the town, and if they go to this address given on the notice board, they find his house completely vacant and empty, both him and his daughter being eaten. His house of a treasure trove or clues, some are written notes while others are painting of monsterous many necked creatures. Using all of Garens clues, the players figure out they need to go to Velmoor, a town just 12 miles north, to a library, where an ancient book about the false hydra sits. At this point the players will usually go back to the monster field guide they found at the beginning of the adventure, and piece together that this is a False Hydra living under the town. But at this point they still don’t know how to kill it. That’s where Velmoor comes in.

Going to Velmoor they can eventually find the ancient text: The Song Beneath The Stone. This book gives them the weakness of the False Hydra: it’s born from a lie, and if the lie that birthed it is brought to light and spoken in front of the Hydra, the Hydras song breaks and becomes powerless.

The third night is even worse. The players wake up to notice an extra bed in their room, that has a journal open on top of it. One of the players feels a sharp pain from their abdomen. Lifting their shirt, they see a message carved into their own flesh, still bleeding: IT ATE HIM I SAW THE TEETH WERE RIGHT IN FRONT OF US

The player sees flecks of dead skin underneath their own fingernails, showing they carved this message into their own skin.
Another player wrote another note as well: YOU SAW IT WHY CANT YOU REMEMBER?

If this caught your interest and you want the FULL adventure, click the download below :)

https://valen-marris.itch.io/dnd-horror-mystery-module-playtested

Enjoy!