House of Noctula
House of Noctula
House of Noctula
A Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition adventure for characters level 2-3.
Enjoy!
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DIntroductIon dthe Adventure
House of Noctula is a cryptacular tale of This mists part at the end of a dark and
sepulcher spooks for characters of second or winding road, revealing the House of Noctula.
third level. In order to play this adventure a Once a sprawling estate it has long decayed
group will require the Player's Handbook and until only a single section of the manor now
the Monster Manual. Any unusual monsters remains. Doctor Noctula is the last scion of a
encountered in the adventure are detailed great family who's cursed line has withered
within. Our setting for this macabre penny beneath sickness and madness. For decades
opera is the condemned mansion of an unholy the cantankerous old necromancer has
and un-sane necromancer. The house has been performed his unnatural experiments in the
much demolished from its lost grandeur, its condemned ruins. Only a few estranged
vast grounds abandoned save for fallow servants and distant relations have even seen
foundations, hollow follies, and sunken him as he sequestered deeper and deeper into
cemeteries. Only one section of the manse obsession with life beyond death. Whether or
remains, its doors and windows all bricked up not he found the answer, he's dead now. Or so
save for the front door. you've heard. You are the few who stand to
inherit, and you've been summoned to hear his
last will and testament at the old manor. The
dSynopSIS adventure begins with all of the characters
sitting around the dining room table.
The characters are summoned to the
home of the reclusive Doctor Noctula. The
Doctor is a distant relative or past associate of dthe houSe
each of the characters (sample characters are
provided in these pages but players are also The following areas correspond to the labels
encouraged to make their own characters with on the map of the house.
their own relationship to the Doctor). Noctula's
eccentric behavior has estranged him from A note on locked doors: Unless otherwise stated,
almost all contact and he has been living as a assume that a locked door can be opened with
hermit for several years. The summons the appropriate key, a DC 13 Dexterity
indicate that Noctula has passed away and that (Thieves Tools) check, or forced open with a DC
those summoned are to inherit the wealth of 16 Strength (Athletics) check.
the Noctula clan. In reality though the Doctor
has gone truly insane, achieving a sort of
immortality as a disembodied brain in the 1. The Dining Room
crypts beneath his mansion, and in his
madness he believes he must kill any potential This is where the opening scene of the
heirs who might one day come looking for his adventure takes place. It is assumed for the
riches, no matter how unlikely. To this end he is purposes of the story that the characters have
luring the characters to the mansion in order to arrived and proceeded directly to the dining
trap them inside and seal their doom. The room as per the instructions in their summons,
characters will have to survive the night and as this is where the reading of Dr. Noctula's will
find their way out! is to take place. By the time the characters
arrive at the manor the appointed hour of the
reading is imminent and there is no
opportunity available to explore beforehand.
18. The Lightning Gallery Down the passage the river flows into a
deep subterranean lake. Its dark, glassy surface
is pierced by crumbling pylons of the house's
There is the sound of rushing water and foundation. On its far shore a single torch
machinery. The room is lit by arcs of electricity burns next to a boat bobbing in the water. The
emanating from coils and wheels on large boat is connected to the near shore by a hidden
metallic devices. Lying on slabs around the chain running beneath the water and buried in
chamber are pieces of grisly experiments in the sand near the party's feet. The chain can be
reanimation. The machines are powered by an discovered by a DC 15 Wisdom (Perception)
underground river beneath the stone floor. check or a DC 15 Intelligence (Investigation)
Disabling the machinery, requiring either the check. Once unearthed the chain can be used to
instructions from the library or a DC 16 pull the boat to where the party can board it,
Intelligence (Arcana) check, will open the but it is tangled around one of the pylons and
subterranean waterway and empty the well in must be freed. The water is bitterly cold,
Area 18. It will also discharge electricity into slowing the blood and freezing sinews.
one of the experiments on the slab, causing it Swimming across, either to one of the pylons
to rise as a mummy which attacks the party. or to retrieve the boat, requires a DC 13
Strength (Athletics) check while wearing no
armor. There is also a boulder just beneath the
CKH
water that can be perceived by a DC 13
Wisdom (Nature) check, which offers a
stepping stone to the pylon around which the
chain is stuck. Leaping from the shore to the
boulder to the pylon can be done with a DC 13
“Welcome once again. I see that even Treasure: There are five electrum jars, and
asking you to die was perhaps too much for you emptied of their ichorous contents they are
to manage. This is truly an epoch of worth 400 gp each. Inlaid into the pillar
disappointments. I suppose you're here to make supporting the shattered brain jar is an array
your clutching demands, so self assured of your of quartz, amber, and black pearl, worth 2000
worthiness to continue existing. Once again I gp in total.
sacrifice for you, taking on the tremendous
responsibility of correcting your mistakes and
imparting you with the truth. The wealth of
Noctula is a part of me now, as it always should
dthAnk you for plAyIng!
be. I melted it down to construct the glorious
body of godhood you now behold, forever safe
from your inadequacy. At least it will be once I
am assured that you will never again attempt to
possess it. Take heart, young masters. Your lives
were never worth more than this, and it is no
great inconvenience for me to part you from
them.”
dChadwiCk
You were always the favorite nephew. Or was it grand-nephew? Your relationship to Doctor
Noctula has never been entirely clear, even to you, but some blood tie binds you together and try
as you might you've never been able to escape it. Back when you still had living family people
would gather for the solstice or for some feast day you'd never heard of, and the he would be
there, typically with whatever horrible experiment he'd been working on in tow. If anyone
thought it was strange for him to bring monsters to family get togethers nobody ever said
anything. Maybe they were afraid of him, you certainly were, or maybe everyone was just that
messed up. He'd always want to show them to you. Only you, and no one ever stopped him. That's
how the accident happened. One of the experiments got loose and took a bite out of you. You were
bed ridden for weeks with blood loss and infection, then afterward a wreck of insensate madness.
Eventually you got better, or at least so you told people. You can still feel the icy cold teeth when
the wind is right, as though they broke off inside you, and then there are the... fevers. Sometimes
you just get... out of sorts. A fever overtakes you, a species of mania, in which you sometimes do...
violent things. You don't really want to have anything else to do with your mad uncle, but you'll do
this last thing just to be well and done with him forever.
dPersePhone
It was hard enough to get an apprenticeship in the apothecaries guild, old boys club that it is. It
was even harder to keep it with your unusual ideas and field of study. The dusty old chemists and
transmuters never trucked with your interest in reanimation, hidebound by taboos and
superstitions unbefitting learned men. If any corpses desperately needed a jolt it was them. They
took every opportunity to stymie your progress. Why couldn't you just shill midwifing herbs like a
proper lady? Your research required patronage, and since it wasn't forthcoming from your
institution you were more than a little desperate when Doctor Noctula appeared with an offer of
collaboration. At first it was validating just to have someone take an interest in your work, but as
time went on you learned the Doctor was much more interesting in taking than he was in sharing,
and his interest was in more than just your work. For your dearth of options you endured his
stinginess of knowledge and lecherous advances until it became clear that Noctula wanted
neither a colleague nor even a student, merely a pet. You left his tutelage only to receive a cold
reception in the guild, having been black balled for your association with a known mad man.
Since then you've continued your research as best you can with what work you can stitch
together. There's many things you'd rather than go to hear the Doctor's will, but he still has some
of your notes and you're determined to get at least a piece of your own back.
dskuldugger
Your family have been vassals of the Noctulas in one way or another for centuries. Once upon a
time, in a fairytale era, you managed sprawling estates and defended border marches. Now you're
gardeners and grave keepers. Each generation of the Noctulas, each succession of sycophantic
and sickly princelings, has treated you more and more like the help. Most of your relations have
long since left, with only you and your grandfather remaining. He still cleaves to the old
obligations, no matter how much his lairds have ceased to deserve them, but his health is failing.
The land grows fallow and wild, tombstones outnumber descendants, and livelihood is hard to
find. Doctor Noctula has had a special employment for you these last years; exhuming graves from
the cemeteries gradually consuming the demesne and dragging the remains back to the Doctor's
lab. Its gruesome and backbreaking work, but he looks the other way when you pocket the
valuables you find. Its hard to imagine the Doctor including you in his will but your family is owed
certain concessions by ancient law and even he may be forced to honor them. If nothing else, now
that he's gone there's nothing left to keep you here and maybe you can finally take your
grandfather away from this place of decay.
dluCrezia
The Noctulas have a long history of congress with the otherwordly, and your ancestors are an
agnatic branch of the family issued by their diabolical pacts. You're something of a dirty secret,
even for such a degenerate and scandalous clan, but for a long time you were at least kept in good
stead. Your family was never acknowledged or inherited, but a stipend and enfeoffment made you
country squires. It still grates though. Watching your Noctula cousins squander their
endowments in decadence and folly, snubbing well found claimants of your own line for no other
reason than your lack of inbreeding and an infernal heritage that they, not you, chose to beget. To
add injury to insult they've chewed away at lands of your house to burgeon their failing holdings,
exploiting your illegitimacy and reneging gifts promised in perpetuity. Now that the last true heir,
Doctor Noctula, has finally died the future of your family is uncertain. You hold out a vain hope
that his will shall secure at least what grants you have left, but you will not be paupered by his
caprice. It isn't even about the money, or the land, its about respect. You will no longer be denied.
One way or another you will be acknowledged.
Barbarian 2nd Human
14 23 +2
16 +2
2
+3
30'
14
+2
Maul +5 2d6+3
14
+2 +5
10 +1
+0 +2
12 Unarmored Defense
Reckless Attack
+1 Danger Sense
Savage Attacker
8
-1
13
80
Chadwick
2
12 14 +2
8 +2
-1
30'
14
+2
14
+5
+2
16 +3
+3
+3
Arcane Recovery
12 School of Necromancy
-Necromancy Savant
+2
+1 -Grim Harvest
+4
Healer
10
+0
11
Scholars Pack
Healers Kit
Antitoxin
Chalk
Fishing Tackle
Alchemists Tools
Spellbook
Arcane Focus
110
Persephone
Cantrips
-Mage Hand
-Ray of Frost
-Shocking Grasp
1st Level
-False Life
-Witch Bolt
-Ray of Sickness
Rogue 2nd Halfling (Stout)
15 17 2 +3
12 +2
+1
25'
17
+3
Shortsword +5 1d6+3
+5
14
+2 +4
+2
14
+1
10
+0
10
Thieves' Tools
Disguise Kit
Burglar's Pack
Shortsword
Studded Leather Armor
Chalk
Caltrops
Mirror, Steel
Magnifying Glass
130
Skuldugger
16 20 +2
10 +2 2
+0
30'
15 Darkvision
+2
14 Rapier +4 1d8+2
+2
+3
13 +3
+1
10
+0
13
200
Lucrezia