Ashes of the Hollow House

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Ashes of the Hollow House

Lvl 3-53-53 to 4 sessions, depending on how much investigation and travel the group pursues.· Hard

“Escort a scarred wanderer home through a haunted forest, only to discover the ancestral house was never truly empty.”

— Hook · escort

QuestgiverThe Scarred Wanderer, Edrin Vale

Escort

D&D 5E

Hard

Lvl 3-5

3-5

3 to 4 sessions, depending on how much investigation and travel the group pursues.

4 NPCs

3 encounters

The Opening

“The scarred wanderer says he remembers only one place from before the dark took him: a house in the woods that should have been his inheritance. He will pay whatever coin he has, and all he asks is that you escort him there before the road, the forest, or the thing that hunts him takes the chance away. If you can find the ancestral home, he believes he can finally learn whether he was stolen from it or saved by leaving it.”
— Hook · escort

Set the Scene

At dusk, the scarred wanderer arrives at the village edge with mud on his boots and old terror in his eyes. He lays a creased map on the table and points to a dark patch of woodland no one in Briarhollow crosses after sunset. 'I was taken from a house there,' he says. 'If it still stands, I need to see it before it sees me.'

Patron

Questgiver

Edrin Vale

The questgiver is direct and vulnerable, offering coin, a family signet, and the promise that the truth will be worth more than payment.

On the Streets · In the Books

Rumours

d4 · table

01
The old chapel bells ring on windless nights whenever someone enters the western wood.
02
A hunter found tracks that began in the middle of a dry road and led nowhere except into a root mound.
03
The estate was not abandoned after a fire, but after a family funeral that no one in town admits happened.
04
Animals near the fen have been born with mirrored eyes for three seasons running.

Stakes

If the party fails, Edrin is taken, the hidden thing beneath the home stirs, and the forest begins spreading aberrant corruption toward Briarhollow.

Ticking Clock·By the next new moon, the old wards weaken enough for the buried presence beneath the house to wake and claim a living key.

Background Lore

The old road into Briarhollow has not been safe for years. Black roots have broken the stonework, strange lights drift between the trees at dusk, and travelers who linger near the north fen return changed, if they return at all. The scarred wanderer claims he was taken from an ancestral home in the woods as a child and has only fragments left: a crest burned into his memory, a name spoken by a dying mother, and a nightmare of a house with no windows on one side. He believes the place still stands beyond the fungus-choked pines, waiting to be found before whatever lives there finds him first.

What the World Knows

Escort the scarred wanderer through a haunted forest to the remains of a long-abandoned family estate, where old wards, buried memories, and something unnatural beneath the house threaten to stop the journey. The party must navigate hostile terrain, uncover why the road was sealed, and decide whether the wanderer’s inheritance is a blessing, a curse, or both.