Scare Your Party With These Adventure Hooks For A Horror Campaign In DND

Summary

• Introduce a mysterious stalker or force watching the players in their bastion to create a horror-themed campaign.
• Have players explore a creepy manor with a hidden cult lurking in the basement.
• Include horror in nautical scenarios by teasing the idea that evil creatures may be hiding in a ship’s cargo hold.

Running a horror-themed Dungeons & Dragons campaign can prove to be one of the most fun and rewarding experiences for a Dungeon Master. Sending chills down your players’ spines, or jumpscaring them with terrifying creatures is always a good time, and can make for some of the most memorable experiences you’ll have at your DND table.

But, how do you successfully hook your players into a horror campaign? You’ll want to make sure you’re creating a creepy tone and atmosphere for the table, and intriguing your players with a tantalizing mystery. Here are some adventure hooks to use for your next horror campaign.

10

Eyes In The Sky

Do You Feel Like Someone’s Watching Us?

If players have a bastion or other kind of keep that they operate out of, use this adventure hook to get a horror-themed campaign or arc going. As the party tackles various adventures and quests, they may start to notice that, every once in a while, their plans are thwarted or subverted. NPCs they meet seem to know them better than they know themselves.

This might lead the party to suspect that someone is watching them, perhaps even in their home. Players may soon discover that a malevolent force has infiltrated their bastion, watching their every move, and will have to be dealt with if the party is ever to be successful again.

9

The Macabre Manor

Move-In Special

As players travel through the vast countryside, they stumble upon an abandoned manor, with ivy and dead plants scaling the walls. Should they choose to investigate, they’ll find a vast dungeon of rooms to explore, loot, and hack and slash their way through.

However, the longer they explore the manor, they may soon discover that there’s more to this house than meets the eye. Deep beneath the house, the party can discover the workings of a maligned cult, planning on using the arcane nature of the house to resurrect their fallen deity.

8

Masquerade

Got An Invite?

A mysterious and eccentric noble has just come to town and has decided to throw a grand masquerade for every wealthy and titled citizen in the city. However, the party catches word that this masquerade is likely a ruse for a wicked and foul plot, in which this noble intends to unleash a spell that will deprive every mage in attendance of their magical prowess.

The party must find a way to gain access to the party, either through forged invitations, subterfuge, or disguises, track down the eccentric noble, and put a stop to his plot. However, finding this noble in a macabre masquerade setting may prove more difficult than they first expected.

7

Creepy Cargo

Did That Crate Just Move?

Use this next adventure hook if you’re also playing a nautical-based campaign, and want to include some horror elements in your adventure. Players find themselves booking passage on a large vessel that’s traveling across a large body of water. They’ll be at sea for at least a few days, with no suitable port in sight.

However, one night, a party member may discover that some of the crates in the cargo hold seem to move and shift. Could a horrific creature like a vampire or lycanthrope lurk inside, using the cargo hold as a hiding place until the time is right to strike? The party will have to decide how to deal with this threat, and how to protect the lives of everyone on board, including themselves.

6

Phantasmal Stalker

These Streets Aren’t Safe

In a large metropolis that the party calls home, the streets have suddenly become incredibly dangerous, nearly overnight. Anyone found on the streets alone after midnight has mysteriously gone missing, with no trace of them to be found.

The party will have to work with local law enforcement to find out exactly what’s going on, and what manner of creature or NPC is behind this plot. However, the party may soon discover that perhaps their ally on the inside of the law might have something to do with this plot, and may even be dealing with split personalities ala Jekyll and Hyde. Some players may even decide they need to wander the streets alone after midnight to see if they can chance an encounter with this mysterious phantom.

5

Murder Most Foul

In Cold Blood

There’s nothing like the threat of a good murder mystery to get your party’s blood pumping. For this adventure, you’ll need to sacrifice a beloved NPC that your party is allied with to hook them into the stakes of the adventure.

One night, after the party’s most recent quest is completed, have them discover the body of a loved NPC of theirs, used in some profane ritual. From there, the party will have to investigate who or what did this to their friend. For an extra twist, you can even hint at the possibility that their friend is actually alive and perhaps has faked their own death as part of an elaborate plot.

4

Mirror, Mirror

Fear The Vain

The adventuring party hears word of a strange settlement, in which many people claim that friends and family are not acting normally. Upon further investigation, the party discovers these rumors to be true. Much of the populace seems strange and almost soulless, like their spirits have been removed from their bodies, though their physical forms carry on with their work and day-to-day chores.

That’s when one party member notices a strange mirror lurking in the corner of the mayor’s house, with odd arcane symbols glowing around the edges of it. Could the mirror be used to trap the souls of these citizens within its glass? And if so, what does the mayor want with these souls? Players must investigate the town and its citizenry to find out.

3

The Full Moon

Check Those Phase Charts

What’s a horror campaign without a lycanthrope or two? For this adventure hook, party members will need to come to the aid of a series of small hamlets and villages that are being terrorized by werewolves and other lycanthropes. While, on its surface, this seems like an easy enough quest, the party will so discover a tricky wrinkle they’ll have to contend with.

The villages and hamlets know that they are being terrorized by werewolves, but nobody is certain who in town might also be a werewolf themselves. Several villagers have claimed to see bite marks on their neighbors’ flesh, marking them as part of the conspiracy. Players will have to separate the fact from the fiction and put a stop to this witch hunt (or rather, wolf hunt).

2

Graveyard Shift

Boiling The Midnight Oil?

Just on the outskirts of a small town, the party hears tell of a local gravedigger going missing. The clerics at the local temple all speak very highly of this gravedigger, who went missing in the middle of the night during his last shift. Religious figures and common folk alike suspect that something profane has happened at their local cemetery.

Players will need to investigate the cemetery in the dead of night, looking for signs of trouble, or clues as to where the gravedigger might have gone too. For a larger adventure, reveal to your players that one of the tombstones actually guards the entrance to a vast underground dungeon, which they’ll have to explore to rescue the gravedigger and bring him home.

1

The Plague Predicament

The Clock Is Ticking

A magistrate who oversees a collection of towns and cities beseeches the party for help in finding a cure for a mystical plague that is terrorizing the populace. A few weeks ago, several people became ill, and are all at death’s door. What’s more, more and more people seem to be catching this plague, but nobody seems to know how.

The party will have to investigate to find the source of the plague. What they’ll soon discover is that many of the ill people all have similar stories about how they first became sick, and all seem to have made enemies of a local alchemist who lives alone on the outskirts of the woods. Could she be responsible, or is there a more natural cause behind the plague?