🗺️🎲⚔️ One-Shot Adventure: The Lantern of Hollowmere

Behind the Die By Charlie Stayton

Adventure Summary

Every autumn, the quiet hamlet of Hollowmere hosts its Lantern Parade, where villagers craft lanterns shaped like spirits, animals, and monsters to guide good fortune into the coming winter. But this year, something has gone horribly wrong. When the lanterns are lit, a cold mist creeps through town and villagers begin to vanish—drawn away into the lantern-light itself.

The adventurers must uncover the truth behind the cursed Lantern, brave spectral haunts in Hollowmere, and stop the being that feeds on the villagers’ souls before the last candle flickers out.

For 4–6 players, levels 5–7
Tone: Spooky, autumn harvest, ghost-story horror

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Hook: The Vanishing Parade

As the adventurers arrive in Hollowmere (perhaps invited as guests for the festival), the annual Lantern Parade begins. Children carry carved gourds and tin-cut lanterns, but when the largest lantern—the Lantern of Hollowmere—is lit, the air chills. Villagers’ shadows stretch unnaturally long before their owners suddenly vanish into thin mist, their lanterns clattering to the cobblestones.

The village shaireef, Elda Wyrmroot, pleads with the heroes: “The lantern is cursed! Please, find them before the harvest moon sets!”

Key Locations & Scenes

1. Festival Square

• Decorations: pumpkins, hay bales, music fading into eerie silence.

• Skill Challenge: Calming the panicked villagers (DC 15 Persuasion or Intimidation). Success keeps order; failure means mob hysteria that complicates later searches.

• Clue: Strange rune markings found inside the Lantern’s iron frame (Arcana DC 14).

2. The Hollowmere Woods

• A mist-choked path lined with hanging lanterns that whisper the names of the missing.

• Encounter: Lantern Shades (use Wraith stat block, but vulnerable to fire/radiant damage). Each holds a villager’s face twisted in spectral flame.

• Hazard: Flickering light causes disorientation—DC 15 Wisdom save or wander in circles for 1d4 minutes.

3. The Abandoned Chapel

• Once dedicated to a harvest goddess, now defiled by rot and shadow.

• Inside: Lanterns glow with imprisoned souls. Breaking them frees captives but summons more Lantern Shades.

• Clue: Journals of the last priest reveal the Lantern was created to bind a harvest spirit, but the ritual was corrupted a century ago.

4. The Lantern’s Hollow (Finale)

• Beneath the chapel is a root-tangled cavern where the Lantern Spirit feeds.

• Final Boss: The Hollowmere Lantern (Unique Spirit)

  • Use stats based on a Flame Skull merged with a Specter.

  • Abilities:

    • Soul Lantern: Can trap a downed creature’s soul (DC 16 Cha save each turn to resist).

    • Lantern Burst: 30-ft radius of burning spectral flame (Dex save DC 15, 4d8 radiant + 2d8 necrotic).

    • Weakness: If three lanterns are doused with water, radiant magic, or destroyed, the spirit weakens (loses resistance to nonmagical damage).

Resolution

If the adventurers destroy the Hollowmere Lantern and release the captured souls, the mist lifts and villagers reappear—frightened but alive. Elda Wyrmroot thanks the heroes and offers them the village’s Lantern Medallion (a charm granting light 1/day and advantage on saves against fear once per long rest).

If they fail or flee, Hollowmere becomes a ghost town overnight, remembered only in whispered tales of a cursed lantern that devours the unwary.

Rewards & Tone

• XP: Standard for a Hard encounter at the party’s level.

• Treasure: Lantern Medallion, plus offerings from grateful villagers (fresh cider, charms, carved masks—flavorful loot).

• Tone Notes: Encourage players to lean into autumn imagery—falling leaves, scarecrows creaking in the wind, lanterns glowing with eerie faces. Play up suspense with whispered voices, vanishing NPCs, and long shadows.

Battle Maps