Suitable Campaign Age: Golden, Bronze, Dark, or Cinematic
Adventure Tone: Macabre Action
Recommended Power Level: Low or Classic
Content Warning: The following adventure contains elements of the macabre and grotesque. This adventure places children in danger. GM’s are encouraged to read through completely and decide how best to handle children in the story based on the Campaign’s Lines and Veils.
Overview
The nights are getting longer, the day is a little bit colder, and that autumn breeze brings the scent of pumpkin spice through the air.
Halloween decorations finding their ways into the windows and doors of homes all around the city. Children find excuses to make their way to Perez Park to play in the lush secluded forests. No one expects tragedy to happen, until it does.
Kids tell stories of a cotton candy grove inside the forest at Perez Park. The pumpkin man who lives inside, the children call him Spider Jack. They tease each other to steal his candy. Daring one another to go deeper and deeper into his lair. Only this time one of the children doesn’t come back. The child’s friends say Spider Jack caught them.
Now it is up to the heroes to find out what’s really going on inside Perez Park, and, if they’re lucky, save a child’s life.
Foreshadowing Scenes
The following are optional scenes, Candy Coated Dreams can be used with any character with psychic or dimensional based powers. Dare or Dare, can be used in any game.
Candy Coated Dreams
One lunar cycle before the Hunter’s moon (Halloween).
A fracture in the sky opens into an inhuman eye. The pupil slowly rolls from side to side before fixing it’s gaze upon you. Like peeling back rotting flesh from a corpse, the eye opens, a single red orange tear, almost like a droplet of candy corn, falling from the hole in reality. There is someone screaming, crying perhaps. As the tear engulfs you in its orange glow, you realize the sound was coming from you as you are jarred from sleep.
Dare or Dare
One week before Halloween.
A trio of children slip into the forest of Perez Park. The sunlight fades to shadows, before taking on a pink hew. Veins of cotton candy line the trees like streamers. As the children press deeper into the forest, streamers become more like netting, the sun almost completely obscured now.
“Go on! It’s sweeter the further you go in.” The kids steel themselves, pushing deeper into the candy covered forest. Slowly they trek into the gloom, the light of the day fading to a pink tinged gloom.
“I, I don’t want to go any further.”
“Don’t be a chicken…” The child mocks, reaching into the cotton candy netting, pulling a strip free. “It’s so good.”
“No, no, no, Spider Jack!”
“Spider Jack’s not real.” The kid said, not thinking to look behind, or why their friend was running. Pin-like legs, too small to support the massive orange frame above it move the spidery form out from the shadows. As the warm yellow glow from the gaping maw in his chest washes over the child, casting a smiling shadow on the ground in front of them. Only now do they realize, their friend was not a coward, and that it may be too late to join them.
Personal Scenes
It is the day of Halloween. Too early to trick or treat, and not quite late enough to start getting ready for most children. Kids are enjoying themselves in the autumn day and for once the city is not plagued by villainous threats.
Take a few minutes to check in with each of the heroes. It’s important to make sure that everyone is aware that the sun has not gone down yet. Depending on where your campaign is set it may be important to track the actual hours if it is more common for trick-or-treaters to start going out before dark.
Just before sunset, reports start coming in of children going missing in Perez Park. GMs may want to check in one more time with each of the heroes to see where they are when the news begins reporting the missing children.
Into the Spiderverse
The forest of Perez Park was already overgrown. Now, the heart of the grove is an impenetrable canopy of tree limbs and dried leaves, obscuring the thick resin below. Heroes will need to follow one of the trails into the forest, or try to break through.
Breaking Through the Canopy
To break through the heroes will need to get through each layer. Each posing their own unique problems.
- Resin Canopy: The outer resin shell is hardened, and the heroes will need to be able to punch a hole through it to get down.
- Stamina 16 Armor 4
- Fire Bad: Heat and Fire based powers can start a fire that will quickly spread across the forest top as the resin dissipates the heat. Any single fire Attack doing 10 or more Damage will trigger a larger conflagration.
- If the Canopy is reduced to 4 or less Stamina without being destroyed, enough of it is damaged that the heroes can see a second layer flowing like molten rock.
- Stamina 16 Armor 4
- Gooey Layer: Breaking open the Resin Canopy will reveal the gooey center which lashes out trapping anyone in close range. Heroes that avoid being lashed can attack the gooey taffy like layer. Breaking free, or doing more than 10 Stamina in Damage to this layer will create an opening.
- Gooey Lash 32 Dice 5 Damage -* Notes Escape Target 46 (26, 3 Successes), Trapped Targets suffer 4 Damage each Turn until they escape. This Damage is from chemical burns by the acidic nature of the goo.
- Caustic Center: Once free, and a hole made in the taffy, the heroes can see a light twill undercoating. It reeks of sulfur, and burns the eyes. It only takes an action for the heroes to break through but are coated in a caustic acidic twill.
- Acid Burn: Damage 12 Continuous for 4 Turns, or vinegar will neutralize the acid.
Follow the Jackling Trail
Not far into the trails, the trees become covered in what appears to be cotton candy. Soon it is too dense to see past the trees. With the sun having gone down, the path quickly goes from poor lighting to no lighting.
Not far into the black out darkness of the forest the heroes will be confronted by men and women covered in what looks like the same cotton candy like substance. Their skin is now various shades of orange and red. thick, more like hide. Their eyes glow with an eerie yellow light.
At first they still simply stand there, blocking the path. They are unresponsive, until the heroes get within Short Range. At this point, they will move in unison, vomiting a thick orange sludge as they attempt to claw and strike at the heroes.
Heroes following the paths should face groups of Jacklings.
Heroes who Break through the Canopy can bypass one or both of these groups depending on if they find the center of the canopy before breaking through, dropping in on Spider Jack directly.
Jackling (Classic Eldritch Abominations + Brawler + Striker + Trapper)
Basic Rolls 9 + 2d6
Stamina 9
Defense 15 Dice 2 Armor 3
Offense Pumpkin Spiced Bile 9 Dice 2 Range Short Damage 6 Notes Trapping Escape Difficulty 19
Offense Jacked Claws 21 Dice 4 Range Close Damage 12
Jacklings (Minor Mob) (Classic Eldritch Abominations + Brawler + Striker + Trapper)
Basic Rolls 9 + 2d6
Stamina 9
Defense 15 Dice 2 Armor 5
Offense Pumpkin Spiced Bile 14 Dice 2 Range Short Damage 6 Notes Trapping Escape Difficulty 19
Offense Jacked Claws 26 Dice 4 Range Close Damage 12
Spider Jack’s Lair
At the center of the park, Spider Jack has made a nest for himself. The area is filled with a pink cotton candy web. Cocoons can be seen throughout the web, some having been burst open, others clearly holding the bodies of Spider Jack’s victims.
Method of Madness
Heroes can attempt an Occult roll Difficulty Challenging (45) upon seeing Spider Jack’s lair. Heroes that come down on Spider Jack’s lair reduce the Difficulty by 10, being able to see things from the top down.
Partial: Something feels familiar about the shape of the web.
Success: The web looks like a summoning circle, in three dimensional space.
1 Degree: It is a banishment circle.
2 Degrees: The cocoons are placed in locations where people would stand.
Spider Jack’s Attack
Able to sense movement in his web, Spider Jack is aware of the heroes approach. He will hide before they arrive, and pounce on whoever looks the softest (preferring skin over metal, this doesn’t mean the weakest or least armored). Jack will attempt to paralyze all of the heroes, to later make more Jacklings.
Spider Jack speaks in an alien language as he attacks. Heroes with universal languages will know that this is Elder Speech, a language from before the first gods. Heroes without Elder Speech can recognize it by making a Wisdom + Occult roll Difficulty Challenging (45)
The web itself will work to support Jack. Spider Jack’s web is a medium sized circle. GM’s can split the short and medium Range Increments into quarters, representing the web’s integrity, with 10 Stamina in each location. The web will attempt trap heroes as with the Gooey Layer of the canopy.
On Turns 2 and 4, minor mobs of Jacklings will arrive, if the heroes bypassed them earlier.
Spider Jack (High Powered Eldritch Horror + Advanced (2) + Reinforced (2) + Brawler + Sneak (2) + Striker + Tough + Cluster + Trapper (5))
Basic Rolls 20 + 4d6
Stamina 48
Defense Speedy with an Unbreakable Hide 44 Dice 5 Armor 8
Offense Pumpkin Spiced Bile 20 Dice 4 Range Short – Close Radius Damage 4 (Halved for Trapping) Notes Trapping Escape Difficulty 40 (or 30 with 2 Successes)
Offense Stinger 34 Dice 6 Range Close Damage 8 Notes Trapping (Untouchable Trap) Escape Difficulty 40 (or 30 with 2 Successes) Paralytic, Escape with Constitution + Fitness rolls.
Sneak 36 Dice 6
The Unkillable Spider Jack
Spider Jack cannot be killed, at least not on this plane of existence. However, if reduced to 0 Stamina or lower his body will break down, absorbed into the earth, leaving only what looks like rotting pumpkin husks behind.
Aftermath
With Spider Jack defeated, the webbing will become brittle, breaking down over the next week.
None of the people in cocoons are dead, but rather in various states of transformation into Jacklings.
The Jacklings are not aggressive, but will stand in a circle around the rotten pumpkins of Spider Jack’s body. They say nothing, and will move when held. Their eyes now yellow, but no longer glowing.
The children who went missing are the least affected, showing no outward signs of transformation. If the heroes try to talk to the children, one will look back at the rotted patch of pumpkin saying under his breath, see you next year Mr. Jack.
After Credits Scene
Hey kids, do you like Spider Jack? Get your very own Spider Jack tee’s and tell your friends, you’ve survived the Cotton Candy Forest! https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/14391119-spiderjack?store_id=507977
Bonus Content
Want to expand the adventure? Join our Patreon for additional content like, more on Elder Speak, an alternatives to fighting Spider Jack, and new options for defeating him. Also, ways to cure the Jacklings.
