Danse Macabre
The Magpies were still waiting for help with the stone dogs that had killed one of their companions. The dogs' chains looked long enough to reach almost everywhere in the room, and the mangled corpse was still lying nearby. Shale edged closer and closer until they could actually touch one. Nothing happened. Just stone.
They also tried calling out the name of a hound, Flaegr, in Old Woldish, taking their cue from a poem and the inscription above the door telling them to "Call to the companions". That didn't work either.
They left the stone dogs alone for now and investigated a nearby family crypt. Two skeletons were waltzing among the coffins. Wren and Jasper joined them. The skeletons appeared to be the parents of the family buried there. They couldn't speak, but were quite expressive with their gestures.
Wren and Jasper led their partners into a neighbouring room where yellow and purple mould covered an old mural. Jasper appealed to his dance partner's parental instincts and convinced her to help clean it. She got straight to work. Her husband was less enthusiastic, but joined in after some scolding from his wife.
As the mould came away, the mural showed Sir Chyde fighting frost elves with his hounds by his side. He carried a shining sword that matched one held by a stone soldier in the room. The statue's sword showed no signs of age, unlike the other soldiers' weapons. The mural also named another hound, Chedr.
Meanwhile, Vassel had stayed behind with the family's coffins. He opened several, took a jade collar from a cat skeleton, and swapped his spear for an old ash staff. He closed the lids again afterwards.
I had made sure they had enough information to realise how dangerous the dogs were, which I think the module doesn't quite manage on its own. These dogs are nasty. At one point the players considered activating them and Scooby-Dooing them around the pillars until their chains wrapped around them. But they didn't quite dare.
I also changed the family crypt. Originally, a tear in reality ran across the room, dripping ooze that made you float. The dancing skeletons would have been floating around too. Last time I ran the module, we spent almost an entire session fucking around with the floating, and I had to make ruling after ruling. I don't think anything important was lost by cutting it.
Making the skeletons unable to speak was a snap decision, and I think it worked out well. It made them more memorable than if the encounter had turned into a dialogue interrogation.
In hindsight, I wish I'd come up with more interesting treasure for the coffins. It still feels a bit too much like standard OSE treasure, rather than the interesting but inconvenient stuff I'd prefer.
I really enjoyed how the skeletons ended up cleaning the mural. I hadn't anticipated any of those interactions, let alone the players leading them out of the crypt and putting them to work. Reaction rolls and player decisions once again took the encounter somewhere I hadn't expected.