Sub-stories are akin to small anecdotes of a dramatic nature that can add interest, depth, color, and backstory to encounters. What’s not to like?

I couldn’t bear to shrink this down any further.
Image by Curious Hunter from Pixabay

I’ve started writing this article at least half-a-dozen times over the years, but it’s always fallen apart on me before I got to the interesting parts, simply because it’s been so difficult translating the concept into words that would make sense to anyone not seeing what I was driving at.

Finally, I think I’ve found a vehicle – an example – that will touch on everything that I want to explain. The text might seem to jump around a little from one topic to another at first, bear with me.

An Encounter Focus

It’s not often that Campaign Mastery focuses down onto an isolated encounter. Generally, I talk here about bigger pictures, and I’ll get to those later in the article, but the focus this time is on a single big encounter, and how to enhance it.

The Sub-story Concept

I want to start by establishing some context to the subject in general. The sub-story is usually attached to the defining encounter of either the whole adventure or a significant part of it. That has to happen when designing the adventure and prepping to run it.

Even if your modus operandi is off-the-cuff improv game-play, i.e. making stuff up as you go along, inventing a sub-story at the start makes so many other aspects of creativity easier that it’s worth doing in your head at the start.

So this article is about designing a significant encounter within an adventure, and (to a lesser extent) about then playing that significant encounter when the time comes.

End-Of-Level Encounters

Video games have had end-of-level or ‘boss’ encounters for what seems like forever. And the recipe is usually pretty much the same – a significantly tougher encounter; a bigger, more significant fight; and, usually, a bigger, more substantial reward for defeating the ‘boss monster’.

Over the years, I’ve seen that same concept applied to RPGs as well, and the recipe has usually been translated across pretty much verbatim from the video game.

It’s a logical progression: you have to dismantle the Boss’ support network and flunkies just to get to the Boss. It’s also not uncommon for the Boss to be pretty much invulnerable until one or more of his protections gets taken down.

The Sub-story can be used to add “Roleplaying” to what is otherwise just a bigger fight – introducing color and narrative and plot and depth – to such end-of-level combats. It can also add more options for the resolution of that end-of-level conflict than simply swinging a sword until the enemies are a smoking ruin or blood-stained smear, which smarter groups will often find attractive. At the very least, it can add some meaning and context to what is otherwise a fairly vacuous slug-fest.

The Two Ghosts Encounter

The vehicle that I’m going to use to explain and demonstrate the concepts and application of those concepts is something I’ve entitled “The Two Ghosts Encounter”.

The situation is that you have decided – either randomly, using tables, or because you think it interesting, or because they are a significantly tougher opponent – to have the ‘boss encounter’ be a ghostly in origin, and the encounter mechanics suggest that, for a party of this level of ability, two ghosts is the right level of difficulty to pose a challenge to the party. When you start designing the encounter, that’s pretty much all you know about it, okay?

So let’s dig into the design process and see where the sub-story fits in.

The ‘Two Ghosts’ Encounter – setting

The setting for this encounter and its surrounding adventure should be somewhere that’s appropriate for ‘Ghosts’ to appear. The first thing that comes to mind is a haunted mansion, so let’s go with that.

The ‘Two Ghosts’ Encounter – foundation

The foundation is where this encounter is to take place, within the context of the setting. You don’t want it to be accessible directly from the outside or the rest of the adventure will be an anticlimax. So, even if our haunted mansion has a graveyard, that can’t be where the climactic encounter takes place.

So, instead, lets put a family burial vault in the basement. Let’s further state that there is some sort of barrier in place that can’t be bypassed until the first floor of the mansion is cleared, the legacy of a past attempt to solve the problems of the haunted mansion.

Those problems, whatever they are, will be the reason the PCs get recruited to deal with the situation.

The ‘Two Ghosts’ Encounter – Ghostly Mythos

I have always regarded Ghosts and Mummies as different to all other forms of Undead. In terms of game mechanics, from the time of AD&D (and through all subsequent editions, so far as I know), Ghosts have been based on Positive Energy and not Negative.

It’s always been a foundation concept of mine that Ghosts need a reason to come into existence, some driving obsession or force that demands that they refuse to be carted off to whatever afterlife there is. The process of resisting such ascension by sheer act of will is what somehow fills them with that positive energy.

Another way to look at it is that they have too much life to be prepared to die.

So motivations and agendas matter, when it comes to ghosts. While each individual case will be different, they will all be variations on a common theme. This has, of course been part of ‘ghost lore’ since ling before there were RPGs – ghosts always have baggage, unfinished business as it were, a reason to stick around on the moral plane.

If you don’t resolve that business to the ghost’s satisfaction, you can ‘destroy’ them all you want, and they will simply reform. I’ve occasionally likened it to the ghost casting an extra-dimensional ‘shadow’ into the Positive Energy Plane, and destroying their manifestation on the Material Plane does nothing to affect that ‘shadow’, enabling the ghost to reform.

In some campaigns, I’ve even interpreted this as resulting in the Ghost becoming stronger and more dangerous – gaining levels / hit dice. I’ve also had (sometimes) a connection forged between shadow and the mortal who ‘ended’ the ghost (temporarily) permitting them to be attacked by the returning ghost, because that mortal has interfered with the ‘mission’ or ‘obsession’ of the Ghost.

Other times, I haven’t incorporated either of those ideas, and simply left matters at “It doesn’t help your reputation when you claim to have cleared a ghost from it’s haunt only for that Ghost to be back in residence as though it had never left”.

The other part of ghostly lore that is fairly ubiquitous across my campaigns is that the Positive Energy of the / a ghost attracts Negative-Energy-based undead and other such creatures like moths to a flame. Even those sentient higher-functioning undead types can’t say exactly what it is that attracts them, just that it does, and they feel more comfortable settling into the vicinity.

So Ghosts tend to be surrounded by Specters and Poltergeists and Zombies and Ghouls and (potentially) Vampires and Liches. And that’s the reason the locals can’t just ignore the Ghosts and leave them alone.

Additionally, in some campaigns, I’ve enabled Ghosts to travel beyond their Haunting for limited times, especially to seek retribution. How far, I’ve kept fairly tenuous.

Oh, and mechanics-wise, simply restoring the status quo to what it was without progressing the ghostly motivation or otherwise developing a long-term solution earns only a small fraction of the experience points.

A Note about Specters

D&D often did a fairly poor job of explaining the difference between a Ghost and a Specter, and why this difference took place – what was different about a situation that led a deceased becoming one and not the other?

Motivation. That’s what I kept coming back to. In the case of a Ghost, it was a quest to complete something or achieve something. Only then could the spirit receive the last rites, which summoned the appropriate deity to convey the once-restless spirit to its final destination or to the next step along the way (according to your in-game mythology).

For a Specter, it’s all about hatred, and possibly jealousy. There is someone or something they hate so much that they cannot rest until it is destroyed. Of course, like Ghosts, they can’t travel very far from their Crypt or for very long, so their chances of ever achieving that goal are slim-to-none.

In campaigns where I’ve given ghosts a power-up, as described earlier, I also generally do the same for Specters, most frequently by giving them the ability to temporarily Possess a living body. Each time they do so, it costs the host 10% of their hit points but not a character level. The Specter can then have the person say or do things to advance its agenda, and then exit the body. The host will vaguely remember doing things, as though they had dreamt doing so, but has no idea why, just that it made sense at the time.

Any healing or cure magics will restore the lost hit points, but they are lost again should the Specter ever return to that host, so the hist gets progressively weaker. If they die from Possession, they become a lesser Specter under the control of the original, taking on its agenda as though it were their own.

This sub-specter gains experience from acts that further the agenda, even if it does so in the most abstract or indirect way, until it reaches full Specter status in its own right.

Until that happens, the original Specter is rendered a little more vulnerable, because any harm that comes to the sub-specter are also visited upon the “parent specter”.

There’s also often a subconscious clash of wills at the time of Possession, success is not automatic. Should the Specter be rebuffed, that ends its activities for the day.

Like Ghosts, it’s not enough to simply destroy the Specter; you have to defeat it’s “Shadow” and you can’t rest or heal in between the encounters; the best that you can do is temporarily inhibit it’s ability to manifest in the Prime Material Plane – one day for every level or HD that it had before your intervention..

So to permanently end one, you have to destroy it on the Prime Material Plane, transit to the Negative Energy Plane, and Destroy it all over again, all without resting or healing (it’s considered part of the same battle).

Should a sub-specter be attacked, the Parent Specter can lend it hit points from itself, effectively taking the blow on behalf of the servant. This flow of hit points can also operate in the other direction, so the more sub-specters a Parent Specter has, the stronger it becomes.

 

Turning Ghosts and Specters

This is the ‘easy’ way of disrupting their presence on the Prime Material Plane. It has no effect on any sub-Specters and does not prevent them from re-manifesting. It generally has a somewhat longer-lasting effect than ‘physical’ destruction of the spirit.

For every point over the minimum result needed to turn the Spirit, a cleric or equivalent adds an extra day before the spirit can again re-manifest.

Sub-specters are not affected by the turning of the parent Specter, and vice-versa, but they will lose purpose and direction, and be able to do nothing but protect themselves. This can make them a lot harder to locate.

 

Messing With The Remains

Something that people often try is messing with the mortal remains of the Ghost or Specter. Cremating them, scattering them, consecrating them, boiling them in holy water, whatever.

Because the Ghost / Specter is a metaphysical construct of Positive or Negative energy, this does little except piss them off. While there is a bond of some sort between the physical remains and the spiritual manifestation, the latter is not affected by actions performed against the former.

Mortal remains are considered to have 1/10th the number of hit points that the Specter or Ghost has, so they can be destroyed. Doing so merely liberates the Ghost or Specter from it’s connection to the location where those remains were housed, permitting them to wander the world freely by night, and making them that much more dangerous.

The mortal remains do serve as the link between metaphysical manifestation and “shadow existence”, however. If the mortal remains are destroyed, the Ghost / Specter cannot restore itself to the Prime Material Plane without reforming them, a process that takes one day per hit point of mortal remains (actually, one night per, but you know what I mean).

There are Necromantic rituals that can speed or delay this process, so one of the things that Specters often do is to create a cult that will perform those rituals should it become necessary.

Eventually, the mortal remains will be restored, exactly as they were before, and the Specter / Ghost can then set about restoring it’s Spiritual Manifestation.

The ‘Two Ghosts’ Encounter – the sub-story pt I

With that big slab of Ghostly Lore out of the way, let’s return to constructing the encounter, and devise a sub-story to explain how the first Ghost became one, and therefore what their Purpose is.

The daughter of a minor or major noble (to be decided) was to be wed to a handsome young man, presumably also of Noble blood. Preparations for the nuptials were well-advanced, and he had journeyed to the home of this noble family for the ceremony.

As such events often are with Nobility, this was an arranged marriage whose purpose was to cement alliances and power structures, but the young woman in question genuinely loved the urbane noble she was to wed.

Those affections were not returned, however. He viewed the union as a political convenience, nothing more. As a result, he was perfectly willing to ignore or abandon it should ‘a better offer’ come along, and as the wedding preparations continued, one such opportunity manifested itself, with the daughter of a more politically-powerful family (and a distant cousin of the bride-to-be).

This led to her being jilted at the altar, publicly humiliated. Her family, of course, declared war on the family of the insincere suitor, but that was not enough for the jilted bride. Unable to avenge the humiliation and rejection, because of the protection created by the new political alliance, she took her own life.

So strong was her sense of being wronged that she refused to pass on until the last member of the groom’s family were made to suffer. She desired nothing more nor less than to make them suffer exactly what she had suffered – rejection, humiliation, and death.

That seems serviceable. A nasty little story of wounded pride, of a young girl’s head full of romantic ideals that were sacrificed to a hard political reality by an insincere suitor.

Of course, the Ghost will have little opportunity to wreak such vengeance unless the family of the groom make the mistake of returning to the Mansion that her restless spirit now roams, or to it’s vicinity, at least.

In the meantime, her Ghost will attack any men that enter her sphere of power as surrogates for the family of the Groom, and will seek to protect any females who do so from suffering her own fate.

Translating the sub-story into detail I

Next, we need to represent the sub-story in some tangible way within the confines of the encounter setting, so that the setting itself reflects at least part of the story.

It’s fairly common for people to be buried with some treasured personal possession, something symbolic of their life or their death. I often refer to such items generically as a personal token.

What could be more symbolic of our sad little sub-story than the Ghost’s wedding dress?

But we don’t want her simply to be buried in it, we want it to be on display somehow, so that we can incorporate it into our description of the crypt.

Funerary customs vary widely from one era to another and between different cultures, so we can pretty much invent whatever such that we want. So why not have such tokens interred behind glass alongside the vault of their owner, displayed behind glass?

Only the wealthy and powerful could afford to do this, so that tells part of our story. We will need some other tokens for the other family members buried in the vaults, so that we introduce the concept to the PCs as they enter the vault. This will enable them to interpret the actual token associated with our Ghost when they get to it.

Adding sensory nuance I

But so far, that’s a fairly static display. I prefer scenes that are more dynamic, containing some sort of motion or change. And we still need to hint at the rest of the story.

If the wedding dress is displayed on some sort of manikin, we could have the end of the sleeves being red-brown with dried blood. And maybe have it dripping, or have arterial spray appear on the walls despite the intervening glass? And, of course, when the Ghost is encountered, it will be wearing a ghostly representation of the same wedding dress.

What other senses can we engage to flesh out the story?

Sound is covered by ghostly moans and groans and female sobbing punctuated by anguished screams of frustration.

Scent – perhaps a delicate feminine perfume lingers in the air? That’s so distinctively unusual that it should get attention.

Taste – perhaps the flavor of bitter almonds fills the mouth (suggestive of arsenic poisoning) or the flavor of champagne, representing the celebrations that were about to unfold? The first doesn’t really fit the suggestion of slashed wrists, the second doesn’t seem appropriate since the celebration would have been canceled following the ceremony not taking place. Unhappy with both ideas, I’ll leave taste out for the time being, and see if anything occurs to me.

Even without it, there are enough clues that the heart of the story should be deduced from them. The Anguished screams of frustration, the wedding dress, the hint of suicide. That’s enough to be going on with.

The ‘Two Ghosts’ Encounter – the sub-story pt II

So let’s turn our attention to the second Ghost. We need to incorporate it into our story, which means adding to it.

My mind keeps returning to the consequences of the suicide, which don’t really seem immediate enough. A grieving father who genuinely cared for his daughter even though he was willing to use her to advance the family fortunes would not have been satisfied.

When his daughter’s lifeless body was discovered in her bedroom, Viscount Kerr was inflamed, in part because he had been the architect of the original ‘arrangement’ between the families, in part because the incident had occurred under his own roof.

He immediately demanded satisfaction from the young Baronet, drawing his sword to emphasize his point. Unfortunately, he was not as quick as he once had been, and the Baronet – one of the better swordsmen in the country – defeated him fairly easily, inflicting a belly wound that would prove fatal just a few days later. Realizing what he had done, the Baronet released his weapon and fled the scene.

But Viscount Kerr’s guilt over his role in his daughter’s death would not permit him to move on. He vowed to protect her until he had earned her forgiveness, no matter how long he might wait. It was some time later that he realized that both of them had become Ghosts, bound to their mutual not-quite-death-not-quite-life existence by their separate goals and motivations.

With that, the sub-story is complete – we just have to devise delivery mechanisms to get it into the players’ hands.

It may be getting ahead of myself, but I also want to point out just how different the encounter has become due to the establishment of relationships between the two Ghosts. There are other significant differences that derive from the sub-story, which I’ll get to in due course.

Translating the sub-story into detail II

So we need to emplace one or more clues in the burial vault that hint at the rest of the story outlined above. We could start with the displayed tokens of his life, being the sword that was the instrument of his challenge, crossed by the sword of his demise. The first contains a number of deep cuts and nicks that show that it was hard-used on the occasion of its last use; the second is marred, but not as deeply, and three-quarters of the blade is still covered in the dried blood of its last victim.

Next, we might think about a couple of inscriptions that go beyond merely naming the victims. Maybe:

• Georgina Kerr, Age 16. Her innocence was taken by betrayal, her life by humiliation.

and,

• Viscount Ferdal Kerr, Age 34, father of beloved Georgina. Wounded pride blinded him, love of his daughter ended him.

Again, those present enough clues that it should be possible to deduce the outlines of the story, though you would need to put them all in the right order.

Adding sensory nuance II

It’s my sense that Viscount Kerr’s ghost won’t go around putting on displays the way Georgina’s’ ghost was doing. In fact, until she is confronted, there will be no hint of his existence – and then he will rise from the floor and place himself between the threat and her shade, perhaps saying something along the lines of “You shall not hurt her again!” – again, reflecting the sub-story.

There would, perhaps, be signs elsewhere in the mansion. Arterial spray appearing spontaneously on the walls of Georgina’s bedroom. A pool of blood and a mysterious chill in the air where the Viscount lost his life – perhaps the main staircase, because that gives the impression that he rushed down directly from the discovery of the body to seek to avenge Georgina. And perhaps the repeated ring of blade meeting blade when standing in the exact spot (before the pool of blood manifests, of course).

If the blood is real enough that whoever was standing in it then leaves tracks for a half-dozen to a dozen paces, then the arterial blood would also be real enough to sustain some creatures that feast on such – and that makes a nice pair of clues that there’s more to these Ghosts than players might have read in their Monster Manuals. My players might expect that of me, but it’s still polite to at least suggest fair warning!.

The ‘Two Ghosts’ Encounter – Delivering the sub-story

The sequence of clues could be important to making rational deductions about the sub-story, as noted in the previous section. So we should think for a minute about how they are to be revealed, and how we can apply a sequence to them that matches what we want to convey.

When the PCs first reach the burial vault, we want to make sure they know that’s what the chamber is. So we probably need a couple more family members in vaults at the entrance to make that clear.

This area appears to be an underground burial crypt, no doubt reserved for the masters of the mansion, which is why you could find no trace of them in the cemetery outside. Each vault is marked with an inscribed brass plate and some token of the deceased’s life is visible behind a pane of glass with decorative frosting around its borders. Immediately within the chamber, on either side, are two vaults:

• Lorhaz Kerr – Birthdate, Death Date, Age 57, “Founder Of A Dynasty.” Token: An Axe and Shield.
• Walthoa Kerr – Birthdate, Death Date, Age 63, “Mother Of A Family.” Token: A half-knitted shawl and ball of homespun wool.

Five more pairs of vaults lie to either side, the last barely visible in the light of your torch at the entrance. You also note oil lanterns affixed neatly next to each inscription. These burial conditions might be rudimentary, but there was no shortage of money spent on honoring the dead.

In the distance, two beyond the sixth pair of vaults that are so hard to make out, the oil lantern somehow lights itself. You can’t see anyone beside it, perhaps there’s some clever mechanism involved. You can’t read the inscription from here, but the glass-fronted memorial chamber contains what appears to be a lacy wedding dress that must have cost a pretty penny even back in the day. There’s something not quite right about it, though – but you can’t make out enough detail at this distance to say what it is.

Then the next lantern ignites spontaneously, revealing two crossed swords. Again, everything is too distant to make out details.

And then the next pair, and the next, and the next, as though whatever agency is responsible is approaching you. There’s a pronounced chill in the air, and you have the distinct impression that something is inviting you in – in the manner of the spider and the fly. You fleetingly lock eyes with each other as you ponder what to do next. What are you doing?

Yeah, that will work. Tantalize with clues, and put them just out of reach.

It goes without saying that every other encounter in the “Haunted Mansion” should be reflective of the situation within, however indirectly. Giant rats, Giant Spiders, Spectral Hounds, Zombies in the Graveyard, and so on.

Making the sub-story significant

So far, we’ve made the Two Ghosts the centerpiece of a small three-level dungeon. There’s more work to be done – the barrier, and tests to be passed before it will be lowered, and that piece of backstory – but the main elements are in place.

But it’s all very isolated; it has no real meaning at the campaign level.

You might be fine with that; some GM’s are. Lots of TV shows are strongly episodic in the same way.

Others, like me, prefer a continuity that links one story or adventure to another. There are lots of options; pick one that suits:

1. If the PCs have a political problem, Viscount Kerr could provide some insight or piece of key (historical) information that sets the PCs on the path to a resolution of the problem – If they get to talk with him.
2. The Ambitious Baronet would also be long-dead by now. But his family would still be around, and still engaged in all sorts of political manipulation. Either Georgina or Viscount Kerr – or both – could open up a new line of adventures for the PCs – again, if they get to talk to them.
3. Perhaps the mansion was built on the remains of an old watchtower, which – unknown to the Kerrs when the mansion was built – contained a connection to some nest of horrors / evils deep underground. While the Ghosts held sway, these were blocked – but they will now be free to make their way to the surface world. (Surprise – there are some additional levels to the Dungeon!)

There are undoubtedly more, but those three examples are enough to demonstrate the principle.

The key point is that the PCs have to reach the point of negotiating / communicating with the Ghosts, not just fighting them, for any of these to come to the PCs attention.

Resolving the ‘Two Ghosts’ sub-story

If the PCs don’t know any better, they have no reason not to simply slug it out with the ghosts. So, at the first mention of Ghosts in the adventure, you should find a way to convey the relevant Ghost Lore to the PCs. Perhaps the party Cleric was given instruction regarding ghosts as part of his general education about Undead. Or there might be a mage in the party who knows about such things from his Brief Introduction To Necromancy – again, part of his basic education. Or maybe there’s an Elf who’s been around long enough to have heard others speak of the subject in huddled tones. The exact choice will depend on the makeup of the Party.

My favorite approach is to divide the information up amongst the PCs, and throw in a little misinformation as well, generally in the form of rumors and superstitions.

There are two approaches to resolving the ‘Two Ghosts’ plotline. The first is to destroy the Ghosts in combat – but the Ghost Lore already tells the PCs that this is just a temporary solution. They can then – if they are able – pursue the Ghosts’ “Shadows” into the Negative Energy Plane and go again.

The second is to find a way to satisfy the Ghosts’ mission, then give the last rites to their mortal remains and send them off to a satisfied afterlife, or to face eternal judgment, or whatever the appropriate situation is within the campaign theology for the region..

Alternate Solutions to the ‘Two Ghosts’ encounter

Satisfying Georgina is the key to laying the Ghosts to rest. While she is obsessed, she can’t even think about why her father is also a Ghost. Once she can be laid to rest, so can he.

Things will be a lot easier for the PCs if at least one of them is female. Georgina will seek to protect her from the males in the party, and that gives the female a chance to start a conversation with the Ghost.

That’s actually fairly rare here in Australia – there just don’t seem to be as many female players as there are in the US. Stereotypical roles may be interfering; I don’t know what else to put it down to, but it’s a fact. One (male) player that I know used to run female characters almost exclusively to balance out parties, and take advantage of any opportunities presented with less competition than usual. And two of the (male) players in my superhero campaign is running female characters. Just thought it was worth a mention.

Without having a handy female to get past Georgina’s defenses, the party will have to get more creative. Are Ghosts subject to Hold Person? That would immobilize them long enough to start a conversation, even if it’s very one-sided at first.

A cleric invoking the God Of Justice (if there is one) and requesting leniency in Georgina’s afterlife Judgment because what happened to her was Unjust, might also wedge the door to a conversation open – just a crack. Promising to punish the Family of the Baronet by exposing one of their plots might then fall on receptive ears.

Being a glib public speaker would no doubt also be an asset.

The approach is up to the PCs – the Ghost Lore spells out that muscle is not enough, what the PCs do with that information is up to them.

Generalizing sub-stories into Themes

This isn’t always necessary, but I find that it helps spark the imagination into the future. In fact, I generally recommend deciding on a few themes at the time of campaign creation, but it’s never too late (at least in this area). A theme is something that can be explored in multiple forms or impact multiple adventures over the course of a campaign.

Possible themes that come out of the Two Ghosts plotline include Justice Deferred, Innocence betrayed, Vengeance, History haunting today (metaphorically), Life, Death, Eternal Rewards, Honesty, Personal Honor, and Infidelity.

That’s too long a list for any reasonable campaign. Pick the three or four for which you have the most good ideas after excluding any that you’ve used in the past, and just go with those.

How do you use a theme?

I’ve dealt with this before, but in brief – every time you come up with an idea for an adventure, go over the list of themes and ask how that theme can manifest within the adventure. Every time the situation indicates a wandering monster, try to integrate one or more of the themes. That’s it, it’s that simple.

The fact that you’ve chosen themes that already give you ideas mean that you can develop those ideas into adventures to specifically explore the theme, which makes it easier. Themes help one campaign distinguish itself from a similar one; the players may never know that you have intentional themes, but they will pick up on the differences in coherence and cohesion that result in the adventures.

Reflecting sub-stories in Random Encounters

This article is fast steaming toward a conclusion, but there are a couple of applications of the sub-story that I have yet to highlight. The first of these is applying the sub-story to Random Encounters.

I always try to look at Random Encounters as a way to extend or enlarge the story, or a way to cement verisimilitude. I may not always succeed but that’s always my initial question – how can I use this encounter to improve the adventure?

Either of those purposes involves connecting the encounter to the sub-story in some way. For example, we might ask ourselves,

With the patriarch of the family and his sole heir both dead, what became of the family and their title?

Lady Urial, the late Viscount’s wife, blamed the family of the Baronet for the events which had devastated her family, not unreasonably. She abandoned the Mansion immediately after laying her husband and daughter to rest in the crypt, dismissing some servants and taking the rest with her. She returned to her family’s holdings in the South and spent her days in the gardens there, scheming the downfall of the house that had destroyed her family. She dissipated the family fortunes – never extensive to begin with – in one maneuver after another, all designed to humiliate and thwart those she deemed her enemies. Only two servants remained to care for the mansion, which she could never bear to sell.

The family title was inherited by a distant cousin of the former Viscount who brought so little luster to it that it fell into disuse. After the death of his cousin-by-marriage, he journeyed to the Mansion, dismissed the last servants (which he could no longer afford to keep) and prepared to sell the mansion, a plan that went awry the first time he encountered the Ghosts. He fled, screaming, never to be seen again; the conjecture is that he tripped somewhere out in the wilderness and perished at the (metaphoric) hands of some wild beast.

Okay, that adds a third chapter to the story. Now we need to connect it to the wandering monster. We can either roll for it’s nature (rejecting anything that doesn’t seem to fit the themes / sub-story), or we can narrow down the options and make a deliberate choice. My general technique is to roll and use the results as inspiration – but to be quite prepared to pick something completely different if that’s better for delivering the story.

In this case, I think a creature that has found the diary of the last servant, which contains the key information that although various visitors have claimed the Mansion to be haunted, she has never been troubled by the alleged spirits, and that she was just a young girl of similar age to Georgina when the latter was alive; they became close friends, and she misses her friend desperately after the tragic events. The diary is full of little touches that pay tribute to the relationship – things like putting a bouquet of fresh flowers in Georgina’s bedroom every morning, in memory of her friend. It also talks of the cousin and his fate.

Getting back to the encounter, I want a creature that’s smart enough to know that written words have value, but not enough intelligence / education to actually read those words. So it’s grabbed the diary and is looking for someone to tell him what its’ worth.

What creatures actually fit this profile could vary from one campaign to another. It could be a band of Goblins, or it could be a Bugbear, or an Ogre. Which of those would make the most sense, given where the mansion is located in the game world? Once that is decided, I next think about how to ‘dress up’ the encounter to make it a reasonable challenge for the PCs, but one that they are likely to win – I want the diary to fall into their hands. I also make the note that it never directly addresses what happened except in the most general of terms; it’s full of the servant’s reaction to the events however, and would also be full of the preparations for the wedding and the fact that the Baronet made a drunken attempt to bed the servant just days before the wedding was to take place.

The sub-story as non-crescendo

The example offered, of Two Ghosts, clearly makes this sub-story the crescendo of the ‘dungeon’, the central trunk of a vine that weaves in and out of every room and encounter. But it doesn’t have to be that way; that just happened to suit this particular example. Sub-stories can be smaller, a little slice of the daily life (or “life” if that’s more appropriate) of whatever is encountered.

The great power of this approach is that every encounter is ‘doing something appropriate to its existence’ when it is encountered. They aren’t just sitting around waiting for a PC to show up.

A blind Goblin woman has taken refuge in the house’s kitchen with her son; he goes out each day to capture food for the duo while she does ordinary home chores. The Ghosts ignore them, first because they are only in the kitchens, i.e. Servant’s country, and because they aren’t human and human standards can’t be expected to apply to them, and thirdly because the woman is blind and cannot perceive most of the ghostly shenanigans. When the PCs arrive, the Goblin woman might be cooking something, or sweeping the floor, or doing laundry.

Right away, the Goblin Woman feels more like she’s part of the game world, real and solid and interesting. It’s suddenly not a combat encounter – unless the PCs are really heartless – it’s a roleplaying situation. She can tell them what it’s like, living surrounded by Undead (“We don’t unlock the door at night”). She can make them see Goblins as something more than sword-fodder just with her very existence – while at the same time making the PCs less sympathetic to the race in general by pointing out that her Tribe or Clan abandoned her and her son to die, and she has survived to spite them..

This won’t be the case with every encounter – some of them will still need to be resolved using drawn weapons and violence – but it gives each encounter a level of substance that you can’t get any other way. And it makes every encounter that bit more memorable – and trust me, players will notice that sort of thing, especially when it starts happening time after time.

A Powerful Tool

Sub-stories are a powerful tool, as this last example shows. You control how far they spread, how they interact and interconnect, whether or not they are the central focus of an adventure / quest / ‘dungeon’ or go no farther than the immediate vicinity. Once you get into the habit, you can usually devise one in the span between two breaths, drawing inspiration from selected key themes, concepts, and existing game prep.

They should be part of every GM’s repertoire!