[The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge] Day 14

Day 14: Did you meet your significant other while playing D&D? Does he or she still play? (Or just post a randomly generated monster in protest of Valentine's Day).

Guess I owe people a monster. You're getting a haunt instead.

The Massacre CR 14

XP 38,400

CE persistent haunt (70-ft. radius, 20-ft. high, encompassing a dead-end alley)

Caster Level 14th

Notice Perception 20 (to hear the rising twang of bowshots escalating to dying screams)

HP 63 Weakness susceptible to ranged attacks with bows or crossbows Trigger proximity; Reset one year (on the anniversary of the massacre, except on the day of the massacre the reset is 1 minute, if the haunt kills a victim within the last day, the reset time is one day)

Effect

On the approach to the old alley one notices the telltale signs of bloody violence, rusting quarrel bolts and arrowheads embedded into ancient stone walls depositing rudy stains dribbling from the crevices like caked blood. When the haunt triggers, the air is filled with the gray metallic blur of an arrow barrage. All creatures in the area are subjected to a scouring winds spell. The barrage bursts forth from the alley entry towards the back wall. A powerful wind (windstorm strength) drives creatures in the alley towards the dead-end as ghostly figures of the original massacre relive the event and share their torment with the living. Due to the surprise ambush of the original massacre, the haunt always acts first each round. Characters can take on the role of the aggressors and assassins by attacking and damaging the haunt with bows and crossbows. The spirits are infused into the wall with hardness 8, the haunt hit points are depleted first before the hit points of the wall. However, this enrages the doomed spirits and they retaliate with one arrow eruption spell each round if assaulted at range, duplicating the strongest attack and projectile used against them. Any creature killed by the haunt (either from the scouring winds or arrow eruption damage) experiences the same desperation and doom as the original victims. The newly deceased corpse is targeted by a phantasmal revenge spell with the corpse's killer treated as the nearest living creature in the alley. The spirit of the freshly slain blames those nearby for their demise and lashes out in rage. All living creatures in the alley can see the wrathful spirit rise from the newly slain, though only the nearest creature is targeted.

DestructionThe massacred spirits can be laid to rest if each of the original murderers or their descendants are brought to the haunted alley to face the same fate.