The Ashen Curse of Sulescu Manor
by Reverend Dungeon MasterThe courier staggers out of the night, covered in soot, his eyes wild with terror. He thrusts a charred letter into your hands and collapses at your feet. The message reeks of fear: Sulescu Manor, once a brooding monument to faded nobility, now lies in ruins after a great fire. But the flames did not cleanse its curse. Beneath the scorched stone, Alaric Sulescu’s brood remains, rising again to sate their bloodlust.
The manor is a skeleton of charred timber and shattered stone, its walls blackened and crumbling. Smoke clings to the air, mingling with the coppery scent of blood. Beneath your boots, the ground crunches with cinders and bone fragments. The wind howls through jagged gaps, carrying faint, mocking whispers.
A blackened staircase descends into the earth, untouched by fire, where the brood slumbers in their crypt. The deeper you go, the more the ruin shifts, groans of ancient stone, flickers of shadow where light should not reach.
The Brood of Sulescu
Number Appearing: 4
Armor Class: 1
Hit Dice: 7+3 (35 HP each)
THAC0: 13
Attacks: 2 claws (1d4 each) or bite (1d10, drains 2 levels)
Special Abilities: Regeneration (3 HP/round), Charm (save vs. Spells or become enthralled), Gaseous Form, Summon 2d6 rats or 1d4 wolves.
Movement: 120’ (40’)
Treasure Type: E (hidden beneath the rubble)
XP Value: 1,250 each
The brood doesn’t slink from the shadows, they rise from the ashes like phantoms of the inferno. Alaric’s voice cuts through the silence, cold and venomous: “The fire took our home but left our hunger.” They attack with fury, their scorched forms wreathed in flickering embers, their movements unnaturally fluid despite their charred flesh.
The battlefield is treacherous. Collapsed beams shift underfoot, releasing clouds of ash that choke and blind. One vampire shatters a crumbling pillar, sending rubble cascading down to isolate your party. Another summons a swarm of soot-blackened rats, their eyes glinting like embers.
When the first vampire retreats to mist form, it slips through cracks in the stone, reforming near its coffin. The others fight harder, summoning wolves with matted, singed fur, their howls echoing through the crypt like a dirge.
With the brood destroyed and their coffins sanctified, you sift through the ruins to uncover their hoard:
Gold Coins: 6,000 GP
Jewelry: Worth 5,000 GP, scorched but intact
A +1 Sword of Ashen Vengeance (deals an extra 1d6 radiant damage to undead and emits a faint warmth)
Potion of Fire Resistance
XP Award: 5,500 total
The ruins stand silent in the dawn, but the ashes feel heavier, as though the curse clings to the land itself. You leave Sulescu Manor victorious, but the whispers of Alaric’s brood linger in your mind, a reminder that some evils survive even the fiercest flames.