Vacant Ritual Assembly #1 (a fanzine for LotFP that I highly recommend) includes a section entitled "Greycandle Manor." It provides a map of a mansion that could be inserted into one's campaign, along with a few background details and a blank map key for the DM to fill with whatever they deem appropriate. Clint Krause, the author of VRA, used it in his campaign when the PCs wanted to buy a spooky old house. Of course, you could also use it as an adventure site or whatever else you want. I love these kind of fill-in-the-blank resources for DMs, since they give you just enough details and ideas to inspire you and get you started on your own creations.
In my campaign, I decided that Ibofuris Onaxix, retired adventurer, wanted to buy the place. The PCs had a chance to buy it first, but they decided on a different house. They haven't explored Greycandle Manor yet, since Ibofuris has not been properly introduced, but I find it helpful to have resources on the back burner in case the players want to do something unexpected and I suddenly need an adventure location or something. Here's how I fleshed out my version of Greycandle Manor. The numbering scheme follows the map key from VRA #1.
1. Entryway and main hallways, displaying art and other items from far-off lands. Items include a wicker doll hand-crafted at the Isles of Cata'an, wooden masks and totems from the Remote Lands, misshapen iron artifacts from Trow territory, a gold-plated sextant, and ancient bronze tools from the Isle of the Unknown.
2. Rear Entryway - Collection of fertility idols from different cultures, as well as other risque art. Incense is usually lit here, the scent wafting throughout the house.
3. Guest Bedroom - Decorated with taxidermy exotic animals, including a grizzly bear.
4. Small Painting Gallery - Includes an Ooms portrait of Ibofuris, posing with one of her trademark golden canes that double as magic staves. Her eyes seem to follow you.
5. Guest Room - Decorated with exotic weapons and shields. A few are still sharp. Notable items include a jewel-encrusted claymore from the Twelve Duns, a Ghol scimitar, a Dwarven battleaxe, a bronze trident, and a shield that was supposedly used at the battle in which Balor was beheaded.
6. Kitchen - Rather small. Religious symbols are carved into the walls, a holdover from the manor's time as a priory. No matter how much lighting in introduced, the kitchen always seems dimmer than it should be.
7. Dining Room - Doubles as a living room or parlor, since there is no other room big enough for entertaining guests that Ibofuris has not already used for another purpose. The huge table and accompanying chairs are made of lignum vitae.
8. Guest Room - Decorated with maps, charts, flags, banners, and documents.
9. Bathroom - Not quite Twentieth Century stuff, but still anachronistically advanced in terms of the fixtures and features available in an Early Modern-style setting. Ibofuris has jumped on the "modern sanitation" bandwagon that has been steadily advancing since the end of the Soulblighter War.
10. Treasure Vault - Trapped like crazy. Mostly treasure and documents, with few magic items.
11. Armory - A few traps. Not many magic items, but high-quality gear and stockpiled adventuring supplies. Silver weapons, modern Dwarven firearms, and beautifully-crafted armor are included, among other good stuff.
12. Laboratory - Trapped like crazy. There is a mummy (inanimate) on a table. Over a hundred strange medications are neatly arranged and labelled. The normal laboratory paraphernalia is here, for when Ibofuris wants to craft magic items.
13. Upstairs Hall - Decorated with a nautical theme. Maps and charts, telescopes, navigation tools, ropes and pulleys, oars, seashells, turtle shells, fish bones, harpoons, etc. Sometimes even smells faintly of the sea.
14. Ibofuris' Bedroom - The north wall bears a fresco depicting necromancers being driven out of Tandem by an armed and angry populace. There is a silver dagger and a wand of magic missile with ten charges hidden under the mattress.
15. Butler's Bedroom - The north wall bears a fresco depicting a procession of monks carrying gray candles through an ashen wasteland.
16. Servant's Bedroom - The south wall bears a fresco depicting a group of saints and Legion soldiers defeating a horde of undead.
17. Craftsman's Bedroom - The south wall bears a fresco depicting a family huddled in a cave, clad in rags and clutching grey candles.
18. Attic Access- Miscellaneous art and old furniture.
19. Extra Supply Storage - Cleaning supplies, some medicine, odds and ends. Model ships accentuate the shelves.
20. Walk-In Closet - Looks like the backstage dressing room of a theater. Clothes, shoes, etc. Items are often made from exotic pelts or other fancy foreign materials.
21. "Special" Guest Bedroom - Decorated with art too erotic for even the rear entryway. Sex toys and other kinky things. Silk sheets. Walls are fairly soundproof.
22. Office - Converted bedroom, with the bed still here. Dwarven-made fire-proof safe mostly contains important papers, but there are some coins and jewels as well.
23. "Mundane" Library - Nonfiction books are primarily about history, geography, biology, geology, astronomy, linguistics, and a large number of various crafts and skills like woodworking, gemcutting, shipbuilding and sailing, cartography, mining, wilderness survival, and military tactics. There are a handful of fictional works, including a collection of the Bumblebee Bandit novels.
24. Magic Library - Trapped like crazy. Used for Ibofuris' magical research. Includes a lot of scrolls and enchanted books, as well as a back-up spellbook.
25. Attic - Summoning circle. Altar. Strange powder always on floor. Braziers. Strange artifacts of bone, wood, and stone. Chains. Branches and leaves of foreign trees. Perfumes that barely cover up a coppery smell. Antlers.
26. Cellar - There is a weird pit or well in the floor, which is sealed shut by a metal plate covered in runes and glyphs. Eerie whistles can sometimes be faintly heard coming from beneath the plate. Not pictured on map: several doors in the cellar connect to other underground rooms used for food and wine storage as well as a temporary home for Ibofuris' extra furniture and possessions until she gets the new wing built. There is also a pump room down here for the manor's bathroom.
Additional Notes:
-Ibofuris plans to build a new wing on the back of the house, turning the rear entryway into an antechamber leading to a living room/parlor, a ballroom, and other areas that can be used for parties and social functions. Construction has not yet begun.
-Ibofuris' employees include Fabian Stillingfleet, the butler, Hester Howard, the all-purpose servant, Tobias Crewe, the craftsman/handyman who maintains the house, Nerine Fanshawe, the accountant, Joan Van Gordum, the physician who primarily takes care of Ibofuris, and Ralph Nutley, the coach driver. Nerine, Joan, and Ralph do not live at Greycandle Manor, but nearby in the neighborhood. (The names were taken from Appendix A of Forgive Us.)
-I would still need to add specific traps, treasure values, special loot, etc. if my players ever decide to rob the place or something, but I haven't decided on all of these details yet, and I wouldn't want my players to spoil themselves by reading this blog post, anyway. I think this is enough detail to demonstrate the kind of house a retired, celebrity wizard might own in an Early Modern-ish fantasy setting.
I would love to hear from other people how they have made use of fill-in-the-blank resources like Greycandle Manor. Does anyone have any cool ideas to share?
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