Oddities for a Cabin in the Woods

William T. Thrasher

As a chill wind blows over the moorland and snow descends upon the earth like a funeral shroud, don't you want to just snuggle up inside a festive cabin? Sure you do, and if your heroes don't want to catch pneumonia (DC 15 Fortitude save vs. disease) they will as well. But table top gaming, a cabin is rarely what it seems. With that in mind, the minds behind Oddities for a Hung Stocking and Oddities for a Wizard's Tower bring you a new, growing table of oddities for a cabin in the woods!

1. A bubbling cauldron rests in the fireplace. There is an equal chance the cauldron contains porridge, coco, vegetable soup, or stew made from human flesh.

2. An entire wall of the cabin is covered in naughty postcards and reproductions of erotic art. The pictures are randomly glued, nailed, and tacked to the wall.

3. A deer head mounted to the wall as a trophy. There is an equal chance the head is from a doe or a buck (if a buck, roll 2d6 to determine its "point" value). There is an equal change this is a mundane hunter's trophy or some sort of magic item.

4. Someone has been bound, gagged, and hidden beneath the floorboards. There is an equal chance the individual is alive or dead.

5. A bowl of hard candy. Equal chance of butterscotch, caramel, lemon, or peppermint.

6. A landscape painting hangs on the wall. The painting reproduces the view from one of the cabin's windows, depicting the land surrounding the cabin in high summer. A dryad can be seen peeking out from behind one of the trees.

7. A five-string banjo with 1d4 broken strings (there is a 50% chance replacement strings can be found elsewhere in the cabin).

8. A leather footrest in the shape of a pig. There is a 50% chance the leather is made from human skin. (don't ask me how, but I've put my foot up on one of these).

9. A whittling knife and 1d4x carved animal figures.

10. A half-full jar of homemade apple brandy.

11. An old oil-burning lantern provides illumination as it hangs from a ceiling beam by a hook. The lantern's reservoir of oil is empty.

12. An unopened jar of homemade blackberry preserves. There is a 50% chance what appears to be preserves is in fact a flesh-eating gelatinous monster.

13. Firewood and kindling piled haphazardly on a wrought iron rack. The wood is all that remains of a treant that once protected the woods.

14. An owl's nest build on a ceiling beam. There is a 50% chance the owl is present. If not, the owl will return to the nest in 3d10 minutes. There is an equal chance the owl is mundane, a wizard/witch's familiar, a woodland spirit in animal form, or a shapeshifter's preferred form.

15. A crudely blown glass ball hangs in a window. This is either a witch ball protecting the cabin from wicket spirits and baleful magic, or a glass prison containing the spirit of whatever once ruled these woods.

16. A moth-eaten hand-knit blanket. The moth eating it is three feet tall.

17. Three bowls of porridge. The first bowl contains porridge of a temperature too great for human consumption. The contents of the second bowl are chilled to a temperature ideal for fine champagne, but thoroughly unfit for porridge. The contents of the third bowl are cooked to perfection.

18. A wooden bowl containing berries and nuts gathered from the surrounding forest. The nuts are savory and hearty, while the berries are all poisonous.

19. A wood-burning stove. The stove is conventional in every way. However, the exhaust pipe runs down into the floor rather than outside to a proper smokestack.

20. An owlbearskin rug. Somewhere in the woods, the owlbear's mate hungers for revenge.

And that's only the beginning! As always, your favorite d-Infinity contributors will add to this list in the coming days, and our more daring readings will as well. It took us less than a week to reach 100 original oddities last time. Can we break that record?