1p adventure: The Bone Keep

Covered in perpetual mist lies the ruins of a keep, the site of an ancient battle. Who fought, and for what cause, is lost to time, but the ground is thick with broken bones and rusted war-gear that tell of terrible casualties. Reality is thin here, and a sinister presence stalks the ruins. Drawn here by the terror of the ancient massacre, it reaches through from the shadow realm to feed on the souls of the living. To this keep of mist and bone you’ve come, seeking a relic of great power.

Perhaps you can atone for what your own swords have perpetrated, by readying them once again...

The Bone Keep is a small adventure location, heavily inspired by Runehammer. Because of this, the entire keep is designed as a "room" in ICRPG parlance, meaning that it is meant to be played on a board. I've used the D&D adventure grid because I have it and it fits on my table, but you can use whatever. The important thing is just to set up the board so that the characters cannot walk in straight lines between the grove, the central tower and/or the far tower, and that the skull piles are in choke points.

The basic idea of being chased by evil mist while avoiding stepping on undead comes from a room outlined in the Fire & Ice-series. However, unlike in the ice room, the evil mist does not freeze the character but draw them into a mirror world or sorts. The idea is of course to get even more play out of a single board.

Another great Runehammer idea is to provide a location specific but general search table that you roll on no matter if the perception check or referee ruling indicates you "found" something or not. As the entire adventure basically takes place in "combat time" - there is always a threat present - there is a pressure to always perform combat-oriented tasks. By providing a search table you boost the reward for searching, thus gently tilting the risk/reward balance in favor of this non-combat activity in a less arbitrary way than if you were making up rewards on the spot.

You can download the adventure here.