The sad doll

There is an abandoned inn on a seldom travelled route. It is rumored to be haunted. Those stout enough to have made it to the inn and survived to return bring stories of rotting animated corpses, a mournful singing that saps the courage from your soul, and poltergeists that will sabotage your surroundings with traps and steal your belongings.
The party will have to brave through some monsters to get to the inn.

Structure

Exposition

When they arrive at the inn, they will hear mournful singing.
The exterior of the building is in shambles and looks to have been attacked by beasts as well as the elements.
If they go into the Inn, they will be greeted by the Serving Girl who had been the one singing. She will be happy to see the party will introduce herself cheerily as Emily. She will offer the party their choice of seating in the very clean establishment. She will take their drink orders after apologizing that the kitchen is closed.
The bartender will break a few glasses getting their orders together.
Emily is truthfully happy to see the party when they arrive and is enthusiastic in her desire to serve them and make them comfortable. If asked, she will lament the loneliness of the past several years alone in the inn. She will lament the physical state of Sam and, less so, herself. She will mourn the loss of Penelope Pitstop's anima. If pressed, she will also admit she mourns the loss of 'Father,' Kermit the animator, whom she loved as a father and who had loved them like children.

Conflict

There are two main conflicts here.

1. The path and the Inn are unsafe due to monsters. The party will need to eliminate the Fuzzball threat.
2. Investigate and resolve the haunting of the inn. The party will need to eliminate the dolls or fix them and renovate the Inn or some other option that will resolve the haunted rumors.

A minor conflict exists with the actions of Dick Dastardly. Will he be suffered through or be eliminated?

Rising Action

At some point, Dick Dastardly will make his presence known and Johnny Bravo will arrive to "save the day."
One suggestion would be to have the villain tie up the Penelope Pitstop doll off one of the rafters and use a cigarrete or candle to make a timed fuse that will cut the string suspending her. If the GM can arrange that Dick Dastardly can first pilfer the cigarrette from one of the party, it might end up being an interesting surprise to them to see it being used thus.
I don't recommend the villain act against the party or put the safety of them or their items in jeopardy as an introduction to him. Let them see him as mostly harmless a few times and get stopped by Peter Perfect before he sets his sights on the party and their things.

Resolution

None of the dolls or puppets wants to leave the place. They want for the Inn to be successful again. Peter Perfect and Dick Dastardly want to continue putting on plays and Emily and Sam want to make customers happy. There is great potential for the player characters to fix the place up, refurbish the dolls and puppets and direct traffic back to this route and the Inn. The dolls and puppets can be convinced to leave the inn, or be forcibly removed. Treat them as any other NPC for these considerations.
There is also the opportunity for the players to destroy the puppets and dolls and claim their reward for eliminating the haunted inn.

Components

Moral Quandaries

Dick Dastardly is just an actor. And while he claims to be a villain and does "bad" things, he will do no real harm. (as long as Peter Perfect is there to save the day). If the party destroys his puppet, or any of the puppets or dolls, the other three will be very sad and mourn the loss openly. They will give the doll a burial next to the grave of Kermit, their Animator.

Relations

Allies

• Peter Perfect, (a.k.a. Johnny Bravo) was the main hero of the puppet shows and still regards himself as such. He will go out of his way to try stopping Dick Dastardly from achieving his goals. He has a girlfriend, Penelope Pitstop, who he will often call "Pretty Penny." Unfortunately, the Penny puppet has lost its spirit over the ages. While Peter Perfect knows this on some level, he refuses to acknowledge it and will continue to converse with her, often responding as if she had her own lines to speak. He is about 20cm tall.

Neutrals/Bystanders

• Emily - The Serving Girl. When the party meets her, she has lost a foot, most of her hair, and her paint is peeled and flaking. Her dress, while clean, is so worn as to be barely held together. She will be happy to see them and will offer a seat at a table as she limps about.
• Sam - The Bartender. When the party meets him, he has no eyeballs. In fact, his entire face has fallen off. The elastic bands on his sleeves are so old they've lost their elasticity and are hanging like bracelets. Mold has completely permeated his hands and where there isn't mold, there is rust. As a result, his manual dexterity is shot and he will drop or break most glasses.

Adversaries

• Dick Dastardly, the puppet who always played the villain will continue to act like one. At about 20 cm tall It will try to boobytrap things around the party, vandalize their things or take them. Sawing off the leg to a partymember's chair so when they fall he can steal something off them is just one example off the top of my head. The puppet should be melodramatic about things, laugh at the party when they fall victim to one of his schemes and tell them his big plans to take over the world, steal the female or ruin the Hero. Overall, the impression should be of a mixture of his namesake, Pinky and a scooby-doo villian. And should it ever be stopped ot caught will say something like "...and I would have had it, too, if it weren't for you meddlers!" It would be best if the GM can make him a lovable villian.

Backdrops

Locations

The Inn is located on a nice flat, wooded stretch of land between two points of interest. The well-travelled route people take is longer and goes around. Only those in a heedless rush would go this way because of the reputation of the haunted inn and the other monsters that have made this location their home.
The Inn itself has no power. Whatever fueled its generator has long since exhausted itself. Water pressure is provided by a water tank on stilts, but the windmill that pumps the water up to the tank is broken. What the inn does have, however, are protective runes at all the entrances. These runes block entry to anything seeking to cause harm to the occupants. They are powered by a pyramid located in the basement and will fade after its destruction.

Threats

The other monsters on this route

Past Events

There was an animator who wanted nothing more than to run an inn and entertain his guests with his puppet shows.
He had many puppets but two were the favorites. One, a hero, and the other, a villian. They were his stars and they appeared in almost every show he put on.
In addition to his puppet show, the inn boasted life-sized puppet servers. Bedecked in frilly costumes, they were emancipated puppets who had been with the Animator for decades. His only human staff was the cook.
Then the route became less and less travelled. Bandits, Monsters, who knows why; but business dried up and the Innkeeper had to let his cook go. He stayed and managed on his own for years until he too became a casualty. Without business and without their animator, the puppets and dolls remained, making sure the place was clean and ready for their next guests.
Years passed, a decade, more, the odd traveller came back with tales of a haunted inn and people learned to stay away from the place.
If the players inquire, Emily lost her foot running from the Fuzzballs outside and Sam's face was bitten off when he pulled her in the front door.

It is important to note that emancipated puppets are fully sentient beings. They are not robots. The animating spirits have had an identity provided them by their Animator. They have long since adopted these identities and have little to no recollection of who they might have been before becoming anima.
One can debate the ethics of animating puppets with captured spirits; but what's done is done and Kermit, the deceased animator of these puppets, is now beyond justice.
Both Sam and Emily could be considered romance options should the players ever go there.
Peter Perfect and Dick Dastardly have limited intellects. They were Kermit's star actors and only lived to put on a show. As such, their view of the world is limited to acting out the hero or the villian, respectively. Dick Dastardly will be constantly skulking about in his inverness coat and cape seeking to do pulpy villian things, while Peter Perfect, who plays the role of "Johnny Bravo", complete with the bombastic elvis-like accent made famous by the cartoon character of the same name, will swing from the chandeliers and constantly foil the Dastardly plans. This never-ending struggle between the two can be focused by enterprising players onto the stage where they will happily recount rehearsed plays for the audience. Since they view themselves as professionals, they would never violate the sanctity of "the show" and the stage and all its accoutrements are considered holy ground and are off limits in their conflicts.

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If the party spends time searching around the house, they will find one of Sam's eyeballs near the front door. They will find the other eyeball in the refuse of a monster's lair nearby. Sam will be most pleased to have his original eyeballs back but would still gratefully accept alternates if the originals are not returned.

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