T5: The Dead House

Madame Serena's Fortunetelling

This tiny shack sits at the busy comer of the Processional and Caravan Street. There Madame Serena, a wrinkled woman wrapped in colorful rags who appears to have seen eight or nine decades, sits all day and all night, cackling merrily at passers-by and taunting and daring them to have their fortunes told, for a cost of 1 sp. She offers nobles and other wealthy individuals a detailed reading for 5 sp.

She really is a little prescient, though how much information she gives away to a player character is clearly up to the DM. However, she will try to help her regular customers as much as possible, and can be used as a DM tool to provide warnings, clues, or information to the PCs.

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T5: The Dead House. Formerly known as Madame Serena's Fortunetelling, this little ramshackle structure was once home to an elderly woman who told fortunes. She died a few years ago, and the place is now overrun with the descendants of her many cats. Humans will not live here, in part because of the awful smell and in part because Madame Serena apparently came back in some form of unlife. Many in the Old City have heard that beggars who sleep in the house hear whispers in the night, the sound of furniture moving, and other disquieting noises. The place is now avoided by everyone. Priests and paladins have explored the place but found nothing, though they suspect Madame Serena, if back as an undead, is avoiding them.

DM's Notes: This house is a good place for a DM to make use of an undefined undead presence. Madame Serena was actually quite prescient in life, and could make reasonably accurate predictions. (She was a low-level diviner with very high Intelligence and Wisdom.) Anyone casting a divination spell in this house automatically must save vs. spell or be struck with a great wave of coldness that lowers Strength and Dexterity by 1 point each for 2d10 rounds. If the victim saves, the divination spell will be cast at four levels higher than the caster’s actual level. Madame Serena's spirit might know certain information that it attempts to impart to certain people about the future, particularly of bad things to come. Her spirit cannot be cast out except under unusual conditions (determined by the DM) because she is not evil and came to unlife under her own willpower, like a revenant.