Layer Marney Tower is Tudor-era country house (a large mansion) whose construction was never completed. It has a staff of servants and construction workers but has had no owner in residence since the passing of Lord John Marney in 1525. No resident, that is, except for a ghostly white cat that continually knocks over armor, claws up the plaster, and generally makes a catlike mess of things.
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Adventure Frame for Magonomia: The Angel of Stone
As a preview of our upcoming Magonomia supplement, 101 Adventure Frames in Enchanted England, here’s the completed text of one of the 101 frames: “Angel of Stone” by Jaclyn Lewis.
About Adventure Frames
Many game masters don't play published adventures as written, but rather use them as a source of ideas for their homebrew games. An adventure frame is just the essential plot structure for a one-session adventure—the part people are most likely to use. It's the spark to set your imagination running. Details of specific scenes, characters, and challenges can be filled in as the game master wishes. An experienced game master should be able develop an adventure frame into a customized story in about thirty to sixty minutes.
Shewstone Publishing's adventure frames are presented in "hook, line, and sinker" format, originally developed by Jolly Blackburn in Shadis magazine in the 1990s. The hook is the opening scene or scenes that motivate the player characters to participate in the adventure. The line is the set of fun events and challenges that make the adventure worth playing. The sinker is a surprise, usually a plot twist, that makes the adventure unique and memorable. The sinker can often be omitted if you want the plot to be more straightforward. Finally, preparation notes give you an idea of what homework the game master should do to get ready to run the adventure.
Angel of Stone
by Jaclyn Lewis
Summary: Protect Hampshire from a vengeful tomb effigy.
Content Warnings: Death of a child, Death by decapitation
Genre: Mystery
Place: A prosperous parish, such as Elvetham in Hampshire
Time Period: Any era
Length: Medium (2-4 hours)
Hook: Well-to-do gentleman Edward Havishire summons the wizards to aid him with a problem. The children of his peers have become increasingly dismissive of their duties, instead chasing rumors of an Angel of Stone that has been sighted prowling various estates by night, and is said to rush toward sinners with blinding speed. Edward is particularly nervous for the young people’s well-being, as many of the teens were friends with his late daughter, Rebecca.
Line: The “Angel'' in question is Rebecca’s tomb effigy. During the day, the effigy rests in the cemetery by the parish church, but at night, it wanders about as a tomb warden, searching for Rebecca's friends from life. The wizards must track the source of the “Angel” to the church, perhaps get past other overprotective tomb wardens in the cemetery, and determine, through magical or conversational means, that Rebecca’s necklace has been stolen, provoking her tomb warden's ire during her nightly excursions.
Sinker: When Thomas Chester’s son Frances goes missing, the wizards find his body near the grounds of the parish hall . . . and his head several yards away, struck by a stone sword. The wizards must locate the necklace, which he had stolen and given to his paramour, Agnes, before Rebecca strikes again.
Preparation Notes: Create an encounter, combat or otherwise, with a tomb warden (use the statistics for a Tomb Warden from A Bestiary of Enchanted England, page 134, or create your own). Choose a pretext for how Rebecca's tomb warden obtains a sword: either her tomb effigy includes a sword contrary to expected gender roles, or the tomb warden takes a sword from the effigy of a nearby male relative. Develop ways for players to discover the truth of the stolen necklace, and, if desired, craft personalities and social dynamics for Frances, Rebecca, Agnes and the other young people of Hampshire.
Keywords: Theft, teenagers, cemetery, murder, tomb warden
Tomb Wardens
From medieval times and into the Tudor era, wealthy or prominent people were buried above ground in large, hollow stone blocks that enclose the coffin. These tombs are as likely to be found in churches as in mausoleums. The top of the tomb is usually carved into a tomb effigy, which is a life-sized statue of the deceased lying as if asleep. Tomb effigies are made of unpainted stone (often marble) and, for mens' tombs, usually include a carved sword and perhaps armor.
Legends speak of tomb effigies coming to life to defend the church or mausoleum from thieves. In Magonomia, such animated effigies are called tomb wardens. They're possessed by some kind of spirit but theologians of Enchanted England doubt that it's the ghost of the dead person. It's thought more likely to be some kind of minor angel—or devil—that comes without being summoned by any mortal. Being made of stone, tomb wardens move with a ponderous gait but have a magical ability to move quickly when no one is looking at them directly. They use this tactic to cut off thieves from escaping before they attack. Tomb wardens are merciless, known for decapitating their victims with their stone swords. The best hope to survive a tomb warden's attack is to drop any ill-gotten treasures and run for your life.
Additional lore and adventure ideas for tomb wardens can be found in A Bestiary of Enchanted England.
About the Book: 101 Adventure Frames in Enchanted England
The title says most of what you need to know: it’s a book of 101 adventure frames set in Enchanted England. The book is designed with a general gaming audience in mind: although rooted in English folklore and Renaissance magic, the adventure frames are system independent and can be adapted to nearly any fantasy or urban fantasy campaign. Coming to Kickstarter in Spring 2025.
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Minor update to Curse of the One-Eyed Witch
Cover illustration by Colin Throm showing a one-eyed witch and some flying imps.
Our introductory Magonomia® adventure, Curse of the One-Eyed Witch (Revised Edition) by John Tibbetts, is available for pay-what-you-want on DriveThruRPG. Now with exciting new punctuation and grammar corrections! Version 1.2 was released today.
Anne Boleyn's Ghost
Tales of Renaissance Wizardry is a series of short adventure outlines for use in tabletop roleplaying games. Since Halloween is coming, we’ve offering a ghost story this month! ©2020 Shewstone Publishing LLC. You are permitted to use, modify, and redistribute this article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike (CC BY-SA) license.
attributed to Lucan Horenbout, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Content warnings: Blood and gore, false accusations of incest
A minor nobleman, Henry Stoke, is embarrassed that the ghost of the Queen's mother appears in his hall occasionally. It's a reminder his ancestor helped with the plot to have her executed. The Queen appears as a decapitated corpse, carrying her head in both hands, and glows with a ruddy light. He finds it terrifying, and his servants keep leaving. He asks the player characters to banish the ghost.
Anne Boleyn* is unusual, in that it intermittently haunts six different places in England.. The player characters can determine her schedule. She appears at Stoke Hall only at the new moon following the anniversary of the day in late April 1536 on which the current lord's ancestor signed a deposition against her.
Many ghosts follow a routine, often ignoring their surroundings. The player characters need to prepare a way to catch Anne's attention, so they can communicate with her. She appears in the master bedroom, then walks down the stairs, through the main hall, and across to a little private chapel. This is the path she took on her first visit, following Henry's ancestor as he fled her, seeking the refuge of the Divine. No-one remembers why she follows this path, save Anne.
Her route through the house is known by the servants. The information is, however, tangled up in a complicated, oral tradition about how to avoid the ghost. Other parts of it are far less accurate – for example each of the servants carries a feather inside their clothes. They say the ghost never attacks someone carrying a feather, because a falcon was the badge of Anne's family. This is superficially true, but only because Anne has never attacked anyone. One of the ancestor's servants was in the ghost's path, and he didn't understand why the ghost ignored him. He thought it must have been the feather he carried for luck, and passed this on to the rest of the servants.
Anne wants to be vindicated of Henry's claim she was unfaithful, particularly the charge that she had an incestuous relationship with her brother, which the original Stoke swore to. She doesn't want to terrify the player characters – she's not even aware of their presence at the beginning of the encounter. Anne doesn't control how or when she appears. One simple way to let her rest is showing her a coin with the Elizabeth Regina mark: her daughter has been legitimised. As a less sweeping solution, if Henry Stoke speaks to her, cursing the memory of his ancestor and saying that all men know he lied, she will leave this particular hall alone in future.
If the player characters lay Anne to rest, she disappears from the minor hall, but also disappears from the rest of her haunts , including several royal palaces. When the royal ghosts go missing, powerful people become concerned. The queen's advisers want to know she hasn't been put in a bottle by the Spanish. This adventure may bring the PCs into the Queen's service.
Adapting to Other Game Systems
This adventure is much more connected to a historical setting, specifically a fantasy version of England, than it is to a particular rule set or magic system. If your game is not set in an Earth-like setting, you can of course make up your own tragic story of a queen or high noblewoman who was executed on trumped-up charges. You’ll need a way to deliver that story to the players without a long lecture. The first thought that comes to mind is to have a minstrel sing a tragic ballad about the incident: make up a stanza or two of the lyrics and summarize the rest.
Pay attention to what spells and powers your game system provides for dealing with ghosts, and make sure to give the player characters a reason to investigate and talk to the ghost instead of simply attacking it.
Editor’s Note
I requested this adventure outline to be about 500 words long. That’s a bit shorter than some other articles in this series. Timothy did a great job fitting an entire evening’s game session into a very brief word count.
Introducing Tales of Renaissance Wizardry: The Queen's Necklace
Tales of Renaissance Wizardry is a new blog series of plot outlines for Magonomia®. A plot outline is a starting point for planning an RPG adventure based on an original, unique concept. Using the outline and perhaps some downloaded maps or a bit of online research, an experienced GM should be able to prepare an entire game session in one hour or less.
These plot outlines are designed for Magonomia but they should be adaptable to most other fantasy games.
The Queen’s Necklace
by Vesna Gronosky
The year is 1579. A jeweled necklace is missing from Queen Elizabeth’s Royal Wardrobe. Since the necklace was a gift from a royal suitor, a diplomatic incident looms. The wizards are tasked with recovering the necklace quickly and quietly.
Synopsis for the Gamemaster
The necklace was a gift from Francis, Duke of Anjou (France), who is the last of Queen Elizabeth’s suitors. The Queen is expected to wear the necklace at an upcoming royal ball. Failure to do so will insult the Duke and threaten the marriage.
Conspirators have recruited a sorcerer, Thomas Smith, to steal the necklace. Smith breezed through the burglary using his spells. He over-relies on the spell Nothing to See Here. Everywhere he goes, witnesses remember seeing someone whom they felt they have seen around before and who seemed to belong there. When pressed, they can give only a vague description and they realize they don’t really know the “familiar” person’s name or anything about them. Witness descriptions do not even match up: two people who saw Smith at the same time will give very different descriptions of him.
Smith is lying low in a village outside London waiting to hand the necklace over to his handlers. Ordinary detective work could never track him down, but many magic spells are available that can lead the wizards right to him.
Plot Outline
Scene 1: Mission Briefing
The wizards are summoned to a safe house in London by a low-ranking spy handler in Her Majesty’s intelligence service. It’s more likely the spy handler will appeal to patriotism than to greed: spies in Elizabeth’s time were generally not paid. Give some thought how to motivate the wizards.
From here, the spy handler ushers them to the next scene: an appointment at the Royal Wardrobe chambers in the Tower of London, where the wizards can interview witnesses and inspect the scene of the crime.
Scene 2: The Royal Wardrobe Chambers
The royal wardrobe consists of several rooms in the Tower of London where Her Majesty’s hundreds of outfits are stored and maintained. Access to the whole complex is restricted to hand-picked royal servants. Jewelry is stored in a special room to which only a few people have keys. However, the jewelry room is often open during the day.
Thomas Smith slipped in by following along with a handmaiden. People thought he was one of the handmaidens! He had to loiter for a while until the jewelry room was opened.
Lady Dorothy Stratford is the Mistress of the Robes, manager of the entire royal wardrobe complex.
Clues to where Smith went with the necklace:
· While he was loitering, one of the guards or servants engaged him in small talk. Smith tried to end the conversation as fast as possible. The key point is that the witness asked where Smith was from, and in his panic he gave the name of the village where he was planning to flee after the burglary. Perhaps it’s Harrow on the Hill, 3 miles northwest of London.
· Nearly any divination magic, including General Divination, can reveal the town or village where Smith is hiding.
· Search for Lost Property is an obvious spell to use, but it normally requires the lost item’s owner. There’s no way to get an audience with the Queen—she doesn’t even know the necklace is missing—but Dr. Dee can give access to her horoscope, which is enough to cast the spell. Alternatively, Lady Stratford is caretaker of the necklace and you can let her substitute for the owner for purposes of the spell.
Scene 3: Finding the Thief
Smith’s rendezvous with his co-conspirators is set for a village he knows well. This gives him a chance to spot strangers who might be on his tail. It also means the people around will probably recognize him. He’s stashed the necklace somewhere and is using Nothing to See Here to keep watch for his contacts without being identified. The inn is too visible; instead, he’s simply moved into a big house with few people in it and is using his spell to pass as an extra servant. If you prefer, it can be the house of someone who’s away on business.
Scene 4: Things Get Complicated
Smith’s handlers show up sooner or later. If you haven’t decided already, now is the time to figure out who they are:
Protestant agitators keen to block the Queen from marrying a Catholic Frenchman
French conspirators keen to block the Duke of Anjou from marrying the Queen of England
Spanish or Scottish spies who want to block an alliance between France and England
Really, nearly any conspiracy that fits your campaign can be behind this theft. Smith might be deeply involved in the conspiracy or he might be someone they recently bribed or blackmailed into performing this mission.
If Smith has spotted the wizards on his tail, he either goes deep into hiding or flees town entirely. Will his co-conspirators cross paths with the wizards, and what happens if they do? Maybe rumors of the theft have got out and some other interested party—a gang of London jewel thieves, agents supporting the Duke of Anjou, or some opportunistic wizard—also comes looking for the necklace.
Adapting to Other Games
This plot outline relies heavily on a distinctive spell, Nothing to See Here, and details of how it works. To use the plot in another game system, change Smith’s modus operandi to fit the particulars of your favorite disguise spell from that game. For example, in 5E he might be using Disguise Self . His pattern would be to impersonate a specific person who has access to a given area. The telltale sign of his presence isn’t that every witness perceives him differently —- it’s that the person he’s impersonating is seen in two different places at the same time.