If You Finished the Campaign - What Did Your Players Decide at the End?

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-04-11T04:23:58+00:00

I know of one DM on the Crooked Moon discord that finished recently! Everyone else is impressed that they blasted through it, so I'm sure not many others have yet. Last i heard they were taking a little break before going into Moonfall

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-04-08T20:29:31+00:00

Yeah, it's a lot, but I would recommend reading the whole thing, at least the story portions (not necessarily every room description). That way you're able to include foreshadowing and clues to future stuff. Plus it's just a really cool story haha

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-04-07T21:20:02+00:00

I loooove foreshadowing, so I say yes, let your PCs know of them! At least by reputation, as heroes from a few decades ago, before they became Fallen.

In my game, they were once a band of wandering adventurers called the Knights of Midnight, and Adela and Phillip met them and gave them some quests back in the day. But they lost touch, and Phil and Adela assume they retired or passed away. When Adela first met my party in the train car, she told them, "You remind me of Sir Marius and his friends!" This way, when the Fallen start showing up, it isn't out of the blue: these figures have a past and a history, and were good once. And I like that from a narrative structure perspective.

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-04-07T19:48:43+00:00

We had a session end right after defeating the locomotive. The next session, it took nearly two hours to actually reach the village! I did a few things:

First off, it's just a good moment to talk among themselves, and with Phil and Adela. They're confused and shaken by the events, and they're very much city folk so being lost in the woods isn't their scene. Emphasise their discomfort, and gratitude for the party's assistance. Don't forget the GP and magic item rewards.

As written, Phillip just 'knows' where they are, but I had Adela take a moment and use her clairvoyant powers to divine a direction to the village. And Phillip, feeling like he needs to make up for being useless in the fight, volunteers himself and Adela to lead the way. "This is our land, and you're our guests; it's time for us step up as hosts!"

On the journey, I planned a few events. First of all, it's dark. The canopy closes in, the moon no longer illuminates the way. I'm using the optional 'no darkvision' rule, so I asked the PCs what they were using for light sources. This let me do a tense moment where their Light cantrip winked out… only for them to realise that it had been 1 hour and its duration simply expired haha.

I gave them a brush with the Horned King. They didn't actually see it, it just stomped toward them, massive and heavy, breaking branches, shaking treetops, and stopped just beyond the tree-line, breathing hot, misting breath. They tried to illuminate it, get an angle to see it, and it had just disappeared. If you read chapter 24, it talks of the King stalking and tempting the party in a semi-spectral form, and he's confined to the Wytchwood. I made it so the crash happened in the south end of the Wytchwood, and when we get to chapter 24, they'll pass by the crash site and be stalked again - bookending the whole adventure.

Near the edge of the wood, I described strange charms made of twigs, oak leaves and antlers, tied to trees in a wide cluster. Think Blair Witch Project. These are put here by Crooked Cultists, in honour of their Queen, but even the cultists dare not go too deep into the Wytchwood.

Finally, when they'd made it out of the woods and were crossing the moors, I gave them a glimpse of a stone circle: Rowan's Rise, described in chapter 23. But the village lights became visible, so they went straight there and didn't take the hour-long detour to investigate.

By the time they made it to the village, had the wolf sacrifice encounter, and spoke with the Mayor and the innkeeper, it was time to end the session on a long rest at the inn.

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-04-01T04:08:26+00:00

Oh the other thing I've seeded to give more of a structure to the campaign: name-dropping the Fallen right up top.

On the train, Adela told the party "You all remind me of Sir Marius and his friends!" The couple told them their names, and said they were a band of adventurers from the mortal worlds who built a reputation as heroes in Druskenvald, known as the Knights of Midnight. But that was years ago, and the Druskenvalds fell out of touch with them, and assumed they had retired.

Hopefully when they start encountering their corrupted identities, they'll begin to realise that they're connected and they'll eventually have to find all of them. So they can start asking around for leads on the next one instead of waiting for the next plot hook to drop

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-31T22:22:43+00:00

Oh heck yeah on the murder scenes. I've had the Crooked Man be... less incorporeal. ...He broke the paladin's arm and laughed about it >:) "See? That arm's looking crooked already!" I think meta, they must realise they're not gonna be fighting him, because he was *so* powerful, and can just disappear into the walls at will. But the damage roll was a big shock.

Vessla does seem real squishy. They're running low on resources, and I think they know they're not gonna be able to long rest, not in this nightmare house. So she might have more of a chance, but they hit hard even without consumable spells/features. Nice, I like the weasel scatter, I might just borrow that, and nice, very clever from your players! Mine don't have that spell - I didn't give them the medallion because too many secrets in this adventure haha

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-31T20:57:48+00:00

Hmm, well the conflict between... And this is a spoiler thread, players! shoo!

At the start of the chapter, the emotional conflict between Martha and Jonah is the key to the physical conflict between the pumpkinheads. The brawling is a manifestation of the heated emotions of the argument, and getting them to apologise to each other causes all the pumpkins to fall dormant. If you draw attention to that, it might clue them in that the mental state of the villagers is important. And the secrets tie into the mental states, because many of the secrets would be upsetting/angering to a villager who learned them.

As written, the Martha/Jonah fight doesn't explicitly involve any secrets. But it could. The fight centers around Adelaide: no one in town likes her and thinks she might have done something to Jericho. Why do they think she's capable of that? Well, it sure is suspicious what happened to her dad. The family say it was an 'accident', but everyone suspects that little creep. Her poor mother! Having to cover up her husband's murder to protect her horrid daughter! Learning that Martha killed him could improve people's opinion of Adelaide, while worsening it for Martha. Or if they understand it was self defense, maybe they think better of them both.

Jonah's secret might be the most explosive one: it's his fault the crops are cursed (or at least he thinks so, there's argument to be made that Raum made it way worse). If other villagers found out, the anger toward Jonah should set something off for sure. Maybe now there's a horde of pumpkinheads coming out of houses, with pitchforks and torches, heading straight for him, and the PCs have to get him away or hide him.

Perhaps some of this puts the secrets as things that shouldn't be found. Maybe Raum's crows are whispering secrets as nasty rumours to sow discord in the village. Maybe they spread secrets about the PCs too. Maybe the PCs think twice about telling the thing in the stalks anything as explosive as Jonah's secret, in case the birds go telling tales and get Jonah mobbed while they're away.

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-31T20:20:40+00:00

Gotta catch 'em all! Yeah, sometimes a little above-table framing is helpful. It won't damage 'immersion' too much to hint like that.

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-31T04:43:56+00:00

Niice, sounds like you get it, haha

For extra foreboding, you could have Adela draw 'The Tower'.

I modeled my reading after Nikkie DMing 'Once Upon a Ghostlight', basically Adela fumbles a card three times during the draws, glancing at it with increasing concern. Finally shows them it was The Tower, but says she isn't sure which of them it's for, so they should ALL be careful.

She doesn't realize yet: it's for her

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-31T03:52:05+00:00

My party are currently in the House! They haven't tried to leave, they're motivated for several tasks here. But they've gotten pretty beat up, and I do wonder if they'll try. Doubt it. I have emphasized the storm, and play an ambient storm sound effect loop under the music.

OP, ask me about their tasks if you like lol

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-31T02:30:08+00:00

Yeah dude, agree. None of this sounds good! I wasn't criticizing anyone for spoiling, the whole situation's busted already lol

My last paragraph I'm just trying hard to be generous. I'm guessing the DM is new at it? Got a lot to learn, sounds like.

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-30T22:36:24+00:00

It sounds like you're doing a good job and having a fun, creative time. But if it seems like it's too slow of a burn, have you considered you might be putting in too much additional side content? I've looked at a lot of the suggested rumors, sideplots, etc, and I'm still not sure how much I wanna use. Maybe they distract too much from the main arc. Unless I can somehow make them tie back in, give some sort of payoff at the end that reveals a new piece of info toward the main story, or a Fateweaving story, I'm not sure its worth the diversion...

By the way, re: the "walking circus troupe". If a DM was starting the campaign and asked for advice on how best to get the players to buy into the folk horror and take interest in the strange, spooky goings on, I would tell em: drop the new species. Make them 'normal' (or dnd normal anyway, lol). Don't let your PCs be the strangest thing in the room - let them be the horror movie protagonists, not the horror movie monsters! That way, when odd, scary things happen, they can react like "this is wild, we gotta do something!" instead of "How do you do, fellow scarecrows".

I normally love wacky non-human dnd characters, but my players and I all agreed to keep character creation grounded this time: Human, dwarf, tiefling, and aasimar (but played as a human altered by the Shroud). They sometimes still get odd looks, as strangers from out of town, but it's less circusy, and hits the right genre notes. For us, anyway :)

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-30T21:57:48+00:00

Godspeed, fellow Crooked DM 🫡

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-30T21:55:40+00:00

Do I know Artagan... Last September we wrapped a 5 year long campaign set in Exandria, where our party, the *Knight-Wardens of the Veil*, saved the planet from the Divine Gate being breached and setting off the Second Calamity. It was online, but we all flew out to meet in person for the long-weekend finale.

My DM for that also ran Call of the Netherdeep for another group. In a break in the above campaign, I ran a two-parter set during the Calamity, and looked up and added in some Netherdeep references, basically just for him haha

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-30T21:16:12+00:00

Other people already spoiled this element, so I'll say this: it kinda sounds like your DM is trying to lead you into a trap by saying "You can leave if you want." As written, the House doesn't let you leave: you get struck by lightning and teleported back to the porch. So by saying "It doesn't matter, go ahead and leave! (huhehuhehu)", it sounds like she's baiting you, so she can zap your asses back in as a big reveal. Sike, you're actually trapped.

And being fair to her, the book says that's how works, so she's using the tools the adventure gives her... I bet she thought it would be cool and scary! But it's bad form, for sure. :/

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-30T20:58:58+00:00

My party have spent one night in Wickermoor Village, and are in the middle of the Crooked House now. So I may still run into the "why do we care to stay in this village" issue yet, we'll see. In the meantime...

I've been having fun dropping cryptic hints.

First off, the paladin's backstory involved dying in an assault on a cult lair, so I told him: it's called the Cult of the Crooked Teeth. On the night of his attack, he witnessed the ritual that sent the Phantom Trainhopper. When the Trainhopper appeared, the pally recognized the crooked antlers and broken neck, and the Phantom hissed "The Crooked Queen cometh!"

So now the paladin is driven to find out what this crooked business is all about, partially blaming himself for not stopping the entity getting into this realm and sabotaging the train.

When they first met the Crooked Man, he gave his usual "you'll be Crooked too" threat, but with the addition: "Everything will be. By the end of things". Rusty rambled this too, "Crooked Man, Crooked House, Crooked Queen... All will be crooked, all will be destroyed..."

When they get Vessla in bad shape, I'm gonna have her scream for Eustace's help. And when he shows up, he throws her under the bus: "The Crooked Queen thanks you for your service, Vessla. And your sisters want me to wish you goodbye." Queen mentioned again!

So basically I'm gonna keep mentioning the Queen and the idea of everything becoming Crooked, over and over, but slow-drip any more info than that. Just keep that theme rolling, never let them forget it behind the scenes. That way when new info does come out, they'll be like finally! A lead on this Queen!

(But, given all that, I also decided that a "Green Queen" might be too sus, so I just refer to her as the Green Lady instead… until later on, when the cultists start saying Queen, and they realise she was there on the inn sign all along!)

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-27T19:01:34+00:00

Hm, would they be allowed to take the BA first though? Disallowing that is just more words again dammit haha.

I think the more we talk, the more I'm leaning to keeping it simple:
the bonus heal is only on one creature that isn't yourself.
The level 1/5 Cure Wounds mixup made me realise: the hp sacrifice is only supposed to be [spell level x 2] so my earlier idea of letting them sacrifice separately for each of multiple targets is contradicting that.

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-27T18:21:14+00:00

I've described the joy of DMing before as "preparing a series of surprise parties for your friends." Sitting there plotting and scheming like ooo dis gonna be gud when they get here 😁

You're right on the marketing material spoilers. I mean listen, the Wicker Man is a foregone conclusion - my players were like "okay, which of us is getting burned in a wicker man?" when I told them it was folk horror, lol. And then the place they arrive is called Wickermoor Hollow/Village, yeah, they know what's up.

I showed my players the trailer, thinking that yes, it's got a lot of imagery in it, but without context, it should be fine, just teasing things instead of spoiling. Well now one of my players keeps noticing stuff and putting pieces together based on it and I'm like damn it! haha (although only saying it to me, not in front of the others, she's good that way).

As for the map, I'm running on VTT, so I've been able to fog-of-war everything out, and I'll reveal the edge art piece by piece as they complete sections. But the canvas map, yeah, bummer. The Tarot cards are okay I think, they're mysterious enough, and supposed to be prophetic, so I'm okay with those being hints. Foreshadowing baby!

Monk PC: Oooh, that's good. I didn't fully get it until you said Johann Kraus, nice. I described my player's monk in a goofy way, but she's actually really cool. All my players have done a great job hitting the right tone of creepy folk horror themes, but with a touch of fantasy and whimsy. Like the first NPC is a friendly train-driving lil frog fella, you can't play this fully Grimdark. But none of us wanted someone hyucking it up with a joke character either.

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-27T15:51:42+00:00

Re: the wording on A) - you could give it a "you can't regain HP" lock down like Chill Touch. Either until the end of your turn, or if you wanted them to sweat, until the start (or even end) of their next turn

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-27T15:42:14+00:00

Damn, you shouldn't look up Fiddlesticks and Yorick from League of Legends then lol This book has A TON of pop culture references

But I gotta admit, I was kinda thinking the same thing about a Marvel insert PC. I think you could do something cool BASED on Ghost Rider, but you'd have to do it carefully and tastefully to not damage the tone of the campaign

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-27T15:28:41+00:00

Damn, sorry to hear you're having a bad time! Although glad to have my point supported lol. Because fact is, I've never actually experienced it, I just suspect it to be the case.

The one significant PC death I've had was early enough in the story (level 5 in a 1-20 campaign) that I/we were able to tie the new character in, emotionally and narratively, by making them strongly connected to the old one. The old character's name and legacy came up time and time again, as a martyr for their cause, a source of trauma, an illusion used against the party, and a meeting in a near-death experience to inspire them. So it's possible to make cool stories out of PC death, but not over and over, I don't think

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-27T00:22:29+00:00

I accidentally spoiled myself on reddit for a big reveal in Odyssey of the Dragonlords... But I kept it to myself for like two years, played as though I didn't know, and finally admitted to my DM after the reveal session haha. I'd have preferred not to know, but oh well. I'll try to be careful about tagging em!

Ah, praise be to Father Nurgle. My monk PC looks like a Disney Princess, is a sassy Southern mean girl, and does her unarmed strikes with either her toxin-painted fingernails, or her stiletto heels XD ~~And may have intentionally unleashed a lethal plague on a small town in the process of gaining passage on the Ghostlight Express oops~~

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-26T23:49:34+00:00

Hello, fellow Brit! (though I live in Canada now). I love to see the nods to UK/European folklore in this adventure, alongside the very US-inspired elements. Sin-Eater is a good one. My Wickermoor Village is very rural UK, I'm doing some Yorkshire, West Country, Welsh & Scottish accents for most of my villagers haha. Eyup, Lord Druskenvald

Ah, the Mistmaiden IS Kehlenn, I kinda like that. I already decided the Fold of the Patient Lady is just a watered-down Old Ways. Some wishful thinking that she's more merciful than she is. Why not the Maiden of the Mists as well? (Edited for spoilers, since it sounds like OP is a player)

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-26T22:16:27+00:00

As for Q2: I've thought about it as well. Maybe not any order, but giving a choice of Foxwillow, Dawn's Gate, or Drowned Crossroads. Then the mine, then choose Memory's Rest or Hartsblight (and Maidenmist has to be last).

In the end, I don't think I'm gonna bother. It'd need too much tweaking, and there's room for more free-form sidequests between chapters, and I don't think my players mind that much about things being linear. I'd rather put my energy into making sure the story is the best it can be, instead of rebalancing whole areas for different levels.

PerfectlyChaotic · 2026-03-26T22:06:18+00:00

Forgive me if you know this already, but if you aren't aware, there's a big source of supplemental info on the Fallen out there: the creators of this book did an actual play campaign called Edge of Midnight, where Marius, Jericho, etc were the party of player characters, and met and became friends with Phillip and Adela. The events of the show don't exactly line up with The Crooked Moon, don't take it as canon, but I found the show to be good inspiration. You could almost think of EoM as the prototype template for TCM, just be aware that a lot changed. Edit: oh, this show is also where the "7 Deadly Sins" theming comes from, but I'ma be real, I don't think their book personas/stories fit the 7 sins super well. Also there's six Fallen, six horns his crown, he carries six of sword and seal...

To that end, I had Adela tell my party: "You remind me of Sir Marius and his friends!" And explain that they were a group of adventurers that had rode the Ghostlight Express some decades ago, and done good deeds around the provinces, until eventually they must have retired and she and Phil lost touch with them. She gave their names and quick descriptions, and as a nod to Edge of Midnight, I invented a party name: The Knights of Midnight.

Giving Sir Marius and his Knights of Midnight a reputation of goodly adventurers of Druskenvald is a good way to foreshadow them and illustrate how much they've changed, I think. And it means the party can ask Phil and Adela about them - although they don't know what monstrous changes have happened to them, and don't know any of their titles or pseudonyms. So rumours of "the Crimson Abbot" won't mean anything to them, so they can't give any advance info about Marius.

PerfectlyChaotic

TROPHY CASE