Dreadpass encounters?

[Joël of the FoS]

In the last game, my players have ignored the advices and went through the Dreadpass in Barovia too late one day. Now it is night and they have to sleep in the mountains, in the narrow Dreadpass.

Encounter ideas?

Joël

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

well, when the party traveled through there in my campaign (Session 6), I had my PC's take refuge in a ruined Terg watchtower. It turned out that the local rebels had been using it as a meeting place, Strahd got wind of this and sent some Strahd Zombies to attack the place, but they found the PCs instead.

[Zilfer]

If I remember right Strahd Zombies are stronger than most! Hard to turn or kill or something like that. xD

[vipera aspis]

Come on guys, it's the dreadpass. It should take more then special zombies to earn that name and reputation. What about hungry vampires crawling from their communal graves at dusk, howling dire wolves passing through at midnight when the moon is high, stalking gargoyles descending like vultures after the wolves and tortured ghosts of those claimed by the pass rising just before dawn.

It's the dreadpass.

[Zilfer]

Tell you the truth when my party when through it I started with an encounter of wolves.... they killed some and more came. They killed some and more came. I was testing to see how much it would take until the party retreated. (carefully kept the wolves coming from only the sides and left at least one direction open to retreat.)

They retreated eventually to a stone circle where... the wolves wouldn't step beyond the threshhold.

[Joël of the FoS]

Yes it's been a while since the PCs have slept outside, and I want to scare them. As vipera said, it's the Dreadpass after all

From my journal, to give you the context:

They are going from Krezk to Zeidenburg.

They enquire about the travel time to go from Krezk to Zeidenburg. It is about 2 ½ day. What most people do is travel to Vallaki the first day, and sleep there. Then go they go back about an hour on their track, and then travel through the Dreadpass for a day then sleep on the south side of the mountains. The third day, it is about 4-5 hours to reach Zeidenburg.

The heroes travel toward Vallaki, but around 4 pm they are at the crossroad leading to the Dreadpass. They decide to turn and go through the mountains and sleep there instead of Vallaki.

The road reaches some kind of narrow passage which they know is really not opened on winter for horses and carts. The hours pass and they notice there are very few places in the Dreadpass where travelers can rest or sleep. The road is consistently about 8 to 12 feet wide, and they do not see a cavern or shelter.

The sun is quickly out of the narrow passage and darkness sets in early. They travel another hour to try to find a shelter, but there are none. Around 8 pm, it is very dark and the only thing they find is a place where the road is wider (about 15 feet wide, 20' long).

They decide to sleep there, on the side of the road...

[ScS of the Fraternity]

What do you think happens to the vampires that Strahd and his minions create, but who are disobedient? My thought: Strahd uses foulest necromancy and binds them to some dark, forgotten corner of the land. Those who would not serve as minions become little more than guard dogs, chained in place. Thus trapped and unable to hunt for food, the vampires starve. Over the long years they are warped into hideous skeletal things, as piteous as they are dangerous. During the day, they slumber fitfully in deep rocky crevasse, only to emerge by night to hunt for whatever pitiful vitals they might find.
How happy such creatures would be to find a foolish band of adventurers sleeping soundly in the shadows of a lonely mountain pass.

[Joël of the FoS]

Vrykolaka, Mmmm...

[alhoon]

I'm actually kinda against vampire-kin there. A more memorable thing would be something forbidden and grotesque.
The sound of a child's crying and the sobs of a woman in the distance, where a soft purple light shines. It's coming from the apparition of a woman, her nightgown bloodstained and a crying infant in her hands, too small to be actually on time birth, still attached to the cord, that goes under the woman's dress.
The woman tells the PCs "Help me please" and the BABY attacks with waves of fear or madness that send the PCs against each other or something.

[Zilfer]

Lets hope they aren't the hunting ground of crazy Leo Dilisnya.... <.< Mutlilated corpses probably wouldn't be an odd thing around there then. xD

[Cam]

It was not in the Dreadpass, but in the first session of my campaign I had the PCs chased by an overwhelming force of enemies to the precipice of an enormous steep mountain slope in the Balinoks. Their only choices were to stay and fight (and surely die), or sled/tumble/jump down the mountainside (and surely have to deal with crevasses, avalanches, frostbite, falling damage, high-speed collisions with rock outcroppings, etc.). They chose the later, and it made for a great sledding mini-game. See the Chasing a Rakshasa thread on this forum for more details if interested. So, if you use this idea, you could combine it with any of the other ideas folks have mentioned above -- some awful monster (or infinite wolves -- I like that idea too) shows the PCs its overwhelming power, and they have to flee on makeshift sleds made out of their tent in order to survive. This has the added bonus of putting your PCs in some weird box canyon below the Dreadpass; it will be a good test of their wilderness survival skills and mountaineering skills to make it to civilization from there.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Come on guys, it's the dreadpass. It should take more then special zombies to earn that name and reputation.

What, zombies aren't dreadful now? What's the world coming to....

"You finally drift off to sleep, huddled for meager shelter from the constant drizzling rain in the crumbling ruined tower. Then the rain intensifies and a too-close crash of thunder awakens you. In the flash of the next lightning strike, you see a shambling undead horror coming toward you, and it is not alone. Quickly grabbing your sword, you lop off one of the zombie's arms, and after a brief struggle, decapitate it. You turn to face the next one shuffling up beside you and feel a sharp pain in your calf. Looking down in the gloom and downpour, you see the severed head of your first foe sinking its teeth into your leg, and its disembodied arm scrabbling through the muddy gravel towards you. This momentary distraction is enough time for the second zombie to rake you across the chest with its gnarled claws, shredding your smallclothes. As you call to warn your companions, the lightning flashes again, and for a moment, silhouetted against the rocky horizon, you see dozens of them approaching...."

I mean, yeah, vampires and werewolves and creepy voices and apparitions, sure, those are great too. But if you can't inspire dread with a good zombie horde, it's time to re-read VRG to the Walking Dead.

[Eddyspaghetti]

Starting with a Will-o-the-wisp leading the party to a cliff, they easily are able to keep from it leading them to a falling death. Of course, it was leading them to an area where now the zombies are coming in front, and the cliff is behind, and there is nowhere to go. Throw in a swarm of screeching bats coming out of cracks in the rock below just for ambiance.

[Zilfer]

Or you could combine a few of the things here and make Zombie wolves!

[vipera aspis]

Lol I'm not saying zombies cannot be used to bring the hell; but the dread pass needs something special.

Something that sets it apart and makes the players go:

"The dread pass?! No! There HAS to be another way. Remember that guys? Yeah, that was seriously horrible. All the horses and both our torch boys. Gone. Okay yeah no screw that. Not happening. Those things are probably still there. "