D20 Cozy Cottages

A collection of cozy cottages to populate yon hexcrawls:

D20

1. A rough log cabin, tanning rack stood by its door, home to a fur trapper. The furs within are possessed by the tormented spirits of the animals they were cut living from. They'll try to eat the skin off people and take over their body. The fur trapper has already fallen victim to this.

2. Built into the side of a bluff, in poor repair. Inhabited by a pair of young siblings. Sealed in an inner chamber is their mother, turned ghoul, and the gnawed bones of their father. If they judge you to be bad people (based on their childish morality) they'll try to feed you to her.

3. Partially dismantled and reconstructed into a tower of scaffolding. Atop is a paranoid man armed with a bow. He's convinced the government is spying on him, and intends to spy back on them in return. Knows quite a bit about the layout and goings-on in the surrounding area, though it's skewed by his point of view (e.g. a goblin-infested cave might be seen as an "experimental camo-human underground facility"). Can be parleyed with if one plays into his delusions.

4. Decorated with human skulls, surrounded by the smell of rich stew. Within is a retired and repentant witch hiding from the demon she sold her soul to. Eager to barter the potions and ointments she's got left for help, and/or lots of silver and holy water.

5. Cabin of a clan of holdout moonshiners who fled into the wilderness over a century ago during a time of alcohol prohibition. The prohibition has been long since repealed, but the clan is isolated enough that they never heard of it. Fairly inbred, constantly inebriated, but essentially decent folk. They make the best booze in a hundred miles around.

6. Riddled with arrows, door broken in. Inside are three bandits in a Mexican stand-off. They're feuding over the gold their boss claimed to have hidden beneath the floorboards before her death.

7. Trembling, slime oozing from gaps in the planks. Inhabited by a giant snail that lost its shell. The snail is shy but tameable by exploiting its voracious hunger for greenery.

8. In pristine condition, hearth-light shining out from the windows. Haunted by a brownie who has gone quite mad without anyone in their home. Wants to cook for you, clean for you, care for you, won't take no for an answer.

9. Overgrown by moss and vines. Inside is a rotting hermit, friendly, keen to discuss theology, refuses to acknowledge that they're dead. Becomes aggressive if the issue is pressed.

10. Built from blackened timber. Here live a charcoal-burner and his apprentice. The master is unusually informed on politics, and suffers clairvoyant nightmares. The apprentice remembers everything her master's cried out in his sleep, and has ambitions well beyond her station.

11. Fortified with earthworks, stone reinforcements, heavy shutters on the windows. A knight, disowned by their lord, uses it as their base of operations. They're consumed by their chase of the questing beast, which they've glimpsed in the region.

12. Surrounded by skeletons, drifting away like vapour at the edges. It's illusory, the creation of a murderous illusionist to lure in their victims. With that illusionist having died it's falling apart. Its intelligent components, a welcoming couple, continue to function unaware of their impending disintegration.

13. Rimed with frost, the overhanging roof dripping icicles. Inside it is freezing cold. Frozen corpses sit around a table. On the table is a chunk of blue stone that brings winter wherever it goes.

14. Lined with scaly fish-leather, a tented roof of the same material. The lodgings of a wealthy burgher and fisherman. He wants to catch the unnaturally giant fish in a nearby river. He'll die before he fails.

15. Collapsing in on itself, nobody home. The floor's sunk in. There's a gaping hole that leads into a local cave system, and a trail of blood soaked into the floorboards.

16. Scratched up, stinking of urine. Home to a bear-obsessed bard who moved out here to perfect his "ursine music" and revolutionize orchestra. The floor, walls, and ceiling have sheet music with strange notation nailed to them.

17. Redolent with pleasant scents, outfitted with luxurious brocade drapes. The outpost of a famous perfumer collecting the musk of exotic creatures for their creations.

18. Patched up with spikes and spewing green smoke from its multiple chimneys. Taken over by a gang of goblins making a game of imitating humans.

19. The lodge of an aristocratic warrior society dedicated to hunting the most dangerous game: humans. Currently empty save for its cannibal butlers.

20. Unassuming on the outside, extradimensional space on the inside. Within is a pocket dimension six miles across that loops back in on itself at the edges, an alien purple forest with bulbous leaves, shrouded in sulfurous mist. In the mist lurk things like eyeless bipedal swine which want to wring out an invitation into the wider universe from visitors by any means necessary, and the shrine they built from the bones and tome of the wizard who made the dimension.