Slumbering Tsar: The Camp

Spoilers for the adventure Slumbering Tsar...

The Camp is an outstanding adventure location in so many ways. It is the hub and safe haven, but at the same time it's tone so perfectly matches the rest of the adventure by making a not a completely safe place. I love how the decisions of the players can truly take them into deep water early. For example, tangle with the Usurer because the party things the exchange rate for metal bits is unfair and suddenly they're fighting a lich. I can almost imagine the sheer terror and exclamations at such a discovery. It would probably end in a TPK, but then they'll know for the next time.

The hanged man too is so stylistic and appropriate for the ambiance, making the night dangerous and providing a truly scary encounter. I enjoy Father Death and his chapel to Nergal too, with it's macabe imagery and inevitable patience in the belief that the god of death will take everyone in the Desolation, no matter how long it takes.

How should a GM looking to play this section of the adventure in a system other than Pathfinder 1e proceed then? I think it ends up being fairly simple if you follow the adventurers' design philosophy. That is to embrace deadliness. So what if you put a full lich from 5e or Shadowdark? That's scary and thematic. It's a story they'll tell for years. For the NPCs I suggest grabbing existing NPC stat blocks and just going with it. For the hanged man, I'll do some of the work for you (at least for 5e!)

The hanged man is a unique and cool monster (and even better it's available under the OGL!) And we can make use of the handy monster stats available from the Lazy GM's 5e Monster Builder Resource Document.

The one in the adventure is stronger than the one depicted in the Tome of Horrors Complete, so we'll set our 5e version as a CR 5, and then bump up the hit points a bit. The big thing the hanged man does is try to lasso someone then hoist them from the crossbar of his own gallows, which will take a few rounds if we want to try to do it so he needs some hit points padding to stay up the 4-5 rounds to attempt that.

Advanced Hanged Man 

CR 5

Medium Undead

AC: 15

HP: 119

STR 19 (+4)

DEX 18 (+4)

CON 16 (+3)

INT 8 (-1)

WIS 7 (-2)

CHA 6 (-2)

Proficiencies: STR, DEX

Actions:

Multiattack: The Hanged Man makes two claw attacks and a slam attack.

Claw: melee attack, range 5 ft., +7 points to hit, on hit: 12 (3d6 +2) slashing damage 

Slam: melee attack, range 5 ft., +7 points to hit, on hit: 12 (3d6 +2) bludgeoning damage 

Entangle: ranged attack, range 20 ft., on hit: Targeted creature is restrained and begins to choking as they are suffocated. Each round the target is suffocating they take 27 (6d6 +4) bludgeoning damage. To attempt to escape the rope the target must make a DC 17 Strength Saving Throw with disadvantage unless another character assists them. The Hanged Man can move up to its movement dragging an entangled target 20 feet behind it and also use its multiattack.

Slumbering Tsar and all references to its material are property of Frog God Games. No claim is intended by their mention. This content is fan content for the adventure.

Hanged Man from The Tome of Horrors Complete Copyright 2011 Necromancer Games, Inc., published and distributed by Frog God Games; Author Erica Balsley.

See the Legal page for the full OGL statement on the Hanged Man. This 5e version of the Stat Block I have created is designated Open Gaming Content.

This page includes material taken from the Lazy GM's 5e Monster Builder Resource Document written by Teos Abadía of Alphastream.org, Scott Fitzgerald Gray of Insaneangel.com, and Michael E. Shea of SlyFlourish.com, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.