An adventure for characters of 5th-7th level.

You are traveling along a narrow, overgrown road, really little more than a wagon track. The road winds through gently rolling hills at the edge of a deep forest. The clouds overhead have been darkened all day and a light rain has begun to fall, with promises of more serious thunderstorms to come. Ahead, atop a rocky hill, you see an old mansion, its windows dark and empty and its walls overgrown with crawling vines. The house looks long abandoned and has obviously suffered from neglect, but the roof seems to be intact and it promises welcome shelter from the elements. Camping this night will be a wet and miserable alternative.

A narrow path choked with tall grass and weeds leads from the road to the front of the house. The mansion was built from local timber and stone. Thick wooden shingles cover the sharply pitched roof and the gabled windows are made of heacy leaded glass. Several masonry chimneys extend from the roof, and a great, round tower constructed of dark red bricks looms over the house at its northeast corner. The house's two-story cental structure is flanked by one-story wings on either side. Broad stone steps lead up to a narrow porch fronting two large wooden doors bound in rusting metal. Tarnished brass knockers - the heads of ravens with rings grasped in their beaks - are set in the center of each door. The door on the left is standing slightly ajar, offering a view of the darkness beyond. The house and its grounds exude an almost tangible aura of age, loss, and tragedy. What secrets might be hidden within its crumbling walls?