Dangerous Encounter: The Cradle Will Fall

This encounter opens with the PCs chancing upon a remote, isolated farming community one afternoon. The village is small, but is made up of a handful of permanent structures: five residences, each with a large barn, surround a common house/meeting hall in the center of the settlement. (Picture a small Amish collective.) The village seems eerily silent, as there are no people tilling the fields, walking between buildings, or seen in windows. The town seems deserted.

Upon investigating (or while looting), the PCs will discover that the village is indeed inhabited, but the villagers are all asleep in their beds and bunks! As they move from house to house, every bed has someone in it, fast asleep. No amount of noise or shaking will wake any of the villagers. If the PCs check the entire town, they will find 17 men, boys, and girls all asleep in various bedrooms throughout the village. However, they may notice that there are no adult women present.

What the PCs have yet to determine is that the villagers are not asleep or unconscious. Rather, all of them are in a deep hypnotic trance. A small band of six Narcoleps (MF rulebook, page 85) has happened upon the village and have decided to use it as their new breeding ground.

Narcoleps (6) (AL C, MV 120' (40'), AC 7, HD 7, #AT 1 (weapon or hypnosis), DM as weapon, SV L6, ML 6, mutations: unique (hynopsis))

The Narcoleps entered the village late one night a week ago and used their hypnosis mutation while the townspeople slept, plunging them into a deep trance. Then they took the six adult women in the village to a cave system found under one of the village’s barns. (The barn was deliberately built over the cave opening so the villagers could use the caverns as a root cellar. The entrance is found under a hidden trap door.) In the caves, the Narcoleps have begun prepping the hypnotized victims to accept their implanted offspring. Once implanted in the womb, it will take 5 months of gestation to grow the child to full term. The implantation has not happened yet, but will take place within the next 48 hours.

Because the hypnotic trance only lasts 24 hours, the Narcoleps must return each night to reinforce their somnambulistic ritual. If the PCs stick around until after the sun goes down, they will see an unsettling sight. Three pale-skinned, bulbous-eyed humanoids will enter the village and walk to the steps of the meeting hall. Once there, they will start a rhythmic drone as they slowly undulate and wave their arms. Any PCs who watch the ritual will need to save versus stun attacks. Those who fail drop into a deep hypnotic sleep for 1d20+4 hours.

If the Narcoleps are stopped before they finish or if they are attacked, they will use the daggers they have sheathed in a belt holster (1d4 hit points of damage). Any who escape will retreat to the hidden caverns under the barn where they will defend their “new mothers” to the death.

If the hypnotic ritual is stopped, the villagers will start to stir and awaken in another 1d4 hours. For them, no time has passed and it’s the very next morning. If the PCs are still around (and the Narcolep threat has not been identified or stopped), there may be some confusion and anger as the townsfolks will demand to know what the PCs did with their wives and mothers while they slept!