A free gothic horror adventure for Open Dungeons RPG
At midnight, the dead walk home, and the living stay behind.
A Few Minutes to Ten
The fire in the Salvager's Rest has burned down to embers, and nobody has bothered to feed it.
Everyone is at the front windows. Drinks forgotten. Nobody talking.
Below the tavern, the harbor lies flat as slate. No wind. No gulls. And beside the end of the old pier, where no ship has tied up in forty years, a row of windows is glowing warm.
The old fisherman on the stool next to you hasn't looked up from his cup. "My brother drowned off that pier twenty years ago," he says. "Tonight he called my name. I heard him plain."
Run your thumb along the edge of the bar. Small brass plates are set into the wood, their engraving worn smooth. Nobody here will tell you what they used to be.
The clock over the bar shows a few minutes to ten. The door opens.
Three Names on a Wet Page
The woman who comes in holds a sheet of paper that drips onto the floorboards. It isn't raining. The ink hasn't run.
Her name is Mara Pell. The paper is a passenger list:
MERCY OF NIGHT. Final boarding at midnight. Departure at first light.
Three names follow. Edda Marr, the bell founder, who went down to the wreck at low tide and hasn't been seen since. Tomas Reed, who followed his dead daughter aboard. And Nessa Pell. Mara's sister.
"Boarding ends at midnight," Mara says. "Please bring them home."
The Pier
Captain Hale's watch holds the whole town back from the waterfront. You feel them behind you as you walk out: lanterns, candles, strangers' faces, all of them watching you go where they won't.
Your footsteps echo up from beneath the boards. One step late.
Halfway out, three planks are missing. On the far side of the gap lies a fresh bouquet tied with funeral ribbon. Look down, and the ship's reflection hangs upside down in the water, with people standing on that reflected hull and knocking upward, as if the surface of the harbor were a locked ceiling.
Then a woman calls for help from aboard the ship.
And the same voice calls again from under your feet, repeating the words exactly.
Welcome Aboard
The Mercy of Night sank forty years ago with a wedding party aboard. Tonight, the wedding is still on.
Rows of empty chairs face a covered shape beneath the stern bell. Every seat holds a puddle. In one of them, an eye opens and watches you. Two skeletons patiently coil rope beside the wedding places. They'll leave you alone as long as you leave the ceremony alone.
A lookout stands at the bow with his head twisted toward the harbor, whistling a tune through a mouth that doesn't breathe.
The captain sits in his cabin with seawater standing in his lap. "My bride is delayed," he tells you. "We are waiting for her."
In the bridal cabin, a wedding dress hangs in the wardrobe, wet below the knees. As you watch, the wet line rises.
Belowdecks, a hammock whispers: "Climb in. Take the watch off your feet."
Don't.
Twenty-four rooms on four decks, all of them set for company. And somewhere near the bottom, behind a door marked REGISTRY, the purser is still keeping his books.
The People You Came For
Here's the part that will stay with your table.
The missing passengers aren't chained up. They're having the best night of their lives.
Edda sits beside her husband, Jory, who died in a foundry fire. His burns are wrapped in fresh bandages. He keeps apologizing for the fire. She keeps asking him to stop.
Tomas is eating a meal his daughter Lysa cooked for him. She died in childbirth. She sings softly between words, watching his face to see if he remembers the song. Tomas knows exactly what she is. He's staying anyway.
"Father," she asks him, "did the baby come?"
And Nessa, locked in the brig, has already worked it out. "It looked like my mother," she tells you. "It asked how my lessons were going. I'm thirty-one."
The dead aboard this ship remember everything. Every song, every joke, every argument, right up to the hour they died.
Not one thing after.
You can't drag these people off the ship at sword point. You'll have to give each of them a reason to leave someone they love behind a second time.
The Ship Keeps a Schedule
Wedding music drifts through the partitions. Every clock aboard reads eleven. Water starts running up the walls, tracing the seams between the boards. A voice carries through the hull: "Passengers, prepare for departure."
Later: "Final call. Nessa Pell. Edda Marr. Tomas Reed."
Midnight is coming. So is first light. You don't want to learn what either one brings while you're still aboard.
Not Everything Needs Killing
There are things in the dark below that will gladly tear you apart. There's also a purser who would much rather make a deal.
"Bring me three replacements," he says, his pen waiting above the page, "and I shall cross out the names you want."
Fight your way to the keel, slip past half the ship, bargain, or run. Not everything that looks human is harmless, and not everything that attacks you has to die. Who walks back down that gangway, and whether the Mercy of Night ever returns, is up to you.
Why the Town Won't Look You in the Eye
Ask around the Salvager's Rest long enough, and somebody will finally say it:
"Half this town was built from what we pulled off that wreck. Don't ask what."
You should ask.
Come Aboard
The Mercy of Night: What the Dead Do Not Know is a complete gothic horror adventure for Open Dungeons RPG, and it's free.
- For four characters of levels 4 to 6
- One session, about five to six hours
- 24 ship locations across five illustrated maps
- Three passengers to save, each with a reason to stay
- A midnight deadline, a sinking ship, and more than one way to end the night
- Clues your players can find rather than guess, and no ending that demands a sacrifice
No paywall, no second half, no catch. Download the PDF, light a lantern, and gather your table.