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If you're anything like me, you get tired of LARP plots that hold the fate of the world at stake. Every battle is not the ultimate battle between Good and Evil; every war is not the War to End All Wars. I mean, seriously: if you have the Ultimate Battle this event, what do you do for next event? Another Ultimate Battle? Does this make last event the Penultimate Battle? This really stretches the limits of believability, and besides, the impact of the Ultimate Battle will quickly wane if you have to fight it once a month for a year.

So what do we do about it? Well, here's a plot that can be a lot of fun and holds the fate of a farmer and his family at stake. High- and low-level PCs alike will enjoy this adventure, though it's more geared to low-level adventurers. It's an easy scenario to run with a little preparation and minimal cost. As an added bonus, most of your materials can be reused in the future. I've tried to keep all the game-mechanics terms very general. They will probably not match your LARP's rules. Just insert your LARP's terminology where appropriate.

The Critters in the Barn

You Will Need:

• A structure of some kind to be the barn. If you have a building to use, super. If not, try to improvise something with clotheslines and sheets.
• A boatload of Halloween cobwebby stuff (get it at Halloween USA, Gags 'n' Gifts, or some other such store).
• Several Styrofoam balls of various sizes between golf ball and basketball.
• Black latex paint (get it at a craft store or a hardware store).
• Black pipe cleaners.
• Fishing poles & lines (you probably already have one or two of these around the garage).
• Three or four stuffed sheep.
• A life size resin skeleton or a reasonable facsimile thereof (Halloween USA, again).
• An NPC to be the hired man, one to be the farmer, several to operate the spiders, and perhaps one to play the Alchemist. Get them from your NPC troupe.
• A broken cage.
• A boffer shortsword.
• A couple LARP "poisons" with physical representations and item tags (according to your LARP's rules).
• A piece of parchment listing, among other things, "Grog Spider Venom" and prices for each. There is also the name Alvero Billington.
• A pouch.
• A small sum of in-game coin.
• A box.
• A large sum of in-game coin.
• A bale or two of straw (optional).
• A boffer scythe, or other soft fake farm implements to scatter about the barn (optional).
• LARP-safe torches or lanterns (optional).

The Prep:

Use the Styrofoam balls and the pipe cleaners to make big ol' spiders. Paint them black. Attach these spiders to the ends of the fishing lines.

Create your barn floor plan, either with an actual structure or with sheets on clotheslines, but try to avoid "imaginary walls." It's too easy to lose track of them. Scatter the straw around the area. Hide the box with the large sum of money in it under the straw.

Dress the fake skeleton in a tunic and britches or other simple costume. Fill the pouch with the small amount of coin and the toxins. Put the pouch and the shortsword on his belt. Put the parchment in his hand. Put notes on the stuffed sheep saying, "This sheep is dead," and, "This sheep is alive, but asleep. You cannot wake it." Wrap the stuffed sheep, the fake skeleton, and your NPC with cobweb stuff, as if the spiders are 'saving' them. Place the dead sheep, the one "live" sheep, the NPC, and the corpse in various places around the barn. Place the broken cage near the corpse. Note: make sure your NPC can breathe, and make sure he can move if there's an emergency.

The Hook:

A farmer comes into town. He's distraught. He avoids the important-looking, high level PCs in favor of some lower-level ones, preferably played by newer players. He will ask for help. It seems that several of his sheep will not come out of the barn. He sent his hired man into the barn to see what was stopping the sheep from leaving, but the poor fellow never came out. The farmer is afraid to go into the barn, not knowing what could be in there. He offers his "life savings," about ten silver pieces (or another modest sum, depending on your LARP currency), to any heroes intrepid enough to rid him of this problem. The farmer will escort the heroes to his barn and offer any reasonable material assistance (torches, a drawing of the floor plan, food, water, and so forth), but under no circumstances will he enter the barn.

The Adventure:

Inside the barn the PCs will find many webs spun all across the halls and stalls. A family of exceptionally large spiders have taken up residence. They have already claimed several victims. In cocoons scattered around the barn, the PCs will find the farmer's hired man (still alive, but barely), several sheep (most dead, dried husks, but one still alive), and an unknown dead person. There are also five to ten large spiders lurking in the shadows above the heroes' heads.

As the heroes search the barn, the spiders will drop from the rafters on webs to attack them. Use the fishing poles to make them descend on the PCs. The spider bites do minimal damage, but the fangs will bypass most armor and inject a paralysis/sleep toxin. (Call damage thusly: one no-armor sleep toxin. you may need to change this for your LARP.) Victims will first lose motor control, then consciousness. A low-level anti-poison spell will revive any victims. The spiders can be killed by one hit from any boffer weapon, or by being stepped on.

Remember, these are spiders and as such are not intelligent. They will not make a plan, will not attack all at once, will not create diversions, etc. They are, however, effective predators and will try to take the heroes unawares. Use your fishing poles to make them descend and then quickly reel them in once they have bitten someone. If a spider gets hit, it is dead. Drop it to the ground. The spiders will continue to harass the heroes intermittently until killed.

As mentioned above, the heroes will find several dead sheep wrapped in the spiders' webs. They have been sucked dry by the spiders and are mere husks. One sheep, however, is still alive. (The spiders have laid eggs inside this sheep. It will appear to be asleep. Once the spider eggs hatch, they will consume the sheep from inside and then burst forth.) There is also the inert form of the farmer's hired man, Hob. He was bitten by the spiders when he investigated the barn earlier, and is under the effects of the spiders' venom, but the well-fed spiders have not sucked him dry. There is also the desiccated corpse of another unidentified individual. (This person is represented by the resin skeleton.) On this corpse can be found a nicely made short sword, and a pouch containing several coins, a couple toxin vials, and the parchment. Hidden under some straw is a box containing the rest of the farmer's life savings, including the dowry for his daughter.

The Loose Ends:
The live sheep is full of spider eggs. It cannot be roused. If it is killed, the spider eggs will also die. If the heroes keep the sheep alive, by the next event the sheep will have burst and thousands of tiny grog spiders will have escaped. Plan on many random grog spider encounters at the next event.

The corpse is that of an adventurer. He was trying to earn the price for Grog Spider Venom listed on his parchment, but the spiders escaped from their cage while he slept in the straw. If he'd survived, he would have collected the price from the Alchemist Alvero Billington. He lives a couple days' journey away, and will pay handsomely for the sheep full of spider eggs, and might be convinced to buy the toxins as well.

Perhaps the alchemist would like to hire the heroes to get him other alchemical ingredients in the future?

If you like, the dead adventurer can have a price on his head, or vengeful friends who will come looking for him.

Hob will recover with bed rest; anti-poison magic will revive him immediately.

If the heroes find the box full of money and take it, the farmer will return to town and accuse them of the theft before the event is over.

If the heroes abandon a spider bite victim in the barn, the spiders will wrap their prey in webbing, but will not suck them dry immediately; they've just eaten after all. If the heroes do not return for their comrades within the hour, the farmer will try to hire someone else, and spread the word about the heroes' cowardice. If the event ends while PCs are still held by the spiders, they will be eaten by the next event.

If the spiders are not dealt with at this event, they will leave the barn and eat the farmer and his family between events. By the next event, the spiders will have grown to basketball size and will begin to attack people along the trails.