DM reworked Death House into a Doctor Who–style time loop

After running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, a Dungeon Master set a homebrew arc called Uncharted in the eastern lands of Uta, where a column of green light — the “Anomaly” — turned the continent into a Domain of Dread. Tired of long, sprawling travel, the DM wanted a tighter, horror-focused episode and turned to Death House, the level 1 starter dungeon from Curse of Strahd.

Death House is a haunted mansion once owned by a cult that lured and sacrificed travelers. The adventure opens with two children, Rose and Thorn Durst, who beg for help and lead the party inside. Portraits, secret doors, journals and the attic’s two tiny skeletons reveal the house’s history, and the dungeon below forces the group to confront the house’s demand for a sacrifice.

To scale the challenge for a higher-level party, the DM borrowed the structure of Doctor Who’s “Heaven Sent” and its slow-reset monster, The Veil. They introduced the Sumtic, a veiled figure that, when it touched a player, sent the party back to the house entrance and restarted the cycle.

death house, curse of, dungeon master, doctor who, waterdeep, dragon heist, homebrew, haunted mansion, the veil, sumtic