The Hall of Living Statues

Updated

Behind a faulty portrait in a forgotten stairwell, Thaddeus Bundy accidentally stumbles into the Hall of Living Statues.

Inside, three enchanted statues challenge intruders with riddles from the Table of Riddles . Correct answers grant passage. Incorrect answers trigger attacks.

Riddle Mechanics

  • First Mistake: 1 statue attacks
  • Second Mistake: 2 statues attack
  • Third Mistake: 2 statues attack again
  • Fourth Mistake: All 3 statues attack
  • Correct Answers: Safe passage to a secret room
  • Failure (incapacitation): The player is locked in the room until rescued by a professor. Ravenclaw loses 50 House Points

Reward

  • Stompy (a magical item or companion found within the secret room)

Scene Intro: A Muffled Voice in the Walls

It's late afternoon. The castle halls are mostly quiet—just the creak of floorboards, the clatter of distant charms practice, and your own footsteps echoing faintly in the stone corridors.

Then, from somewhere nearby, you hear it:

"Hello? Can anyone hear me? Um—hello?!"

The voice is muffled, echoing strangely like it's coming from behind a wall. And it's unmistakably Thaddeus Bundy.

Player Dialogue Prompt

Encourage the players to investigate. The source appears to be a side stairwell—little-used and half-forgotten—with a crooked suit of armor and a fraying tapestry.

As they draw closer:

"Please don't be ghosts. Or walls that talk. Or ghost walls that talk."
"Okay! If this is a prank, I surrender. Just send snacks."

After a successful Perception or Arcana check, they locate the right section of wall—perhaps behind a crooked portrait.

Thaddeus' Explanation (from behind the wall)

"Oh, thank Merlin—it's you!"
"So. I might have followed a very suspicious draft behind a tapestry on the third-floor landing by the spiral stairs—just between the Hall of Boring Portraits and the place where the wall smells like old pickles? Anyway, I sneezed, leaned on the wall, and it swung open. Not normal!"
"I fell down this weird little stone chute—like a laundry chute for secrets—and landed in this creepy underground hall full of statues."
"Then one of them spoke. Out loud. And now they're asking riddles. And I may have gotten the first one wrong and now they've locked me in a room with no doors!"

Next Steps for the Players

  • The wall is sealed on their side.
  • Thad mentions seeing a proper door on the opposite end of the chamber before being trapped.

If they ask older students about the room:

  • A seventh-year Ravenclaw vaguely recalls an entry in Lost Architecture of the Founders' Wing, describing “a Hall of Sentinels sealed by Test and Truth,” somewhere off a forgotten stairwell between the North Tower and the Greenhouse access hall.