THE GROUNDS 15 SHOE HOUSE.

15 SHOE HOUSE. This large brown right shoe is about forty feet long, fifteen feet high, and twenty feet tall at its highest point (at least from the outside). The shoe is made of leather, with large fabric laces and a shingled roof instead of a hole where the ankle goes. Small windows (the largest are about a foot in greatest dimension) are placed here and there at irregular intervals. A wooden door is present on the southern aspect.

This shoe is a magical building, much larger on the inside than on the outside. It is the home to a tribe of grubby and decadent halflings and the old woman who takes care of them.

Many years ago, Huvvard Triskelion made friends with a group of cobbler elves, who constructed this house for her. Years passed and she dwelt here happily. Eventually, she became lonely, despite the companionship of her dog Socko. She came to desire children of her own, but she was well past the age of child birth. About three years ago a gang of halfling thieves broke into her home. As a powerful magic-user, she easily stopped them, but the nearsighted (and slightly senile) Huvvard mistook them for human children instead of adult halflings. On learning of her misunderstanding, the halflings have exploited Huvvard to live here in luxury and leisure, pretending to be children all the while. Huvvard's once vast fortune has been drastically reduced as she procured food for the wanton and gluttonous halflings.

All the halflings in the Shoe House are degenerate beyond the limit of normal halfling society. They love good food and drink but are not industrious, preferring to live off Mother Huvvard and do no work of their own. They are given to strong drink, gambling, rowdiness, excessive smoking, and all sorts of bad behaviors. Treat the halflings as members of an organized crime family with a neutral evil alignment, except where otherwise specified. They generally stay here, but at night they sometimes go out looking for trouble or food and have occasionally ambushed vegetable men from Area 6 to add to a stew. In adventurers intervene in their daily lives they will not tend to violence unless they think the party are easy marks. If they are attacked, they will try to get Mother Huvvard to help them, feeding her delusion that they are children to their own advantage. There is no trick so dirty that they would not stoop to it.

The Ground Floor halflings are led by Mr Heel, who is the toughest and the most rotten of the group. He is a shrewd customer, however, and capable of exploiting circumstances to his own advantage. His former right hand man is a psychotic halfling named Screwjob. Dissatisfied with Mr Heel's leadership, Screwjob led a bloody revolt and established a second faction of halfling thieves on the Upper Floor.

In the Shoe House, use the following altered Encounter Table for random encounters. Check for encounters once per turn in this crowded house, with a 1-3 on a d6 indicating an encounter.

Shoe Encounter Table

1d12	Description
1-5	1d4+1 Halflings
6-8	1d4 Giant rats
9	Mr Heel
10	Screwjob
11	Ms Vamp
12	Mother Huvvard (50%) or Socko (50%)

Halflings

This will be a group of no good halfling thieves.

Halfling Thieves (AC 10; MV 9”; T1; #AT 1; D Short sword; SA +3 with bow or sling; XP 28 +2/hp)

Thief skills: PP 35%, OL 30% F/RT 25% MS 25% HS 25% HN 15% CW 70% RL –

Each halfling has 3-18 (3d6) silver spanners. There is 40% chance that they have 1d4 pet giant rats with them.

Giant Rats (AC 7; MV 12"//6"; HD 1-4 hit points; #AT 1 bite; D 1-3; SA Disease; XP 7 + 1/hp, 8)

Giant Rats

These giant rats will be feral, having run away from their halfling owners because they were going to be eaten by the hungry demihumans.

Giant Rats (AC 7; MV 12"//6"; HD 1-4 hit points; #AT 1 bite; D 1-3; SA Disease; XP 7 + 1/hp, 8)

Mr Heel

See Room 15V. Mr Heel normally travels with Mr Welt and Mr Moustache as enforcers and henchmen. If he is encountered on the Upper Floor he will be leading a raid and will have an additional 1d4+1 first level halfling thieves with him.

Screwjob

See Room 15JJ. Screwjob normally travels with Brenda and Bronden as enforcers and henchmen. If he is encountered on the Ground Floor he will be leading a raid and will have an additional 1d4+1 first level halfling thieves with him.

Ms Vamp

See Room 15O.

Mother Huvvard

Mother Huvvard will be carrying a large sack of food to distribute to her hungry 'children'. See her statistics in Room 15MM.

Socko

See Room 15H.