AD&D Evil Dead: Necronomicon, Deadites, and Doomed Cabins

What if your next AD&D session felt more like a horror movie?

Not the slow kind. I’m talking full Evil Dead energy… foggy woods, screaming spirits, cursed books, and players getting possessed while everyone argues over who touched what.

Yeah. That kind of horror.

You can run the entire Evil Dead vibe without changing your system. No need for new mechanics. Just the right tone, the right setup, and the right monster. And that’s where it starts.

The Cabin in the Woods

Keep it simple. One cabin. No reinforcements. No escape. The party arrives for a side quest, shelter from a storm, or some old wizard’s lost journal. Inside, they find the book.

The Necronomicon. Or whatever you want to call it.

Bound in skin. Written in blood. Whispering when nobody’s near.

The moment someone reads from it... even just a few words... things get loud. Wind howls. Trees move. Doors slam. Something wakes up, and the players don’t realize they just turned the entire campaign into a survival horror crawl.

The Necronomicon as a Story Engine

This book doesn’t just summon one creature. It tears the boundary between worlds. Now the party is hunted. And the book keeps trying to get away... it wants to be read again. It wants more victims.

Now your players are chasing the book across regions... dealing with cursed towns, mutated villagers, and things that wear familiar faces.

And speaking of faces...

Deadite

(Lesser Possessed Corpse)

• Frequency: Uncommon

• No. Appearing: 1–3

• Armor Class: 5

• Move: 9

• Hit Dice: 4

• % in Lair: 0

• Treasure Type: Nil

• No. of Attacks: 2 (claw, bite, or improvised weapon)

• Damage/Attack: 1–6 / 1–6

• Special Attacks:

  • Possession: If a Deadite drops a character to 0 HP, they rise in 1d4 rounds unless the body is blessed or magically sealed.

  • Fear Aura: Anyone seeing a Deadite must save vs spell or flee in terror for 1d4 rounds.

• Special Defenses: Half damage from non-magical weapons

• Intelligence: Low

• Alignment: Chaotic Evil

• Size: Medium

• XP Value: 175

These things laugh while attacking. They twist their heads, crawl on ceilings, mock the players in voices they shouldn’t recognize. They’re not zombies. They’re rage puppets filled with malicious energy.

Build It Out

Let the cabin have a trapdoor to a creepy cellar. Let mirrors reflect things that aren’t there. Let the trees outside grab and hold characters like they don’t want them to leave. Give the players a glimpse of something awful in the woods... and don’t explain it.

Then give them a choice.

Destroy the book? Use it to banish the evil? Or study it?

One wrong choice and someone is going to wake up possessed.

Make Horror Fun Again

Evil Dead is perfect for one-shots, cursed items, and surprise horror arcs. Drop a laughing, shrieking Deadite into a normal dungeon and watch how fast things turn sideways.

Your players won’t forget it.

And neither will you.

So go ahead. Put the book on the table. Ask who reads it. Then just sit back... and smile.

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