CURRENT CONDITIONS:
Amigail = -2 CON (RS)
Cassandra = -2 CON (RS)
Innis= -2 CON (RS)
Kirzon = -2 CON (RS)
Merelda = -2 CON (RS)
Lililinda = -4 CON (RS)
(RS) = Reaping Sickness
<insert name> you can know <#> facts. Choose from the following categories: Special Defenses (DR, SR, Resistances, etc)| Special Attacks (breath weapon, blood drain, grab, etc) | Spell-Like Abilities | Special Qualities | Weaknesses.
Note: Specific numbers wont be given but you will know if it resistant to certain weapons for instance). Each listed item in a category is considered to be one separate fact. Therefore you don't know everything under one category if multiple items are listed.
If you choose a category where nothing exists you can choose again
Current Timeline: 3 days and 2 nights since the attack on Cassomir:
PART 1
It began two nights ago when the majority of the current party was attacked by a group of cultists and group of humanoids (derros and mites) unexpectedly.
The result saw the party contract a disease known as the Reaping Sickness. Their lives quickly deteriorating away they found a map on one of the cultists and quickly headed off in hopes of finding a cure.
The map took them below the city into a region of the city known as Cassomir's Locker. Stumbling through the sewers they emerged to from below to find a skeleton mage awaiting the return of the cultist raiders in the basement of an abandoned house. Destroying this mage they then found another map which would lead them to a mortuary where the group anticipated this to be the cult's base of operations.
Things turned for the worse here after destroying the mage. When they made it to the main floor of this building the party found a group of children who were imploring the group for their assistance. A friend of their's had journeyed to the top floor of the house only to not come back and it was worrying the children. Against the wishes of some in the group they investigated only to find a very powerful spirit guarding the top floor. The battle with the spirit ended up with one of the original members being severely hurt and the party fleeing with no sight of the child.
Having little ability to heal and them still afflicted with this disease they decided to head to Castle Grayguard where they figured they could find assistance for their injured member. They soon discovered that other locations in the city had been attacked by more cultists causing the city to close it harbour and gates from allowing anyone to leave or enter.
At Castle Grayguard they were approached by a warrior of the deity Shelyn who had been told of their coming by one of her priests. They had little time discuss matters because soon a group of Cassomir constables were making way for them – no doubt due to the fact that others in the crowd had seen the party showing the signs of the disease and were now considered a danger to the city. The party leaving their fallen member with the Shelynites took off back into the city now with the maiden warrior before they could be captured.
PART 2
The map discovered on the skeletal mage took the group to funeral house in the Threegates section of town. The party was greeted by a halfling by the name of Haddy who told them he was an assistant for the owner of the funeral home. The ruse did not last long as Cinder was able to warn the group of an incoming ambush. Haddy was captured an interrogated. The information the gathered was the funeral house was a front operated by a man named Mr. Dreen. Haddy's knowledge of the cult seemed minimal at best.
Even upon meeting Mr. Dreen the older man was clearly not the leader of this operation especially finding him locked in a room opened only by a set of keys that they found on Haddy. Mr. Dreen did mention concern about his absent daughter, Ferista, especially with Haddy around. He did mention about a basement below where they stored the body. The group clearly seeing that Haddy was a pathological liar headed back to the room they had left him only to find he had escaped out one of the windows.
Left with only one place to investigate they headed downstairs. Their exploration was met with an unending amount of zombies risen from the reaping sickness. After removing this threat they came upon a woman named Elleste who fell under the charm of Lililinda. The group learned from her that she was the apprentice of Ferista. Once again when asked about their involvement with the cult she told the party that her mistress was connected with them. Also in her conversation with one of the cult's priest she knew they sought to infect the city.
Just before the confrontation with Ferista they are joined by another infected warrior, Amigail, who is a survivor of one of the attacks that happened two nights and is also looking for a cure.
Moving on the group finally confronts Ferista who they take down with relative ease. Here they learn that Ferista is the half-sister of the leader of the cult, Azrenar. She explains the reasoning for her brother's actions (see Ferista's Confession under Campaign Info) and provides the party with the secret entrance to the cult headquarters, a name to be spoken upon entering reliquary and the instructions to open the door.
Following Ferista's defeat the party opts to rest and gather more supplies. After Innis and Merelda return they find old man Dreen dead with a note from Haddy. In the note Haddy indicates that he has captured one of their members – who it turns out to be Nicias – and will be paying the others a visit very soon. Ferista and Elleste are take to the constables with evidence showing their involvement.
PART 3
Entering the reliquary Merelda remembers the name of the guardian, Chevreshnekar, and calls it out stopping whatever would have happened from happening.
Beyond the entrance they find the statue of Admiral Naratha (also known as Saint Naratha) where following the instructions Amigail and Kirzon are able to unlock the meaning by kneeling at the statue revealing a rune and then following seeing the same rune appear on the sarcophagus of Admiral Naratha's first mate, a dwarf by the name of Khundren. Tracing the outline of the rune with a piece of silver a secret door opens revealing a dark passage.
Our story continues...
Ferista's Confession:
"The cult you are after is bent on revenge against the Primogen Crown and the noble families of Taldor. They are led by my half-brother Azrenar the full heir to House Varza. He seeks revenge for their actions against our family.
House Varza was once part of the ruling families having a claim to the Primogen Crown. That is before they betrayed us and sent their butchers to murder our kin. Our names were erased from any claim and those who were able to survive were forced to flee and hide amongst those who were our lessors. For four generations we have struggled to survive finding ways to get by while those who slaughtered us pretended like we had never existed.
Azrenar came to me almost two years ago came to me and told me he had finally found a way to punish these families. Something that was fitting for the grievous injustice we had suffered. When I asked him what it was he only whispered that ‘Scythe Mother had given him a vision and that the fools of Taldor would indeed suffer.’ I pressed him for more information and he told me to have patience. I did not see my brother until almost a year to that date.
He came to me for my support and I could not turn my brother away so I told him that I would. He then told me that they had consecrated a temple to the Scythe Mother far below the city within a vaulted cavern. I offered the mortuary here as a safe house for his followers and for my support my brother promised me a position of power and gold that I could never dream of.
Once again my brother disappeared, but true to his word his followers began to find their way to my mortuary. One of my brother’s lieutenants, a halfling named Pelren, began to visit too often for my liking. Once a month we would see him come to pick up a vile shipment of small parts. If he wasn’t serving my brother I’d have nothing to do with him. Pelren is generous enough with his gold, but this trade in small parts is quite distasteful— and if word got out it would be bad for business. It’s disturbing to see piles of little arms and little legs and little limb-less torsos in the morgue.
Then two weeks ago my bother paid me an unexpected visit telling me that he was finally ready to exact revenge on the families of Taldor. He spoke almost in reverie that the Scythe Mother had shown him the way, spreading a plague he calls the Reaping Sickness upon the city and then, when the people cry for succor, my Azrenar will heal them! Azrenar will soon be more popular and powerful than the king. He has then asked me to provide refuge for his followers shortly after they strike and disperse the disease.
As I can see from your current state his followers were successful in letting the disease loose in the city. Do not try to hide it your eyes betray your current health. My brother did not tell me the cure but in his love for me he did leave the information I needed to find him in case I fell victim to the disease.
The entrance to the temple is only accessible from one place in the city. It is located in an abandoned reliquary dedicated to that harlot Admiral Naratha in the Quickfall Abbey. When you enter the reliquary you must call the name of the watcher, Chevreshnekar. My brother’s instructions were as follows:
Call the watcher by name or risk immediate
death. Kneel before the twice-slain harlot and lift
your gaze to reveal the hidden sign. Seek the
bearded squire then touch silver to the second
sign to open the way.
I know you think my brother is evil, but I ask you to spare him. The real wrong was committed by the noble families when they butchered my own kin for no reason other than jealously.”
Maramaga:
Long has that name not been heard upon the warm winds from the South. You talk of one that is older than me but whose name still brings back pain to my roots. The name belongs to an ancient child who escaped from the land known to you as the Boneyard*. She brings with her disease, decay, death and vengeance.
She was once a mortal teen. After a particularly horrible drought and the looming threat of starvation, the priests (druids) of her ancient tribe decided that restoring nature’s balance necessitated a youthful blood sacrifice. Maramaga was bound to a fertility totem and flayed over the course of weeks as she wept for mercy and release from pain.
Just before dying from her terrible ordeal, Maramaga spat an angry curse at her people. Yet the tribal elders, well satisfied with their efforts, collected and spread her mortal blood over the scorched summer crops in hopes that it would bring the long-absent rains. Instead, something dark sympathized with her upon visiting the Boneyard hearing her final curse. It granted her black divinity so that she might exact the vengeance of her dying words. She eventually brought the sweet summer rains her people had so long sought, but not without price.
After the miracle of her rebirth, Maramaga installed herself as the de facto harvest goddess over the multitudes. She began her rule by taking the blood of those who murdered her, the tribal elders, then demanded the sacrifice of the old, the infirm and the weak. Her
hatred for the elderly and those dependent on others knew few bounds. When these were gone, she would eventually demand the sacrifice of young animals and children by the same twisted logic. In return for bountiful harvests, she continually demanded blood sacrifice, coming to value only the strong and the virile, which formed her new priesthood.
She also commanded the construction of tens if not hundreds of bizarre log ziggurats. In these, she ordered the composting of the dead, as well as living victims, heretics, criminals and infidel defilers, along with the common unwanted refuse of the many tribes
under her onus. She also drew vermin, vultures and insects to her as divine servants, sending them as punishment for any demands left undone.
Also at her direction, her priests prepared an incredibly accurate solar calendar marking the passage of the seasons. She prophesied the final decadence and decay of the future world on this weird triangular calendar, coinciding with the end the calendar itself. She secretly prophesied her own death and eventual rebirth before the calendar’s end, sharing this information only with her most trusted inner circle of young priests, the Deadwood Circle.
At the height of her frightening power, she visited crippling disease, decay and infestation on those who failed to answer to her divine will, even the primitive peoples of neighboring human and humanoid tribes. Ironically, it was the conquests of foreign soldiers which eventually helped end her dark and bloody reign.
Taking advantage of her weaker state from less worshippers, the famous explorer-knight Jhalian and his paladins eventually destroyed and burned her immortal body, putting an end to centuries of blood sacrifice, the ravages of pestilence and, ultimately, unsatisfied divine retribution.
*Boneyard= This plane is overseen by Pharasma 'The Lady of Graves'. It is here where souls come for their final reward.
The Reaping Sickness (Disease):
Save Fort DC 20
Frequency 1/day
Effect 1 point of Con damage. A successful DC 20 Fort save means the victim does not lose a point of Con that day.
Symptoms A creature afflicted with the reaping sickness immediately feels lethargic and weak from the Con loss, their eye-whites turn a soft shade of pink, and they begin to run a high fever. Whenever the creature sneezes or coughs, they expel trace amounts of bloody mist.
Heal Checks A DC 20 Heal check to treat disease grants the afflicted creature a +4 bonus to their Fort save to suspend the
effects of the disease. Additional attempts to use the Heal skill to treat disease is possible, but each attempt cumulatively increases the DC of the Heal check by +2.
Taldor:
Government: Ruled by the Grand Prince Stavian III and an expansive bureaucracy
Capital: Oppara (109,280)
Notable Settlements: Cassomir (32,340), Maheto (11,790), Monastery of the Seven Forms (2,594), Ridonport (6,307), Stavian’s Hold (4,311), Wispil (8,670), Yanmass (6,900), Zimar (17,540)
Languages: Common
Religions: Abadar, Aroden, Calistria, Cayden Cailean, Norgorber, Sarenrae (outlawed), Shelyn
Imports: Alcohol, Osirian artifacts, silk, spices
Exports: Iron, lumber, olives, salt, Taldan artifacts, tar, wine
The mighty empire of Taldor once stretched from the Arcadian Ocean to the border of the Padishah Empire of Kelesh. Taldor’s ancient Armies of Exploration established footholds for the empire throughout Golarion, and its mighty phalanxes marched for thousands of miles during the Shining Crusade to beat back the Whispering Tyrant and imprison him in Gallowspire. Now Taldor is a stunted remnant of its old glory, having lost control of its daughter territories, and is almost ignored by the powerful countries of today, which assume it will continue its slow decline for at least another century.
Relations:
Qadira and Cheliax - Unfriendly to Hostile terms
Andoran - Indifferent
Cassomir:
Overview: The second largest city in Taldor, Cassomir is home to both Taldor’s Imperial Navy and the Imperial Shipyards. Strategically located at the mouth of the Sellen River, Cassomir also serves Taldor as a trade city, connected as it is to all of the kingdoms that call the shores of the Sellen River home. Trade ships from every nation of the Inner Sea and many beyond can always be found at anchor in Star Bay off Cassomir as the Taldan Imperial Navy performs routine searches and taxation. All craft that attempt to access the Sellen River without first being boarded and searched by the Taldan Imperial Navy are hunted down and either confiscated or sunk. Cassomir also acts as Taldor’s gateway to the Verduran Forest, a semi-autonomous region of Taldor that the empire controls but, thanks to the Treaty of the Wildwood in 3841 AR, largely ignores.
Society: The average Cassomir resident is a salt-of-the-earth, nose-to the-grindstone laborer or merchant. Cassomir’s proximity to the Inner Sea, its port, and its intense naval presence mean that most social life in the city revolves around sea trades: fishing, ship construction, seamanship, imports—if it’s related to the ocean, it’s a career held in high esteem in Cassomir.
Hard daily work gives the average Cassomirite a gruff exterior, a no-nonsense attitude, and a stubborn resolve to finish whatever needs to be done. Shiftless layabouts, vagabonds, criminals, and all those who don’t earn their keep through muscle and grit are looked upon as second-class citizens. Even those who spend their days in a manor house ordering their servants about or who stand on street corners barking out orders to the masses are regarded in Cassomir as arrogant, boastful, and corrupt.
Cassomirites are a religious people as well, revering Gozreh above all others, though a small minority of the city still reveres Aroden and refuses to accept his death. When the fishing season begins anew every spring, Cassomir’s priests of Gozreh lead a solemn procession through the streets, banging a lone drum and chanting in ancient Azlanti a prayer for protection and calming of the sea. Trailing behind the priests, in a line that stretches out for several blocks, come the wives of Cassomir’s fishermen, their faces painted red in remembrance of those who died at sea. They sing the old chant at the top of their lungs and carry buckets of red paint, splashing it at every street corner and emptying it in the sea at the end of the procession. Only by doing this do the citizens of Cassomir believe their fishing vessels to be safe from the rolling waves of the eastern Inner Sea.
Important Sites and Facts: Quickfall Abbey – At the beginning Cassomir was once a simple merchant harbor centered around this holy site. It was once used by the worshipers of the dead god Aroden and now stands in ruins
Admiral’s Fen – As Cassomir soon grew to become the naval heart of the empire, so too did its desire for ships, and soon the small harbor was expanded and improved and dozens of dry docks were added for the construction of enormous vessels of war. An increase in naval traffic caused the navy to petition the Grand Prince to further expand Cassomir, draining a portion of Blackwood Swamp south of the Imperial Naval Shipyards to make way for a new castle and its surrounding neighborhoods. This area of Cassomir became known as Admiral’s Fen, as every attempt to plan and order the streets, buildings, sewers, and sidewalks here was thwarted by the swamp, its wet and murky fingers always reaching back into Admiral’s Fen to tilt a building or open a sinkhole in the middle of a busy road.
Grayguard Castle – Constructed just 200 years ago, this black-walled structure surrounds an enormous temple that once served Aroden and is now shared by the many faiths of Taldor. Grayguard Castle also serves as the home of Cassomir’s governor and is the official residence of the Grand Prince when he visits the city—something he does at least once a year so that he might get a personal tour of his newest ships.
Dog’s Teeth – Cassomir’s most recently designated district is a series of craggy, rocky islets just off the coast of Grayguard Castle. The district’s ramshackle collection of huts, battered wooden structures, tents, and occupied caves make up the heart of wanderer and adventuring culture in Cassomir—a dirty, harsh, and battered little collection of rocks in which the right person, with the right money and the right names, can get just about anything an experienced adventurer might desire.
The Wildwood Peace - Nearly a thousand years ago, the druids of the Wildwood Lodge approached the emperor of Taldor and presented a simple request: give the Wildwood Lodge some autonomy to protect the last dominion of the blackwood trees, and in exchange the druids would ensure that Taldor had ships for the duration of the empire. Tired of losing patrols to fey raids and largely unable to control the forest anyway, the emperor agreed.
Today, the portion of the Verduran Forest that resides within Taldor’s borders is still a semi-autonomous prefecture of the Taldan Empire and the monarchy still honors the Treaty of the Wildwood. Once per year, the city sends a diplomatic delegation to the Isle of Arenway, the home of the Wildwood Lodge, to reaffirm Taldor’s peace treaty with the druids. In a simple ceremony, the diplomat sets foot on the island beach in front of a senior druid and exchanges a bag of seeds for one arm’s length piece of fine wood, then returns to his boat and sails downriver back to Cassomir.
Cassomir’s Locker – The district known as the Imperial Naval Shipyards has been built and rebuilt numerous times in the city’s history. The constant construction, combined with the region’s natural tendency to sink into the marshy soil, has given rise to a series of connected vaults, sewers, abandoned basements, and flooded tunnels known locally as Cassomir’s Locker. The Locker is said to be filled with crocodiles, human-sized rats, and giant insects, and ever-present rumors hint of a Darklands city even farther below. The city council declares these fantastic tales just that—implausible ramblings of the mad—but the citizens of Cassomir still find it curious that all known entrances to the Locker are either heavily guarded or permanently sealed.
Known NPCs:
Vasaro: Taldan. Owner of the Pike and Tankard Inn. Father of Basila. Former Corporal with the Taldor Phalanx in the city of Zimar.
Basila: Taldan. Daughter of Vasaro. Barmaid at the Pike and Tankard Inn.
