Hastur the Ineffable's page

New Magic Item
Haunt Siphon
Aura faint necromancy; CL 3rd
Slot none; Price 400 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Description
These glass vials are held within stylized cold-iron casings etched with strange runes, necromantic designs, or other eldritch markings. Within the vial roils a small wisp of white vapor, churning as if caught in a miniature vortex of air.
To capture a haunt’s energies within a haunt siphon, you need only twist the metal casing to open the vial in the same round that the haunt manifests (a standard action)—this can be before or after the haunt has acted. You must be within the haunt’s area of influence to use a haunt siphon. When you activate a haunt siphon, it deals 3d6 points of positive energy damage to a single haunt.
If it deals enough damage to the haunt to reduce the haunt’s hit points to 0, the mist inside the haunt siphon glows green—if it does not reduce the haunt to 0 hit points, the haunt siphon is still expended and becomes nonmagical. It may take multiple haunt siphons to destroy powerful haunts. A haunt that is neutralized by a haunt siphon takes a –5 penalty on its caster level check to manifest again after its reset time passes.
A haunt siphon that neutralizes a haunt can no longer be used to harm haunts, but it can be used as a grenadelike splash weapon that deals 1d6 points of negative energy damage with a direct hit. Every creature within 5 feet of the point where the haunt siphon hits takes 1 point of negative energy damage from the splash.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, cure moderate wounds, gentle repose; Cost 200 gp

New Magic Item
Spirit Planchette
Aura moderate divination; CL 9th
Slot none; Price 4,000 gp (brass planchette), 10,000 gp (cold iron planchette), 18,000 gp (silver planchette); Weight 5 lbs.
Description
A spirit planchette is typically found in a wooden case along with a thin wooden board printed with numerous letters and numbers. Nonmagical versions of these divination tools can be purchased in curiosity shops (typically costing 25 gp); while these items can be used as alternative components for augury spells, only magical spirit planchettes allow users to communicate with the other side. Three types of spirit planchettes exist—brass, cold iron, and silver. Each in turn allows an increasingly potent form of divination effect to be utilized. A spirit planchette requires a board to move upon, but this “board” can be made up of letters scribed upon any smooth surface—it need not be a prepared board for a spirit planchette to work.
To use a spirit planchette, you must rest your fingers lightly upon the planchette’s surface and then concentrate on the planchette (as if maintaining a spell with a duration of concentration) for 2d6 rounds while the planchette attunes itself to the ambient spirits of the area. After this time, the planchette begins to slowly slide in random patterns across the board—at this point, questions may be asked of the spirits by any of the individuals involved in the séance. The consequences of each question asked of the spirits depends upon what type of planchette is used for the divination, as summarized on the table below. The spirits reply in a language understood by the character who asked the question, but resent such contact and give only brief answers to the questions. All questions are answered with “yes,” “no,” or “maybe,” or by spelling out a single word from the letters arranged on the board. The spirits answer each question either in the same round the question is asked (in the case of a yes, no, or maybe answer) or at a rate of one letter per round (in the case of a single word being spelled out). A spirit planchette may be used once per day—the maximum number of questions you can ask with it depends on the type of planchette being used (as detailed on the table below).
Communication with spirits can be a dangerous task, for many spirits are jealous or hateful of the living. Every time a spirit planchette is used, the user must succeed on a Will save to avoid being temporarily possessed and harmed by the angry spirits. In some areas where the spirits are particularly violent or hateful (such as in Harrowstone), this Will save takes a –2 penalty. The DC of this save depends on the type of spirit planchette being used. Anyone who fails the Will save becomes confused for a number of rounds (depending on the type of planchette being used), and no answer is received. The spirits in the area are not omniscient—the GM should decide whether or not the spirits would actually know the answer to the question asked, and if they do not, the answer granted is automatically “maybe.” If the GM determines that the spirits are knowledgeable about the answer, roll d% to determine whether the spirits speak truthfully or whether they lie.

Spirit Planchettes Table
Planchette Type / Questions per Use / Will save DC / Confusion Duration / True Answer / Lie
Brass / 1 / 11 / 1 round / 01–60 / 61–100
Cold Iron / 3 / 15 / 2 rounds / 01–75 / 76–100
Silver / 5 / 19 / 3 rounds /01–90 / 91–100
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, contact other plane, speak with dead; Cost 2,000 gp (brass spirit planchette), 5,000 gp (cold iron spirit planchette), 9,000 gp (silver spirit planchette)

The Lorrimor Place:
Kendra offers to let the PCs use her father’s personal library to research, free of charge and regardless of the PCs’ current Trust point total. Lorrimor’s library provides a +2 bonus on all Knowledge checks made to research the Whispering Way.

Ravengro Town Hall:
The records kept at the town hall provide a +2 bonus on all Knowledge checks made to research Harrowstone or the Five Prisoners, but the town council normally does not allow visitors to use the building at all. You will have to talk to councilman Vashian to get special entry. The town Hall is closed for Sunday.

Temple of Pharasma:
The temple of Pharasma has extensive notes on the town’s history, and is perhaps the best site for research. Using the temple’s records grants a +4 bonus on all Knowledge checks made to research Harrowstone, the Five Prisoners, or the Whispering Way, but securing permission means to convince grumpy Father Grimburrow that you are trustworthy to be granted this privilege.

The Unfurling Scroll:
This building is a combination schoolhouse and magic item shop run by one Alendru Ghoroven; using its small library provides a +2 bonus on all Knowledge checks made to research Harrowstone.
It cannot be used to research the Whispering Way at all.
Alendru asks for a 10 gp payment for each day that he allows anyone to use his school’s resources.

Knowledge (history) and Knowledge (local) can be used to research Harrowstone.

DC 10: Harrowstone is a ruined prison—partially destroyed by a fire in 4661, the building has stood vacant ever since. The locals suspect that it’s haunted, and don’t enjoy speaking of the place.

DC 15: Harrowstone was built in 4594. Ravengro was founded at the same time as a place where guards and their families could live and that would produce food and other supplies used by the prison. The fire that killed all of the prisoners and most of the guards destroyed a large portion of the prison's underground eastern wing, but left most of the stone structure above relatively intact. The prison's warden perished in the fire, along with his wife, although no one knows why she was in the prison when the fire occurred. A statue commemorating the warden and the guards who lost their lives was built in the months after the tragedy—that statue still stands on the riverbank just outside of town.

DC 20: Most of the hardened criminals sent to Harrowstone spent only a few months imprisoned, for it was here that most of Ustalav's executions during that era were carried out. The fire that caused the tragedy was, in fact, a blessing in disguise, for the prisoners had rioted and gained control of the prison's dungeons immediately prior to the conflagration. It was only through the self-sacrifice of Warden Hawkran and 23 of his guards that the prisoners were prevented from escaping—the guards gave their lives to save the town of Ravengro.

DC 25: At the time Harrowstone burned, five particularly notorious criminals had recently arrived at the prison. While the commonly held belief is that the tragic fire began accidentally after the riot began, in fact the prisoners had already seized control of the dungeon and had been in command of the lower level for several hours before the fire. Warden Hawkran triggered a deadfall to seal the rioting prisoners in the lower level, but in so doing trapped himself and nearly two dozen guards. The prisoners were in the process of escaping when the panicked guards accidentally started the fire in a desperate attempt to end the riot.

Knowledge (arcana) and Knowledge (religion) can be used to research the Whispering Way.

DC 10: The Whispering Way is a sinister organization of necromancers that has been active in the Inner Sea region for thousands of years.

DC 15: Agents of the Whispering Way often seek alliances with undead creatures, or are themselves undead. The Whispering Way's most notorious member was Tar-Baphon, the Whispering Tyrant, although the society itself has existed much longer than even that mighty necromancer.

DC 20: The Whispering Way itself is a series of philosophies that can only be transferred via whispers— the philosophies are never written or spoken of loudly, making the exact goals and nature of the secretive philosophy difficult for outsiders to learn much about.

DC 25: Exact details on the society are difficult to discern, but chief among the Whispering Way's goals are discovering formulae for creating liches and engineering the release of the Whispering Tyrant. Agents often travel to remote sites or areas plagued by notorious haunts or undead menaces to perform field research or even to capture unique monsters. Their symbol is a gagged skull, and those who learn too many of the Way's secrets are often murdered, and their mouths mutilated to prevent their bodies from divulging secrets via speak with dead.

Research about the five criminals who played an important role during the prison's final days. Knowledge (history) and Knowledge (local) checks can be used to research the Five Prisoners.

DC 15: Originally, Harrowstone housed only local criminals, but as the prison's fame spread, other counties and distant lands began paying to have more dangerous criminals housed within this prison's walls. At the time of the great Harrowstone Fire, the number of particularly violent or dangerous criminals imprisoned within the dungeons below was at an all-time high.

DC 20: The five most notorious prisoners in Harrowstone at the time of the great fire were Father Charlatan, the Lopper, the Mosswater Marauder, the Piper of Illlmarsh, and the Splatter Man.

DC 25 - The Splatter Man (Hean Feramin):
Professor Feramin was a celebrated scholar of Anthroponomastics (the study of personal names and their origins) at the Quartrefaux Archives in Caliphas. Yet an accidental association with a succubus twisted and warped his study, turning it into an obsession. Feramin became obsessed with the power of a name and how he could use it to terrify and control. Soon enough, his reputation was ruined, he’d lost his tenure, and he’d developed an uncontrollable obsession with an imaginary link between a person’s name and what happens to that name when the person dies. Every few days, he would secretly arrange for his victim to find a letter from her name written in blood, perhaps smeared on a wall or spelled out with carefully arranged entrails. Once he had spelled his victim’s name, he would at last come for her, killing her in a gory mess using a complex trap or series of rigged events meant to look like an accident.

DC 25 - Father Charlatan (Sefick Corvin):
Of the five notorious prisoners, only Father Charlatan was not technically a murderer, yet his crimes were so blasphemous that several churches demanded he be punished to the full extent of Ustalavic law. Although he claimed to be an ordained priest of any number of faiths, Father Corvin was in fact a traveling con artist who used faith as a mask and a means to bilk the faithful out of money in payment for false miracles or cures. He became known as Father Charlatan after his scheme was exposed and his Sczarni accomplices murdered a half-dozen city guards in an attempt to make good the group's escape.

DC 25 - The Piper of Illmarsh(real name unknown):
Before he snatched his victims, the Piper taunted his targets with a mournful dirge on his flute. He preferred to paralyze lone victims by dosing their meals with lich dust and then allowed his pet stirges to drink the victims dry of blood.

DC 25 - The Lopper (Vance Saetressle):
When the Lopper stalked prey, he would hide in the most unlikely of places, sometimes for days upon end with only a few supplies to keep him going while he waited for the exact right moment to strike. Once his target was alone, the Lopper would emerge to savagely behead his victim with a handaxe.

DC 25 - The Mosswater Marauder (Ispin Onyxcudgel):
Only 5 years before his hometown of Mosswater was destined to be overrun and ruined by monsters from the nearby river, Ispin Onyxcudgel was a well-liked artisan and a doting husband. When he discovered his wife's infidelity, he flew into a jealous rage and struck her dead with his hammer, shattering her skull and his sanity with one murderous blow. Wracked with shame and guilt, Ispin became convinced that if he could rebuild his wife's skull she would come back to life—but unfortunately, he could not find the last blade-shaped fragment from the murder site. So instead, Ispin became the Mosswater Marauder. Over the course of several weeks, the cunning dwarf stalked and murdered nearly 20 people while searching for just the right skull fragment. He was captured just before murdering the daughter of a visiting nobleman from Varno, and was carted off to Harrowstone that same night.