For anyone who may be playing this current Path or may plan to do so in the future, the following will contain plot spoilers, so carry on at your own risk.....
With that said..
So, I returned for my second outing as a DM tonight by introducing my group to the Haunting of Harrowstone. I was slightly worried going in - my group is relatively new to tabletop RPGs, and our past two excursions (my first DMing attempt, and one of the other players first DMing attempt) ended up being pretty lackluster.
And to be fair, those failures can be contributed to lack of preparation on the part of the DMs.
However, tonight I donned the DM hat for the second time, and I went in fully prepared. I read the entire adventure path multiple times, prepared all kinds of handouts, etc. etc. And the extra work paid off greatly.
So here's the recap:
As the game begins, the players find themselves arriving in Ravengro just in time to witness/partake in the burial ceremony for their friend, Petros Lorrimor. During the procession to the burial site, the party is accosted by a group of citizens led by a visibly agitated and suspicious Gibs, who demands the Professor be buried somewhere else.
The party face (a halfling ranger named Saxal) manages to talk down Gibs and his lackeys by debunking their claims. The town folk walk away, and an unnecessary fight was prevented.
The party is somber and respectful during the funeral, and they console Kendra, the Professor's daughter, and a few even move her by honoring her father with speeches about how they knew him.
The party returns to Kendra's house and are treated with a hot meal, and try their best to keep Kendra's spirits up by making her laugh and tell stories about some of the things her father had done for them. One of the members of the party, a human monk from the cold reaches of the north (Olaf), seems to show an interest in this young, helpless woman.
After dinner, the party witnesses the reading of the will with Councilman Vashian, he seems to treat the party coldly and continually calls them Outsiders. The party agrees to stay in town to help Kendra. After Kendra goes to bed, the party opens up the professor's trunk and examine the books he left for them to deliver. Each party member takes a book to read for themselves, with the exception of the locked book, which they place back in the box and re-lock the box.
After dinner, the monk Olaf smokes some from his pipe and feels euphoric, so he heads off to bed. After falling asleep, he wakes up to find himself in a cell while is name is slowly being written in blood on the wall. He decides to taste the blood, to confirm its blood. He confirms it. He chalks this up to him having some sort of hallucinogenic dream, and decides to ride it out. When he wakes up, the bloody letters still linger on the wall, but quickly vanish. He decides not to share this information with the party.
The next day, they are treated to an amazing breakfast by Kendra, who seems to be in a better mood now that she's had a good night's sleep. The party decides to follow the leads in the Professor's journal by going to talk to Father Grimburrow, to see if they can get access to the crypt the Professor was checking out.
Before they leave the house, there's a knock on the door. They are greeted to Sheriff Benjan and his deputies, who demand to know where the party was last night. They tell him they never left the house, and Kendra confirms their story, but the Sheriff is still skeptical. He leads the party to the Harrowstone memorial, where they are treated to a horrific site. Beneath the statue is the gutted remains of a cat, and a bloody letter "V" has been written on the statue.
The party is less concerned about the bloody letter than they are that the Sheriff would have the nerve to suspect them of the crime. He wants to bring them to the Sheriff's station, but without any evidence that they were at the statue and the alibi that Kendra gave for them, he lets them go, warning them not to leave town until this mystery has been solved.
The party goes to the temple of pharasma to talk to Father Grimburrow. The father thanks them for giving such moving speeches the day before, and warns them that he feels something terrible is happening around town. He tells them to be careful, and to not walk around after nightfall. Saxal asks the father for permission to check out the crypt that the professor went to check out, and he gives it to them. Before leaving, they ask is the Father can bless some holy water for them, which he gladly bless 4 vials for them, and they go on their way.
As they exit the temple, they run into Pevrin, who has taken up the job of town crier. As Pevrin is recalling the news about what happened at the Harrowstone monument and how the outsiders might be to blame, he sees them approaching, and runs away before they can question him.
The party goes back to the Deadlands to visit the crypt, which they find to not be locked. They enter cautiously, and discover the opened coffin at the rear of the crypt. They retrieve the many undead killing related items from the coffin, including the spirit board, which the Party brawler human monk immiediately uses to attempt to contact the spirit of Petros, locking him into a trance while he attempts to communicate. As he's doing so, two giant centipedes surprise attack the other party members, but the centipedes prove not much of a match for them. The last centipede is horizontally sliced in half by the party's Oracle.
The attempt to communicate with the spirit of Petros is unsuccessful, so the party starts back for the Lorrimor house. The sun is beginning to set, and as they march back through the Deadlands, the halfling Saxal sees a tombstone with his name on it, but after freaking out and calling his teammates over, the name on the tombstone is something completely different.
When they return to the Lorrimor manor, Kendra has a hot supper ready for them. She asks them how their search is going, at which point the monk reveals the details about his bloody dream. Kendra seems worried.
After dinner, Kendra goes off the bed. The monk and the oracle decide they want to wash themselves up before going to bed themselves. The halfling ranger and the magus are still sitting at the kitchen table when they hear a knock on the door. The halfling assumes it's the Sheriff again, and goes to open the door, only to be surprised to see the reanimated remains of a human with a smashed in face. The zombie catches him offguard and almost knocks him to the floor, but the halfling is quick on his feet, and manages to move out of the way, and the zombie falls prone.
He shouts out for his companions, who quickly come running. The monk Olaf was in the middle of his bath when the call came out, so he sprints out of the bath room, leaps over the upper floor railing and over the head of the halfling, completely naked, who is awestruck by this odd sight, and the monk commences to stomping furiously at the neck of the now prone zombie on the floor.
It doesn't take much effort and the zombie's head is freed from it's body with a satisfying snap. The halfling picks it up and proceeds to punt it out the front door, just in time for Kendra to reappear, visibly shaken and her face frozen in terror. As they turn towards her, she manages to let out a barely audible "that...that was my father..."
The halfling feels horrible.
Called it a night after this scene happened.
A naked monk leaping off the upper floor landing to decapitate a zombie with his feet seemed like a good place to end it for the night.
All in all, a good session. Went for about 4 hours and only had two measly encounters. But all my players had a blast, and they are very much looking forward to our next session.
