Alternate mid-finale to Skinsaw Murders *spoilers*


Rise of the Runelords


Hello good peeps! My group just got to Foxglove manor, with the interesting addition of Aldern already being disposed of ahead of time (cockiness on my part, as well as ingenuity and good roll on a final Magic Missile), so my party of

Dragon Sorceress with insane stats (before the prestige class) 6
Monk/Druid (mainly druid) who enjoys juggling Flaming Spheres 5
Witch, specialized in Coup de gráce's 5
Invulnerable Rager Barbarian, currently more absorbant than a sponge 5

are going to be short one climactic finale, UNLESS, and here's where things are going to get wild; I'm going to give them the chance of "solving" this situation by transferring Vorel's soul from the house itself to another vessel, in short (dice gods willing) completing the ritual that was thwarted. Of course they're going to be faced with the prospect of dealing with a newly awakened "lich", and I do say "lich" because I'm planning on leaving it partly up to them what vessel they implant the spirit in, with varied consequences depending on their choice;

my question to you, dear forumgoers, is thus: What do you think would constitute a good phylactery for the good lich, and how would you like to see this affect his final state? The only one I've planned so far:

Remains of his body: Plague/Phage-themed lich, awakening over 8 or so rounds to his full powers, sure to become a recurring threat for the rest of the campaign.

If you have any cool ideas/features to include in the eventual encounter these would gladly be accepted as well!

Any/all ideas very welcome!

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Aren't liches in general kinda way too powerful for that level even if you transfer his soul into squirrel or something? Like, the house is able to cast phantasmal killer or dominate person on those who attempt to harm it, I don't think him becoming actual lich would sound like something players would want to do.

Just saying, that sounds like way too dangerous method of fixing something that doesn't technically need fixing. As he is now, Vorel's haunting is limited to the mansion(even if you remove the ability to purge him with consecration and such on his "physical self" aka fungus thingy). So why would players want to finish his lich ritual for him? So besides that being an odd way of exorcising a ghost/evil aura, that would make him really passive villain as he isn't as written really capable of planning. So why not make him more active participant in his "revival"?

Like, since the Vorel is technically the house, couldn't you turn the core of the hauntings(the fungus that Aldern harvested for Xalisha to sell to Red Mantis assasins) into a boss fight? I mean, surely there are a lot of fungal monsters which you can have psychic abilities with due to ghostly presence haunting it. And if you want to go with phage themed lich idea, you could still have that. Like, maybe Vorel's presence has awakened(before he was just lashing out at everyone entering the house and now he can actually formulate a plan of what to do) so he is taking more active presence with spreading his "contagion" and only way players can prevent ghostly/fungal presence from his mansion spreading is by giving him physical body to slay instead of them doing it so that they can exorcise a ghost house instead of just putting "Do not go there, Danger" sign in front of it. Though in that scenario I might be wondering why he wouldn't just let the players do that for him since I imagine he'd want to become lich. Still, better than Vorel remaining unintelligent ghostly haunting and players doing his dream for him even though that sounds really dangerous

Too long to read version: I'm not sure why players would think making him into full lich is a good idea, unless Vorel is now intelligent and manipulates them into doing so. I also think they need incentive to exorcise the house since with Aldern gone the house itself doesn't threaten Sandpoint directly.


Dear Abadar, I'm such a forum newb; in between creating new threads and thinking I deleted your post, phew :p

You make some very good points! Especially concerning their continued interests in the house itself; Just like you suggested Vorel is a much more active participant in the matters, more an active presence bound to the house than just inscribed feelings of hatred/misogony; I'm not going to steamtroll them into performing this but would like it as an alternative to tie up loose threads. As for him being too strong, I'm considering ways of mitigating this without selling liches as weaklings overall, mainly having him be greatly weakened just after his awakening but rapidly gaining strength, to him actually being somewhat grateful to his "saviors" and trading favors or sparing those who helped him.

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