Carrie's Carrion Crown

Game Master SuperSylph

From the whispering shadows of haunted Ustalav an ancient evil rises to grip the world in a new age of horror!

Amid the mists of this land of dark superstition and dread secrets stand both those who would defy the return of evil and those who would seek its terrible favor. Can the heroes discern their allies from their enemies in time to save a tortured realm from a tyrant’s return? Pathfinder’s darkest and most frightening campaign ever sets the heroes against the agents of Golarion’s most notorious villain, the Whispering Tyrant, in a terrifying trek across a land of lurking horror and ancient mysteries.


Current Date: 27 Lamashan 4713 AR
Current Trust Score: 16
Current XP: 120

Ravengro Key
E. Temple of Pharasma
N. The Lorrimor Place
P. The Restlands

NPC's:
Kendra Lorrimor- Professor Petros Lorrimor's daughter
Zokar- father of a son that attended Lorrimor's funeral.
Father Grimburrow- head of the Temple of Pharasma.
Gibbs Hephenus- tall, elderly, wiry fellow that led a group of local farmers to confront the burying of Professor Lorrimor.
Councilman Vashian- A council member of Ravengro. He attended the funeral and told Father Grimburrow that the Sheriff Benjan would hear of the incident with Gibbs. He also did the reading for Lorrimor's will.
Sheriff Benjan- sheriff of Ravengro.

Notes:

Harrowstone Prison
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. In 4661, 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. Everyone suspects that the ruined prison is haunted, and no one enjoys speaking of it.

Lorrimor's Will:

I, Petros Lorrimor, being of sound mind, do hereby commit to this parchment my last will and testament. Let it be known that, with the exception of the specific details below, I leave my home and personal belongings entire to my daughter Kendra. Use them or sell them as you see fit, my child.

Yet beyond the bequeathing of my personal effects, this document must serve other needs. I have arranged for the reading of this document to be delayed until all principles can be in attendance, for I have more than mere inheritance to apportion. I have two final favors to ask.

To my old friends, I hate to impose upon you all, but there are few other capable of appreciating the true significance of what it is I have to ask. As some of you know, I have devoted many of my studies to all manner of evil, that I might know the enemy and inform those better positioned to stand against it. For knowledge of one's enemy is the surest path to victory over its plans.

And so, over the course of my lifetime, I have seen fit to acquire a significant collection of valuable but dangerous tomes, any one of which in the wrong circumstances could have led to an awkward legal situation. While the majority of these tomes remain safe under lock and key at the Lepidstadt University, I fear that a few I have borrowed remain in a trunk in my Ravengro home. While invaluable for my work in life, in death, I would prefer not to burden my daughter with the darker side of my profession, or worse still, the danger of possessing these tomes herself. As such, I am entrusting my chest of tomes to you, posthumously. I ask that you please deliver the collection to my collegues at the University of Lepidstadt, who will put them to good use for the betterment of the cause.

Yet before you leave for Lepidstadt, there is a matter of another favor--please delay your journey one month and spend that period of time here in Ravengro to ensure my daughter is safe and sound. She has no one to count on now that I am gone, and if you would aid her in setting things in order for whatever she desires over the course of the month, you would have my eternal gratitude. From my savings, I have also willed to each of you a sum of one hundred platinum coins. For safekeeping, I have left these funds with Embreth Daramid, one of my most trusted friends in Lepistadt--she has been instructed to issue this payment upon the safe delivery of the borrowed tomes no sooner than one month after the date of the reading of this will.

I, Petros Lorrimor, hereby sign this will in Ravengro on this first day of Calistril, in the year 4711.

Lorrimor's Circled Journal Entries:
Ten Years Ago
The Whispering Way is more than just a cabal of necromancers. I see that now. Undeath is their fountain of youth. Uncovering their motivation does not place me at ease as I thought it might. Their desire to be eternal simply makes them more dangerous.

Two Months Ago
It is as I had feared. The Way is interested in something here in Ravengro. But what could it be?

One Month Ago
Whatever the Way seeks, I am now convinced their goal is connected with Harrowstone. In retrospect, I suppose it all makes sense--the stories they tell about the ruins in town are certainly chilling enough. It may be time to investigate the ruins, but with everyone in town already being so worked up about them, I'd rather not let the others know about my curiosity--there's plenty of folks hereabouts who already think I'm a demonologist or a witch or something. Ignorant fools.

Twenty Days Ago
It is confirmed. The Way seems quite interested in something--no, strike that--someone who was held in Harrowstone. But who, specifically, is the Way after? I need a list of everyone who died the night of the fire. Everyone. The Temple of Pharasma must have such a list.

Eighteen Days Ago
I see now just how ill prepared I was when I last set out for the Harrowstone. I am lucky to have returned at all. The ghosts, if indeed they were ghosts (for I did not find it prudent to investigate further) prevented me from transcribing the strange symbols I found etched along the foundation--hopefully on my next visit I will be more prepared. Thankfully, the necessary tools to defend against spirits are already here in Ravengro. I know that the church of Pharasma used to store them in a false crypt in the Restlands at the intersection between Eversleep and the Black Path. I am not certain if the current clergy even know of what their predecessors have hidden down below. If my luck holds, I should be able to slip in and out with a few borrowed items.

Seventeen Days Ago
Tomorrow evening I return to the prison. It is imperative the Way does not finish. My caution has already cost me too much time. I am not sure what will happen if I am too late, but if my theory is right, the entire town could be at risk. I don't have time to update my will, so I'll leave this in the chest where it'll be sure to be found, should the worst come to pass.

Dangerous Tomes:

On Verified Madness: This jet-black book is a treatise on aberrations and other entities found on Golarian that possess remote ties to the Dark Tapestry, the name given to the dark places between the stars in the night sky.

Serving Your Hunger: This text is a copy of one of several holy books sacred to the goddess Urgathoa. Lorrimor's notations liberally sprinkle the margins.

The Umbral Leaves: This lexicon is a translation into Common of the unholy book of Zon-Kuthon.