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The Blakros Museum rises into the night sky, its single black spire severing the full moon in twain. The black iron gates surrounding the exhibition hall grind in protest against the wind. Beyond, the museum’s large oaken doors stand wide open, a silver-gray mist belching forth from the cavernous darkness within. You wonder how you ended up here, standing at the precipice of unknown terrors, and instantly Venture-Captain Adril Hestram’s wide looming face is conjured into your minds’ eye. His booming words ring out from memory as clearly as he spoke them only one hour ago:
“The Blakros Museum is cursed. Some darkness has descended upon the place and those who enter are blasted with evil and left raving through its halls, more beastmode than pathfindermode. The curator, Charlie Sheen, is an old associate of the Society, though he chose to leave our organization some years back after a disagreement.” Adril looked embarrassed then, as if remembering some distasteful incident from his youth. “Charlie has long denied the Society access to the Blakros Museum’s considerable collection of relics and scrolls, using his extensive contacts to nab several excellent finds right out from under us... he always had a nose for the hunt. Whatever is past between Charlie and the Society, he needs our help now. Perhaps if we can come to his aid, he may think on rejoining the Pathfinder Society on a probationary status until he cleans up his act, or at least offering to share his discoveries with us.”
“Apparently the trouble at Blakros Museum began this morning, shortly after a wayward Pathfinder named Dian Fossey returned to Absalom after months spent in the Mwangi Expanse. Supposedly, instead of coming straight to the Lodge to report in, she went to Blakros, sold her finds to Charlie, and then disappeared with a hefty sum of gold. The few who glimpsed Fossey claimed she was much changed by her time in the Mwangi... gaunt, her eyes yellowed and unfocused, a strange rasping cough that seemed to wrack her now wasted frame. Whatever she brought back with her, we believe it is the cause of the Blakros Museum’s ills. Root it out.”
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Tanaka enters the briefing with a purposeful gait. His face is steel, wearing a countenance of grim determination. The leather straps on his armor creek as he walks. Every knot and buckle is immaculately cleaned and tied.
Even under the armor it's obvious he has an impressive physique, a balance of grace and power.
His Taldane has a slight accent, the consonants almost barked out. "It is a pleasure to be hear, and I look forward to the mission. Now, is there some kind of description for this trinket? Is there a means by which we can safely handle it?"
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Olvertu walks into the room in perhaps a bit of a shy fashion. Obviously a tiefling, horns and all, he's wearing robes that look like, well, a rainbow threw up on them. But somehow it works and doesn't look TOO garish. He pauses as he walks up beside Tanaka and turns to check him out. He looks at Tanaka like a cattle herder would look at prime piece of beef.
"Hi, I'm Olvertu. I'm new. First mission. Never done this kind of thing before. I'm a bit nervous but no one told me there'd be men like YOU around. Is it going to be just the two of us?" he asks, almost coquettishly.
He then turns to the Venture Captain. "so, what can we expect in there? Any information on what we're looking for?"
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Musani steps purposefully into the room. Her attire speaks of her homeland of Osirion, though her height and gray skin make it obvious that she is not human. A longbow is slung comfortably over a shoulder, and a simple spiral made of wood hangs from a cord around her neck.
She takes note of the tiefling, and seems to relax. As the briefing is given to the group, she seems to nod. "There is clear purpose in this task," she says in perfectly accented Taldane. "I am ready to root out the evil, whatever form it may take."
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Some checks for you
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"I have heard something of this, though I'm sure the more erudite of you knows more than I do. Much of the Mwangi’s darkest interior worships a demon lord named Angazhan, who is described in the Book of the Damned as a thing of primordial darkness, a foul-breathed demon who grunts prophecies of blood to apes and crazy folk. The jungle is his beating heart."
Tanaka continues, "I've asked around a bit. Dian Fossey spent the better part of a year in the Mwangi Expanse. At first, she wrote letters to her brother and husband, but after a few months, these stopped coming and most gave him up for dead. Her letters spoke of a lucrative find at one point, three idols of dark wood carved in the shape of bearded monkeys. That may be the answer to my earlier question."
Tanaka makes no other comments at all.
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Plisskin looks askance at Adril, then adds to Tanaka's information gathered. The last of Fossey's lettersss evidenced an unhinged mind. T'wasss covered in ssstrange sssketches of monkey pawsss, and described dark eyesss glaring out from the mistsss. Shortly after her return to Absalom, many of the primatesss in the menageriesss attacked their keepersss and fled into greater Absalom.
Plisskin rubs his scaly head. Ssstrange daysss indeed. Most peculiar, mama.
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You head in to the museum with spooky AF background music playing.
An unnatural cold permeates this chamber and the tendrils of silver-gray mist flowing out the front archway into the courtyard beyond seem to effortlessly pierce the flesh and gently caress the bone in a cold embrace. The grand entrance-way’s vaulted ceiling is supported by six great pillars of hewn black stone. Braziers mounted on the pillars cast white radiance from balls of continual light. The light glimmers eerily in the silvery haze that fills the atrium, giving the impression of something alien watching from the glowing fog.
Please make a DC12 Will save
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The mists here congeal into a thick and silvery fog that cools the lungs. Arranged throughout this large hall are exhibits on the funerary traditions of several civilizations, along with preserved corpses arrayed in grim stillness. A giant warrior looms from the haze, her arms crossed at her chest, her helm solemn and still. Beyond lie sarcophagi of varied designs, and a few glass cases wherein withered dead are held upright by rods and string; grim exhibits of long-dead citizens whose fallen empires were erased an age past.
A placard above this hall reads “The Honored Dead” in blood-red calligraphy.
Tanaka opens the door and then 4 things begin to move.
Initiatives please: