Aldizog's Carrion Crown (PF1)

Game Master Aldizog

Perception:

[dice=Ismene]1d20+6[/dice]
[dice=Marill]1d20+5[/dice]
[dice=Quinn]1d20+2[/dice]
[dice=Theodore]1d20+6[/dice]
[dice=Tiff]1d20-2[/dice]

Initiative:

[dice=Ismene]1d20+2[/dice]
[dice=Marill]1d20+3[/dice]
[dice=Quinn]1d20+1[/dice]
[dice=Theodore]1d20+2[/dice]
[dice=Tiff]1d20+4[/dice]

Will Saves vs Fear:

[dice=Ismene]1d20+4[/dice]
[dice=Marill]1d20+9[/dice]
[dice=Theodore]1d20+9[/dice]
[dice=Tiff]1d20+2[/dice]

Knowledge (Religion):

[dice=Ismene]1d20+12[/dice]
[dice=Marill]1d20+7[/dice]
[dice=Quinn]1d20+4[/dice]
[dice=Theodore]1d20+7[/dice]
[dice=Tiff]1d20+10[/dice]

Put her body on the bed.
Take a knife and lop her head.

Watch the blood come out the pipe.
Feeds the stirge, so nice and ripe.

Drops of red so sparkly bright.
Splatters spell her name just right.

With a hammer killed his wife.
Now he wants to claim your life.

Tricksy father tells a lie.
Listen close or you will die.

The Lopper:

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.

The Piper of Ilmarsh:

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.

The Splatter Man:

Professor Feramin was a celebrated scholar of Anthroponomastics - that is, 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.

The Mosswater Marauder:

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.

Father Charlatan:

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.

The Professor's Journal:

Several entries are circled in red ink. The most recent is circled 17 days ago, the day the Professor died.
17 Gozran, 4701 AR 10 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.

19 Kuthona, 4710 AR 2 months ago
It is as I had feared. The Way is interested in something here in Ravengro. But what could it be?

18 Abadus, 4711 AR 1 month ago
Whatever the Way seeks, I am now convinced their goal is connected to 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.

29 Abadus, 4711 AR 20 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.

31 Abadus, 4711 AR 18 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.

1 Calistril, 4711 AR 17 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.