If you guys want to find a new GM to take over for this, go ahead. Otherwise, I think it’s time to put this one to bed.
It’s been a pleasure, folks.
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Hey everyone. I'm going to be honest with you here--I'm not having fun with this campaign anymore. Updating this has become sporadic and not very substantial--and that's not fair, I feel, to you guys. I've tried to make it fun for myself, but I feel like I'm forcing myself to post when I'm not feeling it just for the sake of moving things along. You guys have been awesome in putting up with me and my slow posting rate, and for that I thank you profusely. But I think I'm going to pass the torch along to someone else.
Ekan effortlessly eviscerates another ghoul. The remaining ghouls, seeing Ekan and Conner rip through three of them like they were made of paper, promptly turn and flee deeper into the warrens.
Conner darts forward and brutally hacks apart the ghoul flanking Ekan, but would perhaps have been better served by hanging back--Eostre's flaming sphere barrels through where the ghoul's two mutilated bits are, scorching Conner and reducing the rest of the ghoul's corpse to ash.
Evelyn turns her attention to the rear, briefly spitting up blood as Conner's pain floods through her life link to him.
Ekan's first swipe barely misses the ghoul, and it turns in time to get punched in the face by his follow-up strike. The monk gets swarmed by two ghouls while a third comes up behind him and a fourth takes a longer way around...
The party passes through the now mould-free tunnel. The cavern beyond doesn't have anything remarkably distinctive about it, save for the six ghouls loitering on guard here. They snarl and begin to advance...
In the span of a few moments, the patch of yellow mould catches on fire and smoke begins to fill the tunnel. It doesn't take long for it to be completely consumed. The smoke still lingers a bit.
Nicat shimmies along the wall, keeping his distance from the mould with such ease that he doesn't even set off one spore. One of the pickaxes does radiate magic--he plucks it from its resting place and brings it back for examination. DC 16 Spellcraft: It's a +1 heavy pick.
Nicat looks at the earthen tunnels surrounding the party. "...you sure, sis? This tunnel doesn't look too flammable to me."
Nicat scratches his head. "Well, sis... this kind of mould doesn't send its spores out very far." "Can't you summon that big ball of fire and torch it that way? Because Desna knows I certainly can't do it--" He chuckles as if remembering a funny memory. "--well, not without--"
The party leaves the undead bat to its feast before returning to the entrance and heading north. The mould seems to grow particularly thick in this portion of the tunnel. Several pickaxes have been tossed into the corner of the room-one of them looks particularly well made. A large patch of sickly yellow mould covers the southernmost portion of this tunnel. DC 16 Knowledge (Dungeoneering): The yellow mould is hazardous to your health, but flammable. Going near it is ill-advised.
The massive undead bat pauses in its meal, twitching its ears. Then it goes back to devouring whatever hapless meal is in its clutches.
Sorry I haven't posted yet. Been having an exhausting week. Will try to get a post up tomorrow afternoon.
The party sets off down the narrow, uninviting passageway to the west. It curves to the north for a few feet before opening up into a foul-smelling cavern. The long cave the party reaches stinks of rotten meat. The source of the horrific smell is readily apparent--a swath of carcasses is strewn about the floor of this place. And hanging from the ceiling, with its back turned to the party, is... what appears to be a massive, decayed bat. The sound of *crunching* and *snapping* bones fills the air as it feasts upon a meal in its rotted wings... DC 20 Knowledge (Religion):
This creature is a skaveling. DC 15 Perception: There's something shining in a far corner of the room... past where the giant bat is.
So, confession time. I kinda skipped over a lot of this dungeon because of how many haunts it had in it. I'll be honest, I've never really been a fan of them--while I admit that they sound great and creepy on paper, playing with them in my Carrion Crown game has soured me on them. That, and most of the haunts rely on me having kept track of what sins the PCs have indulged in up to this point--and frankly, I'm not interested in doing that. I've got enough bookkeeping to deal with running the game and botting Evelyn. Also, I'm REALLY not a fan of dungeon crawls. I very much prefer social roleplaying and intrigue, and dungeon crawls generally don't endorse such encounters without the GM modifying their campaign to include them.
Evelyn quietly approaches Conner and calls upon Desna's power to heal him.
The wounds inflicted by the haunt heal over, and in moments it's as if they never existed to begin with. Iesha's ranting grows quieter with distance... before fading altogether. The party hurries down the stairs in the hole after her. The stairs end in a limestone cavern. The walls drip with moisture, and swaths of black and dark blue mold grow in spiralling, tangled patterns on the floor, ceiling, and walls. Rubble and broken bones clutter the floor, and a rhythmic sound-like the breathing of some immense creature-echoes through the cave from three tunnels, one to the north and two to the west. Of the two western tunnels, the southernmost one seems to be a relatively new creation.
Whatever was gripping Conner passes, but his wounds still remain. Eostre's Knowledge (Religion) Roll: You remember several passages from old religious texts you perused a while ago. Sites of particularly violent deaths or powerful magical disturbances can sometimes give rise to haunts--a form of undead phenomena that usually manifests as either hallucinations that deceive the senses or, in serious cases, compulsions that force their victim to take actions with the goal of self-harm.
Conner:
The ghoul claws start tearing at your skin, ripping at you with a ferocity you've never known before. The pain causes you to start to convulse, and a foul contagion starts to seep into your skin...
Everyone else can see vicious red claw wounds erupting from Conner's body.
Conner: As you poke at the floor Aldern is digging at, he suddenly breaks through the floor. A cacophony of ghoulish shrieks fill your ears as several pairs of ghoul hands erupt from the hole and claw at the man, dragging him screaming into the hole.
The ghouls' eyes turn to you. Then their claws reach for you.
The party follows the enraged revenant into the hallway leading off from the arcane lab. Piles of broken stone, dirt, and a few ruined pickaxes line the edges of the room the party finds. The floor in the middle of the room has been torn up to reveal an ancient set of stone spiral stairs, obviously of much older construction than the surrounding basement, winding deep into the bedrock below. A foul stink, like that of rotten meat, wafts up on a cold breeze from the darkness. Iesha lets out another enraged howl and charges into the darkness. DC 15 Perception:
The stink of rotten flesh seems to flare up for a second before fading away. Conner: ...you're not sure why Iesha suddenly ran on ahead.
Aldern's right in front of you, in the middle of the room, feverishly hacking away at the stones with a pickaxe. He looks quite haggard--his once-stylish and well-kept tunic and trousers are soiled and torn. His pick drives into the stone floor of the room with purpose. "For you." The words echo in your ears. They were meant for you... right? "For you." The words echo again as he drives his pick into the floor. He keeps swinging his pickaxe, each swing sending the words through your mind.
Sorry about the delay. Busy studying for a test, and next week is shaping up to be very test-intensive. Will try to update tomorrow afternoon.
The revenant glares silently at Eostre as she fumbles with the door's lock, the key eventually sliding in with a *click*. "...thank you." Iesha waits for Eostre to get out of the way before she grabs the door's handle and throws it open. The room beyond looks to have once been some sort of arcane workshop, although it now lies in ruin. A row of soggy books sits on the northern end of a workbench along the western wall. At the other end of the workbench, what looks like three iron birdcages sit, each containing a dead diseased rat. To the east, two stained-glass windows loon). The northern window depicts a thin man with gaunt features drinking a foul-looking brew of green fluid, while the southern one shows the same man but in an advanced state of decay, as if he had been dead for several weeks. His arms raised and head thrown back in triumph, his rotting body turns to smoke and spirals into a seven-sided box. Iesha storms through the room to another door right next to the entrance, throwing it open and practically breaking another down in her mad march onward. DC 25 Knowledge (Nobility):
The figure depicted in the stained glass windows is a Foxglove ancestor--presumably, one who underwent a hideous arcane process. DC 25 Knowledge (Arcana or Religion): The books in the room are books that go into detail about various necromancy rituals and processes... their complexity likely means that whoever was using them was doing so to become a lich.
The party makes their way back down into the basement, followed by the glowing green eyes of the unusually-intelligent rats. An unsavoury stench seems to follow the rats as they move--a disgusting mix of burnt flesh, blood and carrion. When they return to Iesha, the revenant is still glaring at the metal door as if trying to burn a hole through it with her very gaze.
Roll call: who’s still here?
As Eostre and Ekan fish through their packs to find something to feed the rats, the swarm backs off, their eyes still firmly on the party--or, rather, the party's escort. A few of them break off, looking expectantly at the crew, as if asking them to follow. They scamper upstairs, a strange intelligence becoming more and more apparent in their eyes--occasional flashes of green can be seen as they glance back at you, leading you upstairs... back to where the party first found Iesha Foxglove. As the party approaches, the study door *clicks*, and swings inward. Shelves of books line the walls of the room beyond, interspersed with curious objects such as skulls fitted with stubs of candles, tribal fetishes, and decorative scroll cases. An empty birdcage lies near the southern wall beside a small desk and a fine leather chair. Statues and sculptures grin from all corners of the room. Two of the rats hustle up to a fine-looking painting of a bull, its horns stained red with gore and broken bodies trampled underneath its wicked hooves. It faces down a bullfighter in blue, armed with a humble spear, ready to charge and clash with it in a mighty battle of wills. It's in good enough condition to be salvaged from this house... ...and then the rats promptly knock it off its spot on the wall. It lands on the floor with a dull *thud*, undamaged. Behind it is a loose brick in the room's wall--pulling it free reveals a tidy stash of 20 platinum pieces and what appears to be an old copper key. One rat plucks the key from its place, kicking up a layer of dust, and runs over to the party with it in its mouth.
I'm feeling rather ragged running several campaigns at once--especially during the holiday season and with school to go to. I'm thinking of putting this campaign on hiatus for the holidays, and I'll think about whether I want to continue running this campaign or handing it off to another GM to run. Does anyone object to me putting us on hiatus for now?
The squeaking starts to get louder as the party searches the downstairs basement... and soon a rat appears. Then another. Then five more. Eight more. A dozen more. Dozens upon dozens of rats start to emerge from the baseboards of the house. Iesha turns and glares at them down the hall. "I. AM IN. NO MOOD. FOR THIS." She growls. The rats stop and just stare at the party. There doesn't appear to be a key in the basement... it might be somewhere else in the house.
Sorry for not posting, folks. Tomorrow, I start my practicum placement, so I'm going to be getting some hands-on work experience. I'll try to update Monday evening.
Hey folks! Just posting to let you know that I have exams this week, so I will not be posting updates until Friday afternoon.
Iesha throws open the door and storms into the narrow corridor beyond, coming to a stop when she reaches an iron door. She tries the handle-- --*CHK CHK*-- --and finds it to be locked. She screams in rage again and starts pounding on the door.
Her fists crash against the door, making dents, but the door remains standing. She turns her eyes on the party, an utterly hateful, murderous expression on her face. "...it appears this door needs a key." Her voice is barely louder than a whisper, but venom drips from her every word. "Find it. Please."
Sorry for the delay, folks.
That sounds like a good idea.
It's not hard to follow Iesha. Her enraged shrieking can be heard throughout the house, as can the violent sundering and tearing of wood. She storms all the way down to the first floor, finds a doorway to the north of the trophy room, and practically tears it off its hinges in her mad journey downwards. Following her down, the party stumbles across what was once a kitchen in the manor's basement. A large oaken table, its surface covered with moldy stains and rat droppings, sits in the center of this large kitchen. Shelves line the walls, and an oversized fireplace dominates the northeast portion of t he room. The shelves in the southwest wall are in a much greater state of disarray, and two one-foot wide cracks in the wall near the floor lead south into the earth beyond the basement walls. GM Rolls:
The sound of squeaking rats can be heard over Iesha's ranting.
It was fun playing with you while it lasted.
Iesha storms out of the room, her hair waving wildly in the air behind her. Her claws extend and sharpen, gleaming in the faint light of the corridors. Her howls of rage disappear into the house's lower floors.
Yay! That means I’m doing it right!
For a few tense moments, Iesha says nothing. She slowly rises to her feet, her limbs trembling and her hair falling in ragged strings around her shoulders. Her jaw clenches. Her teeth grind together. Her hands clench so tightly that were coal placed in them, they'd be crushed into diamonds. And then comes the scream.
Her shriek of rage pierces the silence like a ballista bolt, carrying with it a wave of fear that could only come from first-hand experience with the supernatural.
After Rolling: If you roll less than 18, you are compelled to cower in fear for rounds.
Eostre's acidic magic flies at the mirror again. And again. And again. With each casting, more and more of the mirror's shine fades. More and more of the mirror corrodes, blackens, loses what reflection it could once cast. Iesha stares at the mirror. Her sobs stop. Her eyes are wide.
Iesha curls up into an even tighter ball, shrinking away from the mirror.
Iesha briefly pauses in her sobbing. "...the mirror. Please, do something about the mirror..." Evelyn: Revenants are prone to fits of extreme self-loathing when confronted with either the weapon they were murdered with or with their own reflection in a mirror.
Ah. Never had a chance to read it myself.
The revenant sniffs. "...Iesha Foxglove."
The woman's reply is marred by a continued bout of sobbing. "Why... why would you ever help... help a wretch like me?" She peeks through her claws at the mirror she's in front of and starts crying again. |