Hey folks- Life has gotten pretty crazy with the start of the new semester. I'm trying to keep my head above water, but haven't had time to frequent the forums much. Hopefully I can get back on track soon, but I might need a break for a bit.
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Garin's swing goes wide. The wraith spawn hisses as it dives into the sunlight- and disappears. As long as you're in the sunlight, combat is over. Knowledge DC15: The spawn looks ... small. Like childlike small.
Absolutely- Garin would have had the sword, Vachordi the badge.
Who's got the badge from the warden? It should confer a ghost touch property for the wielder's weapon.
Shel's dagger slashes into the shade creature, sending bits of ethereal cloth flying. The shade retaliates, a claw reaching into her chest .
GM dice:
Vachordi's beam misses as the wraith dodges. Does Garin advance, or stay in the safety of the sunlight?
The small wraith lunges, but seems to dissolve when it leaves the safety of the shadow. It hisses at Garin, but cannot engage until the warrior moves closer. The glitterdust covers the wraith, but passes through without sticking.
With the holidays, let's plan to have everyone post round 1 by Friday?
gm rolls:
Initiative
The moment you leave the confines of the house, a creature leaps from the shadows with glowing red eyes. It keeps to the shadow of the house but menaces toward you with its claws.
Karin's house: The last victim's house is a quaint 2 story, with nice whitewashed wooden sheeting. Search outside Perception >10:
There are no marks of a break in or forced entry. The Beast climbing to the 15' window would be difficulty without leaving a mark. Inside outside Perception >10:
The little girl's bedroom is on the second floor. The window, which is 15' above the ground, is closed with a stout latch from the inside. Also, Preemptive Initiative
The church is full of dirt and debris that have blown in through broken windows. Anything not nailed down was removed. Only pews and the altar remains. Search any of the buildings? For example, you could find the home of the last victim- the one that occurred after the Beast had been run off.
Shel spots a bear trap buried on the path into the town- it appears that the villagers had laid out these traps to catch the Beast. This one was easy to avoid- but the overgrown nature of the town means that caution should be taken. The chapel:
It's easy to spot the deity- butterflies are painted, and the broken glass window also has indications of Desna worship. The interior is rotting- many pews have collapsed. The paint is peeling and flaking off. The permanent fixtures like altar and a basin for holy water (with greenish liquid in it) remain, but anything that could be carried off has been. This includes any possible records. The graveyard: you can see the newest graves are the small ones for the five children (names marked clearly above each grave).
After the interview, the intrepid team heads toward the abandoned village of Hergstag. It's after noon, so you should be able to make the several mile trek and back by sunset and the closing of the city gates. The outlying farmhouses are abandoned. Crops grow high in their fields, the road itself is becoming overgrown. Bogs have begun to spring up and suck down portions of the village- a few years and many of the structures will be underwater. There are about a dozen buildings- houses, a few stores, a church etc. Perception rolls, and where would you like to search?
Choices: Investigate the abandoned village Visit the other witnesses in Lepidstat, or search for the surgical tool makers.
Fitch replies He is an abomination. He should have been hanged for existing. In this case, he'll be burnt, and I will have no qualms about it. She shuts up with a huff.
That's all I know. That running off the Beast from town didn't stop the killings- which is why the village was abandoned. Garrow snaps back The beast COULD have killed her- he could have snuck back in the night! . With that, the witnesses clam up- claiming they would like to wait for the trial to discuss further.
Your questions make the sisters a bit uncomfortable. You can tell (sense motive success 20) that they've not told you the entire truth. Garrow speaks I'm not sure about injuries. The girls were just dead. That beast held poor Ellsa in his arms. It certainly looked like he was laughing. It had to have been the beast who killed them all. Flitch quietly chimes in. But Garrow... the little girl Karren. She was killed 2 days AFTER we drove the Beast away... Her parents found her dead in her bedroom, with narry a mark on her. A glare from her sisters quiets the little old lady.
The sisters: All in their late forties, the three lived their entire lives in Hergstag. Each remembers the deaths. The village’s children vanished one by one, only to return as ghosts. Then one day the culprit was found—the Beast of Lepidstadt. It boldly walked into the village with one of the dead children, a girl named Ellsa. The witnesses all recall seeing the Beast laughing as it carried the child’s broken body. As soon as the locals saw the Beast, they set upon it with pitchforks, but try as they might they couldn’t catch it, and the Beast escaped into the swamp. The poor innocents it killed continued to haunt the village, and before long became too much for the locals, who soon abandoned the cursed village. Also, sense motive.
Three sisters are the witness to the third crime: Garrow, Starle, and Flicht were residents of the Herstag. The village is currently abandoned - after the murders of 7 children there (blamed on the beast), the residents moved on. The sisters live on the outskirts of Lepidstadt. Do you want to question them first, or head to the village and investigate there?
You find a clearing off the road, circle the horses, and set up a makeshift camp. Each of you take a turn as guard. Around 4am, a small mammal runs through the clearing scaring you- but other than that, it was an uneventful (if spooky) night. Plans for the day?
It's a two hour ride to the gates, assuming you can get in at that point. The guards tend not to let people in.
The party tracks well until it reaches the road, and from there it's a strait line to the city in relative peace. The sun drops behind the horizon, and the even fog rolls in. In the distance, wolves howl. You are 4 miles from the city when the last light fades. Proceed or camp?
The building has begun raised to the ground by the fire, which is what the witness is testifying was caused by the Beast. The office is going. It's getting late, you could camp here or proceed back in the dark...
The sanctuary was essentially a sanitarium located away from the city- so there are no other buildings around. *hint* The sanctuary was a home for people with injuries or malformations that made them unwelcome in their homes. So the malformed heads are likely patients and not necessarily more nefarious.
Buried among the debris in the cellar are 12
Perception checks:
DC15:
An unbroken vial has rolled into a corner. The damp label still reads "Vorkstag and Grine, Chymickal Bleach." DC20: The burnt heads hanging from the chandelier are mostly consist of people who were physically deformed- prior to death. One is not.
Botting: The priest raises forth his holy symbol and blasts the undead interlopers. GM DICE:
No dice.
The undead dissolve in a burst of holy light. The cellar may now be explored.
For round 1, Garin was retching from the smell. For the second round, he can get up and swing. A blast by the priest would likely make short work of these. Or Awnara's help.
Knowledge religion would let you know!
Round 2?
Round 1 Fin: The paralyzed rogue is yanked from the hole, just as the knight fell to his knees retching.
Vachordi's bellow shakes the air.
GM rolls:
The sorceress, likewise, is overcome by the creatures' stench. The taste of bile rises in her mouth. Two of the ghasts nimbly scale the wall and charge with claws bared.
The paralysis causes Shel to clench the rope tightly. A good pull would get her up out of the hole.
gm rolls:
You can pull her up, if you beat the creatures (They just rolled a 21). Or, you can jump down safely with an acrobatics check. There are piles of debris under the shaft- so that 15' drop also has shelves that can be climbed by the creatures.
Ghasts (21) Garin (15)
The ghasts leap to attack, claws gleaming in the dying light. Two reach Shel and slash, the other spring past and begin climbing up the wall. Attack from 1
Attack from #2
Additionally, Shel and anyone at the edge of the hole, must roll a Fort Save (DC15) or become sickened.
The shaft drops 15 feet to the floor of an ash cellar. The room appears to be storage for the former manor, and looks to have been thoroughly ransacked. A lone chandelier hangs in the center of the 30' square room. From the center dangles a gruesome rope of disgusting severed heads, chafed from the fire. A long raspy hiss sounds from the corner of the corner of the room, and it is quickly joined by more voices. Four man shaped figures lurch from the shadows at the first sight of the descending rogue.... Initiative please
The scraps of paper are some sort of receipt or contract. You can make out the following name: Vor__tag and Grin_’s C__mic The sun is licking at the tops of the trees. Are you going to venture down the shaft or camp for the night?
The lockbox has no traps that you can see. Disable device DC20: EXPLOSIVE RUNES! Just kidding: Inside are a number of documents, most of which have burnt to cinders. You could, perhaps, attempt to take pieces and make a linguistics check to decipher what they once were.
You find no traps, just the shaft that descends underneath the ruins.
Also, nothing is magical.
The 12 grades appear to be marked with Dr. Band's name, along with that of his patients who perished in the fire. A quick survey of the burned mansion finds two things of note: a charred and twisted lockbox, and a 3' opening in the rubble leading down into the darkness.
The sad remains of a broken building lie on a spur of land jutting
What in tar-nations you got there? Damnations man. That's ...a face! the village chief is horrified by the skin mask. That's Nan Klebem! We ain't seen him for months. He's a trapper that would stop here fur supplies. He ain't been back since before the Beast ... he trails off. The villagers can't help you much more, and turn a cold shoulder to you. Moving on to the next stop: Straight west is the Sanctuary (hospital) that the Beast burnt to the ground, Northwest is Hergstag, where the Beast murdered children. You've burned most of the day with the trip to the boneyard.
GM hint: You do have a squishy face-skin mask thingy.
The swamp folk have no craftsmen that could match the quality of those tools- and the fact that they are surgical in nature almost screams "Lepidstat." I'll add one piece of info: the grave markers of the empty graves were all made before the Beast was run out of town. None are more recent than that.
Back to the city? or on to one of the other locations?
Detecting a theme, are we? :)
Knowledge nature Dc15:
Now that you think about it, if the Beast had been attacked by a blood caiman (giant crocodile), then it should have left scars. You don't recall seeing any on the beast. The rope is weighted down by a heavy sack full of digging tools, as well as some rags, rusty knives, and a lantern. You note that the mansized sack is stained with blood. A the old leather pouch has clothing, mostly workman's outfits (including an apron), and a strange clump of skin and hair. When you pull it out of the sack and flatten it out, you're shocked to find that it's the skin of a human face with the eye and mouth areas cut out. You recall that Lepidstat, as a city of learning, has many artisans who make such tools- you might be able to find the workshop that matches the symbol.
If you are helping each other search, you should be able to aid (adding a +2 bonus) and thus reaching the DC30 search. You find the satchel listed under the spoiler. You also spend some time digging in the depressed graves, only to find that the bodies that had been interred there are missing.
Shel's daggers find their mark, which sends the beast howling. It leaps into the air, and wings away (AoO for the melee folk). The swamp is eerily silent after it leaves. Perception >10:
The manticore's nest is recent- it looks as though portions of the mud caked bowl are still drying. In the nest you find the remains of a savaged dwarf. The patchwork cloak he wears contains an oil of keen edge, and a silver flask filled with brandy worth 30gp. A masterwork shortsword and a wand were dropped on the ground. He seems to have been traveling through, the tail end of his canoe sticks out of the water a few dozen yards away. You can tell the beast shredded its hull with its claws. Perception >15:
You also find an old, abandoned camp: small firepit, wineskin with soured wine, dried out and molding trail rations, and a small glass vial litter the ground, abandoned. Someone stayed in this area for a while- likely before the manticore moved in. Perception >20:
Another small skiff was abandoned on the far edge of the island. You can see some dried blood in it. It contains an oar and a moldy leather travel bag at first glance. A rope extends from one edge of the boat down into the murky depths of the swamp. Perception >25:
Something is odd about the graves here: six look like they're sagging- collapsed from below perhaps? Perception >30: Also, dropped amid the reeds near the shore is a leather doctor's satchel. Inside are fine silver and amethyst handled tools. They've even got their maker's engraved brand on the base of the handle.
Round one conclusion:
Round 2:
gm rolls:
The manticore resists Vachordi's sonic attack, and flies over the party, peppering them with four tail spikes. One hits Vachordi for 8 points of damage.
The third manages to find a hole in Garin's armor, piercing 6 points of damage. The final spine lands harmlessly in the ground. It roars in triumph, and lands amid the party to eat his kill. Garin's held attack connects, slicing across it's flank. Shel closes in with her blades... Tibor draws upon a holy reserve for protection.
Still missing our new priest. I'll give them another day to post or so, and we'll proceed.
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