While the dagger certainly seems supernatural, it doesn't register any kind of magic aura to Ansgar.
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After carefully searching the room, Ansgar and Normornigan don't find anything of note. The stain on the desk seems to be dried blood. As he is about to conclude there is nothing of interest in the room, Normornigan notices the appearance of a dagger on the desk, he is sure it was not there a second ago.
Book 1 and Book 2 are only loosely related (as far as the characters know), so right now what you need to know is: - A pair of brutal murderers has happened in the town of Sandpoint and the local sheriff has asked the PCs to investigate.
Norm takes some time to inspect the room as well and concludes there is nothing to be found. With the search over, you group up next to Ansgar as he opens the double doors into the next room. The doors open into a bedroom, the furniture in here, while dusty and unkempt, does not exhibit any major signs of water or mold damage. The one exception is a dark stain on the desk near the northern window.
Ansgar carefully inspects the back of all portraits but doesn't find anything of note.
Hey everyone, sorry for the slow pace of the game, I took advantage of Ansgar's vacation period to take a few breaks and deal with IRL stuff and forgot to tell you about it (I actually wrote a post but forgot to submit it for some reason). I'll be pushing the game forward starting tomorrow and things should be back on pace soon. @Normornigan did you talk with your friend about the game? He sent me a message back in April saying his character was almost done but then never sent anything after.
The room returns to normal as quickly as the fungus spread just a second before. Everyone but Caeldren can see tiny splotches of mold and tender red bumps on their own flesh, but only on themselves.
The temperature in the room drops dramatically. Breath frosts in the air and fingers of rime slither across the walls. The figures depicted in the portraits suddenly shift from paintings of living people to those of dead folk. Kasanda and Lorey slump into misshapen, tumor-ridden corpses. Traver grows pale as a long cut opens in his throat and blood washes down over his chest. Cyralie blackens and chars, and her arms, legs, and back twist as if broken in dozens of places. Aldern’s flesh darkens with rot, his hair falls out, and he deforms into a ghoul-like monster. Both Sendeli’s and Zeeva’s portraits frost over but otherwise remain unchanged. Vorel’s entire portrait, frame and all, erupts into a sudden explosion of fungus and tumorous growth. This wave of fungus and disease washes over the entire room in seconds!
The three following portraits to the south show a man named Aldern Foxglove that Ansgar recognizes as the noble from Sandpoint, as well as two women named Sendeli and Zeeva Foxglove. The portraits to the north show Vorel, Kasanda, and Lorey Foxglove. Vorel is a tall, middle-aged man with long hair, a clean-shaven face, and dark blue noble’s clothes, while Kasanda is a stern-faced brunette woman with wisps of gray in her short hair and a flowing blue dress. Perception DC 15: As soon as Norm removes the last webbing, you notice the room's temperature begins to drop.
The second painting portrays a young woman with long red hair and an impish smile. You can also see both paintings have plaques, it seems the man's name is Traver Foxglove while the woman is called Cyralie Foxglove.
There are eight portraits in total, three to the north and five on the southern wall, upon removing the webbing from the closest one, you see it portrays a tall and thin middle-aged man with a narrow face and a thin mustache.
A stone fireplace sits in the northwestern portion of this chamber. Paintings hang on the walls to the north and south, each covered over with a thick sheet of dusty cobwebs that obscures its subject from view.
You make a careful inspection of the room and don't find anything of notice, magical or otherwise.
Last message I got from him was April 13.
This large room features two padded chairs and a long couch facing a wide alcove lined with stained-glass windows. These windows depict a diverse array of animals and plants—from north to south are a large pale and ghostly scorpion, a gaunt man holding out his arms as a dozen bats hang from him, a moth with a strange skull-like pattern on its wings, a tangle of dull green plants with bell-shaped flowers, and a young maiden sitting astride a well in a forest while a spindly spider the size of a dog descends along a string of webbing above her. Knowledge(arcana) DC 20:
All five of the subjects in the windows as classic spell components for necromancy magic (scorpion venom, vampire’s breath, the tongues of deathwing moths, belladonna, and the heart of a maiden slain by poison) (If you roll 30+): Those spell components all have ties to several known lich apotheosis formulae.
Ansgar: A flash of emotion surges through your head. You are suddenly convinced that your parents are trying to kill each other, and whichever of them survives will be coming to kill you next. You have a vision of your mother, wielding a torch, and your father, festering with tumors and wielding a long knife, both struggling to kill each other. The vision passes as fast as it occurs.
Ansgar must make a DC 14 Will save or take Wisdom damage.
This bedroom features a child-sized bed, a chair next to a toy box, and a looming stone fireplace big enough for a child to get lost in. DC 20 Perception (Ansgar Only): You hear the sound of a child sobbing, coming from this room, even though you're sure there is no one here.
The door opens into a room with stairs that go back into the first floor.
The starting gold would be 3,450 gp, I believe it's in line with what you guys currently have.
I don't really know how to mediate this since I don't know any of the players or haven't seen character submissions or anything like that. If you think the player you've already ask is a good fit, I'd say bring him in, unless anyone here has some kind of objection.
With Ansgar leading the way, you walk up the stairs into the upper floor of the manor, where you find yourselves in a hallway with two sets of double doors as well as multiple other doors leading into various rooms of the house. Perception DC 20: You once again briefly hear what seems to be someone sobbing, the sound seems to be coming from above.
The sound of the house straining and creaking gives this long, high-ceilinged room an additional sense of age and decay. The place smells damp, the unpleasant tinge of mold lacing the air as surely as it stains the wooden floor, walls, and furniture in pallid patches. Moldering trophies hang on the wall to the northeast: a boar, a bear, a firepelt cougar, and a stag, yet they pale in comparison to the monster on display in the center of the room. Here crouches a twelve-foot-long creature with the body of a lion, a scorpion’s tail fitted with dozens of razor barbs, huge batlike wings, and a deformed humanoid face. You all smell a momentary whiff of burning hair and flesh. Knowledge Arcana DC 15:
The preserved monster in the center of the room is a Manticore. Perception DC 20: You briefly hear what sound like sobs coming from somewhere upstairs.
Is any of these possible players actively looking for a game? If so, I think we should start with them.
You swing at the mass of ravens as they try to swarm you, many of them drop to the ground as you strike, and a remaining few scatter, then a second wave of ravens dives at you.
Round 2
I'm personally overwhelmed with work right now so I wouldn't be able to conduct a proper recruitment. We could go with one of Norm's friends or try to reach out to someone from the last recruitment thread and see if they're still interested, what do you guys think?
Sorry for the delay, was waiting for Norm and then some personal stuff came up. Hopefully Norm is doing alright as well.
While Zelinda drinks an extract and positions herself, Ansgar lets out an emanation of positive energy.
The holy energy disintegrates many of the undead ravens, the flock seems to screech in pain as the prayer happens, then they furiously dive towards its source, trying to swarm Ansgar.
Round 1
As you finish climbing out of the well the ravens start to get agitated, taking flight in what seems like a hurricane of black feathers ready to swallow you. A smell of rotten meat spread through the air and you remember you've fought a swarm of undead ravens on your way to Magnimar. Initiative:
You retreat back into the well and start your climb up. As Ansgar, who leads the way, finishes his climb, he sees that the ruined outbuilding is now infested with hundreds upon thousands of ravens. The birds are quietly perched above the stones, covering the entire building. Quiary seems to be gone.
After a thorough search, you don't think there is any key in the room or anything of notice that's hidden.
Caeldren works the lock for quite a while, but it always seems like one or two pins don't click into place. After many tries, he concludes it would either take better tools or some different approach by a more practiced lockpicker to get the door open.
Norm goes towards the next door, the door is made of solid iron and has a few patches of rust, it is locked and seems like would be very hard to break down. Zelinda goes through the books, but they're in a sorry state and seem to cover something too complex. Ansgar scans the room and concludes there are no magical auras in this room.
Probably unsurprising at this point but...Yeah, you know the deal with Mondays :( Sorry guys, this I'll get back into pace soon, promise.
Zelinda walks to the center of the room and touches one of the books, then stands there for a second. Zelinda:
You get a sudden urge to read the books on the workbench. As you touch them, a flood of information flows through your mind. A series of visions take place as if in a realm of animated stained-glass windows, showing a nobleman through various stages of some kind of research and experiment, one attempting to cheat death: from doing research to building a mysterious amulet to brewing a potion. As the nobleman takes the potion, he doubles over in agony and his body begins to rot away. As the vision ends, you come back to your senses. Although the vision was long, it seems only a few seconds have passed. Caeldren: Pug's Contraptions is a clockwork-creation business and tinker shop in the northwest of Magnimar's Ordellia district that generally deals in small contraptions such as toys, unique locks, and other baubles. It is run by old Morgamer Pug, a halfling who is in direct competition with the much-larger Golemworks. Pug has carved himself out a small niche in only dealing in smaller, clockwork machines. The guildsign for the store is a pig whose mouth is stuffed with lockpicks, a remnant of the owner's first business (which he still practices when he can't sell clockworks) of creating locks and other small metalworks such as bird cages.
Zelinda: I need you to make a Will Save
I'll get the post up tomorrow morning. Mondays have been very hectic recently.
Perception DC 20:
You notice a subtle movement in the stained-glass window as if the man depicted there was sneering at you.
You detect a Haunt in this room. The books are in sorry shape, but a look through them reveals that they all cover various arts of necromancy and the creation of undeath. Worm-eaten and crumbling, they won’t stand up to much investigation. Knowledge(arcana or religion) DC 25:
Whoever studied these books was investigating the transformation of mortal into a lich. The iron cages with the dead rats have a small symbol of a pig with a mouthful of lock picks peering at a keyhole. Under the pig is a guild sign that says “Pug’s Contraptions - Magnimar.”
Hey everyone, had a rough weekend. I'll have something up tomorrow. Thanks for the patience, we'll get the game back on a good pace eventually.
Opening the door you enter into a small corridor that ends into another door, as you open the second door, you see a larger room. This room 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 loom. 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.
Thanks! If not for your post I would probably never be able to log back again. I'll get a post up for you guys after I finish work today.
Sorry for delaying things, again. Had another emergency, things are fine now (I hope), looking forward to continuing the game.
As Ansgar slashes through the air a second time; he finally drops to the ground, the ghoulish figures he saw disappearing as if a mere dream, although his wounds are very real. K.Religion DC 13:
What Ansgar has experienced seems to be what they call a "haunt", a violent manifestation caused by unquiet spirits that endured terrific mental or physical anguish.
Hey everyone. I'm back, hope y'all had a wonderful end of the year. Things were CRAZY around here but are set to change for the better. I'm just rereading some parts of the module and the game to make sure I haven't missed anything but I'm confident I'll have a post up for you guys very soon.
Just a quick one to say that I'm still here, the past three weeks were insane for me. I'm almost done with work and then I'll try to at least get a post done.
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