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Yes, it could be a thing. You'd have to ask Father Zantus or other places that may sell it, like the harbor in Sandpoint. Might be easier in Magnimar. The way I understand the wording is that it's a consumable. Like, it retains the energy for up to 24h, meaning that after that or its use, it no longer has its energy.
Arrian successfully throws positive energy into the scarf, but it's not enough to put the haunt to sleep.
Arrian: Yes!
Arrian:
In the first room, as you open the curtains, you see a brief glimpse of a forlorn woman's face reflected in the window beyond. The reflection vanishes an instant later. Alicia:
This is a message to the player, not the character. I think it's better to tell you a bit about haunt rules so it's clearer what's going on. Haunts work kind of like an undead trap. As it manifests, players get a chance to roll perception and act before it if they win its initiative. There is a chance to notice it before it manifests. For that you need a detect evil/undead spell and you have to roll perception against its DC, although you have a penalty to notice it as it's not manifesting. So Alicia's detect evil works, but you can't beat the DC even with a nat 20, so it's never showing anything. This means you don't see anything in your detect again, although this room does have a haunt.
As the group investigates the library, they notices a splash of dried blood stains on the back of the northernmost chair. The bookend reveals more blood, clots of hair and a bit of skull and flesh. Also part of one wing has been broken off. Ethan:
This room also hasn't seen movement in a long time. But from the position of things, you'd think something awful happened here. Probably someone was killed with a swing of the bookend to the head. It looks like it was a surprise attack.
Perception DC 20:
You notice the scarf moving on it's own. It's haunted! If you beat its initiative of 10, you can act before it.
Walking in a tight group, the heroes pass by the red and gold scarf on their way to investigate the scene. As Donimah approaches the scarf, a horrific shriek fills the room as it flies into the air to wrap around her throat. Donimah:
To you the scarf is not moving by itself. Instead, it's Aldern Foxglove, the very man that you met in Sandpoint last year during the goblin raid and took you on a boar hunt, and gifted you horses. He is using the scarf to strangle you.
Spoiler:
You are paralyzed with fear. You lose your sense of self and utterly believe you are Iesha, Aldern's wife, and you're being strangled by your spouse.
After a moment, the scarf drops to the ground, motionless. It is actually quite beautiful and could be worth some money as a work of art.
This cozy-looking drawing room is marred by the unnatural dampness and the thick sheets of mold that cling to the curtains closed over the southern window.
This library features two chairs, one of which lies on its side, before a stone fireplace. A scarf, its reds and golds contrasting with the drab palette of the room, is draped over the side of the fallen chair. A book sits facedown on the floor between the chairs. A stone bookend, carved to look like a praying angel with butterfly wings, lies on its side in the fireplace itself.
Ethan:
No one has walked this floor in a long time. Alicia: There are strangely no evil auras to detect.
After finding no sign of traps, Arrian opens the door. 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. Knowledge arcana DC 15:
This stuffed creature is (was) a manticore. Perception DC 20:
A woman's voice is heard sobbing from upstairs. Ano:
You catch a momentary whiff of burning hair and flesh. To the east, a rather gruesome antique—what appears to be a mummified monkey head—hangs on the northern wall here, its tiny mouth gaping. A bellpull extends from the monkey’s gaping mouth. A ratty throw rug partially obscures a foul stain of dark-colored mold on the floor. Further east, a mahogany table surrounded by chairs sits in this room. Twin fireplaces loom to the west, while to the east, stained-glass windows obscure what could have been a breathtaking view of the Lost Coast. Each window depicts a monster rising out of smoke pouring from a seven-sided box. From north to south are depicted a gnarled tree with an enraged face, an immense hook-beaked bird with sky-blue and gold plumage, a winged centaurlike creature with a lion’s lower body and a snarling woman’s upper torso, and a deep blue squidlike creature with evil red eyes. Knowledge architecture and engineering DC 15:
It was an unusual design choice to fit the rooms with arguably the best view of the Lost Coast with windows one cannot see through. Knowledge arcana DC 25:
The runes on the seven-sided box are necromancy related. Also, by looking at the patterns at all the four figures, the monsters do not seem to be emerging from the boxes, but rather drawn in. Their snarling visages do not express rage, but rather fear.
Might not update til Tuesday.
The door is unlocked and not trapped. It leads to a long corridor with three other doors. Ano and Juriya:
You think you hear the sound of a crying woman coming from above. Juriya: Is it a crying woman? Or is it your imagination? Has the shriek from the piano ghost messed with your perception?
Arrian:
You might, but there was no way of knowing that it was necessary. Also, you can choose 2 targets with a single cast. Ethan: You know that haunts are bound to a place and are the manifestation of spirits in suffering. There's usually a trigger for them and that they affect living creatures with a fear effect. Spells like detect evil and detect undead can allow one to try and notice a haunt before it triggers.
There's another chance to notice it as it triggers , and if you do, you may act before it takes effect if you win initiative. Typically only positive energy and holy water affects a haunt, and if enough damage is dealt, it can deactivate it for a period, usually a day. The haunt's HP depends on the haunt itself. To destroy a haunt, there's an action specific to each haunt, although haunts that are tied to the same environment (such as a mansion) can share the same action. Feel free to share this information in character.
Good point Alicia. After reviewing, I realized this is a fear effect, so anything vs fear works (such as the paladin's aura of courage). Let's everyone have the +4 bonus for now, but we should be mindful of the 10ft range. Still sucks for Juri, a nat 1 is always a failure. At least there isn't crit failure like in 2e...
Alicia's music clearly affects the haunt and as Ano grapples Donimah, she is able to shake off the horrible invisible dance partner. Donimah:
You are able to end the dance early. You can play that Ano's grapple helped you to your senses. You are now fatigued.
Angry, the spirit lets out a terrible raging shriek.
Failing the DC 15 Will save:
You take Wisdom damage. The piano still sits there, perfectly tuned.
Alicia:
Your ooc thought was correct! Playing the piano was, in fact, the trigger for this! Perception DC 15:
Just as Alicia touches the piano, you hear faint piano music. The piano is haunted! As Alicia plays the piano, although the keys are strangely warped and the piano looks completely decayed, it is perfectly tuned. However, Alicia quickly realizes the piano starts playing by itself. Instead of her heartfelt music, a catchy but discordant Varisian song plays by itself. Donimah starts dancing and is swept into a series of rapidly increasing pirouettes, leaping across the room in the arms of an invisible dance partner. Donimah:
You can see your partner. It is a young adult Varisian woman, with vibrant beauty. However, as you dance, her beauty starts to fade as her neck darkens into an angry blue-and-black bruise, her eyes bulge and water, her mouth twists in pain, and her tongue protrudes as if she were being invisibly strangled. Please make Will saves.
Donimah keeps dancing for about half a minute.
Perception DC 19, Alicia only:
You hear faint piano music. Ethan puts up some light. Donimah and Juriya: The piano keys seem unnaturally decayed, as if it had been standing unattended here for decades.
Juriya opens up the door to reveal an oak-paneled chamber. It must have once been breathtaking, but is a sad sight now—the floorboards are warped with moisture and the paneling scratched and spotted with mold. A grand piano, its surface splotchy and keys warped, leans tiredly in the southeast corner.
Alicia doesn't detect any sources of evil down the well. If there were a spirit of a dead girl in here, it already left to terrorize some other part of the world.
Ano and Arrian:
You see that this road has not been traveled for a very long time, at least a few weeks. If someone or something is traveling to and from the house, they are not using this road to do it. Alicia:
You can see the end of the well. There's fresh water in there. Perception DC 35, Alicia only:
Hidden behind an overhang, close to the water level, there's a passageway that leads southeast. Trying to look into the northern room is hard. Although there are windows, they are too dusty from the inside to actually see. One would have to open the doors to check. Perception DC 20 (trapfinding applies):
Door is not trapped. The door is locked.
I imagine clerics would prepare remove disease on a regular basis, or keep scrolls/wands for such situations.
As Alicia gets closer, the birds clumsily fly away. There are two obvious entrances to the mansion.
The one to the south is clearly the main entrance.
I think you wouldn't. I see the paladin more like a juggernaut that sees evil and tramples over it, not realizing that stuff thrown at them didn't stick.
No doubt about that. It's just that I interpreted your previous statement as good people help those with hygiene, which isn't always true.
Cherry eventually flutters back to Ano and says that finding Father Zantus was hard because he was on patrol with the guard, but he's on his way to the farm now.
Alicia should be highly resistant or outright immune to diseases, but her order is pragmatic, and believes that "the forces of good like to help those with proper sanitary procedures". Oh boy, there sure are some bad examples in human history.
Heads up: This is my favorite dungeon in the entire campaign.
Right after the song finishes and eulogies are performed, a drop of rain falls on the ground. Over the last few hours, some clouds have gathered in the region and the land weeps for the losses. After Hambley's burial, the group makes their way towards the Misgivings, which is less than half an hour walk on the road. The “Misgivings” is the local name for Foxglove Manor, a region shunned by locals for years as a place of shadowy menace, bad luck, and haunts. No one travels the road to the Misgivings today. The mansion is on a dark sea cliff overlooking the Varisian Gulf. Here, wild sea birds call out to a roaring ocean that churns hundreds of feet below. Nature here seems to have become sick and twisted herself. Nettles and thorns grow more prominent, trees are leafless and bent, and the wind seems unnaturally cold and shrill as it whistles through the cliffside crags. The path slowly rises, bending around a steep corner in the cliffs, and then Foxglove Manor looms at the edge of the world. The strangely cold sea wind rises to a keening shriek as Foxglove Manor comes into view. The place has earned its local nickname of the “Misgivings” well, for it almost appears to loathe its perch high above the ocean, as if the entire house were poised for a suicide leap. The roof sags in many places, and mold and mildew cake the crumbling walls. Vines of diseased-looking gray wisteria strangle the structure in several places, hanging down over the precipitous cliff edge almost like tangled braids of hair. The house is crooked, its gables angling sharply and breached in at least three places, hastily repaired by planks of sodden wood. Chimneys rise from various points among the rooftops, leaning like old men in a storm, and grinning gargoyle faces leer from under the eaves. Cumulative Knowledge local DC 12:
Foxglove Manor is over 80 years old, and has been the seat of the Foxglove family the whole time. Some sort of tragedy struck the family a few decades ago, and no one’s lived there since. Common rumor holds that the place is haunted. Cumulative Knowledge local DC 15:
Foxglove Manor is known as the “Misgivings” by some locals, particularly by Varisians. It certainly has a bad reputation—sightings of strange lights in the attic windows, muffled sounds of screaming from above and below, and even rumors of a huge bat-winged devil living in the caves below the manor are but a few of the tales told about the place. The Foxglove family lived there as recently as 2 decades ago, but then a fire burned down the servants’ building, Cyralie Foxglove was found dead—burnt and dashed on the rocks below the cliffs behind the house—and Traver Foxglove was found in his bedroom, dead by his own hand. The children, including young Aldern Foxglove, were sent away to be raised in Korvosa by distant relations. Cumulative Knowledge local DC 20:
Aldern Foxglove recently returned to live in the manor, but he had a hell of a time hiring locals to aid him in the reconstruction and repair of the old building. Until Aldern moved back in, the place was cared for by a man named Rogors Craesby (a retired innkeeper who lost an ear in a bar fight many years ago) who came in 3 days a week from Sandpoint to air the place out, check for squatters, and make minor repairs. Cumulative Knowledge local DC 25:
Foxglove Manor was built decades ago by Vorel Foxglove, a merchant prince from Magnimar. He and his family lived there for 20 years before the entire family perished from disease. The surviving Foxgloves of Magnimar shunned the place for 40 years, until Traver Foxglove moved back in. Cumulative Knowledge local DC 30:
The Foxgloves have traditionally been associated with the Brothers of the Seven, a secretive gentlemen’s club based in Magnimar and consisting of merchants or thieves, depending on whom you talk to. Members of the society periodically visited Foxglove Manor at night during the years the manor went unlived-in, perhaps to check up on the building and make minor repairs—or perhaps for more sinister pursuits. A burned building is seen before reaching the manor itself. It’s impossible to tell how many floors the outbuilding that stood here once had, for all that remains are the sooty, scorched stones of its foundation. To the east, a four-foot-wide stone well sits, partially collapsed, in the corner of the ruins. A few sickly looking ravens are perched atop the foundation stones. They observe the group approaching under the rain that started to fall a bit more.
Arrian doesn't think it's trapped.
As Cherry becomes invisible, Arrian hears his wings flapping away. The group takes a look at the now vacated buildings. The larger barn has apparently been used as a home for the ghouls, with mounds of bones and partially eaten carcasses, mostly livestock but also farmers. The farmhouse is also a terrible sight. A decomposing corpse is hanging in the kitchen and is swarming with flies. Knowledge local DC 12:
This is Crade Hambley, owner of this farm. Like the others, the lower jaw was removed and the Sihedron Rune carved on his chest and is visible despite the decomposing state. A piece of parchment has been pinned to his tunic. Outside, the word "Arrian" is written. Unrolling the parchment:
"I fear you. I hate you. You must fear and hate me as well. You may unmask me, so I must unmask you first." Perception DC 22: In the farmhouse's master bedroom under a loose floorboard, you find a locked stout wooden coffer.
Knowledge religion DC 12:
Lead ghoul was a ghast, a slightly stronger version. He stinks more. You think this is somewhat compatible with the sawmill murderer. Donimah:
I think you don't need to roll for this: The Thassilonian rune magic discipline of necromancy is associated with Gluttony. You don't see any runes on the ghouls.
Arrian easily removes the key from the split neck. The barn and the farmhouse sit still as the group decides on the next steps. Cherry flies away and peeks inquisitively into the farmhouse but shakes his head and continues to fly away northeast.
Between Ethan's divine power and Juriya's bomb to the face, the stronger undead trailing behind also dies instantly.
While the 6 ghouls were just normal farmers, the stronger one carried an interesting item. Around its neck, there is an iron key hanging. It bears a heraldic symbol of a curious flower surrounded by thorns. Knowledge nobility DC 15:
This is the Foxglove family crest. In the silence of the afternoon, the barn and farmhouse rest unexplored.
The ghouls go through the meatgrinder and none survive. Only the stronger one is left standing.
Sorry Juri, I'm travelling and can't update the map properly. I'm going with theater of the mind. So in my head, you are making two rows of PCs. If you want a specific formation, let me know, it hasn't made a difference yet.
The ghouls all charge forward, 2 to each frontliner. The seventh, different ghoul also moves forward, but doesn't get in range yet.
GM only:
Although the group has already verified that ghouls are weak creatures, the sheer number of them is overwhelming. Alicia does get one of the ghouls down, but Ano and Arrian get hit
Paralysis duration:
Both parties are aware of each other as the ghouls charge forward. There are a total of 6 ghouls and a seventh can be seen in the back of the charge, walking a bit slower. Init:
Merry Christmas all! I'll start the fight soon, the suspense is not on purpose.
Knowledge religion DC 18: Ghouls are very ravenous creatures. It is very easy to win a waiting game against them.
Hey I will probably slow down posting now until after new years. I think I'll still be able to post once or twice.
The farmers understand Ethan, but they're clearly too weak to walk to Sandpoint. They do, however, seem very keen on hiding in the high plantation until all of this is over. After Alicia speaks, some movement is noticed from within the barn. The farmhouse is quiet. However, nothing comes out. Yet.
GM only:
Ethan:
You know that the Antiplague can help delay the disease, but it doesn't guarantee a cure. You'd need to take care of them for a bit for them to be free of it.
The two farmers feel visibly better after taking the very bitter Antiplague. But they still look terrible.
Arrian and Ethan:
You think Antiplague, Delay Disease and Remove Disease all work against the ghoul fever. Ethan:
You only find 2 live people hanging. They are similarly in bad shape. The farmer falls down on Arrian's arms as he unties him and drinks the water avidly, ignoring all advice about doing it slowly. Cherry flies off towards Sandpoint.
Congrats!
Donimah:
No, the disease, once spread, acts like that, a disease. Killing the source won't affect the afflicted. The prisoner's voice is very raspy as he says "So many days. I don't know, many days." Alicia can tell that it's been also many days he hasn't had a sip of water, so he might die of dehydration before he dies of ghoul fever.
Arrian determines that they are hurt, he doesn't know how far along the disease.
Arrian:
You can track some of what Carol mentioned, that people have come here, there was a lot of running around and some fights happened. But there are too many tracks to actually see which way whoever came from or went to.
The group moves forward slowly the farmhouse, taking care to sense the auras and kill any ghouls. They do encounter some scarecrows that aren't ghouls but are wiggling. It seems that their strategy is to keep some people alive and strap them to the poles to "ripen" until they wake up as ghouls.
They come before two buildings. The barn is L-shaped and the larger of the two. It is built around a unique feature: a 12-foot-high stone head, canted slightly to the left, depicting a helmed warrior, his face a stern model of determination. Moss has grown over much of the weathered figure, making his features hard to discern. The farmhouse is a smaller building but bears no noticeable marks.
While Ethan's arrow flies wide, Arrian charges the ghoul that is still bound and quickly slices it down.
There is still some way to the farmhouse.
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