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Thankfully, Arrian is able to catch the haunt before it can affect Ano, laying it dormant, but it was close. Ano:
You don't suffer the effects from the last spoiler, but you can still see what happened. Feel free to RP as you like.
Four of the rooms to the back of the group are storerooms. Old furniture, sheets and linen, boxes and crates, and other bits. Everything is too old and damaged to be useful. To the east, a loft is found. The ceiling of this room angles down steeply, leaving only four feet of headroom to the southeast. A low cot and a dresser are the room’s only furnishings. A sudden and unmistakable shriek of pain echoes through the attic. It comes obviously from the northeastern most door.
The next room looks like an observatory. A desk and a chair sit in the middle of this drafty room. Chimneys rise to the west, while to the east, two intricate stained-glass windows are set into the wall. The northern window depicts a dark-haired woman with pale skin, large green eyes, and a black-and-red gown; with both hands she wields a jagged iron staff. The southern window’s lower half has been broken and patched with canvas; what remains of its upper half depicts a handsome man dressed in regal finery and a crown of ivory and jade. Small scorch marks mar the wood near the broken window. A battered and ruined telescope lies on its side near the desk and a large trap door in the roof has been tied shut by several lengths of rope. Knowledge DC 20:
The northern window depicts Arazni, the Harlot Queen of Geb, while the southern one depicts Socorro, the Butcher of Carrion Hill. Perception DC 15:
You notice the stink of burning flesh.
Ano: You believe you have suddenly caught on fire, and that the only way to put it out before burning to death is to throw yourself through the northern window, and hopefully, into the sea below.
Spoiler:
You are compelled to throw yourself through the window. You take damage from the shattering glass, then from the fall onto the rooftop below.
The corridor turns left to the north. The sound of the crying woman is strong now and comes from the northeastern most room.
Alicia gets soaked by the rain. The group notices that many of the tools and materials in this room are much newer than the house, as if someone was trying to repair the roof, but didn't get a chance to finish it. The whole group can hear a woman sobbing very clearly to the east.
Thanks guys. <3
Some tough stuff IRL going on. Probably not posting today.
A large number of wooden planks, rope, and other repair supplies are stored here. The ceiling above sags noticeably; in several areas patches of the sky above are visible. The thundering rain pours in, giving a bit of anger to the room.
Arrian:
You hear the woman crying louder now. The attic has a long corridor and a few closed doors.
Donimah: You think the portrait depicted your dance partner from the room with the piano.
Alicia: So, I have no idea how this would go, so I'll leave it to you to RP it however you like. If you weren't immune to fear, you'd feel dizzy and you'd stagger once you entered the room. A moment later, the feeling would pass but you'd become filled with an overwhelming hatred of women. After a round, you'd have to Will save vs 16 or be compelled to attack the closest female character (as if by Dominate person) to the best of your abilities.
This once fine chamber has been destroyed. The bed is smashed, mattress torn apart, walls gouged as if by knives, chairs hacked apart, and paintings on the walls torn to pieces—with one exception. A portrait hanging on the northwest wall seems to be untouched, although it hangs backward, its unseen subject facing the wall. GM only:
An iron tub sits in the middle of this room, the floorboards around it sagging with the tub’s weight. Perception DC 20: The floor will break and everyone in the room will fall below if too much weight is placed inside the room.
Perception DC 10: You hear the woman crying, still. It is coming from the stairway to the west.
After verifying there are no traps, Arrian opens the door. This entire bedroom is caked with a thick, spongy layer of dark green, blue, and black mold. Perception DC 15:
You hear a child's voice, quivering with fear, asking "What's on your face, mommy?"
Ethan: You feel your face has suddenly erupted into a tangled mess of tumors and boils, lasting just long enough for you to attempt to claw the offending sickness from your skull.
I'm in the office today because my work is organizing a sausage day due to carnival. Can't miss that. But it also means I can't update the map, so the next room will have to wait another day, sorry.
Alicia: In PbP it's hard to get wrong info to PCs due to low knowledge rolls (though yours wasn't really that low). Your take is really cool and fits the character. No harm done. Also, is everything you post canonical Pathfinder knowledge or do you make some things up as you go? You know so much!
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. Cumulative Knowledge (arcana) DC 20:
You identify 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). Cumulative Knowledge (arcana) DC 30: You recognize those spell components as having ties to several known lich apotheosis formulae.
Arrian: That's old blood.
The furniture in this bedroom, 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. You can hear the thundering storm outside, and the sound of rain drops smashing against the windows.
Juriya:
You probably have enough knowledge religion to know this. Haunts can only be affected by positive energy. So, maybe having holy water is all you could do.
@Ano: Don't worry about it, post when you're ready. @Ethan: I'll listen to it when posting tomorrow!
Donimah clears up Aldern's picture. He is much younger, a child, his eyes show no care in the world. The last picture is Voreĺ's. Vorel is a tall, middle-aged man with long dark hair, a clean-shaven face, and dark blue noble’s clothes. Perception DC 15:
Just before the last picture is cleared, you notice the room growing cold. If you beat the haunt's initiative of 10, you can act before it.
As the last picture is cleared, 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 before the room suddenly reverts to normal.
Failure on the Fort save: You can see tiny splotches of mold and tender red bumps on your flesh. This is invisible to others.
Next, Donimah clears up Aldern's parents. Traver is tall and thin, has an even narrow face and a thin mustache. Cyralie is a young woman with long red hair and an impish smile.
Kasandra is a stern-faced brunette woman with wisps of grey n her her short hair and a flowing blue dress. Lorey is a young sweet girl, could not be older than 5 years old in her portrait.
Donimah knows that Vorel and Kassandra Foxglove had a daughter named Lorey, but she doesn't know much more, nor how they relate to Vorel and Cyraline. She magically clears the cobwebs from Aldern's sisters. The portraits are well made, although now fragile from the lack of care. The two young women are thin and have narrow faces. Their resemblance to Aldern is visible.
Alicia doesn't really know Vorel, Kassandra and Lorey, although she does know that Traver and Cyraline were Foxglove's parents, and Sendeli and Zeeva his sisters.
After no traps are found, Alicia opens the double doors into an art gallery. 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. There is a total of eight covered paintings, three to the north and 5 to the south wall. Although one cannot see the paintings due to the cobwebs, the plaques underneath can be read. To the north are Vorel Foxglove, Kasandra Foxglove and Lorey Foxglove. To the south are Traver, Cyralie, Aldern, Sendeli and Zeeva, all Foxgloves.
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. Perception DC 20:
You hear the sound of a child sobbing. You can act before the haunt if you beat its initiative of 10.
Arrian:
As you approach the bed, you hear the sound of a child sobbing. You suddenly becomes convinced that your parents are trying to kill each other, and that 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.
Outside, the rumbling sound of thunder is heard.
Alicia: Fair enough.
Arrian determines that the door is not trapped. He opens it to find a corridor that leads to many doors. To the north the corridor continues west.
Alicia: Are you sure? I'm sure in the Abyss a lot of powerful demons go about invisible just to avoid having to deal with less powerful annoyances, and they'd swipe the head off one or the other just because...?
The group walks up the stairs following the blood trail. As they traverse this flight of stairs, their footsteps echo back at them a round later, as though an invisible person were following them. Knowledge Architecture and Engineering DC 15:
Although this might seem like a supernatural haunting, the effect is purely natural—the noise is simply the floorboards settling back after they are walked upon. There is only one door leading out of this room.
Hope it gets sorted well, Juri!
Int DC 10: If ghouls were involved in this, Ano and Alicia would be probably picking up their strong scent.
Ethan and Juriya:
The books here are what you'd typically find in a minor noble's library. Some low quality romances, some classics that have never been opened and a few books on law that have seen some use. Unfortunately they're too old to sell, but it could be of interest to someone hoping to start a collection and needs a quick startup. Arrian's investigation leads to a door that opens to a stairway going up.
** spoiler omitted ** Weird logic, but... considering it's coming from a paladin born in the Abyss, it checks out.
Arrian: You do notice traces of blood on the walls moving precisely in the direction you're going. But they are very faint and could easily be mistaken by stains on the paint.
The blood is a bit staggered, like someone was dirty with blood and moving something very heavy in this direction and leaning on the walls for support.
Int DC 15: If Aldern's first murder was here by strangling someone with a scarf, what's with all the blood in the room?
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.
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