So do we wanna try to find another player before we start the next game? Just asking if that is something we are thinking about doing.
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Alaric does such a good job quieting the spirits that he thinks they won’t show up until NEXT midnight (as opposed to this midnight). Inside the room: Ivy has overgrown the empty window frame, casting this room into cool shadow. A low shelf, its wood warped and cracked, stands against the south wall, and a desk has been overturned and smashed in the eastern part of the room. Inside the desk you find a sort of ledger that details the crime bosses employees. Several names are crossed out and written in the margarine are things like ‘talked to the cops,’ or ‘betrayed me,’ or ‘failed the family.’ You think if these people’s deaths were made public their spirits might be finally out to rest.
Just as Isurus says that the spirits are subdued and is about to enter the Study, Samna holds up her hand and as she hears something. Samna: You hear faint ghostly whispers pleading for their lives, promising not to betray the family again. You assume that this is another haunt that needs a religion check to drown them out or a perform check to maybe . . . ehm . . . lift their spirits?
Everything this room once held now lies jumbled over the floor in a soggy mess: torn pages, scraps of fabric, and splintered remnants of furniture. Doors hang askew in the north and east walls, but the door to the south has been smashed from its hinges. All the PCs instantly notice a painting hanging slightly ajar, and behind it is a potion and a small stack of papers and a potion bottle. The papers are surprisingly legible and detail all sorts of criminal activities from decades ago. While they can’t be used to solve any current cases, you have a feeling that Absolom’s finest would reward you for turning these in as they could solve some cold cases. They are worth one treasure bundle. Jaxon: Though the potion’s label has long since faded away, you are able to see that the ink leaked onto the glass itself. You can just barely make out “Healing potion, lesser” on the bottle. (You rolled a nat 20 on perception). It is worth a treasure bundle.
Only a single, aged worktable still stands in one corner of this room, though the clay fragments of an oven and rusted metal suggest it was once a kitchen. The ceiling has completely fallen in, leaving this room open to the sky above. Doors stand in the east and west walls.
Then the GM re-reads the previous posts and the hands die down and appear to be gone for the moment.
Oh, got it, sorry, thought that was the check to identify. Yeah, sure, the hands die down.
The hands are still visibly in the main hall. They look like they'd be ready to jump anyone who steps out again. You think a religion check could put them to rest for about a day.
With his nat 20, Isurus not only quites the spirits, but he knows the trigger was trodding upon the same ground twice in a 24 hr period, and that while he has put them to rest for right now, they will return within 24 hours unless someone finds what is causing the haunts to rise and putting right what once went wrong.
As soon as Alric’s steps out into the main hallway, spectral hands flare up out the floorboards. Some are missing fingers, some are not, but all sport the same tattoo of the old mob boss you identified earlier. They claw at Alaric causing
DC 17 Will save for Alaric:
you take 1/2 damage. Now that the hands have revealed themselves, you see them hanging around in the hall quite clearly, presumably waiting for their next victim. They don’t seem to leave the main hall and persue you into the side rooms. A successful religion check might get them to temporarily calm down.
I won't require a check here. Basically you shimmy down into a ruined basement. Most of the rest of it is blocked off by rubble so you can only explore one little room, which looks like it was used for foodstuffs which has long since rotted away. You don't find anything else of note down here.
Now that you know the danger in the room you can devise a system for getting back up that doesn't require you to make a skill check.
As Alaric opens the door: A large, long-cold fireplace stands in the east wall of this expansive parlor, but the furnishings are all rotted. A dank stench of mold lingers in the air. The ceiling overhead has collapsed, leaving the room open to the sky. The floor in the room’s southern end has followed suit, leaving a gaping hole into darkness. Alaric immediately spots on the far end of the room that some of the floorboards are about to give way, which would plunge you unceremoniously into the basement. it's somewhat hard to see because, surprisingly, the throw carpet over the top of this section is still intact.
You open up the door to find that the second floor has collapsed into the first floor in this room. Detritus is everywhere, though judging from the splinters of furniture on the bottom most pile of the rubble, you guess this used to be a dining room. Probably for dinner parties. The furniture on top indicates a sitting room has fallen on top of it.
You carefully open the door on three to find that you have busted in on . . . what appears to be the remains of a sitting room. It looks like at one time servents may have put trays of food down here in preperation for taking them out to guests, or maybe after it was cleaned up guests would adjurn here for a good smoke and some small talk.
Jaxon finds nothing in the debris. Isurus hears plenty of things, creaking floorboards, the house settling, mice scurrying across the floor. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Opening the doors and peering into the large hallway: The tiled floor, ornate columns, and sweeping staircases of this once-grant hall evoke a distinctly Taldan aesthetic, though the finery has suffered greatly over the past years. The marble floor tiles are cracked and filthy, and the statuary lining the walls has been smashed. None of the three staircases climbs beyond head level before ending abruptly, debris from their fallen upper reaches scattered across the floor.
Stepping into the Solarium reveals a ruined set of furniture which may have once been a chez-lounge and some chairs . . . And a whole lot of dirty and broken glass.
Alaric doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary in the house. While the upper two floors have collapsed, he thinks they should be fine for the night if they sleep in a smaller room that still had load bearing walls intact.
Looking around the veranda and the outskirts of the building shows nothing that you didn’t already see.
After everyone is all rested up and ready to go, and you wait until sundown to spend the night in the haunted house, you get to the aformentioned address and . . . This old home might have once commanded the respect and envy of its neighbors, but the remaining story is cracked and crumbling. Whatever upper stories it might have once had have long collapsed, scattering stone and debris across gardens grown wild and weedy. Two curving staircases lead to a broad veranda bereft of its railings. Two openings that might have once been doors lead into the faint remnants of a solarium, while two more doors lead further into the creaking house itself. A whiff of rot and decay seeps from the structure.
Ogren: Ogren, asking around, hears from a couple different sources that the mansion's last owner was a nasty mob boss who was in the habit of cutting off fingers, and sometimes even whole hands, of people who betrayed or failed him. Some say he even worked a way of disposing bodies directly into his house in case he had to kill people in his own home. Rumor has it that the spirits of those he maimed and killed came back to haunt him in his final days.
Isurus doesn't learn much about the haunted house other than 'it's spooky' and 'it's scheduled for demolition next Wealday.' Others can try if they want. I'm assuming everyone can heal up for free from Ogren (if he allows it)since you have plenty of time.
The other enemy falls down. No one seems diseased. There is a statue of a middle aged human in front of you with a look of shock on his face. He wears no armor and resembles the description of the petrified pathfinder.
Isurus’s first strike finds its home, dealing significant damage.
Turns out Isurus didn't need the fort save (I'll keep what he rolled in case he gets hit again) because Ogren made the monster enfeebled 2, which caused it to miss. Still need a fort save from Samna Jaxon's strikes take down Red. Round 2, bold may go
Samna's first attack hits, dealing some amount of damage. They appear unphased by Ogren's words. He's not even sure if they speak common. Red seems to heal some of his wounds slightly?!
Step
Step
Round 2, bold may go
If you don't notice I tend to play a little loose with scenarios, especially repeatables, just to keep them a little fresh. I never change the mechanics of course, but sometimes I switch out NPCs for other guys or have things play out slightly differently for them to make more story sense. Again, I don't intentionally mess around with mechanics, just fluff to make the repeatables more . . . repeatable.
The creature looks half dead from a single strike from Isurus.
The crowd starts talking amongst each other at Alaric and Ogren's points. "Wait, he can sell to the society? Why doesn't he do that?"
But as you see the crowd dispersing, you hear from someone in the crowd a shout. "No! I won't! He's . . . it's divine decree that he remain stone FOREVER! It is holy doctorine! Shivaska wills it!" Religion check DC 15:
You recall that Shivaska is the demon lord of, among other things, imprisonment. Then out of nowhere, two creatures appear, causing the small remainder of the crowd to flee in panic. "Slay them holy minions of Shivaska! While I make my retreat!" the voice shouts. Whoever summoned the creatures must have also fled in the ensuing confusion.
Round 1, bold may go
Jaxon tries to find a way to save the man’s business.
But he accidentally suggests several illegal practices that the apothecary quickly calls him out on. The remainder of the crowd is turning ugly.
”See that! They don’t even care! They hear how they have DESTROYED my business and their response is ‘suck it up?!’ Have you ever heard of a less empathetic organization? Is this the kind of people we want in Absolom?!” The crowd seems to be on the side of the apothecary.
The Arcanist sputters for a moment, "But, I mean, like you said we have had enough wars that we don't need the pathfinders bringing more into it!" but he's already lost the crowd. Several of the townspeople turn and agree that the pathfinders have cleared out undead around the town a lot, and that sometimes their clerics can kill whole swaths of undead with channeling energy and spells, whereas most guards are stuck poking undead with pointy sticks. Another third of the crowd disperses. The arcanist, seeing how he's lost the crowd, leaves. The religious guy stays but clearly no one is listening to him anymore. The last person remaining is the Apothicary talking about how pathfinders have ruined his business.
Alaric sticks the knife in. The Religious guy's arguement is thuroghly defeated. The Apothocary and Arcane character still remain.
The religious figure sputters out some half-baked counter argument to Samna’s case but he can’t quite find the words. Some of the crowd start murmoring things like ‘yeah, he wasn’t given a trial,’ and such. About a third of the crowd disperses.
Yes, sorry, EACH PC can make 1 check. Not one check per agitator.
Towards the center of the crowd, you can just barely make out the head of a statue of a pathfinder peeking over the crowd. You doubt the crowd will let you un-stone him while they are still riled up. You doubt simple diplomacy will convince the crowd to disperse, through a hard intimidate check might. You think the best option is to dismantle their arguments. You think you can talk down the apothecary with a crafting or mercentile lore check. You can probably talk down the guy talking about ‘justice’ by making a religion check to poke holes in his theology, or some sort of lore involving rules (legal lore, hell lore, Absolom lore, etc.) The person talking about the magic attack on Absolom is talking about an undead uprising staged by one of the society’s enemies. You can attempt an Arcana check or Undead lore check to bring up nuances to the arguement that he is ignoring. You can each attempt 1 check (total, not one per person). If you role-play well or make a particularly salient argument, you may get a bonus.
For several blocks, the quiet lanes of Westgate’s residential neighborhoods feature small houses, low-key cafes and taverns, and the occasional specialty shop. The fragrant scent of tended flower gardens in the warm sunlight blends with the low hum of distant conversation over what would normally be a pleasant boulevard. The quaint, square is also filled with people; several dozen townsfolk shout and argue, their voices somehow out of place among the silent statues. Above the whole crowd, standing on the lip of a fountain, two women and one man are shouting. ". . . .And the pathfinders are ruining my apothacary business. They just hand out healing potions like so much candy . . . AT COST! No one is buying them anymore. . ." "Abdar says this man should be punished, and he should! But I've learned that the pathfinders have come here to free him in defiance of Abdar's Will and justice . . . ." "The presence of the Pathfinder Society has caused problems for absolom! Who can forget just a few years ago when the Pathfinder's Enemies came nocking at the door, dragging the entire city into their private little war . . . ."
Ilmryn gives Ogden a handshake (as well as anyone else who offers one) and then is off. The streets are unusually crowded today, and there seems to be more and more agitated people as you get closer to the destination. Diplomacy to ask what’s going on, DC 15: You discover that there is an unruly crowd of people airing their greivencies against the Pathfinders for various perceived slights against the city. The crowd seems to be led, or at least egged on by three ringleaders.
Seems Alaric has decided to rest for the night as he posted in Main, which is fine. Just needed to get the ball rolling again.
So what's the plan? We have some people wanting to rest a day, some people wanting to go to the haunted house right now. . . . Just want to get the ball moving on this again. How about we take a vote. If people want to rest a day to recover spells/daily uses or If people want to go to the hounted house right away.
You have now completed two of the four tasks. I know the original plan was to sleep in the haunted house. Is that still the plan?! Did you want to do something before then?
"What are you blathering about you magically illiterate . . . sorry . . . sorry. You saved my life, I should be more grateful. Its just, I spent months trying to perfect that ritual and you come in and claim to know what's wrong after all of two seco-actually, now that you mention it. . . I did rely a lot on mental runes to direct the ritual . . . I suppose if some stray thoughts got in . . . it's worth looking into at least. Here, take this bottle of shadow essence. It was a catalyst for the ritual so it wasn't used up. If nothing else it's worth some gold. I need to go redesign a ritual I suppose." she sighs heavily as she begins gathering her things.
"No, no I spent MONTHS going over those runes. They can't be wrong, they just can't. Oh Nethys, this is going to be a mess. And what will the town criers be saying tomorrow? No doubt blaming all people from Nidal for this one incident. God, I was just trying to help ameliorate my country's reputation!" arcana, divine, or Occultism DC 15: From the runes around the room and judging by Tavvar's mental state, you see that the 'incorrect runes' Alaric saw are actually a mental component of the ritual. You surmize that Tavvar wasn't in the right state of mind when casting the spell, her fears and anxieties about making Nidal look bad manifested. You'd guess you'd need to be a being with almost perfect enlightenment to pull off a ritual like this in its current form. Theoretically it could be modified to not need the mental component, but it would take a lot more research.
Huh, never noticed that. Last few times I’ve played in it it has been everyone in the room. When I read through it earlier I missed the ‘skill checks’ line and I though anyone who attempts to stop the hazard gets zapped. . . That includes people fighting shadows as defeating shadows->stopping the ritual. Well, now I know for next time.
As Isurus performs a planar counter-chant and Samna and Jaxon punch and stab the shadow, the shadow energies around the ritual fade and the assistants and Tavar all fall to the ground, exhausted. After a few moments the only evidence that the ritual has gone on is the wounds you all have. Tavvar is the first to speak ”Thank you, whoever you are! My ritual, I thought the missing ingredient was shadowtongue, a potent spell-language that could control the energies. Oh, it appears I was wrong. I thought I could show people how Nidal could do good works through our use of shadowtongue, where did I go wrong?”
Another shadow manifests in the room and tries to move in on Tavvar (move) Samna immediately punches at it as it gets close but misses twice. However she does get its attention.
The creature then attaches itself to Samna’s Shadow.
Well, he posted so we know what’s what now. Also you guys prevented damage to two of the assistants so the increase in difficulty might not happen, depends on how much damage is generated this round.
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