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Fairly early in Skinsaw Murders it became apparent that my player wouldn't enjoy the continuation as written.
On analysis, we were both troubled by the fact that the haunts and clues clearly establish Vorel Foxglove as the source of the evil in this scenario, but the resolution of the scenario involves defeating Aldern, not Vorel. There's a method suggested for getting rid of Vorel but it reads like an afterthought (as well as involving spells a party of this level probably will not have).
The player also really wanted to have a chance to save Aldern, which is tough in the main line as he's been dead for some time before there is any opportunity for the PCs to act.
I ended up changing things quite a bit. I don't know that I recommend these changes in general, but for my particular game they worked well.
(1) Aldern isn't dead. Xanesha jumped the gun and sent him that very disturbing letter a bit too early. This galvanized him into searching for a way to save himself, and being the heir to a master of disease, death, and undeath, he succeeded. Unfortunately, the rituals gleaned from Vorel's notes didn't stop him from turning into a flesh-eating monster. He's just a *living* flesh-eating monster. (I used the same mechanics, toning down the high stats just a little, and deleting the undead immunities and vulnerabilities.)
(2) Ieyesha had enough perspective to know who her real enemy was, so she is not utterly fixated on Aldern's destruction; in fact, her very best outcome would be sacrificing Aldern to destroy Vorel.
(3) Aldern, as Vorel's heir, is the key to destroying him permanently. Vorel can be lured into possessing Aldern and then will be vulnerable in ways he isn't while possessing a house.
(4) Aldern is mostly in Skinsaw Man persona (he's stark raving mad, and no wonder) but has moments of lucidity. During one of these he writes a note to the PC of his obsession and substitutes it for one of the Skinsaw Man's notes. (My player's PCs actually found this note at Foxglove Manor, having gotten there very quickly.)
(5) Aldern isn't home when the PCs come calling, but Ieyesha can lead them to him.
I didn't script the outcome of this situation. The PCs might well have killed Aldern on sight. As it happens, though, the PC who he was obsessed with managed to "talk him down" into a moment of lucidity and stage-manage a very tense confrontation between Aldern and Ieyesha. The PCs' final plan was for Aldern to deliberately invite Vorel's possession, and then for the PCs to use _cure disease_ to kill Vorel-in-Aldern before the lich killed them all. (With a backup plan of simply killing him, assuming they could.) This worked pretty much as described. They finished by burning the house to the ground.
Then they had a marginally sane Aldern, with the powers of a ghoul; and they adopted him as a party NPC. That, I admit, I had not expected. But it's been really fun, some of the best PC/NPC interaction I've seen.
Aldern got to take his revenge on Xanesha at last: cue a very uncomfortable moment as he tried to explain what happens to people he kills, to a paladin of Sarenrae who didn't at all approve....
The only person outside the party who knows the awful truth is the shopkeeper whose daughter Aldern murdered, but so far, everyone dismisses him as drunk and crazed. The PCs' reputation as the heroes of Sandpoint will take a real beating if the man can ever prove his wild claims.
This is rather a fragile scenario; if the PCs simply kill Aldern it pretty much reverts to the main line. But if it goes the way I sketched, there's a lot more sense that the PCs have really defeated the evil at Foxglove Manor, not just killed another of its victims and waited for the cycle to repeat.
Mary
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I am curious what mechanics you used for Vorel's possession of Aldern. I know WotC has possession mechanics in a couple of places (Book of Vile Darkness, Eberron Campaign Setting, etc.). Did you use those? What were Vorel's powers while in Aldern? What other alternatives were available to get Voral back out of Aldern (exorcism, turn undead, etc.)?
I didn't do a full mechanical implementation, since it was pretty clear by then what resources the party had and how they were likely to proceed. I worked out a spell/spell-like list including a couple of things Vorel could cast without gestures/components/speech, and would simply have gone down that list--if the PCs had let me, which of course they were strongly motivated not to do. I think the first thing on the list was a turn undead attempt on Ieyesha.
Vorel also had access to Aldern's physical abilities and could have tried escaping from his bonds, possibly succeeding--I think the PCs badly underestimated how agile and strong he was, and I would have given a rage-style bonus based on his utter disregard for whether he injured Aldern.
It was, however, a one-round fight and none of this mattered.
Turn undead would not have worked unless it was a full destroy-undead result, impossible with the relative levels. Exorcism-type spells like Break Enchantment would have worked, but of course the PCs didn't have them.
I did a later scenario with someone possessed by a similar haunting spirit. It does seem like a weak spot in the core rules, and I don't own any of the books you mention: so again I had Break Enchantment able to work, turn undead only on a destroy result, and I would have adjucated other spells case by case. In the end the PCs talked a fay power into separating ghost and victim by reincarnating the ghost.
I did that character as a combination of the victim's physical stats and physical-stat-based abilities, and the ghost's mental stats and mental-stat-based abilities, with the ghost having some blurry access to the victim's memories.
If it were a PC being possessed I might go in for a more complex and nuanced version with control struggles, but for an NPC it was easier to wing it.
Have you tried any of the WotC rules for this? Did they work well?
Mary
