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This is just something I've knocked out really quick. I used it in both of my groups that I have ran for. It needs maps probably, but I'm no good with mapping software. Please feel free to tweak it.
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This is in no way a challenge to any copyrights by Paizo, because they are awesome. Material has been adapted from the community forums, particularly the Pathfinder Journal of Moonbeam, who is also awesome.
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Background:
At the beginning of the late Unpleasantness a number of strange occurrences happened including the disappearance of Das Korvut’s 5 year old son Simon. Simon was his father’s son and at an early age took to going with his father on hunting trips out into the wilds, particularly fox hunts. On his first hunting trip the boy and his father hunted down a young fox pup, Das Korvut captured it and helped his son to train it as a pet. When his son went missing Das Korvut and his wife Madellin scoured the town, later Madellin became one of Chopper’s first victims. Unknown to anyone was that Chopper had kidnapped the boy and was over the next month raising him as a protégée, trapping the terrified boy in a small room and forcing him to recite the abyssal litany of Pazuzu. When Chopper was finally killed no one saw the secret passage that had become Simon’s prison and he and his fox starved to death in the cold dark. The remains of Jervas Stoot’s house concealed a stone covering that led to the remains of ancient catacombs beneath where the Chopper had placed all of his offerings to his demon god.
With the loss of his entire family, Das Korvut became soured and took to drinking heavily and became very abusive to his customers and friends. He blames everyone involved for not finding his son and killing Jervas sooner. Adventurer’s themselves seem to anger him, because “They should have been around to stop him” and blaming them in particular. Das Korvut is a capable and strong fighter and can be very dangerous in his drunken rages, lately his neighbors have heard him howling in the night. In his dreams, he sees the ghost of Chopper and can hear the sobs of his little boy. Even some residents of Sandpoint sometimes see on clear nights a little boy chasing a fox through town sobbing only to find nothing when they look.
Synopsis:
The player characters can choose to investigate Chopper’s Isle, which the locals insist is haunted and rightly so. They have a chance to find some significant clues as to the existence of the Sandpoint Devil, more history about the Chopper as well as his haunt, and releasing the tortured spirit of Das Korvut’s son who has been trapped as an Attic Whisperer.
Chopper’s Isle
The island is close to Junker’s edge and will quickly gather a crowd of on looking children if the adventurer’s are popular. A throng of orphanage children as well as worker’s from Gorvi’s trash business might sit and watch the adventurer’s search the haunted island.
A. The Cliff
An island at high tide Chopper’s Isle is a craggy cliff that at its closest point is about 80’ away from Junker’s edge. The cliff face has been rounded off by erosion over the years making climbing it difficult (DC15), if any care is taken the site where the wooden stairs once climbed up the side provides better handholds (DC10), though it is still a dangerous proposition given the height of the cliff.
B. The Cliff’s Top
The surface of Choppers isle is rocky but has some grass and many hardy oaks on it. Its roughly two acres of land that is unfit for farming. The oaks grow heavy with Pete moss that seems to sag sadly from its branches. Nearly every tree has limbs that have been carved in the shape of hawks, eagles, and vultures a few long dead trees have been shaved down leaving only delicately carved cranes that seems to have aged well enough over the past 5 years. There are several significant landmarks on the island claw marks, a tangle of bones, and the remains of Chopper’s House.
Looking around (DC15 Survival) reveals some strange claw marks that lead to a cliff edge where nestled in a group of loose rocks there is a human skull, hip bones, cow bones, and a few goblin bones. It may become apparent that the bones have been gnawed on by a toothy mawed creature with a strong jaw, there are a few thick femur bones that have been snapped into pieces, the remains appear at least a month old. The tracks are from the Sandpoint Devil whom once a month returns to this island with its kills on the full moon. Some study of the tracks will reveal they are from a three clawed quadruped of large size and weight that can probably fly. The creature itself is smart enough to understand that this site is holy to its god Pazuzu so it jealously guards the island and will track down scents that it finds there, but over the last 5 years no one has been here so it has become complacent.
Development: If the PC’s are interested the Sandpoint Mercantile League is eager to sell the property, which is rumored to be haunted. For 2,000 gold they are willing to sell the island to anyone who wanted the property, a bit of bargaining (Diplomacy DC15) can lower this price to 1,000 gold as they are very eager to sell it. Typically a building can be constructed for 1 gold per square foot, just to keep the numbers simple.
C. The Burned Remains of the House
The remains of Jervas’s house are precarious, the remains of fire damaged timbers have been overgrown with briars and vines and its quiet easy to step and fall through, but can be avoided by anyone who can see them. These holes are still hard to spot in daylight (as Camouflaged Pit Trap, CR3, Perception DC 25) at the same time moving some of the loose debris around can reveal the outline of a stone covering that can easily be lifted by one person.
The Ruins
The ruins are an extension of the Catacombs of Wrath, but the connecting tunnels have long since collapsed well beneath the water level. The complex is small and Chopper had added a few decorations. The architecture can be recognized as the same within the Catacombs of Wrath (DC15 Dungeoneering/Engineering).
A. Main Chamber
A steep and zigzagging staircase leads down into this area, during daylight hours very little light filters down into this room which is dominated by a rearing statue of Pazuzu, the abyssal lord of evil flying creatures. (see Hordes of the Abyss). Characters who fall into this area may at first think the statue is alive given its quality. The room is 40’ tall, and 40 circular, two stone doors lead out of it West and East. The statue itself is in a fearsome pose as if ready to attack. Its talons and eyes are made out of eben gemstones (14 worth 10 gp each.) The walls of this room have roughly cut words written in abyssal, it repeats Pazuzu over and over again. It is rumored (Knowledge Religion DC 20) that invoking the name of Pazuzu will garner his unwanted attention. In truth, it will call the Sandpoint Devil to investigate as soon as it is dark. If anyone falls into this room they may be see a crying child in the corner sobbing, but it is hard to hear him from above. If anyone talks to the child it walks towards them sobbing and when it gets within melee it moves its hands from its eyes revealing the skeletal face of a canine (See the Attic Whisperer). Even if the Attic Whisperer is defeated, until the spirit of the child is released both the haunt of the Chopper and the Aura of Sobs (see Attic Whisperer) are present in the entire area.
Creatures: Attic Whisperer (1)
B. West Door – The Offerings Room
The door to this room is much like the turnstile doors within the Catacombs of Wrath, inside the room is a ghastly scene. One entire wall is covered in small alcoves although only half are filled with what appears to be tens of pair of preserved eyeballs and pinned to the adjacent wall there pittoned to the wall are nearly 30 human looking tongues, remarkably preserved. If anyone crosses into the room they may think the eyes are watching them, but this is just the Haunt of Chopper, some of the tongues may appear to wiggle and move as well. In one corner of the room there is a pedestal with a tome of prayers written in abyssal to Pazuzu, they are crudely written in blood and the book is most likely made from preserved human flesh. It was Jervas’ attempt to understand his visions and dreams, inside there are a number of rants including some hinting that Jervas wanted to meet another servant of Pazuzu and his attempts to summon him. (The Sandpoint Devil).
C. East Door – Haunted Hallway (CR 3)
This turnstile door opens into a short corridor that is where Chopper’s Haunt resides. There is a rusty dagger lying on the floor, which Chopper dropped at some point the night he died. The first character to enter this hallway sees what appears to be a man wearing a bird hooded cloak and bird feather spaulders (shoulder armor) mumbling and hitting his head against a wall leaving a bloody smear. He turns to the first character to enter revealing hollow bloody eye sockets and dribbling blood from his mouth, he pulls a dagger out from under his bird feather cloak and charges that player. Only the first player to enter the room can see this.
Chopper’s Haunt: Will Save DC 15, per round, for 1d4+3 a round for 4 rounds save ends, as the haunt of Chopper makes stabs and cuts at the character. The haunt can only manifest every 24 hours.
D. The Spiral Stair
The hallway continues past to a spiral staircase that leads down some 120’ feet. It ends in saltwater, but a player who can see can swim down and out into the bay through an underwater hole in the cliff face, where a nearby shark may be attracted to any character who has been bleeding recently. The stairwell itself has a cleverly hidden secret door (Perception DC20) that leads to Simon’s Prison.
E. Simon’s Prison
This sad room when opened seems to rush with air when opened as well as a single cry from a small child can be heard, but quickly quiets. The door itself on the inside is marked by the small claws of the fox that tried to scratch its way out. Another crudely written litany of Pazuzu lies scattered in the center of the room where Simon had discarded it. In the back corner of the room is a pile of sheets and what appears to be a sleeping body the size of a child with a teddy bear underneath. Underneath the blankets, the skeletal remains of Das Korvut’s son Simon rest and until they are given a proper burial his ghost will reappear and the haunt of Chopper will still stalk the halls. If the corpse is taken above ground the ghost of Simon and the small fox seem to dart out of the ruins for a moment and look back wistfully at the players before disappearing.
Thank you James, that is quite excellent and helpful.
This forum is so great!
I was going to add that as an additional quest reward Das Korvut makes a masterwork weapon for every character who helps, each weapon is ingrained with his initials and a little fox head on the hilt.
I'll try and get my Hellknight initiation rituals up tommorrow sometime if anyone is interested.
Hey go ahead, I'm happy to contribute anything I can! :)
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I ran with your ideas yesterday, and the players all had a blast.
They have made a note to come back to the island to investigate the strange monster tracks.
To entice them to get there, I had to get two children from the orphange go missing. One was lured to the ruins by an attic whisperer (it was quite fun running that monster !) and the other was trapped in a small cave on the beach, surrounded by dreadful "bad birdies" (3 fiendish seagulls).
My players thank you.
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I have a first draft of your work on Chopper's Isle, James. In a few days - after I've wiped my memory - I'll revisit this and do a final edit.
Any and all comments welcome.
Oh wow, that's really well done. I was tinkering with some pdf software and I knocked out a copy but its nowhere near as nice looking as that.
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I might be running this on Sunday.
I squeezed it into my schedule to have a better-edited version done today - fewer typos always makes it easier to use! The (probably) final version is here, pdf available on that page.
I squeezed it into my schedule to have a better-edited version done today - fewer typos always makes it easier to use! The (probably) final version is here, pdf available on that page.
Wonderful thank you
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I might be running this on Sunday.I squeezed it into my schedule to have a better-edited version done today - fewer typos always makes it easier to use! The (probably) final version is here, pdf available on that page.
Hey awesome!
Glad I didn't print it out yet. I'll let you know how it works out.
Nice work! Love the way it weaves into the adventure so nicely!
My group is about to return after wrapping up hook mountain, I'll see if I can work this in with some sort of advanced attic whisperer or something.
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Sorry for the delay in reply. I used this last weekend but due to some unexpected things taking longer than planned we didn't finish it :(
So far this has been playing really well, I added a haunt and it kind of freaked the players out so they won't go back into the room. They are going to hit the stairs next and that should be interesting.
Hey I think the link is broken. Someone asked me for a copy
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This link here should help:
LINK
oh, and before I forget it: This is a really great way to include the Whisperer and the Sandpoint Devil in the RotRL-AP.
When I ran a version of Chopper's Isle, I beefed up the Attic Whisperer: I gave it two more hit dice and made it incorporeal (and called it a "Whispering Spirit"), and called it a CR6 encounter. I dropped the bite attack, and gave it a melee touch attack of 1d4+1 plus choice of "steal breath" or "steal voice".
I also added a bit more to the story, tying in a subplot with Madame Mvashti. If you're interested, here's a session log of my version of Chopper's Isle.
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Think about it!
For my part, I merely polished and filled out what James had created. If he thinks it's a good idea, I'm all for it.
Also the text that's on the webpage is probably missing hyphens, apostrophes, and similar punctuation; the site has gone through a few hacks and restores, and restoring those pages has yielded difficulties.
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Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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I don't know if James is going to read this soon, but if anyone is in contact with him, let him know I'm interested.
"the site has gone through a few hacks and restores, and restoring those pages has yielded difficulties."
Well, I can provide a place relatively safe from hacks, in the pages of Wayfinder. And yes, I would only use your maps as reference for our own artists.
I also PMed you both with Messageboard email....
Yeah, this is great! Can't wait to see the finished article!
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I'm about to start running RotRL with a group of 5 or 6 players. I'm definitely going to need a few modules to push between the main story line quests and what not. I'm most certainly going to do this side quest, I've got the anniversary addition of the AP, all in one book. I haven't read every chapter yet, I'm finishing chapter 1 right now and then going to read ad least half of chapter 2 before I run that way I'm always ahead, but i was wandering what you guys are referring to when you mention the sand point devil, is that another side quest after dealing with the ghost, one i haven't yet read in a later chapter?
Sry to double Post. My last post was a bit confused. I think i was half asleep. Anyway, this short side quest looks amazing and fits right in with RotRL. When is the best time to introduce this module?
I'd definitely recommend doing this side-quest during Part 2, when the party are basking in the glow of being the 'Local Heroes'. The main plot just looms too large over Sandpoint once Ameiko has been kidnapped and the true scale of the goblin threat gets revealed.
I'd say you should let the Shayliss Vinder and Goblin in the Closet incidents play out before you run 'Chopper's Isle'. If being caught with Shayliss hurt the PCs' standing in town, or Alergast's death has left a bad taste in the players' mouths, 'Choppers Isle' (or the other side-quest from Wayfinder #7, rescuing Brodert Quink's niece) might be a good way to rebuild local goodwill towards the party and get everybody back into the 'heroic mindset'. Once they all feel (and are treated) like true guardians of Sandpoint again, then you can unveil the threat to the town.And regarding your earlier question about the Sandpoint Devil, it was a monster introduced in the bestiary of the original AP#1 as a local legend, a counterpart to the cryptid known at the New Jersey Devil in real life. IIRC, its stats didn't get updated to PFRPG until the recent release of Mystery Monsters Revisited, which gives it a six-page article about its habits, abilities, and campaign role.
I've greatly enjoyed your Chopper Island side quest and my party recently purchased the isle. But we now have a question...
Before the Chopper madness when Smoot bought the isle... How was he routinely traveling back and forth to town? If the carpenters guild built stairs from the beach going up, is/was there a similar set on the Sandpoint side? Also, if high tide turns this into an island, how deep is that (and can we assume the stairs don't truly go to the sand?). Lastly, any thoughts on what it would cost to get the guild to rebuild these stairways? My party is looking into cleaning it up and living there but wants easy access into town. We've discussed a bridge across but that seems like death waiting to happen at these heights.
I though maybe carving a piece of the fallen lighthouse into stairs would be the better move. There is that curvy piece just nw of the junkyard.
Thanks for a great session!!
The way I thought about it was similar to beach house, they often have lookout towers or criss crossing stairwells leading up to wooden porches. In this case probably to a lower pier that led over to the rocky shore rather than having a wooden bridge to junker's edge. It would have probably been an expensive stairwell, but given there is a lumbermill in town and he was a woodworker, he could have done some of it himself, nothing terribly fancy. I'd guess Jervas Stoot Might have paid 200 gold or so to the local guild to help build it.
As far as how deep it is at high tide? I'd presume 2-3' deep, so that a pier could be built 5' above it or so into the junker's edge side to recieve the stairwell.
One of my groups had a stone bridge made and turned the island into a fort. As for costs, I'd charge them 15-25 gp per 5' section depending on their haggling ability, so that's 240 gold for a 80'x5' bridge. I'd say a wood and rope bridge would be a fraction of that. I'm not sure about the engineering difficulties of building a stone bridge, but I'm sure it'll be a tough check and might require additional costs.
As far as the lighthouse/stone, there's plenty around and having ample building materials would decrease the cost.
Just wanted to say "thanks" for this. Ran it last night (Wayfinder #7 version) and it was very successful. One of my players described the house/ruins as very creepy. The haunt worked out very well, too.
In case anyone wants to steal the idea: I did modify it so that it was Ven Vinder's son, because my players have been having a bad time with him (following the Shayliss encounter) and this explains why he is so protective of his daughters. Mayor Deverin told my players to get the situation under control- I thought this would be a perfect vehicle for that.
Thanks again!
Nice sidquest, grabbed wayfinder #7 so I would have this in case my group wants to explore the island this weekend!
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Does anyone still have the link for the completed PDF file? I would love to run this with my group.
Pick up Wayfinder #7. It's in there and free, along with quite a few add-ons for RotRl (either version).
As long as its free its ok with me, but Timitius had all the art done. You'd have to ask him. I'm not sure how all of that works.
Have you made your module available yet, Wheezy Geezer?