A couple years back, I ran a campaign that blended the first couple books of Rise of the Runelords with a greatly expanded Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. Here's my write-up of the first few sessions:
Part One:
Burnt Offerings
It's the end of summer. The village of Sandpoint is celebrating the annual Swallowtail Festival as well as the dedication of the newly-rebuilt temple, replacing the old one which had burned down five years ago.
Among the villagers coming out to the celebration, three individuals arrive: Twila Gladespring, a half-elf who lives in the nearby woods there to sell herbs and roots; Hector, a valiant champion of Heironeous there for the dedication ceremony; and Tokhis, a delver into divine and arcane secrets there with blacksmith master to get more work.
At the end of the ceremony as the sun begins to set, a hue and an alarm is raised: Goblins! The bloodthirsty little creatures spread fire and panic through the streets. The three visitors take up arms and confront the raiders. They fight off the first wave that struck the heart of the crowd.
Quick introductions are made, and then the group hears more fighting in the lower town. This band of goblins are led by a large goblin on a dire wolf. The fighting is brutal. Hector's faithful steed is felled by the dire wolf. Twila and the rest save a young merchant named Aldern Foxglove. Tokhis climbs to the roofs and summons minions to drive off the last of the goblins.
Sandpoint's villagers treat the trio as heroes. They saved many lives and prevented much destruction. Sandpoint's sheriff, Belor Hemlock, asks the party to help defend the town as it begins preparations for a possible goblin invasion. The party decides to help, and is offered lodging at the Rusty Dragon Inn by the owner/proprietor Amieko Kaijitsu. Aldern hangs around a few days, impressed with the trio's bravery, and invites them on a boar hunt. Hector draws the attention of a young shopkeeper's daughter, but he lets her down gently.
The party begins investigating how the goblins got within the town's walls for the surprise attack. They learn that a wagonload of timber was one of the last things to go through the north gate, driven by Tsuto Kaijitsu, the half-brother of Amieko, and parked by his family's business, the Sandpoint Glassworks.
Another mystery is the graverobbing of the body of the old town priest, Father Tobyn, who perished in the fire five years ago that burned down the temple. The party also hears the story of Nualia, a child of light and beauty who was raised by Father Tobyn and also perished in the blaze.
During this time, three Lightbringers called Ashlyn, Mathilda and Thendrick, arrive in Sandpoint on their way to find a relic of great power to the north. They agree to help the party with the investigations during their time in the village. Tsuto is nowhere to be found, and a search of the Kaijitsu household turns up nothing. Twila's cat smells goblin tracks around the Sandpoint Glassworks, particularly near the woodshed. Furthermore, the building is closed up yet smoke continues to billow out of the stacks.
With the aid of the Lightbringers, the party enter the glassworks and encounter goblins making a mess and a horrific sight -- Lonjiku Kaijitsu, father of Amieko and Tsuto and operator of the glassworks, encased in molten glass. The party destroy the goblins and encounter Tsuto. They defeat and capture him, discovering his journal which shows he was complicit in the goblin attacks, but also reveals he is obsessed with a beautiful woman. That woman then appears and attacks the party -- it is Nualia, but she is a vampire. She ensorcels Mathilda, but the combined strength of the party and the Lightbringers vanquish her.
Tsuto is sent to a nearby insane asylum, which also watches Mathilda until her charm wears off. Then the Lightbringers leave Sandpoint to continue their original mission.
The party remains in Sandpoint for a while as the shock of the returned Nualia and the nightmare at the Glassworks starts to fade among the villagers. The townsfolk continue to regard the party as heroes, and it seems that the goblin threat is ended.
This is the write-up of the Skinsaw Murders, but if you're familiar with the adventure, you'll see I departed from the original story, to tie the events more closely with what I had planned in Ravenloft. I'll post more of these old write-ups if folks are interested.
Part Two:
The Skinsaw Murders
After a few weeks, the party begins to feel it is time to move on. Little happens from day to day, with the one exception of a night shortly after the Glassworks incident, a strange black carriage rides through town. A storm whips up just as it arrives, lingers only as the carriage bolts through the streets, then quickly fades after the carriage races away.
As the party starts to go their separate ways, Sheriff Hemlock asks them to check out the Sandpoint Sawmill before they go. There had been a grisly murder the night before. The two victims, the sawmill operator Banny Harker and his mistress Katrine Vinder, were both horribly disfigured, but Harker had a strange rune carved into his chest. Furthermore, Twila was able to detect a horrible, rotten meat smell that was picked up across the river, though the trail again went cold.
Sheriff Hemlock points the party to another murder scene from a few nights before outside of town wherein more bodies showed up with the rune. A survivor of that attack had been taken to the sanitarium. When he sees Twila, he tells her he has a message from His Lordship, but babbles insanely after that. The survivor is cured of his ghoul fever which he had contracted, but not of his insanity.
Back in town, the party learns of a farmer that wandered in from his fields, raving about living scarecrows. The party investigates, and encounters a bunch of farmers transformed into ghouls. More messages from His Lordship to Twila point to the Misgivings, the local name for Foxglove Manor.
As the party prepares to pay a visit to Aldern Foxglove, they meet a Vistani by the name of Lonah who is looking for his sister. She had married Aldern some few months ago and he had not heard from her recently. The party agrees to let him come along.
The party enters the manor and explore it, room by room. They encounter many hauntings -- manifestations of the horrible things that have happened in the manor. These also (rather dangerously) tell the story of Vorel Foxglove, the builder of the manor house who dabbled in necromancy and attempted to become a lich. The learn his son Traver Foxglove went mad and slew his wife, then killed himself. They also learn that Aldern Foxglove strangled his wife Iesha in a fit of jealous rage. Diseased rats plague the lower levels.
The party finds caverns below the basement and there encounter a ghoulish dire bat, which they fight off barely. The party weakened by the undead monstrosity, they were then taken captive by a pack of ghouls.
In the caverns beneath the manor which was Vorel's true laboratory, Aldern tries a twisted mockery of a wedding ritual to transfer Iesha's love to Twila, with whom he has become infatuated. The paralyzed party and the remaining ghouls stand in as the wedding "guests" and the Skinsaw Man, a ruthless ghast as the "officiant." The ritual is botched, and Iesha rises as a revenant to kill Aldern. Aldern flees as the party's paralysis wears off and defeat the remaining ghouls and the Skinsaw Man. Iesha pursues Aldern into the night.
Before leaving the accursed manor, they discover that Vorel's attempt to become a lich ended in failure, and Aldern seemed to have been involved in some secret society in Magnimar. They also discover the book that was used in the ritual to be an ancient text of the Vistani.
Eager to see Aldern dead and Iesha finally receive rest, the party quickly head south toward Magnimar. Lonah convinces the party to first stop at an encampment of his people, the Vistani.
Lonah sought the counsel of his elder, as he conveyed the tragedy of his sister's fate to the rest of his family. Twila, however, was still suffering from some effects of the botched ritual. Surrounded by Iesha's people and her old life, Twila began to lose herself and take on some mannerisms of Iesha, knowing traditional Vistani dances and songs. She also dreamt of seeing through Iesha's eyes, as she hunted Aldern all the way to Magnimar, followed him to the streets of Whitechapel, and was captured.
The party resolves to go to Magnimar.