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Extreme spoilers in here. Players please stay out or obviously you are in danger of ruining your fun and other people in your campaign.
I have created set of cutouts for the 5-ghosts cursed items to give to players as well as a set of DM aids to remind the DM the special conditions related to these items.
At the link below, you'll find:
PLAYER HANDOUTS: The vault module text says each of the 5 special property items has text identifying what it is. This is pretty vague and I decided to type up sort of museum / journal-like "cards" that Lyvar Hawkran would have placed with each of the items when (presumably) he placed them in the vault for safe keeping. You might consider cutting these out and handing them to the player who takes that item. You'll notice in them that I wrote them as though I imagined the items when they were put away. Was the "tarnished silver flute" really tarnished when the Piper was jailed? How about the moldy spellbook? I imagine it molded over time.
DM AIDS: Each of the items have some very specific curses and benefits that are extremely situational. I found it difficult to remember some of these conditions and have created a single piece of paper with (hopefully) short reminders to key you as the DM off. Examples are when an arcane caster holding the spellbook casts a spell (will save to stop casting), first time a PC touches the axe, etc, etc.
Then, further down in the document you'll see much longer text (almost a page per item) table describing in most cases flavor text I wrote up for you as the DM to read to the player. An example:
The first time a PC picks up the Piper's flute:
Ahhhh, this flute is tarnished and old but you can tell the silver and construction are both quite fine. Probably a bit of polishing and a bit of playing to blow out the dust of the ages would help.
And there's text for if they try and play it, and if they try and polish it, and . . .
There's also text for what happens at the end of the adventure and notes for what the items become after the curse ends.
I hope you guys enjoy. As usual, I made these for me but enjoy sharing with folks.
If you don't like the text or the colors and want to change it you should be able to make a google docs copy to your own doc and fix up whatever you want.
HERE ARE THE CURSED ITEM HELPER CUTOUTS AND DM AIDS
Enjoy guys.
This should come in handy. Thank you for taking the time creating this and for sharing.
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Hey! This WAS AWESOME!
Thanks so much for putting this together, I really appreciate it. My players are exactly the kind that want to know All about the items that they find...
I'm STILL working on something similar for the books that they are supposed to deliver for the professor heh. Something like this would have been extremely helpful!
Thanks again!!
I'm STILL working on something similar for the books that they are supposed to deliver for the professor heh. Something like this would have been extremely helpful!
The books are another key area that could use from this kind of treatment.
Spacelard (win name by the way) wrote up his treatment of two of the books here:
I haven't used those myself yet as I can't see how my PCs could get into these books and read much of them. Happy hunting.
In the spirit of not starting new threads when adding new player aids and handouts, here's the text of the introductory message I just wrote my players in my campaign wiki, introducing both the "flavor" of Professor Lorrimor and the first whiff of the greater theme of investigation and mystery that forms the key part of the Haunting of Harrowstone:
You are still not certain exactly why the Professor was asking for you, specifically, out of all the hundreds- perhaps thousands- of students, partners, employees, and acquaintances he had made over his career, but your heart swells with pride nonetheless. That he would remember you among all the others he had dealt with is, perhaps, a reflection of the deep affection that he held for you and your talents, and of the friendship that developed all those years back when you first met him. You still think back on that first meeting with a bittersweet smile, recalling how out of place the youthful twinkle in Professor Lorrimor's eye seemed in his careworn face. Even then the man would never see sixty again, but he seemed so vibrant and energetic it was hard to keep up at times. You look at his personal seal at the bottom of the note and read it one more time before holding it over your lamp:
"My Dear Friend,
Forgive me for contacting you so abruptly, but current circumstances make haste the superior virtue over propriety, and I strive for virtue in all things. I look back upon our prior association fondly, and, Pharasma wiling, our possible future enterprises, because it is in the spirit of re-kindling an old friendship that I write to you now. I am presently engaged in research of the most fascinating and delicate variety, on the efficacy of certain animal waste products as fertilizer, and how they may best be optimized for greater productivity in the farmlands of Canterwall. I hereby formally invite you to visit me at my new home, where I can share with you the results of my latest line of inquiry. It would surprise me greatly if you did not find it as fascinating as I do. I trust you will find your way to me in due time, and until then I wait with bated breath.
Yours in friendship,
Petros Lorrimor, Prof. Emeritus, University of Lepidstadt, Dept. of Cultural Preservation"
Were it not for the code phrase, "with bated breath," you would never have thought to heat the paper, revealing the secret message Professor Lorrimor encoded therein. Several key letters appear emphasized and previously hidden symbols appear. Quickly snatching up a quill, you scribe the emphasized letters and hidden word breaks to discover the Professor's true message:
COME TO RAVENGRO AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. TERRIBLE DANGER. ENEMY. CANNOT SHARE MORE. FIND YOUR WAY TO ME. P.L.
Shivering, and not from the chill night air, you cast the paper into the fire and depart for Ravengro the following day, dreading what the Professor couldn't trust, even to a cipher.
If you like, you can even do what I plan on doing: buy some lemon juice, a paintbrush, and some india ink and actually write out the hidden message on a piece of paper. First, scribe the whole message onto the paper in india ink. Allow it to dry, then take the lemon juice and underline the letters that are part of the secret message. Don't forget to add in periods in lemon juice to punctuate the message, unless you want to give your players the added challenge of figuring out where words end themselves. Then during play, give the paper to your players and have them hold it up to a lightbulb, candle flame, or lighter--- any heat source will do. The lemon juice weakens the paper, and those thinner sections will start to burn before the rest of it does, and the secret message will reveal itself as a dark brown spot underneath all the encoded letters. Alternatively, you can use lemon juice to scratch through unwanted letters and add in periods to break up words, but try it yourself first to see if the paper can withstand it.
P.S. --- if you're curious about whether or not the message is actually there, try copying the italic text into a word processor and doing a letter by letter "find" for the decoded version. Trust me- it's there.
As for myself, I'm going to hand a paper to the group and tell them the code-phrase "with bated breath" was a signal the Professor taught them earlier, and that he showed them how to communicate using this method.
Even if a letter is intercepted and opened, it appears mundane until the secret letters appear. You can still relay messages out without raising any red flags as long as you disguise the "filler" as every day communication. Nothing like kicking off the game with a little bit of real world historical spy tactics to get players in the mood! Especially since I didn't post anything on the website about what the secret message really was--- they'll have to use a lighter and find out at the game table before kicking off the first play session.
