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Hey all, I'm a GM planning on running the first session of Carrion Crown in a couple weeks, and you've all been really helpful in fleshing out the adventure - so I'm giving back! Spoilers ahoy for the campaign.
As of now, I am also running a Strange Aeons game, which utilizes the research rules quite a bit, and I thought that part one of HoH is crying out for the implementation of research rules for Harrowstone, the Way, etc. It solves a few problems, including being a time-sink for PCs to ramp up the tension with the blood letters around town and the other creepy events. It also gives each location they can research at significance, and makes it more of an inevitability that they will find all of the plot-important information as long as they spend the time researching.
Below I've reorganized each research location into a library, very easily transferring the info as written from the book into each knowledge point threshold - the only difficult bit was implementing the prisoners, but I think that organizing them in some semblance of power level (not necessarily encounter order), with the Splatterman himself being the top dog, makes sense. They also have the combined total of each topic's EXP as their reward for exhausting their information, so that the EXP flow of the adventure can still continue as intended. It's likely that they won't KNOW to research the five prisoners until after they research the prison and the prisoners in general, but I think once they have that they can figure out where they might be able to research that info.
Finally, some locations contain multiple areas of research - I figure if the PCs want to use the same place for multiple topics, then I can just use the same CR and KP from the other locations.
Professor Lorrimor’s library is filled with esoteric knowledge and history on a variety of subjects, from the history of Ustalav to the darker practices of necromancy - some of these are relevant, and some are not, but deciphering Lorrimor’s rough, handwritten notes will be no easy task...
The Lorrimor Place CR 3
XP 750
Complexity 14
Languages Common, Necril
Research Check Knowledge (Arcana) or Knowledge (Religion); Knowledge Bonus +2
kp 12
Research Thresholds
kp 9 The Whispering Way is a sinister organization of necromancers that has been active in the Inner Sea region for thousands of years.
kp 6 Agents of the Whispering Way often seek alliances with undead creatures, or are themselves undead. The Whispering Way’s most notorious member was Tar-Baphon, the Whispering Tyrant, although the society itself has existed much longer than even that mighty necromancer.
kp 3 The Whispering Way itself is a series of philosophies that can only be transferred via whispers—the philosophies are never written or spoken of loudly, making the exact goals and nature of the secretive philosophy difficult for outsiders to learn much about.
kp 0 Exact details on the society are difficult to discern, but chief among the Whispering Way’s goals are discovering formulae for creating liches and engineering the release of the Whispering Tyrant. Agents often travel to remote sites or areas plagued by notorious haunts or undead menaces to perform field research or even to capture unique monsters. Their symbol is a gagged skull, and those who learn too many of the Way’s secrets are often murdered, and their mouths mutilated to prevent their bodies from divulging secrets via speak with dead.
The records room in Ravengro’s town hall is filled to the brim with an amount of records that seems impossible for a town of this size to generate, but with all of the extra information present there, comes a litany of details about each and every prisoner kept in Harrowstone - of course, finding what’s important among the clutter is sure to be a difficult task.
(Can also be used to research Harrowstone and General Prisoner Knowledge)
Ravengro Town Hall CR 5
XP 1600
Complexity 16
Languages Common
Research Check Knowledge (History) or Knowledge (Local); Knowledge Bonus +2
kp 20
Research Thresholds
kp 16 Sefic Corvin aka Father Charlatan - Of the five notorious prisoners, only Father Charlatan was not technically a murderer, yet his crimes were so blasphemous that several churches demanded he be punished to the full extent of Ustalavic law. Although he claimed to be an ordained priest of any number of faiths, Father Corvin was in fact a traveling con artist who used faith as a mask and a means to bilk the faithful out of money in payment for false miracles or cures. He became known as Father Charlatan after his scheme was exposed and his Sczarni accomplices murdered a half-dozen city guards in an attempt to make good the group’s escape.
kp 12 Vance Saetressle aka The Lopper - When the Lopper stalked prey, he would hide in the most unlikely of places, sometimes for days upon end with only a few supplies to keep him going while he waited for the exact right moment to strike. Once his target was alone, the Lopper would emerge to savagely behead his victim with a handaxe.
kp 8 Ispin Onyxcudgel aka The Mosswater Marauder - Only 5 years before his hometown of Mosswater was destined to be overrun and ruined by monsters from the nearby river, Ispin Onyxcudgel was a well-liked artisan and a doting husband. When he discovered his wife’s infidelity, he flew into a jealous rage and struck her dead with his hammer, shattering her skull and his sanity with one murderous blow. Wracked with shame and guilt, Ispin became convinced that if he could rebuild his wife’s skull she would come back to life—but unfortunately, he could not find the last blade-shaped fragment from the murder site. So instead, Ispin became the Mosswater Marauder. Over the course of several weeks, the cunning dwarf stalked and murdered nearly 20 people while searching for just the right skull fragment. He was captured just before murdering the daughter of a visiting nobleman from Varno, and was carted off to Harrowstone that same night.
kp 4 The Piper of Illmarsh (Real Name Unknown) - Before he snatched his victims, the Piper taunted his targets with a mournful dirge on his flute. He preferred to paralyze lone victims by dosing their meals with lich dust and then allowed his pet stirges to drink the victims dry of blood.
kp 0 Hean Feramin aka The Splatterman - Professor Feramin was a celebrated scholar of Anthroponomastics (the study of personal names and their origins) at the Quartrefaux Archives in Caliphas. Yet an accidental association with a succubus twisted and warped his study, turning it into an obsession. Feramin became obsessed with the power of a name and how he could use it to terrify and control. Soon enough, his reputation was ruined, he’d lost his tenure, and he’d developed an uncontrollable obsession with an imaginary link between a person’s name and what happens to that name when the person dies. Every few days, he would secretly arrange for his victim to find a letter from her name written in blood, perhaps smeared on a wall or spelled out with carefully arranged entrails. Once he had spelled his victim’s name, he would at last come for her, killing her in a gory mess using a complex trap or series of rigged events meant to look like an accident.
The Temple of Pharasma has a small chamber dedicated to the extensive notes that the church has taken on the history of the town over the years, including a small library discussing the history and cultural significance of the Harrowstone Prison. This includes, of course, some discussion of the prisoners housed there. Well-organized, if difficult to read hand-written journals are stacked neatly on the shelves of this small library.
(Can also be used to research Harrowstone knowledge)
The Temple of Pharasma CR 2
XP 300
Complexity 13
Languages Common
Research Check Knowledge (History) or Knowledge (Local); Knowledge Bonus +2
kp 6
Research Thresholds
kp 3 Originally, Harrowstone housed only local criminals, but as the prison’s fame spread, other counties and distant lands began paying to have more dangerous criminals housed within this prison’s walls.
kp 2 At the time of the great Harrowstone Fire, the number of particularly violent or dangerous criminals imprisoned within the dungeons below was at an all-time high.
kp 0 The five most notorious prisoners in Harrowstone at the time of the great fire were Father Charlatan, the Lopper, the Mosswater Marauder, the Piper of Illlmarsh, and the Splatter Man.
This combination magic school and item shop naturally maintains a small library of information - while most of it is relating to magical history and practices, it contains some history books on Ustalav and Ravengro, tucked away in a dusty, mostly unused corner of the library.
The Unfurling Scroll CR 3
XP 750
Complexity 14
Languages Common
Research Check Knowledge (History) or Knowledge (Local); Knowledge Bonus +1
kp 12
Research Thresholds
kp 9 Harrowstone is a ruined prison—partially destroyed by a fire in 4661, the building has stood vacant ever since. The locals suspect that it’s haunted, and don’t enjoy speaking of the place.
kp 6 Harrowstone was built in 4594. Ravengro was founded at the same time as a place where guards and their families could live and that would produce food and other supplies used by the prison. The fire that killed all of the prisoners and most of the guards destroyed a large portion of the prison’s underground eastern wing, but left most of the stone structure above relatively intact. The prison’s warden perished in the fire, along with his wife, although no one knows why she was in the prison when the fire occurred. A statue commemorating the warden and the guards who lost their lives was built in the months after the tragedy—that statue still stands on the riverbank just outside of town.
kp 3 Most of the hardened criminals sent to Harrowstone spent only a few months imprisoned, for it was here that most of Ustalav’s executions during that era were carried out. The fire that caused the tragedy was, in fact, a blessing in disguise, for the prisoners had rioted and gained control of the prison’s dungeons immediately prior to the conflagration. It was only through the self- sacrifice of Warden Hawkran and 23 of his guards that the prisoners were prevented from escaping—the guards gave their lives to save the town of Ravengro.
kp 0 At the time Harrowstone burned, five particularly notorious criminals had recently arrived at the prison. While the commonly held belief is that the tragic fire began accidentally after the riot began, in fact the prisoners had already seized control of the dungeon and had been in command of the lower level for several hours before the fire. Warden Hawkran triggered a deadfall to seal the rioting prisoners in the lower level, but in so doing trapped himself and nearly two dozen guards. The prisoners were in the process of escaping when the panicked guards accidentally started the fire in a desperate attempt to end the riot.
Hey, awesome work! I'll definitely be using this in a Carrion Crown game I plan to run! :)