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~80 years before the start of the ROTRL adventure path Vorel Foxglove built Foxglove Manor between 6 and 3 miles outside of Sandpoint, ( Pg 71 of the Anniversary Edition AP says 6 miles, page 88 says 3) but... Sandpoint is only around 40 at the start of the campaign, heck Magnimar, the city he is apparently a noble of was only ~20 at the time he left to go build this manor 50ish miles away (distance between Magnimar and Sandpoint has also been variable from different sources). But why? At that time this was literally the middle of nowhere, way further out than he needed to go, even with how questionable his research was. And his whole family just went with it? To go that far out he must have gone there for a reason right?
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If you recall, there is an old temple of Urgathoa beneath the foundations of his house. As a prospective lich, he was likely seeking answers by maintaining a divine connection to Urgathoa's ancient site.
Furthermore (and I'm less sure he'd know about this), he's not far from the Pit, which includes a hidden temple of Kabriri, god of ghouls. My assumption is he had no knowledge of the latter, but he certainly may have known of an ancient, destroyed temple of Urgathoa from his studies.
Reference: Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition pg. 103; B30 "The Pit"
These stairs existed before Foxglove Manor was constructed, leading down into an ancient complex devoted to the worship of Urgathoa, goddess of undeath. The complex has partially flooded and eroded into what looks like little more than a series of caves today. Vorel knew about the complex and incorporated the stairs into his design, but he kept their existence secret from his wife.
Thank you, this helps me immensely.
The Skinsaw cult also likely has something to do with it since they funded the construction of the manor and the deed agreement states that it revrets to their posession after so many years so they may have known about the significance of the site.
What bothers me about Foxglove Manor is that it’s a manor house. I realise that R. Pett was running with a classic ‘haunted house’ theme to go with the module’s other horror elements, but as Mr.Sandman notes, when Vorel built his ‘country home’ Chelish colonisation of this part of Varisia was so new that the nearest ‘major’ city (Magnimar) had barely hit its 20-year anniversary. The land was all but untouched, completely untamed, and the Hinterlands gazetteer makes it plain that, in the words of CPL. J. Rico, “this place crawls, sir!”: you can’t go six miles in any direction from Foxglove Manor without running into the home ranges of all manner of beasties. The Whisperwood is thick with bugbears (which get their kicks terrorising people to death), and several local terrain features house tribes of goblins (who may be ‘just stupid little freaks’, but are also sadistic, pyromaniacal stupid little freaks who work in surprisingly large numbers... not that you need more than one to start a catastrophic fire). And Magnimar — the closest possible source of help before Sandpoint was founded — is almost three days’ ride south, meaning that any meaningful relief force is going to take at least a week to arrive.
And with all this danger lurking outside, the design and layout of Foxglove Manor shows... absolutely zero defensive features. No watch-towers or arrow-slits, no barracks for a guard-force, not even a moat or a curtain wall! By all rights, it should be a keep or small castle — or at the very least, a walled estate!
(I mean, as I said above I get precisely why the author chose a manor-house to go with the module’s old-school horror themes. I also understand that making Foxglove ‘Manor’ into a keep or castle would have made it the natural origin-point for Chelish expansionism into the region, rather than their founding an all-new town at Sandpoint. It just... bugs me, and my sense of the law of natural consequences.)
/rant