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--- game_systems:pathfinder:runlords:adventure_journal [2025/03/10 20:51] – [The Necromancer in the Basement] Bryan Stephens
+++ game_systems:pathfinder:runlords:adventure_journal [2025/06/28 10:12] (current) – [End Game] Bryan Stephens
@@ Line 681: / Line 681: @@
 ==== Scarecrows ====
+{{ :game_systems:pathfinder:runlords:scarcrow.png?400|}}
 While they are meeting with Hemlock, a man bursts into the room and breaks into frantic babbling. This is Farmer Grump, and he is nervously muttering about walking scarecrows. Calming him down requires a few minutes of work, at which point he tells a short but harrowing story, speaking of how the southern farmlands have become plagued by foul walking scarecrows that stalk the night. All the farmers knew that the problems were coming from the old Hambley place-things //“just ain't been right there for a few days now"//-but when a group of locals paid the Hambley farm a visit yesterday evening, they were attacked by folk that looked like corpses but fed like starving animals. At this point in the telling, Grump's worked himself into a lather again and shrieks, //"They even ate the dogs!"//. This gives the Heroes a place to start looking: the Hambley Farm. They tell Hemlock they will go and investigate after a brief break at home. It is still afternoon, and Azaela pushes them to have a short rest and restore, and head out after midnight. She is worried any delay will result in more deaths. This wins over the party, three of whom can see in low light anyway, though the crescent moon will not provide much light. Along the way, Al again asks if going up against ghouls at night is the best idea. Again, Azalea pushes. Grymar also sides with the fighter feeling that innocent lives are at risk.
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 Back in Sandpoint, Hemlock meets with the group at their home. He informs them they need help killing the allected Pidgett, and Al agrees, as he has a silver dagger. The other two inmates are in cells in the town guard house. The old asylum can be a fortress and is being used to house frightened farmers. A pall of utter terror is upon the town of Sandpoint. The group knows they must strike at Misgivings soon.
+====Misgivings ====
+|Game Date|04/26/2025|
+|Campaign Dates | Neth 13 4707|
+{{:game_systems:pathfinder:runlords:misgivings.jpg?600 |}}
+Al already knows much of the history of the place, commonly called “Misgivings” by the locals, particularly by Varisians.
+Foxglove Manor is over 80 years old and has been the seat of the Foxglove family the whole time. Built by Vorel Foxglove, a merchant prince from Magnimar. He and his family lived there for 20 years before the entire family perished from disease. The surviving Foxgloves of Magnimar shunned the place for 40 years, until Traver Foxglove moved back in. Common rumors hold that the place is haunted. It certainly has a bad reputation-sightings of strange lights in the attic windows, muffled sounds of screaming from above and below, and even rumors of a huge bat-winged devil living in the caves below the manor are but a few of the tales told about the place.
+The Travers were the last family who lived there. This ended when a fire burned down the servants' building. Cyralie Foxglove was found dead, her body burnt and dashed on the rocks below the cliffs behind the house, while Traver Foxglove was found in his bedroom, apparently dead by his own hand. Their children, including young Aidern Foxglove, were sent away to be raised in Korvosa by distant relations.
+Aldern Foxglove recently returned to live in the manor and had a difficult time hiring locals to aid him in the reconstruction and repair of the old building. Until Aldern moved back in, the place was cared for by a man named Rogers Craesby (a retired innkeeper who lost an ear in a bar fight many years ago) who came in 3 days a week from Sandpoint to air the place out, check for squatters, and make minor repairs.
+As it happens, Al has heard of this family before while in Magnimar. The Foxgloves have traditionally been associated with the Brothers of the Seven, a secretive gentlemen’s club based in Magnimar and consisting of merchants or thieves, depending on whom you talk to.
+The mile route hike leading along from a narrow that follows the Foxglove River it flows under the Lost Coast Road to the dark sea cliffs overlooking the Varisian Gulf. Here, wild sea birds call
+out to a roaring ocean that churns hundreds of feet below. As they near Foxglove Manor, it almost seems as if nature herself has become sick and twisted. Despite the low rising winter sun, Foxglove Manor is still shrouded in a clinging fog of morning. Nettles and thorns grow more prominent, trees are leafless and bent, and the wind seems unnaturally cold and shrill as it whistles through the cliffside crags. The path slowly rises, bending around a steep corner in the cliffs, and then Foxglove Manor AKA Misgivings looms at the edge of the world. The strangely cold sea wind rises to a keening shriek as the home comes into view. The place almost appears to loathe its perch high above the ocean, as if the entire house were poised for a suicide leap. The roof sags in many places, and mold and mildew cake the crumbling walls. Vines of diseased-looking gray wisteria strangle the structure in several places, hanging down over the precipitous cliff edge almost like tangled braids of hair. The house is crooked, its gables angling sharply and breached in at least three places, hastily repaired by planks of sodden wood. Chimneys rise from various points among the rooftops, leaning like old men in a storm, and grinning gargoyle faces leer from under the eaves.
+As they approach, they observe a burnt down outbuilding, the old servants quarters. It's impossible to tell how many floors the outbuilding that stood here once had, for all that remains are the sooty, scorched stones of its foundation. To the east, a four-foot-wide stone well sits, partially collapsed, in the corner of the ruins. Dozens sickly looking ravens are perched atop the foundation stones; they fly clumsily away once approached. These ravens are disturbingly silent and still, watching with their heads turning as one. Grymar recognizes them as a [[https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/carrionstorm/|Carrionstorm]], a strange type of undead, and the group gives them a wide berth.
+=== The Haunted House ===
+Misgivings is aptly named. It has a tragic history the Heroes of Sandpoint do not yet understand. The imprints of these tragedies have been left behind in ways that play out in the minds of the living whom approach. These haunts are far more dangerous than a mere goblin. They will present great threats to the four, each susceptible to different vibrations.
+They enter a side door and immediately stumble into a haunt. This is the Dancing Parlor. The oak-paneled chamber must have once been breathtaking, but is a sad sight now-the floorboards are warped with moisture and the paneling scratched and spotted with mold. A grand piano, its surface splotchy and keys warped, leans tiredly in the southeast corner. When they enter the room the search it and as soon as the piano is touched the instrument explodes into music, playing a catchy but discordant Varisian song. Grymar is caught up by the spirit of vengeance. He sees Iesha, Aldern’s wife, and immediately begins a dance with her, in all her vibrant beauty, but with each swing, her neck darkens into angry blue-and-black bruises as if she is being strangled. Grymar dances franticly, widely, straining muscles. El tackles him to stop him, causing the haunt of Iesah to shriek, something they call can hear. Grymar finds that pierces his soul. With that the music stops, and Grymar uses his //lessor restoration// form his //Scale// to heal himself.
+{{ :game_systems:pathfinder:runlords:rat.jpg?200|}}
+Not wanting to spend time looting, the group heads into a hall way and splits up. One room has a diseased rat and it misses Azaela who smashes it and retreats out of the room. They head south into the main entrance hall. The sound of the house straining and creaking gives this long, high-ceilinged room an additional sense ofage and decay. The place smells damp, the unpleasant tinge of mold lacing the air , as surely as it stains the wooden floor, walls, and furniture. in pallid patches. Moldering trophies hang on the wall to the northeast: a boar, a bear, a firepelt cougar, and a stag, yet they pale in comparison to the monster on display in the center of the room. Here crouches the taxidermy of a twelve-foot-long creature with the body of a lion, a scorpion's tail fitted with dozens of razor barbs, huge batlike wings, and a deformed humanoid face. A manticore. The group hears what seems like sobs coming from upstairs. El catches the smell of burning hair and flesh but nothing else. They group heads towards the stairs up, avoiding a spiral stain on the floor. The stain under the rug is about 10 feet across, a swirling pattern of dark blue, sickly green, and black mold that grows in a spiral It looks almost like a bird's eye view of a spiraling staircase descending downward, with each step littered with skulls and bones.
+The stairs are adjacent to the dining room. A mahogany table surrounded by chairs sits in this room. Twin fireplaces loom to the west, while to the east, stained-glass windows obscure what could have been a breathtaking view of the Lost Coast. Each window depicts a monster rising out of smoke pouring from a seven-sided box. From north to south are depicted a gnarled tree with an enraged face, an immense hook-beaked bird with sky-blue and gold plumage, a winged centaur like creature with a lion's lower body and a snarling woman's upper torso, and a deep blue squid like creature with evil red eyes. Grymar feels these windows may have something to do necromancy. The monsters seem not to be emerging from the boxes but rather being drawn in, and that their snarling visages express not rage, but rather fear.
+The group heads up the stairs to further investigate. They ignore the gallery, filled with cobweb covered paintings and move forward. However, in the adjacent bedroom, Al feels the calls of Traver Foxglove, who killed himself in grief at his actions in this very room. Possessed of that, Al attempts to kill himself with a wooden shaft he sees as a dagger. Grymar leaps to stop him and Al stabs him instead. After this attack, the “dagger” returns to wood. El heals the young sorcerer. Everyone is on edge. These haunts are terrifying.
+Further searching results in little to be found. Grymar does not resonate with the haunt of a child in what is an empty beadroom. The group’s fighter is not so lucky. Entering the guest room, Azaela hears a voice say “What’s on your face, mommy?” and laws desperately at the flesh of her own face, trying to remove the plage upon her. She leaps out the window to protect her friends and lands without damage, her face marred with deep wounds of her own making. Outside, she is free of the effect from Vorel’s wife, Kasanda, who died of the disease here with her daughter.
+{{:game_systems:pathfinder:runlords:iesha.jpg?500 |}}
+They wait for Azaela to trace her path back to them, as she makes no diversions. The look in the second floor room. The musician’s gallery, with another set of stained glass windows. This large room features two padded chairs and a long couch facing a wide alcove lined with stained glass windows. These windows depict a diverse array of animals and plants-from north to south are a large pale and ghostly scorpion, a gaunt man holding out his arms as a dozen bats hang from him, a moth with a strange skull-like pattern on its wings, a tangle of dull green plants with bell shaped flowers, and a young maiden sitting astride a well in a forest while a spindly spider the size of a dog descends along a string of webbing above her. Grymar notes these five of the subjects in the windows as classic spell components for necromancy magic (scorpion venom, vampire's breath, the tongues of deathwing moths, belladonna, and the heart of a maiden slain by poison). What is worse, those spell components have ties to several known lich apotheosis formulae.
+The master bedroom near the stairs triggers no one who enters it. This once fine chamber has been destroyed. The bed is smashed, mattress torn apart, walls gouged as if by knives, chairs hacked apart, and paintings on the walls torn to pieces-with one exception. A portrait hanging on the northwest wall seems to be untouched, although it hangs backward, its unseen subject facing the wall. No one wants to touch anything.
+The group continues up, the strange weeping still above them. The top floor has mundane stores and bedrooms. It seems little of consequence happens in the storage area. However, El, perhaps too much at ease with the past few rooms, enters the observatory. A desk and a chair sit in the middle of this drafty room. Chimneys rise to the west, while to the east, two intricate stained-glass windows are set into the wall. The northern window depicts a dark-haired woman with pale skin, large green eyes, and a black-and-red gown; with both hands she wields a jagged iron staff. The southern window's lower half has been broken and patched with canvas; what remains of its upper half depicts a handsome man dressed in regal finery and a crown ofivory and jade. Small scorch marks mar the wood near the broken window. A battered and ruined telescope lies on its side near the desk and a large trap door in the roof has been tied shut by several lengths of rope.
+This is the top floor of the stained-glass windows. Grymar sees they depict two forms of Arazni, not as Herald of Aroden, but as the Harlot Queen of Geb, while the southern one depicts Socorro, the Butcher of Carrion Hill. They don’t have time to look, however, because the spirit of Cyralie, Traver’s wife, was both burned and fell from this very room. El feels a compulsion she just manages to avoid, to throw herself through the unbroken window of Arazni. Shuddering she staggers back out of the room.
+Al has a powerful experience, but one that does not overwhelm him as he enters into the private study. Shelves of books line the walls of this room, interspersed with curious objects such as skulls fitted with stubs of candles, tribal fetishes, and decorative scroll cases. An empty birdcage lies near the southern wall beside a small desk and a fine leather chair. Statues and sculptures grin from all corners of the room. Al finds dozens of memories of expeditions, sea voyages, and travels to exotic locales race through his mind, remnants of Traver Foxglove's journeys before he settled down here in Varisia. As the memories build momentum, they become increasingly infused with a sense of bitter disappointment and regret, and the character becomes increasingly aware that he is now receiving memories that never were, memories of fantastic discoveries he could have made had he not chosen to settle down with a shrill harpy of a wife. There is a hint of something deeper, behind the madness of Traver as well.
+In addition to the robust library books, the oddments include several dozen curious fetishes and masks, but the most impressive piece is an old painting of a bullfight. The painting bears a plaque that reads //"Throwdown in Swynetown,"// and in the painting, vast crowds jeer and cheer the bullfighter on, the huge bull aurochs towering over him, its cruel forward-jutting horns each the length of a spear. Dozens of bodies lie in the streets-the aurochs has clearly rampaged through them already, and although a score of brightly colored spears jut from the creature's flanks and back, it still rages on. This painting is, in fact, an original work by renowned Magnimarian artist Andosalu, worth 6oo gp. This leads Al on a deeper search that reveals loose brick-the small hollow of the wall behind a painting. This particular niche has gone unnoticed by anyone since Vorel's death so long ago-it still contains three stacks of coins (20 pp in all), two vials that once  contained doses of pesh but now contain only a fou lsmelling and worthless residue, and a copper key.
+The group now turns to a locked door from behind which they hear weeping. Al just manages to unlock the door and they group looks inside. This room is cold and damp; an old armoire stands
+near the east wall. The ceiling slopes down to only four feet high to the northeast, leaving little room for a small window. A full-size mirror in a dark wooden frame of coiling roses leans against these bricks, angled toward the tiny window. There is a weeping woman inside, on the other side of a mirror. It is the undead form of Iesha Foxglove, Aldern’s wife. She is not without her weaknesses in her new, undead incarnation as the sight of her own reflection has rendered her helpless with self-loathing. Recognizing this as a revenant, a type of undead intent on revenge, Al shoots the mirror. Free, Iesha stands and screems,
+//” "Aldern! I can smell your fear! You'll be in my arms soon!"//
+Al hustles the party back into the study to let her pass. She immediately starts to work her way downstairs. The party quietly follows.
+==== End Game ====
+|Game Date|04/26/2025|
+|Campaign Dates | Neth 13 4707|
+{{ :game_systems:pathfinder:runelords:skinsawman.png?300|}}
+The heroes stand and allow Iesha to pass uncontested. The revenant works her way downstairs to the basement, taking the most direct route. As an undead, she is immune to the effects of the haunts and she simply ignores and passes by. When she reaches the ground floor, she pauses over the moldy stain for several moments, staring transfixed at the spiral stain. After a few minutes, as the four catch up to her, she unleashes a baleful shriek and begins smashing and clawing at the stained floorboards with her claws-it takes her only about a minute to smash through the floor with her savage claws, at which point she clambers through the hole and drops down into area below.
+There is a spiral staircase that heads down into the secret caverns below the manor house. Iesah does not hesitate in her flight, descending the stairs and moving with unerring obsession through the caverns.
+Sensing her supernatural rage at their undead master, the other undead in the caverns do not contest Iesha's passage through the caverns and she does not stop to attack them-the same cannot be said of the living. As the four head forward, they see the other undead ahead of them. Three ghouls before them fall in mere seconds to the power of the party.
+Al and Azaela spy Iesha headed around a curve and move after her. There, despite his best efforts, four ghouls in an adjacent cave sense them and move forward. One goes around the caves, alerting something the party thought they were done with: Thistletop Goblins.
+But these goblins are no longer among the living: They are all ghasts. The group has mere moments to deal with the charging ghouls before the more powerful perversions of their former foes are upon them. However, the ghouls are all but unable to lay a claw or bite upon the heroes. Only Azalea is even struck, and she shrugs off the blows. Even as the ghasts come down, the group uses the narrow passage to hold them at bay. Grymar casts //grease// and all four slide into the rocks. This gives the party precious moments to deal with the ghouls.
+One ghast does stand, but it cut down swiftly by Azaela. The fight is going totally for the heroes until Azalea overconfidently steps into the grease. Even taking care, she falls, even as another ghast manages to stand. Grymar uses his //magic missiles// to cover his foolish friend, and one by one all the undead are killed. Al notes
+//”I hope you learned a lesson, there”//
+Azaela looks contrite as she stands up and they all face Iesha, who is fruitlessly clawing at a locked stone door. The fighter has a chance at redemption! She takes her adamantine sword and cleanly slices through the door hinges and lock, slamming it down.
+The air in this damp cavern reeks of a horrific stench-a foul combination of decay, brine, and mold. The cave contains a rickety table, its damp surface cluttered with all manner of what appears to be garbage: empty bottles, bits of clothing, crumpled bits of paper, and more, lying in neatly organized rows. A painting leans against the far side of the table, facing a large leather chair that sits nearby. This chair's high back and cushion are horribly stained by smears of rotten meat and its arms are sticky with blood.
+A smaller table sits against the southern wall, its surface heaped with plates and platters of rotten, maggot-infested meat. The horrific stench of the room seems strongest to the west, where the cave's wall has been overtaken by a horrific growth of dark green mold and dripping fungi.
+In the center of the cave is clearly a magic circle. Inside is a patch of greenish black tumescent fungus grows, its horny ridges and tumorlike bulbs forming what could almost be taken to be a humanoid outline. What appears to have once been an exquisite puzzle box the size of a man's fist lies smashed on the ground within the circle.
+Aldern Foxglove, once a handsome and cultured nobleman who had a way with the ladies, is now condemned to an unlife of unending hunger, driven to eat the flesh of those he once might have called friends or lovers. Aldern sits in his chair as they burst in. His Lordship in control for a few moments. When he sees Azaela, he staggers to his feet.
+//"You! You've come to me! I knew my letters would sway your heart, my love! Let us consummate our. . . our. . . hunger!"//
+Ieasha moves forward and Aldern drops to his knees, sobs, to beg forgiveness from his murdered wife. For a brief moment, as Iesha caresses Aldern's sallow cheek, it may appear that she may be willing to forgive-yet a moment later, she shrieks in rage and attempts to destroy him. The heroes stand back and allow this to play out. Grymar spends the time studying the magic in the area, while Al has his bow ready. At key moments in the fight, Azaela, who has had enough assists Ieasha.
+//”Consummate this!”// she growls as her sword cuts deeply into the ghast, allowing his former wife to rip his head off.
+With that act, Ieasha is free. She thanks the party and then her form slumps to the ground – her soul is free to pass on.
+Grymar takes this opportunity to study the magic circle and as he moves forward, the fungus on the walls pulls free, taking on five forms that are gray mockeries of the party. Al has had enough.
+//”Oh, Hell no!”// and he tosses his alchemical fire onto the fungal form of the body in the center of the circle. The fungus creatures shudder and stop as the flames burn the central mound. Grymar watches the magic shift. He back ups,
+//”Vorrel was trying to be a lich. That puzzle box was going to be his phylactery. Now the whole house is! Nothing short of a //Hallow// Is going to fix this”//.
+He studies a bit more,
+“//However, that fire should have suppressed the haunts for today at least. I suppose we can … loot?”//
+//”Now that is my specialty”// Al says with a head cock that his friends know is Tengu humor.
+While there are still undead to be delt with, including an undead bat called a skavling. However, that is easy compared to the haunts. They find a strange note as part of their searching. It appears that Foxglove was under some sort of orders to place the Sihedron rune on key individuals and kill them to aid her master. This is bigger than just a man become a ghast. Something in Magnimar has reached out and touched sandpoint. Azaela comments this has something to do with the greed.
+{{:game_systems:pathfinder:runelords:skavling.png?300 |}}
+After several hours, the group emerges from the home. The undead crows are strangely unmoving. Grymar worries whomever comes back will have to face them to get in. They make their way back to town, with citizens horrified at the damage Azalea did to her face. El assures her she can magically repair the damage without scars. Al and Grymar brief Hemlock about the home and then all return to the comfort of their guardhouse.
+While defeating Aldern Foxglove puts an end to the murders in Sandpoint, the the heroes found numerous clues in the Misgivings that indicate Foxglove was not acting alone-that he had allies and even a superior of some sort in Magnimar: //Zanesha, Mistress of the Seven//.
+As the group is brooding on this, a messenger arrives with a letter to Grymar. It is from a relative in Magnimar.

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