Rise of the Runelords Recap # 26 [RPG]

[7 Neth 4707 continued]

The Varisians instantly jump to their feet and draw weapons as they hear shouts of “Help, they’re crazy” coming from within the wagon.  Seeing the commotion, the adventurers jump to their feet as well.  Inside the wagon, Bey tries to calm things down by telling Arnald to put down his axe because he’s scaring the old woman.  Artemis is the first to arrive on the scene and shouts at Arnald to stand down.  The unpredictable sellsword pretends to fall off the table and strike his head.  His attempt to feign unconsciousness fools no one but Bey, but it does serve to keep violence from erupting.  Bey and Artemis drag Arnald to their waiting horses, and the adventurers set off west, leaving the Varisians behind them looking angry and disgusted at their behaviour.

The Misgivings

The path west along the northern banks of the Foxglove River grows increasingly overgrown with brambles.  A chill wind begins to whistle as the path slowly rises and winds around rocky promontories and cliff faces.  With one last sharp turn of the path, the adventurers’ destination comes into view all of sudden: Foxglove Manor looms at the western edge of a narrow outcropping overlooking the cold sea below.  The house is clearly in a state of decay as the roof sags in many places, mold and mildew cake the crumbling walls, and vines of diseased-looking grey wisteria clamber over its crooked gables.  The path leading to the manor splits off and heads about ten feet south to an outbuilding that now exists solely as a collection of sooty, scorched foundation stones.  Just to the side of the ruins is a wide stone well, also partially collapsed.  A small flock of ravens sitting on the stones fly off as the adventurers approach; Kang gets a good look at them, and realizes from their unnatural grace and scent of death that they’re no ordinary birds.  The adventurers scout the ruins, and Artemis drops stones into the well to determine it’s at least 75 feet deep, and maybe as much as 125.  Bey notices scuff marks in the ground near the well, and Artemis is able to confirm that bipedal humanoids have walked around the area in recent days.  Fearing that something might be able to claw its way out of the well, Bey persuades Arnald to chop down some of the withered, diseased trees nearby to block the top of the well.

Knowing that the source of the ghouls that plague Sandpoint may lay inside Foxglove Manor, the adventurers gather their courage and approach.  They decide to enter through the most obvious route, the front door.  It takes Artemis several minutes to unlock it, but at last the door slowly opens with a creak.  The interior is dark and gloomy, as little of the waning sun’s rays penetrate the grimy curtains covering all of the windows.  With the help of torches, the explorers realize they’re in an aged and decaying entrance hall covered in mold.  The walls are decorated with rotting taxidermied trophies of various successful hunts, but the feature which dominates the room is a massive, twelve-foot long preserved manticore corpse!  Artemis catches a momentary whiff of burning hair and flesh, but the others smell only the damp.  The group’s mounts are brought inside for safekeeping, and Artemis contrives a makeshift alarm system that should ring loudly if the front door is opened again.

The adventurers advance further into the entrance hall, noticing a staircase to the south and several closed doors swelled stuck from the moisture.  A ratty throw rug partially obscures a foul spiral of dark-coloured mold in one part of the room; to most it is a random stain, but to Kang and Artemis it seems reminiscent of a spiralling staircase descending downwards, with each step littered with human skulls.  The adventurers continue on into a large dining room dominated by a dusty mahogany table.  One wall is covered in windows that should provide a breathtaking view of the Lost Coast, but instead the windows are made from stained glass and each of the five depict a monstrous creature pouring from a strange, seven-sided box.  Kang’s ability to see perfectly even in the dimmest of light offers him the clearest view of the design, and he realizes that the images have something to do with the foul art of necromancy.

The adventurers decide to head back towards the front door in order to ascend the staircase, but, when they do, Artemis suddenly cries out in alarm and ducks!  No one else sees anything unusual, but to him the taxidermied manticore burst into flame and its tail lashed out at him.  Whether a real phenomenon or just his imagination, everything seems to return to normal.  But, to be on the safe side, Artemis persuades Briza to chop off the manticore’s tail with her greatsword.

Aldern Foxglove in happier times.

The intrepid explorers continue to the second floor of the house.  Arnald chops down a stuck door creating an enormous amount of noise in the process, much to the dismay of the others.  He finds another, smaller staircase heading back down to the main floor but swears he heard footsteps going down it.  Everyone returns to the main floor, and Arnald breaks down another of the stuck doors to reveal a library.  There are two chairs in front of a stone fireplace, but one of the chairs is on its side and splashed with blood.  A red and gold scarf is draped over the side of the fallen chair.  A broken stone bookend is nearby, and, when examined, turns out to be covered in blood, clots of hair, and bits of bone.  Kang, Artemis, and Arnald notice that the scarf seems to be gently writhing, but when Kang goes up to investigate, he jumps back clutching his throat and strangling himself!  He collapses and nearly dies before Artemis is able to wrench the tiefling’s hands away and Bey casts healing magic.  Kang can’t explain his strange behaviour, other than to say that for a moment he believed he was a young Varisian woman being strangled to death with the scarf by an enraged nobleman.  From Kang’s description, Bey recognizes the nobleman as Aldern Foxglove, the visitor from Magnimar she and her now-deceased allies saved months ago at the Swallowtail Festival.  This house clearly holds dangers the likes of which the adventurers have never encountered before.

Carrionstorms!

Arnald chops down yet another door and the adventurers see a lounge on the other side, its couches coated with dust and its windows caked with grime.  From the doorway, Artemis and Kang hear a strange sound that might just be a trick of the wind outside, but could be someone whispering a name: “Lorey.”  Artemis knows a bit of lore about Foxglove Manor and remembers that Lorey was the name of the daughter of the house’s original builders, Vorel and Kasandra Foxglove.  Kang shouts for everyone to watch out, but Arnald is unable to heed the warning in time.  He’s suddenly overcome with the delusion that he is, in fact, Kasandra Foxglove and that he has to save his daughter from a terrible threat by getting her out of the house as soon as possible!  He rushes towards Bey and swoops her off her feet and tries to run for the front door.  Bey is willing to let the delusion play out, but the others intervene.  Briza jumps on Arnald’s back and manages to skilfully pin him in a wrestling hold, and Artemis kicks the sellsword repeatedly in the face in the hopes of knocking him unconscious without killing him.  The subdued Arnald is bound in manacles, but he continues to persist in his delusion.  Finally, the decision is made to see if it will end by taking him outside.  Yet, when Artemis opens the front door, a horrifying sight awaits him:  thousands upon thousands of undead ravens take to the air and fly towards the door!  Fortunately, the trained guardsman reacts quickly and slams the door before they can enter the house.  The pounding of the ghastly creatures sounds like hail hitting a tin roof and continues for several minutes.

Just what have these would-be protectors of Sandpoint gotten themselves into, and will they ever manage to leave the horrors of The Misgivings?

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Director's Commentary (September 10, 2017)

Arnald's bizarre action at the end of the last session was followed by an equally bizarre action at the beginning of this session: pretending to faint (and rolling really badly on a Bluff check).  

The PCs reach Foxglove Manor ("The Misgivings") this session and begin one of the best (in my opinion) sections of Chapter II of the adventure path.  Foxglove Manor is a classic haunted house, but the one that it's been translated into an RPG is fantastic.  The most important innovation is the introduction of "haunts", which are a little bit like mind-affecting traps.  Each haunt comes with a story-based hallucination and they're cleverly designed to affect only certain PCs based on those PCs' personality characteristics.  They're a little bit hard to explain, but they're a really effective way to deliver the backstory of the house in a personal, engaging way that's far better than the traditional "find a diary" method.

Using carrionstorms was another great idea by author Richard Pett.  They don't threaten the PCs on the way into the house, but if the PCs try to leave they swoop mercilessly which adds to the "we're trapped" feeling often necessary for horror.  Bey's player has a real-life phobia of birds, so I had to reassure her this element was scripted.  The PCs were certainly terrified of them.