Rise of the Runelords Recap # 27 [RPG]

[7 Neth 4707 continued]

Inside the ominous confines of Foxglove Manor, the adventurers pause to let a disturbing revelation sink in: with the sun setting and thousands of skeletal ravens outside, they may have to spend the night in the house!  Artemis is especially concerned and even raises the idea of mounting the horses and making a run for it.  Bey and Briza, however, are more inclined to risk staying.  The discussion continues for some time, but an even more pressing concern exists: what to do about Arnald, now securely bound, who remains convinced he is Kasandra Foxglove!  After raising and discarding various plans, the adventurers finally settle on trusting in a particular incantation revealed to Bey during her last mystery-trance: a spell to hide the group from undead.  The plan is for Bey to mystically shield the adventurers from the gaze of the undead ravens so that she and Arnald can step outside to see if fulfilling the object of “Kasandra’s” desire ends the spiritual possession.  The group decides, however, that the experiment shouldn’t be made at the front door but at the other entrance noticed on their approach to The Misgivings.

Briza shoulders open a door to a hallway and notices a pile of dead flies in a dusty corner.  As she watches, some of them twitch and then their wings start to move, and they lazily wind their way into the air!  The group is worried enough that Kang decides to deal with the problem in a startling way: he takes a small vial from his belt, shakes it, and hurls it into the hallway.  Suddenly a large blast of green flame shakes the house!  The flies are disintegrated, but the horses, still tethered nearby in the entrance hall, begin to buck and kick.  Fortunately, no one is hurt and the horses are eventually calmed down.

Creepy piano in The Misgivings

A door on the opposite side of the hallway leads to an oak-panelled chamber that, once upon a time, must have been a beautiful oak-panelled parlour for entertaining guests.  But the warped floorboards, mold-covered panelling, and long-dormant grand piano in the corner testify to how difficult it would be to restore Foxglove Manor to its former glories.  The explorers feel a brief, gut-wrenching sensation of impending apocalypse as Bey draws upon her mysterious powers to shield them from the animate dead, and they put their plan into motion.  It works perfectly: the creatures outside see the outer door being opened, but are unable to detect the presence of Arnald and Bey.  Arnald immediately comes to his senses, and, once back safely inside, is set free of his restraints.

With at least that problem solved, the adventurers hurry to continue their explorations before night truly falls.  They continue down the hallway and, behind Briza’s strong shoulder, burst into a simple washroom.  Strange, furtive scratching sounds can be heard coming from an ancient metal washtub in the room, but no one is anxious to see what’s causing it.  The adventurers shut the door and agree to head for the basement since “Kasandra”, while seemingly possessing Arnald, was worried about her husband Vorel’s activities there.  As they cross the entrance hall and check on the mounts, the subject of past encounters with horrific sights arises.  Without hesitation, Kang shares that he once turned someone inside out.  From the looks the others give him, they’re not sure whether or not he’s joking.  The fact that he continually refers to Briza as his “assistant” lends support to the notion that he’s certainly an unusual addition to the group.  For his part, Artemis talks about once seeing someone trapped in a burning building, and how the memory continues to haunt him to this day.

Rats!  Why'd it have to be rats?

The stairs to the basement lead to a large kitchen dominated by a massive oaken table, its surface covered with mold and rat droppings.  An oversized fireplace, cupboards, and shelves line the walls, but Briza notices wide cracks in one wall near the floor.  The adventurers discuss what could have caused the cracks and soon hear the swelling sound of squeaking getting louder and louder.  Suddenly, from out of the cracks, hundreds of oily, diseased looking rats pour out!  Kang reacts instantly, however, tossing another explosive vial that decimates most of the swarm!  Artemis cleans up the few survivors with his archery skills.  Although the air is pungent with the sickening smell of smouldering rat corpses, no one was hurt in the sudden eruption of violence.

The explorations continue.  A room adjacent to the kitchen turns out to be servants’ quarters, while another doorway leads to a long hallway that winds around to stop at a strong, locked iron door.  Artemis tries out a skeleton key he’d brought along for obstacles like this, and finds that it fits the lock perfectly!  The door had barred access to what, in the eyes of anyone with a smattering of training in the area, was obviously once the personal workshop of a devotee of arcane spellcraft.  A row of soggy books sits on one end of a long workbench, while, on the other end, are three iron birdcages each containing a dead, diseased-looking rat.  Two stained-glass windows on one curved wall testify that the house was cleverly built to take advantage of being built on the edge of a cliff.  One of the windows depicts a thin man with gaunt features drinking a foul-looking brew of green fluid, while the other shows the same man but in an advanced state of decay, as if dead for weeks, but also, somehow, simultaneously alive and exuberant in triumph.

Artemis examines the books and can tell they’re all on the forbidden art of necromancy.  Arnald enters and scoops up one of the birdcages.  Out of the corner of their eyes, Artemis and Briza notice that the figures in the glass seem to almost be moving and sneering at them.  Artemis fires an arrow, shattering one of the windows.  Briza runs for the hallway, but suddenly receives an overwhelming urge to examine the books on the workbench and rushes back into the room.  She then freezes in place as visions pour through her mind.  She experiences Vorel Foxglove’s quest to become immortal by existing beyond death in the blasphemous form of a lich.  She witnesses him researching for years before finding a way; hiding his own soul away in a seven-sided box; and finally consuming a final concoction before double over in agony as his body begins to rot away.  But then she experiences his burning rage that he’s been stopped before the ritual could be fully completed!  And then she’s no longer Vorel, but someone who thought she loved him, filled with shame that someone she’s committed herself to could do something so unthinkable to himself.  Briza starts to race out of the room, fully convinced she has to find her child and get out of the house before her husband can stop her!

The others rush out of the room and shut the door behind them, aware that the flapping of thousands of wings means the ghastly ravens have taken flight and are headed towards the broken window.  Kang steps in front of Briza on the staircase to the main floor, intending to try to calm her down, but she thinks he’s Vorel Foxglove and lashes out with her greatsword!  Kang staggers out of her way, bleeding.  Someone shouts to stop Briza before she can hurt herself, so Artemis tries to trip her but fails and narrowly avoids losing his head from the return strike.  Briza is by far the fastest member of the group, and she takes the stairs two at a time until she reaches the main floor, and then she races up to the second floor.  She rounds a corner and chops down the door to a mold-infested bedroom none of the adventurers have been in before. 

For a brief moment, Briza is herself again—she realizes there is no child here, and that she’s been under the effect of some kind of delusion.  But then she hears a child’s voice, quivering with fear, asking her “What’s on your face, mommy?”  Briza can feel her face erupt in a tangled mass of tumours and boils and can’t help but claw at herself.  When the others arrive, they see only the damage that Briza is doing by literally clawing the skin off her own face!  Kang instantly sets to work formulating an alchemical extract to partially repair the damage, while Arnald tries to pin Briza’s arms but is violently repulsed.  Bey and Artemis try to reason with her, and Artemis seems to be getting through, when another sudden fit of hysteria leads to Briza collapsing entirely.  Her face is in utter, disfiguring shambles and her hands are covered in her own blood and bits of flesh.  Kang pours his special concoction down Briza’s throat, and she stirs.  Between his and Bey’s spellcasting, much of the damage Briza has done to herself is repaired and she realizes just how strange she’d been acting.

Just a scant few hours within the walls of Foxglove Manor has brought terror and madness to the would-be saviours of Sandpoint.  Although yet another crisis is over, night has truly fallen.  Will the evils within The Misgivings become even stronger in the darkness?

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Another great session inside the very-haunted Foxglove Manor.  I think the bit with the clouds of dead flies reanimating was something I added just for background effect, but seeing them blown up with an alchemist's bomb was fun.  The use of hide from undead in order to get Arnald outside safely was quite clever, and worked perfectly.

The big sequence to end the session, with Briza getting possessed, racing (and fighting) past her allies to run upstairs, and then clawing her face off because it was "covered with mold" was fantastic.  I couldn't have scripted it better, and I think it added to the memorable ghastliness of Foxglove Manor.  Once again, the idea of "haunts" as a game concept were a great way to impart backstory without slowing the session to a crawl of exposition.