Under a Full Moon

Part 1: Introduction & Timeline

Comments in Blue have been added after publishing.

Details

Under a Full Moon

Halloween 2024 Adventure

The city of Milani’s Hope lies along the banks of the Wellspring River in northern Andoran in the shadow of the Aspodell Mountains. Although it is not on a major trade route, it is a popular destination of comfort and safety in an otherwise wilderness frontier.

Background

A few days ago, a group of adventurers was passing through the small town of Milani’s Hope and discovered that the locals have been having trouble with a group of strange cultists who showed up a couple weeks ago and are reportedly trying to abduct local citizens and even a few visitors for their own nefarious purposes. Being the heroes that they are, the group offered their assistance and began searching for traces of the cultists’ whereabouts. They spent the good part of a day finding and eventually tracking the miscreants back to an old tomb in the nearby hills. The cultists were a mix of human and orcs who were worshipping the demon lord Orcus. They entered the lair, defeated its guards, warriors and several nasty priests then looted the whole place, including a few items of magic that could not be conclusively identified on the spot. Victorious, the adventurers returned to the city to report their success.

Father Anthus had been a fixture in Milani’s Hope for generations. No one in town can remember a time when he was not the local Priest of Aroden. Most people who are new to town expect him to be a priest of Milani, but as he was fond of saying “When Aroden was lost, we had to trust his most devout apostles and no one is more hopeful than Milani. I keep the Hope of his return alive.”

Many years ago (? No one can really say for certain – it must have been 20 years?) Father Anthus enlisted a devout follower of Aroden named Sister Arathea. She is kind, compassionate and serves as both healer and counselor to the townsfolk.

What people don’t know is that ‘Sister’ Arathea only arrived in Milani’s Hope about 4 months ago and has been using her natural abilities as well as spellcraft to make the townsfolk believe that she has been here for a long time and is a trusted member of society. There is some conflict from popular knowledge to the few more resistant who remember her arriving mere months ago. It is Arathea who has been working the machinations of the evil upon this town. In reality, Arathea is a powerful vampire and priestess of Orcus. She has been secretly poisoning Father Anthus and arranged for a new priest, Brother Pelandor to arrive just in time to get to know and eventually take over the duties of the ailing elder. Father Anthus was old, but his faith was strong and he was not as easily manipulated by the scheming vampire, this Arathea had to entice the new priest to pass through this town on his way to Augustana from Falcon’s Hollow and assume the care and replacement of old Father Anthus.

Adventure Outline/Review

• After a nearly full day of travel, the group arrives back at Milani’s Hope from the cultists’ hideout
• They find the townsfolk cleaning up the streets and shops after what looks like a riot occurred recently
• They will also discover that there were a series of ritualistic murders that same evening
• The party will need to investigate what has happened which will become more apparent after the sun sets and full moon rises 2 hours later
• The party will eventually discover that the source of the city’s problems lies in the four strange magic items that they found in the cultists’ lair which are now identifiable during the full moon and that they each have a specific ‘off switch’ associated with them, probably located in the lair somewhere. (the low-level cultists and items were intentionally placed in the lair for someone to bring them back into the night to be activated.
• The party may also be interested in determining the person(s) responsible for the ritual murders
• The party can try to combat the townsfolk or flee (hopefully this is what they do)
• They must return back to the lair, find the hidden chambers where the items can be disabled.

Timeline

• 4 months ago – Sister Arathea arrives in town and offers her services to Father Anthus, begins poisoning Anthus
• 3 months ago – Pelandor arrives in town  and befriends current priest
• 2 months ago – Pelandor mourns the loss of his new friend and helps the citizens through their grief. Tells them that he feels the ‘calling’ to take over and gains the townsfolk’s trust
• 1 month ago – Arathea begins recruiting cultists to come to town and start supplying the old tomb barrow. She makes sure that there are crafters and spellcasters among the followers of Orcus and gives them Orcus’ formulas to create the horn necklaces
• 2 weeks ago – Arathea herself begins creating the master ‘goat head’ for the ritual in a secret cave under the barrow. She distributes the four horn necklaces to her four trusted acolytes. Acolytes begin their campaign of goat mutilations and a few minor abductions.
• 3 days ago – full moon is imminent and Arathea has foreseen (through visions from Orcus) the arrival of pawns who will sacrifice the cultists to Orcus on the Consecrated grounds and bring the horns back to town. Once the undead defeat them, she will join the 5 objects together and allow Orcus to permanently create a town of the dead.
• 2 days ago, party arrives in town, hears fears of cultists, spends night
• 1 day ago, party looks for signs of cultists and tracks them back to their lair, confronts and destroys them, camps near tomb entrance and heads back the next morning, During night, the townsfolk turn undead and ravage the town and each other.
• Today, party heads back to town and arrives in late afternoon

Player Information:

This adventure will be a Pathfinder 2e (Remaster) game for 11^th level characters. Your party is assumed to already know each other and you can discuss party balance during session 0. The adventure will be a combination of city adventure and dungeon crawl, so a good party balance of skills, magic and combat potency will be important, but not necessarily all jammed into each character. I’d suggest using Pathbuilder to start your character creation.

PB settings for a new character:

Use Remaster                  – ON

Allow Old CRB                  – OFF

Allow Battlezoo               – OFF

Allow APs                           – OFF

Core Only                           – Enable

You will have access to any Common mundane items as well as what is listed on Table 10-10 (https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2662&Redirected=1) under Permanent Items + Currency.

Note the hard-to-find tables for Basic Magic Weapons (https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?Category=37&Subcategory=39) and Basic Magic Armor (https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?Category=11&Subcategory=13) which includes runes as a single level item.

You can sub a magic item of a lesser level, but do not get ‘credit’ for the difference. Each character will be allowed 2 Uncommon magic items, but all the rest must be Common. I may override if an item is unbalancing or inappropriate.

You can build your spell books and repertoire however you want. But the goal is to play the adventure, not spend 3 sessions reading the text of each spell 😊

Your Currency will be used to purchase any mundane adventuring gear, additional magic items or consumables.

Feel free to announce your class prefs to get the conversation started!