Under a Full Moon

Part 2: The Adventure Begins

Comments in Blue have been added after publishing.

Details

Start of Adventure

The city of Milani’s Hope lies along the banks of the Wellspring River in western 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.

A few days ago, your group was passing through the town of Milani’s Hope and discovered that the locals have been having trouble with a group of strange cultists – they reportedly wore loose hooded robes and brandished jagged ritualistic looking daggers. At first, the trouble started as a series of goat mutilations among the nearby farms – they were all missing their heads – but more recently there had been reports of attempted abductions of local citizens and even a few visitors to the town.

Being the heroes that you are, your group offered assistance and began searching for traces of the cultists’ whereabouts. You 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 humans and orcs who were worshipping the demon lord Orcus. You entered the lair, defeated its guards, warriors and nasty priests then looted the place, including a few items of magic that could not be conclusively identified on the spot. Victorious, you have just returned to the city to report your success.

What you find is a town that looks like it has been the scene of a riot. People are sweeping broken glass and moving wooden planks into piles; many of the doors to the buildings are missing or hanging on their hinges. A large flat cart is moving slowly down a street while people carry limp bodies from some of the buildings and pile them on top.

Whodunit

To add to the terror and chaos of the curse, Sister Arathea has directed a few of the nighttime minions to murder several townsfolk using curvy cultist blades as an offering to Orcus. As the party begins investigating the town, they must figure out what has happened, why and what they can do to stop it. Throughout the investigation, a number of interesting people may have some important information. They will definitely get the idea that there is something sinister going on. Several notable people in the town have some possibly suspicious stories to tell and rumors are running rampant.

Ritual Victims:

Alamand Gourtani (High Hill) – Human|Male|56yo was a spice and fine wine trader who lives in a cottage on High Hill. His death was reported when a friend who meets him for breakfast said he did not show up. The guards found him splayed across his dining room table with a ritual dagger plunged into his chest.

Dusty Finefingers (The Nooks) – Dwarf|Male owned an alchemy shop which is now destroyed. Another merchant, Gerard the butcher, found the body pinned to his workbench with a ritual dagger through the heart. Looks like the shop was destroyed at the same time.

Gennifer Eldara (Noggin Campus) – Human|Female|24yo was a student at Noggin Campus studying runes and rituals. She was found by a classmate the following morning in one of the small student workrooms stabbed through the back and pinning her to an easel holding a chart of runes.

Jeen Scaler (The Troll Bridge) – Human|Male|70yo – was known as one of the most successful local fishermen in town. He was found lying face up across a barrel on his small skiff with a ritual dagger through his neck.

‘Suspicious’ Suspects:

• Brother Pelandor – town’s new priest who took over when old one died.
• Sister Arathea
• Constable Weathers
• Little Binny
• Lady Noreen
• Mayor Candlewood

The Curse of Orcus

Working as an agent of the Prince of the Undead, a powerful vampire created a 5-part magic item that when combined, would emit a powerful, insidious curse upon the town. Each part of the item was created separately for a couple reasons; it would be easier to enchant five items that could be combined physically later and also to hide their true purpose until they are united.

So the mysterious stranger enlisted several priests of Orcus and began recruiting cult followers over the past year, eventually establishing a base of operations in an old abandoned tomb near the town of Milani’s Hope. The priest known as Pelandor arrived a few months earlier, offering his services to aid the ailing local priest whose health was failing (the vampire in the guise of the old priest’s  acolyte, Sister Arathea) has been poisoning him over the course of several  months).  When the old priest eventually died, Pelandor ‘felt it was his ‘duty’ to remain in town and be of service. Although he admits that Iomedae may provide some of his holy power he still wears the trappings of Aroden and thus has the trust of many of the elders of the town. Sister Arathea, however, gets her divine abilities through Orcus and passes her prayers off as rites to Aroden.

Arathea can only spend a few moments in the direct sunlight, so she often stays in the shade and shadows of the buildings and trees. She has a covered buggy that transports her from the church to the other establishments where she may be needed.

When the heroes arrived in town, she knew her plans were coming to fruition. The fools would find the four horns on her priests, after making their blood sacrifices and bring them into town, coinciding with the full moon that will last for three days. The items will trigger the curse under the full moon, the undead will do away with them and she simply gathers the four horns to add to her master goat head and make the curse permanent!

Goals Session 1

• Arrive back in town and take in scene
• Analyze magic necklaces they brought back
• Investigate murders
• Gather ideas for possible suspects
• Look for 5^th item (should lead back to Barrow Tomb)

Goals Session 2

• Deal with “zombie invasion”
• Discover that the undead are the townsfolk
• Either fight the entire town, or find a safe place to survive the night
• Look in town for 5^th litem
• Find item in crypt below church and fight cultists and Sister Arathea

Clues

1. The townsfolk describe how yesterday evening, they woke up to find the town in a shambles. It looked like a tornado had hit it, but no one remembers waking up or hearing anything.
2. Dozens of people were found in the streets and buildings who were seriously hurt or were removed from their homes to find themselves across the town in the street or an unfamiliar building. There were also many dead townspeople throughout the town.
3. The dead and most seriously injured were brought to Brother Pelandor and Sister Arathea  for burial or healing at the Temple of Aroden
4. Later in the morning, the murder victims were discovered. They were left in place until Constable Weathers could investigate (gawk and act concerned) then had them moved to the Temple. There has been no real investigation of the crime scenes.
5. Ceremonial Daggers are non-magical
6. No robberies were reported and all townsfolk can be accounted for living or dead.
7. No tracks of outsiders other than those expected.
8. At crime scenes, there are easy to find footprints and it looks like the victims were assaulted by 2-3 people wearing regular boots or shoes. No one will admit that they were covered in blood from the victims and washed it off first thing when they woke up.

Event Timeline – the following events will happen as the characters begin gathering clues

• “Bring out yer dead” – a flat cart is slowing passing down a street and two men are loading on dead or hurt people to take to the Temple of Aroden
• If the party tries to do a better Identify Magic, the only information they learn is that there is latent necromantic magic on the horn necklaces. It seems incomplete. If they examine the horn more closely (DC28) they will find a small knobby protrusion at the top, like it would fit into another object.
• With another DC28 inspection, they will notice that the knobby protrusions all point in slightly different directions indicating that they may all be attached to a missing 5^th object!