2.2 Magnimar
Module 1: Burnt Offerings
The first day of autumn dawns in the town of Sandpoint, and visitors begin to fill the streets leading into town for the Swallowtail festival. The streets quickly become crowded as the residents and visitors make their way toward the illuminated stained-glass windows of a large, stone building: the new Sandpoint Cathedral.
The square before the church fills with the travelers and locals. Several merchant tents have already been set up ready to sell their wares of food, clothing, crafts, and souvenirs. The air is filled with excitement, for today is the Swallowtail Festival. On this day, the high priest Father Zantus will ask the gods to renew their blessing upon this holy site and consecrate the new cathedral. For five years the faithful of Sandpoint have attended church in small wooden buildings since their church had been burned down, claiming the life of their beloved priest Ezakien Tobyn and his adopted daughter Nualia. Today, the townsfolk look to the future, and with the new cathedral, it will be as if the Sandpoint Fire had never occurred.
The festival is interrupted by a goblin attack, which the party comes together and helps defeat. In doing so they save a noble, Aldern Foxglove, from the goblins. The group are hailed as local heroes and find the townfolk and Aldern Foxglove very grateful.
In the days following this attack/raid, the group has several minor adventures. Xian attracts the attention of a local girl(Shayliss) with a powerful and protective father (Ven Vinder); which leads to a scene. The party is invited on a boar hunt and are given horses by a grateful Aldern Foxglove. They respond to the killing of a young husband by a goblin that got left behind and was hiding out in town. Finally, a halfling woman asks them to find her mistress, Ameiko Kaijitsu.
The group discovers that Ameiko's brother, Tsuto, has killed their father, imprisoned Ameiko and is in league with the goblins. He had helped them invade the town through secret smugglers tunnels that end in the Glassworks, the family business. You discover clues that led you to believe Nualia is the mastermind who is organizing the goblins and that there is a secret complex below town that contains a threat.
Delving into the Catacombs of Wrath below Sandpoint, you fight Sinspawn, a goblin mutant and a Quasit, finding an activated magic item/location called a Runewell that takes wrathful energy and creates Sinspawn out of it. The complex is from The Thassilonian empire, a nation that existed 1000's of years ago based on magic related to the 7 deadly sins. This was dedicated to Wrath.
Following clearing the catacombs, the group was sent to stop Nualia. If you could kill her, the goblins would go back to their normal ways and start killing each other again, ending the threat they pose to Sandpoint. The party invades the goblin camp know as Thisteltop, a curiously round island about 60 feet off shore, connected to the mainland by a rope bridge. It has a stockade on top and chambers beneath. Below they find another Thassilonian complex, this one used by the forces of Greed, being explored by several non-goblins working for Nualia. She is trying to free the goblins guardian, a "demon"(evil outsider) named Malfeshnekor. The party kills Nualia, defeats the demon and loots the complex, thus saving Sandpoint.
Module 2: The Skinsaw Murders
A few weeks after the goblin threat is handled, a series of murders occur with odd notes to Zer-wedula and strange mutilations (a rune) on the bodies. The rune is obviously similar to the runes you found in the Thassilonian ruins, a Sihedron (7 pointed star) Rune. After some investigation it is determined that the killer is a ghoul and has left clues to lure Zer-wedula to the Misgivings, the home of Aldern Foxglove (the noble you rescued from the goblins). But before they can get to the Misgivings they are sent to investigate the old Hambley farm where foul walking scarecrows are blamed for many dissapeances over the last few days.
The Hambley farm turns out to be infested with a ghoul pack. They dispatch the pack, and find out that Aldern Foxglove is the killer (and a ghoul). They also discover that greed is the connection between the victims. Finally, the group makes it to the Misgivings, a house with a history of death.
The group explores the haunted and disease(a unique magical disease) infected house, learning the story of the Foxglove family. A story of a wizard attempting to become a lich, but instead becoming the house. The house that drove both Aldern and his father to murder their wives. How Alderns wife returned from the grave in her quest for vengance. Following her, the group found themselves in the secret sub-basement fighting the ghoulish Aldern with his obsession with Zer-wedula. They also discover that there were people behind Aldern and his murder spree, a cult of Norgorder, God of Murder.
Old Characters
So the group finds themselves in the temple of Pharasma in the city of Magnimar under quarantine. Talis, Catessa Fallowfield and Zer-wedula are treated for a disease, while Glum and Tanrov/Garth are watched for signs of contagion. The temple is willing to help you because you are dealing with a cult of Norgorber and the Goddess of Fate is opposed to the God of Murder. The High Priest uses Restoration to heal your stat damage.
As you recover in Magnimar, your new friends in the Temple of Fate will tell you the news about a disturbingly similar, to the ones in Sandpoint - all greedy people, spate of murders plaguing the City of Monuments of late. Stories of merchants, politicians, crooked guards, and moneylenders showing up dead— their bodies mutilated, faces missing, and chests carved with seven-pointed stars—seem to be on everyone’s lips, just as it seems that every week brings a new victim to light. The crime scenes are now tightly controlled by the city government—and the temple has had little success in investigating one. Though their sources tell them there is little to find and the government is getting nowhere.
Clues
- A letter from someone in Magnimar.
Aldern—
You have served us quite well. The delivery you harvested from the caverns far exceeds what I had hoped for. You may consider your debt to the Brothers paid in full. Yet I still have need of you, and when you awaken from your death, you should find your mind clear and able to understand this task more than in the state you lie in as I write this.
You shall remember the workings of the Sihedron ritual, I trust. You seemed quite lucid at the time, but if you find after your rebirth that you have forgotten, return to your townhouse in Magnimar. My agents shall contact you there soon—no need for you to bother the Brothers further. I will provide the list of proper victims for the Sihedron ritual in two days’ time. Commit that list to memory and then destroy it before you begin your work. The ones I have selected must be marked before they die, otherwise they do my master no good and the greed in their souls will go to waste. If others get in your way, though, you may do with them as you please. Eat them, savage them, or turn them into pawns—it matters not to me.
—Your Mistress, Wanton of Nature’s Pagan Forms
- three iron birdcages sit, each containing a dead diseased rat with a small
symbol of a pig with a mouthful of lockpicks peering at a keyhole; under
the pig is a guildsign that says “Pug’s Contraptions—Magnimar
- A portrait of Iesha with the background of Magnimar
- small silver key ring worth 10 gp, with two keys on the ring.
a tarnished iron key set with a round opal worth 100gp
a bronze key with an unusually long tang ending in a set of three notched
blades. The head of this key resembles a roaring lion
- Aldern does own a townhouse in Magnimar located in the Grand Arch District, not far from Starsilver Plaza. Its facade faces a small courtyard in which stands a fountain consisting of four pools, each fed by one of four long-necked iron wyvern heads. A very nice neighborhood. There are people on the street during the day and guard patrols are never more than a couple of blocks away. The building itself is three stories tall. Boards have been nailed over the windows on the ground floor. The back door is boarded over, but the front door is only locked (looks like a good locks, dc 30ish).
Brodert on Thassilon
What he knows about Thassilon is that it was a vast empire ruled by powerful wizards. The sheer size of the monuments they left behind testifies to their power, and the unnatural way many of these monuments have resisted erosion and the march of time testifies to their skill at magic. Most sages place the height of the Thassilonian empire at 7,000 to 8,000 years ago, but Brodert thinks the empire was even older. He suspects it collapsed no sooner than 10,000 years in the past.
Much of what Brodert has to say is vague theory based on conjecture, his belief that the Old Light was once a war machine capable of spewing fire from its peak is relatively unpopular among his peers, for example. Yet he can tell Zer a few things of interest about the star—namely, that it seems to be one of the most important runes of Thassilon. The star itself is known as the “Sihedron Rune,” and signifies not only the seven virtues of rule (generally agreed among scholars to have been wealth, fertility, honest pride, abundance, eager striving, righteous anger, and rest), but the seven schools of magic recognized by Thassilon (divination magic, Brodert points out, was not held in high regard by the ancients). Much of what is understood about Thassilon indicates that its leaders were far from virtuous, and he believes the classic mortal sins (greed, lust, pride, gluttony, envy, wrath, and sloth) rose from corruptions of the Thassilonian virtues of rule. In any event, the Sihedron Rune was certainly a symbol of power, one that may well have stood for and symbolized the empire itself.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:00, Sat 11 June 2011.