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RISE OF THE RUNELORDS
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Chapter 1: Burnt Offering
Sandpoint has faced many hardships but also great prosperity in its 42-year history. A small town on the Varisian Bay, fishermen, farmers, and other simple folk make the community one of the rare havens of peace in Varisia. Yet, while the townsfolk have known dark times in the past, a new shadow has begun to loom over the unsuspecting town.
ENTER THE GAME -
"Like no other land I have visited in all my vast and fevered travels, here in Varisia art and environment are truly one. The monoliths of a mysterious and romantic people weather the ages, telling the voiceless tales of a race lost to silence. Each inspired day colors the skies in vivid palettes of placid blue, raging red-orange, and sorrowed gray—heavenly emotions painted across an endless, cloudless canvas. Even the natives live like masterpieces on display, their tattoos becoming the likenesses of their lives, their dances telling their endless tales, and their wisdom tempered by murmured harmonies echoing from both past and future."
—Cevil "Redwing" Charms Esq., Eidolon
1. Cathedral 2. Boneyard 3. The White Deer Inn 4. The Way North Library/Maphouse 5. Jeweler 6. Junker's Edge (Dump) 7. Gorvi's Shack (Streetcleaner) 8. Sage 9. Locksmith 10. Garrison 11. Town Hall 12. Savah's Armory 13. Risa's Place (Tavern) 14. Rovanky Tannery 15. Red Dog Smithy 16. The Pillbug's Pantry (Herbalist) 17. Bottled Solutions (Apothecary) 18. Cracktooth's Tavern 19. House of Blue Stones (Temple of Irori) 20. Glassworks 21. Sandpoint Savories (Baker) 22. The Curious Goblin (Bookseller) 23. Theater 24. Carpenter's Guild 25. Lumber Mill 26. General Store 27. Turandarok Academy (Orphanage) 28. Madame Mvashti's (Seer/Historian) 29. Grocer's Hall 30. Vernah's Fine Clothing 31. Wheen's Wagons 32. Scarnetti Mill 33. The Hagfish Tavern 34. Valdemar Fishmarket 35. Market 36. Meat Market 37. The Rusty Dragon :Inn: 38. Goblin Squash Stables 39. Two Knight Brewery 40. Mercantile League 41. Sandpoint Boutique 42. Fatman's Feedbag (Tavern) 43. The Pixie's Kitten (Brothel) 44. The Feathered Serpent (Oddities) 45. Hannah's (Midwife) 46. Shipyard 47. Valdemar Manor 48. Scarnetti manor 49. Murasaki Manor 50. Deverin Manor
ASHEN RISE: A limestone tor, home to uncommonly aggressive ravens and crows.
RISTON'S POND: Named after an eccentric Varisian druid, whose spirit still haunts the shack on the east shore. Goblins from Mosswood often fish here.
BRINESTUMP MARSH: Unexplored swampland infested with giant insects, goblins, and other unpleasant monsters.
DEVIL'S PLATTER: Home to the Birdcruncher Goblins (non-aggressive) and nocturnal, devil-worshiping Bugbears.
DRAGON'S PUNCHBOWL: Bowl-shaped island where Wyverns roost in caves. Rumors hold that a dragon visits the place once or twice a year for unknown reasons.
EGAN'S WOOD: Pine woodland once owned by a local eccentric named Egan. Giant spiders infest it.
FARMLANDS: At any given time, at least 2 or 3 farms need help in running off predators or goblins.
FOXGLOVE MANOR: Home of Aldern Foxglove.
GRUBBER'S HERMITAGE: A small, isolated island of lepers, ghosts, and hostile fishermen. The island has recently fallen silent, but no one has investigated, despite sightings of strangely large numbers of carrion birds nearby.
HABE'S SANATORIUM: A mental asylum build by a rich doctor, Erin Habe.
HAG'S PLUMMET: A popular place for secret lovers and tragic suicides.
THE MOORS: Ashen Moor (low-lying), Bleaklow Moor (high altitude, ghoul-infested) Whisperwood Moor (large and foggy). Goblin dogs, wolves, worgs, and worse hunt here.
MOSSWOOD: Goblin-infested redwood forest. The Mosswood tribe remains the largest of the Sandpoint goblin tribes, but the tribe is constantly killing each other over which god is da best.
NETTLEWOOD: A forest of nettles and thorny underbrush.
PAUPERS' GRAVES: An old Varisian gypsy graveyard. Those who died during the construction of Sandpoint were buried here. Now inhabited by ghouls.
THE PIT: A sinkhole rumoured to be full of all kinds of monsters.
THE PYRE: Ancient Varisian ritual site (no longer used)
RAVENROOST: A ragged wasteland. Not a lot lives here apart from relatively harmless wild animals.
SHANK'S WOOD: Small pine and eucalyptus forest. Seven Tooth goblin tribe claim this forest as their territory.
SOG'S BAY: Bay of many shipwrecks, giant crabs, and other tidal predators.
THISTLETOP: An island infested by the Thistletop goblin tribe.
THE THREE CORMORANTS: Three towering sea stacks protruding from the waves and covered in eucalyptus and cypress forests. Harpies dwell here.
TICKWOOD: Pine and redwood forest, infested by ticks and boars. Popular with hunters.
THE TORS: Stretch of nooks, caverns, and old Varisian tombs. Popular with adventurers/explorers.
WHISPERWOOD: Towering redwood forest, rumoured to contain Thassilonian ruins. Most explores fall prey to the wolves, bugbears, and bandits.
WISHER'S WELL: 30ft stone tower with flooded chambers below ground. Monster-infested. -
Sandpoint
The Town
A simple, peaceful town with a tightly-knit community. Wood buildings and cluttered docks line the town's natural harbor, while farms and manors dot the surrounding countryside. The people spend their days fishing, farming, lumbering, glass-making, and shipbuilding, and spend their evenings in Sandpoint's many taverns. A playhouse and would-be museum make unusual attractions in such a small community, but Sandpoint's true landmark is the Old Light, a lighthouse of ancient origins that lies in ruins.
Though quiet, Sandpoint has had its share of troubles. The fading scars of a recent terror still linger, a time most folk refer to as the Late Unpleasantness. Just over five years ago, a madman stalked the streets of Sandpoint, killing dozens. Known as Chopper, the killer's month-long terror ended when an eccentric local artisan was revealed as the murderer and killed by the watch. Adding to the pain, less than a month later the local chapel burned to the ground in a conflagration that nearly consumed the town and left the local priest dead.
Emerging from the shadow of these events, though, Sandpoint has healed and rebuilt, with many townsfolk viewing the coming dedication of a new church as a symbolic end to the healing and a return to normality.
The Law
Kendra Deverin has served as Sandpoint's mayor for the past eight years. She has proven to be both an adept diplomat and stern hand when need be—skills likely honed during her youth in Magnimar. Kendra holds the abiding respect of most of Sandpoint's people, charming them with her fiery temper and tenacity for justice (as demonstrated during the Late Unpleasantness). A council of several of the town's most respected and affluent landowners aids Deverin's work.
Meting out the town's good justice, sheriff and councilmember Belor Hemlock keeps watch over Sandpoint's people. Held as something of a local hero, Hemlock is lauded with being the man who brought the serial killer, Chopper, to justice. Although rarely faced with misconduct more severe than vandalism and public drunkenness, the sheriff is both a keen wit and a skilled swordsman. While the town's chief enforcer, Hemlock knows the difference between the word of the law and its intent, and often gives those under his protection the benefit of the doubt.
Sandpoint's people also realize they must often fend for themselves, especially on the outlying farms. In the rarest and most extreme cases mob justice is sometimes all that satisfies the outraged people.
The Land
A rolling, lightly forested land of limestone escarpments, rugged tors, and verdant moors surrounds Sandpoint. Numerous farms spread over the surrounding countryside, while the homes of fisherfolk dot the cliffs. Wolves, snakes, and oversized weasels primarily stalk the deer and hares common to the area, along with the occasional stray farm animal, making attacks on humanoids rare. When the fogs common to Sandpoint's stretch of shore rise, though, every dark shape in the mist becomes a monster, giving rise to numerous local legends of hungry wild men, winged terrors, and reeking things from the sea.
Places of Note and Rumours of Late
Sandpoint Rumours
As in any small community, gossip accents every business transaction and spices every evening meal. Anyone who makes a DC 10 Gather Information check might hear one of the following rumors, some of questionable veracity.
• Sheriff Hemlock shares a long-running, "secret" romance with Lady Kaye, madam of the town brothel.
• The ghost of the murderer Chopper haunts Chopper's Isle, just north of town.
• The White Deer Inn used to be the Black Deer Inn, but was tastefully renamed after the fire.
• Ask Ven Vinder at the general store to see the "wine cellar" and he'll sell you a jug of disgusting but potent orc rotgut.
• Farmer Grump claims the Sandpoint Devil, a horselike monster with bat wings, once flew off with one of his prized sows.
• Old Ilsoari at the museum sometimes wanders the beach at night, looking for treasures.
• Don't go down to the junktoss after dark: goblins steal the trash at night.
• Solsta Vinder claims Sczarni stole her sheets last week and two cooling pies a week before that.
• The new cathedral is magically protected from catching fire.
• Murdermaw, a giant red snapper big enough to bite a boat in half, lurks in the Varisian Bay.
• The Deverin family was once affiliated with the Chelish resistance, but was forced to flee to Varisia. -
Festival and Fire
The PCs arrived in the town of Sandpoint to attend the Swallowtail Festival, a ritual to consecrate Sandpoint's new church. After mingling with the crowd and listening to the opening speeches, the heroes learned a little about local events.
- The bounty hunter Tahlzair befriended Ina-Oster, an agent of Lord Scarnetti, who may have links to the local crime family.
- The prodigal daughter An-Nur realized her foster father and best friend died 5 years ago in the fire that claimed the previous church.
- The sadistic magus Voren learned his studies of the Old Light are shared with the Sorceress Tatharel.
- The local handyman Rodeh received a shady work offer from Gressel, landlord of the Fatman's Feedbag tavern.
At the highlight of the festival, a thunderstone was used to bring attention to the stage. But unfortunately the same noise was the signal for a hidden group of goblins to attack. The little menaces invaded the square, with the intent of sowing chaos and confusion. The heroes responded quickly. In the fighting they stopped the goblins from burning the cathedral, and even saved a visiting noble, Aldern Foxglove, from being butchered.
The goblins were hidden in wagons placed specifically in the square. And the north gate of the town, which is usually locked, was left unbolted and open.
The attack was more organized than a goblin raid should be...
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Local Heroes
As Sandpoint recovered from the attack, the heroes took shelter in the church and helped with the injured and distraught. An-Nur was welcomed home by Father Zantus, who told her the sad tale of the church fire that claimed the lives of both his predecessor and An-Nur's step-sister, Nualia. But upon looking for Nualia's grave, the heroes were set upon by mindless undead - summoned by a Robe of Bones that laid discarded in the vault. The remains of Father Tobyn, the late high priest, were gone, and tracks pointed to a goblin band led by a single humanoid - no doubt the traitor who had helped the goblins in their attack. It seemed that yesterday's raid was merely a distraction from the enemy's real mission: to plunder the vault.
Lord Foxglove, the noble whose life was saved the previous day, offered to host the heroes at the Rusty Dragon tavern. While buying them drinks there, the heroes found themselves in the middle of an altercation between the landlady, Jin Murasaki, and her father, who was trying to leave town very quickly. After a scuffle the lord stormed away, and further investigation was denied when the heroes were called to deal with a stray goblin trapped inside a home on the main street. Upon killing the greenskin, they found that he was carrying a stolen ring... perhaps part of the loot that was plundered from Father Tobyn's grave.
Meanwhile, the bounty hunter brothers, Tahlzair and Dhoryl, followed a lead to the local Sczarni tavern, and made short work of antagonizing the crime family. After a brief and bloody fight they got the attention of Jubrayal, the head of the family, who freely told them that their target, the Blackbird, could be found at the Murasaki Glassworks.
As fate would have it, the brothers were now heading to the same place as the rest of the heroes. As night fell, a barmaid from the Rusty Dragon sought out the heroes and handed them a letter found in Jin Murasaki's bedroom. It was from the landlady's estranged brother and implicated Lord Murasaki as the goblin sympathizer. Jin was missing, and the letter told her to meet her brother, Tsuto, at the Glassworks by midnight.
Sensing that the truth was soon to be unveiled, the heroes geared up and set out for the factory.
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Glass and Wrath
The heroes arrived to find the Glassworks open, the locks picked and the rooms surveyed. The bounty hunter brothers had got there before them, having followed a lead from their investigation of the Sczarni crime family. But the criminal henchmen who should have been waiting inside the factory were already dead, slaughtered by goblins, along with their crooked benefactor, Lord Murasaki. After dealing with the goblins, the party found one of their own missing. Lord Foxglove had fled from something in the basement. The party ventured to behold that same horror, and found the room in which Tsuto Murasaki, embittered son of the late noble, had taken up refuge. The renegade monk had forced his father to confess his part in the Sandpoint Raid, and had tried, violently, to coerce his sister onto the side of the goblins. Outnumbered and enraged, Tsuto fled down the same route by which he had infiltrated the town - an old smuggler's tunnel once used by the Sczarni to smuggle contraband through the Glassworks. But what the heroes will find at the end of the tunnel, in the hunt for Tsuto, is darker than anything imagined... -
The Blackbird
Returning to the Glassworks the next morning, the heroes found the servants of the Murasaki household searching for their master. The servants revealed that Lord Murasaki had ordered the sabotage of Sandpoint, likely after being blackmailed by Tsuto. His son had always known that his father murdered his mother after she gave birth to a half-elf. An-Nur sent the servants to report to Jin, who is now the sole heir to the Murasaki estate.
Venturing into the catacombs, the heroes found more signs of Tsuto's presence - a love letter to Nualia carved on the wall of the smuggler tunnels, along with a recent lullaby, composed for a child. Beyond this, the tunnels broke through into more ancient, forgotten chambers. The walls had been broken by heavy, devastating sword strikes. The heroes entered the Catacombs of Wrath, and found clues to its ownership: a statue of an ancient queen named Alaznist; symbols of the dark goddess Lamashtu; and notes written by a mad torturer named The Tormentor.
Another skirmish occurred with the Sinspawn, and a mutated goblin chieftain, both stationed as guards around a prison and torture chamber. To Serenus's horror, she found that the prisoners here were witches with features like her own. One of them had even swallowed a ring like the one Father Tobyn wore. Notes in the torture chamber indicated that the Tormentor who owned this dungeon was under orders to interrogate the witches and find the other rings.
After plundering the Meditation Chamber, where the Tormentor was experimenting on two Black Blades, the party followed the final tunnel to a Shrine of Lamashtu. Inside, they found the Tormentor's old apprentice - a quasit demon named Erylium, who had been masquerading as "the Blackbird" - the oracle who has kept the Szcarni out of jail for the last 5 years. Thanks to some careful planning by the bounty hunter brothers, Erylium's scrying was blocked, and this allowed the party to get the drop on her.
In the ensuing battle, zombies and summoned demons made short work of Voren and Dhoryl. But the tenacity of the heroes paid off, and Erylium was defeated. As the quasit perished, her scrying well faded. It seemed that this Well was the source of the Sinspawn, and had been powered by the souls of the goblins slain during the raid.
Tsuto's plan was clear. Every death of the last few days had been orchestrated to power Erylium's Well and grant her more Sinspawn with which to make a second, devastating offensive. -
Thistletop
That same night, the Sheriff returned with soldiers from Magnimar, and learned from Kolto the sorry story of what had happened in his town. He pledged 100 gold to each of the heroes if they could track Tstuto down at Thistletop and end to this madness. So as the Sheriff's men dealt with securing the catacombs and burying Lord Murasaki, the heroes spent one last night in Sandpoint.
It was not uneventful. The dregs of the Sczarni made a final attempt to reclaim power, but were destroyed, with only their leader, Jubrayal, fleeing town. But this victory was tempered by dark news, as it came to light that two of the heroes had also departed. Serenus had let slip her secret that she was a witch; while An-Nur had run alone to Thistletop, convinced that Tsuto was in league with a woman she thought long dead... her own sister, Nualia.
But An-Nur had left clues: Tsuto's journal, a Harrow Prophecy, and the diary of the mysterious Tormentor who Erylium had served. Whoever controlled Tsuto was themselves at the mercy of darker forces - from an age lost for ten millennia. The ancient empire of Thassilon had its part in these events, as did the monstrous goddess Lamashtu, and her progeny of witches who had scattered their rings across Sandpoint. Father Zantus offered a further 200 gold for An-Nur's safe return, but this bounty paled beside the other motivations that now drove the party.
All answers waited at Thistletop. The group rejoined the witch Serenus, who had found their ranger guide murdered by Tsuto and An-Nur. With confirmation that their friend had gone over to the enemy, the party journey east through rain and goblin territories, plunging deep into the heart of Nettlewood. As they began their approach through the thorn mazes that encircled the fortress island, it was clear that An-Nur had already warned the goblins.
But for better or worse, they could not tell. The first circle of Thistletop defenders fled before they could be engaged. Even now, was An-Nur helping them from inside the fortress...? -
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