Demons and Sins

Shayliss – Human Sorceror – Level 3 – CG   ST: 8                             DX: 16                           HP: 23 CN: 14                          IN: 12                            Init: +7 WS: 10                          CH: 21 AC: 14 (18) (Touch: 14 (18)    FlatFooted: 11 (15))  ...

An alternate title for this adventure is "Too Many Beans". Our Heroes search the bodies of the ghouls, as Heroes are wont to do, and find two keys - one rusty and iron, one brass with some sort of crest on it (a strange flower surrounded by thorns).  Further searching finds a trap door in the floor of the barn, with a locked iron chest that opens to the rusty iron key, full of silver.  3500 silver!  It is both exciting and disappointing. Then on to Magnimar!  The Party first checks in with Adivion Adrissant - their horses are stabled and a nice meal is procured, and then an awkward conversation is had: "Well, yes, I am a member of the Whispering Way.  And Petros disagreed with my decision - 'Adivion', he said, 'When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you - those who fight monsters are in danger of becoming monstrous themselves.'  But how else to keep track of them?" Meanwhile, Torvan has snuck upstairs to check things out; he q...

It is now the 14th of October.  Our Heroes first arrived in Sandpoint on the 21st of September, not even a month ago.  What an interesting and exciting month it has been!  There has been death and suffering and pain, true, but remember the adventure equation: Fun + Danger = Adventure And who are Our Heroes if not Adventurers! Kendra has received an offer to purchase her house - and at full asking price!  The couple will be back in Sandpoint to exchange keys for money, and asks that some minor changes be made.  Kendra puts The Party to work painting and performing light carpentry work.  The days pass quickly - there's something good and satisfying about building and maintaining a house, especially when in contrast with Our Heroes' other work of fighting demons and being Haunted by the malevolent dead. Two days after Harrowstone Kendra receives a letter from Adivion Adrissant, which states that he has some business and research in Magnimar for the ne...

Before the party leaves Vesoriana's room, they ask about Petros Lorrimor - Ves felt him on the prison grounds, several weeks ago, and then just inside the prison a few days after that - and on his third visit, he was slain by a spell cast by an old man, bald and with a hook-nose, wearing armor either made of bone, or stylized to look as such.  The man then directed several of his associates to topple one of the Harrowstone Gargoyles from the roof onto Petros' head, crushing his jaw, before his team captured V's husband and left. Hmmm. The rest of the main level is investigated, and a secret room with five labeled items is discovered - each item corresponding to one of the malevolent spirits which assails Vesoriana: A bloodstained Handaxe .  This +1 handaxe belonged to The Lopper , a serial killer who delighted in blood and decapitation. A Collection of holy symbols.   This set of chains and holy symbols from a variety of Gods was owned by Father Charlatan , who wo...

And we rejoin Our Heroes as they stand outside the gate to Harrowstone prison, looking inside through the ruined gate.  They have walked around the structure - mostly, anyway, since the ravages of time and a collapsed sub-level have caused a lake to form, blocking transit around the prison - and seen the main prison building, with a patrolling scythe carried by two skeletal arms, and a smaller house next to the prison. As Our Heroes enter the prison... Oh.  I - mmm.  I, Your Humble Narrator, must confess something here.  My - both my mother, and my grandfather, died in the Harrowstone Prison tragedy.  This... this is difficult, for me.  I apologize, for making this personal; I generally try to remain a neutral and objective observer but - well, this is a lot.  A lot to process, and a lot to remember.   My father and I would reminisce about his wife and father, my mother and grandfather, as we ate dinner by the fire - and now, all these ye...

We rejoin Our Heroes in Sandpoint, the day before a funeral and two days before a Town Hall Meeting. Lyrie and Orik have left for Magnimar already.  After his experience with the demon, Kand also realizes that perhaps he would be better suited in the big city.  Nod 'finishes his vision quest' by which everyone understands him to mean that he has run out of delicious grapes and is ready to return to the Adventuring Lifestyle. Grapes really ARE delicious, after all, but after the second bunch of them one generally starts to feel a little - upset.  In the tummy parts, I mean.  It is bad for adventurers to stumble into too many grapes for, like a chest of gold, it presents an almost irresistible temptation.  Unlike gold, however, a Chest of Grapes leads quite quickly to nausea and, as we all know, nausea is just about the worst of the conditions an Adventurer can suffer.  Only a single move action each turn?  Why bother even dungeoning, I say. Anyway...

I remember when I first learned what 'imaginary' really meant, and thinking that perhaps it was one of those cases like saying 'going to the bathroom' when you meant peeing, not taking a bath.  My friends weren't imaginary - they knew things, and they told me things, and sometimes I even saw them.  I still had to pour their tea and eat their cookies at our tea parties, but they did give me good advice.  "Don't step there Kendra - that plank is weak," they would tell me, or warn me about some of my father's workers and let me know who I could and could not trust. Doesn't everyone have imaginary friends who keep them out of trouble?   What's the point in having imaginary friends otherwise?  It took me a while to figure out that I was different, somehow, and that my imaginary friends were actual spirits; external and categorically different than me.  As I grew older, and my friends began to outgrow their childhoods, I more and more felt diff...