Characters

Review the Characters

Strong Start

Vision of two hooded priests heading towards the ruined Shadowed Keep – Valentin’s Folly. Visions of the doors of the Black Cathedral opening.

Scenes

Journey along the way
- Biting cold as the wind slices through the boughs of the trees, bringing chattering teeth
- Deer and elk prancing over roots and between trees, quick to flee at the slightest sense of danger
- Dryads flitting between trees, tempting those who wish to become lost in nature
- Giant root systems of enormous trees, enough space between them for a Halfling to carve a home
- Carrion Cave: An opening in a cliff face reveals a large cavern inhabited by Dire Wolves. Luckily, they don’t seem to be around right now, but their recent prey lies unprotected inside. If the party is quick, they could gather up a large amount of fresh meat and make their escape.
- Biting cold hits the area. A trail of blood leads to a hollow under an enormous tree. Inside is a wounded villager of Raven’s Hollow named Anaxibia Faeriewind, a humorous orc. She wanted to try to help the village but was dragged down here and wounded by a huge dire wolf. There are actually two such wolves, speaking wolves who are more than happy to eat the party.
Heading to Raven’s Hollow

Secret and Clues

Locations

NPCs

Review NPCs
Sister Maria Thornheart
Anne Faeriewind – orc villager of Raven’s Hollow
Doreen Switchwillow – Seer of Raven’s Hollow

Path

Pathfinder – Helm Hobbs
Scout – Chartruice, Radon
Quartermastering – Voxi, Zaffre

Monsters

Lazy Encounter Benchmark: 4
Dire Wolves CR 2 (pack tactics – intelligent) one casts lighting bolt (1d6+11), the other mirror image.
Sister Maria (CR 4)
Bound centaur named Narus Whitetail (CR 2)
Awakened Trees (CR2)

Treasure

SF Generator
204 sp, 100 ep
Electrum chain bracelet (75gp), 10gp gem
Wand of Magic Missiles

Parcel 2

240 gp, 180 silver
plain gold band worth 25 gp
potion of giant strength (frost giant)
spell scroll (6th-level)
+2 ammunition

Parcel 3

100 gp
shortbow worth 25 gp
copper ring worth 25 gp
tiny gold skull earrings worth 25 gp
silver hatpin worth 25 gp
*necklace of fireballs (2 beads)*
spell scroll (4th-level)

Session Notes

The session ended with the characters finding four dead bodies of Black Harbinger cultists buried under the inn in Raven’s Hollow.

Helm recalls that Orcus is a bad-ass who is the prince of undeath and inspiration of countless playground songs.

Zaffre has a nightmare of swarms of black robed priests of the black harbinger and this violet light coming for her in a huge chamber, where she can feel the energy of the obelisks being channeled. The priests make their way into the depths of the shadowed keep (which may in fact be on the borderlands).

We head toward Raven's Hollow. As we walk, we sense that something deep in the woods is hunting us. We see a large pair of yellow eyes. We come across some huge trees, it is cold and we see a trail of blood leading to a large hollow tree. The creepy thing that's stalking us is there with us. Chartreuse sneaks into the hollow tree and sees an injured orc woman, Annie Faeriewind hiding. She warns Chartreuse about "the sisters" who are coming. As we approach the tree, two direwolves with arcane glyphs show up. Assuming that a party is about to ensue, Eldrox shows up. We fight the direwolves and kill them (and some mirror images). Annie is very impressed that we killed them because they've been killing lots of people.

Annie says "you should not be near me, I'm cursed." Something has been syphoning her life force -- they "become hollow". She says that Sister Maria has been working to reverse the curse, and said that maybe she should "pierce the veil."

(We spend some time checking out our loot, and Zaffre attunes with the Lady's Kiss and learns that the assassin is working for Loff, not Zaffre's father.)
We walk with Anne to Raven's Hollow. Orcs in the town come out as we approach the village. We meet Doreen the seer. We provide us with food and water and a place to stay. Sister Maria is a bit suspicious of us and suspicious acting. Doreen senses that we carry something dark with us and commits a prayer to detect whether we were under any outward influence. We make ourselves comfortable at the old inn, Mountain Storm. We find 4 bodies of cultists of the black harbinger buried underneath the floorboards of the inn... Dun dun dun!

3 November 2023 – Shadowed Keep