Adventure 2

It is now mid to late November; 2-3 months since Harrowstone prison burned down. In that time, the town of Ravengro trying to move on yet the town’s residents remember well the eerie prison caravans that carried monsters through the town. And none in Ravengro can ignore the brooding, dark ruin of the old prison that looms on the hill overlooking the town.

Jovan’s Last Will
The PCs returned to Ravengro to meet with Kendra Stillmark, the Professor Jovan Stillmark’s daughter. Jovan had left a letter for his daughter that instructed her to assume he had died if she had not heard from him in some time. His instructions detailed how to contact “his old friends” and charge them with several tasks: Purple book with brass scarab: This locked book is to be returned to Judge Embreth Daramid in Gladengries and was thoroughly examined by Obie. The keyhole looks to be a unique triangle shape and there is a thin glass vial that surrounds the edge of the book. A note attached to the book includes Judge Daramind’s address and instructions that the delivery should be handled discreetly On Verified Madness: This jet-black book is a treatise on aberrations and other entities found in the world that possess remote ties to the Outer Realms. To be delivered to Professor Montagnie Crowl of Gladengries University. Serving Your Hunger: This text is an unholy book to some evil goddess. Many pages include cannibalistic recipes. Stillmark’s notations liberally sprinkle the margins. To be delivered to Professor Montagnie Crowl of Gladengries University. The Umbral Leaves: This lexicon is a translation into Common of the unholy book of Zon-Kuthon. To be delivered to Professor Montagnie Crowl of Gladengries University. Professor Stillmark also requesting for the Party to spend 1 month in Ravengro to aid Kendra while she grieves. However, Kendra does not believe that her father is dead. Even though she followed her father’s instructions to the letter, she believes that Jovan is alive somewhere, undoubtedly in mortal danger. She informed them that she’ll need at least a few weeks to decide if she wants to sell her family home or remain here in Ravengro - in the meantime, as stipulated by the will, she asked the PCs to remain as well. She offered rooms in her spacious house for the PCs, promising them free room and board for the month the will requests them to remain in town.

Research
Jovan’s journal entries detailed his investigations into the cult known as the Whispering Court. In fact, he had uncovered some of their activities near the burned out prison. However, before returning to Harrowstone, the PCs researched the prison at the Temple of Gillena. Here’s what the PCs know:

Harrowstone
As Harrowstone was being built, Ravengro was founded at the same time as a place where guards and their families could live and that would produce food and other supplies used by the prison. The fire that killed all of the prisoners and most of the guards destroyed a large portion of the prison’s underground eastern wing, but left most of the stone structure above relatively intact. The prison’s warden perished in the fire, along with his wife, although no one knows why she was in the prison when the fire occurred. A statue commemorating the warden and the guards who lost their lives is being built on the riverbank just outside of town. During the PCs first night in town, someone had defaced this monument with a V written in blood. The townspeople could not scrub the letter away.

The Fire
Most of the hardened criminals sent to Harrowstone spent only a few months imprisoned, for it was here that most of Düsternis’s executions during that era were carried out. The fire that caused the tragedy was, in fact, a blessing in disguise, for the prisoners had rioted and gained control of the prison’s dungeons immediately prior to the conflagration. It was only through the self-sacrifice of Warden Hawkran and 25 of his guards that the prisoners were prevented from escaping - the guards gave their lives to save the town of Ravengro. The warden triggered a deadfall to seal the rioting prisoners in the lower level, but in so doing trapped himself and nearly two dozen guards. The prisoners were in the process of escaping when the panicked guards accidentally started the fire in a desperate attempt to end the riot.

The Five Prisoners
At the time Harrowstone burned, five particularly notorious criminals had recently arrived at the prison: Father Charlatan, the Lopper, the Mosswater Marauder, the Piper of Illlmarsh, and the Splatter Man. The PCs were able to research more detailed information on The Lopper, The Mosswater Marauder, and The Splatter Man.

The Lopper (Vance Saetressle): When the Lopper stalked prey, he would hide in the most unlikely of places, sometimes for days upon end with only a few supplies to keep him going while he waited for the exact right moment to strike. Once his target was alone, the Lopper would emerge to savagely behead his victim with a handaxe.

The Mosswater Marauder (Ispin Onyxcudgel): Only 5 years before his hometown of Mosswater was destined to be overrun and ruined by monsters from the nearby river, Ispin Onyxcudgel was a well-liked artisan and a doting husband. When he discovered his wife’s infidelity, he flew into a jealous rage and struck her dead with his hammer, shattering her skull and his sanity with one murderous blow. Wracked with shame and guilt, Ispin became convinced that if he could rebuild his wife’s skull she would come back to life - but unfortunately, he could not find the last blade-shaped fragment from the murder site. So instead, Ispin became the Mosswater Marauder. Over the course of several weeks, the cunning dwarf stalked and murdered nearly 20 people while searching for just the right skull fragment. He was captured just before murdering the daughter of a visiting nobleman from Varno, and was carted off to Harrowstone that same night.

The Splatter Man (Hean Feramin): Professor Feramin was a celebrated scholar of Anthroponomastics (the study of personal names and their origins) at the Quartrefaux Archives in Caliphas. Yet an accidental association with a succubus twisted and warped his study, turning it into an obsession. Feramin became obsessed with the power of a name and how he could use it to terrify and control. Soon enough, his reputation was ruined, he’d lost his tenure, and he’d developed an uncontrollable obsession with an imaginary link between a person’s name and what happens to that name when the person dies. Every few days, he would secretly arrange for his victim to find a letter from her name written in blood, perhaps smeared on a wall or spelled out with carefully arranged entrails. Once he had spelled his victim’s name, he would at last come for her, killing her in a gory mess using a complex trap or series of rigged events meant to look like an accident.