Cult of Undeath: Front #1: The Murder of Professor Alpon von Lechfeld

OK, I’ve brainstormed, I’ve modified; let’s see if I have what it takes now to create a fully fledged Front #1: The Murder of Alpon von Lechfeld.

Just a quick aside; you may well remember that in Shadows Over Garenport, von Lechfeld is not only a potential contact, but he also plays a role in the second front, where he’ll need to be consulted most likely as a subject matter expert on the Tazitta cults. While it’s possible that the PCs can skip this entire thing and not meet him, I suspect that getting his expert opinion and knowledge will be so obvious a step that it will be done without much fanfare, which is fun to me, because it sets up some early foreshadowing for Cult of Undeath. The PCs will become friendly, or at least friendly enough with him through actual play to justify what happens in Cult of Undeath. Even if they don’t like each other, I think von Lechfeld will respect their ability to do certain things in the fight against the Shadow, where he is as active a warrior in his own way as the PCs are. It also gives the PCs a chance to meet Revecca. Only Dominic, the iconic character is likely to have her fall for him in a major crush kind of way, but you never know. Maybe one of the actual PCs will end up in the same boat. 

Alpon von Lechfeld

Revecca von Lechfeld

In any case, the PCs start Cult of Undeath in Cockrill’s Hill, which was a location in Shadows Over Garenport, at the von Lechfeld country estate. Alpon has died, and they’ve been called to the funeral to act as pallbearers and minor heirs in his will. I’ll actually give the PCs some minor cool things, but they’ll be minor. One condition, taken from the original adventure written by Paizo (one of the few things from Carrion Crown that’s still been retained) is that they need to stick around for a few weeks making sure that Revecca’s affairs are in order; she’s underage and single, but an uncle who Alpon trusted is on his way to make sure that she’s taken care of long term (Bertram Vogt de Heselholt). The PCs, however, are tasked as part of the will and part of receiving the inheritance that they’ve been promised, with keeping an eye on her until he shows up.

Things start going badly in town almost right away. Ghosts, haunts and other supernatural freaky things start happening. The graveyard is disturbed. The challenge for the PCs will be twofold; who’s running around mucking stuff up, and how to put down the supernatural hauntings. Well… threefold. The townsfolk are getting agitated and have decided that von Lechfeld is some kind of necromancer or vampire or other undead tormenting the town after his death. It turns out that his grave has been despoiled, and Pandallo’s Preternatural Periapt, which was buried with him, has been stolen. I’ve got lots of creepy vignettes to add here, but also, the actual facing down of thugs around town, ghouls prowling the graveyard, and especially the ghosts and haunts is a major part of this part of the campaign. They can also first hear the name Otto von Szell here from some ghost or other, or something like that.

Research into the periapt will start to uncover its properties, although that will most likely involve a trip to Mittermarkt and consultation with sages and scholars there, in particular Werner Otten. While in Mittermarkt, the whole Beast situation will turn up. This is a Frankenstein flesh golem/zombie that is running around killing people. The first deaths happened at little farming hamlets outside of town, like Ebenbach, and it will turn out, of course, that that’s where the beast is hiding. But it’s attacked people on the road into town, and more recently in town itself. The same research into the periapt will also indicate that the undead suppression can work on the Beast. There’s a one-off undead suppression ritual that should cause it to lose its animating energy. It’d otherwise likely be beyond the capabilities of the PCs to defeat.

Otten was killed earlier, and part of his body was used to create this golem. He’s actually been dead for weeks, maybe even months now. But items in its pockets are portions of communications with Lechfeld from previously about the periapt. The remaining portions are found in the Beast’s “lair”. They will point to communications received from a suspicious character in Eltdown, which is where the name Otto von Szell will come up.

Also, while exploring this countryside just out of town, they’ll find evidence of missing persons not related to the Otten-beast. Tarushan gypsies have been kidnapping isolated or helpless people for some time and taking them to Dragos Tihomir in a town even smaller than Ebenbach called Tiganbruck. The gypsy camp, that moves back and forth from Tiganbruck to Mittermarkt, often with new victims in tow, was feeding them to Dragos, a modified wight with some spells and special attacks here and there. Of course, there will be sneaky gypsies to fight as well; in fact, I think the first thing that will happen is that they are ambushed by gypsies, who are adept at separating the PCs from each other and attempting to bring just one or two of them to Dragos.

Dragos

Presuming that the PCs follow the clues to Eltdown, they will find spies and cultists who worked with or for Loriana Stefanescu, maybe even Bartal Roziak and Francor Torsail. Not quite sure yet exactly how I’ll dole out these clues, but they’ll discover that Stefanescu has discovered that the periapt isn’t useable properly by just anyone; it was keyed to Alpon, and his death has made the periapt unreliable. The only solution is someone in his direct bloodline, and the only person that applies to is Revecca. Agents have been dispatched to kidnap her already. It isn’t my intention that the PCs would stop or interrupt this kidnapping, but depending on what they actually manage to do, maybe it could happen, I suppose. Either way, they know that she’s not safe until the threat is blunted. They’ll hear more of von Szell, who hopefully by now they realize is seriously bad news, and they're either motivated by intense dislike or fear of this guy. Eltdown is also a nexus for at least two other fronts in the 5x5, so I don’t need this to be a particularly meaty line, because they’ll be plenty of other things to do by then in the area.

Roziak and Torsail

Eltdown

Stefanescu

Either by rescuing Revecca or preventing her kidnapping entirely, or whatever, the PCs will finally face Stefanescu, her two skilled Tarushan gypsy thugs, and some undead and bad black magic. But the periapt itself has been sent deep into the Fens near Eltdown, where Otto von Szell intends to use it to try and revivify Bokrug the Water-Lizard, some kind of early Atlantean-era (if not earlier—maybe the Atlanteans will be like the people of Sarnath in this case) creature that is best left alone. Not sure exactly what this big showdown will be like, but it’ll be the conclusion of the entire front.

Reanimated Bokrug