Cult of Undeath Supercut—FINALLY!

"Akron Erix"

At the last minute, I'm considering a significant change to the Cult of Undeath plan that I have. I think that I'll probably not make the change, but I'll briefly describe it before I move on. The main reason not to do it is that being on an island surrounded by saltwater is important to the adventure that I'm thinking of adapting as a substitute for the Strangers column on the 5x5 Front, so I think I'm going to save it for one of the two 5x5s that I've thought of that have sailing on the open ocean as part of their M.O. already; TERROR IN TIMISCHBURG and CURSE OF THE CORSAIR COAST. One of the two of them will do it quite well.

That is an adaptation of the second part of the Second Darkness Adventure Path ("Children of the Void"); the actual adventure part of which I just read. The Second Darkness AP is not super well regarded, although a big part of that is the major tone shift that happens at some point after this adventure, which means that as far as content goes in the AP, it's not as well known, so adapting it requires less modification to disguise its ultimate source. As a kind of Aliens/Predator rip-off in fantasy drag, the module is actually quite good, and it certainly fits my nearly horror-themed vibe quite well. I was so enamored of the module as one that I could take out of its context and adapt it to be used as a stand-alone front that I even modified one of my earlier images to be the NPC Akron Erix from this adventure; although I'll likely rename him. He was a monk/fighter, but this is still a 3.5 product. In my own 3.5/PF1e hybrid, of course he'd be a brawler.

Anyway, I can get to that front when I do the 5x5 that ends up including it. I think the idea of replacing the Devil's Elbow with one of the islands of the Nizrekh Archipelago, and therefore being part of the Terror in Timischburg seems like a good place for it, but then again, I have a little bit more in mind for that 5x5 Front than I do for Curse of the Corsair Coast so far. Although what exactly I'll have my guys doing on Nizrekh is pretty wide open, so that's what I'm favoring right now. That said, I'll likely defer the Stranger front to another 5x5 anyway; if I add the "Kastor Lieberung" routine to this campaign, that's worth being considered its own front already, meaning that the Strangers can become part of some other front. I still have several more I need to adapt, after all. I think putting that one in the so far undeveloped MIND-WIZARDS OF THE DAEMON WASTES works quite well, so provisionally I'll consider that the plan.

With that said, let's move on to the actual Cult of Undeath supercut, i.e., let's make a full enough outline of what I want to do with this campaign that I could actually sit down in the near future and run it, if it comes to that. And, honestly, it may. I've talked a bit before about the gaming environment where I am right now, and there's a good likelihood that within weeks, or at most a couple of months, I'll be asked to run something, and I want to be prepared for it when it happens. As I said in some other earlier posts, this resembles more an outline for a traditional campaign rather than a 5x5 Front, even though it started as a 5x5. The fronts got sufficiently intertwined that it doesn't really feel like one exactly anymore. That's OK as long as I keep this outline fairly high level and know that I have a strong tendency and likelihood of making modifications to it as I go, depending on PC actions and interest; although of course, like I've also said before, I usually tend to be able to predict pretty accurately what players are likely to want to do.

To begin, the PCs will be in the town of Bridgetown, crossing the Humber River. There, they are friends with Professor Anton von Lechfeld, a respectable retired professor (although not that old; maybe late 40s early 50s) from Mittermarkt originally who lives in a rather stately row house with his seventeen year old daughter Revecca. He's widowed, but a few staff live with him; a butler, a cook and a housekeeper, at the very least. Strange things start going on in Bridgetown. Bad things. Murders. This will be a pretty much straight-forward adaptation of the Freeport module "Curse of the Brine Witch" in which a strange "daemonic" entity from Carcosa or Yuggoth or some-such, that takes on the identity—by accident—of a local superstition of the Brine Witch, which will be adapted to the Blackwater Hag, Blackwater Killer or Blackwater Reaper in local superstition. (I'm not saying that I can't choose between them. I think all of them are variations on the same theme that the locals could use.) I quite like the idea of the black sand side effect, although I have less use for it than the ties that it eventually has to the Return to Freeport campaign, although here I'm going to suggest that the black sand will show traces of alien substance of some kind and the problems that that can cause in driving people towards mutation and insanity... although the quantities left behind in the black sand isn't sufficient by itself to do more than cause nightmares and unsettling feelings and occasional hallucinations or minor sickness. Von Lechfeld is probably the only person in town who is qualified to identify it as some kind of Far Realm or Dark Tapestry, or Black Void Behind the Stars or whatever I call it entity that's actually committing the murders. But why is it here, and who brought it? The von Szell cult, obviously has done it, and they've actually done it to target von Lechfeld himself, although they don't know that yet, they just know that Pandallo's Periapt is in town somewhere and they're using the Blackwater Reaper's ability to hone in on the magical energy from beyond the stars to close in on von Lechfeld. The first part here will end as the PCs defeat the Blackwater Hag only to discover that von Lechfeld has passed away himself. Loriana Stefanescu, a daemonologist who summoned the Blackwater Killer had identified him as the owner of the periapt. She's also summoned an invisible killer of some kind that murdered the professor while they were dealing with her Blackwater thingy. However, because they returned quickly, she was not able to enter the house and recover the periapt before they returned, and the invisible killer turned out to be more than she could really handle, so she can't attempt to summon one again for quite some time. So, the professor is dead, putting us very close to the situation in which the actual Carrion Crown campaign starts although in a very different context. The PCs are staying at the professor's house when he turns up dead, and as in the original that I'm basing this on, they'll be in his will; stick around for the funeral and until Revecca's legal guardian, her uncle Bertram Vogt de Heselholt (on her mother's side) can get here to assume responsibility for Revecca, since she's not yet of legal majority. But nobody has been sent to summon him yet when things start happening. There's be some dodge Lovecraftian books that they're supposed to take to Mittermarkt and return to his old friend Werner Otten. Actually, that's also were Uncle Bertie is from; let's assume that they're all making plans to accompany Revecca and the books there.

While preparing and waiting for the official disposition of the will, etc., all kinds of strange things will happen, haunts, maybe imps, etc. This is Loriana using lesser magic to try and get into the house and steal the periapt, which of course has been her entire goal. This part of the campaign will end when the professor's grave is desecrated; of course, he was buried with the periapt, because he wore it as a talisman around his neck. Loriana discovered this, robbed his grave and left town. This will be the PCs' cue to get out of Bridgetown too, as they follow in the wake of the stolen periapt. They don't know what it's about yet, but I'll make sure that they know where these guys went, so that they can follow them.  The PCs will need to speak to Otten, and warn him that this cult of grave-robbers, whomever they are, is after him. Plus, Uncle Bertie is in Mittermarkt, so it's a convenient trip to take with Revecca too as noted just above. Buh-bye to Bridgetown.

Sadly. I need to come up with reasons in subsequent campaigns to use that place again.

Two additional fronts get attention during the journey—I always like to make journeys feel like journeys. While traveling on the forest road, the Grendlings of the Haunted Forest; who usually stay farther to the West in the more remote sections seem to be agitated and bands of them are causing trouble, attacking their group. And not just them; strange spirits of the forest (the name, after all) seem to be agitated as well. The reality is the passing of the periapts with Loriana has stirred them up and caused this trouble. There doesn't necessarily need to be any resolution to this front. It's just something that has to be survived. They'll be repeatedly attacked during the journey, they'll find evidence of other groups that have been attacked, they'll hear ominous drumming deep in the forest, etc. It might be easier for them, both because they'll be more intimidating and be attacked less, and because if they are attacked they'll have more force to bring to bear, if they travel with another caravan or group, but if not, that's fine too. Here, I think, is where it's appropriate for them to find the wreck of the coach carrying Aidan van der Walt, the "Kastor Lieberung" person; a dead-ringer for one of the characters, and the supposed heir of an estate in southern Timischburg, in Ruthven County, on the edges of the Bitterwood Forest not far from the prosperous but of strange rumor and report city of Gaskarfells. 

Savage Grendlings, devolving as they do into man-apes

Perhaps they find Aidan nearly at the end of the forest, when the road goes up over Crow's Notch Pass, where they leave the Grendling threats behind. Maybe they've even beat back enough Grendlings that their agitation is ended and they retreat back into the deeper woods to lick their wounds. I don't know. It depends on what they do. Either way, this marks a change in the journey. Now they're meeting cultists who are attempting to communicate with them, and wearing notable accents of saffron. This front will play out much as it does in the Enemy Within campaign; the cultists start to get more and more insistent, and it's clear that they think that the PC who looks like Aidan van der Walt really is Aidan van der Walt, and that he's gone off the reservation somehow and betrayed them, trying to stiff the cult and run off with the inheritance. The barrister office in Mittermarkt is, as in Enemy Within, a trap with a bounty hunter and a daemon, but Gaskarfells really is a real place, of course, and there are clues that they need to go there. Not only that, they will need to uncover a cache of fellshard weapons; they'll need them shortly to deal with the Otten beast, but also with the daemons and undead that they're likely to encounter the rest of the campaign.

The order of a couple of things is TBD. There are things that will happen in Mittermarkt. Whether they happen before a trip to Gaskarfells or not I don't know. There are reasons to set them later. Let me first talk about Gaskarfells. 

While in Gaskarfells, they will find that the town is in a bit of trouble, and is somewhat under siege. Ghouls and even proto-vampires are assailing anyone coming or going from the city. Even the farmers are struggling, and most are now living inside city limits. The pseudomage necromancers of Gaskarfells have redirected some of the undead workers to work on the farms so that the city isn't starved out by these attacks, but that, of course, impacts the production of magic items, which is Gaskarfells main economic activity.

What exactly is going on, and what's driving these attacks? Well, there are ghouls, of course. Where else does a proto-vampire come from? These ghouls are mostly coming from deep in the wildest reaches of the Bitterwood both because they're drawn by more plentiful prey, and are drawn by the corruption of the fellshard ore, although this is subconscious. The leader of the ghouls is not just a proto-vampire, he's now advanced to becoming an actual vampire, but because he's a feral one, he's completely outside of the hierarchy of Timischburg's vampire population. This individual, the feral vampire, is Velgar Tzarnik and he has a small hierarchy of proto-vampire lieutenants; Rask, Kroven, Morvak, and Volach.

However, there is a minor noble vampire in Gaskarfells already, and he's not amused at the rise of this feral vampire attempting to destroy Gaskarfells, which is an important strategic resource for the vampires and the human nobles alike (remember, that the vampires operate kind of like a Deep State. Most of the nobility at least suspect their existence, if not actually know it, but they don't really interact directly with it. Plenty of people in Timischburg think that the idea that a cabal of vampire deep state agents actually run the country is a wild conspiracy theory. It just happens to be true.) This vampire is Dietmar von Hohenstahl and he could actually be a patron of sorts for the PCs, since he needs some help ending the threat of Tzarnik's attacks on shipments out of the town.

Of course, the head of the pseudomage/necromancer/artificer's guild is actually less happy about an overbearing vampire noble (who's being coy about being a vampire, but this guy knows) in "his" town attempting to run things his way when Gaskarfells was running smoothly without him before than he is about the feral vampire attacking from the countryside. This is Roderich von Szarad, and he's a powerful mover and shaker in his own right, without being a vampire (in fact, he's researching turning himself into a lich instead!) Although none of these three is a "good guy"; but what's best for the regular folks in town? That's up to the PCs to decide, I suppose. Probably letting von Szarad get back to running things the way he used to. But maybe taking him out so a successor who isn't so obviously crazy that he wants to become a lich is the way to go? This three way power struggle means that either of the two in town could be seeking to have the PCs as agents against not only the feral vampire and his ghouls, who have increased in numbers tremendously in the last few weeks (or so it seems).

Potential sites of interest: A) a camp or lair or something in the woods on the swamp boundary where Tzarnik and his ghouls are. B) von Hohenstahl's lair in a manor in town, or at least near town. C) the necromancer guild house, where von Szarad is trying to turn himself into a lich. D) deep lairs under the city where Kholgorath, the Watcher Beneath the Clay lurks, made somewhat self-aware or at least awake by the corruption of the fellshard ore. The undead are being drawn subconsciously by this Elder Evil wanting to essentially birth itself into "undead fullness", which is the real threat lurking behind the feral vampires and the cultured one both, as well as part of what drove von Szarad to undead related madness. Can the PCs defeat a nascent "Elder Evil"? I dunno. I like the idea of it being out there, whether they actually do or not, though.

Dietmar von Hohenstahl

A Gaskarfells pseudomage necromancer

Meanwhile, back in Mittermarkt, Loriana needs to steal something else, from a museum, the Gol-Goroth Swamp Idol. There have been rumors of murders and attacks by some kind of monster in town for some time, but the attack on the museum was more brazen than most; the monster was clearly seen, clearly killed some guards, and someone else associated with the attack was caught on the scene, unconscious. Revecca! Of course, she's been framed; she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Loriana thought it ironic and fitting that she take the blame, so she made it look like she was the witch controlling the monster rather than, of course, herself. The PCs get back in town with barely time to spare before Uncle Bertie, beside himself, asks for their help. The magistrate knows its unlikely Revecca is to blame, but the mob is determined to see her pay, so it's going to be a tight walk to clear her name and find out what really happened without riling them up. 

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 has attacked people on the road into town, and more recently in town itself, prior to the museum attack. Research on Werner Otten's papers will suggest that the stolen periapt's undead suppression ability can work on the monster. 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—unless they've got fellshard weapons from Gaskarfells.

Otten can't be consulted in person, however—he 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 his ruined home and office are portions of communications with Lechfeld from previously about the periapt. The remaining portions are found in the monster'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 directly 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 is a bit of a sorcerer himself, and he's the one who's been given authority to dominate the monster and work in Loriana's behalf, but the PCs will eventually find this out while investigating to clear Revecca's name.

What's left of Werner Otten

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 Anton, 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 (Bartal Roziak and Francor Torsail) have been dispatched to kidnap her already and probably kill Uncle Bertie. 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 Revecca isn't 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 the next and final destination in this campaign.

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 Gol-Goroth, some kind of early Atlantean-era (if not earlier) creature that is best left alone. I'm a little over the "bring back some ancient evil" plot lines, but at the same time, it's such a classic, and works particularly well in a Gothic and Cosmic Horror themed game. This is the main finale of the main plotline of the campaign.

But that's not, of course, the only thing going on in Eltdown concurrently. Eltdown is a place on my map that stands at the gap between the Knifetop Mountains in the south and the Sabertooth Mountains in the north. While this is "on paper" the border region between the Hill Country and Timischburg, the reality is that neither nation controls, nor even has much interest in the region of Eltdown. It would seem that Eltdown would be a regular trade route between the two, but for a variety of reasons, it's actually not. Rather, there's more traffic up the river through Timischburg to Mittermarkt, and from there across well-traveled overland routes, over some relatively gentle low passes in the southern Sabertooths (like Crow Notch Pass, which they've already probably used) skirting around the southern edge of the Haunted Forest and from thence to Barrowmere. This is a change from what I've previously published, where I implied or even stated in vague terms that the Fenroad was the only reliable route; I now consider the Fenroad to be an alternate with an evil reputation; in fact, the Fenroad has fallen in many cases to disuse and disrepair because of the opening of safer routes over lower passes. Eltdown has, therefore become a bit more of a backwater than it already was. There is still some traffic between Barrowmere and the hamlets and towns of southeastern Timischburg on the Fenroad, and some even travel between Barrowmere and Mittermarkt on the Fenroad, but not much. It is—in theory—faster than going over the mountain passes, even if the passes are relatively easy, and certainly in the dead of winter when the passes might be snowed in, the Fenroad is the only good choice, but the Fenroad is known to be dangerous and undesirable. Eltdown itself has a reputation as a grim backwater best avoided, and the Fens have a fell notoriety, and the quality of the road is poor, which could negate whatever benefit there is for crossing the lower road instead of the passes—even in the winter.

The Fens themselves are, of course, soggy and reeking of decay as rotten grasses and sedges gradually turn into peat. Heavy brush, matted grasses, bushes and low-growing or choked out trees are also common, and the Eltdown Fens are infamous for being almost constantly socked in with persistent thick fog. Sullen and unfriendly swampies, of uncertain ethnic origin live in small hamlets along the Fenroad, and even maintain a few stops for travelers, and they have more farmers, hunters, and swampie relatives who live a bit further from the road, but nobody human goes very deep into the fens, and what exactly is lurking in the center is the subject of garbled rumor and legend. 

Of course, column #1: The Murder of Anton von Lechfeld, has its finale in the fens themselves; that's where Otto von Szell and Loriana Stefanescu are hiding out, because they're trying to awaken Gol-Goroth. That's part of what lurks in the center of the swamps; the half-buried city that was destroyed by Gol-Goroth eons ago, and where he still lingers in torpor or hibernation, or death or whatever exactly his status is. But there's more to the fens than just this, and this column highlights more of the dangers of the Fens. Clever or enterprising PCs could even, potentially, get this "cult of the reptile god" and the cultists of von Szell to cross paths; they're not likely to be amicable or happy with each other's agendas, although the PCs would have to put some real effort into actually getting to the "let's you and him fight" solution to dealing with either of them. The cultists do have enough discipline to not jeopardize their agendas fighting another unrelated cult that happens to share geography. But it remains a potential idea for enterprising PCs to even the odds against both cults from both columns.

Eltdown itself is a pretty sinister place, and many of the people who live there are part of a cult called the Learned Children of Heqeteh. Heqeteh is a blinded medusa, who in spite of the fact that (because she's been blinded in her main eyes) she can't turn anyone to stone, she can dominate them instead and the dominated gradually start to take on snake traits as the domination fades, so that they become willing cultists. The snakemen also mate with some of the people of Eltdown, and as in Innsmouth of the Lovecraft story, they will eventually, as adults, turn into snakemen, although they first spend time as human-looking, albeit sometimes with funny features. Passers-by attribute these funny-looking features to the ethnically mysterious background of the Eltdowners combined with inbreeding that sometimes happens in small, backwoods places, so the truth is not suspected. In any case, these cultists don't really like strangers much, and most of the rumors about the Fenroad actually are attributable to Eltdown. The PCs might be accosted to be kidnapped and taken before Heqeteh on the road into or out of Eltdown, or if they look like trouble-makers, they might be accosted at night in their lodgings in town. (I'd give them a chance to escape before being taken to Heqeteh; that's more of a finale after they've been working the reptile cult for some time.)

Secondly, the PCs might well discover others who have been kidnapped by the snake cult (cult of the reptile god!) Some of them are beyond saving; they've either been too converted into snake people themselves to be savable, or they've been blinded as part of a sacrificial ritual (makes sense for a blind medusa) and temporarily enslaved until they can be killed. Many of these are in town, and I anticipate that there's a lot of work to do to clean up the town, or at least save some of the people in town who aren't already cultists.

Thirdly, some of the smaller villages might be under attack by cultists too, or people have been kidnapped in large numbers, etc. A small swampie village called Rael Kernal could face an all out assault, if you want to just have a good, tense combat. If you want the whole thing to be more sinister than an all out assault, on the other hand, you could have snakes or burrowing snake-men attacking more surreptitiously. Depends on how you need the game to play out at this juncture if you're running it; is a more straightforward defense of a village what you need, or a desperate attempt to root out hidden enemies that you can't see coming? Alien vs Aliens, so to speak. They can also both be done, which would make this block three and four, I guess.

Fourth, and this is the last one of what is a slightly abbreviated column, the PCs would presumably root out the cult by entering the fens, finding Heqeteh's temple or lair, and killing her. Maybe they do something else with her, but I'm going to assume that by far the most likely result is that's how they handle it. Especially if they've had NPCs that they liked who were blinded or killed, or if they were themselves captured at some point. Most PCs I've known are motivated at least as much by revenge as by anything else. 

Maybe there can be a fifth element as an epilogue too; what to do with the cultists? Most of them are irredeemable, many of the captives are maimed; but some of the snake cultists, because of the domination effect of Heqeteh, are victims rather than monsters. Of course, the PCs might say; "we beat the bad guy; the clean-up is on you now." And they might even have good reasons for doing so, because the rest of the campaign 5x5 of Cult of Undeath isn't sitting around waiting for them to set up the Eltdown Charity or whatever. But I'll leave open the idea that Eltdown has been decimated, and if it's even possible to recover is not clear, without some help or intervention from someone. 

I actually kind of like the idea that if the PCs decide that they can't help Eltdown and move on that some other group of NPCs, maybe even my thoroughly despicable anti-PC group, comes in after them, sets something up, and even claims credit for liberating the town. Maybe it will eventually come out that these anti-PCs were allied with Heqeteh's cult all along. I did mention that they're the worst, right? Terrible, terrible people. I don't actually intend to set them up as an enemy to be confronted in this 5x5, but I still like the idea. When they show up in some other 5x5, if that's what happens, the PCs will automatically hate them.

Otherwise, though, I'll just keep the last box empty for now. I'm sure in play something will suggest itself.