2023-05-13 Vampire in Greyhaven
Player Characters
- Wiznt
- Balasar
- Val & Soonie
- Tarhun
- Grey
Summary
The party researched vampires in advance. They wisely decided to bring some holy water.
They traveled to the ruins of the fallen city-state of Greyhaven. They traveled past farms and picked off straggling undead.
They entered the enormous iron front doors of the walled city. The streets were dark from the unnatural gloom overhead, and the giant walls blotted out the rest of the world.
A headless angel statue with open arms seemed to welcome them in. Its partially damaged nameplate, written in celestial, contained the name "Ophanim". Balasar detected divination magic on the angel's grounded stone head, and identified that it was a scrying sensor for someone.
Val and Wiznt wandered through nearby shops and pillaged items and money that had been left behind by the now-abandoned city. Occasionally they would have to destroy a zombie or ghoul.
Tarhun found a map of the city displayed on a cylindrical pedestal.
The party decided to travel toward the noble district. Along the way, Wiznt sensed undead moving about nearby.
The PCs arrived at a wrough iron gate leading into the noble district. Several ornate mansions sat upon the elevated streets, fenced off from adjacent parts of town. As they moved toward the gate, Four people appeared on nearby rooftops: Aranja, Jill, Jack, and James. Aranja taunted the party and told them to surrender. As the fight broke out, flameskulls floated over to aid the four vampire spawns against the party. During the fight, Aranja called out for help from "the master".
The PCs destroyed the undead assailants, and sprinkled holy water on the flameskulls to prevent their regrowth.
Val picked the lock to enter the gate to the noble district. The party rushed in, hoping to rest before "the master" arrived. In a central crossroad they found another Ophanim statue, this one vandalized with paint. One stone brick in its base contained a hand-carved symbol resembling a winged wheel; behind this brick was a hidden journal. The journal was written by someone named Caim, who wrote about becoming the captain of a force called the Ethereal Guard.
Balasar began to cast tiny hut, but was interrupted as a well-dressed nobleman strutted into the street with a small entourage of humans and flameskulls. The man introduced himself as Muverel Stockland, a proud and successful businessman. He talked about how his business had succeeded back in Greyhaven's prime despite the Ethereal Guard who fought to protect the city. He described the Guard as self-righteous meddlers and failures, who impeded his work and played favorites among the city's industries. Grey began the fight in response to Stockland's words.
During the battle, Stockland used his vampiric charm to turn Tarhun to his side. Balasar trapped the vampire in a forcecage and canceled out the charm with dominate person. The party eliminated the vampire's spawn and flameskulls.
Balasar dropped the forcecage. Stockland taunted the party, calling them insignificant peasants as they fought. Ultimately the party destroyed him, turning him into mist. As the misted vampire fled back to his resting place, Balasar destroyed it with sunbeam.
The PCs collected jewelry, a key, and a crumpled parchment with a riddle. They moved into a nearby noble manor to rest.
The party scoured the noble district. Much of it was destroyed and looted. They found a large safe, which Val managed to pick open to find lots of gold. This manor had the same insignia as Stockland's garb: an image of the sun shining over a mountain. (The key would have opened the safe.)
They found the Lord's Manor outside the noble district to be thoroughly vandalized. The hindsight lens showed vampire spawn, including the ones seen earlier, trashing the place and painting crude symbols and messages on the walls. Inside the manor, a brick in the fireplace had the winged wheel symbol. Behind the brick was another journal, also written by Caim. The journal mentioned the Bazen War and the necromancer general.
The party traveled to the pillared marble Hall of Honor. Circular staircases led to the wall-less dome-topped building, in which statues of six revered heroes stood proudly. The statues were vandalized, and only one nameplate was barely readable: Caim. Its face was familiar but too worn to recognize.
Val found another hidden journal marked by the winged wheel. In the journal, Caim forsook the Ethereal Guard and Ophanim. Upon hearing the text, Grey seized and burned the journal, then marched into the rectangular back room. The party followed him.
The back room contained a few doors, an ornate open casket, several sets of noble clothing, and a tall mirror. The party saw their reflections as they entered. Balasar's reflection showed red wispy thorned tendrils reaching out of his ruby ring and into his mind. Tarhun's reflection obsessed madly over a primal crystal.
Grey's reflection was instead Ophanim, the angel the party had seen in so many statues. Ophanim addressed him as Caim, and asked him what had happened to the city, how he could have failed to defend it. "Grey" Caim shot back that Ophanim had vanished and left the city in its moment of greatest need. The two argued over who carried more guilt over the fall of Greyhaven. Ophanim stated that he sensed darkness in Caim, and that he could help, but he was trapped in the mirror. If Caim would give up his last shred of divinity and give it to the mirror, Ophanim could escape and help him. Caim begrudgingly accepted- but something else happened. The reflection's appearance changed, revealing an alien green eye in a dark abyss. The reflection was an illusion created by the Voice of the Deep, and Caim had fallen for its trick, willingly giving in to the final stage of its corruption. The mirror grew tendrils, grabbed Caim, and pulled him into it, before returning to its nonmagical state.
Left alone in quiet, the remaining party members searched the room. One back door was locked and contained ten buttons. The other doors contained dead desiccated corpses, except for one thoroughly chained man with pale skin. When they talked to him, he claimed he was Ophanim, and asked them to free him so that he could help smite the vampire.
The party released the man and told him how they had already destroyed the vampire. Ophanim believed he had heard Caim's voice moments earlier, and looked around to find him. The party filled him in on what had happened. The angel was saddened by this, as he thought he might have the chance to speak to Caim again.
The party talked to Ophanim for a while, learning more about Greyhaven and the world:
- The Ethereal Guard were tasked with destroying undead that wandered out of the Haunted Realm, protecting southern Archestria.
- During the Bazen War, the necromancer general led undead in a siege against Greyhaven. Caim, leader of the Ethereal Guard, eventually gave in and accepted the Voice's offer, resulting in a powerful pulse of dark energy throughout the city. This destroyed the attacking army, but turned the city's people into undead themselves.
- Ophanim had indeed left Greyhaven during the war. He was trying to lead an offensive against Bazen Castle in the hopes of ending the war.
- Ophanim was preoccupied with his mission for years. When he returned to Greyhaven a few years after its fall, he was captured by vampire Muverel.
- Ophanim remembered Muverel Stockland: a greedy businessman who ran a shipping company. Stockland blamed the Ethereal Guard when his shipments were attacked by undead, but cut corners on security costs himself.
- The party told him they lived in the Bazen Kingdom, but had no political affiliation there. They didn't even know the current king's name. No other wars happened since the Bazen War.
- Angels exist in Archestria, but are sparse and rare. Ophanim is not in close contact with any of them. They materialized during Origination, just like humanoidkind.
- Ophanim declined Wiznt's request for a scryable body part, fearing it could fall into the wrong hands.
- The angel's current plan is to travel to the Spirit Tree to meditate on what to do next. He agreed to visit the party members in Salmund in about 1 month.
- Ophanim doesn't remember the code to the vault, but recalls there was a riddle that clued what order to push the buttons in. The buttons were supposed to be pushed in pairs. The riddle was indeed the paper held by the vampire.
Ophanim left the Hall of Honor.
In the vampire's coffin, the party found a strange piece of smooth stone with mechanical parts and inscribed runes.
The party solved the riddle and opened the vault, finding magic items and a silver statue of Caim.
The party teleported home. After a long rest, they teleported to the base of Howlpeak, near the entrance to the Ancient Laboratory and the base of the zigzag staircase. They climbed the staircase to the platform below the mountain's summit.
Upon the platform was a large brazier-like stone pedestal with runes and a gear mechanism. Four thin rods protrude upward, as if holding something in place. The device seemed to be missing five pieces, however.
The strange runic object the party took from the vampire fit into one of the missing sections.
They had a decent view of the Haunted Realm, despite the gloomy clouds and ubiquitous mist. Village ruins were dotted all about, and the Haunted Castle stood near the center. To the north, on the edge of the savanna, an unknown town sat next to a great pyramid. To the east, a village stood on the base of the mountains, oddly positioned on the slope. This particular village seemed to move and change when the PCs weren't looking at it. To the south, past the lake, a dark haze swirled over the edge of the Shadowglade. A single bright piercing light twinkled within the dark, as if beckoning them.
"May our divine force strike true..."
"...as sure as the sun shines through."
Documents found
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