Governor's House
The name “Arkley” is carved into a wooden sign nailed next to the doorframe of this log cabin. A single, closed door faces northwest, and the structure has two wooden-shuttered windows. The architecture is otherwise the same as many of the other buildings.
The PCs should recognize the name Arkley, or specifically Rayland Arkley, as the leader of the first group of colonists who arrived on the Liberty’s Herald. The only door is shut and latched, but not barred. The inside of the house stands in contrast to most of the other buildings in the settlement in that it is relatively organized and tidy. It contains plain wooden furniture, with simple amenities such as wall racks for weapons and armor, a modest dining table and chairs, and a sitting chair with a makeshift cushion and footstool. A separate bedroom features a wooden bed frame and pallet mattress, a boot rack, and a large unlocked chest of folded clothes and other personal items. The entire house is a study in normalcy, though PCs who succeed at a DC 10 Survival check find just enough dust to ascertain that the house has not been entered for 3–4 weeks.
PCs who perform a careful search and succeed at a DC 18 Perception check have cause to glance upward, and spot the corner of a sheet of folded parchment resting on top of a crossbeam, 9 feet above the floor. If the PCs find a way to retrieve it (a chair or a hand up by an ally suffices), they discover that the parchment is actually four sheets that have been folded together and tightly creased. When unfolded, it proves to be the Talmandor’s Bounty colony charter. This legal document declares the island and the colony to be under the protection of the nation of Andoran, outlines the colony’s relationship to the Bountiful Venture Company, and enumerates the rights and responsibilities of all colonists. It bears the sealed signature of three members of the People’s Council, representatives of the Bountiful Venture Company, and every colonist that came aboard the Liberty’s Herald. The PCs should know these facts as part of the debriefing and disclosures given to all colonists, and in fact likely signed a similar document themselves before joining the colony. The document is important for historical and legal reasons but is not intrinsically valuable in itself; a duplicate charter remains in Almas.
This document should have been stored in the Government House, where it would be safe and Rayland Arkley would have access to it anytime he wanted. The charter’s presence here might puzzle some of the PCs, and in fact it ended up here by means of sinister subterfuge. The charter also doubles as a passenger manifest for the Liberty’s Herald, and the faceless stalker Thanaldhu kept the charter here as a checklist of the colonists while posing as the colony leader Rayland Arkley so he and the other faceless stalkers could keep track of who had been captured and who still remained on Ancorato. Once done with the town, Thanaldhu had no further use for the list and abandoned it. If you want to give the players a small clue, consider having the document have small check marks listed alongside the names of the colonists, but not the colony’s officials. Characters with access to the psychometry occult skill unlock might be able to get an impression from the document as to who possessed the document last; this would reveal Rayland Arkley instead of the faceless stalker Thanaldhu.
Treasure: PCs who succeed at a DC 15 Perception check to search the house (this can be the same check used to locate the charter) find a silver pocket watch in the cushions of one of the chairs. Such timepieces are rare in the Inner Sea region, and this one also functions as a compass. Study of the symbols on the watch’s face indicates it is of original Azlanti design, and it is amazingly still in working order. This device belonged to Thanaldhu, who misplaced it while pretending to be Rayland. It is worth 775 sp to a collector.
Additionally, tucked under the mattress in the bedroom is a traveling spellbook. Twenty-nine pages have been used, with 21 blank pages remaining. The book contains 10 0-level spells, eight 1st-level spells, and eight 2nd-level spells. The actual spells are left undeclared for you to determine, with one exception: the book definitely contains the cantrip arcane mark. Otherwise, the book is intended to allow you to grant arcane spellcasters new spells even while so far away from civilization. The book is worth 92 gp. Inside the front cover is an arcane mark that reads, “Hendrake.” If the PCs cross-reference this name with the charter, they find one of the colonists was named Una Hendrake. Additionally, a spell component pouch is tied to a brass ring bound into the spine of the book.
A PC who succeeds at a DC 10 Knowledge (local) check recalls from the information presented when joining the colony that Rayland Arkley was a former military man, not a spellcaster. Thanaldhu confiscated the book from one of his abductees and left it here with the intention of coming back to retrieve it.
The PCs should recognize the name Arkley, or specifically Rayland Arkley, as the leader of the first group of colonists who arrived on the Liberty’s Herald. The only door is shut and latched, but not barred. The inside of the house stands in contrast to most of the other buildings in the settlement in that it is relatively organized and tidy. It contains plain wooden furniture, with simple amenities such as wall racks for weapons and armor, a modest dining table and chairs, and a sitting chair with a makeshift cushion and footstool. A separate bedroom features a wooden bed frame and pallet mattress, a boot rack, and a large unlocked chest of folded clothes and other personal items. The entire house is a study in normalcy, though PCs who succeed at a DC 10 Survival check find just enough dust to ascertain that the house has not been entered for 3–4 weeks.
PCs who perform a careful search and succeed at a DC 18 Perception check have cause to glance upward, and spot the corner of a sheet of folded parchment resting on top of a crossbeam, 9 feet above the floor. If the PCs find a way to retrieve it (a chair or a hand up by an ally suffices), they discover that the parchment is actually four sheets that have been folded together and tightly creased. When unfolded, it proves to be the Talmandor’s Bounty colony charter. This legal document declares the island and the colony to be under the protection of the nation of Andoran, outlines the colony’s relationship to the Bountiful Venture Company, and enumerates the rights and responsibilities of all colonists. It bears the sealed signature of three members of the People’s Council, representatives of the Bountiful Venture Company, and every colonist that came aboard the Liberty’s Herald. The PCs should know these facts as part of the debriefing and disclosures given to all colonists, and in fact likely signed a similar document themselves before joining the colony. The document is important for historical and legal reasons but is not intrinsically valuable in itself; a duplicate charter remains in Almas.
This document should have been stored in the Government House, where it would be safe and Rayland Arkley would have access to it anytime he wanted. The charter’s presence here might puzzle some of the PCs, and in fact it ended up here by means of sinister subterfuge. The charter also doubles as a passenger manifest for the Liberty’s Herald, and the faceless stalker Thanaldhu kept the charter here as a checklist of the colonists while posing as the colony leader Rayland Arkley so he and the other faceless stalkers could keep track of who had been captured and who still remained on Ancorato. Once done with the town, Thanaldhu had no further use for the list and abandoned it. If you want to give the players a small clue, consider having the document have small check marks listed alongside the names of the colonists, but not the colony’s officials. Characters with access to the psychometry occult skill unlock might be able to get an impression from the document as to who possessed the document last; this would reveal Rayland Arkley instead of the faceless stalker Thanaldhu.
Treasure: PCs who succeed at a DC 15 Perception check to search the house (this can be the same check used to locate the charter) find a silver pocket watch in the cushions of one of the chairs. Such timepieces are rare in the Inner Sea region, and this one also functions as a compass. Study of the symbols on the watch’s face indicates it is of original Azlanti design, and it is amazingly still in working order. This device belonged to Thanaldhu, who misplaced it while pretending to be Rayland. It is worth 775 sp to a collector.
Additionally, tucked under the mattress in the bedroom is a traveling spellbook. Twenty-nine pages have been used, with 21 blank pages remaining. The book contains 10 0-level spells, eight 1st-level spells, and eight 2nd-level spells. The actual spells are left undeclared for you to determine, with one exception: the book definitely contains the cantrip arcane mark. Otherwise, the book is intended to allow you to grant arcane spellcasters new spells even while so far away from civilization. The book is worth 92 gp. Inside the front cover is an arcane mark that reads, “Hendrake.” If the PCs cross-reference this name with the charter, they find one of the colonists was named Una Hendrake. Additionally, a spell component pouch is tied to a brass ring bound into the spine of the book.
A PC who succeeds at a DC 10 Knowledge (local) check recalls from the information presented when joining the colony that Rayland Arkley was a former military man, not a spellcaster. Thanaldhu confiscated the book from one of his abductees and left it here with the intention of coming back to retrieve it.
