I think I'll try something new, too. I'm posting my preparation notes below to see both how that works and in the off chance anyone has helpful thoughts.
Time matters to sync with prior events.
- 0700 – 0730: All is calm, party eating breakfast after the events at the Stoa. Null has been chastised by Juomo.
0730 – 7:40: Commotion in marketplace as Basilisk is let loose, fireball at Preston’s wagon at end.
0740- 0800: Order of Aurelius investigates events at the zoo and fireball; party interrogates Preston before heading into the pocket dimension
0830: Party enters pocket dimension; Order of Aurelius arrives outside Stoa questioning witnesses further about the fireball.
0845: Captain Zeno arrives at Stoa to join guards, and to specifically question Juomo since only Zeno knows that Juomo is also Jai Tum and situations with Juomo can be politically sensitive. Captain Zeno will wait with Juomo for party to return out of the pocket dimension. A squad of 13 spearmen will also be within earshot if he calls for them. Four will be standing outside the Stoa from this time until it makes sense for them to leave for reasons yet to be determined. Remainder will be inside the tavern occupying tables.
Characters
Null – Aasimar Oath Breaker Paladin. Father ordered him killed by Sire Bedivere but he did not finish the job due to his having genuine attachment to Null that kept him from slicing his throat. He had taught Null, including teaching him to never leave a violent enemy at one’s back without assuring oneself they will not rise again. Null wants to find power enough to return one day and usurp his father.
NPCs
Juomo – Keeper of the Lycea Stoa and head of the Jai Tum in Orossads. Stout halfling, powerful Arcane Trickster rogue.
Reytha, Tiefling fortune teller, from Siandia, travels to local fairs and markets, so is only in the small city occasionally. Knows Null, and has came recently from Siandia.
- • Appearance: lavender skin contrasting her long, luxuriant red hair brushed and held by a loose gold ribbon tied so her hair flows behind her barely gathered to keep it off her face. Her horns are shaped like those of rams, dark purple bordering on obsidian black, and ringed by multiple engraved silver and gold bands adorned with hanging charms. One of her canines has been replaced with a gold tooth.
• Null has known her his whole life as “Wandering Reytha”, and the children in Siandia would get excited when she returned from being away as she most often was because she always had the best stories.
• Null’s father disliked her and Null was taught to leave her alone as someone whose life and values differed from those of the devotees of Lothander.
• Age: unclear to Null but guess possibly mid-40s.
The Jessels, jackelware pack that has been setting up a new home in Orossads. They arrived about two weeks ago and are just getting the shop opened.
- Korvala: 32-year-old jackalwere. A tall and imposing figure with an authoritative air that instills confidence in her allies and fear in her enemies. Though normally calm and composed, Korvala becomes angry and combative when recalling the struggles she and her pack have experienced, including Nidalia’s death and being persecuted since then. She wants to get revenge on the Grinning Sinners in Purevault, but Lady Miessa says they need to first seek to bring about the greater cause of their true master, Graz’zt.
Avani, a middle-aged jackalwere who considers it her duty to keep the rest of her pack from doing anything to attract attention from the Orders of Orossads
Inbar, a quiet, reserved jackalwere who wears spectacles in his human and hybrid forms. He also has a deep sense of injustice left from the pack not seeking revenge for their fallen companion and his brother’s injury at the hands of the party. But he agrees with Korvala that revenge is best accomplished through cunning rather than rash action.
Marliza, a petite jackalwere whose wide eyes and long braids belie her cunning. She is working the counter today.
Ramah, Inbar’s outspoken brother, was severely injured by the party in Duskwich and ran off into the woods rather than die. He holds a grudge against Annalee, Ellery, and Null. He is more likely to act rashly than his brother, Inbar, though they share the same feelings.
Zan, the oldest pack member, who hums quietly while they organize the books
Valenour, wood elf running the archery game. Came from Baturiv.
Begga Goldworthy, stout halfling, baker and manager of the pie eating competition. Has a shop in Resha and came to celebration as an annual tradition of hers since she has been a kid.
## Scenes
- * Lycea Stoa: Leaves breakfast with the party to slip out and investigate the pawn shop they had visited the night before.
* Road: “A voice calls out to the early morning merry-makers, practiced, seductive, mysterious and…familiar.” Reytha has a table set up on the road between the Stoa and Wares for All where she is selling fortunes. Null will have the opportunity to learn more about what has happened in Siandia since he left six months ago.
* Wares for All: Jessels have made a new home in Orossads since leaving Duskwich. Their dead matron, Nidalia, is lost so they came to Orossads to her sister, Lady Miessa, who happened to know that this former brothel that was vacant. They are not friendly to the party as they killed Theryn and severely injured Ramah who only recently has felt fully healed though he has a scar from the battle that shows in all his forms.
* Marketplace aftermath from the party’s morning adventures. A squad of the Order of Aurelius has made its way through the market after the unleashing and killing of the ancient basalisk.
• They determined that something had poisoned the traveling zoo keeper while he was preparing the morning meals for the animals before the day began, and the lock on the gate to the basalisk cage had appeared to be picked and left on the ground.
• The footprints they could find were odd, unlike any known natural animal or humanoid. They are waiting for experts to finish their investigations of the prints to see if they can learn more.
• People claim that a fierce duo of a goliath and a strange sorcerer with a feather beard had slain it, then ran in the opposite direction.
• Some rumor there was a winter eladrin who had shot at it with arrows as well but no arrows were found in the body of the beast.
• Some claim to have seen a woman warrior with strange eyes kidnap the traveling potion seller when this was going on, and that she had dragged him into the Lycea Stoa.
• Not long after she had done this, his cart had been engulfed in a massive fireball that had killed a couple of folk unfortunately standing nearby.
• One survivor who had been standing nearby but was fortunate enough to have been just far enough away he was only briefly blinded by the flames claims to have seen an elven woman hop out of the cart and run into the Stoa around the same time.
* Lycea Stoa: Depends on timing but likely get there while Zeno and Juomo are waiting for the party to come back out.
* Pocket Dimension: Null may choose to join the party by going into it. If so, he is not on the guest list and the Tabaxi wight named Petit à petit du pointe will direct the zombies and skeletons above the tombs to attack him.
## Secrets and Clues
- * Raytha: Njah told the people of Siandia that Null had been killed protecting him as mayor and the high priest of Lothandar from Parvis Gustryr; that Parvis had been a powerful warlock serving the demon lord Demogorgon and had consumed Null in eldritch vortex. Null had died a hero, though, drawing his attention and allowing Sire Bedivere to strike a fatal blow to Parvis. Parvis’ corpse had been displayed to the City before being burned and the ashes sealed in holy water, and it had been covered in ritual abyssal tattoos everyone was told were the mark of Demogorgon received when Parvis gave himself to the demon lord.
* Raytha: Knows tattoo magic and recognized the tattoos weren’t of Demogorgon but rather of Graz’zt. They did appear to be marks of devotion, though.
* Raytha: Heard the orc tribe known as the Atakar decimated the Sh’lar, the nomadic tribe of aasimar which she had been born into but left at a young age when it was clear her tiefling lineage was a problem in many places they went. The Atakar have been very active recently, raiding villages and attacking almost anyone with any connection to elves, and have been heard demanding clues to the whereabouts of a child winter eladrin.
* Raytha: Had heard a rumor that Sire Bedivere had a male lover, Arryn Kelle, who had left the village not long after Null had left. Raytha saw him about a week ago on the road between Autumn Guard and Orossads, in the company of five others apparently coming from Palisades wearing the cloak of a member of The Archivist Militant which are the armed members of the Consortium Obscura out of Palisades.
* Raytha: The younger daughter of the keepers of the Home and Hearth Tavern, Annalee Bina, had disappeared at the same time. Her parents claim she had gone to Purevault to finish some type of schooling, but Raytha had been in Purevault since then and never saw her.
* Korvala: Lady Miessa is a lamia like Nidalia was, and she also serves Graz’zt.
* Korvala: Lady Miessa has told her that a copy of the book Nadalia was given by Graz’zt stolen from them by Richard Fox is here in Orossads, and that if Korvala has a chance to acquire it she should do so and let Lady Miessa know once she has it.
*Any jackelwere: Lady Miessa lives in a compound outside the city to the north. Any can provide a basic map and directions on how to get to it. Only Korvala knows the basic interior layout.
* Korvala: Will offer a vial of soul catcher oil in exchange for the promise to kill all members of the Grinning Sinner’s guild in Purevault. Promise has a time limit of 1 month, after which the spirits in the blade will be unleashed as specters and attempt to kill the person who broke their promise.
Soul catcher oil causes a weapon to be able to capture the soul of any creature killed by it, up to 6 souls total. Each soul captured by the blade increases its power as follows:
1) Causes body of a creature killed by the weapon to turn into a gold piece
2) Gains +1 damage
3) Gains +1 to hit
4) Instead of effect 1, body turns into a platinum piece
5) Causes an additional 1d4 of necrotic damage
6) Once per day, wielder can use an action to summon a specter from the blade who will obey its commands for 1 minute before being reabsorbed into the weapon.
* Korvala knows the merchant Darvon Reynolds works for Lady Miessa.
* Preston bought the Mallus Deus in Duskwich about 73 days ago, recognizing the power it held but not that it was a copy. He is hoping to use it to get revenge on the Drow city he came from that kicked him out.
* Zeno knows the Quillwells of Fairbanks are working with a sorcerer named the Butcher who also claims to have one of the books due to an informant who is still in Orossads. Juomo knows about the Butcher but not the informant thanks to Josiah Stone, but has pretended this is news to him for the time being.
* Raytha also knows something about Null’s past which she will not volunteer but will share if he asks if she does since she was alive and from the village when he was born. She knew his mother, that died the same time Null was born but no one ever saw her body. His father, who had not been mayor at the time but had been a well-respected book keeper for the Church of Lothandar, had been so grief stricken by her death he had shut himself up in the office of the church accepting no outside food or drink for over six weeks until he emerged on the morning of Solus declaring Lothandar had shown him in vision the true light even to be found in the darkness of death. Raytha, reading is aura, saw in it that of the eclipse, blinding to look at but at its center was darkness, and has not trusted him since.
WARES for ALL MAP KEY
1) Front lobby. 15’x40’, with a large wooden engraved standing desk set squarely center opposite the double entry doors and flanked by short series of five wood steps each on either side leading up to the wooden floor of whatever room or rooms lie behind the wall behind the desk. The ornate wooden door seemingly overly done for a pawn shop is only the first sign the building had been used for other purposes in the very recent past. The engravings on the desk suggestive of the pleasures awaiting the former patron.
- a. Rich wood paneling covers the walls on which hang more suggestive artworks. The only sign this is a pawn shop now being each as a handwritten tag hanging from their frames stating a price even someone with no skill in art appraisal would recognize is outrageous.
b. The window pane over the front door appears to be new, and a sign of attempts to let natural light in the building to better suit the change in business.
c. The air smells of years of being saturated with incense and perfumes, having permeated the materials of the building so thoroughly there is no chance of airing them out. Undertones of old memories of tobacco smoke come through at intervals as movement somewhere in the building shifts the flow of air out into the lobby.
d. On opposite sides of the door are unlit brassieres that clearly served dual purposes as incense burners, possibly of real gold from their looks. The two somewhat plain wooden benches that are again mirrored to either side of the door seeming the only items somewhat out of place given their lack of comfort or apparent craftsmanship.
e. Behind the desk, standing at work making entries into a leather bound ledger, is a petite young woman with wide, brown eyes framed by long coffee brown braids, her sharp features familiar to you through she seems to greet you with the practices welcome she’d give any visitor.
i. Marliza, a petite jackalwere whose wide eyes and long braids belie her cunning. She is working the counter today.
f. There is a book case in which are two dozen titles of books all for sale. They are more for appearance than for use by the person at the desk though it is possible some members of the pack read them while waiting for customers.
g. The dresser behind the desk is empty.
h. The desk has a flower vase with fresh flowers in it, an ink well being sued by Marliza, and a statue. The statue is a gingwatzem that is there to help protect the person at the front desk if needed.
2) Main Room. 50’x70’. The room appears to be sunken 3 feet below a surrounding low mezzanine made of wood with railing that rings the room on all four sides. In reality, the room is at the same level as the lobby but the stairs from lobby take one first up to the mezzanine and them back down to the interior, creating a sense of intimacy and separation.
- a. The room itself still shows its old life as a place of entertainment with carpeted floors, colored draps, richly painted walls, and lit by two chandeliers still needed in day time due to the lack of windows that look clearly into the space.
b. The platform in the center of the room is now home to shelves with various goods laid out. The low tables and couches also now serving to display items for sale.
3) Spike trap. Filled with crates and various random items of mundane value on top of the old bed and furnishings.Rooms 3 through 8 are old bedrooms now being used for storage. Items in rooms 3 and 4 are full of items the Jessel’s brought with them and are yet to be sorted.
- a. Rooms 3-5, 7-8 are closed and their doors locked. Because jackelwares are immune to non-silvered weapons that do normal damage, the doors are rigged with spike traps since they are not concerned with accidentally setting one off. The traps are set if someone attempts to open the door without unlocking it or fails a DC 15 dex check to pick the lock. The doors open when the knob is turned as the lock is set to release when the knob is turned regardless, but failure to use the key first means the trap is set when the door opens. A person who sets off a trap takes 2d6 piercing damage on a failed DEX Save DC 13, or half damage on a success. The noise also alerts everyone in the building.
4) Spike trap. Filled with crates and various random items of mundane value on top of the old bed and furnishings.
5) Spike trap. Empty except for the bed and old furnishings. Rooms 5, 6, 7, and 8 are for items that have been pawned but are still within the reclamation period. The Jessels have a system where the items are first placed in room 6 when first pawned, and then moved to rooms 7, 8, and then 5 each week so that they can easily keep track of what items can be sold after the 30 day reclamation period. This idea was Inbar’s.
6) Room 6, Inbar has the door open and he can be heard moving items around. The shop has only been open recently so only this room has a handful of pawned items in it.
- a. This room has the following items arranged on the bed still in the room:
i. Scroll of Fireball (Single Use) - 300 gold pieces, reclaim in 30 days
ii. Amulet of Natural Armor (+1 AC) - 500 gold pieces, reclaim in 30 days
iii. Mundane items
b. Inbar recognizes Null if he does not disguise himself but will hide it (Deception 16). Inbar holds personal anger behind the quiet façade towards the party who had injured his brother in Duskwich, and he will want to see Null punished. But he will also want to find out if the rest of the party is in the City so he’ll pretend to not recognize Null while asking questions about where he came from, if he came alone, if he used to have companions and where they are at now, etc.
7) Spike trap. Empty except for the bed and old furnishings.
8) Spike trap. Empty except for the bed and old furnishings.
9) Marliza’s bed room.
10) Korvala’s bed room. Kovala knows Marliza slips out at nights and says nothing to the others as she understands she is young and finding herself, and they have had a lot of trauma in recent months.
11) Room 11 is the stairs up to the 2nd floor. An invisible quasit is hiding here (Stealth 19). It will consider using fright on a person unaccompanied by a Jessel if it appears they have been actively attacking the Jessels. If they are being sneaky, it will alert the Jessels first.
12) Room 12 is the Privy Chamber. Weirdly has side-by-side privy seats. There is a dresser with rags, and a wand of limited Prestidigitation hanging next to the seats. Amusingly it also has a price tag on it of 200 GP. It has unlimited charges but can only clean an object (or a creature’s bottom in this case) and cause a minor pleasant odor. The room has a glyph over the door that requires an arcana check to identify DC 20, that will cause the wand to lose it’s magic if it is removed from the room through the door. Dispel magic can remove the glyph.
13) Room 13 is an old entertainment room that now houses magic items for sell. Those include:
- a. Arrow of the Hydra (Weapon, arrow, single use): This fine arrow is tipped with a sharp hydra's tooth. When you hit a target with it, the arrow deals an extra 2d6 poison damage. If you miss, the arrow lands in a square selected by the GM, within 30 feet of your intended target. At the start of the next round, an undead skeleton claws out of the ground in that square. The skeleton acts on its own initiative count, and attacks the nearest living creature until reduced to 0 hit points.
b. Oil of Monstrous Disguise (Potion): This sticky oil can can cover a Medium or smaller creature, and takes 10 minutes to apply to yourself. You make yourself look like a piercer, rust monster, death dog, harpy, ettercap, grick, mimic, peryton, or basilisk. The effect is otherwise as the spell Disguise Self (phb 233).
c. Oil of Rotting Flesh (Potion): This rancid oil can cover a Medium or smaller undead skeleton, and takes 10 minutes to apply. The affected undead is transformed into an undead zombie.
d. Tankard of Sobriety (common, xge 139)
e. Boots of Speed (rare, dmg 155).
f. Ring of Jumping (uncommon, dmg 191)
It is protected by a banishment trap (DC 18 perception to spot, DC 18 Arcana to disarm or casting disperse magic). Operates the same as the spikes but instead teleports the person who sets it off into a pocket dimension for 1 minute. CHA save DC 16 to avoid. When trap is set off a loud yipping in a range only audible to dogs (and jackals) goes off alerting the pack of the intruder. Dogs within 1000 feet of the alarm begin to howl as well. Resets after 1 hour up to two more times (3 charges), then regains charges at dawn.
14) Room 14 is an old entertainment room that now has a shrine on the dresser dedicated to Nidalia. There is also a portrait of Theryn on the dresser. At the center of the shrine is a gold plate (35 GP) on which lies an object about the size of a large grapefruit wrapped in black cloth. The object is a large heart, dried with time, that was the only part of Nidalia the pack was able to save from Duskwich. They have kept it with some hope they may one day still revive her though they know it will now be even more costly and difficult.
15) 2nd Floor has not been modified by the Jessels since moving in. Upstairs are the following members of the pack. They are all in hybrid forms while upstairs.
- a. Kovala, helping Avani go over their plans for updating the building.
b. Avani, a middle-aged jackalwere who considers it her duty to keep the rest of her pack from doing anything to attract attention from the Orders of Orossads. Has been at work preparing a building remodel plan for their new, more opulent abode. It includes converting portions of the 2nd floor into a nursery. She isn’t showing yet, but she is expecting pups. Ramah is the father.
c. Ramah, Inbar’s outspoken brother, was severely injured by the party in Duskwich and ran off into the woods rather than die. He holds a grudge against Annalee, Ellery, and Null. He is more likely to act rashly than his brother, Inbar, though they share the same feelings. He is also very protective of Avani who has become his lover in recent weeks. He suspects but does not know if she is pregnant, only that in jackal and hybrid forms he can smell her body has been changing.
d. Zan, the oldest pack member, who hums quietly while they are cooking in the kitchen. He knows that Avani is pregnant as well because he has seen everything and knows the signs. He is also very protective of her as she is the future of the pack.
This floor was used in carnal rituals by the Kyrenikoi, most evidently by the large statue of two nude succubae posed provocatively on either side of a life-sized statue of Graz’zt at the far end of the room.
Avani was given the bedroom behind the ritual area by Kovala who had told the pack it was because she was the oldest female in the pack. But it is really due to her soon needing the larger bed for the pups.
Zan gets the other private room on this floor, while Ramah and Inbar sleep in two of the beds in the more common area curtained off to the side.
## Potential Monsters
- • Gingwatzem
• Quasits
• Jackalweres
• Babau (can be summoned by Kovala if absolutely necessary but she can’t control it. It’s a danger close condition for her to do so)
## Potential Treasure
## Wares for All Goods Tables
Oddities:
- 1. A small golden sphere with a pair of crumpled silver wings
2. A kobold's skull floating in a bottle of clear amber fluid
3. Origami Food and Water (Scroll): You can use an action to read this scroll, which causes it to fold itself into origami food and a cup of water. The food is bland but nourishing, enough to sustain you for 24 hours.
4. A monstrous eye floating in a bottle of clear red fluid
5. A crystalline orb trapped in the coils of an iron serpent
6. A steel gauntlet with the word, “Tyrant” engraved into it
7. A loosely-bound folio of columns of strange glyphs
8. A lock of white hair preserved in glass
9. A glass orb etched with an impossible alchemical formula
10. A white gold ring inscribed with one-half of a prophecy
11. An ivory figurine damaged beyond recognition
12. A small book of draconic lore and mythology
13. A small bronze cage with tiny shackles and chains
14. A jade pawn which was recently given to you by an old soldier
15. A pendant of blue stone engraved with an arcane symbol
16. A single cloth glove which smells of strange incense
17. A dragon's fang engraved with an evil symbol
18. A snow globe which appears to show your childhood home
19. A six-sided die carved from dragon bone
20. A lead actor’s dagger
ART:
- Linen Choker threaded with platinum thread (25 gp)
Silk Gown threaded with Gold (100 gp)
Gold Ring engraved with Dwarven Runes (75 gp)
Brass Bracer set with Chalcedony (25 gp)
Cloth Sash trimmed with Lynx Fur (25 gp)
Pewter Warhammer etched with Draconic Scales (25 gp)
Dragon Horn Orb engraved with Mythical Imagery (500 gp)
Portrait of Beautiful Lady (500 gp). Has an advanced scrying spell on it that allows Lady Miessa to observe anything in line of sight of the portrait as well as hear as if she were there in person.
Jessel’s stuff of value:
- 2300 cp,
1700 sp,
3200 gp,
diamond (50 gp),
chalcedony (50 gp),
chrysoprase (50 gp), sardonyx (50 gp),
zircon (50 gp),
Potion of Heroism (rare, dmg 188), Zan’s. He’ll use this to protect the others so they can escape if needed. Gains 10 temp hit points, bless spell effects (add d4 to attack rolls and saving throws)
Boots of Haste, Zan is wearing these. Allows him to cast haste on himself once per day as a bonus action.
Until the spell ends, the target’s speed is doubled, it gains a +2 bonus to AC, it has advantage on Dexterity saving throws, and it gains an additional action on each of its turns. That action can be used only to take the Attack (one weapon attack only), Dash, Disengage, Hide, or Use an Object action.
Potion of Superior Healing (rare, dmg 187), Avani has this in a satchel on her person.
three barrels of vinegar (36 gp, 960 lb),
a satchel of twenty silver-tipped darts (10 gp, 5 lb),
a stone basin (1 gp, 20 lb),
twenty crossbow bolts with silvered tips (20 gp, 2 lb)
Other NPCs
• Skjótr, plague doctor’s name.
Available NPC Names:
Roderick
Lorelei
Grimm
Sarina
Elandra
Thalgrim
Alaric
Helda
Octavian
Alistair
