Originally posted by serpentine:
All of the following are based on the short story "The Mound" by Zealia Bishop, written in the Lovecraftian style.
388) The party comes across the frantic journals of a Stavriel d'Phiarlan detailing an urgent message from Phiarlan HQ to get out of Cyre immediately, by any means necessary, dated just before the date of The Mourning. With the journals is a medallion of an unknown metal.
On it's own, this could be a lead in to see what House Phiarlan knew about the cause of the Mourning, if anything. Their heads of House all survived, despite the headquarters' base being in Cyre.
The journals do not need to be in the Mournland for the PCs to get them -- but they were found in the Mournland fairly close to the border.
389) Near the edge of the Mournland, there is a hill marked by a particular apparition: a headless woman holding a flickering, blue-flamed torch. This is visible through the mists on some nights from the safe side of the boundary, when three or more moons are full.
390) Exploration of the surface of the hill produces another manuscript in Stavriel's handwriting, written in the polite dialect of Elven. It details the subterranean society of the inhabitants below the mound, who are seemingly ageless. The elf remarks that time flows differently underneath, and below the rich and decadent city of Tsath is the dark realm of N'kai. He wants to leave, although he has been treated well within the city for nearly forty years?
His last escape attempt was a failure, and the woman of Tsath he tried to escape with was beheaded and killed in the hideous Arena of Tsath. The manuscript details the passage into the mound, as well as explaining that the passage is protected by the dead and partially material. Stavriel mentions that he believes that he has mastered the art of shadow walking, having developed his dragonmark over the years he has spent in confinement.
The manuscript, sealed in a metallic tube, ends saying that he must go.
391) Inside the entrance to the mound is a narrow passageway with carvings on the walls. There are artifacts from Cyran history laid neatly in the passageway: some very old, and some fairly new. Ghostly hands pull and pluck at the characters' clothing and limbs in this passage.
392) At the end of the passageway, silently padding forward on the stumps of severed legs is a naked dead thing with no arms, genitals, lower legs, or head. Its skin is white and scarred with gashes, and its chest is slender and hairless. It stands like a sentry, moving jerkily through the animation of the undead.
A huge and well-developed Greater dragonmark spreads across the scarred chest like a brand.
