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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 9269100" data-attributes="member: 2209"><a href="https://paizo.com/products/btq027qf?Pathfinder-Adventure-Malevolence" target="_blank">Pathfinder Adventure: Malevolence</a>Pathfinder  2eTanglebones, Undead Tanglebones: Sometimes, when [a] murderer buries a large number of victims in a mass grave, the vengeful spirits of the slain can become similarly tangled together. When these spirits can’t untangle, they instead return to their physical remains, fusing into one horrific mass of bones and black, tar-like sludge—a tanglebones.One awful tale speaks of a bitter old dowager who learned that, through a legal loophole, ownership of her estate would revert to her estranged daughter. She murdered her 13 servants, buried their bodies in the house’s basement, and then played the gracious mother in handing over the manor keys at the appointed time. One night, the tanglebones that arose from the dowager’s atrocity murdered the daughter and her family.It’s believed that a tanglebones’s formation can be prevented if even one body in the mass grave died from a different cause than its fellows. In regions where these undead horrors are more common, additional bodies known as unravellers are often dropped into mass graves in an attempt to prevent a tanglebones from rising.Though the bodies dumped unceremoniously in this pool by Ioseff Xarwin didn’t immediately rise as undead, their souls—traumatized by betrayal—didn’t enter the soulstream immediately. As the manor grew more haunted, the spirits trapped here began to manifest phantasms as well, and Xarwin largely avoided lingering here in his final months.When the malevolence awoke with Xarwin’s death, the unquiet spirits here were torn apart and stitched back together, bound to the bones they left behind and transformed into a grotesque, clattering monstrosity—a tanglebones.Tanglebones, Horrific Mass of Bones and Black Tar-Like Sludge, Sprawling Mass of Bones, Undead Horror, Grotesque Clattering Monstrosity: ?Nils Kleveken, Variant Skeletal Champion, Undead Carpenter: Xarwin had this room built so he could post a loyal servant here to keep an eye on events in the ballroom or on those seated on the nearby bench just on the other side of the wall. In the last few weeks before the final tragedy, his one remaining loyal servant, the carpenter Nils Kelveken, moved out of his quarters in area B3 and into this room, having grown paranoid of the other servants conspiring against him. Unfortunately for Nils, when Xarwin perished in his laboratory below and became one with Tchekuth, the resulting blast of mental energy drove him over the edge. In a desperate attempt to release the disturbing thoughts, he drilled a hole in his skull then perished a few minutes later.Undead Spirit: ?Asethanna Xarwin, Variant Shadow, Unusual Undead Entity, Undead Soul, Undead Spirit: Asethanna moved out of the bedroom she shared with her husband long before the fateful night she found proof of his infidelity. Ioseff murdered his wife Asethanna and the manor’s majordomo Cathilda in this room as they hastily packed for an escape from the manor after Asethanna confronted her husband and chopped off his hand. Ioseff left Cathilda’s body where it lay but quickly carried his wife’s body downstairs to his laboratory to extract and preserve her brain.Yet, since Ioseff murdered the two women here, their spirits remain bound to this room, both manifesting into unusual undead entities.Cathilda Athemer, Variant Shadow, Unusual Undead Entity, Undead Soul, Undead Spirit: Asethanna moved out of the bedroom she shared with her husband long before the fateful night she found proof of his infidelity. Ioseff murdered his wife Asethanna and the manor’s majordomo Cathilda in this room as they hastily packed for an escape from the manor after Asethanna confronted her husband and chopped off his hand. Ioseff left Cathilda’s body where it lay but quickly carried his wife’s body downstairs to his laboratory to extract and preserve her brain.Yet, since Ioseff murdered the two women here, their spirits remain bound to this room, both manifesting into unusual undead entities.Anitoli Nostraema, Variant Attic Whisperer, Particularly Powerful Attic Whisperer: Fulvia’s son Anitoli—a precocious lad whose talent with writing and poetry might have blossomed into a remarkable voice had he survived to adulthood—lived and died in this room.Fulvia smothered Anitoli with a pillow as he slept after she became convinced that Golarion had only months before being offered up for the Banquet by the Dominion of the Black. Ioseff never bothered to even enter this room, much less bury the body within, as he increasingly withdrew into his obsessions in the months following his murderous spree. Anitoli has since become a particularly powerful attic whisperer, yet he never leaves this room.Undead Brain Collector: When Ioseff Xarwin attempted the final, fateful ritual, the brain collector he conjured from the depths of space attacked him. He subsequently slew the horror then fled down to his laboratory with the Void Mirror to find a way to escape the horrific curse it had afflicted him with, leaving the brain collector’s body sprawled amid the rubble herein. Once the malevolence infused the manor, it animated this dead alien into a unique undead horror.Undead Brain Collector, Variant Brain Collector, Undead Occupant, Unique Undead Horror, Deadly Foe, Undead Alien: ?Haunted Nosoi, Variant Nosoi, Haunted Psychopomp Corpse, Undead Psychopomp: ?Xarwin's Manifestation, Variant Wraith:  Once the PCs destroy the undead brain collector in area D6, one of the spiritual oppressions that looms heavily over Xarwin Manor fades away, but unfortunately, its destruction also frees Ioseff to extend his influence further from his laboratory in area E9. While he can’t leave that area as a ghost, the sheer force of his malignant will can manifest a wraith-like version of himself anywhere inside of (or below) Xarwin Manor.Esobok Ghoul: In the days before the Xarwin Caul descended over the manor, a catrina psychopomp named Yianyin led a pair of esoboks into the manor to investigate the site in the hopes of helping Ioseff’s restless spirit move on to the River of Souls, only to be corrupted by the malevolence that had grown within these chambers. She lives still (in a manner of speaking) in area E4, but her two esoboks weren’t so fortunate for they were her first victims. The malevolence’s influence drew them back to unlife as ghouls, and the two skull-faced, lion-like undead creatures have dwelled in this room ever since.Esobok Ghoul, Variant Ghoul, Skull-Faced Lion-Like Undead Creature: ?Ioseff Xarwin, Human Ghost, Sinister Ghost, Wracked Ruined Ghost, Unquiet Spirit: Rushing his work proved to be Ioseff’s undoing. That night, he used the Void Mirror to perform the ritual to pull down a brain collector from the Dark Tapestry, but Ioseff botched the rite. The brain collector tore free from the Void Mirror’s influence and attacked him. Ioseff managed to defeat the monster, but not before it afflicted him with a powerful, debilitating spell: internal insurrection (page 67). Ioseff retreated to his hidden laboratory; he raced against time to reverse engineer the rare spell and find a cure, only to perish at his desk minutes after he finally deciphered the magic. As he died, Tchekuth’s slowly reviving remains pulsed awful power, drawing and feeding on what remained of Ioseff’s compassion and humanity to leave behind a wracked, ruined ghost.Sinister Undead: ?Incorporeal Undead: ?Zedna, Elite Poltergeist, Powerful Poltergeist: After he murdered his wife, Ioseff forbade the servants from entering the upper floors, but at first, some of the servants didn’t take him seriously enough. The manor’s librarian, Zedna, came up here a few days after Asethanna’s “disappearance” to return several repaired books to the chapel stacks, and Ioseff confronted her in a rage. After he accidently let slip that Asethanna was still in the manor—in a manner of speaking—he panicked and murdered Zedna. He disposed of her remains in the pool in area E3 and told the other servants she’d broken his commands, so he dismissed her. The servants dared not disobey him after that incident.While her remains have become the tanglebones in area E3, Zedna’s spirt lingers in the chapel to this day as a powerful poltergeist. She attacks anyone who enters the room but can’t leave the chapel, and she won’t use her powers to disturb any of the books.Elite Crawling Hand: The curious markings in the dust in this hall were left by a pair of immense manifestations of the malevolence drawn directly from Ioseff’s traumatized mind: a pair of human-sized left hands, severed at the wrist as if by an enormous hatchet.As long as Ioseff’s ghost remains, new crawling hands manifest here after a week passes.Elite Crawling Hand, Immense Manifestations of the Malevolence: ?</blockquote>

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