In the Hook's Shadow, Part 5 (Sunday, Kuthona (XII) 1st, 4707 AR)
The heroes defeated the spider and healed the three prisoners.
Farmhouse Porch. This moss-encrusted, decaying farmhouse slumped drunkenly at the edge of the damp forest clearing. Rickety steps crawled up to a porch covered by a huge eave held aloft by thick pillars of pine. These timbers were decorated with crude carvings of manticores impaling children with their tail spikes and women being ripped apart by wolves. The carvings looked like a child's work, but the subject matter grew more gruesome and depraved from one depiction to the next. An unsettlingly large rocking chair of lashed wood and bone swayed erratically in the breeze at the far end of the porch under a vast menagerie of wind chimes composed of decidedly humanoid bones. The house's windows have all been boarded up with thick timbers, although it's unclear if this was done to keep intruders out or imprison whatever things made their home within.
Last of the Black Arrows
Three of the Order of the Black Arrows survived, and they were in bad shape. The only reason this group escaped the slaughter at Fort Rannick was because they were on a long-range patrol during the massacre. Their leader, a weathered old man whose worn face was as hard as leather, was named Jakardros. He and two of his men (Kaven and Vale) were all that remain; the others in the patrol have already been taken away for torture and death at the Grauls' hands.
Jakardros Sovark
Jakardros lost his eye to a close call with an ogre hook a decade ago. For many years he was second-in-command of Fort Rannick. After his patrol was delayed, they arrived back home to find the fort under Kreeg control. He lost a third of his unit in an attempt to retake the fort, and when they were forced to flee south into Kreegwood, the remainder were easy targets for the Grauls. Jakardros carried the loss of Fort Rannick heavily and felt it was his fault that the ogres were able to take it. Had he been a bit more prompt returning from his patrol, he would have been back in time to help defend the place. But he wasn't, and now a 45-year tradition is dead.
When Jakardros was younger and before he joined the Black Arrows, he ended up in the region around the Mierani Forest, where he met Shalelu. Their relationship seemed complex.
Vale Temros
Vale was a dark-skinned man with piercing gray eyes. His towering height of 6-1/2 feet and muscular build pegged him as a warrior. Despite his stature, Vale was a quiet and withdrawn man whose passion for life only awakened during the heat of battle.
Vale was born into the Order of the Black Arrows. Vale's oath of vengeance had become the only thing holding him together over the past several days of torture and mind-numbing horror at the Grauls' hands. Vale seized any opportunity to strike back at the ogres with grim satisfaction.
Kaven Windstrike
Kaven Windstrike is a handsome young man with dark hair and emerald eyes. Kaven has been loyal to the dwindling number of Black Arrows, sharing their horror of being the next one to be chosen for torture and dinner by the Grauls. When the heroes rescued the Black Arrows, he helped them fight the Grauls.
The man bore a seven-pointed tattoo on the inside of his left wrist. When the heroes found him naked and unconscious, they noticed. When asked about the tattoo, Kaven claimed unconvincingly that he'd had it for years, and that it represented his love of the stars. He didn't seem to know about its true significance though.
After saving and equipping the three Black Arrows as best they could, they all turned their attention to the Graul farmhouse.
A host of ants marched happily away here and there on the porch, many the size of a grown man's thumbnail. A moth the size of a shovel head clung to the porch ceiling, watching the heroes with alien eyes, but it allowed them to pass unmolested. The scent of bad meat, urine, sweat, and decay wafted now and then from between the cracks in the boarded-up windows.
Concealed among the hanging bone-chimes were sharpened bone spurs mounted on a hinged rack rigged to swing down at Fen, who touched the front door. Additionally, several rusty saw blades were housed between the cracks of the porch's floorboards.
Family Room. A mangy bearskin rug lay before a tremendous hearth set into the wall, its pained visage still snarling at whatever cruel hunter took its life. A huge couch haphazardly upholstered in animal hide and human flesh, replete with a collection of talons, monstrous hairy spider's legs, fox heads, and human hands and feet, sat to the west.
The sofa was part of a hidden pit trap. Jakardros approached the sofa and fell through a hole in the floor into a pit with sharpened stakes. The sofa itself was affixed to the floor via several sturdy timbers. It did not follow falling Jakardros.
Dining Room. This dark room stunk of putrefying flesh. Eight wooden chairs with grinning bleached skulls crowning their backs circled a monstrous four-foot-high oak dining table covered with a crude tablecloth of crinkly human leather. The centerpiece of the dining table - a rotting human head, its stringy red hair thankfully draped over its mutilated face - served as a gathering place for a host of buzzing, bloated flies.
Scythes attached to coils of tightly bound rope were set into Thurden when he tried to step through one of the three door into this room. Hidden switches on the doors themselves allowed the Grauls to disable these traps before they came into the room, but all three scythe traps were ready to go when the heroes entered the room.
Kitchen. This musty chamber smelled of blood and week-old meat, and was thick with clouds of fat, greasy flies. Thumb-sized cockroaches danced along the walls, floor, and ceiling. A thick butcher's block sat under three cruel-looking cleavers that hung on a rack above. Bloodstained smocks of thick leather, one still dripping fresh gore, hung on bone-spur hooks by the door. A crockery plate of severed fingers and toes sat on a rickety old table next to a dried sinew basket overflowing with hacked off hands and feet, all sporting stubs of congealed blood where their digits once were. A family of lucky rats gorged itself on the red stumps.
The smell in this room was horrific. Fen became sickened when he entered this room. The door to the north opened into a narrow stairwell that led down into the basement. Despite their filthy condition, the three cleavers were exceedingly well-made and functioned as masterwork handaxes.
Playpen. This simple room was strewn with "toys", some of carved wood or bone, while others appeared to be little more than partial animal carcasses. Old bloodstains marked the walls; some resembled crude, childlike paintings and featured images of dismembered horses, a ridiculous grinning horned devil tossing children off a cliff, and a big lake with a black reptilian monster sprouting tentacles form its back. Bookshelves rested against the wall, but instead of tomes they held skulls of all shapes and sizes.
This "playpen" was where two Grauls spent their time. Both were full-grown. One was a hairless and pale bloated thing with malformed, stumpy legs and a wide mouth filled with ragged teeth.
The other's limbs bent in strange ways, but he was blessed not to have any other hideous deformities and almost looked human. The hapless fool reeked of his own waste.
Room. This filthy room contained little more than a lumpy mattress heaped with twigs, mud, and hopefully little else, although the stink of sewage in the room indicated otherwise. Dozens of humanoid fetishes crafted of bits of leather, straw, corn husks, twigs, and bones hung from cords throughout the room. Most of the fetishes hanging form the ceiling were worthless, but Shalelu noticed that one of them incorporated several finger bones, one of which still wore a jade ring worth 300 gp.
Storage. This small chamber was used to store refuse and other remnants from the various antics the Grauls got up to. Among the refuse here were the tiny bones of fetuses.
Room. The cloying stink of this room was nearly overwhelming. Buckets of filth were stacked against the walls, fat ravenous flies lazily circling their rims. The room itself was dominated by an immense bed, its ratty sheets stained beyond hope. A huge easel sat next to the bed with a palette of various shades of brown and red paint. The sources of these morbid pigments - several crushed organs and rugged stumps of flesh - sat in receptacles next to the easel. A set of brushes made with human hair jutted from a broken skull by the easel, while a comb made form a human mandible sat on a small oak bedside table nearby, its teeth clotted with thick strands of greasy black hair. The bodies of three horribly deformed men dressed in rugged finery were propped up in huge open coffins against the far wall, their mouths sewn tightly shut with lengths of hair.
This hellish room belonged to an incredibly corpulent monster with greasy hair and bald patches. She wore a huge red curtain as a shroud, and her bed creaked out in anguish as she shifted her massive form to regard any intruders to her home.
She was also attended by three zombies. One had a useless left leg on his left hip and a pin head - three old arrows still protruded from its chest. The second has an extra nose jutting from its right cheek and a hunched back, his head split by an axe. The last's deformities were hard to determine exactly. He was little more than a shambling fleshy bag of broken bones and mashed features that flopped about when ordered to attack.
When the heroes entered her room, the ogrekin had a number of illusory doubles inhabiting her space. When the heroes confronted this Graul here, she was more enraged at the other Grauls for letting the heroes get this far than she was at the heroes themselves, and she issued a list of profanity-laced shrieks. She sent her three zombies to engage the heroes while she remained on her bed in the northwest corner of the room and cast spells. She started with a ghostly hand that materialized out of thin air and followed up with other spells for the ghostly hand to deliver.
Scythes attached to coils of tightly bound rope were set into Thurden when he tried to step through one of the three door into this room. Hidden switches on the doors themselves allowed the Grauls to disable these traps before they came into the room, but all three scythe traps were ready to go when the heroes entered the room.
Kitchen. This musty chamber smelled of blood and week-old meat, and was thick with clouds of fat, greasy flies. Thumb-sized cockroaches danced along the walls, floor, and ceiling. A thick butcher's block sat under three cruel-looking cleavers that hung on a rack above. Bloodstained smocks of thick leather, one still dripping fresh gore, hung on bone-spur hooks by the door. A crockery plate of severed fingers and toes sat on a rickety old table next to a dried sinew basket overflowing with hacked off hands and feet, all sporting stubs of congealed blood where their digits once were. A family of lucky rats gorged itself on the red stumps.
The smell in this room was horrific. Fen became sickened when he entered this room. The door to the north opened into a narrow stairwell that led down into the basement. Despite their filthy condition, the three cleavers were exceedingly well-made and functioned as masterwork handaxes.
Playpen. This simple room was strewn with "toys", some of carved wood or bone, while others appeared to be little more than partial animal carcasses. Old bloodstains marked the walls; some resembled crude, childlike paintings and featured images of dismembered horses, a ridiculous grinning horned devil tossing children off a cliff, and a big lake with a black reptilian monster sprouting tentacles form its back. Bookshelves rested against the wall, but instead of tomes they held skulls of all shapes and sizes.
This "playpen" was where two Grauls spent their time. Both were full-grown. One was a hairless and pale bloated thing with malformed, stumpy legs and a wide mouth filled with ragged teeth.
The other's limbs bent in strange ways, but he was blessed not to have any other hideous deformities and almost looked human. The hapless fool reeked of his own waste.
Room. This filthy room contained little more than a lumpy mattress heaped with twigs, mud, and hopefully little else, although the stink of sewage in the room indicated otherwise. Dozens of humanoid fetishes crafted of bits of leather, straw, corn husks, twigs, and bones hung from cords throughout the room. Most of the fetishes hanging form the ceiling were worthless, but Shalelu noticed that one of them incorporated several finger bones, one of which still wore a jade ring worth 300 gp.
Storage. This small chamber was used to store refuse and other remnants from the various antics the Grauls got up to. Among the refuse here were the tiny bones of fetuses.
Room. The cloying stink of this room was nearly overwhelming. Buckets of filth were stacked against the walls, fat ravenous flies lazily circling their rims. The room itself was dominated by an immense bed, its ratty sheets stained beyond hope. A huge easel sat next to the bed with a palette of various shades of brown and red paint. The sources of these morbid pigments - several crushed organs and rugged stumps of flesh - sat in receptacles next to the easel. A set of brushes made with human hair jutted from a broken skull by the easel, while a comb made form a human mandible sat on a small oak bedside table nearby, its teeth clotted with thick strands of greasy black hair. The bodies of three horribly deformed men dressed in rugged finery were propped up in huge open coffins against the far wall, their mouths sewn tightly shut with lengths of hair.
She was also attended by three zombies. One had a useless left leg on his left hip and a pin head - three old arrows still protruded from its chest. The second has an extra nose jutting from its right cheek and a hunched back, his head split by an axe. The last's deformities were hard to determine exactly. He was little more than a shambling fleshy bag of broken bones and mashed features that flopped about when ordered to attack.
When the heroes entered her room, the ogrekin had a number of illusory doubles inhabiting her space. When the heroes confronted this Graul here, she was more enraged at the other Grauls for letting the heroes get this far than she was at the heroes themselves, and she issued a list of profanity-laced shrieks. She sent her three zombies to engage the heroes while she remained on her bed in the northwest corner of the room and cast spells. She started with a ghostly hand that materialized out of thin air and followed up with other spells for the ghostly hand to deliver.
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