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a pathfinder rpg adventure for level 5Carrion HillmoduleBy Richard Pett
CARRION AsylumElm WayChurchSlipperMarketA11A2A4A3A1A5800feetSunless GroveA6A8A7A10A12
m o d u l e CARRION HILLCREDITSAuthor: Richard PettCover Artist: Dan ScottCartography: Rob LazzarettiInterior Artists: Hector Ortiz, Tyler WalpoleEditor-in-Chief: James JacobsEditing and Development: Christopher Carey, Sean K Reynolds, and James L. SutterEditorial Assistance: Jason Bulmahn and F. Wesley SchneiderArt Director: Sarah RobinsonManaging Art Director: James DavisPublisher: Erik MonaPaizo CEO: Lisa StevensVice President of Operations: Jeffrey AlvarezCorporate Accountant: Dave EricksonDirector of Sales: Pierce WattersSales Manager: Christopher SelfTechnical Director: Vic WertzEvents Manager: Joshua J. FrostSpecial Thanks: The Paizo Customer Service and Warehouse TeamsCarrion Hill is a Pathfinder Module designed for four 5th-level characters. This module is designed for play in the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting, but caneasily be adapted for use with any world. This module is compliant with the Open Game License (OGL) and is suitable for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Gameand the 3.5 edition of the world’s oldest fantasy roleplaying game.The OGL can be found on page 29 of this product.Paizo Publishing, LLC7120 185th Ave NE, Ste 120Redmond, WA 98052-0577paizo.comProduct Identity: The following items are hereby identified as Product Identity, as defined in the Open Game License version 1.0a, Section 1(e), and are not Open Content: All trademarks, registeredtrademarks, proper names (characters, deities, etc.), dialogue, plots, storylines, locations, characters, artwork, and trade dress. Elements that have previously been designated as Open GameContent or are in the public domain are not included in this declaration.Open Content: Except for material designated as Product Identity (see above), the game mechanics of this Paizo Publishing game product are Open Game Content, as defined in the OpenGaming License version 1.0a Section 1(d). No portion of this work other than the material designated as Open Game Content may be reproduced in any form without written permission.Carrion Hill is published by Paizo Publishing, LLC under the Open Game License v 1.0a Copyright 2000 Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Paizo Publishing, LLC, the Paizo golem logo, Pathfinder, andGameMastery are registered trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder Chronicles, Pathfinder Companion, Pathfinder Modules, and Pathfinder Societyare trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC. 2009, Paizo Publishing, LLC.Printed in China.
moduleWCARRION HILLalk, if you will, the claustrophobic alleys ofthe Tangle, the middenstone vats of the Filth,and the cobbled white roads at the summitof an ancient hill. Know that this is but thelatest of cities to crown this summit, a monumentto the filth and grime and waste of civilization.The city was built upon the battlefields of historypast, for many have sought to control this keyfeature, this lonely hill in a sea of mud and mire.Only its name has remained constant through theages—Carrion Hill.2
Carrion HillAdventure Backgroundgroup rebuilding the city as they preferred, and each addinganother layer of grime over the site’s ancient history. By thetime the Whispering Tyrant conquered Ustalav some 1,500years ago, memories of the Old Cults that once held thesite sacred had been forgotten in the face of Tar-Baphon’soverwhelming evil. And in the modern age, 15 centurieslater, those memories have become obscure legends.Yet still they lurk in Versex’s desolate wilderness. TheOld Cults remain strong today, their strength dependentupon strange cycles that follow the movement of starsabove and the shifting of unseen influences in theDarklands below, and the workings of the Old Cults andthe influence of their alien gods can still be felt.Those ancients who first ruled Carrion Hill raised greatbasalt towers and dug vast chambers to hold their lore inenormous libraries of carved stone tablets and timeless,magically preserved tomes. The Varisians, seeing much toremind them of the magic and libraries of Thassilon, werequick to destroy these blasphemous repositories when theyfound them, yet they were just as quick to build over thoseruins. In their haste to do so, most of the hidden chambersof the Old Cults were missed. The location of one suchancient site is known today as the Sunless Grove, all thatremains of the site at which the spawn of Yog-Sothoth wasbanished so long ago.Exploration of the underground labyrinths belowCarrion Hill has long drawn adventurers in search ofhidden treasure, yet the dangers below are not insignificant.Recently, one such foolish group stumbled into theSunless Grove only to swiftly succumb to the ghosts of theplace. Just one of the adventurers, a fighter named Oleg,escaped death and returned to the streets above, yet he didso without his sanity. Oleg swiftly fell into the care of oneWaldur Crove, the warden of Carrion Hill’s oldest asylum.And with this event, Carrion Hill unknowingly enabledwhat could well become its latest doom.Waldur Crove was the leader of a group dedicated tothe Old Gods—the Keepers of the Oldest. Armed withdirections to the Sunless Grove, Keeper Crove andhis allies found the site much as Oleg’s mad ravingsdescribed. After defeating some of the monsters in thetunnels and allying with others, the Keepers of the Oldestcontacted the ancient ghosts of the Grove. Using a ritualfrom a blasphemous book called the Pnakotic Manuscripts,they trapped the angry ghosts and the proceeded to usethem to attempt a dangerous ritual. The Keepers hopedto force open the portal to the Dark Tapestry and learngreat and terrible secrets from those that dwelt beyond.Yet the Keepers were matched in their insane brillianceby their foolhardy ignorance. They opened the portal, butall that came through was the long-imprisoned spawn ofYog-Sothoth, atrophied and ruined from its 2,000 yearsof limbo between the stars, but still a monstrous danger.More than ancient battles and conquered cities lie buriedbeneath the twisting streets of Carrion Hill—more eventhan the ghouls and slithering and crawling things thathunt these subterranean byways and haunt the dreamsof those who dwell in the sodden structures above. Themost dangerous thing buried under Carrion Hill isneither ghost nor demon nor unborn plague—it is theforbidden knowledge of those who first chose the site astheir home. Knowledge of terrible things that may predateeven the gods themselves. Knowledge that neither bookburning crusades of the pious nor passage of ages canever consume.When the first Varisians fled the fall of Thassilon tocolonize lands that would one day become Ustalav thousandsof years ago, they found a wild region ripe for settlementand development, a place far from the towering monolithsand skeletons of the decadent Thassilonian empire. Yet asthey explored this new realm, they could not know of thedark forces that had long before claimed this region as theirown. Those who settled to the north, south, and west founddifferent ghosts and demons to vex them, but those takingup residence in what would eventually become the county ofVersex found perhaps the oldest lingering evil of them all.Led by prophets and champions of Desna and guidedby ominous visions from their goddess of dreams, theVarisians threw down and drove out the evil tribes of theregion and tore down the bloodstained standing stonesand dark altars they had erected. Along the southernbanks of Kingfisher River, in the swampy region knownas the Wrythe, the Varisians confronted the last andworst of the savage cults, and learned that the triballeaders were something more than human—they werethe spawn of one of the alien gods and lunatic priestesses,grown huge on blood and eager to open portals to theDark Tapestry and call in their father, Yog-Sothoth, fromthe outer darkness to crush these upstart foes. Yet theVarisian host struck before this incantation could becompleted. Unable to defeat the mightiest of the spawnof Yog-Sothoth, they managed the next-best thing—theybanished the abomination through an ancient portalinto the outer darkness. The Varisians seized the hillupon which the battle had taken place and founded a citythere to guard against the Old Cults’ return.Yet since this hill was well defensible and surroundedby enough good farmland to support a city, it was muchcoveted as well. No sooner had one group claimed the hill astheir own and raised their own city over the ruined corpseof the one previous than another group claimed it as theirown. Varisian traditionalists, Kellid barbarians, Taldancrusaders, mercenary armies, bandit kings, orc warlords,undead armies of the Whispering Tyrant, and more have,at various times, claimed Carrion Hill as their own, each3
moduleThe Lovecraft Connectionit begins to destroy buildings and feed. After a groupof guards (including a well-known and well-loved localhero) are slain by the invisible monster, the spawnretreats into the catacombs only to periodically surfacein parts of the city to seek out the three surviving cultists.As panic spreads, the city government has its hands fullpreventing riots—they turn to the PCs to supplementtheir resources in hunting down the invisible monster.The PCs soon find themselves following the Keepers’trail down to the Sunless Grove, where they learn froma blasphemous book that if the spawn of Yog-Sothothmanages to find and consume the cultists, it will groweven stronger, and if it gets them all, a terrific doom shallcome upon Carrion Hill.The PCs emerge from the catacombs and track downthe remaining three cultists, only to find these madmenhave their own reasons for not wanting to flee CarrionHill—defeat by combat might be the only way to preventtheir souls from fueling the monster’s growth. As thePCs draw near to their final quarry, so does the monster,culminating in a final climactic encounter with themadness that is the spawn of Yog-Sothoth itself.Carrion Hill draws much of its inspiration from thewritings of H. P. Lovecraft—particularly, from his classicstory “The Dunwich Horror.” Although the majority ofLovecraft’s stories were contemporary, the central ideasand fantastic elements work incredibly well in a darkfantasy setting like Golarion’s Ustalav. Our authors havedrawn inspiration from Lovecraft many times before, butCarrion Hill is the first adventure we’ve published that wewould classify as completely Lovecraftian from start tofinish, be it in the form of direct lifts from Lovecraft (suchas the spawn of Yog-Sothoth or the Pnakotic Manuscripts)or merely strong influences (such as the way the ghastsand ghouls under Carrion Hill act, or the strong themesof madness and urban decay).Game Masters who seek more inspiration in runningCarrion Hill should seek out Lovecraft’s writings, which arewidely available today in multiple editions. As mentionedabove, “The Dunwich Horror” was the tale most influentialon Carrion Hill’s development, but the cumulative effectof experiencing many of Lovecraft’s stories is an excellentway to prepare yourself for running this adventure.Of course, if you’re looking for more information andinspiration regarding how to use and present Lovecraftianelements in RPGs, you should absolutely check outChaosium’s (chaosium.com) excellent Call of Cthulhuroleplaying game and the countless supplements they’vepublished for it over the past few decades—Chaosium’sbeen at this longer than some of Paizo’s employees havebeen alive, after all, and there’s a lot the aspiring GM canlearn from their books in the art of scaring your playershalf to death!Part One:The Shape in the AlleyIf the PCs aren’t yet in Carrion Hill, they could be sent tothe city by one of their sponsors or patrons who is seekingmore firsthand information about the city. If your PCsare part of the Pathfinder Society, they could be sent bythe Society to scout out the place as a possible site for anew lodge. Alternatively, one of Carrion Hill’s moreunique exports—a material known as middenstone (seepage 31)—could be a draw, with an engineer or mason’sguild sending the PCs to see how it works in action andeventually secure a large sample of the stuff to send backto their employer.The events of this adventure should begin justbefore the PCs arrive in the city (if they’re not alreadyestablished in the city), so that as they arrive, thecall for adventures sent out by Lord Garus should beamong the first things they hear on the streets. As theadventure begins, town criers and the city’s watch (agroup known as the Crows) alike give cry, calling foradventurers to report to the town hall as follows.It slew two of the five keepers before the others fled to thestreets of Carrion Hill above, leaving the monster boundto the ancient altar stone of the Sunless Grove—or so thecultists hoped.In consuming two of the five who had summoned it, thespawn began to recover its lost power and strength. In amatter of days, it had grown powerful enough to overcomethe feeble bindings that held it to the altar stone, andnow it hungers for the remaining three cultists. If it canfind them and feed upon their bodies and souls, it willregain its lost power and more, and will at last be able tocomplete the dire summoning of its otherworldly father,Yog-Sothoth, that it began so long ago—a summoningthat would result in the deaths of thousands.“Carrion Hill needs heroes! Men of stout heart and bravery areasked to come to Crown Manor with all haste, there to receivea task worthy of their skill and talents and a reward of suitablemagnificence. Make haste to Crown Manor! Make haste!”Adventure SynopsisCrown of RagsWhen the spawn of Yog-Sothoth escapes from the SunlessGrove, it surfaces in Carrion Hill in a home owned byone of the (now dead) Keepers of the Oldest, whereuponAs the heroes move through the streets of Carrion Hill,
Carrion Hill is a Pathfinder Module designed for four 5th-level characters. This module is designed for play in the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting, but can easily be adapted for use with any world. This module is compliant with the Open Game License (OGL) and is suitable for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game
