Rise of the Death Bringer

March 11^th, 999 PCE

After the Savage Clan attack on Chastain Manor during Mardis Gras, the party sets out into the Louisiana Marshes in search of Tashtego and Angelica, kidnapped members of Gareth Rose’s ill-fated “White Rose” mercenary company, who had been hired by Lady Orphea Chastain as personal bodyguards.

March 15^th, 999 PCE

After a deadly ambush, the party stops in Mill Creek to lick its wounds and learns that the Savage Clan has been blamed for a series of recent caravan attacks in the marshes and forests north of Noirlan. Cassander, the young nephew of local potentate, Baron Lyon Aubin, has also gone missing while conducting a failed investigation of the recent crimes. The party’s own investigation soon reveals the town miller, Simkyn, to be complicit in the Savage Clan’s activities. After subduing the shape shifting miller, the party pushes north to the Savage Clan’s hideout in the Silver Hills. A short but violent battle in the ravine facing the cave entrances forces the Savage Clan to abandon their base, and the party rescues their hostages from cages lashed to poles on the beach.
Cassander and Tashtego join the party but inform the PCs that the Savage Clan has taken Angelica further north. Remy Colbert tracks the fleeing Savage Clan to a vacant wood cabin near to the coast, where Angelica has been left locked in a steamer trunk. She had apparently been left as a prize for Marius. After setting a failed ambush for Marius, the party begins the journey home.

March 17^th, 999 PCE

Before the trek back to Noirlan, the party befriends a Larada shaman known as Ezeki. Ezeki, in search of his people’s sacred Isotope Relics, joins the party upon realizing that they share a common enemy: Marius, who appears to be responsible for the theft of the Larada Isotopes.

March 24^th, 999 PCE

Upon returning to the city, the party learns of strange, violent attacks that have been occuring since Mardis Gras. Lady Chastain informs the PCs of three mass killings: at the Drunken Eagle, at the Neo-Catholic Church of the Merikan Martyrs in the French District, and on the docked mafia pleasure ship, The Epicure. Hideous cannibalistic mutants have been running wild in the aftermath of these incidents only to be identified later as deformed citizens, altered by some sinister power and made into bestial murderers. These occurences are identical to the madness encountered by the party during Mardis Gras at Sunfall Cove. As the incidents worsen, the city teeters on the brink of panic. Orphea then mentions the visit of Armand Vidal and tells the party that with the city militia unable to solve the crimes and beset by increasing citizen unrest, the mayor wants [[Marsala’s Men]] to investigate the killings and bring the murderers to justice. Vidal himself issues the PCs badges of deputization and grants them authority to exercise the rights of the law.
After fighting off a fourth outbreak (this time at Saint Cyril’s Asylum for the Infirm and Insane) the party rescues Briseis Rosetti, a former paramour of Oliver Chastain and the apparent target of the most recent attack. During her deformation, she lashed out at her attackers and killed one of them. The party retrieves one of the lost Isotope rods, which is now partially decayed.
The PCs bring Briseis to Chastain Manor and she reveals the instrument and purpose behind her forced mutilation and attempted murder. She describes the Death Bringer artefact, the murky orb the party originally procured after the first savage outbreak at Sunfall Cove. According to Briseis, Marius, who had been her lover, had attempted to steal the Death Bringer orb from the Free Sails pirate fleet at Sunfall Cove but deployed its mutating powers prematurely and was forced to flee from the madness he had unleashed. Briseis herself had been caught in the artefact’s corruption wave and become rendered partially insane by the trauma. Oliver’s lack of regard for Briseis was galling: he fled from the ensuing carnage alone and abandoned her in the bush to die. But she survived and clawed her way through the Louisiana swamps back to Noirlan. She tried to tell the horrible tale of Sunfall Cove, but, in her own maddened state, Briseis was taken for a lunatic and sent to the asylum.
But the subsequent attack on the asylum came not so much as an attempt to silence a madwoman but as a strike to end the life of a rival. Salome Reynard, known felon and the lover of Oliver Chastain, apparently considered Briseis’s affection for Marius to be a jilting affront too insulting to be forgiven. It was Salome who had sent goons armed with the Death Bringer to kill Briseis, and she did it as the act of a jealous lover. Thus two matters were proven: Oliver Chastain, the brother of Orphea, hitherto believed to be an ally of Marius, actually was Marius all along. Additionally, the party now knew that the Reynard family was responsible for the recent Death Bringer attacks.
After her escape from the party and justice at “Dead Dog Alley”, Salome was widely believed to be hiding out at the manor of her powerful family with her mother, Lyris Reynard. Privileges of nobility rendered Reynard Manor a safe haven for Salome against the just excercise of Noirlan’s laws, and her mother was not known for scruples in matters of law and justice where personal interests are concerned. The party camped out on Ancestor Island on a promonotory overlooking Longview Island, the nexus of Reynard political and business interests, to observe the comings and goings at Reynard Manor.

March 25^th, 999 PCE

After spotting a lone figure leaving the manor and then the island by boat, the party hailed a charter vessel and gave pursuit. After a brief encounter beyond Noirlan Harbour, the party identified and captured the lone agent: Salome herself. She informed them of Marius‘s new residence at Sunfall Cove and of plans for an impending attack on the party themselves at the Grifter’s Inn.
The party brought Salome back to Noirlan to face justice and prepared a trap for their would-be killers. A street battle in front of Grifter’s ended in victory for the party. In epilogue, Armand Vidal revealed the truth behind the Death Bringer artefact and his family’s ancient ties to it.

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Plot Summary