Touch of Death

Unfortunately, there is no journal entry for this session, due to Caine's confinement to
the Saulbridge Sanitarium for the duration of
this adventure. A description of the episode, including DM comments, is below.
At this point of the campaign, I was faced with a small dilemma. To continue the events
of Hyskosa's Hexad, I needed to run the adventure
Touch of Death, but I really didn't want to use the plot device of the mists to whisk the
player's away to an Island of Terror so soon after
having used it in Night of the Walking Dead.
The solution ended up using one of my favourite domains of all time in Ravenloft Scaena.
The end of the previous session, Fear Itself, concluded in Van Richten's cottage in
Mordentshire. At the end of that session, I ran a very short
encounter where the players spotted a minor NPC (a young urchin) whom they thought
was spying on them. They gave chase, into the back
door of an unknown building. Suddenly, they found themselves on a stage, and were
overcome by "fumes from the leaking gas lights". After
being woken by the theatre owner, they were ushered out and assured the boy was not
there...
...but of course, that was not what actually occurred.
Before the next session, I told the players that the next game would be played as a
stand-alone. I explained that this adventure was crucial to the
story arc of the campaign, but didn't fit well with the current characters - so we'd
effectively treat it as a "cut scene" from the campaign.
Pre-prepared characters were then provided - typical English explorer Lord Carnarvon
types, with names like "Lord Bainbridge", and "Percival
Whitney Esq."
The version of Touch of Death was largely unchanged in content. The main change was
that the characters started in the prime world from
which Har'Akir comes, where the characters were exploring the ancient tombs and
pyramids of the pharaohs. Of course, they are pulled into
Ravenloft when a sandstone roof begins collapsing on them, and they found themselves
involved in the plots and schemes of Isu and Senmet.
The one significant change was to Isu's motivation. Instead of simply completing her
evil acts of her own volition, I altered her diary to suggest
that a "mysterious note" had suggested that she go ahead with the rituals to raise
Senmet. This note was found by the PCs, and had the same
fiery eye imprint that they found just after Night of the Walking Dead, with the same
handwriting as said note. This is designed to imply that
someone is instigating the events of the hexad - although it is not known why or by
who.

Of course, this wasn't actually a cut scene, and they weren't playing different characters.
Touch of Death was one of Lemot Sediam Juste's
latest works, using Isaiah, Max, Heinrich and Gaston as its heroes. Because this
adventure was regarded as a cut scene, however, the players
hadn't taken this session as seriously as some others, giving Juste reason to be angry at
them for "ruining" his wonderful production.
The revelation that they were still on stage, and that they had a very angry playwright
wanting a word with them, left them a little surprised!
What followed was a series of discussions and arguments with Lemot Sediam Juste,
who demonstrated his power over the PCs with several
scenes which forbode several upcoming events in the campaign.
Scene 1: Sins of the Father
This is the scene from the novel King of the Dead where the Azal'Lan executes his son
(Irik Zal'Honan) in front of his people for treason. The
PCs have no way to understand the relevance of this scene at this point in the campaign
(except for noting the similarly between Azal'Lan and
Azalin), but it points towards the reason for this entire series of events to be occurring in
my version of the Grand Conjunction/Grim Harvest.
Scene 2: Inheritance
This scene was set in Castle Avernus, during one of Azalin's debauched balls. The
players were all guests at the ball in the scene, and some
wandered the halls and came across hints of the decadent activities of the ball. After a
short time, Azalin appeared on a balcony to make an
announcement to the crowd - Jeremias Dachine (Maximillian's father) had suffered an
untimely death on his way to the ball, and that his son Lowellyn Dachine - would be installed as Baron of Nartok. This is a critical event from
Max's past, particularly if you're aware of Lowellyn's
role in the adventure Death Ascendant. This scene was used to forebode the presence of
the PCs at one of Azalin's balls (much later in the
campaign), and to emphasise the significance of that particular piece of Max's history.
Scene 3: The Madrigorian
This simple, short scene showed a young woman in a room with only a desk, an ornate
quill, and ink. Sweating, she seems to be trying to resist
something - but eventually gives in, rushes to the table, and starts writing. The woman is
Bethany Madrigore, and she is beginning to write one of
the pages of the infamous Madrigorian.
The players looked over her shoulder, and could see what she was
beginning to write (see box to the right). Although she continued to
write, the scene ended before they could see the complete page. The
characters will discover more of this entry from the Madrigorian in a

later session (Castles Forlorn).

I love foreboding (as you might have guessed), so had a great time
writing this. Although the players won't work this out until much later,
the "Six" refers to the six signs of the hexad. What the first two
paragraphs state is that the hexad is being manipulated by someone (as
evidenced by the notes added to my versions of Night of the Walking
Dead and Touch of Death). The second two begin to talk of other
signs that will occur with each of the hexad signs. The first is the return
of the Ba'al Verzi assassins - but the second won't be discovered for a
few sessions yet.
The remainder of the session dealt with the attempts to escape from Scaena, and Juste's
attempts to prevent it. This, of course, included Juste's
standard repertoire of simulating the destruction of of the theatre, and revealing only at
the last minute that it's an illusion, along with many
debates on the reality or otherwise of the PC's existence. Eventually, however, they
escaped back into Mordentshire....
... to discover that they had unknowingly spent three months in the theatre. (This time
gap was largely a plot device. Caine's player, Nick, had
returned from overseas, yet I needed Caine to have had enough time in the Sanitarium to
be cured. It was still cool, though.)
Where to from here? Upon escaping from Scaena, Gaston starts suffering from bad
dreams, while Heinrich continues to have blackouts - and
visions of murder. Heinrich's traume truly begins in "The Ties That Bind", the next
session of the campaign.