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Marta bears a jagged scar running from her left temple to her jaw — a souvenir from the mill fire that killed her husband fifteen years ago. Her calloused hands are perpetually stained grey from grain dust. She moves with the efficient economy of someone who has counted every copper her entire life.

Marta speaks in clipped, practical sentences and has little patience for flattery. She laughs rarely and loudly, a sound like grinding millstones. Beneath her hardened exterior lies a sharp wit and an almost reckless generosity toward those she deems worthy — but she forgives betrayal never.

Marta wants to rebuild her mill into something grander — a legitimate trade hub that could rival the merchant guilds. But her deepest fear is that she'll die before she escapes poverty, having sacrificed everything for scraps.

Marta has hired adventurers to retrieve a stolen shipment of grain held in a bandit camp three days north. She's offering 40 gold — but the bandits are led by the dead merchant's estranged son, who may recognise her name and demand answers.

Korrath is unusually tall for a goblin, lean and long-limbed with a priest's posture. His skin is ash-grey from decades of inhaling sacred smoke. He wears layers of singed robes adorned with hand-painted flame motifs — crude but surprisingly detailed.

Fervent but patient, Korrath is the rare goblin who thinks before acting. He speaks in long, reverent cadences about fire as a purifying force. He will destroy things, but only the things he genuinely believes deserve it — and he has thought carefully about that list.

Korrath believes a Great Ember — a sleeping fire elemental of enormous power — is buried beneath a particular mountain range. He is slowly, methodically gathering the relics and allies he needs to wake it. He is not wrong about the elemental.

Korrath approaches the party for help retrieving a relic from a water-cult temple. He's offering genuine assistance in return — and he knows more about the region's underground passages than anyone alive.

A prosperous farming village begins dying — crops blacken, livestock sicken, and the earth itself rejects life. The party is hired to lift what locals believe is a simple curse. A desperate village elder offers everything they have when the party witnesses a child's fever that no healing magic can touch.

Investigation reveals the curse is not malicious — it is the enforcement mechanism of an ancient oath made 400 years ago by the village's founders to bind a planar entity beneath the earth. Lifting it requires breaking that covenant. The party discovers that the dead founders are still spiritually bound and actively maintaining it — they are not victims but willing sacrifices guarding something terrible.

To proceed, the party must descend into the sealed crypt where the bound entity still writhes and the founders' spirits stand eternal watch. Face-to-face with the planar entity and the spectral founders' collective will, the party must choose: sever the oath permanently, fulfill the original covenant's hidden clause, or renegotiate the terms entirely.

Apparent: Protect innocents from supernatural corruption. True Agenda: He knows the curse's true nature and hopes the party will break it so he can claim the sealed vault beneath the village — rumoured to contain artifacts his Order desperately needs. He will betray the party if they prove inconvenient.

A journalist is found dead in his own printing press — literally pressed flat. The police call it an accident. His editor, a contact of one investigator, is certain it was murder, and slips them a half-finished article about city councillors and a private 'sanatorium' outside Boston.

The sanatorium — Halcyon Rest — is legitimate on paper. Inspections are clean. But four of the journalist's named sources have been committed there in the past year. Visitor records are sealed by court order. The investigating judge is the brother-in-law of the facility's director.

Halcyon Rest is a front for a deep-one hybrid breeding program. The director is a true believer — not a monster, he's a man convinced he is saving humanity by merging it with something older. The patients are not harmed, but they are not leaving. Three of the four sources are already changed enough that they do not want to.

The investigators must choose between exposing the conspiracy (and being disbelieved, or worse, believed) or destroying the facility and its records. Either choice has lasting consequences — for the city, for the hybrids inside, and for the investigators' own Sanity.

A Thornwraith appears as a mass of animate root and blackened briar, roughly humanoid in shape but never quite right — limbs too long, joints that bend the wrong direction. Its core is a knot of pale heartwood housing a stolen life-force. The scent it carries is of rot and old rain.

False Appearance: While motionless, the Thornwraith is indistinguishable from a collapsed tree or dense thicket. Regeneration: Regains 10 HP at the start of each turn unless it has taken fire damage this turn. Thorn Aura: Creatures that grapple the Thornwraith or hit it with melee attacks take 2d6 piercing damage.

Multiattack: Two Briar Lash attacks. Briar Lash: +8 to hit, reach 15 ft., 2d8+5 piercing + the target is grappled (escape DC 15). Root Surge (Recharge 5–6): All creatures on the ground within 20 ft. must make DC 15 Str saves or be restrained and take 3d10 bludgeoning damage.

The Thornwraith opens at range using Root Surge, then closes to grapple the heaviest-armoured target. It ignores ranged attackers until its grappled prey is dead. It retreats into dense undergrowth if reduced below 30 HP, using its False Appearance to ambush pursuers.

• Tome of Clear ThoughtVery Rare2,500 gp

  A leather-bound grimoire bound in dragon leather. Increases the reader's Intelligence by 2 (max 20). The spine bears a faintly glowing sigil.

• Ring of Mind ShieldingUncommon1,000 gp

  A silver band engraved with protective runes. The previous owner's intention still lingers faintly inside.

• Wand of Fire BoltUncommon300 gp

  Crafted from darkwood, tipped with a ruby focus. Still radiates warmth. Regains 3 charges daily at dawn.

• Cloak of BillowingUncommon1,500 gp

  Deep purple cloth that moves as if in a constant wind. Grants advantage on Performance checks and Feather Fall once per day.

• Petrified Raven

  Unnaturally lifelike — the glass eyes seem to follow the viewer. Smells faintly of ozone. Perhaps a curse, a trophy, or a failed transmutation?

• Star Chart with Moving Constellations

  A brass plate mapping the heavens, but the constellation markers slowly rotate when observed. No obvious magical aura, yet the movements are precise.

• Sealed Letter in Archaic Cipher

  Addressed to 'The Successor.' The seal bears the impression of a tower and seven stars. Unbroken for what appears to be decades.

• 1

  A courier arrived three days ago and hasn't left his room. The innkeeper says he's not eating. The door is locked from the inside.

• 2

  The miller's daughter ran off to join a troupe of travelling players. Her father is offering a reward — though locals say she looked happy when she left.

• 3

  Something has been digging under the temple graveyard. The priests say it's badgers. Nobody believes them.

• 4

  A merchant passed through yesterday offering twice market price for old maps — any maps, no matter how outdated.

• 5

  The blacksmith refuses to shoe horses that came from the eastern road. Won't say why. His wife looks frightened when asked.

• 6

  Three town guards were found asleep at their posts last night. All three report the same dream: a silver door and the sound of distant bells.

• 7

  A halfling in travelling clothes has been asking about the old mill. She pays for her drinks in foreign coin — stamped with a king who died 40 years ago.

• 8

  The town notice board has a new posting: a warrant for a 'Varlan Dross, formerly of the King's Own.' No description. No crime listed.

• 9

  Two fishermen claim they saw a woman walking on the river last night, moving upstream. When they called out, she didn't turn around.

• 10

  The herbalist's shop has been closed all week. Her apprentice says she went to gather nightshade in the hills. That was six days ago.