Page 164 - ghosts-of-saltmarsh

CHAPTER 8: ThE STYES

SERIES OF MYSTERIOUS MURDERS SHAKES THE Purely by chance, the oceanic immigrants came to a
downtrodden folk of the Styes- a decaying stretch of water where the once-notable port district of a
port fallen on hard times and slowly being minor city had fallen into decay and corruption. Known
reclaimed by the sea. Even after the so-called as the Styes. the district was only a wretched shadow of
Lantern Ghost killer is caught and executed, what it had once been. But the aboleth found a perfect
some in the district believe that the true killer location to hide the kraken- a sunken temple to the west
is still out there. It's left to the adventurers to of the district, known to the locals as Landgrave's Folly.
follow the clues that the local militia ignores. Sgothgah quickly established mind control over a local
exposing corruption, the clandestine activities of a cadre of fishers and sailors, sending them to infiltrate
dark cult-and the alien presence whose evil lurks be- every corner of the ruined district. And to the aboleth's
neath it all. surprise and unnatural delight. it discovered an active
The Styes is an adventure designed for four to six cult ofTharizdun in the Styes.
11th-level characters. Led secretly by one of the Styes' own ruling coun-
cillors-an inhuman creature that calls itself "Mr.
BACKGROUND Dory"- this cult ofTharizdun has thrived in the decay
of the Styes for decades. Through enslavement and
There exists an underwater abyss known as the Endless telepathy, Sgothgah forged an alliance with the cultists,
Nadir- a haunted place shunned by the aquatic races always taking care to conceal its true identity. The cult-
oft he region, for this realm is the site of a submerged ists knew Sgothgah only as "the Whisperer," and they
city of aboleths. For the most part, the alien denizens of quickly came to regard their hidden ally as a powerful
this city are content to plot and lurk in the depths of the messenger of Tharizdun. To this day. only Mr. Dory sus-
ocean trench. But a few of them are cursed with curi-
osity. One such creature is Sgothgah, a scholar, crafter, pects the truth.
and explorer- and an outcast among its kind. THE LANTERN GHOST MURDERS
Sgothgah's life changed forever when it encoun-
tered and consumed a cult of lunatics who worshiped To feed the growing kraken's ravenous hunger, Sgoth-
Tharizdun, an ancient deity of darkness. As it read the gah has coerced its cultist allies into supplying the beast
minds of its victims as it devoured them, some of what it with beggars, drunks, urchins, and other sweepings
gleaned of Tharizdun- between their screams and their from the alleys of the Styes that no one will miss. At the
unheeded pleas for mercy- found purchase in Sgoth- same time, the aboleth transformed the underwater pit
gah's mind. For centuries. the aboleth mulled over the where the kraken rests into a conduit for dark magic.
concept ofTharizdun in idle moments, and evencually fashioned to capture the plentiful negative emotions
those thoughts flowered into something alien and repul- of the residents of the Styes. For months now, all their
sive to most aboleths: religious faith. fear, sadness, despair, hatred. and anger has been
focused into the pit to enhance and accelerate the krak-
THE MARK OF THARIZDUN en's growth.
To maximize the effect of that emotional darkness,
To hide its burgeoning devotion to a non-abolethic entity the aboleth chose a local human fisher named jarme
from the prying telepathic abilities of its kind. Sgothgah Loveage to be an instrument of murder and fear. Sgoth-
relocated its lair to the edge of the Endless Nadir. There, gah enslaved the young man and has compelled him to
in the solitude of the inky deep, the aboleth made a sec- commit brutal murders, fueling dread in the district.
ond astounding discovery: a juvenile kraken with an un- jarme carries a lantern on all his grisly nocturnal har-
likely, circular scar on its head, a wound earned in battle vests, and his horrible work has long been attributed to
against a giant shark years ago. Even such a strange a faceless terror called ''the Lantern Ghost."
scar would normally be little more than a curiosity, but As the killings mounted, residents of the Styes grew
Sgothgah saw a pattern in this one that evoked thoughts increasingly frightened. jarme retained little knowledge
ofTharizdun's dark madness. The aboleth took this of his foul work. He awoke exhausted, haunted by vague
event as a sign that Tharizdun had gifted it with the task memories of horrible nightmares, but hasn't connected
of nurturing the kraken until it was fully grown. the vague horrors of his sleep with the very real hor-
Sgothgah knew the kraken could never be raised co ror occurring in the shadowy, mist-drenched alleys
maturity in the Endless Nadir- even in Sgothgah's re-
mote corner of it- without risking discovery by the other of bis home.
Seven days ago,Jarme was captured by a nighttime
aboleths. So Sgothgah fled the abyss. taking with it the patrol with a bloody knife in his hands. The confused
juvenile kraken and a number of loyal aquatic minions. fisher professed his innocence. but his dreams became
It headed for coastal waters that the aboleths avoided suddenly clear. In his mind. he saw ravenous, tentacled
because of the humanoids that dwelled there, trusting creatures devouring the Styes and the city beyond, and
that other aboleths wouldn't follow it or even care that he scrawled these images onto the walls of his cell in
it had left.

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