PF2e 16 - Takon Manor

We’re roping in two sessions with this one, partially because the first session a couple weeks ago ended up a little short due to exhaustion from a player. We then missed a couple weeks because I had a doctor’s appointment and someone else was working extra hours.

The party was contracted by the League of Iron church, the Alchemist Guild, and the Adventurer’s Guild to recover something that may be able to combat the metallic plague. An abandoned manor near the town of [Keston] was surrounded by the subsuming silver, but wasn’t covered. The party was hired to investigate and potentially recover the thing that prevented the estate from being overrun.

This was one that I feel like I was really… eh… on how it went. For the manor I took the floor plan of a McMansion I found online and mapped it out for a thing to explore, and I sectioned off various rooms in 4 colors. Each color corresponded to one of the previous owners of the estate, and each color also had a specific type of ghostly enemy attached to it.

The party arrived at the mansion and was welcomed by a butler, but as soon as they crossed the threshold of the manor, it was revealed he was a spectre tied to the estate, who only spoke in preprogrammed messages. An echo of the history of the place. From his random messages (I had a list typed up), they had to figure out how to find the strange object here. The first place they were taken was the 2nd floor gallery, where there were four portrait slots, numbered for each previous owner. One portrait was already there, in the 1st slot. This turned out to be the most recent owner. The party found another portrait on the second floor, and through the clues they got from various rooms (well, “clues”, more like trivia), they put two portraits in proper position. When a portrait was placed in the right slot, the corresponding ghost enemies would be vacuumed into the painting.

The party was taken aback that they had to take notes for the first time, since my normal style is “Hey this is high fantasy high action” stuff. For reference, here’s a tiny blurb about the lords and the colors and reasonings for the specific ghostly enemies chosen. There were a couple random blurbs and things that gave physical descriptors, but I’m omitting those for the most part here.

• 1st Lord: Keston Takon - Founded the city nearby that the party visited in a previous session. A flamboyant individual who built a theater into the estate. His spirits were ghostly commoners to reflect how beloved he was.
• 2nd Lord: Willis Wallingham - A conman, crook, and criminal. He ruled his petty empire through fear and power, which led to his spirit being Phantom Knights.
• 3rd Lord: Egran Takon - A devout man who was a descendent of the first owner. Lived pretty meager, kept a small staff, and was responsible for the object that was repelling the metal, as he had a secret altar built. This is the chamber that opened when the paintings were all properly aligned. His ghosts were Poltergeists.
• 4th Lord: Garriston Gallowsway - A former tax collector and state executioner, who was behaviorally modeled after the Sheriff of Nottingham. He loved to show off his power and influenced and wealth through intimate parties with powerful people. His ghosts were Wights.

The original plan I had was for it to be a haunted mansion still, but only the last lord was actually present as a ghost that they’d have to face, as his malevolence would have kept him anchored, but I thought a little mystery would be fun. So he ended up becoming 1/4 of the problem. Originally, he didn’t even have any connection to the metal shit going on. I thought tying everything together was a better play after the initial draft.

Ultimately, I think this fell flat. They didn’t ever go through the same area twice to see the ghosts they beat respawn, they didn’t really snoop around much (besides the library), and my descriptions for some confused them and made it harder for them to figure out who was who.

They went up to level 7 (from 5) following this. They hit 6 because they were closish to leveling and got through through the fights they had, and then jumped from 6 to 7 for making a major breakthrough in the campaign’s central plot.

Now I need to come up with a good old fashioned romp. Maybe I’ll use some Swarm rules and they will have to swim through undead to get something.