Pathfinder Revisited – Rise of the Runelords Part Two: The Skinsaw Murders

The second part of the Rise of the Runelords campaign, The Skinsaw Murders adds a a lot of of horror trappings to the fantasy formula, with great results. The opening chapters of the adventure range from a slasher killer, a sinister hospital, ghoul attacks, and a journey into a haunted house, while later chapters return to a more straightforward fantasy mode, taking the party on their first steps outside of the Sandpoint area.

The Plot

Firmly established as local heroes after their defeat of the goblins threatening Sandpoint, the party is approached by Sheriff Hemlock to investigate series of murders. The killings were gruesome, and a note seeming to implicate one of the players was left at the latest murder scene. Hemlock does not suspect the party member, but hopes that they might have some insight since it appears that they are known to the murderer. The most recent murder targeted Banny Harker, a mill owner known to skim profits for himself, as well as his lover Katrine Vinder. The night before a group of con men and cheats were also slaughtered. Both sets of murders show extreme violence, the reek of undeath, and victims carved with the sihedron rune, which the party may recognize from the Thassilonian ruins they explored in the previous chapter.

The attack on the con men left a survivor, Grayst Sevilla, now a patient at Habe’s Sanatorium, which hides secrets of its own. Journeying to the sanatorium to interview Sevilla, the party learns from him that “his lordship” has his sights set on the party member that the note was left for. Sevilla, stricken with Ghoul Fever, then attacks party. This fight draws out Habe’s silent partner, the necromancer Caizarlu Zerren, who reveals information on an emerging Ghoul Fever outbreak he has been tracking in the Sandpoint hinterlands.

Even without this tip off, the party quickly witnesses this outbreak first hand, when a farmer brings work of an attack on the outlying farms by ghouls, seeming to come from the Hambley Farmstead. Arriving at the farmstead, the party discovers ghouls disguised as scarecrows scattered thought the fields, alongside a pack of ghouls led by the ghast Rogors Craesby, who wears ruined servants clothes and bears an ornate key. The farmstead hides another murder victim, the penny pinching head of the Hambley family, also marked with a sihedron rune. The Skinsaw Man has left another taunting note, informing the party that the attacks will stop if the target of his obsession “joins the pack”.

Following clues left at the murders the party links the attacks to Foxglove Manor (known locally as The Misgivings). Journeying to the abandoned manor, the party must contend with its horrific denizens and brave several haunts linked to the tragic history of the Foxglove family. They can also discover a potential ally in the revenant of Iesha, the murdered wife of the latest Foxglove heir. Below the manor the party face His Lordship Aldern Foxglove, the Skinsaw Man that has stalked the lost coast for the past weeks. They also find the source of the ghoul infection, a blight spawned by Vorel Foxglove in his attempt to become a lich.

In Aldern’s effects the party discovers a note and other clues linking the Skinsaw Man to a figure named Xanesha and an organization know as the Brotherhood of the Seven in the nearby city of Magnimar. Following these leads the party investigates Foxglove’s townhouse in the city, as well as a timber mill operated by the Brotherhood. Here they discover that the Brotherhood is in fact a cult dedicated to Norgorber in his aspect as Father Skinsaw. This cult is led by Justice Ironbriar, a city magistrate, who has been charmed by the lamia matriarch Xanesha. Xanesha has had the cult murder greedy individuals in the city, marking the victims with the sihedron rune. She used the Brotherhood’s connection to Aldern Foxglove to have him do the same in Sandpoint. Pursuing Xanesha to her lair in the Shadow Clock the party fight the lamia, only to discover that she is a servant of a greater evil: the Runelord Karzoug.

What Works

My favorite element of this module is the haunts in Foxglove manor. One of the biggest struggles of RPG adventures is how to relay the story and history of locations and characters to players without resorting to clunky exposition. The haunts sidestep this problem by directly showing players events from the history of the foxglove family. This is nothing new of course, other adventures have had players receive visions of the past but the way the haunts approach this works better. By having the haunts be nonlinear and giving them the possibility to appear to only certain characters gives them a more a complicated structure and plays into the haunting tropes nicely. It also ties these visions of the past into the plot directly, players are bound to encounter them as they explore Foxglove Manor. It also makes the reveal of Iesha’s revenant and her attack against Aldern much more effective as a story beat, it’s a scene I could easily imagine at the climax of a movie.

I really like the use of Aldern Foxglove as a villain. While he is an immediate foil and threat for the party (one with very personal stakes for at least one member) both backstory and the fact that the party saved him during the goblin attack positions him as a sympathetic figure, the latest in his family line to be twisted and broken by the caustic legacy of his great-grandfather. This sympathy doesn’t lessen his menace , and combination of murders, ghoul outbreak, and taunting notes ensure that the party consistently view him as a threat which must be dealt with. I also appreciate that these notes are personalized, with different notes depending on if Foxglove is motivated by lust, envy, or wrath in his pursuit of the players.

Another bright spot is the “Walking Scarecrow” fight around the Hambley farmstead. This does a great job of demonstrating to the party the threat posed by the Ghoul Fever spread by the Skinsaw Man, and explicitly ties this outbreak to the murders. It’s also a perfect setup for an escalating sense of horror as a party encounters the ghoul scarecrows, one that can quickly turn into a running battle or rescue mission depending on how players approach the situation. A GM can get a lot of mileage out of having the party arrive at this location at night as well, further developing the horror atmosphere.

I also appreciate the way the murder investigation is handled. The victims and scenes as laid out give a clear sense of escalation on the part of the Skinsaw Man, and the presence of his taunting notes makes that threat feel much more personal. There is enough information to clearly guide the players to the correct conclusion, but there are also plenty of options for the red herrings and unanswered questions that make for an engaging murder mystery.

As with the first module the art is fantastic, and the action scenes throughout the module do a great job of evoking the mood the designers are shooting for. The character art for the Skinsaw Man is especially good, the transformed Aldern Foxglove giving a wicked grin in tattered and bloodstained finery. The encounter areas are well planned, with Foxglove Manor in particular doing a good job of guiding players through the story beats.

What Doesn’t

Overall the encounters in this adventure are reasonably well balanced, and there’s the usual amount of care for setting up interesting scenarios that I expect from a Paizo product. That said there are a couple of points that could easily swing encounters from challenging but fun to a disaster for the players. The first is that so many of the enemies are ghouls, giving the players amble opportunity to be on the wrong side of a paralysis attack. Just a few failed saves in encounters where the players face multiple of the monsters could result in a TPK. Similarly many of the haunts in Foxglove manor are particularly nasty, with many dealing ability damage. If the party isn’t well prepared to heal from this, then they could easily fall prey to the Skinsaw Man when they finally confront him. There’s nothing wrong with a challenge but the way that debilitating effects can easily build up in this adventure is something that could easily spiral out of control.

The Shadow Clock that is the site of the climax of the adventure is an interesting location, and the combination of its unusual location and structure have the potential to make it memorable, but I feel like as written the party won’t spend enough time there for strangeness to really sink in. The Magnimar section of this adventure as a whole seems a little rushed, a I would have liked a little more done there to flesh things out. While the angle of a cult being manipulated by Xanesha is intriguing it largely ditches the horror trapping of the first two thirds of the adventure reverting to a more typical fantasy adventure. It still a very well designed and interesting set of encounters, and points the players to the overall plot of the campaign, but when so much of the rest of the adventure has an extremely well executed riff of horror tropes it feels a little bland.

Similarly the excursion to Habes Sanitarium has the potential for a delightfully creepy atmosphere, and gives the players a chilling glimpse of the Skinsaw Man’s plans and obsessions. At the same time the chapter as includes a forced fight with a necromancer that accomplishes very little. Players could easily find both what Habe and Zerren know without resorting to violence, but as written a GM is highly encouraged to undercut the atmosphere with a fight. Zerren functions as a red herring in the investigation but there are already a few of those, and another just complicates things. It’s a moment where the horror styling falls away, and in a far clunkier way than the parties dealings with the Skinsaw Cult and Xanesha. I’d leave this as just the encounter with Grayst Sevilla and have Zerren’s information on ghoul sightings be relayed tot he players by Habe.

I also wanted to take a moment to note that a number of the themes dealt with in this adventure may warrant checking with players before hand. Familial abuse and murder are major components of the Foxglove Manor’s history, and players have a chance to witness some of this first hand through the haunts. I found this particularly jarring with the “Misogyny” haunt since it not only deals with gender based violence, it forces a player to engage in it themself. Similarly the Skinsaw Man’s obsession with a party member (especially if motivated by lust) has to potential to recreate real world issues like stalking and sexual harassment. There’s nothing wrong with these elements being present int he adventure, but they should probably be approached with caution, and with safety tools.

Conclusion

Overall this is an excellent continuation of the Rise of the Runelords campaign, maintaining momentum and giving the players their first glimpse of the threat posed by Karzoug. The fist half of the adventure is definitely my favorite, with excellent atmosphere that channel diverse horror influences. The second half of the adventure is solidly designed, but it lacks the touches that made first stand out. I enjoyed reading this more than the first module, as the backstory of the Foxgloves and the murder investigation are an intriguing story all on their own.