Shipwreck Point | Maze of Hateful Shadows | The Grey Flayer | Marja Nieminen | Six Derelict Buildings
Shipwreck Point
Cannibals | Coastal
Two powerful, savage ocean currents collide in the waters around Shipwreck Point, creating turbulent, unpredictable seas. Bad weather, storms in the autumn and winter and thick fog in the spring roll in from the Bitter Sea, making navigating these waters even more dangerous. Only in the summer are the waters around Shipwreck Point considered “safe”.
Shipwreck Point is a bleak and isolated place. Denuded of vegetation by the savage storms and littered with the shattered hulks of innumerable ships, the area is also known as Sailor’s Grief. (An ale of this name is popular in the nearest settlements to Shipwreck Point—many of superstitious sailors “believe” devoutly that drinking lots of the ale makes travelling these waters safer…)
Rude stone shelters, raised up by shipwrecked sailors—dot the coastline. Many hold the bleached bones of those who survived their ship sinking only to fall prey to injury, exposure, starvation or the depredations of the packs of degenerate cannibals that haunt the point. Wise sailors know to give the point an even wider berth when fires burn on the shore–such are often lit to lure naive sailors ashore.
Maze of Hateful Shadows
Dungeon | Drow | Undead
A portal to the extraplanar Realm of Shadows lies deep in the bowels of the subterranean, tenebrous labyrinth of the Maze of Hateful Shadows. Here, undead—shadows, wraiths and ghosts—predominate along with a small colony of shadow-warped cloakers. All joyfully prey upon any living creatures daring to enter the maze.
Once the laboratory-lair of a cabal of dark elf wizards and necromancers intent on controlling and harnessing the very stuff and essence of shadow, the maze has been abandoned since their machinations went suddenly, terribly and irrevocably wrong. Wiped out by the progeny of their experimentations, their plans—to sunder the demon queen’s grip on their folk—remain unfulfilled.
For all its dangers, the Maze of Hateful Shadows sees a trickle of adventurers. Some, good-aligned and noble, dare the maze to close the Shadow Portal hidden within and to end the depredations of the undead emerging from within. Others come here because the drow were powerful spellcasters and the maze is rumoured to be littered with their spellbooks and implements of power.
The Grey Flayer
Ashlar | NPC | Wizard
Outcast from his fellows for—to them—the blasphemous pursuit of arcane knowledge and power, the Grey Flayer fled to the Shadowlands to escape their wrath and punishment. Trapped therein, for his brethren ever hunt for him, the Grey Flayer has long sought a secret and safe way to return to the world. He dreams of creating a domain for himself, peopled by servile intellect devourers who seek out the tastiest brains for his pleasure.
However, trapped in the Shadowlands and starved of tasty brains (and stimulating company), the Grey Flayer has developed the ability to graze upon his few captives. In this way, he avoids gorging himself and can taste and enjoy the succulent goodness of their brains for weeks or months at a time. True, the captive is in agonising pain for much of that time and is slowly reduced to a vegetative state, but that bothers not the Grey Flayer—until the captive brain becomes stale and spoiled.
The Grey Flayer burns for revenge against his murderous brethren and ever plots their demise. He might even enter—briefly—into an alliance with lesser creatures, such as humans, to realise his plans. His “partners”, however, should know their place, and be wary of being alone with the Grey Flayer once their usefulness is at an end.
Marja Nieminen
Cult | NPC
With black eyes that stare out at the world through twin pits of shrunken horror and with skin stretched almost to translucency over bone, Marja Nieminen has seen much that she cannot unsee—much that has sunk into the very marrow of her being.
This old, wizened woman has had a very long and a very hard life. She was once a happy, carefree young woman, but things started to go wrong for Marja when she began working in a minor noble’s kitchen. The noble was part of a dark, necromantic cult, and slowly and surely the impressionable young Marja was drawn deeper and deeper into his world. By the time the noble died—strangled to death by something terrible he had conjured from “beyond the Black Gulf of Tartir” Marja’s sanity and moral self hung by a thread. She has come to realise, belatedly, that the things she saw and the things she did were wrong—terribly wrong—but she sees no way to atone for her terrible sins. Thus, she clings to life, terrified to die, for she fears for what will come for her soul when she breathes her last. Marja will do anything to wash the dark stain of her doings from her soul. She possesses some wealth, including a few magic items she does not understand, stolen when she fled the noble’s domain, and she gladly gifts them to anyone who can save her soul.
Six Derelict Buildings
Six Things | Urban
The Old Kerwin Place: This ramshackle townhouse caught fire mysteriously. The owner, Kerwin, was never seen again and attempts to contact his heirs have failed. Thus, the place remains empty and abandoned.
Ozloc’s Manor: Persistent rumours speak of the many secret tunnels intersecting this ruined manor’s cellars. The owner was apparently paranoid and feared being trapped. The tunnels allegedly pop up all over town. The house itself was once a grand affair, but it has been repeatedly looted since it fell empty.
The Snake’s Head: This two-storey building was once an inn catering to visitors and travellers. It turned out the owners were cultists and cannibals who preyed on lone travellers. A wily barbarian put paid to the cult when they set upon him. Rumours of curses, ghosts and hidden cellars keep folk away from the ruined inn.
Cornerways: Standing on the corner of a busy intersection, this tall, ruined building is subject to ongoing arguments about who actually owns it. While interested parties argue, the building slowly decays.
The Shunned House: Rumours of vampirism, a curse and several unexplained deaths hang over this once-fine townhouse. Owned by a local merchant who rented it to wealthy visitors, it now stands empty. No one who rented the place stayed long.
The Bleak House: This house has deep cellars—far deeper than the norm, and local sages have identified the stonework in the deeper portions as “pre-human”. Strangely, nothing grows properly in the house’s gardens; all the trees, bushes and flowers are stunted and discoloured.
Thank you for reading the Sunday Supplement; I hope some of this week’s Campaign Components make it into your game or sparks your creativity.
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The Miscellany of Many Things comprises almost 200 Campaign Components—personalities, items, adventure locations and more—taken from Raging Swan Press’s Sunday Supplement.
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