Located in northern Estia, Frosthollow is a small farming village about three days travel north of Greystone.

Locations

Inn The Bull's Eye

General Store and Smithy

Shrine

Characters

Ralph Chancey

Runs the Bull's Eye. Middle aged with a big beard. Knows everyone in town.

Maggie

Serving girl at the Bull's Eye. Dreams of moving to a big city.

Introduction

The cozy inn is busier than usual tonight. Several groups of patrons are busy drinking and talking. A troubadour plays by the fire. The bar is tended by Ralph Chancey, a middle-aged man with a balding head and an unkempt bushy beard. He is pouring drinks that a young halfling girl, Maggie, is carrying out to guests.

A grizzled old man is sitting by the bar, sipping on his ale. "Bandits and brigands, all of them. I remember when justice still reigned on Estia. Hills are crawling with them, and Lord Dawnstar won't send us a single soldier."

The party introduces themselves, describing their physical appearance and where in the inn they are sitting. They do not yet know each other.

After a while, the door suddenly swings open and a woman comes in screaming, 'Help me! They have my husband!'. Suddenly, everyone rushes to their feet to see what is going on. 'They are attacking our farm', the woman pants, clearly exhausted.

A posse is formed, led by the bartender, who arms himself with a club he keeps under the bar which he uses to break up the occasional bar fight. 'Alright. Maggie, take care of her. Who's coming with me to the farm?'

If the party voluntarily joins, they and Ralph go skeleton-hunting.

If they are hesitant to join the party, Ralph tries to convince them. The troubadour and the old man will not join, clearly too frightened.

If they refuse to join, Ralph goes out alone. He manages to drive the skeletons of, but dies from his wounds.

Encounter: Skeletons at the farm

Two skeletons have trapped a Frightened Villager in a barn and are standing outside, trying to claw their way inside. An Acolyte watches on from a small distance away, goading the skeletons on.

If the party manages to sneak up on the enemies, they can get the surprise. The acolyte will try to cast Bless on all the enemies, and the skeletons will charge with their shortswords.

Dispatching the enemies grants the following items:

• 10gp
• A dagger

Neither the party nor Ralph knows where the Greenwood Cave is.

The rescued villager, tells the party that he was walking by a farm nearby when he saw the acolyte and managed to run all the way home, drawing the attention away from his wife who ran to town. He asks if you have seen her. He is comforted by the news she is well. He tells you the location of the farm.

If the acolyte was knocked out or captured, he refuses to talk, even under duress.

At this point, Ralph takes the villager back to his inn and the players can choose to head straight for the hideout or go back to the inn for a long rest and try to find it tomorrow. Following either the scent of smoke or the footprints leads to the Cult Hideout.

The Cult Hideout

The villagers directions are clear enough and as you turn around a bend in the road, a small one-story cottage appears. There is no light coming from the windows.

The door to the cottage is unlocked, and apparently uninhabited. The cottage has one room, with some beds and a small log stove. Behind the cottage, a cellar door leads downward. A Perception 12 check reveals raised voices and a weird gnawing sound coming from below.

The main room of the cottage contains the following:

• 2x Healing Potion in a sack by the stove
• A partially burnt book with magic incantations. An arcana 10 check reveals the incantations as Necromantic. A wizard can transcribe the Ray of Sickness spell from this book.
• (Investigation 13; advantage with woodcarver or carpenter tools): A chunk of a strange hardwood. A Nature 10 or Arcana 15 check identifies this as Poisonwood, a rare and innately magical wood. It can be molded almost like metal into blades that are very light but very strong.

In the cellar, two Acolytes are guarding a bound Bandit. Their Zombie is bent over a dead bandit that is lying on the floor. The Acolytes are arguing about what to do next. One of them wants to kill the Bandit (but does not mention he is a bandit), the other wants to bring him with them.

If the players kill the Acolytes, they find the following loot in the cellar:

• An intricate locked box, made from a dark wood with inlays.
• A letter that reads:

The plan has been accelerated. Kill our guests and burn the hideout and bring the Hilt to the Greenwood Cave as soon as possible. Hel willing, the blade will be reforged again.

Tharessa

The box is locked with a DC of 15 (or 20 if bashing, which also destroys the box). Inside the box is the Sacrificial Hilt.

The bandit, a swarthy half-elf named Leor, willingly gives up the following if the party stabilizes his wounds (any healing or a DC 10 Medicine check):

• They are bandits trying to rob the town and they made a deal with the cult, but were betrayed by the acolytes.
• The location of the Greenwood Cave (eight miles west of town, behind a small waterfall). It is the lair of the bandits.
• (Persuasion/Intimidation 15) He tells the players of a side entrance that the bandits use as an escape route.

Leor is a foul-mouthed, tough half-elf with a low voice. His features are closer to a human than an elf, with stubble and dark hair. He does not like the inhabitants of Frosthollow, and refuses to go there.

If the players help Leor, he becomes friendly and willing to help the players get to Greenwood Cave and fight the necromancers. The party can also hand him over to the Frosthollow alderman where he will face justice.

The next time the players take a long rest, they become level 2.

Back in Frosthollow

Back in Frosthollow, talking to Ralph leads them to the village alderman, an old dwarf named Taryn Panoris. He woes about this new cultist threat in addition to the bandits already known to be roaming the hills. If the players found the bandits in the hideout, he does not quite know what to make of the situation, but asks the players to investigate further, with the promise of a reward of 100gp each if they can drive off the cult.