I travelled to Ravengro to attend the funeral of Professor Lorrimor. When I arrived, I met Kendra, the professor's daughter, and several others whom the professor had encountered in his life. Among them was a gruff dwarf priest name Bazak, a paladin named Ichabod, and a monk named Crimbledon.
We started the funeral procession through the Restlands cemetary, but soon encountered trouble. A local gang of thugs, lead by a man named Gibs, stopped us, and tried to stop us burying the professor in the graveyard, claiming that he was a necromancer. A scuffle broke out, and several of the thugs were injured, which caused the others to flee. Once the incident was over, the funeral continued uninterrupted.
We returned to the Lorrimor home with Kendra for the reading of the will. It was an odd will. The professor had left most things to his daughter, but had left myself and the other adventurers a chest with several books in it. The will also stipulated that we were not to leave Ravengro for a month, so we could help Kendra sort out her father's affairs.
Looking through the books, we discovered the professor's personal journal. Inside, he had circled several passages. They spoke of a plot by a group called the Whispering Way and their interest in something up at Harrowstone Prison.
A piece of history for you - Ravengro was famous throughout Ustalav for Harrowstone Prison, a place where notorious criminals throughout the country were brought for execution. However, 75 years ago, there was a riot, and the prison was destroyed by fire, killing the prisoners, 23 guards, Warden Hawkin, and his wife.
While Kendra went about her business, my new found friends and I decided to do some research on the Whispering Way and Harrowstone Prison. The locals were suspicious of us, but reluctantly let us use their libraries.
We discovered that the Whispering Way are a cult of necromancers whose main goals seem to be finding ways to become liches, and to release someone called the Whispering Tyrant. We also found out that on the night Harrowstone Prison burnt down, among the prisoners were five notorious and very dangerous criminals - Father Charlatan (a con man who pretended to be a priest), The Lopper (a killer who beheaded his victims), The Mosswater Marauder (a dwarf who smahed in the skulls of his victims), The Piper of Illmarsh (a man who poisoned his victims, then let his pet stirges drain them of blood), and The Splatter Man (a killer with an unnatural obsession with his victims' names).
We were also told in the journal that there was a secret stash of items that may be useful to us, hidden in a false crypt in The Restlands. We tried to ask the local temple of Pharasma for help, but they refused. So, under the cover of darkness, we decided to sneak in to the crypt and find the items ourselves. When we arrived there were two pirests outside. Our paladin, however, kept them distracted by debating with them about religion, while the rest of us broke in to the crypt. Inside, we encountered a pair of giant centipedes. Horrible creatures. But they were easily dispatched. And inside the sarcophagus we found a collection of items that would become useful in the future.
As we explored Ravengro, we noticed some very strange goings-on. Children were singing a skipping song that mentioned the five prisoners. A pack of cards burst into flames during a card game (almost setting the dwarf's beard alight!). A gravestone appeared with Crimbledon's name on it. And then, one night, we discovered a series of letters, painted in blood, by a memorial to the guards who lost their lives in the Prison fire. We discovered that the thug from the graveyard, Gibs, was writing the letters. But when we approached him, he had no knowledge of what he was doing. The frightening thing was that he was acting exactly like The Splatter Man - spelling out the names of his victims before killing them.
What was happening in Ravengro? What had The Whispering Way set in motion? What was happening in Harrowstone prison? The professor knew. That's why he gathered us all together. It was now up to us to find out, and to put a stop to it.
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