Chapter 7: Excelsior - Lost Souls

The Scheme to Date

Depending on when the characters arrive at Excelsior, they may have pieced together many of the machinations in Shemeshka's and Gargauth's scheme. The weapons smuggling is a given, but they may also be onto the fiends spreading through the Outlands and the rising influence of the Tenth Lord. Excelsior is where we get to dig into other branches of the plan.

In this adventure remix the characters' original incarnations worked with Spiral Hal'oight to siphon off some of Koe's weapons trade. They saw the need to ensure the flow of armaments and make certain Spiral's end of the deal was never compromised. Their solution was to spy on Spiral's main supplier–Changle, a gnome trader living in Excelsior.

The secondary part of the plan involved seeding the Outlands with fiends that would spread Gargauth's influence and corruption. The characters broke quite a few heavy hitters out of Carceri to spark the corruption, including the night hag Uncle Longteeth. The hag is a true believer in Gargauth, as far as a hag looks beyond their own self-interest.

Long term Gargauth needs a steady supply of souls to populate his armies. The yugoloth mercenaries and converted devils will only go so far in his battle to take over the Hells. He needs fresh souls, grown from larvae and bound to his future domain.

That's what Sincerity and Uncle Longteeth are doing in Excelsior. Sincerity was one of Gargauth's faithful, and was on her way to become his champion before his fall. When Gargauth broke free from his prison and hatched his plan, Sincerity was one of the first followers to activate and work with the characters.

Uncle Longteeth uses the Nightmare Haunting ability to weaken their targets, then Sincerity moves in to capture them in the iron flasks. They aren't just capturing souls to sell as delicacies. Uncle Longteeth might taste a few larvae here and there, but together they are sewing the seeds of a devilish garden that Gargauth will harvest.

Only Fiends In The Building

The characters should have leads pointing them to Excelsior from the Cuckoo's Corner, the Frostfell Cache, or Automata. There's no strong reason to navigate the Godstrand unless they are escorting Fellik there or one of the characters has a strong backstory reason to venture to Celestia. Instead we should focus on finding Sincerity.

If the characters ask around about Sincerity or Changle, particularly when the lantern archon that approaches them, they will encounter Varrel and receive his offer. Once they are brought to Rolm, the detective will be suspicious of outsiders suddenly arriving with a lead. The thing is Rolm is at an impasse with Sincerity, and he's ready to take what help he can get. None of his questioning is getting him anywhere, but he has an instinct that there is more to her story. The not quite as rigid outsiders might provide a breakthrough that he can use to blow open the case.

Digging Deeper

Once the characters have agreed to the investigation they will be informed that the missing persons all lived in the same tower as Sincerity. Each of their apartments is similar, but reflects their personality. Let's flesh out the clues for each one.

Adorae the Dragonborn

Originally from Toril, Adorae settled in Excelsior after delving deep into the study of Bahamut. Her apartment is quiet and the air is heavy. It is decorated in modest symbols of the Platinum Dragon and the walls are covered in bookshelves filled with tomes and scrolls.

A DC 15 Intelligence (Investigation) check reveals a journal where she documents her daily routine and observations about her wellness. She suffered a bout of restless nights and feelings of increasing exhaustion before her disappearance.

Changle the Gnome

Changle's apartment is a mess of odds and ends and collectibles from across the planes. It's not so much decorated as stuffed. An alabaster pegasus statue fills most of the tiny living room. As a merchant, his interests are far and wide, but focus on objects of celestial creation.

If a character spends 1d4 hours searching through Changle's collection they uncover a safe hidden in the wall. A DC 18 Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check will open the lock, or a DC 20 Strength (Athletics) check with an appropriate tool will force it open. The door has an AC of 17 and 35 hit points.

The safe contains three gold bars stamped with the mark of the Planar Trade Consortium worth 300gp each and a ledger. The ledger has records detailing sales of various goods and regular shipments of celestial weapons to Sigil. There's a note in the margins, "Does Koe know?"

A DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check turns up a celestial dagger tainted by the devil's ichor hidden among his kitchen utensils. Changle recently came across the weapons coming back with the fiendish modifications. Disturbed by the implications, he asked too many questions and ended up in Sincerity's iron flask.

Irruwabi the Healer

Irruwabi is a human born on a dark fragment of the Shadowfell (a Domain of Dread). He managed to escape with the Vistani at a young age and quickly found a fulfilling life devoted to the Sunweaver. His apartment is modest, open, and bright. It's almost monastic in it's lack of frivolous decor.

Searching the apartment reveals a broken charm under the bed. A DC 15 Intelligence (Religion) check reveals that is a dreamshaper, a Vistani charm hung over the bed that is meant to ward off bad dreams and spirits. Uncle Longteeth shattered the charm and dispelled the protective ward before inflicting his Nightmare Haunting on Irruwabi.

Woebeke the Gardener

Woebeke's dark apartment is near the bottom floor, where he has get easy access to his garden. Hailing from a deep forest in Krynn, he likes to keep it dark. His home has the lived in quality of someone who enjoys a simple life and is festooned with growing things of all kinds, like plants, mushrooms, and herbs.

There is not much to discover here, but upon knocking or entering the apartment, Klara, a kindly halfling neighbor will come out. She can attest that Woebeke kept to himself mostly and tended to his garden. He recently reached out and asked if the bright sunflies kept her up at night. They swarmed in and out of the upper balconies at odd hours, and he hadn't had a good night's sleep in a long time.

Yoi the Diviner

Yoi is a scatterbrained tiefling born on an Outer Plane, but she never specifies which one. She rejected her infernal heritage and took up the study of signs in Sigil. She now lives in this sumptuously cozy apartment covered in pillows where she holds salons and debates the nature of truth and predestination.

Searching her apartment will uncover dozens of notes and random scribblings scattered under cushions, tucked in jars, and folded under utensils. Succeeding on a DC 15 Wisdom (Insight) check gives the characters the realization that the scattered notes from a coherent chain of thoughts when ordered correctly. They describe a series of restless dreams of a vast wasteland teeming with tortured, grey souls begging for release. A "Hidden Lord" appears in her dreams and offers salvation. She also has a scrap of paper that says "Sunflies at night? What does it portend?" Failing the check means the characters get only snippets of phrases from her notes.

Wicked Garden

With these details the characters should be able to piece together that there's something weird going on with victim's sleep, and the sunflies are involved. Inspecting Sincerity's apartment triggers the sunflies, and they can easily follow them to Uncle Longteeth's wagon.

As written we might as well put a big sign outside Uncle Longteeth's place that says "Here's the bad guy!" on it. Also one night hag will also be a cakewalk for characters at this tier of play. We can make this a spooky, evocative encounter with just a few changes.

Uncle Longteeth poses as a kindly druid, tending to the wilds outside Excelsior. Part of this ruse involves a casting of mirage arcane on the lands around his wagon. As the characters enter his domain the environment subtly changes:

The air becomes crisp and the forest seems to brighten with life. You enter a dell glittering with dew. An enclosed wagon stands in the center, made more of flowers and moss than timbers. It rests atop three giant rolled-up pill bugs.

Three deer step out of the wood line, warily look at you, then over to a hunched orc tending a wild garden. The orc holds out a hand to comfort the deer then smiles at you around two large tusks, "Welcome, friends. I'm Uncle Longteeth."

The deer are three mezzoloths with an illusory seeming spell disguising them as deer. They are there to defend the stash of souls and will attack if Uncle Longteeth is attacked.

Uncle Longteeth affects a dottering, old persona. He claims to tend to the wilds and feeds all creatures, including the sunflies that visit him from Excelsior. A well rolled Insight check or a Nature check on the surroundings will reveal that something is off—there are two bucks and a doe living peaceably during mating season, Uncle Longteeth's simple robes are not suited for gardening in a wet dell, there's a flash of recognition on his face, etc.

If combat breaks out, the illusions drop, and the dell turns into a neglected bog. Uncle Longteeth will call them betrayers who are not worth of the salvation the Tenth Lord will bring and fight to kill. He will still attempt to plane shift away if he is on the losing side of the battle.

If the characters swallow his lies, he still wants them captured and turned into larvae. He will wait for them to leave and attack them with the mezzoloths from high ground, filling a ravine with their cloudkill spells and boxing them in.

Conclusion

A confession from Sincerity will also produce the information that she is a follower of the Tenth Lord, Gargauth. He will soon rise and take his revenge on all those who wronged him, characters included. She will implicate the characters in the scheme, but they will have have advantage on any Persuasion or Deception checks to convince Rolm and Varrel otherwise.