The GM should help the PCs link visions and dreams they have experienced among the islands with the fate of Pella. This, plus the trust the Crone displayed should get them to Gwaed Island.
AFAREZIRS: ROOT OF ALL EVIL 47
SCENE 2: GWAED ISLAND
The pink tinged vegetation on the dunes of „Blood‟ Island
GM Aims
To get the PCs safely to Peroc (Gwaed) Island; To ensure they notice that even at the beach some of
the dune plants have a pinkish tinge;
To ensure they notice the unusual behaviour of the an- imals on the island;
To lead them to the sheltered heath where great swathes of crimson sethimyael carpet the ground.
PC Outcomes
They will find what they have been searching for but discover that harvesting it is a challenge.
Description of Events
What captain Olmoding knows…
He will circle the island and map it. He has never landed there. The sealing is poor and whales are rarely found close to shore. Crews that have camped here to render blubber to oil have reported vicious animal attacks.
Wenowina told them that the Beast of Blood was killed on the rocky southern shore. That, combined with the account in the diary, will lead them to the south end of the island. There are several sheltered bays along the southeast coast were the Breyta could anchor and put a boat ashore.
Foraging or Herblore: The beach where the Breyta‟s
boat lands is fringed by dunes on which clumps of grass grow. The grasses have a very slight pink tinge to their foli- age but otherwise seem to be common grasses. Looking inland shows all the vegetation to have a pink tinge, per- haps getting darker in the distance. It is as if the island is bathed in the red light of a setting sun, or in blood.
AFAREZIRS: ROOT OF ALL EVIL 48
The Animals of Gwaed
The GM should roll on the standard Encounter Table (see Afarezirs) to generate animal encounters. Treat any human encounter as an encounter with a snake and replace any inland seal or similar encounter with a mountain ram.
Any encounter demonstrates that the animals of Gwaed Island are significantly more belligerent than their equivalents elsewhere. It should be possible to demonstrate this aggressive behaviour without actual combat but that is left to the GM.
The objective is to help the PCs connect the peculiar behaviour of the local fauna with the behaviour of the Hafen. This need not lead to actual combat unless the GM believes it will sharpen the PCs perception of the risk they are taking being here. No prize that is easily won has value, after all. Animals may just try to close with the PCs even if that would be an unnatural, or even suicidal, strategy.
Even if no encounter is rolled the GM should ensure the PCs see a group of mountain rams aggressively butting and goring one another. Though Survival reveals this sort of behaviour is common between male herd animals during the mating season this behaviour is much more extreme.
Even more disturbing is that one ram continues to attack even when its opponent in driven to its knees. The attack continues until the downed animal in dead. Then the victor begins to tear at the dead animal‟s flesh! Such behaviour is entirely unnatural but caused by grazing on the pink stained vegetation.
Searching for Crimson Sethimyael
The high boggy heathland near the centre of Gwaed Island is ideal terrain for sethimyael to grow. If that doesn‟t lead the PCs in the right direction then the slight increase in the intensity of the pink stained leaves of other plants will help.
Link to the next scene
Crimson Sethimyael cannot be mistaken for the ochre creeper found in marshy heaths across Harn.
Therefore, when the PCs crest a low ridge near the centre of the island and are confronted with a sea of crimson there can be no mistake. They have found what they have been searching for.
As they approach they discover the heath is surrounded on all sides by dangerous peat bogs. It was in these that Meredath‟s master died.
AFAREZIRS: ROOT OF ALL EVIL 49
SCENE 3: PELLA
GM Aims
To help the PCs connect the scene before them with the visions and dreams they have had described or experi- enced themselves.
To play Pella‟s spirit like an angry 5 year old.
PC Outcomes
They may free Pella from her imprisonment, perhaps only by having to destroy the artefact which in stopping her completing her death journey.
Description of Events
At the core of the mystery surrounding the existence of Crimson Sethimyael is the disembodied spirit of a five-year old child with sufficient arcane potential to attract the in- terest of a powerful mage. He confined her spirit in a vessel in the hope of preserving her life. The mage‟s dying spell caused the child‟s spirit to form an association with the lo- cal vegetation and her anger is the reason for the occur- rence of the red tinged variety of sethimyael and its unique properties.