Act 0 — Arriving in Auginford

Act 0 · Arriving in Auginford

Opening purpose

Use Auginford to put the job in the players' hands. They meet their employer, hear what is at stake, and decide what they need before walking into the Uskwood. Keep the preparation useful and brief: one good lead or piece of gear is worth more than a long shopping list.

S0 · The Lantern & Ledger Briefing

{{descriptive The Lantern & Ledger smells of wax, river rain, and ink. Brass lamps burn above uneven tables while a fire fights a losing battle with the damp at the hearth. In the back corner, Professor Policka Manderhein has cleared three places at a round table. Before her lie a locked folio, a cup of untouched tea, and a small brass instrument whose needle trembles whenever the wind reaches the shutters. }}

Professor Policka Manderhein is a practical occult scholar and the party's employer. She has traced the old Vhalek experiments to three estate relics. Her offer is straightforward: a fair advance, the balance on delivery, and no experiments with the relics until she has them together on her worktable.

{{note At the table: Let the party negotiate, examine Policka's rift-meter, ask around town, or start preparing. Policka understands the relics better than she understands the houses. Give the players one dependable local lead and one thing they cannot yet explain. Leave the map incomplete. }}

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The Three Vhalek Keys

Estate	Relic	What it reveals
Mansion of Glass	Varos’s Prism Key	The geometry of a stable threshold.
Mansion of Ash	Sered’s Ember Key	The pressure, timing, and material tolerances of a working rift.
Mansion of Thorns	Maelis’s Thorn Seal	The named passage, witness, and cost of crossing.

Together, the keys describe a way to handle a rift. Varos proved where one could exist; Sered learned how to make it bear force; Maelis decided what a doorway would recognize. The keys will not close every portal for the party. They show what must be aligned, restrained, and named before anyone can control one safely.

{{note Quest checklist: Mark each key as it is recovered. The mansions do not need to be tackled in a fixed order; every key should give the party a useful clue about the next rift. }}

Downtime in Auginford

Reward a focused activity with one concrete benefit before departure: a useful rumor, a mundane resource, a route detail, or a small edge that matters in the first scene.

• Gather leads. Speak to the innkeeper, ferrymen, chapel staff, or road wardens.
• Prepare equipment. Buy supplies, repair gear, copy maps, or call in a practical favor.
• Research the Vhaleks. Consult the chapel archive, Lantern & Ledger books, or Policka’s folio.
• Recover and plan. Rest, train, craft, and decide how the party handles delay clocks and rift complications.

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The Uskwood Edge · Last Safe Camp

{{descriptive The forest has no clean edge. Ferns push through the road, black branches knit together overhead, and the last Auginford fence posts lean toward the trees as though they might follow anyone who crosses them. Just beyond the final marker stone, blue cooking smoke curls from a low shelter with a turf roof. }}

Warden Elowen Reed

Elowen Reed is the Uskwood's practical druid-warden. Her shelter offers a dry place to sleep, clean water, and a fire the local spirits tolerate. She will not enter a Mansion, but she knows the signs of portal weather and can point out the trails that are least likely to turn strange beneath the party's feet.

Mansion of Ash: a half-day hike along the old south trail. Ash gathers in the fern beds before the ruined gate comes into view.

Between the Mansions: the old service paths make the estate grounds about one hour apart, assuming rift activity has not made the route feel wrong.

{{note Safe sleeping: Elowen’s warded camp is a reliable rest point before the first approach or between expeditions. It is not safe if the party brings an active rift, cursed object, or immediate pursuit into the ward. }}

Transition to Act 1

When the party is ready, send them from Auginford to Elowen's camp. Act 1 begins at the ruined gate of the Mansion of Ash, when the party chooses to descend toward the flooded foundation.

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