Act 1 — The Haunting of Thornwick – The Shattered Veil (SV1) (Act 1 + 2) (gemini) (KEEP)

Act 1 Overview

Things start off in Thornwick, a sleepy village that's spent years quietly backing away from the rest of the world. Once the sun goes down, figures start wandering the dirt roads—folks who were buried years ago, just going through the motions of their final living moments. They aren't standard undead, and they don't seem to care much about the living unless somebody gets right in their face. Still, doors get bolted tight by dusk, conversations dry up fast when shadows stretch, and even the local church feels like a place people only visit when they've run out of options.

Sister Mirela Voss has been working herself ragged keeping the worst of the haunting contained through sheer willpower and daily prayer, but the strain is clearly catching up with her. She's convinced something down underneath the church is feeding this whole mess, even if she hasn't been able to push far enough inside the church crypt to prove it.

Give your party a little breathing room early on to get a feel for Thornwick before you ask them to put their lives on the line for it. Let them earn the trust of nervous locals, piece together why these specific echoes are sticking around, and figure out what's lurking beneath the headstones. By the third night, whatever fragile peace is left completely snaps—forcing the party into a desperate stand at the church before they make their descent into the crypts, where the root of the veil-tear and the Veilbreaker's deliberate work are waiting.

Once the party smashes or purifies the shard at the heart of the rift, the local tear closes up—making it clear that Thornwick was just the first stop in a much bigger, nastier chain reaction.

Expected Duration: 2–3 sessions Target Level: 3

DM Guide: Act 1 Narrative Arc & Expected PC Path

This timeline outlines the optimal path for the party through Thornwick, building tension over three days before culminating in the Church Siege.

Phase 1: Arrival & Night 1 (Arrival at T3)

Arrival: The party arrives in Thornwick. Their most natural first stop is the Church of Pharasma (T3) during the day.
Meeting Sister Mirela: Read through Subscene T3 (The Church by Day) before running this scene. Sister Mirela welcomes them, assesses their intentions, and offers them shelter.
Accommodations:
- The party can camp inside the church nave for free alongside the displaced villagers.
- Alternatively, if they prefer privacy or a real bed, they can pay for a room at The Bleating Lamb (T1) (Grist Mallow).
Night 1 Event: The first night features spooky, non-hostile echoes. Transparent spirits repeat peaceful or mundane living routines (walking down the street, sitting by an empty doorway).
DM Note: The echoes do not interact with the party or cause harm tonight, but Sister Mirela remarks that these manifestations are visibly more intense and frequent than normal.

Phase 2: Day 2 & The Cemetery Surge (Exploration & Area T2)

Daytime Exploration: Encourage the party to explore the village.
- Old Varla’s Hut (T4): Ideally, the PCs visit the local witch. She can provide critical context about the screaming boundary, sell minor remedies or scrolls, and offer grave-salt for defense.
Dusk at the Church: The party heads back to the church near sundown. Sister Mirela reports strange blue light and sudden activity surging across the gravestones behind the building.
Night 2 Encounter: Mirela suggests the party investigate the cemetery.
- Trigger: Run Encounter T2 (Echoes in the Cemetery). The echoes turn hostile for the first time as the tear below surges, attacking the party among the gravestones.

Phase 3: Day 3 & The Siege (Preparation & Area T3)

Rest & Downtime: The party can rest, heal, and resupply.
- DM Note: The other village structures aren't fully fleshed out in the module, so feel free to ad-lib minor interactions with paranoid locals, small trade, or brief investigation checks around town.
Dusk Returns: When the party returns to Sister Mirela at dusk, a palpable psychic pressure hangs over the church. The air turns freezing, and the salt lines across the crypt threshold begin to crack. Sister Mirela warns them that the boundary is about to breach entirely.
Night 3 Climax:
- Allow the party time to set up barricades, consecrate entrances, or assign tactical positions.
- Run Encounter T3 (The Church Siege)—the 5-wave defense where the party holds off the escalating breach while Sister Mirela completes her sealing ritual.
- Once the siege is broken, proceed down to Subscene T3B (The Church Crypt) to resolve the seed.

Threshold Seeds & Threshold Shards

To the untrained eye, a Threshold Seed looks like little more than a jagged, coal-black mineral flecked with silver veins. In reality, these stones are crystallized splinters of the Boneyard itself, manufactured and planted by the Veilbreaker to systematically rot the boundary between the Material Plane and the River of Souls. Left undisturbed, a seed acts as an anchor that bleeds cold planar static into the surrounding environment, souring nearby soil, driving livestock wild, and unravelling local spiritual balance.

Growth, Mass, and Scale

While the terms are often used interchangeably by scholars and adventurers, seed and shard describe distinct stages of planar growth:

Threshold Seeds (Minor Nodes): Small, portable slivers of crystallized veil. Seeds are easy to conceal and are typically planted in areas where the local soil is already naturally thin—such as church crypts, mass graves, or ancient battlefields. A seed begins as a localized rift that leaks ghost-echoes or corrupts nearby divine magic.
Threshold Shards (Major Formations): As a seed feeds on ambient life force, ambient souls, or divine essence over time, it expands into a massive, pulsing Threshold Shard. These larger formations invert their behavior: rather than leaking energy outward, a mature shard actively consumes souls, tears the local Veil completely open, and anchors major planar breaches like the one beneath the Ossuary of Forgotten Swords.

Destruction & Veil Resonance

Whether dealing with a nascent seed or a fully formed shard, the party faces a critical choice upon confronting one:

Shattering (Forceful Break): Smashing the mineral severs its immediate tether by brute force. However, the resulting shrapnel leaves behind Veil Resonance—silver-glass fragments that hum with lingering static. While this destroys the node, the fragments give off erratic harmonic pulses that make tracking subsequent tears more difficult.
Purifying (Clean Recovery): Cleansing the stone turns its silver veins dead-gray, yielding a stabilized specimen. Sister Mirela can use an intact, purified seed or shard to trace its origin line far more accurately, allowing the party to triangulate the exact coordinates of the main breach waiting at the Threshold of Souls.

Written on worn parchment bearing the spiral of Pharasma.

To those willing to answer a stranger's plea,

Something is wrong in Thornwick. Our dead do not keep their rest, and some among the living wake remembering places they have never seen. Each day I find another sign that the veil between this world and the next is wearing thin.

I have little coin to offer, and I will not promise riches I cannot give. What I can promise is honesty, shelter beneath Pharasma's roof, and whatever knowledge I possess. The old records beneath the church speak of dangers long forgotten. I fear they are being forgotten no longer.

If you choose to come, ask for Sister Mirela Voss at the church overlooking the crossroads. You will know the place by the sound of its bells. They have not fallen silent in many nights.

May the Lady of Graves watch your steps,
— Sister Mirela Voss

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Thornwick Village — Location Key

Area T1: The Bleating Lamb (Inn) — Boarded-up village tavern run by Grist Mallow.

Area T2: Cemetery — Ancient burial ground directly behind the church, overflowing with blue-lit echoes.

Area T3: Church of Pharasma — Center of spiritual life in Thornwick and epicenter of the veil-tear (Crypts below designated as T3B).

Area T4: Old Varla's Hut — Secluded cottage on the eastern treeline home to the hedge witch and Thornwick the wolf.

Area T5*: Blacksmith — Enclosed smithy workshop and courtyard for metalworking and shoeing horses.

Area T6*: Stable — Enclosed shelter and corral for horses, draft animals, and traveling mounts.

Area T7*: Woodcutter — Timber yard and workshop for processing firewood and lumber.

Area T8*: Chicken Coop — Fenced poultry yard providing eggs and poultry to the village.

Area T9*: Vegetable Garden — Fenced plot utilized for growing local crops and produce.

Area T10*: Bridge — Wooden footbridge spanning the river on the western approach to Thornwick.

* GM Note: Areas T5 through T10 are currently open for the GM to ad-hoc/freestyle as needed during village exploration. Detailed descriptions, encounters, and NPC profiles for these secondary locations will be fully fleshed out in the upcoming Act 2 update—apologies for the delay!

The encounters in Act 2 assume a reasonably equipped 4th-level party. If the heroes barely survived Thornwick, exhausted significant consumable resources, or seem unlikely to enjoy the challenges ahead, consider allowing Sister Mirela to accompany them into the Ossuary of Forgotten Swords.

Mirela is not intended to solve encounters for the party. Instead, she serves as a knowledgeable guide and a source of support. She can identify Pharasmin relics, explain the history of the ossuary, assist with rituals, and provide occasional healing magic between encounters. In combat, keep her actions simple and defensive—focusing on protecting herself and aiding the heroes rather than overshadowing their accomplishments.

As a general guideline, Mirela is an appropriate companion if the party is consistently ending encounters with multiple characters unconscious, has lost a permanent member, lacks access to divine magic, or simply consists of fewer than four PCs. If the group is handling encounters comfortably, she remains behind in Thornwick to safeguard the church, trusting the heroes to finish what they have begun.

Mirela's presence is a pacing and difficulty adjustment tool, not a required element of the adventure. Choose the option that creates the best experience for your table.

Act 1 Epilogue · Downtime & Transition

Thornwick Respires

For the first time in weeks, dawn over Thornwick brings sunlight rather than pale, suffocating fog. The heavy, oppressive static that once clung to the back of your throat has dissipated, taking the flickering, translucent phantoms with it. In the streets, villagers emerge cautiously from behind shuttered windows—tired, bewildered, but alive.

Yet the quiet is not absolute. Though the immediate terror of the night surges has broken, a low, subterranean hum reverberates beneath the cobbles—a distant, thrumming pulse pulling your eyes toward the shattered ridge north of the valley. The Threshold Seed beneath the altar is gone, but the roots of the breach stretch deeper still, anchored in the darkness of the Ossuary of Forgotten Swords.

The heroes have a opportunity for downtime, exploration, and preparation before venturing beyond the village perimeter. The immediate crisis is solved, but the underlying threat remains active.

Location / NPC	Current Status & Interaction	Available Opportunities & Rewards
The Bleating Lamb Grist Mallow	The barricades have been moved aside. Grist is exhausted but deeply grateful, offering the heroes free lodging and warm meals.	Rest & Recovery: Full night's rest in proper beds. Gift: Grist hands over a hidden pouch containing 35 gp collected by the villagers as a token of gratitude.
Church of Pharasma Sister Mirela Voss	Mirela tends to the remaining wounded as the nave returns to a place of worship. The salt lines have been swept away, though the air near the crypt steps remains unnaturally cold.	Spellcasting Support: Mirela can cast restoration or treat long-term afflictions. Lore & Guidance: Provides historical context on the Ossuary and offers to accompany the party if needed.
Hedge Cottage Old Varla & Thornwick	The dead have stopped screaming in Varla's mind, allowing her to rest. Thornwick the wolf sits attentively by her gate, watching the northern ridge.	Trade & Crafting: Varla opens her full apothecary wares and offers to Identify Magic or inspect cursed items. Companion: Thornwick can join the party as a guide if offered cheese and treated with respect.

When the party is rested, re-equipped, and ready to advance, Sister Mirela or Old Varla can provide explicit directions to the ossuary entrance hidden within the northern ridge, initiating Act 2: The Ossuary of Forgotten Swords.

Act 1 — The Haunting of Thornwick