Adventurers take heed. Many think the Grand Duchy is solely a place of palace intrigues, where elves and elfmarked scheme and plot. While that much is true, monstrous threats remain. Beware undead guardians of abandoned crypts, crafty wildcats, fiends that lurk in library stacks, and perversions of the natural world. They assail the unsuspecting and the powerless—any who are in need of heroes.
Many of these monsters are from the Midgard Bestiary, Pathfinder RPG edition. They are designated by MB and the appropriate page number.
Crafty Catamount
Lyndosa Aldous-Donner, princess of Reywald, has set a bounty of 2,000 gold pieces for the capture of the whiskered nemesis known to wary travelers as Sleek Kristof.
Sleek Kristoff is magical panther called a Kot Bayun (MB, page 66), a stealthy and clever foe with an enchanting song. Of late, the creature has been harassing (and devouring an unlucky few) travelers on the road from Reywald to Salzbach in the vicinity of Bren on the Verge.
Sleek Kristoff holds in its thrall a lyre-plucking and pipe-playing satyr, Imaxes, whom the cat uses in its schemes to entrance and entrap travelers.
While removing the menace to travelers is important, the princess prizes the capture of Sleek Kristoff because legends state that Kot Bayuns have the power to remove disease.
Undead Guardian
Treasure hunters seeking the Spear of Perun (+1 spear of lightning) might get more than they bargain for in the form of its possessor, the guardian of crypts beneath Leograsse Gate.
In life, Jumestra Masterssen was an elfmarked captain of defenders loyal to Bad Solitz. Cruel magic turned her into an imperial ghast (MB, page 52), who is compelled into guarding the spear and those entombed beneath Leograsse Gate. She has lesser undead under her command.
A Devil of a Problem
Deep in the stacks of Reywald’s Muninmoor Library, the ink devil (MB, page 32) Praustus works his woe. A sly one, Praustus takes the guise of a monkish librarian. Manipulating other librarians and patrons through trickery and disguise, the ink devil has been altering legal documents, histories, and other legal papers, working to undermine the records of elves and the lawful authority of Reywald.
Praustus is almost certainly not working of his own accord. But it’s up to adventurers to unearth whether he is answering the commands of a more powerful fiend or arcanist.
Galling Development
Rend-Bow, a fishing hamlet on the eastern shore of the River Tomir is under assault by the gnoll druid Phandrasa. A storm caller, Phandrasa has demanded the hamlet’s residents provide the sacrifice of an innocent to appease a spirit that is actually under her control. By resisting, the village has kept the druid from establishing a power base from which she would call other gnolls to her cause.
In addition to her minion carrier beetles (MB, page 17), the gnoll commands the ala, Bargunda-Mal, which resides in a nearby hollow tree. The ala (MB, page 5) was the gnoll druid’s creation, a perversion of a gall at the base of great treant.
The resolve of the villagers is wavering. They are isolated, and the gnoll has demonstrated her command of magical power to sufficiently paralyze them into inaction.
