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The Hollow Tithe

A hundred years ago the Fenmoor was dry pasture. Then the sea took the river mouth, the river took the fields, and the Reach became a flat brown country of reed beds, peat hags and black water that never quite drains.

Now people are going missing from the marsh towns. Not many. Three this month, two the month before. No doors forced, no blood, no bodies. Just a chalk spiral drawn inside a doorframe, and an empty house in the morning.

The folk of Mirecross call it the tithe, and they say it quietly, because saying it out loud is how you get chosen.

The Hollow Tithe is a mystery-and-horror campaign of small towns, drowned shrines and debts that were never meant to be paid. You begin as travellers on the causeway into Mirecross with no particular business there — and you will leave it with a name, a direction, and the uncomfortable knowledge that whatever is collecting the tithe is not finished counting.

*Act I is written for characters of levels 1 to 3.*

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Player Handout

The Hollow Tithe — Player Handout

Setup. You are on the causeway into Mirecross, a timber town on oak piles at the edge of the Fenmoor Reach. It is raining. It has been raining for four days. You have your reasons for being here and none of them are anyone else's business.

The situation. Three people vanished from Mirecross in a single night. Two months ago it was two. The Reeve has chalked the names on her table and wiped a fourth space clean, and she will pay in peat and gratitude for anyone willing to ask questions the town will not ask out loud.

Tone. Wet, quiet, and polite. This is not a land of armies. It is a land of small debts and small mercies, where the horror knocks first and says please. Play it straight; the marsh is frightening enough without help.

Starting hook. Halda Fen, Reeve of Mirecross, is standing in the rain at the causeway head with a lantern and a list of three names. She is looking for anyone who is not from here.

What you know. The missing are Wren Tallow, her brother Tam, and old Pellick the net-mender. No doors were forced. Nobody heard anything. The town calls it the tithe and then changes the subject.

Free Act I Preview
Levels 1 3 Sessions 3 to 4 sessions of roughly 3 to 4 hours each

The Hollow Tithe

Behind the screen

DM Overview — Act I: The Hollow Tithe

What is really happening. Maddock Vane drowned in the Fenmoor eleven years ago and came back with a silver ring on his finger and a voice in his head he calls the Bell-Keeper. The voice told him the drowned village of Fenmoor could be raised, and that it would cost voices. Vane has been collecting them ever since — not by force, mostly. He offers the desperate a place in the Drowned Choir: dry feet, no more eel smoke, a name that matters. Most say yes. A few, like Tam Ward, are taken.

The engine of Act I. Vane has begun ringing the drowned bell in the barrow, which is binding the Fenmoor's water table into the barrow's pool. That is why the chapel crypt has drained, why the marsh is dropping, and why Vane is suddenly in a hurry: the bell can only be rung nine times, and he is on the seventh.

The trail. Mirecross (the chalk spiral and the causeway tracks) leads to the Sunken Chapel (the drained crypt and the chiselled records) leads to the Reed-Cutters' Camp (the seller, Orrin Sedge, and the route west) leads to the Drowned Barrow (Vane, the bell, and the nine in the pool).

The bigger picture. Vane is a lieutenant, not the campaign's evil. He has never seen the Bell-Keeper. It speaks to him through the bell and waits, in his words, where the water goes when it leaves. Act I ends with Vane beaten and the water falling — revealing roads that were underwater, and a road out of the Reach.

Tone. Quiet, wet, courteous horror. Vane never shouts. The marsh never hurries. The worst things here ask politely first.

Adventure Hooks

Hook 01

The Lantern at the Causeway Head

Halda Fen, Reeve of Mirecross, is standing in the rain at the causeway head with a lantern and a list of three names, stopping anyone who is not from here. The party arrives on the causeway at dusk with no business in town and is offered peat, coin and gratitude to ask the questions Mirecross will not ask out loud. This is the default opening: it puts the party in front of the quest giver within the first minute of play and lets Halda's three chalked names do the rest.

Hook 02

The Sealed Letter

Sister Ysolt of the shrine of the Drowned Saint needs a sealed letter carried west to Father Corbin at the Sunken Chapel, and she needs it carried by someone the town does not know. She approaches the party at the Otter's Rest with coin, a blessing and an uncomfortable amount of urgency. The letter is a way into the chapel and the drained crypt without the party ever meeting Halda first, and Ysolt's questions about the chalk spirals pull them back into the Mirecross mystery within a scene.

Act Structure

Act I: The Hollow Tithe

Recommended level: Levels 1 to 3

Three villagers vanish from Mirecross in a single night, and the town calls it the tithe. Following a chalk spiral and a set of causeway tracks, the party crosses the Fenmoor Reach: through a chapel crypt that has drained for the first time in two centuries, into a floating reed-cutters' camp where names are being sold, and finally into the Drowned Barrow, where a courteous drowned man named Maddock Vane is ringing a bell that is drinking the marsh.

Act I ends with Vane beaten, the taken freed, and the water falling — revealing roads that were underwater, and the first true hint of the thing that has been speaking to him.

Objectives

  • Learn why three villagers vanished from Mirecross in one night.
  • Follow the trail west to the Sunken Chapel and find out why its crypt has drained.
  • Discover who at the Reed-Cutters' Camp has been selling names to the Drowned Choir.
  • Reach the Drowned Barrow and stop Maddock Vane from ringing the drowned bell a seventh time.
  • Free the nine taken villagers from the barrow pool and learn what Vane serves.

The Empty Cradle

The Reeve's hall above Mirecross market, then the muddy lanes and eel-sheds below it

Read aloud

Rain on the Reeve's slate roof. Halda Fen has three names chalked on her table and a fourth space wiped clean. 'Wren Tallow,' she says. 'Her brother Tam. And old Pellick the net-mender. All three gone between dusk and dawn, and not a door forced.' She looks up. 'I'll pay in peat and gratitude. The gratitude is worth more.'

Running this scene

Halda wants this handled quietly. The truth: Vane's two recruiters came through three nights ago offering the tithe — a place in the Drowned Choir, dry feet, no more eel smoke. Wren and Pellick went willingly; Tam Ward was taken. The recruiters left a chalk spiral inside the doorframes of the three houses and are still in town, drinking at the Otter's Rest and posing as peat buyers. If confronted they fight or flee west. Halda is holding back the fact that her own son went two months ago.

Checks
  • DC 12 Intelligence (Investigation) at the Tallow house: a chalk spiral drawn on the inside of the doorframe.
  • DC 14 Wisdom (Survival) in the lanes: three sets of tracks lead west along the causeway, two shod and one barefoot, all walking.
  • DC 13 Charisma (Persuasion) with Bram Otterly: he admits the two peat buyers paid him in green-black silver coins stamped with a bell.
  • DC 12 Wisdom (Insight) on Halda: she is holding something back about her own household.
  • DC 14 Strength (Athletics) or DC 12 Dexterity (Acrobatics) to cross the broken plank walkway to the eel-sheds without a soaking.
Clues
  • A chalk spiral drawn inside a door marks a house that has paid the tithe.
  • The coins the peat buyers spent are old, green-black silver stamped with a bell.
  • Tam Ward did not go willingly; the other two did.
  • Halda Fen's son went missing two months ago and she has told no one.
  • The peat buyers asked the way to the Sunken Chapel.
Where next
  • The causeway tracks and the peat buyers' questions both point west to the Sunken Chapel.
  • Bram Otterly offers to pole the party up the channel if they help him with his nets first.
  • Sister Ysolt asks the party to carry a sealed letter to Father Corbin at the chapel.

The Bell Beneath the Water

The flooded nave and the newly drained crypt of the Chapel of the Drowned Saint

Read aloud

The chapel floor is a shallow black mirror. Planks laid across it knock under your boots. Father Corbin holds his lamp high and says, without turning: 'It drained in a night. Two hundred years of water, gone in a night, and the stair is dry. I have not gone down. I am not ashamed to say so.'

Running this scene

Down the stair: a crypt dry for the first time in living memory, three stone coffins, one forced open from the inside, and a wall of carved records. Two drowned guardians still stand in the silt and attack anyone who touches the coffins. A will-o'-wisp flickers over the open coffin and lures the curious toward a collapsed wall. The records name the barrow to the west and describe a bell hung there to keep the water sweet. Someone has been chiselling the records out — fresh tool marks, and a dropped chisel with a reed-cutter's mark on the haft.

Checks
  • DC 13 Intelligence (Investigation) on the forced coffin: it was opened from inside, and the lid is scratched with a spiral.
  • DC 12 Wisdom (Perception) in the crypt: fresh chisel marks and a dropped chisel bearing a reed-cutters' guild mark.
  • DC 14 Intelligence (History) or DC 12 Intelligence (Religion) on the wall records: the barrow bell was hung to bind the water, not to bless it.
  • DC 13 Dexterity (Stealth) to cross the dry silt without waking the guardians.
  • DC 15 Wisdom (Insight) on Father Corbin: he recognises the spiral and is afraid of it.
Clues
  • The barrow bell was hung to bind the Fenmoor's water, and it is being rung again.
  • Someone with reed-cutter tools has been chiselling the chapel records out of the wall.
  • One coffin was opened from the inside and marked with the same spiral as the doors in Mirecross.
  • Father Corbin knows the spiral is the mark of the Drowned Choir and will say so if pressed.
Where next
  • The chisel's guild mark points to the Reed-Cutters' Camp.
  • Father Corbin asks to travel with the party once he hears the bell is ringing again.
  • The records give directions west to the Drowned Barrow, past the reed beds.

The Reed-Cutters' Price

The lashed punts and canvas roofs of the floating reed-cutters' camp

Read aloud

The camp smells of wet rope and eel. Forty cutters go quiet as you come aboard, and a young woman with reed-cuts on both forearms steps forward and says, 'You're the ones from Mirecross. Good. Two boats went out Tuesday and came back empty, and I know who filled them.'

Running this scene

Needle suspects a senior cutter named Orrin Sedge, who has been taking drowned silver to ferry volunteers west. She is right. Orrin has four hired hands and a boat loaded for tonight. The party can expose him with evidence — the chisel, the coins, the boat's manifest — or fight him on the punts. Orrin will not die for this: at half hit points he surrenders and offers everything he knows about the barrow, including that the Collector wears a silver ring and never gets wet. Handled without bloodshed, the camp council gives the party a punt and two cutters to pole it.

Checks
  • DC 13 Charisma (Intimidation) or DC 14 Charisma (Persuasion) to make Orrin's hired hands stand down.
  • DC 12 Intelligence (Investigation) on the loaded boat: a manifest listing names, not cargo.
  • DC 14 Wisdom (Perception) to spot the drowned silver coins sewn into Orrin's coat lining.
  • DC 13 Dexterity (Acrobatics) to fight on the rocking punts without falling in.
  • DC 12 Wisdom (Survival) with Needle to read the water and find the safe channel west.
Clues
  • Orrin Sedge has been paid in drowned silver to ferry volunteers to the barrow.
  • The Collector wears a silver ring and is never seen wet, even in the marsh.
  • The next boat leaves tonight with four more names on the manifest.
  • The safe channel to the barrow runs past the ninth standing stone.
Where next
  • Orrin's confession, or his manifest, gives the route and the hour to reach the Drowned Barrow.
  • Needle offers to come along and fight beside the party.
  • Father Corbin insists on coming, to see the bell silenced.

The Drowned Barrow

The bell chamber at the heart of the Drowned Barrow, above the black pool

Read aloud

The passage opens into a round chamber and the chamber is full of a sound you feel in your teeth. A bronze bell the size of a cart hangs from the ceiling, green and dripping, its mouth a foot above a black pool. Nine people stand in the water up to their waists, facing it, swaying. On the dry step above them a thin man in a good grey coat turns around, smiles, and says, 'You're early. The tithe isn't counted until the bell speaks.'

Running this scene

Maddock Vane is courteous and completely certain. He does not want to kill the party; he wants to recruit them, and he will spend the first round talking. The nine in the pool are the taken, including Tam Ward, half-drowned and still themselves. Vane fights with his silver ring and the bell's resonance; two cultists stand on the steps and two drowned guardians rise from the pool when he is first bloodied.

At a quarter of his hit points he stops fighting and listens — he genuinely believes the Bell-Keeper will raise drowned Fenmoor, and he has never seen the thing that speaks to him. Striking the bell directly cracks it and ends the resonance, freeing the taken but waking the pool. Father Corbin travels with the party and gives them the plan; he is not the person they are here to rescue.

Checks
  • DC 14 Charisma (Persuasion) to keep Vane talking for a round and buy time to get the taken out of the pool.
  • DC 15 Strength (Athletics) to strike the bell and crack it, ending the resonance.
  • DC 13 Wisdom (Perception) to notice the taken are standing on a submerged step, not drowning.
  • DC 12 Intelligence (Arcana) to recognise the bell is a binding, not a weapon, and that breaking it will release something.
  • DC 14 Dexterity (Acrobatics) to cross the slick stone rim of the pool without falling in.
Clues
  • Vane serves something he calls the Bell-Keeper, which speaks to him through the bell and which he has never seen.
  • The bell binds the Fenmoor's water; it was never meant to be rung, only to hang.
  • The Bell-Keeper is not in the barrow — Vane says it waits where the water goes when it leaves.
  • The drowned silver ring on Vane's hand is the only thing keeping him dry and breathing.
Where next
  • With Vane beaten, the taken are led out and the barrow is sealed, closing Act I.
  • Vane's testimony about the Bell-Keeper opens the road beyond the Fenmoor Reach for the next act.
  • If the bell is cracked, the marsh begins to drain and the water level across the Reach drops, revealing roads that were underwater.

Milestone: The party reaches 2nd level when they leave the Sunken Chapel with the chiselled records and the reed-cutter's chisel in hand, and 3rd level when they confront Maddock Vane in the bell chamber of the Drowned Barrow.

Villain Character Sheets

Maddock Vane, the Quiet Collector Maddock Vane, the Quiet Collector

Maddock Vane is a thin, neat man of about forty who looks as though he has been carefully dried. His features have the settled pallor of a …

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Monsters & Enemies

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Villain Plans

Maddock Vane, the Quiet Collector Character Sheet

Act I antagonist — the tithe-collector of the Drowned Choir, and a lieutenant of something that has never shown its face

Motivation

Vane drowned in the Fenmoor eleven years ago and was given back his breath by a voice he calls the Bell-Keeper. The voice promised that drowned Fenmoor — his childhood village, his family's graves — could be raised again, and that it would cost voices. Vane believes he is saving people, one tithe at a time, and he is genuinely sorry about the ones who do not want to be saved.

Personality

Soft-spoken, courteous, faintly apologetic. He never raises his voice and never hurries. He remembers names, offers tea, and treats violence as a line item in a ledger he is keeping. He is at his most frightening when he is being kind.

Resources

  • The Drowned Choir — a dozen recruited villagers who obey him without question
  • The drowned bell in the barrow, which binds the Fenmoor's water and carries the Bell-Keeper's voice
  • Two cultist recruiters who work the roads in the guise of peat buyers
  • A drowned-silver ring that lets him breathe water, stay dry, and speak through the bell
  • Orrin Sedge, a reed-cutter who sells him names for coin

Battle Plan

Vane opens by talking, and he means it: he offers the party a place in the Choir and a way out of the marsh. If refused, he fights defensively, using the bell's resonance to push and stagger anyone near the pool, and he keeps the nine taken between himself and the party as long as he can. At first blood he calls up two drowned guardians from the pool. At a quarter of his hit points he stops fighting and listens — he is a believer, not a fanatic, and doubt is the one weapon that actually works on him. If the bell is struck and cracked, he loses his connection to the Bell-Keeper and becomes an ordinary, exhausted, frightened man.

Defeat or Redemption

Beaten, Vane kneels in the silt and gives up the Bell-Keeper's name and the direction it waits — where the water goes when it leaves. He can be killed, handed to the Mirecross reeve, or turned: shown that the voice has never once spoken to him face to face, he may break and help seal the barrow. Redemption does not undo the tithe, and the families of the taken will not forgive him quickly.

Running Notes

Recommended party: Four characters. A healer and someone trained in Investigation or Survival will make Act I considerably smoother; a character who can talk to frightened people is worth more here than a sword.

Session Zero

Before play, hold a short session zero. Tone: this is quiet, wet, courteous horror — small towns, drowned shrines and debts that were never meant to be paid. The worst things here ask politely first. There is no gore for its own sake, but there is drowning, abduction, coerced recruitment, and the deaths of ordinary villagers, including a missing child (Halda's son) and a fifteen-year-old held in the barrow pool. Safety tools: agree on a lines-and-veils list and use the X-card or a raised hand at the table; drowning, child endangerment and cult coercion are the three most likely to need a veil. Table setup: confirm the party is four characters at 1st level, that someone has Investigation or Survival, and that someone is willing to talk to frightened people. Ask each player why their character is on the causeway into Mirecross and what they owe or are owed — the campaign is about debts. Establish that the party does not know each other well yet, and that Mirecross will treat them as outsiders for at least a session.

Scaling Guidance

Act I is written for four characters of levels 1 to 3, and the encounters are tuned to the milestone levels in the act: the recruiters at 1st, the crypt at 2nd, the bell chamber at 3rd. For three characters, remove one official monster from each roster and let the villain in the bell chamber open at half hit points. For five or six, add one Cultist to the recruiters and the bell chamber and one Zombie to the crypt, and give Vane a second guardian at half hit points. If the party reaches the barrow without Father Corbin or Needle, reduce the cultists to one and have the drowned guardians rise only at half hit points. Never scale Vane's quantity — he is always one, and he is always willing to talk before he fights. If a fight is going badly, remember that both the recruiters and Vane will accept a surrender or offer one; the marsh is not a place where everyone has to die.

DM Advice

Run Act I as a trail, not a crawl. Each location should hand the party one hard clue and one direction west, and Halda Fen pays per stage so they can afford supplies. Keep Maddock Vane offstage until the barrow: the party should hear about the Collector, the silver ring and the dry man long before they meet him, and the meeting should feel like a courtesy, not an ambush. Play Mirecross as a working town doing arithmetic, not a haunted one — people are polite, busy and evasive, and the party has to look for the spirals. Let Father Corbin and Needle be useful and inconvenient in equal measure. The bell is the real encounter; Vane is the man standing in front of it, and he can be talked to at a quarter hit points. End the act on the water falling, not on the fight.

Secrets & Clues

  • The chalk spiral is drawn inside the doorframe, not outside: it marks a house that agreed to pay the tithe, not one that was broken into. Most of the taken went willingly.
  • The drowned bell in the barrow was hung to bind the Fenmoor's water, not to bless it, and it can only be rung nine times. Vane is on the seventh, which is why the chapel crypt has drained and the marsh is dropping.
  • Maddock Vane answers to a voice he calls the Bell-Keeper, which speaks to him only through the bell and which he has never seen. It waits, in his words, where the water goes when it leaves — and it is not in the Reach at all.
  • The drowned silver coins circulating in Mirecross and at the reed-cutters' camp are stamped with a bell and come from the barrow; Orrin Sedge's ledger names every seller and every price.

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Villain Character Sheets

Maddock Vane, the Quiet Collector Maddock Vane, the Quiet Collector

Maddock Vane is a thin, neat man of about forty who looks as though he has been carefully dried. His features have the settled pallor of a …

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Monsters & Enemies

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Villain Plans

Maddock Vane, the Quiet Collector Character Sheet

Act I antagonist — the tithe-collector of the Drowned Choir, and a lieutenant of something that has never shown its face

Motivation

Vane drowned in the Fenmoor eleven years ago and was given back his breath by a voice he calls the Bell-Keeper. The voice promised that drowned Fenmoor — his childhood village, his family's graves — could be raised again, and that it would cost voices. Vane believes he is saving people, one tithe at a time, and he is genuinely sorry about the ones who do not want to be saved.

Personality

Soft-spoken, courteous, faintly apologetic. He never raises his voice and never hurries. He remembers names, offers tea, and treats violence as a line item in a ledger he is keeping. He is at his most frightening when he is being kind.

Resources

  • The Drowned Choir — a dozen recruited villagers who obey him without question
  • The drowned bell in the barrow, which binds the Fenmoor's water and carries the Bell-Keeper's voice
  • Two cultist recruiters who work the roads in the guise of peat buyers
  • A drowned-silver ring that lets him breathe water, stay dry, and speak through the bell
  • Orrin Sedge, a reed-cutter who sells him names for coin

Battle Plan

Vane opens by talking, and he means it: he offers the party a place in the Choir and a way out of the marsh. If refused, he fights defensively, using the bell's resonance to push and stagger anyone near the pool, and he keeps the nine taken between himself and the party as long as he can. At first blood he calls up two drowned guardians from the pool. At a quarter of his hit points he stops fighting and listens — he is a believer, not a fanatic, and doubt is the one weapon that actually works on him. If the bell is struck and cracked, he loses his connection to the Bell-Keeper and becomes an ordinary, exhausted, frightened man.

Defeat or Redemption

Beaten, Vane kneels in the silt and gives up the Bell-Keeper's name and the direction it waits — where the water goes when it leaves. He can be killed, handed to the Mirecross reeve, or turned: shown that the voice has never once spoken to him face to face, he may break and help seal the barrow. Redemption does not undo the tithe, and the families of the taken will not forgive him quickly.

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Encounters

The Peat Buyers' Tab

Encounter Builder Low

Suggested Level: 1st level

The party has the chalk spiral, the causeway tracks or Bram Otterly's green-black silver coins in hand. The two peat buyers are still in Mirecross, drinking at the Otter's Rest and asking the way to the Sunken Chapel. When the party confronts them — in the common room, in the lanes, or at the eel-sheds where their punt is tied — they do not deny anything. They offer the party a place in the Drowned Choir, politely, and then they reach for their knives.

Creatures

Cultist Count 6 SRD · CR 1/8 · Humanoid

Terrain Features

The Otter's Rest common room is crowded, low-beamed and full of witnesses: tables and benches for cover, a peat fire that throws smoke, and Bram Otterly behind the bar with a club he will not use. The lanes outside are ankle-deep mud with a broken plank walkway (DC 12 Dexterity (Acrobatics) to cross at speed) and an eel-shed on piles over black water. Fighting in the common room costs the party the town's goodwill; fighting in the lanes does not.

Treasure

Each recruiter carries 12 gp in green-black drowned silver stamped with a bell, a chalk stub, and a folded list of four names with the words 'next boat' written at the top. The list is the first hard evidence of the tithe and can be shown to Halda Fen or the camp council.

DM Notes

For a strong or large party, add a third Cultist waiting with the punt, or give the talker a round of surprise by having him open with a thrown flask of Alchemist's Fire. For a small or wounded party, run a single Cultist and let the second flee immediately, or have Bram Otterly step in with his club to even the odds.

The Drained Crypt

Encounter Builder Moderate

Suggested Level: 2nd level

Father Corbin will not go down the stair, and says so plainly. The party descends into a crypt that should be underwater and is not: three stone coffins, one forced open from the inside, and a wall of carved records with fresh chisel marks on it. Two drowned guardians still stand in the silt where they were left, and they do not want the coffins touched. A will-o'-wisp flickers over the open coffin and drifts toward the collapsed wall at the back, patient and inviting.

Creatures

Zombie Count 2 SRD · CR 1/4 · Undead Will-o'-Wisp SRD · CR 2 · Undead

Terrain Features

The crypt floor is slick silt over flagstone: treat the centre as difficult terrain, and a character who Dashes or is shoved there must make a DC 12 Dexterity saving throw or fall prone. Three stone coffins give half cover. The collapsed wall at the back is a 10-foot drop into a flooded sump, and the loose stone above it can be brought down with a DC 14 Strength (Athletics) check. The carved record wall is the only light source besides the party's own.

Treasure

The wall records name the Drowned Barrow to the west and describe a bell hung to keep the water sweet — a binding, not a blessing. A dropped chisel with a reed-cutters' guild mark on the haft lies in the silt. The forced coffin holds a bronze bell clapper wrapped in oiled cloth, and 30 gp in old coin. Father Corbin will identify the chisel's guild mark and the clapper's true nature if asked.

Clapper of the Drowned Bell Uncommon

DM Notes

For a party of four at 2nd level this is already a hard fight; drop the will-o'-wisp entirely if the party is below full strength or has no way to deal with an invisible foe. For a larger or better-prepared party, add a third Zombie in the sump or let the will-o'-wisp use Consume Life on a downed character.

The Bell Chamber

Encounter Builder High

Suggested Level: 3rd level

The party has the route, the hour and the reason. They come down the long fitted-stone passage into a round chamber where a cart-sized bronze bell hangs a foot above a black pool, and nine villagers stand waist-deep in the water facing it. Maddock Vane is on the dry step above them in a good grey coat, and he turns around and greets them by name before anyone has spoken. He talks first. He always talks first.

Creatures

Maddock Vane, the Quiet Collector Character · CR 3 · Villain Character Cultist Count 2 SRD · CR 1/8 · Humanoid Zombie Count 9 SRD · CR 1/4 · Undead

Terrain Features

The chamber is round, 40 feet across, with a dry stone step ringing a black pool 20 feet wide. The pool is deep and cold: a character who falls in must make a DC 12 Strength (Athletics) check to climb out, and the nine taken are standing on a submerged step, not drowning. The slick stone rim requires a DC 14 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to cross at speed. The bell hangs low enough to be struck with a reach weapon or a thrown object; striking it directly cracks it and ends the resonance, freeing the taken but waking the pool.

Treasure

Vane's drowned silver ring, which is the only thing keeping him dry and breathing. A Choir ledger on the step listing every name and payment, including Orrin Sedge's. The nine taken, alive, including Tam Ward. If the bell is cracked, its bronze is worth 200 gp to a collector and the marsh begins to drain.

Drowned Silver Ring Uncommon

DM Notes

For a party that has already fought at the chapel, drop the two cultists and keep Vane and the two drowned guardians. For a strong party of four at 3rd level with allies, add a third cultist on the step or let Vane call a third guardian at half hit points. If the party is struggling, have Father Corbin or Needle arrive at the top of round three to hold the passage and give them somewhere to retreat.

Magic Items

Drowned Silver Ring Drowned Silver Ring Completed

Drowned Silver Ring

Uncommon
A green-black silver band stamped with a bell, cold to the touch and faintly wet. While worn, the bearer can breathe water, and their clothes and gear never soak through, even fully submerged.

Location

Act I — taken from Maddock Vane in the bell chamber of the Drowned Barrow

Attunement

True — by a creature willing to wear it in deep water

Bell-Charm of the Drowned Saint Bell-Charm of the Drowned Saint Completed

Bell-Charm of the Drowned Saint

Uncommon
A thumb-sized brass bell on a tarred cord, salvaged from the old chapel. It rings only when its bearer is in true danger, and the sound steadies the hand and quiets the heart.

Location

Act I — given by Sister Ysolt at the shrine in Mirecross for returning the Drowned Saint's Finger

Attunement

False

Clapper of the Drowned Bell Clapper of the Drowned Bell Completed

Clapper of the Drowned Bell

Uncommon
A bronze clapper wrapped in oiled cloth, taken from the barrow centuries ago and mistaken for a saint's relic. Struck against stone it gives one deep, wrong note that makes water shiver and the living flinch.

Location

Act I — recovered from Coll's hut on the eastern heath during the shrine relic quest, or from the forced coffin in the Sunken Chapel crypt

Attunement

True — by a creature who has heard the drowned bell ring

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