The Uninvited

The party gets wind from the council that a person of interest. What appears to be a Druid has arrived in town but shunned by the Grove. They felt something was off about them and the person has been asked to prove themselves by helping round town. Unfortunately, they seem to spend most of the daytime tucked away and venturing out at night to do some bits & pieces that has been asked of them. They have an accent similar to Keller's and none of the actual Druidic abilities, and their staff has a skull of a Kenku topping it. They said they were drawn to Eschbach after being informed about it being a place of power by a little girl dressed in a red hooded cloak & red shoes, with a small black dog in tow.

They had walked through the Central Massif and banks of fog was noticed in and around them at times. Why, nobody knows for sure.

It will turn out pretty quickly that the person is female and her name is Grainne. Turns out she is from the same Grove as Keller and knows him. She will state that most of the Grove has been killed off after the High King & Little Folk of Tara was supplied information from an outlander, one of a youthful handsome Bard from the King's Court of Munster, who ate a grub in front them from an inside pocket of his cloak.

The little girl is mentioned as doing something similar but the little dog brought it to her in his mouth.

She came to seek out Keller saying she feels much more powerful now, but the sun hurts and the moon doesn't. Also, her staff seems to randomly call up a fog bank, and is sure that there are people in it but nobody is there that she can see. It has helped protect her at times when in trouble, and has allowed her to travel in the daytime.

The Grove at Eschbach will explain that they got a bad feeling from her and the feeling that the dead weren't resting easy with her around. If they take a look around the graves as well, they will notice that some damage has occurred as if they have shrank down in more than normal, or large cracks have appeared in any covered with stone slabs. At night there is the possibility of very quiet moaning heard in and around them.

Anyone who has been in contact with her at this point may start to change into a Vampire Spawn themselves, or mention she came initially or afterwards at night time only.

The party can force her into a corner of sorts and if the staff is examined, on the skull and the pale greyish wood it is made from has a small mark on each - 3 scratches leading down, and one going up like a Raven's claw scratched it.

Further study will find that it is a staff of calling undead, in this case zombies, and these appear within 1 to 3 days surrounded by fog. It seems that the mark is one sometimes used in general low level magic items used by elements of the Shadar-Kai, with it becoming inert and useless when the wielder dies or gets rid of it.

Also, by cornering her, she may prove to be a Vampire Spawn and marked by the Court of the Pale Queen with a mark on her neck. It looks like two blood punctures close together about an 8th of an inch apart though somewhat healed, but still visible.

She will explain at some pint that a representative of the Court of the Pale Queen was summoned initially in the early days of them becoming vampiric in some way, and made a bargain that the leaders like herself can have the ability to live forever while the "minions" of the Order can have extended lives at the very least if they carry out a spell involving drinking blood at a full moon and calling to Samael & Lilith.

The only other thing she knows is that the Court is found somewhere in a mountain range to the east, called the Carpathians, and part of some type of front for the Vampire Nation.

She cannot be cured of the vampirism, and may need to be killed by the party. At any time she's threatened, the staff will activate with the eye sockets glowing and fog coming up quickly. At the same time Zombie Fog Cadavers will appear in it too.

If killed, this will stop any further problems.