2024-12-31: Southwest Oregon (Hex 31)
Salty breezes from the ocean to the west blow across the humid landscape. A very slight mist comes almost constantly here, while fog creeps in a blanket through the lush old growth forests.
Notable Feature: Moore Mountain Quarry (Dungeon)
Medium dungeon, 11 areas
Thick fog that is much darker than usual covers most of this old quarry, tendrils of cloud blanket waving like the tentacles of some sea monster. Lately, people in the area have had their personalities suddenly change to become much more impulsive and amoral. The condition worsens for a few days, after which time, they flee toward the quarry. By now, the fog of the quarry is filled with dozens of half-monstrous people who are partially morphed into a caricature of their vices and misdeeds.
All this is happening because of a series of chance encounters with a sin-eater named Elaine Romero. Elaine is hired to stand next to recently deceased individuals and consume a small loaf of bread and a glass of beer that has been passed over the corpse, and the act transfers all the sins of the deceased to Elaine so that the spirit of the deceased can go to wherever it needs to go. However, Elaine was recently hired to eat the sins of a person who was quite touched by powerful magics. When that person's sins were transferred, Elaine immediately felt sick. The sins ate away at Elaine like a cancer, and soon Elaine asked another of her mystic friends for advice. The friend gave her an enchanted stone from the Old Country that is known as a Stone of Absolution. The stone is supposed to be able to absolve any sin or misdeed when kissed.
Elaine kissed the stone and immediately felt better, though the relief was short-lived. Soon Elaine began vomiting up a viscous black substance that was the physical manifestation of pure sin. Elaine stole the Stone of Absolution and fled to the quarry to live out her final hours in hopes that the sin would be contained in the disused quarry. However, some of the sin has breached a small stream that provides water to a semi-populated area and is mutating those who drink the water.
If the party can protect the stream from further incursion by sin and purify the water that was already tainted, they will soon be drawn to the Stone of Absolution that is clutched tightly in the fist of Elaine's corpse. The stone has 7 charges that replenish each day, and each time a person kisses the stone expends one charge. A charge can do one of the following things:
Restore 1HP
End a curse on a person
End the poisoned condition
End the frightened condition
Service Station: Pacifica Truck Stop
Long black tire marks on the road indicate the poorly-placed entrance to this truck stop as many drivers have to suddenly brake and reverse in order to pull in here. It's hard to see from the road, because almost everything about the truck stop is a shade of green that blends in with the surrounding rainforest. As far as amenities go, the food is good, the coffee tastes like black lightning, the showers are clean but can't shake a slight mildewy smell, and the walls of the lounge area are plastered in Teamsters Union literature.
Each time the party visits Pacifica Truck Stop, there's a 75% chance that a man named Fergus Mitchell is there. Fergus always carries a Polaroid Land Model 100 instant camera (pictured below) with him and will ask if anyone in the party would like to have "a picture for the future" for 50 cents. Fergus can take a total of 1d8 pictures each time he appears.
Fergus takes a picture and stuffs it into an envelope before the image has a chance to develop and he gives the picture to whoever pays him. He then explains (albeit cryptically) that if the purchaser thinks of (or verbally asks) a single question before looking at the photograph for the first time, the image will show a slightly hazy image the answer to that question that is true as of the time of question. The future is not set in stone, and this image is only a guide to one such possibility. Once the image has been perceived, it displays that image permanently.












