Anyone feel like assisting?
Hi everyone! I’m preparing my first homebrew one shot and could use some advice. It’s a mystery campaign, where the players are essentially told “something is wrong. Go find out what,” and have to figure out everything on their own. I’m prepping several clues for them, one of which is a journal from an NPC. I hid the answers they need in the entries, but need to know if it’s too obvious/too hidden. So my ask is, if anyone has a few minutes to spare, can you read through the “journal entries” and respond with where you would look for the monster? If you also feel up to it, what strategies you might use hunting it, how you would fight it, etc. Thank you in advance!
Journal:
· “Something isn’t right in Carmathan. In my alms distribution, I have found many homes vacant, in various states of abandonment. Some still with food on their tables, beds slept in, clothing laid out, pets neglected. Businesses with full stores, money in purses. Some looked freshly abandoned. Some covered with thick layers of undisturbed dust and rotten food as if they had been vacant weeks, or even months. If people abandoned these places, why leave them in these states? Why not take valuables? And why does no one know of these inhabitants? Maybe it’s paranoia, but I must investigate further.”
· Several pages ripped out.
· “The ledgers, records, none of it matches up. None of it makes sense. Names no one recognizes. Payments from accounts with no owners. I feel mad. Am I going mad?’
· (scribbles) Cen. LY = 1532 TY = 916
o “None know of any who departed. None recognize the names, even those sharing family names. No funerals. None of the names mark gravestones in the cemetery. How can this be??”
· “My research has made me a pariah. No one sees what I see. No one suspects anything. My last dear friend, Meltara, has bid me seek help before she will see me again. I feel utterly alone. Do I save myself, abandon these people who are blind to their fate and flee? Back to the safety of my father? Could I forgive myself for such cowardice?”
· “I have found another who might sense what I have. Some weeks ago, poor Jeremiah, the deaf old beggar, covered in sewage and filth, began ranting and raving in the streets about “the heads, so many heads, so many faces”, warning anyone who would come near. Many assumed it was his latest subject matter during yet another drunken spell. After screaming into the early hours of the morning, they locked him up, forbidden to speak to visitors. According to a guard, the drink has long since left him, but still he raves about the “heads”. Have I done what others have done to me, assume him mad when he sees what others do not? If only there were a way to speak to him. I must know what he knows.”
· “Thrice now I have written details from conversations I do not recall. Who is Meltara? This supposed dear friend? I don’t remember writing about her, nor who she is. When I called upon the others mentioned in my notes, there was no sign of them ever living there. Either the evil I sense here is far more sinister than I imagined, or I truly am going mad. Helm help us.”
· “The church bells no longer ring. Did they ever ring? The street lamps go unlit. The darkness seems familiar. Trash lays uncollected, our streets reeking like the very sewers. Surely someone must be responsible for these things. But who? And where have they gone?”
· “The town notice board is filled with missing posters. I have taken many and spoken to their authors. All but one has no knowledge of the posters, nor their subjects. What could this mean? Greyson, the armorer, is the only one who remembers his dear wife.”
· Several pages torn out
· “Memory has become burdensome….. my very thoughts and recollections bring about unease and dread…. I don’t feel safe in my own mind”
· “There is a sound. It is not loud. It is not quiet. It is simply there. A hum in my very bones. Like wind in distant pipes. Like a hymn heard through walls.”
· “I can hear it during the day now. Not singing. Breathing. Like a great lung filling beneath the town. No one reacts. No one hears it. Trust the silence.”
· “Do not trust your memory. Do not trust the town. Do not trust the song. It is not beautiful. It is hunger.”
· More ripped pages
· “They are watching” (a bunch of times)
PS - This is my first homebrew attempt…. So please be nice 😭
Edit: this is our first time doing homebrew, so I’m not anticipating the players being able to guess what it is. Even if they do they still need to find it.