lore garden

Welcome to Willowshore

✦ created ✦ updated ✦ 6 min read

Stories of ghosts and hauntings are simply your reality living in the small town of Willowshore. Some may be true, some may be tall tales told to children to get them to behave. But every summer, these tales inch closer to your home as hauntings, spirits, and undead sightings increase. While the cause is uncertain, these ghosts pose a real danger, luring people to their deaths.

To ward them off, an annual celebration called the Reenactment Festival is held on the last day of spring; four people are chosen to be snatched away by “ghosts” as a farce to trick the real ghosts that this settlement is already haunted, and thus convince them to seek a happier village to inflict misery upon.

This year, the duty has fallen to you, and on the night of the festival, you and your companions are whisked off. But when you wake up on that first day of summer, you find that this time around, the festival did not work, and your hometown has been plunged into the Season of Ghosts.

Season of Ghosts is a Pathfinder 2e Adventure Path with folkloric horror and mystery themes! The bulk of the campaign is set in the small town of Willowshore, located in the haunted nation of Shenmen.

Session 0

I want to do a Session 0 so we can briefly go over the PF2e rules and how it’s different from D&D 5e, and go over and finalize everyone’s character sheets and help with builds, if needed. I also want to set everyone up in FoundryVTT during this time, sort out technical issues, etc. If we finish early and everyone’s ready, we can proceed with the prologue, which is the festival!

Session 0 Date: TBD (May? June? Starting in summertime would be fun and in theme, but we could go earlier. Depends. Nuance. I’m bald.)

Warning

Refrain from searching up this Adventure Path anywhere online to avoid spoilers!!! If you have questions please ask me or refer to the Players’ Guide linked below. Love you, mwah!

Character Creation

You are a resident of Willowshore who was selected or had volunteered to participate in the Reenactment Festival.

Being in the same family with another PC can provide you with a custom Feat to replace the one you get from your Background, depending on your relationship with each other. Conversely, if you aren’t native to Willowshore, you have choices for custom background Feats depending on your relationship with the town itself. See the Players’ Guide for more info! (Link below.)

  • Name
  • Age
  • Gender/Pronouns
  • Physical description
  • Backstory
  • Occupation (optional)
  • Societal standing - the Players’ Guide gives you options that ties into your Background
  • Faith (optional) - refer to the Players’ Guide for more specific options!
  • Key relationships
    • You may be family/friends/enemies with the other PCs, existing NPCs or custom characters. Just let me know beforehand :)
  • Where are you from?
    • If your character isn’t born in Willowshore, how and why did they come to live in Willowshore?
    • Related: Pick a house where you live in from the map found in the Player’s Guide. Your character background will provide you with appropriate options, if needed
  • Primary motivation
    • Reasons to be rooted in Willowshore (family, friends, job, etc.)
    • Why is your character chosen to participate in this year’s Reenactment Festival? Did they volunteer?
  • Primary fears
  • An incriminating secret, and who would be likely to know it (optional)
  • Story hooks

Resources

Info

Link to the Player’s Guide: https://downloads.paizo.com/SeasonofGhosts_PlayersGuide.pdf

Everything you need to know is in that PDF, including the basic lore and some of the NPCs you live with in Willowshore! The only change I made here is that Old Matsuki is now a woman. :)

Character Sheet

Since this is everyone’s first PF2e game, I will allow you to respec (for a price!) if you don’t like the class/build you’re playing. This is different from retraining which allows you to change your feats, skills, or class features during downtime.

I recommend you to take the following skills:

  • Religion
  • Occultism
  • Willowshore Lore

At least one in the party should be trained in these skills, although there are alternate skills that can be used for checks and activities, so you don’t have to take it if you don’t want to.

This is not an undead-heavy campaign! The horror is more of the folklore type; not a lot of undead, if any. But don’t let me stop you!

We’re starting Level 1. Don’t worry about it. First level is a good starting point so we all don’t get overwhelmed by character build choices (like in WotR… lol).

Optionally, we are also doing the Free Archetype variant rule, which gives you more options if you want to multiclass or take other archetypes. You don’t have to take an archetype if you don’t want to.

ABCs

Follow the ABCs of Character Creation!

  • Ancestry (and Heritage)
  • Background
  • Class (and optionally, Archetype)

Have an idea of the character concept you want to play, and these three things will follow. Pathbuilder is the best resource for character builds since it guides you step by step on these things. But you will still need to refer to Archives of Nethys for more detailed information such as spellcasting, etc.

Resources

✦ created ✦ updated ✦ 6 min read

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