Crisis of Faith was the second adventure released for the Covenant of Light Faction Adventure to be run as part of the Xen'drik Expeditions campaign.
Synopsis[]
The adventure opens with the PCs at the small home of Flame Father Garris, watching as the last of the Church's investigators wrap up their inquiry. The representative of the Covenant of Light apologizes but has to leave with the Church officials. He asks that the PCs stay and see if there is anything they might be able to uncover that would be of help. Before he goes, he empowers the PCs to act in his stead, following up on any leads they might find.
Shortly after the PCs are given the authority to investigate, a latecomer arrives that might be of considerable aid; a necromancer named Grave. Grave serves the city of Stormreach as a necromancy specialist and "detective for the dead". While the PCs might be suspicious of his motives or credentials, he has all the papers necessary to prove his position and employment. Unfortunately, a mishap with his schedule forced him to arrive late, missing his appointment with the Silver Light authorities. Even so, he is happy to do his job and give his results to the PCs instead.
Assuming the PCs allow him to do his job, Grave will use his speak with dead spell on Myccal, the more intact of the two victims. Grave removes the head very clinically, polishing off the flesh and engraving it with necromantic runes. The scene is a gory and disturbing one but absolutely vital for the PCs if they wish to find out what happened in the Flame Father's blood-spattered house.
Once they learn of the Flame Father's madness (but not necessarily its cause), the PCs are given some idea of Garris' last actions in the house; namely, the fact that he fled through a shimmering portal into a dense grove of trees. This information comes from Myccal's last sight before dying. Pyrrin animates as a ghoul and attacks the PCs. After this shock, Grave packs up his tools, wishes the PCs luck with their investigation and heads to the Church of the Silver Flame to offer his official report. This frees the PCs to do as they wish as far as pursuing their new information.
There are a number of ways the PCs can proceed from here. If there is a druid, ranger, or other PC with Knowledge (nature) or Knowledge (geography) skill, that person might be able to recognize the area described by Myccal as the destination of Garris' teleportation. PCs may also use Gather Information, Bardic Knowledge, or other forms of questioning to discover the grove's location. There is also a red-smeared map from Garris' private study with a few interesting locations circled on it. One of those is a nearby druid's grove, long abandoned by its creators. Regardless of how they discover its location, the PCs will have their next lead and can investigate further.
Heading out of the city by means of the main south gate, the PCs will encounter Tynner, a city watchman with a fondness for the Covenant of Light. If he can identify any of the PCs as members of the faction, he will offer them some friendly advice ("Watch the road at night. There's been a few disappearances of late- last couple of days or so.") He will also give this advice to PCs who bother to speak with him, as he is a friendly sort and enjoys late-night conversation.
Once out of the city, the PCs will have a chance to do a good deed for Stormreach by intercepting a pack of monstrous spiders fleeing out the nearby forest. If these creatures make it to the city walls, they might attack by surprise and prove to be more than the night guards can handle. The spiders are not initially interested in attacking the PCs, preferring to get out of the forest as quickly as they can. This should be a clue to the PCs that something is very wrong in the dark trees; a suspicion they can prove correct by entering the copse after dealing with the arachnids.
The trees are not noticeably odd or dangerous when the PCs first travel into the forest. After a few hundred feet of travel, however, they will come across their first oddity: a dead animal with no sign of consumption. Just slain by massive blunt trauma, the hunting cat has not been eaten or touched. No tracks lead to or from the animal; its attacker left no evidence of itself at all. The cat was slain by an ethereal marauder, a creature from the Ethereal plane called forth by the power of the psicrown currently possessing Flame Father Garris. The ethereal marauders are not evil; they are just agitated and confused by their forced manifestation in Eberron.
Following a trail of similar corpses, the PCs can come upon something more troubling; a caravan wagon has been pulled off the nearby road and is under siege. Two humans lay dead outside the wagon's overturned frame and three more are fighting for their lives against a crazed trio of ethereal marauders. Already wounded, the marauders will eventually overcome the caravan travelers unless the PCs aid the beleaguered folk. At the first sign of attack, one of the marauders breaks off and flees, heading deeper into the forest.
If the humans are saved, they can tell how their horses began acting oddly and ran into the forest of their own accord. The distant Keeper of the Grove attracted the horses in its attempts to battle Garris and the psicrown, not that the caravan riders know this. They thank their rescuers profusely and flee towards the safety of Stormreach. Form here, the PCs will have a good idea where to go as they can follow the tracks of the hoses or the direction of the fleeing marauder.
Both head the same direction: toward the grove that Myccal saw in his last living moments. The druid's sacred copse was abandoned by its keepers after construction of Stormreach's southwest road brought travelers too close to its borders. While the druids moved on, the awakened spirits of the forest continued to watch over the consecrated site. One in particular, an ancient treant, chose to remain behind in case the druids ever returned. Now, that same wood spirit battles for its life and sanctity of its grove against the possessed Garris, determined to use the grove's power to fuel his portal back to Dal Quor.
The PCs arrive at the grove to find it shielded in a sphere of glowing psychic energy. This energy field is harmless for sentient beings to pass through but wards out creatures of the vermin, animal or magical beast types. This explains the menagerie of creatures around the field, unable to enter but compelled to try. While the PCs might do battle with these creatures if they choose to, none are hostile to them directly and fight only if engaged.
The PCs' goal lies inside the glowing barrier, where the treant and Flame Father Garris are locked in combat. Too equally matched for one to gain a significant advantage over the other, both are caught by surprise when the PCs arrive. The treant implores the PCs to aid it against the priest while Garris howls a threat at them in a bizarre, inhuman voice. The psicrown's power will bolster the Flame Father against the PCs attacks but their actions will provide the treant with enough of a distraction to strike a telling blow and hurl Garris to the ground.
The Flame Father's answering attack stuns the treant, sending it reeling back from the psychic assault. Staggering and insensate, the Keeper of the Grove will be of no aid to the PCs who must now face the Flame Father and his ethereal marauders alone. Garris turns back to his work on the grove's standing stone, trying to open his portal while the marauders deal with the intruders.
The main fight here is with the marauders; Garris is extremely powerful while he is in the grip of the psicrown's possession. The defeat of the last marauder shocks the mind-bound cleric, however, and the PCs will have a chance to deal with him before he can finish his mad mission. Doing so may be accomplished through force or diplomacy; the good man that Father Garris used to be is still within him. It just needs to be reached and convinced to return to the surface.
Whether by diplomatic skill or strength of arms, the PCs can defeat Garris. If they "talk him down", Garris resists the psicrown long enough to tear it from his head and hurl it away. This act costs him his life but saves the soul of a truly good man. If they defeat him by taking him to 0 hit points in some manner, the device consumes him utterly. Either way, the crown uses the priest's life force to open the portal to Dal Quor. The portal will only remain open for moments because of the closure between that dimension and Eberron but during its momentary existence, it allows a dark and terrible creature to enter the world.
Regardless of how things end, assuming the PCs survive, the "murderer" is dealt with and the Covenant of Light will be satisfied with the results. The light field will vanish once Garris is no longer wearing the psicrown, the forest will return to normal and the southwest road will be safe to travel once more. Father Garris will not survive the climax of the adventure, a victim of his own obsessions. Whether he dies a villain or in an act of selfless sacrifice remains for the PCs to determine.