The Mourning Bell of Sharn
The Mourning Bell of Sharn
A prominent House Cannith artificer is found dead in his Sharn workshop, his body drained of heat and covered in frost — a killing method whispered to be the work of a Mourning-touched assassin. The city's Sharn Watch has sealed the district, and the party is hired by Lady Jorlanna d'Cannith to find the killer before a second target — the artificer's research partner — meets the same fate. As the investigation unravels, the party discovers the real motive lies buried in a forbidden warforged experiment conducted during the Last War.
Read Aloud
You step into Merrix d'Cannith's private workshop on the forty-second level of Skyway Tower, and the cold hits you like a wall — breath mists before your lips even as Sharn's warm evening air presses in from the open door behind you. Arcane lamps still glow their pale amber above worktables crowded with half-assembled schema and dragonshard housings, casting long shadows across frost-rimed brass instruments. The body of Foreman Aldric Voss lies slumped in his chair, skin bluish-white, every capillary beneath his face burst in a fine violet tracery, as though the cold erupted from inside him. Shattered on the floor beside him is a ceramic mug, the tea within frozen solid mid-spill into a perfect amber crescent on the flagstone. The Watch has cleared the room, but no one has touched the body — the sergeant gives you a flat, tired look that says the Cannith name bought you exactly ten minutes.
Description
This opening scene is a classic locked-room mystery. The workshop door was locked from the inside with a House Cannith arcane lock (requiring the dead man's house signet to open). The windows are sealed and intact. Aldric Voss (a mid-ranking artificer, not the main target) was killed to steal a schema schematic hidden in his desk's false bottom. The killer — a warforged named Null — has already escaped via an extradimensional passageway opened using a stolen Cannith key of passage. Clues: (1) A faint smell of ozone and cold iron, signature of a Mourning-infused effect. (2) Voss's signet ring is missing, though his coin purse was not taken. (3) The frost forms a subtle circular pattern on the floor around his chair, indicating a controlled emanation, not an environmental event. (4) A single warforged footprint — a distinctive flat-soled iron impression — is partially visible under the overturned stool.
DM Notes
DC 12 Intelligence (Investigation) to notice the frost's circular, controlled pattern — indicating a precise magical emanation, not a natural cold source. DC 14 Wisdom (Perception) to spot the warforged footprint under the overturned stool. DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) to identify the ozone-and-iron scent as residue from a Mourning-infused cold effect, a rare and dangerous phenomenon. DC 13 Intelligence (Investigation) on the desk to find the false-bottom compartment — it is empty, the schema already stolen. DC 16 Wisdom (Insight) when speaking to the Watch Sergeant Kala to detect she is hiding something: she found a second set of boot prints leading to the east wall but was told by her superior to say nothing. If players gain her trust (DC 14 Charisma Persuasion), she quietly shares this detail. Award a partial clue for each DC met. The goal is to establish at least three leads before they leave: the missing signet, the Mourning residue, and the warforged footprint.
Read Aloud
The skycoach deposits you on the private terrace of a Cannith safe house in Upper Tavick's Landing — a place of polished darkwood and enchanted glass that hums faintly with suppressor wards. Lady Jorlanna d'Cannith receives you in a high-backed chair like a queen granting an audience, her silver-streaked hair pinned beneath a dragonmark diadem, her fingers laced so tightly together her knuckles have gone white. Spread on the low table before her is a sheaf of schematics, their edges trimmed in the burnt orange of House Cannith authorization seals — and above them, a portrait of two men: Aldric Voss, now dead, and a second artificer, younger, with dark circles already permanent beneath his eyes. She taps the portrait of the living man. "His name is Dorin Ashgate. He will be dead before the morning bells if you do not find who did this and stop them." She lets the silence sit for exactly three seconds before she adds: "And you will tell no one what you find about the research. No one."
Description
Lady Jorlanna is the quest giver. She reveals: (1) Voss and Dorin Ashgate were partners on a classified wartime project — the Null-Soul Protocol — a Last War experiment to weaponize the Mourning's cold energy by binding it into a warforged chassis. The project was deemed too dangerous and officially terminated. (2) The stolen schema is the activation key for that protocol, and Dorin holds the second half. (3) She suspects a rogue warforged built from the experiment has survived and is now hunting its creators to complete its own activation — seeking to amplify its Mourning-infused abilities. She wants the party to find and neutralize the warforged (named Null in the old project files) and recover both halves of the schema. She does NOT want the party to know that she personally approved the Null-Soul Protocol — her motivation is self-preservation as much as justice. DC 15 Wisdom (Insight) to notice she flinches almost imperceptibly when she says the project was "terminated."
DM Notes
This is the primary social scene. Lady Jorlanna is truthful about the facts but evasive about her own culpability. She offers 800 gp upfront and 1,200 gp on completion. She provides the party with: a Cannith authentication badge (grants access to House Cannith districts without challenge), Dorin Ashgate's last known address in Middle Menthis, and a sealed file on the Null-Soul Protocol (she keeps the most damning pages). If players press her with DC 14 Charisma (Intimidation or Persuasion), she admits the project involved "some ethical compromises." She will not admit her own approval under any circumstance without a DC 20 Charisma check. If players investigate her later, a DC 17 Intelligence (History) check or contact with a Library of Korranberg scholar can reveal she signed the project charter. Use this scene to let the party role-play, ask questions, and form theories before moving into the investigation.
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