Thurstle Island: To the Lighthouse

To the southeast of Thurstle Island, on a little spur of rock, a lighthouse spears out of the sea. Its beacon went out years ago but as Gothic colonization accelerates and the Northmen thegns smuggle more contraband, its strategic importance is growing. 

The Situation

Many years ago, after the earthquake, when the Templar were abandoning their fort, the supply packets to the lighthouse stopped. Trapped at his post, the miserable monk who tended the light starved to death and, soon after, so did the lamp. 

Some time later, en route to an island prison further out to sea, a Gothic ship smashed on the unlit rock. An ebony coffin, containing the vampire Drusilla, bobbed ashore, and the lighthouse found a new master. She enthralled the few sailors who came ashore and now feeds on them just a little every night. The sailors have all gone mad.

Drusilla is trapped on the island. She cannot fly over water and though she needn't breath and could walk to shore on the seabed, she has no way to bring her coffin with her. She will seek to threaten or negotiate anyone arriving on the rock to take her to Thurstle Island. Her husband was also on the ship that stranded her here, but his coffin was made of iron and chained closed. She desperately wants to rescue him.

Karl Alexander Wilke from Die Muskete magazine 1926

This is intended as a low-level dungeon. The grunts are not very threatening. The boss almost certainly outmatches the player characters but wants to negotiate. Gaining control of the island could be a major boon to the players.

Outdoors

Waves and sharp rocks prevent docking at this outcropping. Visitors will need to be dropped off and picked up later. 

• The outcropping is home to many gigantic crabs. They would be happy to feast on adventurers. There is an effectively unlimited number of them and any combat on the rocks will attract an increasing number of them. 
• A storage shed holds many barrels of lamp oil. It all smells strongly of fish. 
• A chimney protrudes from the stone near the base of the lighthouse. Smoke may well be pouring from it's top along with the smell of cooking shellfish. 
• The front door of the lighthouse is boarded over and nailed closed. Given a little time, a strong person with a crowbar could open it. 
• All of the windows are boarded up from the outside. 
• Behind the lighthouse, a locked door crowded with crabs opens on a cellar stair. 

The Interior

In addition to being boarded up from the outside, every window is also boarded up from the inside and the space between is wadded with cloth, consequently it is pitch black inside at all hours. 

Ground Floor

• Foyer: A catatonic thrall sitting in a chair. He will obey any command given to him but cannot answer questions. If examined, he has a tattoo with the name "Doris" on his bicep and fang wounds in his stomach.
• Chapel: Stained glass (two arched windows and a rose window) is hidden behind the boards depicting a saint with a lantern and another with a torch. The first player character to give appropriate deference at the alter will receive a blessing (whatever makes sense in your system of choice). There is a secret compartment in the alter containing a flask of holy oil and a reliquary amulet containing a saint's toe bone (will protect against the ghost upstairs).

Living Quarters 

• The thrall on this floor is hiding under the bed. She will try to sneak past any visitors and escape. If caught and examined, she has a tattoo of an anchor on her forearm and fang wounds over her femoral artery. 
• The kitchen is normal except all the knives and potentially dangerous implements have been removed.
• There is a locked trunk in the bedroom. Inside, there is a dagger, a small bag of copper coins and a key to the shed.

Workshop

• The door to this level is locked.
• A ladder climbs to the lamp room above.
• This level is occupied by the ghost of the lighthouse keeper, a monk who was abandoned, forgotten and starved to death. Per Arnold K's ghosts, "The Starved". 
• The monk's skeleton is behind a work bench. The vampire's familiar leaves food for the ghost every day, but when the player characters arrive, the ghost will be hungry. 
• The workshop has a variety of tools. There is also a disassembled ballista but putting it together without instructions is nearly impossible (there's a manual in the Crusader's Fort).

Lamp Room: 

• More a catwalk around the lamp than a true room. Some areas are open to the workshop below.
• The thrall in this room will hide in the rafters and try to ambush anyone entering and push them off the catwalk to the room below. Afterward, will attack crazily with a broken bottle. It may be possible to restrain and calm her, but she won't recover her mind until taken far away from the vampire. If examined she has a tattoo of a ship with the word "Seasnake" and fang wounds under a scarf around her neck.
• The lamp is out of fuel but can be refilled with oil from the shed outside. 

Underground

Upper Basement

• The familiar lives on this level. She prepares stew to feed the thralls from crabs killed by her master in the "Crab Butcher" room and carries it up to the thralls in tureens made from crab husks. 
• The familiar can attack anyone in the vestibule off the stairway through a grate with a spear or her crossbow. Without a spear or bow, it will be hard to fight back.
• The familiar has keys to all rooms. 

Lower Basement

• The vampire Drusilla sleeps in her coffin here during the day. At night she feeds on the thralls, then hunts crabs to feed them.
• The closet contains her extensive and fabulous wardrobe. 
• The chart room has detailed maps of the sea lanes around Thurstle Island and precise ranging charts. These will be very valuable to the powers back on the main island.
• The flooded room has a collapsed floor that connects to an underwater tunnel to the sea. Drusilla uses this as her primary exit from the lighthouse. She will flee this way if endangered.
• Past the flooded room, there is another room where Drusilla has piled anything on the island that could be used against her (the kitchen knives etc.) along with valuables looted from the chapel.  

Drusilla's husband. By Zac Roane