Begin exactly where the prologue ended. Nearly twenty days on the road. The handcart is covered by the tarp they bought in Bellhaven; inside are Eamon's possessions and the sealed coin chest. Dunnchadh has the contract and Eamon's magical receipt stored safely between the toolboxes.
The road narrows. Cultivated fields appear. Stone walls divide grazing land. Now and then they pass an isolated farm.
Let them react. They've made it. Their easy delivery job is nearly finished.
Don't make the villagers hostile. Make them curious. Outsiders don't arrive every day.
The feeling should be “What did the cat drag in?” — not “Outsiders! Get them!” Brackenford trades with other villages, people travel through, apprentices arrive. Five halflings with a loaded handcart are unusual, not frightening.
Eventually one child gets brave enough: Bryony Thorn, age 8. She has grown up in the only halfling household in Brackenford, so five halflings together is fascinating. She approaches, cautiously at first.
Are you Thorns?
Pause. If they don't understand:
Like… family of ours?
If they explain they're not, Bryony looks slightly disappointed — then notices something about the beekeeper (Darragh, going by the pet bees on the sheet): a bee smoker strapped to the cart, a tool, the smell of beeswax, or the character simply mentions it.
You keep bees?
And that changes everything.
Bryony runs home, possibly without saying goodbye. A few minutes later she comes running back with her older sister, Clover Thorn, an 18-year-old halfling beekeeper apprentice. Clover is considerably less shy, introduces herself properly, and apologises for Bryony interrogating strangers.
A light opening before the mystery begins.
If the party shows even moderate interest, Clover invites them to the Thorn farmstead on the edge of Brackenford. (Thorn family tree)
Make this one of the most welcoming places in Brackenford. Rows of hives behind the house. Beeswax candles drying beneath a covered work area. Jars everywhere. The whole place smells faintly of honey and smoke.
Don't rush this. A player chose beekeeping before this connection existed — exactly the sort of coincidence worth exploiting.
Let them disagree about techniques. No rolls unless the player makes specific claims or examines the Thorn hives.
Eventually, naturally:
So what brings five of you all the way out here?
The players explain: Eamon Vale. Watch the atmosphere change — not dramatically. Bramble doesn't drop his mug. Poppy doesn't scream. But there's a pause. Clover looks toward her father.
The first tiny alarm bell.
Bramble gives the straightforward answer:
Vale farm's on the western side. Follow the road past the square, then take the path beside the orchard.
Bramble won't lie unnecessarily — but he's certainly not telling five strangers that Eamon ran into their four-hundred-year-old vampire earlier today.
This is where the easy job officially stops being easy. (Vale family tree)
They knock. Maris Vale, Eamon's 39-year-old partner, answers. She looks tired — not grieving, not terrified, but clearly she's had a bad day. Behind her might be Olda Vale (73, Eamon's mother) and, depending on the time of day, Tilda (17), Rory (12) and Wick (6).
We're looking for Eamon Vale.
Maris pauses.
He's not here.
The prologue preparation pays off. They explain Edric, show the inheritance, and perhaps explain that Edric has died. That gives Maris a genuine emotional reaction — she knows who Edric was, and Olda certainly does: Edric was her relative.
For a moment the ancient vampire conspiracy disappears and this becomes a family receiving news of a death. Let that breathe.
Edric's dead?
If told he died peacefully of old age:
Seventy-six… (she nods) Stubborn bastard made it further than I expected.
You can leave his things here. I'll make sure he gets them.
Now Dunnchadh's paperwork matters. They can leave the inheritance — but Eamon has to sign. If they explain that, Maris becomes uncomfortable.
That answer should sound wrong — because she almost said something else.
Don't make her stonewall like an NPC quest gate. She's under pressure. She loves Eamon. She knows he is physically safe, but she's frightened by what he said. If they push gently:
Something happened this afternoon.
A major clue: the village council has Eamon. Don't give them his location.
Something concrete to notice: the Thorns implied they didn't know where Eamon was. Maris says the council has him. Not necessarily sinister — but strange.
And because the party needs Eamon's signature, they can't simply shrug and leave. They're trapped without being railroaded: they can leave whenever they want, they just won't get their remaining 100 gp.
At some point they'll head toward the centre. Let them see the village properly — this is where the roster of NPCs starts becoming useful.
Don't introduce fifteen named characters. Use faces. The mill. The temple. The smithy. Children. Someone selling vegetables. A carpenter carrying timber. A dwarf arguing about a horseshoe. People who clearly know one another.
This isn't a spooky cult village. It's a community — and that matters enormously later.
Start the blood-cart mystery before they find Eamon, but make the first clue mundane. Near the Redbrook household, or a small collection room near the village centre, they see Bastian Cooper's cart: just a sturdy covered cart. Bastian is inspecting one of its wheels. Nearby are several carefully cleaned containers.
If the party doesn't care, that's fine — don't force it. But if they ask:
That's it, the first time.
Rory Vale, or another child, is nearby.
Much more suspicious than Bastian refusing to answer. The players don't know what the cart collects — only that adults don't want children discussing it with outsiders.
This is their first encounter with Garrick Voss: polite, measured, an elder.
He should sound reasonable enough to be infuriating.
Garrick genuinely doesn't care about their courier contract — not out of cruelty. From his perspective, Eamon encountered Aldren, Aldren says the blood isn't enough, the village may be facing its greatest crisis in generations… and five strangers are complaining about paperwork.
If Dunnchadh says “We're owed a hundred gold”:
Then I suggest you enjoy our hospitality while you wait.
Not hostility — priorities. The party will probably hate him for it. Perfect.
After nearly twenty days of travel, give them somewhere to establish themselves. The Brewsters become their first regular social hub:
The Hearth & Hound
The name having “Hearth” in it despite the separate Hearth family is fine — if anything, a minor local joke.
Friendly, not bubbly. A woman who has served almost everyone in Brackenford at some point. She knows who drinks what, who owes money, whose marriage is struggling, whose child broke a window, and exactly how long someone has been sitting alone with the same ale.
She sees five outsiders walk in and immediately knows: news. She doesn't interrogate them. She lets them talk.
That's much more dangerous.
Give the party chances to talk to villagers. If they mention Eamon, different people react differently:
Nobody gives exactly the same answer. This isn't a rehearsed conspiracy; it's a village where everyone knows part of what happened and nobody knows what they're supposed to tell outsiders. That produces inconsistencies naturally.
Aim for the first explicit reference to blood late in the session. Not Aldren. Not vampire. Just blood.
The players overhear Hester Redbrook quietly speaking with Bastian Cooper:
Hettie notices the party listening. The conversation stops.
Fifteen what? The players may assume litres, people, crates, gold, food… Don't explain.
Bastian isn't good at conspiracy. He's a cart driver.
You've been here half a day. There are things you don't understand yet.
If you're still here long enough, maybe you will.
This reinforces the line between villager and outsider.
Resist the temptation. By the end of Session 1 the players should know:
They should not yet know why. If someone asks directly, “Are you collecting blood?”, let the NPC's reaction answer before the words do: silence, a glance, then…
Who told you that?
Effectively confirmation, without exposition.
Children hear things they don't understand, and adults forget they're listening. Bryony finds the party later — perhaps she particularly likes the beekeeper now.
Before they can get more:
“BRYONY!”
Clover is standing some distance away. Not angry. Scared.
End with a very small event, not an attack.
The party leaves the tavern. Brackenford is dark now. Windows glow. The village is quiet. Somewhere a dog barks. They pass the covered collection cart. Bastian has gone — for the first time, nobody is around it.
One character notices something beneath the cart. A tiny dark droplet. Then another. Something has leaked from one of the containers. If touched: dark red, still slightly tacky.
Blood.
Don't say anything else. Let the players react. Then:
End Session 1.
That last part is crucial. The villagers aren't performing a perfectly organised cover-up. They're improvising. That's why people contradict each other, why children almost say things they shouldn't, why Bastian and Hester are arguing, and why Maris nearly tells the party too much.
The PCs haven't entered a conspiracy prepared for them. They've walked into a village two hours after a crisis began.
Follows the Prologue — see “Appendix — Timing of Eamon's Encounter with Aldren”.