Characters
Dario Diego Durant, swashbuckling swordsman
Ulu, the party's urska mom
Varro, a young snow elf bearing a magical sword
Johanna, lycan bard and fallen noble
Doctor Anastasia Nadya Strahov, a gun-priest
Morwenna, harpy devotee of St. Vionka
Events
The game began with the characters either engaged in one of their personal pursuits or off on errands around Braelin. Ulu spent some time in Dr. Ilsa's workshop, where she began crafting a few magical items for the group. Anastasia gave Scav a tour of the town so that he and the rest of Boneyard, Inc. would know all the defensible positions in case battle broke out. Dario, Morwenna, and Johanna paid a visit to the Thorn at the now-expanded jail; Dario invited the Thorn and Brother Jacob to dinner at the Kaul House (!!!). Varro paid a visit to the town's new butcher, a mysterious man named Bostwicke with a heavily scarred face. Varro also noticed that the man seemed to be wearing priestly vestments under his dirty clothes.
When the group reconvened in town, they saw that a number of revival tents had been set up across from the church. A number of red-robed figures were inviting townspeople to sit, have their heads measured with calipers, and their blood drained by leeches--all for the promise of a "holy fortune telling." (Anastasia immediately realized something was amiss; a real holy man would call this prophecy, not "fortune telling.")
Kole, the blacksmith, was waiting in line for the holy phrenology; he told them that Kaldrin, a teenager who lived with his grandparents on a farm at Braelin's outskirts, had gone missing and his grandparents were worried sick about it. He suggested they do something, since they had successfully recovered a missing child before. He gave them directions to the family's farmstead, and they were off.
At the farm, the Hounds met Kaldrin's grandparents, who explained that their grandson had last been seen three days ago heading off to visit his mother's grave. They also told the group that Kaldrin was handed off to their care by the priest who used to preside over the church, a man named Father Grosmere, after his mother died in childbirth. Grosmere disappeared from Braelin soon after, and no one had heard of him since then.
After dinner with the family, the group was able to search Kaldrin's room. They found a sheaf of letters between Catherin, Kaldrin's mother, and Father Grosmere.
The group passed the barn and stopped to examine a dead, hollow tree on the way to Catherine's grave. The tree had a note stuffed into it--written on butcher's paper--that seemed to be to Kaldrin from an unknown person. At the grave, they also determined that someone had likely disturbed Catherine's resting place; it showed signs of having been dug up recently. The presence of a shovel nearby didn't help quell the feeling that something was amiss.
Since the presence of the butcher's paper pointed them back to Bostwicke, they paid him another visit--but this time he was not happy to see them. He retreated into the depths of his shop, but Johanna followed him. Bostwicke suddenly attacked her, which caused her to fly into a berserk rage; to be honest, the butcher didn't stand a chance with most of the Hounds dogpiling him, so he was dead in short order--killed before he could tell them anything useful. The did discover that the butcher was Braelin's former priest in a different guise--and that he was a vampire's thrall.
Their continued investigation led them to an old windmill. At the windmill, they traversed the decrepit interior to the stairs; on the second floor, they found Kaldrin kneeling before a sack of bones within a chalk circle as he traced symbols in blood on the floor and mumbled to himself. A pale man, who resembled Kaldrin, stepped from the shadows, accompanied by Catherine's specter. Kaldrin's parents attacked while the boy continued his ritual.
As they fought, the group realized that Kaldrin's father was a vampire--which meant that their usual tactics weren't working for them. They had to focus on trying to behead or impale the man, which called for more finesse than they usually employed. Eventually, Ulu was able to tear the vampire's head off.
However, Kaldrin was not stopped from completing his ritual--which meant that he slumped over dead, his blood running to touch the bones within the circle. When contact was made, Catherine's wraith disappeared--and her bones reanimated as a newly born vampire! Luckily, the group had now found their rhythm and dealt with her as they had the father.
Unfortunately, Kaldrin lay dead. They figured out the tragic history at play here: unbeknownst to her parents, Catherine had been impregnated by a vampire; hoping to purge the vampiric blood from her child, Catherine visited Father Grosmere, but the "exorcistic" ritual he performed didn't work; Catherine died in childbirth, and Kaldrin was born a dhampir; as his vampiric traits asserted themselves in puberty, Kaldrin was approached by Grosmere (now a vampire thrall of his father, under the identity of Bostwicke the butcher) who conned him into performed a fake "purging" ritual that was actually intended to revive his mother.
Kaldrin's body was returned to the farm and buried on behalf of the family.
Meanwhile, Ulu and Varro ventured to the revival tents for more answers...and found everyone inside butchered. Varro could tell that a curved blade was used in the mass murders. While under the tents, they were caught by the Thorn, who questioned their presence among the corpses, but let them leave without too much hassle.
But who was responsible?