The Blood of the Great Pier
The Blood of the Great Pier
“A bleeding pillar reveals that the Great Pier was built on an older bargain, and something sleeping beneath the harbor is starting to remember.”
— Hook · mystery
“The Great Pier's bronzewood pillar has started to bleed sap, and every tide brings the smell of fresh-cut forest to the docks. Master Orrin Vale begs you to discover what was done to the pillar before the pier is condemned or something beneath it wakes. The old workers whisper that the wood was never sourced, it was purchased, and the receipt may be the most dangerous thing in the harbor.”
— Hook · mystery
At low tide, the Great Pier groans like a ship in a storm. Dark resin beads from the central bronzewood pillar and drips into the sea, while workers gather in a frightened ring and Master Orrin Vale asks for your help before the harbor elders arrive and seal the dock.
Master Orrin Vale
Publicly anxious and practical, privately frightened that the pier's founding contract will ruin his family and the harbor's trade if exposed.
Rumours
d4 · table- 01The pillar bleeds only when the tide is going out, as if something is being drawn backward beneath the pier.
- 02Old carpenters say the bronzewood came from a forest that was never on any map.
- 03A few nails in the pillar are newer than the pier itself and were hammered in by someone who knew old rites.
- 04The harbormaster has been buying up all the old dock records for months.
If the party fails, the Great Pier may be condemned or collapse, the harbor economy will suffer, and the awakened dryad could turn the waterfront into a haunted tidal grove.
Background Lore
The Great Pier was raised over five centuries ago from ironwood pilings and bronzewood braces to tame a tidal shelf where merchants once unloaded cargo at any hour, even in the worst weather. The crown of the pier, a single towering bronzewood pillar wrapped in old brass rings, has begun to bleed dark sap through fresh splits in the grain. Old dockhands swear the pillar was not merely built, but purchased, and that the price included a sleeping dryad bound beneath the harbor stones by ritual nails hammered into the wood when the pier was first raised.
A central pillar on the Great Pier has begun bleeding sap and threatening the stability of the dock. The party is hired to investigate the damage, learn who tampered with the pier, and stop whatever is causing the disruption before the harbor is shut down.
