Illustrious Castle

A Gods & Monsters Adventure

Haunted Illustrious Castle

A Gods & Monsters dungeon crawl suitable for four to six 2nd to 3rd level characters

by Jerry Stratton

Copyright © 2014

godsmonsters.com/Haunted

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where the philosophers of this world? The learning of the wise shall perish. I will make drunk the princes, and their wise men, their captains and rulers, and their mighty men. They shall sleep for a thousand years while I lay low their pyramids, and make secrets of their wisdoms in the mountains.

See godsmonsters.com/conversions if you’d like to use Haunted Illustrious Castle in AD&D or other old-school games.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License Version 1.3, published by the Free Software Foundation. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”

December 6, 2018

Go to godsmonsters.com/Guide for more great adventures!

1. Lost Castle of the Astronomers, for 1st to 2nd level

2. Vale of the Azure Sun, for 3rd to 5th level

3. The House of Lisport, for 4th to 6th level

4. Helter Skelter, for 5th to 6th level

5. The Coriandrome Circus, for all levels

Background

During the goblin wars, Illustrious Castle was overtaken. When the goblins were pushed back, the remnants of the Order of Illustration returned to the castle. But the best of the Order had been lost in the great push south.

The Order of Illustration, once dedicated to learning and the spread of knowledge, became secretive and reclusive. Seen less and less in the nearby town of Biblyon, they eventually disappeared completely. Finally, one late autumn, the librarians and townsfolk visited the Order and found a mass suicide in a ruined castle. Unable to live with their degraded state, the Order had simply done away with itself.

Since then, the castle has been an eerie place, avoided, haunted. Biblyon remains a place of learning and research, but the deserted castle overlooks the town as a sleeping giant, hollow, crumbling, and foreboding.

The Walled Library

Biblyon is a town founded for the preservation of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. It is filled not just with scholars, but with adventurous scholars. The kind that not only study natural philosophy but that head out into the wilderness and return with a dead mushroom walker or a jar full of oblivion fleas. Biblyon’s life blood is scholarship, its currency is knowledge.

One of the first things that travelers from the East will notice is that they are not asked to check their weapons at the gates, and that just about everyone carries at least a short sword. One of the first things that travelers from the West will notice is that even the women do so. Biblyon is too close to the wilderness to take any chances with its defense.

Many of the townsfolk trace their ancestry back to the knights of the Order of Illustration. Others are the offspring of, or even still are, farmers, merchants, and travelers from the West, East, and South. There is an infectious sense of camaraderie and competition in Biblyon. A faction of Costumers has a fraternal house in Biblyon, and still hold to Dodgson’s call for more openness among sorcerors.

Biblyon is forty miles north of Hightown.

The History of Biblyon

Biblyon was founded as a place of learning by the Order of Illustration. They built Illustrious Castle to store the wisdom of the pre-Cataclysm age. Biblyon is also known as the walled library, for the twelve-foot stone wall that spans the entrance to the town proper. When the Order still existed, the Order protected the town. Today, that’s the job of the Tutoris Libris.

The Library at Biblyon

Biblyon’s library is not as large as that of the College at Crosspoint, but the quality of its holdings are unmatched. It has the most originals and the oldest works in all the known world. It is the only real library in West Highland. Its collection of treatises on astronomy and political science excel even the College at Crosspoint. The Library has 1,953 books and thousands more manuscripts, including 132 books taken from the Castle after the fall of the Order. The number of books originally ran into the thousands, but many books were lost when the Hooded Mage overran Highland with his army of Goblins.

The main library in the castle was also trashed. The Order supposedly had thousands of books, some even from before the cataclysm. Only the above-mentioned 132 were salvaged from the Castle’s library.

Tutoris Libris

The defense of Biblyon is managed by the Tutoris Libris, an elite guard of warriors and sorcerors devoted to the protection, dissemination, and gathering of knowledge. It is their mission, for example, to seek out interesting people and convince them that their journal is best kept in Biblyon after their death.

The History of Illustrious Castle

Illustrious Castle was built seven centuries ago. It was the first bastion of civilization this side of the High Divide. It was built by the Knights of the Order of Illustration after Vince Kellius led the Order of Illustration across the mountains and into West Highland to found a remote place of learning and research. He wished to create a place of enduring knowledge to counter the dark years following the cataclysm. In the east, where there were more people, there was a backlash against knowledge, against writing, against science, so he took his books and his priests across the mountains where they could be safe, and where they could wait until mankind once again was ready for learning. In the meantime, they searched out all pre-Cataclysm knowledge they could find.

During the Goblin Wars a century ago, the castle was overrun and the best of the Order died defending both it and the town of Biblyon. The remnants of the Knights of the Order were able to re-take the castle after the Great War, but their numbers were small and they weren’t the visionaries. The Order fell into decay. It broke its ties with the town. The Order became paranoid about spies, and would capture and torture anyone found near the castle. People stayed away. After a few years the townsfolk began to notice that no one in the Order had come to town for trade in many months. A visit to the castle confirmed that no one was left alive. It has been abandoned since then, nearly a century.

From that time, the castle has been used only as a source for furniture, and wood in winter, or, more recently, as nothing but a tale to scare children with. It is now seen only by wide-ranging farmers and hunters, who often pass below it traveling between their farms, or between their farms and Biblyon.

Stories are told in Biblyon of how children occasionally dare each other into the castle, but return with stories of strange noises and phantoms, horrible swamp creatures, gigantic spiders, and things they can’t even begin to describe. The most persistent tales tell that the castle is haunted by the last leader of the Order, Tragos d’Illus.

Recent History

For the past several months travelers to Biblyon, hunters, and farmers, have been hit with a scattered string of Night Troll attacks. In this area, “Night Trolls” are goblins and hobgoblins, the former ruled by the latter. In this case, it has only been goblins. The attacks—or, more specifically, the rumor of them, as the attacks have been small in number—have slowed the trickle of travelers to only the most dedicated scholars.

Inspiration

This adventure was mostly a haunted house, but some inspiration came from Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s, A Canticle for Leibowitz and Stanislaw Lem’s Memoirs Found in a Bathtub. In Canticle, the Catholic Order of Leibowitz attempts to save the knowledge of mankind after a nuclear cataclysm. The inspiration from Memoirs is less direct, but it’s about a man who finds his way into a paranoid remnant of an old world. Both are brilliant novels.

Adventure Guide’s Notes

The Order of Illustration

Old Deer River is an entrance to the Underground where the Crab-Men, the Karuat live. Originally, they lived above ground, but many millennia past they moved into the Underground, beyond the great lake beneath Illustrious Castle. Their burial ground beneath the castle is especially sacred to them, and they still make regular trips to the burial area for their rituals.

Farmers and hunters still find stone spearheads from when the Karuat roamed aboveground.

A captured Night Priest tempted the Order into summoning a demon to gain knowledge and power.

The sacred nature of the Karuat burial chambers added power to the heretical attempts by the decayed Order to conjure demons. They did not understand this place of power, and the demon Eliazu rebelled against their summoning. He destroyed all within the castle. Unable to escape, he lies in wait in the secret summoning areas beneath Illustrious Castle. In revenge, he has also caused Tragos d’Illus to remain and haunt the castle.

The growing power of the demon Eliazu has also spawned or summoned many twisted creatures in the area of the castle. As he grows in power, he draws more fantastic creatures to his service.

The Night Trolls

The Night Trolls that have been acting in the area are goblins who have rebelled against their hobgoblin masters and taken up residence in the castle. They rebelled in the autumn, led by a tough and smart goblin named Ustark. But Ustark died last All Hallows Eve under the influence of the Phantasm of Tragos d’Illus.

The remaining goblins have simply been making ends meet, reveling in their freedom but having no vision for it.

The winter was long and cold. They lived off small animals who didn’t have the sense to hibernate, and by raiding local farms for food and farm animals. They have killed travelers and farmers, but they prefer to simply steal without confrontation whenever possible. They are open to bargaining if anyone understands their tongue.

Some townsfolk and farmers may remember the discovery of the dead hobgoblins last summer, a tiny battle of large and small night troll corpses (hobgoblins and goblins). “It looked as though they killed each other.”

They won’t necessarily mention that the fight happened by the castle. Bad things happen there. Tom Corner over by the gap was attacked by a huge hawk last year. No one paid much attention to it, though Tom did need some convincing that it wasn’t a demon. In fact, it was one of the blood hawks; but this was before the crowns of eyes began stealing body parts, so he eventually was convinced it was a normal hawk that looked big only because it was attacking him. But even if it were just a normal hawk, it’s the kind of thing that happens by the castle.

Timeline

Involving the Adventurers

The most obvious reason for the characters to be here is to study at Biblyon. Whereupon they decide to investigate the animals with missing eyes, and the attacks by night trolls on travelers.

If the characters are traveling through the area that you have placed Biblyon and the castle, they might run across a burnt carriage (the source of the smoke that someone saw recently), and be able to trace the carriage’s attackers to the castle. Or, they might be visitors to Biblyon, looking for special knowledge known to be in Biblyon—or rumored to have been part of the knowledge that the Order took with it to its demise. If you choose the latter, you should put that knowledge, or a clue to that knowledge’s current location, somewhere in the castle, probably in the basement.

Perhaps they’ve run across a reference in the diaries of the late Bishop Robert Agwood, of Crosspoint, to the misgivings of the Order’s priest, Edgar Lewar.

If they’ve been through The Lost Castle of the Astronomers they may be looking for the secret underground complex built by the Dwarves, referenced in the Astronomers’ texts.

Character History

If any of your players’ characters are from the area, they may ask if they’ve ever visited the castle. In general, adults steer clear of it at night, but they do often pass by. There is a natural resting spot just below the castle. Many farmers and travelers use it; it is about half a day’s walk to Biblyon. The natural path has always gone past the castle, that’s why they built the castle there.

Children, especially teenagers, being what they are, it is not at all unlikely that some would go into the castle at night on a dare. Because travel tends to occur when the moon is at its brightest, it also isn’t unlikely that they will do so on a night when Tragos d’Illus is haunting.

If you wish to, and a player brings it up, you can simply roll: a 10% chance that if they entered the castle at night, they met with the apparition. Or you can simply decide that since they brought it up, it happened.

Yes, you remember the castle at night, the beams of moonlight shining like shafts through the holes in the stone castle walls. It was a warm night; you fell asleep inside the deserted foyer. When you awoke later, you felt the night’s chill, and you realized that someone was walking toward you in the dark hallway beyond the foyer. You heard the rustling of a dragging robe, and saw a king arrayed in the finest robes glide slowly into the deserted ballroom. Its eyes were white discs writhing, and when it turned to you and opened its mouth crickets fell to the ground. You heard them fall. And then you turned and ran, out of the castle, across the castle grounds, and down the path to your campsite, and you kept running until morning, when you rested in a glade in the warm sunshine. Your friends who had dared you to go inside ran when they heard you screaming. You later pretended that you’d just been kidding them, and boy were they scared! But you will never forget that gaping mouth leaking bugs to the stone floor and the pale things that writhed in its eyes.

You have never been in Illustrious Castle again, not even during the day.

It is unlikely that anyone will be in the castle on Hallowe’en night, as people are genuinely afraid of the place, and the night when spirits walk is not a time to be in a haunted castle. If a player assures you that their character did, find out who else went in with them. There were others; if there weren’t, their character would not have come out alive. Some of their friends did not, and the worst part is that their friends died at the hands of each other. Their character barely escaped alive. That bloody night has haunted them ever since.

In either case, this information should be conveyed privately to that player.

Adventurer Level

This adventure is designed for characters of second to third level. At least one sorceror or prophet is expected, and probably at least two warriors and one thief.

The adventure is also sparsely populated, especially in the dungeon. If the characters require more of a challenge, you can choose to place Eliazu at a more advanced stage in his plans. More demons, more skeletons and perhaps other undead, especially in the basement. More fantastic evil creatures in the castle and the surrounding forests.

Treasure

Coins in this adventure are given as standard coins in Black Stag or Crosspoint. A shilling is one monetary unit, a penny is one-twelfth of a monetary unit, a half-penny is half that, and a farthing is forty-eighth of a monetary unit. If you use the generic system, just make shillings one unit, pennies tenth units, and farthings two hundredth units.

Inside the castle, there are also special coins made by the Order. See Coins of the Order on page for more about them.

After the Adventure

Remember that there are multiple levels to this adventure: the characters might clear out the goblins and never realize that there is more to the castle than that. Or they might enter the basement and never realize that there’s a demon even lower. That’s all fine. The castle will wait for them. Eliazu might not, though. If they haven’t exorcised Eliazu, the demon is likely to try to free himself and build a power base, not necessarily in that order.

Unless the characters find the scepter, the castle (or its ruin) is also likely to remain haunted by Tragos d’Illus. And depending on whether the characters took anything from the Karuat tomb, the Karuat may come looking for their relics.

West Highland

This section of West Highland is far more rural than the main portion of West Highland along Fawn River. It’s even more rural than along the Leather Road. Farmers live in the shadow of the mountains. There are very small villages along the old roads. And that’s it. Hightown is south on the Leather Road and Black Stag is east across several hundred miles of forest. The assumption throughout is that this is happening in the spring, perhaps April, when winter is ending. Another great time for the adventure is late October, timing to end up in the castle on Hallowe’en, when Tragos d’Illus will haunt the castle.

Encounters

When traveling north of the Leather Road, encounters occur about 20% of the time every 24 hours.

If the characters travel to Biblyon on foot or horseback, and if they have a random encounter, their first such encounter within five miles of Biblyon will be with an animal corpse, its eyes, nose, tongue, and ears eaten off. It is about two days old.

The wolf stares back at you with empty eyes. Flies circle about the blood-flecked corpse, and maggots crawl from the wounds where its nose and its ears used to be. The animal’s mouth hangs open in an empty, perpetual yawn.

Otherwise, their encounters will be standard for the wilderness of West Highland. Remember that you can determine these encounters by chance, or choose encounters as appropriate to the characters’ actions, or simply use these charts as a guide to what else lives in the area. Also, these outdoor charts include possible encounters with creatures nearly impossible for first, second, and third level characters to defeat head-on. While poor decisions on the characters’ parts might lead to their deaths, you should not personally place the characters in untenable positions. Let them do that on their own. That said, the world is a dangerous place, and they have left their hobbit-hole. If the dice choose to show them how deadly the world is, it is an important lesson.

Main Table

Civilized Peoples

Masquerade

Most masquerade encounters will be with a creature acting human; deities can act as any appropriate creature. Such encounters are unlikely to result in combat now, but can set up a later adventure when the characters discover the secret.

Humanoid Creatures

Encounters with goblins are 15% likely to include one hobgoblin leader.

Natural Encounters

Animals

Snakes

Copperheads, waterheads, and rattlers are standard poisonous snakes.

Fantastic Creatures

Encounters will occur in an appropriate location. Undead encounters will occur in an appropriate location: phantasms or poltergeists in abandoned homes or ruins, ghouls in a cemetery or battlefield.

A gryphon is as likely to be interested in the characters’ animals, if unprotected, as in the characters themselves.

Biblyon

Nestled in a valley in the mountains, living in the shadow of the abandoned castle high up on the cliffs to the east, Biblyon greets you in the sun like a long-lost relative. Homes and buildings crowd in together, huddled against the wilderness. A high wooden wall surrounds the west entrance to the tiny valley. In the mountains beyond the wall, a small waterfall sparkles downward (in the evening sun).

In Biblyon, rumors are flying about some strange, horrible creature loose in the forests. Farmers have complained of chickens taken whole, of travelers found dead with their eyes and tongues and ears missing, of livestock found sucked free of blood. The night trolls are restless in the winter, but no night troll has ever drained the blood of their victims, nor eaten the eyes and left the rest of the body untouched.

Expected visitors have gone missing, and a farmer in the bar last night claimed to have seen smoke rising from the woods near the old castle.

There have also been stories of strange sights at the old castle. One hunter swore he saw smoke coming from the towers. A farmer says that on a visit to a friend he and his family saw strange red eyes outside the range of his fire. “Halfway between yourself and the Kellies? Wouldn’t that put you near the old castle?” “Why yes, I guess it would.” He crosses himself and mumbles “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph”.

It has been a hard winter, but the snows are now melting. The waters of the Old Deer River are flowing at maximum.

Map Features

Old Deer River

Old Deer River falls from just below the castle, winds through town, and then heads southwest to intersect with the Leather Road (and continue further into the Deep Forest). Old Deer River is a light river, more a stream in late summer, but it can grow to decent size in the spring as the snows melt.

Roads

The curved (red in the color map) path running from the gates and around the houses are the major roads of Biblyon. There are many more alleys, especially in the Merchant’s Quarter and the Newtown Quarter areas.

Trees

Trees on the map represent more than one tree. Trees generally only exist in gardens. Most of the trees in the valley have been cut down and used for building or fire wood.

Valley Walls

On the north and south sides of the valley, the mountainside rises sharply. The buildings on the south side of town are a hundred feet higher than the buildings near the river. The Library is the highest building in town.

Waterfall and Pool

At the east end of town a small waterfall tumbles down the cliff face. In the spring, the waterfall (and the river) grow to twice their size. A natural pathway winds up the mountainside toward the castle. At the top of the waterfall, the pathway also goes north and south to many of the farmers’, herders’, and miners’ homes.

The Graveyard (11)

In the graveyard outside of town, it is easy to see when the mass suicide occurred. There is a cluster of about a hundred (81) very simple graves, with wooden crosses and a faded “1911” written on them.

The Market Square (12)

If you want to buy books, writing supplies, and the services of research assistants, there is no better place to go than Biblyon’s Market in their town square. Farmers also set up here.

The Market is seasonally available. Whenever people gather to sell, some gather to buy. There can be as few as zero or one merchants, or as many as several hundred. There tend to be more on Sundays and around full moons. The Sundays before major holidays, such as Christmas, Easter, Summer, and Harvest, are also big market days.

You’re not likely to find a rare book in the Market, but one or two have been known to slip under the watchful eye of the Tutors. Occasionally bits and pieces from the Castle show up in the market, either as part of a townsfolk’s or farmer’s stall, or having been bartered by a local to a more regular merchant.

Merchants Quarter (13)

Most shops are set up in the merchant’s quarter, though on Market days merchants with portable merchandise are likely to be in Market Square. During the day, the Merchants Quarter is crowded with scholar, farmer, trader, and merchant. During the evening the focus of the crowd is the Fons Tabernus near the river.

Uphill (21)

The “uphill” area on the south side of the main road is the home of the richer members of town, often merchants who have made money and want to retire to a life of study.

Downhill (22)

The Downhill area is where most people live in Biblyon. These are the woodcutters, the servants, the waiters and bartenders and waitresses of Biblyon. Farmers who have a “Biblyon home” probably have it in the downhill area.

Outhill (23)

The town is growing, and houses and businesses are being built outside of the wall.

Midhill (25)

If there were such a thing as a middle class, they would live Midhill. These are the long-term visiting scholars, the librarians, the upscale farmer-scholar, the tutors that have their own home outside of the House of Tutors. Here, the houses are built with slightly more space and privacy than Downhill, but much less than Uphill.

Boatyards (27)

The Old Deer River cuts southwest across Highland and intersects with the Leather Road before heading into the Forest. Some travelers to Black Stag will bypass half of the Leather Road by taking the river. A single passenger trip from Biblyon to the Leather Road will generally run about a shilling, and take two to three days. Passengers will be dropped off at the Old Deer Bridge one hundred and fifty miles east of Black Stag.

The Library at Biblyon (1)

Seven tall columns stand atop stone stairs that lead up to the doors of the great library at Biblyon. Shaded by the overhanging roof, amongst the columns, people read, talk, and play board games such as chess and checkers.

A roadside vendor serves the laconic community. You smell warm bread and beer wafting from the vendor’s carts.

The library of Biblyon is a college, a community of scholars. Within its centuries-old walls roam the ghosts of famous sorcerors and students of natural science. The old throne of Illustrious Castle is on central display here. The library is run by the Librarians of Biblyon, and protected by the Tutoris Libris. People here still respect the dead Order. Even the Tutors, who remember what the Order became, respect what it originally stood for.

The Head Librarian is a hereditary position, currently held by Leonard Grass III, son of Truman Grass, son of Leonard Grass II. Leonard III has no son, but his daughter Shelia Grass is a fine scholar specializing in textual reconstruction. The general consensus is that she will make a fine Head Librarian.

The Catalogue

Books are shelved by topic. Their catalogue number denotes the date the work was catalogued (5 characters), who catalogued it (2 letters), a serial number (2 digits), and the topic number (2 characters). There are five characters in the date, because it uses three digits for the year, one letter for the month, and a digit or letter for the day. The month’s letter is the first letter of the month’s name in Latin except for repeats: I for January, F for February, M for March, A for April, Q for May, X for June, V for July, Y for August, S for September, N for November, and D for December. The day starts at one and on the tenth day goes to A. The third book about gems (5T) catalogued by Leonard Grass III (AO) on May 26, 974, will be 974QQAO035T.

A lesser controversies among the librarians is the year 1000 code. The code uses the common year: the number of years since the cataclysm. In 1000 the year goes from three digits to four. Most librarians consider the easiest solution to assume any code beginning with a ‘1’ is from 1000 or later (even if the records had not been lost in the Goblin Wars, the Order catalogued no books in the second century). Others feel this courts confusion, and that a re-numbering of the catalogue is in order, adding a ‘0’ or an ‘X’ in front of every current number.

The Sick house (2)

The library’s scholars are the doctors of the area. Patients at the Biblyon sick house get the best treatment in the known world, but these treatments are also likely to be experimental and made part of a monograph or book.

Private and Public Houses

Discounts on both rooms and meals can usually be worked out for long-term visitors.

The Barber House (3)

The Barber House has no rooms, but this public house opens early and serves hot clear soup. It also caters to cutting and fashioning hair. For those who awake early, the Barber House is an important gathering place. The Barber House does not handle surgeries, as this is handled by the Librarians at the Sickhouse.

A good haircut and soup costs 3 pennies throughout the day. Just the soup costs 1 penny, though they don’t advertise it. They serve beer, but only with a meal.

The Bathhouse (4)

Fed by the Old Deer River and heated by wood fires, the Bathhouse is a good place for a cold day. A hot bath costs 4 pennies, a cold bath 1 penny. Memberships are 25 shillings per year and include the steam room.

The Costumers Guild (5)

One of the oldest houses is the home of the intellectual descendants of revolutionary sorceror Charles Dodgson. Dodgson authored the allegorical series on sorcery, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Costumers are known for illusion and spectacle These Costumers also hold to Dodgson’s dream of an open community of magical scholars.

The bottom floor of the Guild is the Rabbit’s Hole, the oldest tavern in Biblyon. The Hole is a major gathering place for scholars in Highland. The scholarly houses tend to gather here nightly for beer and Deep Thought. Bring your own food if you desire any, as the Rabbit’s Hole serves only the Guild’s own brew.

On busy nights such as weekends, full moons, and holidays, there are often one or several food stalls set up on the road leading to the Hole starting around evening.

The Council House (20)

Located smack in the center of the Market Square, the Council House is where most meetings in town are held. The wide windows are kept open in the summer, and shuttered come fall and winter. The town council meets here, and any organization that does not have its own house will also likely meet here if they have official duties to take care of.

The Dormitory of Vincent (24)

Named after the founder of the Order, the Dormitory is the oldest House in Biblyon. Residence is by invitation only, and invitations come by way of the head librarian. Scholars throughout the rest of the world will work their contacts trying to get invited to the Vincent. It isn’t just the free lodging but also the prestige of having been invited.

The Fallen Leaf (6)

With its sign hanging out front depicting a sheet of paper and a shooting star, “The Fallen Leaf” is emblematic of the town’s zeitgeist. The major public house in Biblyon is home to scholars, farmers, merchants, and anyone else looking to stay the night or grab a meal and a drink. Or, more often, just a drink and a lot of talk.

The Fallen Leaf is not attached to any of the formal houses. It contains a game room for dicing and betting.

A room at the Fallen Leaf is two shillings plus three pennies per person, up to a maximum of five persons per room. The Leaf has twenty-four rooms.

Fons Tabernus

Humanity spills out of the doors of the wooden building before you like beer foaming out of a mug on a warm day. A sign hanging above the eaves sports a faded fern and the words “Fons Tabernus”. A jug hangs from a hook on the sign, announcing to the street the nature of this house. On one side of the tavern, a furnace blazes white as the blacksmith works into the night. On the other side, several huge tubs stand behind a sign announcing baths for 1 penny. They’re not making much money.

Located in the merchant’s quarter, Fons Tabernus (“Tavern at the River’s Source” in the ancient tongue) is often the liveliest of the houses. While it also hosts its share of scholarly disputes, here those disputes still can result in personal combat. The Fons contains the widest variety of regulars of any of the public houses in Biblyon. Farmers traveling to Biblyon for metalwork, blacksmithing, or other supplies and services, will often spend the night in the Fons and head back home the next morning, depending on how far their home is.

Sleeping in the common room in the Fons costs three pennies. Breakfast of sausage, potatoes, and eggs with beer, is another two pennies. The Fons has twenty private rooms, which may be had for one shilling plus two pennies for every extra person, up to a maximum of seven persons per room (there are, however, only four cots per room no matter what).

The House of Tutors (7)

The Tutoris Libris were an underground organization started during the degeneracy of the Order of Illustration. Their oral history recalls the fear of that time, though others have forgotten. They were founded in 903 by librarians, scholars, and renegade members of the Order who worried about the new direction of the Order of Illustration. In 916, a few years after the Order “committed suicide”, they built their house, the newest building in Biblyon. The House of Tutors was founded to house the Tutors and their allies.

If the characters bring any Tutoris members in on the plan to examine the castle, the Tutor is likely to brush it off unless the characters have some sort of reason to believe that their search will find something that other people’s haven’t.

If the party brings one of the older Tutors into their confidence, they’ll be warned:

“If there really is a secret complex, I’d be careful. The Illustrators became paranoid and malicious after they retook the castle. There’s no telling what protections they may have laid down.”

If previously broke or itinerant characters bring treasures down from the castle to the town, the townsfolk, especially the Tutors, will become suspicious. If any of the treasures are identifiable as belonging to the Order, this will almost certainly spark a new expedition by the Tutors to the castle.

If the characters bring books from the castle into town, or the Tutors gain knowledge that they’ve acquired books in the castle, the Tutors will consider it a mission to restore those books to their rightful owner: the Library at Biblyon. The Tutors don’t have a library of their own. They consider the Library theirs, or more precisely, they consider themselves as part of the library.

The Tutors have their own boatyard on the pool.

The Tutors are led by a college of seven scholars, one of whom chairs the college for a three year period. Generally, the same small group is voted into the college, and the same smaller group takes turns at chairing the college.

Important Tutors

Abacus Dome (879-957)

Abacus was the chair of the Tutors when the Order still existed. He was the second chair of the group, and one of the founding members. He’s dead now—his grave is in the cemetery, marked “957” for the year he died. He was the leader of the Tutors when the Order “committed suicide”. His notebook, which covers that event, is in the Library. See The Notebook of Abacus Dome in the Props section.

Erin Forney (964-)

Erin Forney studied the architectural development of the castle. Some of his notes are in his folio in the Library. Three years ago he left for further research in Crosspoint. He’s stayed in touch since then, and entertains visiting Tutors in the East.

Anyone who can draw out Erin’s friends in the Tutors will also learn that Erin was undergoing a sort of loss of faith. He had begun to feel that his work “meant nothing” and that “with the castle’s innards spread throughout a fifty mile radius, what could he hope to learn?” Erin felt he needed to find something better to do with his life, sooner rather than later. His sojourn in Crosspoint has more to do with his search for meaning than with his scholarly pursuits, which frankly he hasn’t done much of. There’s nothing odd about that: the scholar’s life requires a special kind of dedication.

What really happened is that Eliazu took notice and decided that someone doing a serious study of the castle was not beneficial to the demon’s goals. Eliazu influenced Erin to leave, instilling feelings of despair, futility, and impatience in the scholar, and then feeding those feelings. Erin has no desire to come back to Biblyon, doesn’t really know what to do with his life, but there has to be something better than poring over old books and someone else’s work.

Erin’s notes contain a map of the first and second floor, an analysis of the movable walls that once existed in the Small Ballroom (room 3 of the first floor), and a lot of geometric doodles—which includes, without labeling it as such, Eliazu’s sigil, so that anyone who has seen Erin’s notes will recognize the sigil if they see it later. Erin outlines the major building sprees in the castle’s history. In 291, the Order built the first portion of the castle and cleared a lot of farmland. The sale of wheat, barley, turnips, apples, and other vegetables and fruit, as well as the sale of clerical work, financed the next major revisions of the castle in 485 and 613. The next major architectural project of the Order was the Library in 615. Construction lasted two decades, though the major portion was finished in five years. They began work on the Dormitory of Vincent in 699, and continued working on it through 723. There is evidence of another major expenditure in the eight-twenties which lasted through the late eight-fifties; what it was is a secret Erin couldn’t find. Diaries from the townsfolk of the time indicate a sharp drop in revenues from barley especially but also from all Order-controlled businesses. Townsfolk alternately blamed it on a string of poor crops, on a land deal in Crosspoint, and on paying off debts from the previous decades. They eventually forgot about it and were pleasantly surprised when book funds began to rise again in the eight-sixties.

See Erin Forney’s Maps in the props section.

Miller Sartoris (928-)

The current chair is Miller Sartoris, an elderly warrior-scholar specializing in the study of bodies of water and their effects on stone and shore. Miller Sartoris is a fourth level warrior and a third level sorceror.

Becoming a Tutor

Any potential Tutor must exhibit a wide array of scholarly knowledge and the ability to act decisively under pressure. Reading and writing is required. If they have a moral code, it tends to be Good or Ordered Good.

In game terms, they will usually either be highly intelligent or have the Scholar specialty, and have an above average agility and charisma. Other specialties that a Tutor might have are the alchemical specialties, Circle Magic and other sorcerous specialties, and Multiple Archetype. Warriors who intend to lead Tutors into battle will often take the Team Combat specialty.

Warriors tend not to have specialties that focus on martial combat (such as Weapons Master or Two-Weapon Fighting), instead opting for specialties that further knowledge and appease curiosity. Multiple Archetype to thief to gain spy abilities is common.

Members of the guard must also learn the War Art field soon after joining the guard. For example:

Albert Elliott, Captain of the Guard: warrior 4, thief 2, intelligence 16, wisdom 12, charisma 14, strength 10, agility 13, endurance 9, survival 38; specialties: Scholar, Multiple Archetype, Team Combat; moral code: Ordered Good; thief fields: Impersonation Art+2 (disguise), Stealth Art+2 (hide), Burglary Science+3 (locks & traps, search); fields: Native Culture+2 (anglish, scholarly etiquette), War Craft+1 (bowyer, fletching), Athletic Art+1 (equestrianism), Survival Craft+1 (mountaineering, hunting), War Art+1 (tactics); Languages+1 (ancient, frankish, literacy), Medical Science+1 (anatomy, medicine), Natural Science+1 (chemistry), Fighting Art+5 (bow, long sword, spear, dagger, short sword, quarterstaff, weapon fluency); age: 33; height: 5’7”; weight: 139 lbs; armor: chain mail, shield, occasionally full helmet.

Albert’s specialty is the study of human anatomy and the interactions between living things and chemicals. He travels often, both alone and with trusted companions, in search of lost knowledge and new knowledge. He is most famous for a field study on the response of the human body to attrition in battle; his treatise has, according to his supporters, the potential to revolutionize field surgery and medicine.

What the Tutors lack in specialized weapon familiarities they often make up in intelligence of overall battle decisions and in the unique battle devices they devise. The Tutoris wing of the library is filled with scale models of siege engines, battle engines, and other devices which have never been created, and also filled with plans for such engines that have been created, annotated with their results in field tests and true battle deployment.

Amici Doctiloqui (8)

This house is about as close to a house of prostitution as you’ll find in Biblyon. They sell minds instead of bodies. Learned companions are versatile, and may be hired as tutors, nurses, research assistants, secretaries, and escorts.

One of your players may object to this name, that it isn’t correct Latin. First, you’ll need to determine if their character would have any knowledge of Latin; if so, any character (player or non-player) with knowledge of Biblyon might be able to relate the following:

There is almost an entire row of books dedicated to this topic in the Library. Some use various survived texts to prove that the Latin is correct; others use competing survived texts to show that the Latin is incorrect; some use the same survived texts to show the opposite of what their predecessor showed. It isn’t just that the texts are contradictory; the texts are argued as fact. The question is our interpretation of tenses, grammars, even spellings. The surviving texts are scant, and the complexity of the Ancient tongue high.

And the Ancient texts themselves are also questioned. There was a contingent about fifty years ago who argued that there were several forms of the Ancient tongue, spread across time and class. Some of these also argued that Frankish was a form of the Ancient tongue pre-existing the cataclysm. Now, few will argue that Frankish is unrelated to Ancient, but most consider it clearly a bastardized form created after the cataclysm fragmented humanity. Regardless, the “fragmented Ancient” theory has fallen out of favor as it was vulnerable on multiple fronts. Part of their argument was based on Biblical sources, and while the Bible, were it available, would count as a strong argument, there is no known surviving biblical text. These scholars reconstructed the text of “The Tower of Babel”, a popular fable of a first cataclysm of Language predating the cataclysm of water. (Some of these folks also consider our expulsion from Eden as the first cataclysm, but this is getting outside of our topic.) Biblical arguments have fallen out of favor in the last few decades, at least in Biblyon, as it is far too easy to reconstruct competing texts. Biblical reconstruction is its own topic, of course, and well represented in Biblyon.

There is a game room downstairs, as well as a well-stocked library. They specialize in card games and dice games, as well as betting on the results.

The Rectory (9) and Church (10)

The Rectory is open only to other priests, usually travelers from Crosspoint, occasionally travelers from Black Stag or upriver.

This is the major church of the area. Father Charles Randall is head priest. Randall is a scholar, having studied at both Crosspoint and Biblyon. His specialty is concordances and textual analysis. He studies various remembered texts, especially biblical texts, in hope of reconstructing the original from its copies. He has two priests directly under his command, and generally from four to ten priests studying at the library who stay at the Rectory.

The Merchants of Biblyon

Most of the merchants work from their homes in the Merchant Quarter. They live north of the river, up the high banks. Most professional service providers, such as surveyors, surgeons, and architects, can be found in the library and the private houses.

While costs are almost always given in Crosspoint coinage, equivalents in barter will usually be accepted if the merchant is in need of the item or it can be easily stored and rebartered.

Astrologer

George Barr, the town astrologer, lives up the mountain a ways. He claims to be descended from the last survivor of the Astronomers (see The Lost Castle of the Astronomers); whether he is or is not is up to you, but he hasn’t got anything of use from his parents beyond a deep love for the stars. He can provide advice on past problems, present problems, and future plans. George will charge and provide according to his client’s means, but a reading will generally run from several pennies to several shillings. Of course, the more dangerous your possible future, the more important a deep reading becomes. (Whether astrology works is up to you. There’s no reason it shouldn’t, but it should be more vague than the equivalent magic spell.)

Baker

His house always smelling of fresh bread, Jam the Baker will take your dough and bake it, or sell you breads, cakes, rolls, flatbreads, whatever you want. Baking several loaves that you bring in will cost a penny. Having a loaf made for you will cost two pennies.

Baths

There are two places for baths in Biblyon if you don’t want to head upriver and don’t have a room. The Bathhouse on the south side of the river has hot and cold baths, and its steam rooms are often used as a meeting place for local politicians. The tubs next to the Fons Tabernus have cold baths only, but with the advantage of being next to the bar, allowing you to buy a mug of beer and get clean. Cold baths are a penny, hot baths are four pennies (and only available at the Bathhouse).

Blacksmith

Todd Isherwood is a big man, fitting the blacksmith stereotype well. He is the sole source for horseshoes and other heavy metalwork in the area. He tends to spend most of his time at the Fallen Leaf discussing poetry (of which he has a large body of work of his own) or at the Fons Tabernus carousing loudly with the other merchants, until he has built up a backlog of orders. Then, his forge runs day and deep into nights until he has completed his jobs and he returns to the Fallen Leaf. He also spends much time in the Library and in the library of the Learned Companions studying the poetry of the ancient world.

Bookbinder

The Tutors do their own bookbinding at the Library, but other scholars bring their books to Martin Consuin. Martin is a collector himself, and has many books in various states of repair. His home smells perpetually of glue and old paper. A binding job costs several shillings, depending on the size of the book and the age of the paper.

Bowyer

Ryan Bower and his sons Ryan and Manon are all skilled bow-makers. They can tailor their bows to the strength of the archer.

Ryan has a wife, June Bower, and a daughter, May Bower. Elder son Ryan is preparing for a trip to Black Stag, to possibly set himself up in business there depending on the competition.

Brewers

There are several brewers in town. The Costumers brew their own beer for the Rabbits Hole, and there are three brewers in the Merchants Quarter who vie for the custom of the various public houses, townsfolk, merchants, and visitors.

Cainer (Walking Sticks)

John Cainer is an inveterate wanderer. He knows his walking sticks, and can tailor them not only to the client but to the kinds of walking the client does. His carving work is exquisite, and carpenters are often after him to carve bedposts, table legs, and other similar works, but John prefers to make canes. A cane from John Cainer will run from 5 pennies to 5 shillings, or even more, depending on what you need.

Chandler (16)

Thomas Chandler comes from a long line of waxworkers and soapmakers. He will pass his knowledge on to his three sons, who are already apprenticed to him. His candles light the night for Biblyon’s scholars.

Clockmaker

Randall Tracher is one of the best clockmakers in the known world. He has apprentices here as well as in Crosspoint, and spends the winter months on the coast. He is obsessed with the mathematics of time and the minutiae of gears and clockwork.

Confectioner

John Ferrel studied sorcery for years before falling in love with the making of candies, frostings, and divinities.

He is a second level sorceror and knows enlarge, guardian, indestructible object, sunlight, and magic table. For special occasions, he’ll use enlarge, indestructible object, and sunlight to assist in making his creations.

Cutler

As with the papermakers, and everything else in town, there are factions involved with sword-making. Those who use one believe it the best, those who use the other believe it is better. Bladesmithing is a science in Biblyon.

Simon Dover makes blades of all kinds, including for cooking and butchering.

Glazier (Glassblower/cutter)

Aldon Grayson’s home is filled with the shimmer of glass and colored glass. Sparkling bulbs hang from his porch ceiling and reflect the sunlight at every opportunity.

Guard Companies

There are no guard companies based in Biblyon, but occasionally companies from Hightown, Crosspoint, or Black Stag accompany a merchant or scholar to this remote area. Such companies will usually look for someone to pay them on their return, and will often be available at bargain prices because any money is better than no money when they need to return anyway.

Midwife

Tess Perkins lives in the general quarter. She has two daughters and one son.

Sculptor and Tilemaker

Millicent Vaarlow works in wood and stone, creating statues, busts, and tiles to decorate the houses of Biblyon.

Silversmith

Brandy Forrester learned her trade from her deceased husband, Sam Forrester. She works in both silver and pewter, and makes frames, tableware, pins, hilts, and other finely worked silver or pewter pieces.

Tanner (19)

Robert Tanner’s home is beneath the wall, next to the river, and across the river from the butcher.

Other Merchants Available in Biblyon:

1. Brickmaker

2. Brightsmith (metalworker, 14)

3. Butcher (15)

4. Carpenters

5. Cartwright (carts and wagons)

6. Cheesemaker

7. Cobbler

8. Cooper

9. Dyer (26)

10. Embroiderer

11. Fletcher (arrows)

12. Hatter

13. Luthier (stringed instruments)

14. Miller (17)

15. Papermakers

16. Perfumemaker

17. Plasterer

18. Potter

19. Roper (ropes and nets)

20. Smelter (18)

21. Stoneworker (carving, engraving, and polishing)

22. Tailors

23. Undertaker

24. Vintner

Outsiders

Outside of the town are the farmers, hunters, fishers, and others who provide the town with food, wood, and thread. Many of those outside of town have become infected with the Biblyon disease and also desire to learn, to read the learning of others, and to discuss this learning with colleagues.

Coins of the Order

The Order had its own minter. People continue to use Order coins, and also use coins from Crosspoint and Black Stag. There were three types of Order coins: copper colonnades, silver pens, and electrum scrolls.

Electrum is a combination of gold and silver. The electrum luxes have a scroll with the letters LUX on the front and a simple stylized dove carrying an olive branch in its beak on the back. The silver pens have a feather pen on the front, an eye-in-the-pyramid on the back . The copper colonnades have an series of columns vaguely reminiscent of the library’s portico on the front, and a burning torch on the back. The coins have reeded edges.

The Townsfolk

Most of the townsfolk live in the downhill area. Some of the more moneyed townsfolk live uphill.

Many of the things taken from the castle are in the possession of townsfolk. If the characters do a search of the town for things found in the castle, they might run across pool balls, chess pieces, coins, and swords. If they extend their search to the surrounding countryside, they might also find movable walls, kitchen utensils, shovels, rakes, and more. More importantly, they might find the missing (Latin) pieces of the notebook of Abacus Dome, that have been in the attic of a now-dead farmer ever since Abacus tore them from his notes eighty years ago.

Finding these will require networking, talking to people, and gaining their confidence.

The townsfolk are generally very educated. They are proud of their town’s history.

The townsfolk provide cooks, nurses, laborers, laundresses, and other services to the various houses, scholars, and merchants. There are also miners, fishermen, and hunters among the townsfolk, though many also live outside of town.

Politics

The most influential people in Biblyon are the Tutors, and then the Librarians. These two groups are organize and maintain the town’s defenses and also engage scholars throughout Highland. The town leadership consists of the Town Council and the Mayor. The Mayor’s man on the council is the Alderman. The Judge was once appointed by the Order; since the demise of the Order the head librarian appoints him. Five other members are chosen by a vote of all property owners within the town.

Biblyon is filling the small valley inside their walls. As the world begins again to take an interest in knowledge, more people visit the walled library. Some stay. To serve both visitors and new citizens, entrepreneurs move in. There is talk of expanding into a second wall. Many Tutors support this: according to Raleigh Adair a second wall would have allowed the Order to defend the town during the War. Adair’s theories are hotly debated, as are most theories; fortunately, such debates are no longer settled on the field of battle. Meanwhile, people are already building outside the town’s wall.

The Mayor

The Mayor of Biblyon handles the town’s paperwork. He also appoints one member of the council, known as the Alderman. He can recall and replace the Alderman at any time. The Alderman serves as the liaison between the mayor’s office and the council. The Mayor is also allowed a vote when the council is tied; as the council has seven members, there are rarely ties. Only if one member abstains or is absent does the Mayor have a chance to vote.

The Prosecutor

The Council appoints a prosecutor to handle any criminal cases that need to be brought before the Judge.

The Council

The Alderman

The Alderman serves as liaison between the Mayor and the council, and is a full voting member. As a mayoral appointee, the Alderman is usually either a friend of the Mayor or someone to whom the Mayor owes a favor.

The Town Judge

Appointed by the head librarian, the Judge hears cases. The Judge appoints a bailiff to summon jurors among the townsfolk.

The Rest of the Council

There are five other members of the council, chosen by property owners in Biblyon. As such, they are usually property owners themselves. There is often a Tutor on the council, sometimes a merchant, and, rarely, a Costumer. Most of the council hails from Midhill and Uphill. Miller Sartoris usually hand-picks one council-member, who is usually, but not always, a Tutor.

Trade

Biblyon trades most with Hightown, forty miles south. From there, they trade with Crosspoint and sometimes Black Stag. They can also trade with Black Stag via the Old Deer River. It crosses the Leather Road about one hundred and fifty miles east of Black Stag at the old Brightwood Crossing. This isn’t done as often as it could be, however, because getting your boat back up a hundred and fifty miles of river is not easy, and because the village at Brightwood Crossing is long abandoned.

Fortifications

The Wall

The wall bridges the sides of the valley. It stands twelve feet tall and six feet deep, with crenellations extending another four feet up. There are two sets of doors into the town: the main doors on the road, and the doors beneath the bridge where the walls go over the river. The doors to the town are always closed at night. The doors beneath the bridge are not, as they are very difficult to open against the water current.

The Guardhouses

The houses at the gates are always manned, though sometimes with sleeping guards. The Tutors use the guardhouses to house and train new members as well as the town militia. Townsfolk are generally proud to serve with the Tutors and proud to be part of the town’s militia, but it can sometimes be difficult to find townsfolk to reliably man the guardhouses at night in the depths of Biblyon’s cold winters.

Guard Towers

There are two guard towers at the top of the sides of the valley, one on each end of the wall. While the four towers at the gates are manned all the time, the town’s been getting a little lax about the two further towers. Unless there is a known or suspected danger, those towers are empty. They usually are manned at night nowadays, with the strange things going on. If there have been night troll sightings, they’ll be manned during the day as well. (The Tutors are well aware that night trolls can come out in the daytime without turning to stone.)

Illustrious Castle

A wide, slow path winds its way up the mountainside. Numerous times, the Old Deer River runs across the path. Stone bridges cross the river at each point. The characters might also reach the castle from north or south of the valley, as the path at the bottom of the cliff becomes part of another path going north and south, much used by farmers and hunters.

The path up the mountain from Biblyon to the castle is five miles. This will probably take a half day to climb. Going around the long way is twenty miles, which will probably take two days.

From a distance, Illustrious Castle is imposing. It stands atop a plateau, with a river flowing out beneath it and against the backdrop of an even larger cliff. As they near the castle, however, the depth of the decay becomes apparent. One corner of the outer wall has completely fallen in. The outer wall is jagged as entire sections of it have fallen to the ground. The outer wall of the castle grounds is ten or so yards from the edge of the 120 yard drop. There is a thin walkway leading up the cliff, which will be muddy and slippery in the spring.

The river comes out of the cliff face from a five yard wide, four yard tall hole, with a yard of clearance at the exit, another thirty yards down. (There is more clearance when the melting snow dwindles.) See the end of the adventure for what is inside—it is possible to reach the adventure through this as a back entrance, although it will be difficult. The river is rushing out at high speeds. Another six yards inside, the clearance increases to between a yard and two yards. The Tomb of the Hero is 160 yards inside, past many tiny caverns.

A thin path, overgrown with briars and small maples, rises steeply up the side of the cliff face. At the bottom of the cliff, you can barely see a small stone square or foundation covered in tall grass and weeds. Below, you hear water rushing out of the mountainside and gushing over the winding road to Biblyon.

The small stone foundation was once a platform where supplies could be loaded and hauled up to the plateau by means of a pulley system on the plateau. The rest of the pulley system has been taken away by the farmers of the area for its metal and wood. Outside of the outer wall, just south of the front gates, a small stone base is all that remains of the pulley system. (It’s removal inadvertently slowed the looting of the castle.)

Rumors

Characters who ask the right questions can hear some of the rumors and legends surrounding the castle’s fall.

1. Why is the castle abandoned? The Order of Illustration committed suicide by drinking poison. The Tutors discovered this several weeks later and buried the dead.

2. Why did they commit suicide? Most of the Order died during the war. Those that returned and wrested control of the castle from the goblins were not the best of the Order and could not live up to its ideals. Over the next few years they became more and more isolated and eventually just gave up.

3. Could it have been more than just suicide? Maybe they thought they were taking part in some ritual that would give them more knowledge. But it clearly didn’t work, as they all died.

4. Did they all die? Some of them might have decided against suicide and left the castle. While there was no evidence of it, maybe some of them didn’t take poison, and left afterward. Several volumes of the Order’s spellbooks were never found, and there were fewer bodies than people expected.

5. How many fewer? Just fewer. It isn’t like anybody knew how many of the Order were left by the time of the suicide.

6. Why did it take so long to find out that the Order was dead? The Order kept to themselves after the war. They no longer took part in town activities or even library activities.

Eliazu

The castle is built on an old Karuat burial ground. It is a place of power, evil, level two. This is the power that the Illustrators tapped to summon the demon Eliazu. Eliazu is an emotional demon. It feeds off of fear. It has the demonic powers of surface telepathy, summon unnamed demon, raise skeleton corpse, influence, and burn. Eliazu has twenty demonic power points saved and it is looking to gain more by feeding on the goblins’ fear.

Eliazu has a charisma of 16, an intelligence of 15, and a wisdom of 14.

Certain things can alert Eliazu to the characters’ presence. If they pass within sight of Eliazu’s skeletons (see The Basement on page ), Eliazu will happen to be watching on a d20 roll of 8 or less. Once Eliazu is aware of their presence, it will always see them when they’re in the sight of its skeletons.

Since Eliazu isn’t paying a lot of attention to the upper levels, it will take a few days to notice that a summoned creature is gone. Once Eliazu notices a missing demon it will pay more attention. Every time the characters kill a summoned creature or creatures, or if the characters completely chase off the goblins, roll 2d4 for the number of days it takes Eliazu to notice. Once Eliazu notices one thing wrong, it will check everything else.

Once Eliazu becomes aware of the characters’ presence, it will try to influence them to do what it wants. Usually, “what it wants” is either for them to get out and never come back (death is the preferred way of doing this), or go down to the bottom and set Eliazu free. But Eliazu will need to be pretty sure of their ability and will before it influences them toward the latter. They must be powerful enough to perform the ritual, and weak-willed enough to be influenced. Eliazu does not want them to discover his existence and then leave. If they discover his existence, he wants them to stay, and to keep it a secret.

Eliazu doesn’t know everything that goes on if it can’t be seen through the skeletons, but can get a good idea by skimming the surface of their thoughts. Anything they say out loud, Eliazu can hear. Eliazu’s “influence” is usually limited to new thoughts popping into their heads. These will be extremely subtle: they’ll come from you as things their character would have known. “Oh, I didn’t realize that, but of course I knew that.” This influence can give the characters a penalty of two on any rolls to do things that they aren’t so sure about, such as looking for secret doors (there might not be any at all). If the character recognizes that such influence is happening, the penalty will not apply.

Remember that if Eliazu is willing to spend the necessary demonic power points, Eliazu can try to more actively influence its opponents. They are allowed a willpower roll to resist. This roll will be at a bonus of six on the path below the castle, and at a bonus of two on the castle grounds but outside of the castle itself. The act being influenced must be somewhat reasonable. The influence will manifest itself as a strong desire.

Eliazu can, once aware of a character’s presence, carry on conversations with them via telepathy, but is unlikely to do so. This would arouse unnecessary suspicions. The demon will stick to giving them ideas that result in (a) their death, (b) Eliazu’s freedom, or (c) their leaving, ignorant, and never returning.

Eliazu’s Powers in Host Form

If Eliazu manages to take over a host body, Eliazu will retain the physical abilities of that host. Mental abilities will be Eliazu’s. Eliazu will also have the special powers of invisibility and magic resistance 5. Eliazu will start at level 5, demon. Eliazu does not need to sleep. Eliazu may call on the host’s memories on a successful reason roll. The host is completely suppressed, barring some mistake in the summoning ritual. Eliazu also retains the powers it had while trapped in the statue.

What If the Characters Go for Assistance?

The players may well have their characters head back to town and rest for extended periods before heading deeper into the castle. This is perfectly reasonable. But Eliazu will try to convince them not to, or at least not to tell anyone about the secrets they’ve discovered. Eliazu will not want a big party of investigators running through the castle. Eliazu will remind the players that if they bring anybody up, they’ll have to share any treasure. If there is anything else that Eliazu knows about the characters’ desires that can be used in a subtle manner, use that also. Also—Eliazu won’t know this, but anyone familiar with the Tutors will—the Tutors will take anything that is remotely of historical value.

Eliazu will try to summon or create creatures to assist it against the player characters. If it has any source of fear, it can replace any lost demonic power. Attracting evil creatures takes time. First of all, there have to be evil creatures in range, such as on the path below the castle. Then, Eliazu can only influence two or three of them, in hopes that all will follow. All it can give them is a little nudge, a little snippet of desire for an abandoned castle or a broken tower. Once they stay inside the castle for a while, Eliazu will work further on improving its influence over them.

If they go back to town, the kind of assistance they receive will depend on how they go about getting it. Any proof that there is a completely unexplored level beneath the castle will result in numerous groups and individuals heading up to the castle. A few individuals will probably arrive first. The Tutors, experienced at taking advantage of new knowledge, will probably arrive second. Eliazu will choose people of power and low will and try to influence them. “This castle could all be yours, with the right laws.” Eliazu might suggest to a weak-willed sorceror, especially one with political power, that this place must be on a place of power. Eliazu will try to limit access to a small group of people who have or can reasonably be shown the power to set the demon free, and who can be tricked or influenced into doing so.

If the characters bring it only to the attention of the Tutors, the Tutors will keep it a secret, at least until they’ve been able to explore the place. How the Tutors handle it, and how much they keep the player characters in the loop, will depend on the PC’s relationship with the Tutors.

There will be a lot of political fallout over the discovery of the new level. Eliazu will take advantage of that as well. Remember that Eliazu isn’t yet powerful. The demon can make many suggestions, but actually nudging someone to a course of action affords them a reaction against the nudge, and it costs demonic power.

You probably do not want to have the Tutors save the day. That’s a boring story. Let a splinter group move their base of operations to the castle. This splinter group will come further and further under the influence of Eliazu. The characters (perhaps in conjunction with the Biblyon Tutors) will eventually, at a higher level, need to face off with Eliazu and Eliazu’s Tutor spies, sorcerors, and warriors, perhaps to stop them from freeing Eliazu, or to send a freed Eliazu back to the shell.

The Castle Grounds

The stone outer wall of the castle grounds is ragged and overgrown, standing out against the ground like a demented giant’s grimy teeth. The castle grounds are overgrown with weeds and tall grass interspersed among young trees. To the southeast a mild reek wafts on the breeze toward you.

The castle stands stark against the cliff face behind it. The side towers have caved in and taken part of the second floor with them. Empty windows high above the ground stare back at you like vacant eyes, unblinking, unmoving, except for a single shutter that sways open and shut in the wind far above the crenellated battlements.

What may have once been a wooden addendum barely stands against the south wall of the castle. A pair of imposing wooden doors shield the secrets of Illustrious Castle from your prying eyes.

If they look closely they might see arrow slits and spy holes in the entry hall. The roof of the castle is slanted to keep snow from accumulating and to keep enemies from the mountains off. The outer wall of the castle grounds is easily circumvented. It was not patched reliably after the Great War. The guardhouse at the gates was wood and stone. The wood has fallen entirely, and some of the stone. It has no roof. There are rodents living among the guardhouse ruins, but that’s about it.

There are two levels of windows: about twenty feet up are the high windows for the main ballroom (2), the entrance (1), the servant’s quarters (7), and the old meeting room (8). Thirty-five feet up are upstairs windows: the long hallway and the lounge (13). All windows had shutters; most are gone except the one that keeps swinging.

The towers were of the kind that jut out from the upper floor. There were three, one in the southwest, one in the northwest, and one in the northeast corners. The battlements are about fifteen feet up. To get to them, you had to go through the towers, making it difficult to get to them now.

The grounds are overgrown with weeds and tall grass. Careful searching in the Old Bazaar will reveal the remains of wooden frames and stone frames, burned and destroyed by the goblins in the war. Anything that remained of the frames that was not burned, was taken by farmers after the Order destroyed itself.

The tunnels marked on the map were dug by the goblins. They intend to keep this castle, and can use the tunnels to outflank attackers—they’re expecting their hobgoblin overlords, but will also repulse humans or anyone else if they think they’ll succeed. The tunnels are approximately two to three yards underground, a foot wide and two to three feet in diameter. The dots show where the tunnels reach the surface.

There is a large pile of dirt near each of the holes. If the characters search the piles, a perception roll nets them an odd, bird-like skull. Characters with some sort of knowledge that applies might recognize it as not bird-like, but more crab-like. These strange bones were found as the goblins dug underground, and are very old Karuat bones.

Wandering Monsters

There are few wandering monsters. The wildlife has learned to avoid the area, and the goblins only attack if they need to repulse invaders or feel they have something to gain. That is, against opponents weaker than them. Every hour, however, there is a 5% chance of an encounter with one of the other denizens of the castle or its grounds:

See the entry hall description for more about the goblins. Remember that they are keeping watch on the grounds.

The Stagnant Pool (A)

A stagnant puddle, trying hard to be a swamp, sends a pungent reek into the still air around the castle. Large, slow bugs swarm within the reeds and tall grass, and thick-leafed plants grow about the green-encrusted water. The reek seems to bring its own rich, fetid warmth to the air.

When any creature comes within four yards of the swamp, the chance of wandering monsters increases to 20% every ten minutes and the encounter will be with d4 killer toads. There are a maximum of 11 toads in the swamp.

The stagnant pool is actually an overgrown well. Water flows into the well from an underground source, diverted by the Dwarves, but it has been clogged up with vegetation and dirt. In working condition it would have poured down into the underground and further down into the main river (which the Dwarves never reached). The blockage blocks up both the hole and the well, Water soaks through the vegetation and up through the well and through the ground, as well as down into the Secret Places (area 16). The water is warm, about seventy to seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit, as it comes from a warm spring within the mountains. Thus, this tiny little “swamp” remains warm and lush year-round.

The water comes out about thirty feet down. The vegetation can hold about a hundred pounds without partially collapsing so that whatever was on it falls through. Below the vegetation, the hole slides down at a steep angle, several hundred feet to Tunnel to the Swamp (16) in The Secret Places. The clogged area can be burrowed through; the toads occasionally do. Otherwise, however, the water lies stagnant and occasionally overflows down the hill and over the cliff.

Killer toads: fantastic 2; move 6/12; claws d4; defense 2; bite to swallow.

The Secret Entrance (B)

Beneath the dry, crackling shade of the pine trees, brown needles crunch underfoot. The cliff’s face is grey stone, rugged and clean, with a jagged gash leading into darkness.

Out behind the trees, and covered in foliage now, is a crack in the cliff face. The crack in the cliff is a foot and a half wide at its widest and four feet tall, though it widens inside. It can be traversed, albeit very carefully. It leads to the back rooms of the castle where the large snakes and strigae are.

The Old Stable (C)

Wooden walls partially covered and partially destroyed by old landslides and mudslides rot inward to what was once a horse stable. Many of the boards of the wall are gone completely. The north wall of the stable is the castle wall, and a wall has partially cracked, leaving a sliver of a hole in the side of the castle. To the southeast, beyond a small copse of trees, the side of the mountain runs diagonally south and west.

The stables were never fully repaired after the War. Nothing beyond insects or an occasional rodent live in the stables. The large spiders from room 7 might be attracted by an undue amount of noise in this area. The wall has partially caved in to room 7, leaving a thin crack that a shorter character might be able to slip through—and that the spiders definitely can.

There is also a secret (on this side) door into the old meeting room (8). The door is kept closed by the goblins, but is not as secret as it once was due to age and neglect. Rolls to see it are at a bonus of 2.

The First Floor of the Castle

Most of the destruction on the first and second floors of the castle are the result of decades of looting by local farmers and the townsfolk. The goblins had little to do with it.

The rooms are all large. Each has many columns holding up the ceiling. Those that are not ballrooms or kitchens once had moveable walls for partitioning on the fly.

The columns are arranged so that there are arched columns beneath the walls of the upstairs level. All rooms except for the entry hall and the side halls are ten yards high. The entry hall and side halls are four yards high to make room for the battlements above them. The battlements run along the west (front) and north walls.

The entry hall is guarded night and day by three goblins. They watch through large arrow slits on either side of the main doors. If they see anyone outside, one of them will retreat to room 3, through the small (1 yard by 1 foot) hole in the corner of the room adjoining room 3. That guard will warn the other 39 goblins.

In the back area of the castle, on the northeast side, piles of rock and dirt from the mountainside allow characters (or creatures) to climb up to the upstairs level, or down from the upstairs level to the main level.

Wandering Monsters

There are few wandering monsters while the goblins remain. Eliazu has decided that the goblins are worth keeping, now that he’s taken away their leader. Eliazu feeds off of their fear. The chance for a wandering encounter with a non-goblin will be 10% every two hours. If the goblins are killed or chased away, the chance for random encounters increases to 10% every hour.

On nights of the full moon, and on Hallowe’en, there is always the chance that the ghost of Tragos d’Illus haunts the castle. See The Scepter of Tragos d’Illus for details.

Entry Hall (1)

You will need to adjust this flavor text depending on how recently the goblins have been here. This assumes that the goblins literally just left. For example, the entrance doors won’t swing shut unless the goblins just passed through them.

The smell of fried food permeates the air. Discarded bones are piled in the corners and scattered on the floor. Straight ahead, two large double doors swing slightly and stop. To their left, skittering noises emanate from a dark, jagged hole in the stone wall.

Two smaller wooden doors lead to the north, and one to the south.

The entrance doors swing shut with a ringing thud. The bones and the walls waver beneath the flickering light of your torches.

In this room, the characters will find discarded fried and heavily salted rat bones and a couple of makeshift four-sided dice with goblin markings (characters familiar with goblin lore should recognize the markings).

One to three minutes (3d6 rounds) after the guards see someone or something they consider a threat, there will be eight goblins stationed in room 3. Of the other 19 goblin fighters ten of them will, one minute afterward, be in the hallway opposite area 6, and the other nine will be with the twelve noncombatants (eight younger goblins, four goblin females) in room 4. One minute after that those nine goblins will have left the noncombatants and be moving toward area 6. One minute later, they will be in the Gaming Room (6).

All of this travel will be done through the tunnels except for the nine goblins who will use the doors to go from area 3 to area 4, then from area 4 to area 5, and finally from area 5 to area 6.

If the characters proceed beyond the Entry Hall, the goblins will attack. If they go down the main hallway, the goblins in room 3 will rush out the main doors to initiate the attack. If available, the goblins in area 6 and across the way will join the attack one round later. Similar strategies will be used by the goblins if the adventurers take a different route from the Entry Hall, except that it will take the goblins from room 3 three rounds to join combat in one of the side areas.

At night, the goblins will act similarly, except that d20 of the fighters and d12 of the non-fighters will be off foraging. They will still divide their forces up relatively evenly, but will not divide into groups smaller than their opponents, nor will they fight if outnumbered. Because they are not tired, they will be able to muster their number in one to six rounds after seeing someone they consider a threat. They will also consider using the goblin holes to attack characters on the castle grounds if they have the time—but they won’t do this unless they are sure that the characters are going to be attempting an entry of the castle. They’d rather not fight a battle they’re not sure of, but they will defend their new home.

If the goblins lose seven or more of their number with no loss from the party, the goblins will run in any way possible, including the goblin holes. They will escape down the cliff, and come back later hoping that the characters have left or are more vulnerable. Two will escort the non-combatants out if possible.

None of the goblins speak Anglish. All speak a little hobgoblin, and some speak it fluently. All speak goblin.

Goblins: chaotic evil; faerie 1; move 8; short sword d6; defense: +4 (leather/shield).

Main Ballroom (2)

Clearly, this room was once the main ballroom of a wealthy order. In the dusty light from high windows the pillars and columns futilely fight decay and ill use, like aging thespians who refuse to admit the death that lies on their faces. Shutters on the windows droop loosely.

Wooden stools and chairs that look almost made both by and for children are scattered about the room. The sour smell of old fruit and the rank smell of old meat permeates the air. Beneath the heavy stink is the faint smell of good wine.

Where once-ornate tables and chairs stood, there are goblin-made stools and tables. The tables are slightly rotten, the chairs mostly busted, and there are goblin-leavings everywhere. This includes fried rat parts, fruit cores, unleavened bread, and tattered clothing. The goblins didn’t even clean out the place before moving in, so the corners and floors beneath their junk is still scattered with old, dried rat turds, dirt, rat skeletons, and a couple of giant rat skeletons (the characters may not recognize the latter, perhaps mistaking them for a large rodent they’re more familiar with).

In the corner adjacent to the entry hall is a small hole that the goblins can use, but that anyone human-sized would have trouble getting through.

Salvageable treasure includes a large barrel of salt stolen only a month ago. It is still good under the crusted top and could be worth as much as fifty shillings in Biblyon or seventy in Black Stag. In Crosspoint it would be worth no more than forty. The barrel weighs sixty pounds.

There is an open barrel of wine here, half empty, and an empty barrel as well.

Small Ballroom (3)

If there are goblin noncombatants in here when the characters enter, they will rush out of one of the far doors, either the one to room 4 or the one to the main hallway, depending on where the characters enter from.

A large fireplace dominates this large room. Tall pillars rise to the ceiling some ten yards up.

Small creatures, mockeries of human shapes, huddle in the far corner, a slightly larger creature herding them quickly through a door in the far wall.

Like the main ballroom, this room is in disrepair but was clearly once grand. There is a large fireplace in the wall adjacent to the old kitchen. During a battle, the noncombatant goblins will hide here.

Old Kitchen (4)

A huge, rusty, black kettle sits in a large fireplace. A pile of rocks on the south wall leans heavily against a wooden door. Another door across from you lies slightly ajar.

A hearth on the wall adjacent to the small ballroom (and part of that room’s fireplace) still holds a large, rusty, black kettle which the goblins use. There are the remains of a rat mushroom stew in the kettle. The utensils in this room have long since been scavenged by the townspeople.

The door to the servant’s quarters, which opens toward the kitchen, have recently been blocked by rocks taken from outside to keep the spiders out.

Servants’ Hall (5)

If they attempt to enter this hallway from the outside, the door is blocked shut by rocks. A strength roll, at a penalty of 3, will be required to open it enough to get through. The characters will receive a slightly different description depending on whether they come in on the north end or the south end.

A long, thin corridor leads down to a door at the far end. The long west wall is heavy stonework, the east wall a lighter stonework. A pile of (what may be) rocks leans against the (walls or door) (far down or to your right/left) in the hallway.

The doors to the servants’ quarters and to the outside have been recently blocked by rocks, placed there by the goblins to keep the spiders away. The goblins rarely use this hallway, and are only likely to come here as part of their attack plan.

Gaming Room (6)

Brightly-colored circles abound on the walls. On one wall, a circle of triangles with numbers and symbols stands out. On another a series of circles of varying sizes each contain triangular sections. The room is almost bare, except for a few barrels and an occasional spider web in the corners. There is another doorway on the opposite side, through which you see darkness.

Behind the barrels are a pile of dirt (the hole in the ground), the chest, and some piles of money. The door to the main ballroom is gone.

The Knights of the Order were heavily into games of chance and games of angles. There is a pool table here, although all the pool balls are gone and the legs as well. A wheel, sort of like a roulette wheel, is embedded into the wall, although it no longer turns. A tattered chess board has been tossed into one corner, though this was not original. The goblins stole it from elsewhere. You can still occasionally find pool balls, chess pieces, and dice from the castle in the Biblyon bazaar. The tables are in the same shape as everything else in this castle.

The goblins are using this room as their treasure room. They recognize treasure in their raids, but they don’t know what to do with it yet—goblins are not welcome in the towns of Highland. The hobgoblins used unscrupulous human intermediaries; the goblins haven’t figured this out yet.

There are piles of money: 159 shillings, 123 pennies, 298 half pennies, and 989 farthings. There is a small, fancy chest. It has no lock. It contains a silver set (i.e., forks, spoons, knives). It weighs 30 pounds and is worth 225 shillings in Black Stag or 175 shillings in Crosspoint.

They are also storing two wine barrels and two ale barrels here. The goblins think they’re all wine barrels, or they would have the ale out in the main room along with the one opened wine barrel. The barrels state clearly what is in each barrel, but it is written in Anglish, and the goblins don’t know how to read. One of the barrels of ale has gone bad. The other is worth five shillings. The two wine barrels are worth as much as thirty shillings.

Servants’ Quarters (7)

As if a tailor’s shop gone awry, translucent grey threading covers this room in a web-like pattern. A fat, bulbous spider a foot wide at least stares at you with red, unblinking eyes.

The spider skitters into the mass of webbing, disappearing from sight. The gray filaments ripple outward, as waves on a lake, with the great spider’s passing.

Dim shadows dance across the walls and ceiling from your light and from an opening in the south wall.

Thick webbing covers the servant quarters, which was once a set of bunks and compartments, the walls of which (like bankers’ walls) have been removed. Unless some spiders are already dead, there will be d3+2 large spiders.

Large spiders: animal 1; survival 6, 5, 4, 6, 6; move 10; bite 1 (poison); defense 2.

There are two goblin skeletons in here, a half-eaten goblin child, and an adult human skeleton. Scattered about the human skeleton are 5 shillings, 4 pennies, 12 half-pennies, and 30 farthings.

The spiders, unless they have recently fed (and if possible, they will drag any large kill to this room), will very likely attack any large flesh that moves in here.

A crack in the south wall leads to the old stables.

Old Meeting Room (8)

Light from a high window illuminates a deserted room, devoid of anything except a large pile of dirt several yards (ahead of you or a few feet to your left). Even the spiders seem to have left this room alone, although there are rat droppings and a few dead birds in the nooks. There is a (doorway to your left and a door straight ahead or door to your right and a door far to your left or a door on the far wall and a doorway next to it on the right wall).

In the castle’s heyday, this was where mighty warriors and great tacticians met to plan battles. Unfortunately, they didn’t plan well enough to keep the hobgoblins from the gates. The table is still here, but some farmers have tried to axe it apart. The goblins have dug a hole into the floor for entrance into their tunnels.

This is what the villagers thought was the library. They took not only the books, but the shelves as well.

The goblins originally had their tunnels going to the old stable, but after a scene reminiscent of Alien where they had to fight off a large spider in the tunnels, they’ve blocked off the tunnel going south from this hole to the stables.

Storage Room (9)

What first appears to be an irregular far wall, you quickly realize is the mountainside. This triangular room is empty except for scraggly, thin weeds growing in clumps at the edges. There is another doorway to your (left or right), through which you can vaguely see the outlines of another room.

The far wall of this room is the mountainside. While it was once used for storage of extra furniture, weapons, and decorations, all of the useful stuff has long since been ransacked by the townspeople, farmers, and now the goblins. There are only a few broken pieces of furniture that were too large to scavenge.

Bathrooms (10)

Tails and grey bodies lay tangled about the floor, chittering at you in a high-pitched, squeaky whine. The floor seems almost carpeted in rats.

One wall comes in at a sharp angle, and the other wall is irregularly shaped, a dingy plaster cracking off of it. Thin fissures crack the floor, far wall, and ceiling of the room, leading down and into unending darkness.

The original builders took advantage of a natural fissure to the Old Deer River and built the bathrooms here, making this one of the few castles, if not the only castle, to have a semblance of indoor plumbing. The same fissure goes up as well as down; at one time, the fissure in the “ceiling” was covered, but the covering has fallen in. Some giant rats are using this little cubbyhole as their home. The goblins have been planning on ridding the castle of the rats, but haven’t figured out how yet. They don’t know about Tragos’s eternally decaying body. There are hundreds of rats throughout the bathrooms and the fissure.

The rat’s lair is about ten feet into the fissure, where it widens for a bit and then also heads toward the fissures around the “secret entrance” near the old stable.

In the rat’s lair is the dead body of Tragos d’Illus, still in the shiny clothing of the leader of the Order. His body is unnaturally preserved in a rotting state, richly arrayed in rotting clothing. He wears an emerald on an iron ring (100 shillings) on his left pinky, a beautiful intricately-patterned gold ring (250 shillings) on his left ring finger, and a pearl rosary (400 shillings) around his belt. Clenched in his right hand is a scepter of gold and silver (500 shillings). The gaping hole in his right side, if examined, reveals that his right rib is missing.

Rats mill around a rotting corpse, richly arrayed in tattered, stinking clothing and jewels. It clenches a scepter in one hand. Tiny maggots burrow and crawl from a gaping hole in its side, as well as from its eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. As the maggots writhe about the face, the head flops to one side and gazes at you with maggoty orbs. A beetle drops out of the mouth. Rats feed on the maggots and the insects and chew at the corpse.

See the description of The Scepter of Tragos d’Illus for more about the scepter.

Rats: animal 1pt; move 8; bite or claw 1pt; defense 0.

Grand Kitchen (11)

The huge double doors swing open to reveal a wide, deep room. A great fireplace in the far wall opens to the outer corridor, and a huge pot-bellied stove nestles in the far right corner, its empty doorway gaping at you. What was once a counter ringing the room has been torn away and is mostly gone. The wind whistles from an empty hole above the stove.

The stove has been stripped bare of anything removable, including the chimney. Once the bustling kitchen of a great order, even the goblins have no use for this kitchen today. There are recent ashes in the great fireplace but it uses too much wood to keep going. Most anything of any value has been taken from the room already, although a pot-bellied stove remains, which the ransackers couldn’t figure out how to remove. They tried, though.

There is a recipe plastered by age to the counter. It’s called Venison Stew, but it’s the same as the Illustrious Stew which the townsfolk are proud of. It is hand-written, and was being made at the time of the summoning.

Egyptian Hall (12)

Stone benches line the wide hallway, flanking an engraved pyramid, open to reveal the books and scribes inside.

The castle has shifted slightly in its foundation over the past few hundred years, and the secret doors to this section of the castle are stuck. A strength roll at a penalty of 10 is required to open the secret door. The door is hidden in the engraving. One of the books in the engraving must be pulled out to unlock the door. The door then opens inward if pushed hard enough.

The Elite Troop’s Lounge (13)

The double doors fall to your assault and burst open. Two sets of plate armor sit, rusted and bent, on a fuzzy bench to your left. Swords dangle by their sides, and skeletal fingers lie broken around short halberds that lean against the armor. Behind them a snake twines itself around a fruit tree, almost like a mosaic in the rocks of the left wall. On the far wall, a text is inscribed above a great pyramid.

To your right are a pair of small double doors.

Here, the rotting and decay has gone on as in the rest of the castle, but less has been ransacked. Two chairs flank what was once a sofa on the north wall, and two armored fighters sit in the chairs. They are skeletons now; they wear ceremonial plate and carry long swords and a ceremonial halberd.

The pictures are painted on the wall’s rocks, which are embedded into the dirt. In fact, they are almost a mosaic, although many of the rocks contain multiple colors.

On the far wall, a picture of a pyramid, with a great army around it and a king, and the inscription:

“Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where the philosophers of this world? The learning of the wise shall perish. I will make drunk the princes, and their wise men, their captains and rulers, and their mighty men. They shall sleep for a thousand years while I lay low their pyramids, and make secrets of their wisdoms in the mountains.”

There are other chairs, sofas, and tables scattered throughout the room.

On this side, the secret door to the main part of the castle is not secret, and opens with an obvious lever on the west wall. It still requires force to open or close, however.

To the right are double doors leading to a hallway. They open normally, though they are slightly stuck (strength roll at a bonus of three to open). On opening the door, cold wet air meets them:

You force the doors open, and find yourself in a cold, wet hallway that reeks of sweat and mulch.

To the left a single hidden door leads to a stairway. The door is hidden by the edges of the mosaic’s tiles. On opening the hidden door, dry air meets the characters. See the flavor text in The Basement. The hidden door is to the right of the sofa and the guards, and is activated by pushing in on one of the stones. The door will pop open slightly.

The Smelly Pool (14)

You hear the scraping sounds of your bodies against the slanted walls echo lightly back to you, and that is all you hear. The place is deathly silent. (A rank smell grows or The rank smell continues) as you twist your way down the cramped cave. The thin pathway widens into a wider cavernous opening, filled with a mucky pool of brackish brown liquid. Two other thin pathways continue out of this opening. The slimy pool extends, completely still, through (both of or one of) them.

The shallow pool in this cave extends through the East and North Campuses, and is the home of a den of poisonous coppersnakes. If the snakes have not been killed elsewhere, there is a 20% chance per hour that d4 will be encountered here. In the winter, the snakes are almost certainly here, hibernating beneath the pool.

Coppersnakes: animal ¼; survival 1, 1, 2, 2; move 12; bite 1 (poison 0/1 round/d2); defense 2.

West Campus (15)

A brackish brown liquid covers half of this wide room, emanating a stench of almost physical force. The water flows into a thin, tall crack in the left wall. Skeletons in various states of repose lie in tattered ribbons of cloth on rotten wooden benches or bunks along the walls. Rats crawl in and out of skulls and rib-cages.

The door to the hallway that leads to this room opens outward, into the wider hallway, and toward the main door. The floor of these living quarters are covered in water from the smelly pool. There is a 20% chance every ten minutes that d4 of the snakes (if they still live) will be encountered here, rising to 40% if the muck in the far corner is dug into. Sunk into the far southeast corner, barely visible, is a small chest. It is rotten, and pulling it out of the muck is likely to tear it apart completely. Resting near the chest are a rusted dagger and sword in the muck.

Inside the chest are ten shillings, and fifteen silver pens (Coins of the Order). There is also a gold ring, with a Latin engraving inside. The gold ring is worth 25 shillings (it would probably be worth double without the engraving, which is a declaration of love to a woman named “Nancy”).

A crack in the stone wall leads to the South Campus, and another crack along the same fault leads to the caves and the smelly pool. The cracks are small, from three to four feet wide, and five to six feet tall.

There are five skeletons of warriors (unarmored) lying among various rotten bunk frames.

2d6 rats: animal 1pt; move: 8; bite or claw 1pt; defense 0.

East Campus (16)

A brackish stench mixed with brimstone almost pushes you back into the hallway. A brownish liquid covers more than half of this wide room, extending out of or into tall, thin cracks in the walls. Piles of bones rest in chairs, their skulls lying on floors or tables beside them. Skeletons lie half in and half out of the muck, and rest on what may have once been straw and cloth but now is covered in mold upon mold. Nestled within the ribcages of the skeletons strange birds turn their long-beaked heads toward you. Their eyes glint a dingy yellow in your torchlight. Two or three of them flap their dirt-red wings and take to the air, followed immediately by the flock of these screeching creatures.

These living quarters are filled with the stench of death, and perhaps a tinge of sulfur, something the characters shouldn’t really expect given the age of the last occupants. There are twenty or so skeletons sitting in eerily natural positions, as if they simply died while doing something perfectly normal (which, in fact, they did).

The birds are strigae, hellspawn and servants of the demon. They will attack any living creatures entering this room. There are up to nine of them (assuming none have been killed elsewhere). Generally, roll d8 and add one for the total strigae encountered at any time in this room.

​Strigae: demon: 1; survival 3, 5, 2, 6, 5, 4, 3, 5, 1; move: 18/3; bite d3; defense 2; paralyzing screech, blood sucking; magic resistance 1.

​In the northeast corner, sitting up out of the water, is an elven skeleton. The elf was about 6 feet, so must have been old. A headband hanging from the skull is begemmed in the middle with a garnet of deep red, worth 120 shillings. Lying next to the skeleton, in the muck, is a potion of fighting prowess at the seventh level of effect. This grants the drinker a bonus of 1 to attack and defense, and a temporary pool of 2d6 survival, for fourteen rounds. The glass vial has the emblem of a sword on its waxy stopper. A book wrapped in heavy leather is on the other side. The book is damp and many pages are unreadable. See the appendix for The Elfen Ranger’s Journal. On the elf’s finger is a silver ring carved finely with images of rabbits jumping. This is The Ring of Lemordin.

The Upstairs of the Castle

Wandering Encounters

There is a 10% chance of a random encounter every hour. The blood hawks and the crowns of eyes are nocturnal, and will be skittish during the day. Usually they’ll be in their nest but if they hear noise they may either investigate or hide.

At night, there is a chance that the ghost of Tragos d’Illus will haunt the castle. See The Scepter of Tragos d’Illus.

General Features

The upstairs is in worse shape than the downstairs. There are holes; walls have caved in, and if it has been raining it is wet. Mold covers everything. The inner walls upstairs are wood, as is the floor. If the characters are not unreasonably loud they will probably hear occasional bangs, or bumps, as the shutters in room 8b slam shut in the wind, open, and slam shut again.

Most of the structural damage occurred before the castle was looted. The walls and towers caved in, at least partially, when the demon was summoned. Thus, some things could not be looted without moving stones; some stones were never moved, and axes were used to separate what could be looted from what could not.

Through the holes in the walls in rooms 8a, 10, and 11, jumbles of stones from the walls and rocks and dirt from the mountainside form a ramp that allows travel from here to the first floor, and vice versa.

Storeroom (1)

Dust settles on the floorboards of a vacant room. There are hinges in the doorway, but no door. On the inner wall are crudely carved notes: “Rick Overton, 1943”. “I have 3 chairs. may sell. Dan Filwood”. “Emma & Peter, 1953” carved in a crude heart.

Just about everything has been scavenged by the locals. Even the door is missing.

West Intimate (2)

Stones from a gaping hole at the end of the hallway partially block the entrance to this room.

You step over the stones. Inside, a wooden bench runs along the east wall, and a waist-high shelf along the west.

An intimate is a place for small parties or discussions. These each have a couch at the north end, but no chairs (they’ve been removed), a bench at the east end, and a waist-high shelf (bar) at the west end.

Middle Intimate (3)

Beneath a large hole in the ceiling lie a few shingles and rotten timbers mixed with green branches and long grass woven into a bowl-like structure. Sunlight from the ceiling glints sharply off things in the branches and grass.

Two fat birds sit within the green branches and brown grass. They glare at you with red eyes and raise red-tinged wings as they lift themselves upon taloned feet. Rawk!

The north wall is covered in a weathered etching of a great city with a small, winding river going through it. Women wash clothing within the river while men gather carts together and fill them.

A large hole is in the ceiling, and beneath it lie timbers and rocks. Fewer timbers than there should be, most have since been taken. One was taken before the roof fell in, and may be part of why it fell in.

Two blood hawks, drawn to the demon’s power, nest here. Blood hawks have a reputation for nastiness, probably due to the prized nature of their eggs; they won’t attack unless approached. Within the nest are some items scavenged from other parts of the upstairs. These include a tarnished silver ring worth 75 shillings, a diamond ring worth 275 shillings, and a gold necklace worth 250 shillings.

The black-encrusted silver ring is an intricate twist of wires into the shape of perhaps a hundred tiny ants crawling about each other. It is one symbol of the Insect Queen of the True Family. Inside the ring is engraved “none cures just riches”. It was taken from the ruins of the castle, and belonged to Wendell Redstar. Wendell took it from the Stigmas di Cristo. The other two pieces of jewelry were taken from the goblins.

The hawks are here all day. At night, there is a 60% chance in spring, summer, and fall or 35% after the first snowfall, that d2 of them will be here. In spring, the female hawk will lay seven eggs which will hatch in June; the female will be here all day and all night protecting the eggs, while the male will be here 20% of the time at night.

The north wall is covered in a weathered painting/etching of a great city with a small, winding river going past.

2 blood hawks: fantastic 2; survival 8, 9; move 8/25; claws d6 and bite d6; defense 3.

East Intimate (4)

You enter through an empty doorway. Inside, a short wooden bench runs along the west wall, and a waist-high shelf along the east wall. On the north wall is a faded etching of a man riding over a desert hill on a donkey. The man’s path crosses between two fig trees, the one on his left is shriveled and barren.

The north wall’s faded painting/etching is of Jesus returning to Jerusalem on an ass, crossing between two fig trees, one of which he has just cursed.

Old Temple (5)

Four vine-encrusted stone pillars, peeling white paint, rise up through the floor and into the ceiling, like Atlas holding up a mountain that crumbles around him. The wind whistles overhead, through the north window, and through the northeast wall, which has completely fallen in. Huge stones lie scattered about the floor, and in piles in the far corner. Behind the broken walls the side of the mountain looms across an empty gap.

On the south wall, a man in a white robe, with a golden crown suspended over his head, walks regally, almost ethereally, among what looks for all the world like a group of librarians, cataloguing, reading, and shelving tomes and portfolios. Dark clouds recede into the distance, letting a bright shaft of sunlight down to illuminate the library.

Before they used the underground complex for ceremony, this was their throne room. The throne that used to be here is in the library at Biblyon. The south wall has a painting of Jesus, a kingly figure, holding a scepter in a regal manner over the scholars, who work humbly and diligently at copying and studying the written works in their possession.

Guardroom (6)

The pile of dirt and rocks extends just slightly into this doorway. A crack in the corner to your left allows light from outdoors inside, shining in a shaft through dust suspended in the air.

Benches have been removed from the walls; close inspection will reveal this.

The Illustrious Guard used this room to wait for trouble in the ballroom.

Dressing Room (7)

The floorboards beneath you creak as you step through this doorway. Your lantern reveals an empty room, dusty and dark. The creaking echoes dully within the small space.

There are holes in the walls where once were hooks for hanging clothing, and larger holes where dowels once went for holding cloth and clothing.

The leader’s dressers waited here, and changed the leader’s garments when the ball moved on to different stages.

Retinue Rooms (8a and 8b)

Visiting dignitaries’ retinues would stay in these rooms. There would have been small, simple dressers, and cots in each, none of which remain.

8a

A hole in the far right wall shows the rocky mountainside. A jumble of stones beneath the hole weighs down the stalwart beams of the castle’s floor. This wide room is empty but for the stones, and the dust and mud that covers the area.

8b

The wooden door is stuck open, jammed into the floor by an uneven wall. Shutters bang against the outside wall. The shutters are in poor repair, as is the entire room. The right wall has been destroyed by the outer wall falling in upon it. Stones lie upon the wooden floor. Faded pieces of wood stick out from beneath the great stones. The floor itself is bent down by the weight.

A part of one of the wooden dividers remains beneath the caved-in wall. Axe marks show where someone cut what they could from the divider and left the rest to the stones.

Water Storage (9)

The stone wall has fallen into the room. A pile of stones, dirt, and bird droppings in the far corner extends into the adjacent room. Closer to you, broken shards of pottery are scattered about the floor. To your right, an ornately-carved oaken tub remains intact.

The broken shards are from water casks that were underneath the wall when it fell. Any casks that survived were taken by the villagers. The tub is carved with vines, thorns, and grapes. It shows its age and its exposure to the weather, but is still in decent shape. It weighs 220 pounds, and could go for as much as 200 shillings in Crosspoint or Black Stag.

This room was used for storing water, wine, food, and other items that visitors and VIPs might need.

Visitor’s Storage (10)

The partially open door opens only with a strong push. It grates against the floor. Wind whistles between the mountainside and the open back wall. Stones and dirt litter the floor.

Beneath the stones in the far end of the room are some sheets and shattered jugs and bowls. Otherwise, this room is empty. It was used for visitors to store clothing and supplies.

Visitor’s Rooms (11a and 11b)

The door is jammed against the frame and the floor, and refuses to budge.

11a

You force the door open. It scrapes loudly against the floor. Not only was the door stuck, it was partially jammed with one of the rocks lying strewn about. The back wall has completely caved in, covering the back floor with large stones, dirt, and rocks.

The Elf, dead in West Campus (15) on the first floor, was staying here. Underneath the rocks is his sword, a +1 Elven Sword, dirty, battered, but still in fine shape. Also here are some letters he was writing, too faded with water, sun, and age to read; and a small steel icon shaped like a scroll, an icon of devotion to Arador, the Elven goddess of memory and learning.

Wood is visible beneath the rocks, barely. Axe marks show where the wood was taken from the stone. These rooms were once lavishly furnished, but everything has been taken.

11b

The door is stuck partially open, barely enough to see that there are rocks and debris on the floor, and not enough for anyone to fit through unless they are tiny.

You force the door further open. It scrapes loudly against the floor, tearing into itself and the wooden beams of the floor. The back wall has completely caved in, covering the back floor with large stones, dirt, and rocks.

There is nothing particularly special about 11b.

Men’s Washroom and Spyroom (12)

The door, partially open, creaks loudly as you pull it toward you. It opens further with difficulty, and reveals a thin, wide room. A thin aqua-green shelf runs the length of the south portion of the walls.

The wooden shelf once held small water jugs and bowls to empty the jugs into. Those have all been taken decades ago. The shelf runs along the south wall, and the south portion of the east and west walls. It is about seven inches wide.

The secret door to the spy room is concealed by way of the cabinet which once held the extra water-cask. If the entire cabinet is pushed after the lock is pulled open on the inside of the closet, it moves into the spy room. It can then be pushed back and locked from inside or outside.

You push in on the cabinet and it slides right into the wall. Your light shines into a small room, musty and dry and dark. Three silver goblets on an oaken table in the center reflect the light from your lanterns. There are several chairs around the table.

The spy room was never found by the villagers, so it still contains its five chairs, the three silver goblets (25 shillings each) as well as ten half-shilling wooden goblets. There is an open cask of long-dried wine in one corner of the room.

On the east wall there is a very small hole for spying into the lounge. A small tube, with glass ends, lies beneath the hole, on the floor. One end has cracked, however. This was a wide-angle lens, made by the dwarves, and would have cost a lot of money. Even with only one lens left, it can be sold for 50 to 150 shillings today.

Lounge (13)

The door swings in the breeze as you approach it. You push it aside.

Rocks lie in the southwest corner of this wide, deep room, possibly part of a tower that has caved in.

You may want to have each player make a perception roll for their character to determine who will be affected by the sensory assurance spell. Otherwise, they’ll get suspicious when you ask for perception rolls as they poke through the bars.

Two crowns of eyes, more of the demon’s creatures, nest here. If the characters surprise the crowns in daylight, the crowns are likely to crawl quickly out of the room and outside. It will appear that they have gone down, but they will quickly circle around the damage and crawl back up the wall. If a character is reckless enough to stick their head out and look down, the crowns are likely to take advantage of this and jump the character, in hopes of surprise.

One is above the rocks, the other is burrowed into them. During the day, intruders will see the visible one rush outside; the hidden one will crawl outside as well and join the other in hopes of jumping on someone looking outside.

A grayish, rotting face on the floor turns its several pale eyes toward you. The eyes twist away from the blobby grey thing, which sprouts clawed legs and skitters up the wall. It’s eyes grow out from its head on stalks, encircling the thing like a crown. It jerks quickly across the debris in the corner, crawls up to the window and over the ledge, and disappears.

At night the eyes are likely to be out hunting for food.

2 crowns of eyes: demon 2; survival 7, 9; move 20; claw d4; defense 6; always watching, immune to non-magical blunt weapons, ¼ damage from magical blunt weapons, resistant to fire; death explosion, grip; magic resistance 1.

The north walls of the room look into smaller rooms that have permanent angular reformation and sensory assurance to make it appear that they are large enough to fill the space that is actually occupied by the secret rooms. The walls of the inner rooms are painted with biblical scenes. Iron bars separate the main room from the scenes.

West Painting

You look beyond iron bars into a deep room, all three walls and the floor and ceiling painted. A man and woman, completely naked, stand in a lush garden. Surrounding them are trees bearing every kind of fruit.

East Painting

The walls, floor, and ceiling of this deep room display a forbidding scene: an angel wreathed in flame wields a fiery sword and stands before the golden gates of a great garden. The tips of flowering trees are barely visible beyond the garden’s marble walls.

Secret Door

The secret door to 14 will require a perception roll as normal, but if Eliazu is aware of the characters’ presence and is aware that they are in this room, this roll will be at a penalty of two as he mentally distracts them.

Secret Rooms (14)

This thin hallway, walls stained with soot, is dark and cramped. Old, simple torch holders are spaced at five-foot intervals, and the wall is scratched with the story of Babel. At the far end, the tower itself is etched into the wall on the right-hand side, men climbing from base to tip like ants on a syrup stick.

The secret door is controlled by the second-to-last torch sconce on the right-hand wall.

14a

You pull on the torch sconce, and the soot-darkened tower drops slightly inward.

You push the secret door inward. A wide room, dark, ringed by a small shelf, a table and chairs. Wooden goblets lay upon their sides on the table. An empty doorway leads into darkness in the far right corner.

14b

You pass through the empty doorway into a small room. Two cots dominate the room, with a small table against the wall, and two chairs on either side of it.

The cots are atop chests. They lift to reveal empty chests.

There are a couple of books here, donated by the captured Night Priest Wendell Redstar: Lord Thew’s Family Tales, The Fit May Rule, and Discussing Lesser Families. They are written in Anglish.

In Discussing Lesser Families there is a piece of paper with notes written on it. See Discussing Lesser Families in the Props section for the full text.

The Basement

The air is stale and dry as you walk slowly down the steep four-foot-wide stone stairs. The walls are of wide stones tightly placed, and varying shades and colors. Your steps echo quietly around you as you descend perhaps five yards. The stairs continue down, but there are also stairs to your right descending into an inky blackness.

Another five yards further and you arrive at the bottom. A hallway extends to your right and left. You hear no sound other than your own armor and footfalls.

The underground complex is spartan but magnificent. At the height of their power, the Order hired the Dwarves of Feltarn to expand their castle underground.

The Dwarves had to be careful, as they recognized that the underground came close to the Order’s proposed expansion, but the challenge was a worthy one.

Eliazu has used some of his growing power to animate three skeletons from the mess halls. He has placed one in the temple entrance (5), one in the new throne room (13), and he has left one in the center mess hall (1). These are standard skeletons, except that Eliazu can “see” through them. They have standard underground vision, and may move relatively silently, although in the extreme silence of the basement careful adventurers may be able to hear something untoward. Characters are allowed normal perception rolls to realize that they are being followed by something just out of sight. Usually only one skeleton will be used at a time. The others will be kept in reserve.

3 skeletons: undead 1; move 10; survival 6, 7, 5; sword d8; defense 3; thrusting weapons do 1 pt, slashing weapons do half.

Eliazu is unlikely to use these to attack, unless the adventurers have been weakened enough that he believes such an attack will be successful. They are too useful for reconnaissance, and time consuming to replace.

You might add the following flavor text walking into rooms or down corridors, once the skeletons are active:

Your footsteps echo, clattering, quietly, in the distance.

The walls are made of stones, embedded in the dirt and stucco. Most of the corridors are fairly cramped. The ceiling is at seven and a half feet throughout the basement area. This is all Dwarven work.

Wandering Encounters

There are no wandering encounters on this level, as there has been no access from up or down since the summoning. Dust lies on the floors thick as down, undisturbed for decades. The air is stale and dry.

If they leave the door open, you may decide on a low (perhaps 5%) chance every six hours of an encounter with something from the first floor’s encounter table.

Mess Halls (1)

Dozens of soldiers sit, sleeping, at long wooden tables, plates and cups before them. They sit motionless, their heads bowed to the tables. Some are reduced to skeletons; some are as they died, their skin dry and faded, their hands still clutching grey legs of meat.

The destruction occurred during supper, a late meal time. Mummified guards and servants still sit at the tables.

The three sections of the mess hall are separated by archways. Officers sit at the head of the sections. The officer at the center table has a ring of seven keys and a map of the secret places (see Mess Hall Map). One of the keys opens the cells in the dungeon, one opens the coin treasure chest in the Order’s secret treasure room, and the rest open doors that no longer exist in the above-ground castle. The other two officers have a ring of six keys, the same except that they lack a treasure key. Anyone searching the 53 skeletons will find d8 silver coins of the Order, up to a total of 249 coins.

Close examination of the benches will uncover two (or three, if the animated skeleton normally here has left) spots where a mummified skeleton once was—bits and pieces of mummified flesh but no skeleton. Unless Eliazu has been alerted to their presence, one of the animated skeletons will be in the center mess hall. Eliazu is unlikely to attack, however, preferring to use it for reconnaissance. If Eliazu notices the characters, this skeleton might follow them out of the hall after they leave.

Kitchen Area (2)

A quiet whistle greets you as you walk through the hall into this wide room. (A huge pot is inset into the wall to your right as you walk into room.) Knives, pots, and pans are scattered neatly about the counters that ring the walls. There are two dark doorways on the far wall, to your right, and another on the far wall to your left.

The flue exits up in the mountains, where constant winds suck air up, keeping a flow of air from the cliff to the mountainside; however, both openings have been blocked.

The room had been cleaned and organized when the summoning went awry, as the summoning was late at night.

Storeroom (2a)

Cooking utensils, pots, and pans hang from the walls and ceiling.

The storeroom is well stocked with cooking utensils and supplies. They should be able to find anything reasonably-sized and cooking-related in this room: knives, forks, spoons, pots, pans, cutting boards, whatever.

Pantry (2b)

You catch a faint whiff of aged vegetables as you approach the open hallway. A quick jog around a corner places you in a room filled with the husks of ancient gourds and roots. Everything is covered in a white, mold-like substance, but even the mold appears dry and cracked with age.

The food in the pantry has dried and caked. Even the mold that grew on the fruits and vegetables has died, dried, and caked.

Servants’ Quarters (3)

Men and women, faces taut, cracked, and pale, lie in cots that line the walls. Threadbare blankets partially cover the dead.

There is no money to be had in the servants’ quarters.

Temple (4)

Purple steps, curved in a semicircle dais at the left end of the hall, lead up to a marbled altar. Two lifelike statues flank the dais, Christ on the right holding a shepherd’s staff in his left hand, and Christ on the left reading from a book in his right hand, his left hand upraised. Wooden kneelers fill the rest of the room.

There are two chalices on the altar, a silver water chalice worth 45 shillings, and a gold wine chalice worth 180 shillings. A gold box (worth 250 shillings) on the altar still contains hosts stamped with the staff of Christ.

A square of fine ash surrounds the altar at a few inches distance. The soot dirties the undersides of the chalices and the box. Eliazu, after the summoning, has used part of his power to begin to defile the church.

The kneelers are oaken. The statues could go for as much as 200 to 400 shillings in Black Stag or Crosspoint, but are heavy—on the order of 300 pounds each.

Temple Entrance (5)

You step through the small hallway and see the stones in the walls become much more regular: squares in even rows. There are (two guards or one guard) in leather armor, slumped and dry, jumbled onto a kneeler in the left alcove. Another alcove to the right is empty but for the kneeler and the painting. Each alcove contains a wood carving in a centuries-old style. On the left, dyed green, a robed man with a large key in one hand and a scroll in the other looks sternly down upon you. Two barefoot men look pleadingly up to him. He presents the key to the one on his right, and the scroll to the one on his left. In the right alcove, dyed blue, a robed man with a walking staff and his wife look upon a young man in a discussion with elders.

The devotional painting on the left is Jesus giving heaven’s key to St. Peter and the scroll of law to St. Paul. Written on the scroll is “verum”, truth in Ancient. On the right Mary and Joseph find Jesus discussing theology with the rabbis.

This temple was not for the servants, but only for members of the Order. If the characters examine the skeletons, they may notice that one of them has had its clothing and skin deteriorate more than the other. This is because it has been walking about and pieces of its dried clothing and flesh have flaked off.

One of the two skeletons is here if the demon is not yet alerted to the party’s presence. If so, Eliazu might now be alerted because it sees through the skeletons. Eliazu prefers to use the skeletons for reconnaissance. (If so, the one here will leave; the characters should be given the opportunity to recognize that the skeleton is missing.)

This room is depicted on the cover of this book.

Library (6)

Books and folios line the walls. A long table extends through the center of the room. In the far right corner, a glass door gleams in your light. Behind the glass you can see other books.

While some of the books the Order collected were placed in the library at Biblyon, the best of their books were stored here, underground, and safe from looters. There are 1,586 books here.

The books are dry and brittle, and in the oldest ones, the pages snap if turned with any force. They might be worth money if transported to someone who buys books. The Library, of course, will want them and will lay a claim to already owning them. All told, the library could be worth from 500 to 4,000 shillings.

The library specializes in natural philosophies: divining locations, bestiaries, botany, biology, and is a mojo resource level 4 for researching divinations and a mojo resource level 2 for other magics.

Within a glass case are books that were special to the Order. There are several original and copied biblical remembrances. It contains, among other books:

The Travel West: A small journal, it is an account in Ancient by Astix Morellus, advisor of the Abbot who brought the Order across the mountains in the 558th year of the cataclysm. An Anglish translation is in the King’s Common Sitting Room (18).

The Hidden Fullness of Fragmentary Evidence: This book discusses the power of divinatory magic to learn about the history, location, and previous incarnations of objects from the objects themselves. It is a mojo resource level 2 for research regarding the divinations of objects.

Other books in this room include:

Brewing Barley and Wheet: Recipes for brewing beer, including dubious theoretical discussions.

Herbal Lore of the Celts: An anthropological study of Celtic herbal knowledge, collected from various authors.

History of the Pre-Christians: A book that attempts to reconstruct the history of Jews from biblical remembrances.

Life-Cycle of the Giant-Kin: A short, somewhat inaccurate, anthropological study of goblins, hobgoblins, ogres, and trolls. It paints a picture of cannibalism, in-fighting, and inbred hatred.

Plant Life of the Chaotic Mist: A collection of drawings and suppositions about the plants of the strange mists such as that on the path to Astronomers castle. Unfinished—there are drawings in the back with space for writing, but no writing.

Reconstructing Eden: A theoretical discussion of what Eden must have been like. Includes many sides on topics such as “Did predators eat meat or were they vegetarian?” Also discusses whether God will allow humans to rebuild an Eden, whether that is humanity’s purpose, whether suffering is humanity’s purpose, or whether humanity does not know its purpose. Alvon Peter, who later would found the heretical Community of Calling, argues in favor of rebuilding Eden in small groups.

Vestibule (7)

The walls glow an evil white. A skull lies amidst bones in the center of this small room.

The skull rises quickly upon a tail of bones. The tiny bones click as they rise. The skull glares upon you with primal hatred.

The demon has used much of his power to conjure a death’s head to guard the secret door, as he cannot touch the scrolls in the secret writing room (8), which is blessed. The death’s head will attempt to strangle the nearest opponent if it achieves surprise; otherwise, it will most likely attack to bite.

The secret door to the writing room (8) is hidden by a glowing fungus. It was not originally secret. To those with Elven sight, the glow of this room is similar to the light from a diseased phosphorescent fungus, and a closer examination will reveal that the walls are covered, head to toe and top and bottom, with a thin, pasty substance. The substance feels organic, like a cross between moss and butterfat.

Death’s head: demon 2; survival 9; move 9; bite d8 or strangle d4; defense 8; silent; paralysis; magic resistance 5.

Secret Writing Room (8)

You push back the fungus-covered door to reveal a small room. A skeletal body, mummified, sits at a wooden table, its hand still holding a long, tapered feather.

A partially burnt paper lies beneath the skeletal hand. Around the skeleton’s neck is a small copper-colored cross on which hangs an ornately carved maple Jesus.

These were the quarters for the Order’s priest, Edgar Lewar. He was one of the few higher-ranking members of the Order to be kept outside the loop on Tragos’s plans to summon Eliazu, but he suspected that something was up.

This room is blessed, and it is very difficult for Eliazu to exert influence inside it. While inside this room, characters will be free from Eliazu’s telepathy, influence, and even skeletons.

On the floor beneath the skeleton is the key to the Priest’s worldly treasures—the closet. The cross is worth 80 shillings.

See The Unsent Letter for the partially burnt letter still beneath the priest’s bony hand. It looks as though it has been heated in numerous places; the burned areas are smoothly edged.

The keyhole to the treasure closet is trapped. Anyone picking it must make an evasion roll or be pricked with a poison pin. The poison has a strength of 2, an action time of 1 round, and does d4 injury points. It is a powdered poison, still fully active.

Inside the closet are three small boxes. Two of the boxes are carved oak, a matching pair, with symbols of the Phoenix. They are worth 40 shillings each, or 100 shillings as a pair.

The first box in the matching pair contains 49 of the Order’s electrum scroll/dove coins, 120 of the Order’s silver pen/pyramid coins, and 186 shillings, 225 pennies, 269 half-pennies, 352 farthings from Crosspoint. There is a huge 500 shilling emerald.

The second box in the matched pair contains two scroll tubes. One tube, bearing the seal of the Bishop of Crosspoint, contains four scrolls, all in the Ancient tongue:

1. a letter from Robert Agwood, then Bishop of Crosspoint. The translation is provided in the props section for any characters who can read the Ancient tongue (see The Bishop’s Letter);

2. a Christian scroll of restore health at 8th level (see Restore health scroll);

3. a scroll describing the Christian ritual of exorcism (see The Exorcism of Demons);

4. a Christian scroll of protection from sorcery at 8th level that any archetype can use (see Protection from sorcery scroll);

The other scroll tube has “Beware” and “Cave” written on it. It contains a scroll (in Anglish) cursed with the curse of the unseen. See The Curse of the Unseen for more information.

The third chest is a small oakwood box, lightly stained, with no markings. Inside, it is padded with linen, and contains a golden staff head in the shape of a dove. (See The Staff of the Dove in the back for details about the staff head.)

In the back of the closet is a simple maple staff. The staff head in the first chest fits onto this staff.

Acolytes’ Living Spaces (9)

Skeletons lie upon simple cots. There are two small tables and a few chairs.

Four cots, two writing tables, and three chairs. Three skeletons, in the cots. Two wear expensive holy symbols (silver crosses, 25 shillings each), and the other wears a simple wooden cross (hand made, by himself).

Storeroom (10)

Large stone statues stand amidst chests and trunks. A large man with wings and a spear is killing a snake coiled around his legs. A woman in a robe holds a child close to her breast. A man with a knife is carving a large branch.

There are two closed chests and three open chests. Two hold old clothes and vestments; the others are empty. There are also three large stone statues of Mary, of Gabriel and the Snake, and of Joseph the carpenter. These weigh 200 pounds, 300 pounds, and 220 pounds, respectively, and could be worth as much as 400 shillings each in Black Stag, or 250 on the coast.

Meeting Room (11)

Thick white strands hang loosely and wave in the wind of your movement. Several chairs surround a circular wooden table. A huge bronze candleholder dominates the table. A bookshelf lines the wall to your left, filled haphazardly with folios and papers. Far to your right, a large blackboard hangs on the wall from floor to ceiling.

This room is filled with dried giant spider webbing, and the husks of two dead giant spiders. They wandered up from the dungeon and died hungry.

The bronze candle holder (with five candles) is worth 8 shillings. The bookshelf holds notes and diaries of wars, including their battle plans against the Astronomers over the centuries. A great place for future adventure clues!

The secret door to the secret meeting room is behind the blackboard. The latch is a stone in the wall beside it. The blackboard seems to be embedded in the wall, but will open out on wide hinges if the latch is opened.

If they study the post-war folios they will find references to an expedition to the Stigmas di Cristo (this was when they captured Wendell) to get information about a book titled “More When Doors”. The book holds important magical secrets, but they can’t decipher it. After this, they find references to an expedition deep south, looking for an ancient something at the ancient Greek ruins of Ekdulon. (Greek is not commonly recognized, except for resembling an odd form of Ancient.)

Other references show them looking for the book “More When Doors” as it is apparently an unexpurgated version of a set of papers called “No More Stars”.

One thing to remember is that this is a planning room. All of the folios describe plans, but not results, except insofar as the results of one plan might play into another.

Secret Meeting Room (12)

(The blackboard swings open or The bookshelf rotates you to the other side), revealing a medium-sized room with a small table and four chairs. Two warriors in full plate stand silently on the wall (ahead of you or to your right), their tall halberds raised at an angle.

The secret door to the stairs is hidden behind the statues. The right statue’s right arm must be pulled to open the door. The secret door to the new throne room is the bookshelf. There are three shelves, holding minor books and bric-a-brac. If the correct stone on the floor is pressed, the entire bookshelf and circular floor rotate around. The books are: three biblical remembrances, one general history of the world, and one general history of philosophical sciences. The bric-a-brac are little statuettes of soldiers, creatures, and houses.

New Throne Room (13)

You step over the thick curtain that now lies crumpled on the floor and enter a huge octagonal room. The four angled walls are covered in bright paintings of mountains and battles. On a dais against the far wall, a tall throne still has an occupant. A skeletal corpse sits slumped in the great chair. There are two doors on the right wall and a small set of bookshelves on the left wall.

The two hundred year-old paintings on the walls describe the creation of this castle—a man leading his army and priests over the mountain (right of the entrance), scenes of battles with the Druids (right of the dais), scribes by a river (left of the dais), and the building of Biblyon (left of the entrance)

The throne is wood, with iron bands. It is on a carefully carved stone dais. The secret door to the secret meeting room is a series of bookshelves so that both sides look the same—including the same books and bric-a-brac. The mechanism is the same as the other side: one of the stones on the floor will, if pressed, cause the whole thing to rotate around. One of Eliazu’s skeleton spies sits slumped in the throne.

Elite Guards’ Rooms (14)

Several dried flaking corpses lie across cots and chairs in this wide room. Armor and weapons hang from the wall to your (left or right).

These rooms housed the Illustrious Guard, who guarded the leader of the Order with zealousness—and facilitated Tragos’s rise to power following the Goblin Wars. In one room, there are eight armed mummified bodies. In the other, there are seven.

There are twenty shillings in the left room (8 skeletons), seventeen in the right (7 skeletons). The weapons (25 swords, 30 spears, 22 short swords, 7 daggers, 6 bows, 98 arrows) are reasonable quality and could be resold for a quarter to half the normal price to a merchant. The armor is leather (20) and a few suits of chain mail (4, two per room). The chain mail is resalable for a quarter to half price. The chain mail is for an average-size male.

Bathrooms for the Leader and His Consort (15)

You slide open the door to reveal a brightly-painted tower-like room. A (torch, lantern, whatever they’re carrying) shines upon you. Behind the light you see movement, and human-sized creatures.

As your eyes adjust, you see that the creatures are yourselves in a full-length mirror. There is also a water basin, a large water basin, various jugs, and brushes. Besides the large mirror, your light glints from something on a stand next to the water basin.

These bathrooms are lavishly furnished. There is a mirror in each (25 shillings), as well as a hand mirror (12 shillings; this is the source of the glint), brushes, water jugs, and old, brittle and dry, soap. These rooms were redesigned after the Goblin Wars; they originally held the leader (and possibly his wife), and his closest advisor (and possibly the advisor’s wife). They were not then so lavish. Most of the ostentatious things here were purchased after the Goblin Wars.

Private Rooms for the Leader and His Consort (16)

Ornate chairs, a table with the legs of a lion, a padded bench, and a small shelf in one corner with glasses and vases. You half expect the owner to step out of the far hallway, wearing a royal blue evening robe, and ask you what you would like to drink.

These are private sitting and game rooms. Each has a small table and chairs, a sofa, and a small bar.

Bedrooms for the Leader and His Consort (17)

The leader and his advisor traditionally domiciled in these rooms, but following the Goblin Wars, Tragos d’Illus instituted a more kingly fashion in which he and his consort shared them.

The Consort’s bedroom (17a)

Gold and silver glitter on the tables and across the chairs. Two dry and wrinkled skeletal shapes lie in a tangled embrace in the ornate, richly arrayed bed. A tapestry of bright colors displays a river passing through forest, on the far wall on the right.

One of the mummies is the missing guard from room 14.

The consort’s bedroom contains a lot of baubles worth approximately 1200 shillings, and encumbering, total, about 100 pounds. These include such items as silver inlaid backscratchers, golden mirrors, rings, and necklaces. Picking through the items for thirty minutes will enable the characters to choose six hundred shillings of items that weigh ten pounds.

The secret door to 17b is at a bonus of 2 to find.

The King’s bedroom (17b)

A richly-arrayed and ornamented bed commands your attention on the right side of the room. Fine items of silver and gold glitter through a thin layer of dust on the tables, benches, and shelves. A tapestry of bright colors displays a sunset over a forested plain on the far wall to the left.

The polished stone embedded into the walls shifts from colors to muted grays and browns.

Within Tragos’s bedroom are a lot of baubles worth approximately 1800 shillings, and encumbering, total, about 150 pounds. These include such items as silver inlaid backscratchers, golden mirrors, rings, and necklaces. Careful selection for thirty minutes will allow the characters to choose nine hundred shillings of items that weigh fifteen pounds.

The two secret doors are at a bonus of 2 to find.

The secret door to the Order’s Treasure (19) is made to look like a large rock in the wall. It comes out if pulled from the upper right. However, if a smaller rock to the left is not pushed in first, it triggers a deadfall (the ceiling) which causes d8 points damage to whoever is within three feet from the door. On a successful evasion roll, this damage is halved. It causes d4 damage to anyone within five feet of the door; a successful evasion roll negates that.

The hidden door to the the secret places is hidden behind a large, ornate chair and then behind the tapestry.

Common Sitting Room (18)

A comfortable room for sitting, there is a small table flanked by two cushioned chairs. A few books lie haphazardly on the table. A tapestry hangs from the left wall, depicting something to do with a pyramid and the sun. Another tapestry hangs on the right wall, above the table and chairs. It appears to have a maze on it. In the far corner of the room, a great wheel sticks out of the wall as for a boat’s helm.

A winch in the far corner of the room is for re-raising the deadfall trap in the hallway to the Order’s treasure.

A trap door in the ceiling of the southwest corner leads to the deadfall above the secret entrance to the treasure room in the King’s bedroom. The tunnel is about three feet wide by three and a half feet tall.

The tapestry is the building of the tower of Babel. Here, the tower is envisioned as a pyramid, somewhat Egyptian in style (memory of the Egyptian style is fading), with a huge sun burning down on a crowd of people milling about the bottom. The inscription is “So the Lord scattered them abroad.”

There is a newer tapestry, created for Tragos, which is of a great maze-like city ending at a large castle. The inscription is “Nothing shall be impossible, which they imagine to do.”

The books on the table are:

More When Doors Mow Spun Gifts: See the treasure list. It appears to be a collection of nonsense.

The Travel West: A small journal, it is a translation of an account by the advisor of the Order’s Abbot who originally brought the Order across the mountains in the 248th year of the cataclysm. The original, in Ancient, is in the Library (6).

Il Bibliocolectivo (“The Collected Bible”): A collection of biblical remembrances that Vince Kellius, the founder of the Order of Illustration, believed to be exceptionally correct and relevant. He collected them in the 152nd year of the cataclysm.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: This book by the mage Charles Dodgson appears to be heavily read. This is a first edition unexpurgated version, and a serious study of the book makes it a mojo resource level 2 for researching first level Mental spells. It is in Anglish, the language Dodgson wrote it in.

The Order’s Treasure (19)

The large rock-like wall decoration opens toward you, revealing a thin corridor perhaps three yards long and three feet wide. Beyond the corridor, in a small room, a medium-sized wooden chest beckons with mystery.

At the entrance to the hallway to this room is a wire running about three feet above the ground. The wire is a thin, strong steel. It is fairly obvious; perception rolls to see it are at a bonus of four.

A thin silver wire, sagging slightly to the ground, extends across the hallway at about three feet above the floor, coming out of the wall just about a foot beyond the entrance.

The wire turns off the trap later in the hallway. There is a moveable plate in the center of the hallway, about five feet down. The wire must be held back under pressure while anyone is walking across the plate, or a three foot wide by seven feet tall by two-foot deep stone block will drop at the entrance to the hallway (between the wire and the plate), completely blocking it. The person walking on the plate will be safe; however, anyone standing where the block drops will take 3d6 points damage. A successful evasion roll will half this. The stone will block pretty much any conversation from one side of the block to the other.

Pulling on the wire, the wire will feel under pressure until pulled back about six inches, at which point the pressure will be alleviated, much like pulling on a compound bow. The plate will appear to be under less pressure (though discovering this will involve touching the plate and pressing at least a little bit, and having done the same before the wire was pulled back).

There is a metal curb along the edges of the hallway. On the part of the hallway where the block will fall, the metal curb is actually a cushion for the block. Powerful springs hold the curb up, but someone trying it will recognize it is movable on a perception roll. The curb will not keep the block above the floor. The block is heavy enough to push the springs all the way down. The springs and curb is there to cushion the block so that it doesn’t break when it falls.

There is a winch in room 18 to pull the block back up.

There are three chests here, about two feet deep and tall, and four feet wide. All of them are trapped in some way. If the key is not used on the first two, or the pass phrase not spoken on the final one, the trap will go off.

The chest to the left will, if the key is not used, shoot four darts when the lid is lifted. They were once poisoned, but the poison has degraded. The darts will still do d3 points of damage each. Each person in the line of fire must make an evasion roll or take d3 damage from d3 of these. The chest contains the Order’s supply of their own minted electrum and silver coins. There are 1,075 electrum scroll/dove coins and 4,512 silver pen/pyramid coins.

The middle chest has sleep gas in a sealed glass beaker. If the key is not used to open the chest, the glass beaker will fall when the lid is opened. It smashes unless it makes a fortitude roll vs. 3. If it smashes, gas fills the room. It has an action time of 1 round and a strength of negative 3 (due to its age, it has weakened). The effect is that it causes the victim to sleep for at least 3d6 minutes. The chest contains a bag of 12 Crosspoint and Black Stag pound coins, a bag of 1,152 Crosspoint and Black Stag shillings, and a silk pouch containing a pure matte black powder. This is ten uses of Powder of Darkness.

The right chest is magically trapped. While the key is needed to open the chest (without breaking it or picking it, anyway), the trap will still go off even if the key is used. The trap is temporarily disabled through the use of the pass phrase “Babylon”. This disables the trap for either a minute or the next time it is opened, whichever comes first. Otherwise, a cold flame will spurt out when the chest is opened, causing 3d6 points damage to anyone in the cone from the chest through the hallway. The flame will be eighteen feet long, six inches wide at the beginning and three feet wide at the end. It does not damage nonliving objects. Victims are allowed an evasion roll for half damage. Inside are two spellbooks, labeled Volumes I, VI, and X.

The Dungeons

Wandering Encounters

Starting at this level, if the characters are extremely quiet and listen to the walls or floor, they can on a perception roll hear a faint humming or whooshing sound from the water below.

Within this level, creatures can come in from the caverns if the doors in Common Prisoner Area Two (5) are left open. There is then a 10% chance every two hours of an encounter, starting when the doors are opened. This chance also occurs inside Common Prisoner Area Two (5) at any time.

Giant crickets: animal 2; move 6/12; legs d4; defense 5; chirping drowns out normal noise.

Rats: animal 1 pt; move 8; bite or claw 1pt; defense 0.

Carrion worm: fantastic 4; move 10; 8 tentacles (paralysis) or claws d8 or bite d6; defense 3; armored head +4 defense.

General Features

The stairs go down forty feet. The stairs from The Basement are eighty feet long. The walls are simple stone embedded in dirt.

Empty Cells (1)

Rusted iron bars block the entrance to a tiny, dirt-floor cell. (One or Two or Three or Four) skeletons lie against loose stone walls.

Each cell holds d4 skeletons. The bars are rusted iron, and the cells, dug out of the dirt, have walls of loose stone.

Torture Room (2)

Manacles hold bones to the stone walls. Skeletons lie in a heap beneath them. Gnawed leather whips hang from the left wall amidst knives and other devices. There is a huge stone vat in the center of the room. To the right, a skeleton remains loosely strapped to an old, rusted rack. Despite the obvious purpose of this room and the grisly remains, you feel a sense of purpose and a calming presence.

The standard torture devices are here: an old, rusted rack, gnawed leather whips, manacles in the wall stones, a vat in the center of the room, and a table with old knives and a cat of nine tails or two.

If any character enters the room with no light source, or a dim one such as a torch, it will seem as if someone is watching them from just beyond the range of their sight. Ghostly noises can be heard in the room, faintly, and will also be heard listening at the door. Drips of liquid; the clank of chain. Just ever so faintly.

Anyone who has chosen a Good moral code will be presented with The Marrow Cross from the spirits of the tortured souls here. It will appear on the vat while they aren’t looking.

Interrogation Room (3)

A simple square room carved out of rock, sparsely furnished with a small round table. The table stands on a single thick leg carved in the shape of a cat’s paw.

Other than the furniture, this room is empty. It was used by guardsmen to question prisoners. It, like the rest of the rooms, isn’t carved out of rock: it was rock-plated with large sheets of basalt to appear carved of stone.

Common Prisoner Area One (4)

The door was barred, but it is not barred now. The wooden bar lies on the ground next to the door, where one of Eliazu’s skeletons moved it.

You open the door, scraping it against the floor. Inside an irregularly-shaped room, skeletons lie atop each other, bones interspersed among rags.

This cavern was used to keep common prisoners.

Common Prisoner Area Two (5)

This door was barred, but is not barred now. The wooden bar lies on the ground next to the door, where one of Eliazu’s skeletons moved it.

The door swings open. Inside this irregularly-shaped room, you catch the faint whiff of moist, faintly rotten air that disappears as quickly as it came. A dark crack in the wall gazes at you from the far right.

This cavern is similar to the other prisoner area. It is empty, however. A shaft leads down to The Secret Places. The shaft opened during the destruction caused by the botched summoning of the demon. Most of the prisoners died; this room was empty at the time of the summoning. One prisoner barely survived, and tried to escape down the shaft, but was caught. See No Escape (18) in The Secret Places.

The Secret Places

Wandering Encounters

Within the dungeons, creatures come in from the caverns. There is a 10% chance every hour of an encounter. As in the dungeon level, if the characters are extremely quiet and listen to the walls or floor, they can on a perception roll hear a faint humming or whooshing sound from the water below them.

The two circular stairways from the basement—The King’s bedroom (17b) and Secret Meeting Room (12)—go down 60 feet, and are 200 feet long. The shunt from the dungeon’s Common Prisoner Area Two (5) is 150 feet long.

Giant crickets: animal 2; move 6/12; legs d4; defense 5; chirping drowns out normal noise.

Rats: animal 1 pt; move 8; bite or claw 1pt; defense 0.

Carrion worms: fantastic 4; move 10; 8 tentacles (paralysis) or claws d8 or bite d6; defense 3; armored head +4 defense.

Dining Room of the Dead (1)

Twelve skeletons sit at a long table, (facing you on the left or to your right) as you walk into this long, deep room. Bony fingers loosely grip crystal goblets. Silver gleams amidst grey strands that flutter, then settle. The walls are dark blue: beams of moonlight and starlight shining on great lakes, where fishermen haul in strange creatures.

There are also three tables, empty but for white-frayed silver candelabras that glitter in your light.

There are four other exits from this room, two of them on (your right or the wall ahead of you).

Each of the three east/west tables is empty. The head table, at the west, has twelve skeletons and is set with thirteen silver plates (30 shillings each), thirteen glass goblets (60 shillings each), and a large silver candelabra (90 shillings). The other tables each have a candelabra (45 shillings). The head table has an empty setting at the front.

It is easier for Eliazu to animate dead by tying them to earthly treasure and limiting them to specific actions. Eliazu can see using these skeletons just like the ones in the basement. A skeleton will follow and attack the characters immediately if anyone leaves the room with either the candelabra, their goblet or plate, or the empty space’s goblet or plate. Skeletons will will not stop their chase until the stolen item(s) are returned to the table.

Soft, wet wood creeks against stone. An unfelt wind billows through threadbare evening attire. Bone scrapes bone. The dinner party stands and turns to face you, tattered thread against white rib cages, and walks toward you, beckoning you forward.

The walls of this room are covered in drawings of the night sky and huge lakes. Vaguely non-human beings seem to be walking about the lakes, fishing and fighting with each other.

On closer examination, the fishermen are odd men indeed, wearing bird-like masks with long beaks and huge, crab-like claws for hands. Within the paintings they spear for fish while a huge eye watches them from the great lake.

12 skeletons: undead 1; survival 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7; move 10; short sword d6; defense 3; slashing weapons do half damage, thrusting weapons do one point damage.

Waiting Room (2)

A stuffed sofa sits comfortably against the opposite wall, and a soft chair to your right. There is a wooden door on the right of the opposite wall. A small, round, single-legged wooden table on your left is in reaching distance of the sofa.

The table is the only thing of worth here, a maple table with two surfaces (one at about two feet and one at three feet), worth 15 shillings. The sofa and chair are damp-damaged, though comfortable enough if you’re in armor.

Bathroom (3)

A small clay basin, earthy-red, and a matching jug sit on the floor near a wide, glazed chamber pot. The glaze glistens with alternating bands of red, orange, and brown.

The chamber pot is part of the room, and has a hole in the bottom that empties to the river below the castle.

Apprentices’s Rooms (4)

The door creaks open on rusty hinges. Two rows of cots, one above the other, stand ragged against the left wall. Small tables and chairs lie haphazardly about the right side of the room, and against the far wall are three chests.

In their zeal to learn dark secrets, the Illustrators were training summoners. This was where the apprentice summoners lived and studied. There were four cots: two per row, though only three were occupied at the time of the final summoning. The three locked chests each have a magic book and spell components among old clothes.

The locked chests are trapped with a weak poison. Anyone attempting to pick the lock must make an evasion roll or be affected. The poison is strength 0, with an action time of one minute. It causes one injury.

Chest 1: (3rd level summoner): inscription, farseeing, ghost lights, ghost walkers, guardian, indestructible object, delay passage, magic table, bar passage

Chest 2: (2nd level summoner): inscription, ghost lights, guardian, indestructible object, secret message, delay passage

Chest 3: (1st level summoner): inscription, ghost lights, guardian

Underground Kitchen (5)

A light whistle rises softly as you enter this room. There is a small black pot standing on a tripod in an alcove to your left, and several knives on the wall above a shelf to your right.

There is an elaborate chimney here, that kept smoke (and heat) rising to the surface. A slight wind blows through the room, through the almost-closed fireplace doors, and up the chimney. Otherwise, this is a well-furnished kitchen; large pot in a fireplace, pans, utensils, plates, pots, etc. There is a notebook that contains recipes in abbreviated form. To the right cook or gourmand, the book could be worth up to ten shillings.

Pantry (6)

Moldy old sacks lie scattered about this small room. Even the mold is dried and crusted with age.

The sacks contain flour, grains, dried root vegetables, and dried meats.

Servants’ Quarters (7)

You step down a short musty hallway. Inside the wide room two large boxes, one in each corner, flank a row of natty old bedrolls.

The Order had some servants who were trusted only with this downstairs area, and they were rarely trusted to go aboveground. There are two large boxes here, shared by the maidservants. Each contains old and rotted clothing.

Storage Cave (8)

A square-shaped cavern opens from the cave-like hallway. It is filled with sacks, dried meats hanging from hooks in the ceiling, and barrels and boxes.

The entrance to this cave was widened, and it is used for the storage of empty wooden boxes, a small box of writing quills, extra wood, a table, some wooden chairs. There are also sacks of grain, dried meats hanging from hooks in the ceiling, and barrels of pickled vegetables.

Ceremonial Area (9)

This entire room is charred black from floor to ceiling. Strange symbols cover the walls. Four large white circles peek through the ashes on the floor, with strange runes written at the edges of the circles. Some of the circles contain straight lines.

A hideous, horned face sticks its tongue out at you from the right (left) wall.

This is the room where the special ceremonies took place, including the one that destroyed the Order. There is a magic circle of protection engraved into the floor: a triangle inscribed inside a circle, and arcane symbols inscribed around the circumference of the circle. (This is a thaumaturgic circle.) There is a smaller circle in the center for the ritual leader to stand in, and three other circles equidistant around the center for three attendants to stand in.

The secret door to Secret Equipment Room (10) operates by poking a finger into the mouth of a particularly hideous demon’s head. The door then slides down. It is secret mostly because of the thick ash on the walls. Water pressure forces the door up, slowly, within ten minutes after opening. A similar mechanism opens it from the inside, although a lever is used there.

The strange symbols are symbols related to Christian demonology and astrology. Eliazu’s symbol is one of them.

There is one key here amidst the ashes: the apprentice summoners (Acastus and Cleophus) were carrying them, and Acastus was burned to ashes here. Each key is the same, and will open any of the summoners’ three chests. (Wendell Redstar was also one of the attendants, but he did not have a key.)

Secret Equipment Room (10)

This room is covered in thick ash. Framed against the soot, a blackened, charred body, its ashen skin crumpled against its bones, lies flat against the ground.

This room is covered in wood ash two inches thick. The skeleton holds in its charred, bony fingers a jet black wand. See The Undeath Wand for more information. There are also two keys here, one for the summoners’ three chests and one for the spellbook chest in the Order’s secret treasure room.

The wielder of the wand, Cleophus, tried to escape the firestorm by crawling here, but that allowed the firestorm entrance.

Maiden’s Room (11)

An irregular room, iron rings are embedded into the walls and leather straps or belts hang from them. On the right, bones hang by straps from two of the rings, and a pile of bones lie beneath on the floor.

This is where the young men and women were kept for sacrifice. One skeleton remains, its forearm bones still tied to the wall with leather straps, but the rest of it in a pile below the arm bones.

Lost Library (12)

Charred shelves, covered in ash and ashen fragments, line the walls. The floor is grey, the ceiling black.

The floor and shelves of this room are covered in the ash of burnt books. One charred fragment remains, visible in the corner. It says “metu”, part of the Ancient word for fear. The shelves are burnt to ragged black edges.

Cave Breakthrough (13)

The hall breaks through to caves here. This cave is haunted by a poltergeist, a confused and hateful ghost of the sacrifice. It throws rocks for d3 points damage. It awakens on a perception roll of 4, with bonuses for noise, magic, or spiritual activity.)

Poltergeist: undead 1; survival 4; move 20; rocks d3; defense 2; spaceshifting, immune to non-magical weapons.

Empty (14)

This highly irregular cavernous room has two other caverns leading off from it.

Empty (15)

This highly irregular cavernous room has three other caverns leading off from it.

Tunnel to the Swamp (16)

There is a 40% chance that d3 killer toads from the stagnant pool at the top will be here. If noise is made, there is a one in ten chance per round that d3 more will show up in 2d6 rounds. A marshy, weed-choked tunnel drains a small trickle of warm, stagnant water from the warm water source above through the pool in this room and down holes in the far wall.

There is a skeleton in the pool, with chains on its arms.

These caves were originally created by the river that is now far below. There are no true stalactites or stalagmites, although there will occasionally be similar structures. The caves are mostly dry, and vaguely warm (naturally so).

Dead Fighter (17)

The skeleton of a fighter who tried to investigate the Order is here. The man was Arthur Wells. His brother’s daughter was one of the sacrifices. He wore leather armor and a shield (on his right arm). The shield bears the crest of his family: a well on a hill, and the morning sun. This is a +1 shield, and has been handed down in the family since it was made for them by Robert Annis over four centuries ago. Clutched in his left hand is his sword, rusted and rotted.

In the remains of his purse are 85 Crosspoint shillings, 152 Crosspoint pennies, 69 Crosspoint half-pennies, 53 Black Stag pennies, 25 Black Stag half-pennies, and 32 Black Stag farthings. There is a ruby worth 240 shillings.

No Escape (18)

Depending on their light source, they may need to make a perception roll to avoid falling over the ten foot drop.

Lime Walls (19)

The caverns slope steeply downward, and the limestone grows damper and slimier.

The walls are easily smashed (four survival points total, each attack is reduced by two points, and damage by edged weapons is then halved). The cavern wall to the south is covered in condensation, due to the mist in the Skeleton Room.

These thin limed walls were built up by Eliazu, to hide himself from anyone who takes up residence in the castle. If the party makes it this far and Eliazu decides that they will be easily fooled into helping free him, and if they have all the things they need to free him, he’ll try to find some way to break the wall down. He could cause a crack to form in it over a period of several hours, or he could bring one of his skeletons down, have it “attack”, and have it accidentally hit the wall and crack it. He can even suggest the idea to the player characters mentally.

Eliazu will not do this if the characters have any chance of sending him back to hell: if, for example, he knows that they have the scroll of exorcism. (He won’t recognize the marrow cross.)

The thin cavern opens onto a wider cavern, and a ten foot drop leads to the floor of that cavern. There is another opening off of the cavern on the far side. A bone dangles from a chain to your left. The chain is trapped by a large rock.

A huge rock fell on an escaping prisoner’s chain, trapping him there to die. His arm bone is hanging, and the rest of him is in a heap on the floor.

The Misty Court

Wandering Encounters

There is a 15% chance, every hour, of encountering d3 skeletons, up to a maximum of six.

Skeletons: undead 1; move 10; short sword d6; defense 3; slashing weapons do half damage, thrusting weapons do 1 point.

If anyone dies in this area, Eliazu might animate them as zombies and then bring them to the Demon’s Court.

There is a foot of misty fog covering all rooms from two to five.

Empty (1)

The limestone corridor slopes downward, and a misty fog swirls about your ankles and feet. Tendrils of mist snake up and around the stalagmites, and dance around your legs as you move across the cavern. You hear the drip-drip-drip of water from the stalactites that emerge from the mist-shrouded ceilings.

There is a foot of misty fog covering the floors in this room and a thin mist permeates the whole cave.

Skeleton Cave (2)

Bones lie scattered, peeking through the swirling mist. A rank smell permeates the air, reminiscent of rotting wood, or old eggs.

You hear a flutter. Two shapes swoop down, black wings on the misty air. A painful screech pierces your soul.

There are two screeching bats here, which attack anything that enters. Lying about are many skeletons, killed when the summoning went awry. A crystal goblet with a demon face, in style like the Demon’s Court demon (450 shillings) lies in the southwest. Along with it are a chisel, a hammer, and a metal stencil about one foot square cut with Eliazu’s sigil. This was brought by Corlile the engraver, whose skeleton is among the bones. Eliazu’s sigil is a closed door with light shining through.

Screeching bats: demon 3; survival 10, 15; move 3/15; bite 2d4; defense 3; painful screech; magic resistance 1.

The Grinning Ballroom (3)

Spirits of mist dance and make merry, as if alive. Every so often, out of the corner of your eye, you see grinning, rotting skulls, with worms crawling about their faces.

These phantoms have no power, at least not yet. Eliazu may increase their power given time and enough fear.

The Hole to the Lake (4)

The caverns have shifted downward somewhat, and here they come up against the edge of the lake cavern. A hole has been broken through, about a yard tall and a little less wide. The hole was broken through as part of the earthquake when Eliazu was summoned. It’s a forty-five-foot drop to the lakeshore, and about forty feet up to the roof of the lake cavern.

The Demon’s Court (5)

Fog rolls out of the entrance and into the hallway. Inside, fog roils about the room, twisting around statues of princes, knights, and squires, all kneeling to a gleaming stone demon.

Stone statues of princes and knights kneel before a stone demon, tail, horns, and all, sitting on a throne in regal stone clothes. The figure gleams with cunning. It is the vessel in which Eliazu the demon was summoned. Eliazu will generally stay quiet. It is patient; it needs to wait until it is powerful enough to escape, which means getting dupes to complete some rituals for it. If the player characters give any indication of either (a) trying to dispel it, or (b) being easily deceived, Eliazu will speak to them, softly, as if in a distant wind. It will try to convince them that it can give them power (which in fact it can, although it isn’t likely to follow through except in the most literal and deadly manner possible) if it thinks that bribes are the best choice; or it will try to convince them that after a hundred years stuck in this damn statue all it really wants is to go home.

A circle is engraved around the stone “king”. Among all of the court, a smaller, throne-like chair, also stone, faces the king’s throne. The smaller throne is empty. The smaller throne is about seven feet away from the circle.

If they have the exorcism ritual, it will try to convince them not to use it: it isn’t an exorcism, Eliazu will tell them, it’s a ritual for calling more demons into statues. Or it will place Eliazu into a human host—the reader of the scroll, “and why would I want to be trapped in such a puny frame? I’d rather be stuck in this stone.”

In arguing and pleading for its way, it will be as truthful as it can to avoid detection, but will try not to give the characters any information that will assist them in exorcising or otherwise neutralizing it. It wants to be free on Earth. Eliazu will be in turn funny, disgusting, snide, friendly, tired, and desperate, whatever it needs to do to convince them to do what it wants. The last thing it wants is to go back to hell. Who wants that? It would rather stay in the stone than go to hell.

If the characters continue performing the exorcism or doing anything that would send the demon back to shadows, a loud howling, as of heavy storm winds, will fill the room. The statues (except the demon king) shake, and parts of the statues break off and fly toward the characters. One piece will fly per round, aimed at a random character (or, if a prophet is calling spirits, toward the prophet). The demon attacks as a ninth level demon, and the rocks do d4 points of damage on a successful hit.

The pieces can be blocked from a specific target (by someone other than the target) with a shield as if trying to hit a defense of 2, but as a called shot. There is a penalty of 1 if using a sword or other slashing weapon, and a penalty of two if using a thrusting weapon such as a spear. The ritual will take six rounds to complete.

If Eliazu has any skeletons or demons nearby, it will bring them in to stop the exorcism as well.

If Eliazu is exorcised, the court will fill with rubble, starting in the ballroom, blocking their escape. Any character who does not immediately run toward the far end of the Court takes 2d6 damage, or half on a successful evasion roll. The ground will crack open, and the rubble, characters, and all will be sucked down the hole (taking another d4 damage, or nothing on a successful evasion roll). They come to a stop in The Lake Cavern. Lying next to them, grinning evilly, is The Demon’s Head.

It’s also possible to perform the exorcism in the same room where the summoning was performed. The ground will shake. Pieces of rock will fall. But the characters will then be able to return to the surface in relative safety.

Possible conversations

“They fucked up is what happened. Those idiots couldn’t summon a maggot to a corpse.”

“What the hell is that?… Oh jesus, I mean, excuse me, but please don’t use another ritual from these jackasses. What does that one do, summon the rest of my family into gargoyles?”

“They thought they could trap me in a human host, I dunno, but they thought the human would stay in control.”

“Please don’t read that. Look, you’re not a bad guy, but I’ve been trapped in this damn stone long enough, why the hell, which incidentally is where I’d rather be, why would I want to be trapped in a fleshy little thing like you? No offense, but it won’t do either one of us any good.”

“Who? No, it isn’t surprising that fool’s a ghost. He couldn’t find his way home if you dragged a trail of his own intestines.”

Eliazu

Eliazu is not patient. Evil and patience don’t mix. But Eliazu has been alive since the beginning of time; a demon’s impatience is not the impatience of mortals. Eliazu is willing to let these people go. There will be more later. In fact, Eliazu would prefer it, as the demon’s power is growing and with more power it will be easier to trick people into bringing about its release.

If the characters actually free Eliazu into a host, the demon will leave invisibly in a puff of acrid smoke, not yet powerful enough for anything more impressive. Eliazu will take the minions that are still alive (the strigae, the crowns of eyes, and the death’s head). If the characters haven’t taken them, Eliazu will also pick up the Scepter of Tragos and the Undeath Wand. Eliazu will then hike to a large city, most likely Crosspoint, and further scheme and build a power base.

Eliazu in body: demon 5; move 10; claws d6; defense 4; mental influence, summon; invisibility, telepathy; magic resistance 5.

Demonic Powers: surface telepathy, influence, raise skeleton/corpse, summon unnamed demon, invisibility, burn.

If they dispel Eliazu, the death’s head will remain bound to its task, but the strigae and the crowns will be freed, and while they may stay in the castle in the short term, in the long term they’ll probably head into the forests nearer Biblyon and begin to prey on travelers, farmers, and townsfolk.

Remember that Eliazu is a demon of fear. Besides the demon’s growing power over time, fear in its presence will allow Eliazu to create more undead or summon more demons.

The Ritual of Exorcism

The ritual of exorcism is described in the priest’s letter and in the Night priest’s book. There are some bonuses if the characters manage it: performing the ritual at dawn, performing it in the Misty Court instead of in the Ceremonial Area.

On the other hand, performing the ritual in the Ceremonial Area (9) will protect them from physical harm, as well as grant them a bonus of two against any mental attacks by Eliazu.

Because of the Karuat burial grounds, this is is on a 2nd level place of power, evil.

The Lake Cavern

What your players will do is generally a fifty-fifty proposition: half the time, they’ll go where you’re not ready, and half the time they’ll do what you didn’t expect. If your players have not yet been sufficiently inoculated against delving unprepared into unknown caverns when they’ve already been weakened, they might decide to cross the lake and head into the mountain instead of take the river and leave the underground.

This sort of reckless disregard for safety should be encouraged as much as possible. It gives the players time to practice their character creation skills.

Since this is a sacred area for the Karuat, the crab-men make an obvious encounter and adventure basis for anyone heading further into the mountains. It’s also a great place for any adventure that takes place in deep caverns. If the characters spend too much time here, they may meet some Karuat heroes who have come to investigate the noise or visit their shrine. Perhaps carrying booty from deeper in the underground…

Wandering Encounters

There is a 25% chance each day of encountering something from the deeper caverns.

Giant crickets: animal 2; move 6/12; legs d4; defense 5; chirping drowns out normal noise.

Carrion worms: fantastic 4; move 10; 8 tentacles (paralysis) or claws d8 or bite d6; defense 3; armored head +4 defense.

Karuat: fantastic 3; move 9/6; 2 claws d4/d4; defense +6.

Tentamort: fantastic 4; move 6; 2 tentacles d6/d6; defense 7 (tentacles), 9 (body).

The tentamort’s body is two feet in diameter, wide, bloated, and yellowish-purple. It’s tentacles are purplish, twelve feet long.

There are no wandering monsters past the grinning skulls unless you specifically decide that some Karuat are making a pilgrimage. The river moves the raft at 30 yards per minute, and the bottom of the river is covered with muck and clay. The river is three yards deep in the autumn, four yards deep in the spring. At shaded parts on the map, the ceiling of the cavern drops to within about three feet from the ceiling in the autumn, one to three inches from the ceiling in the spring.

One hundred and forty yards off of the map, the river exits the cliff below the now-destroyed castle.

The Lakeshore (1)

It is always raining in the lake cavern, as water condenses against the ceiling and then falls again to the ground.

The thundering echoes of falling rock fades. A misty rain slowly settles the clouds of dust. You hear a faint lap of waves against rock as you rekindle your lantern and find yourself on a dark beach in a light rain.

A small lake extends beyond the range of your light. Gray, sightless fish run from it. The lake pours into a small river that cuts into cavern walls. The lake extends nearly to the edges of the cavern, and the slimy cavern walls reflect the light of your lantern.

You are in a massive underground cavern. There is a raft, made from some woody root, drifting against the shoreline. Something, some plant or strange rock, hangs from the cavern wall to your left.

If they walk toward the something, it becomes apparent that it is a man stuck in the wall.

No, a man hangs against the wall, staring out, eyes empty, bones sticking from its torn and leathery jacket and gear.

He came out of the water after fighting the wyvern in the Black Lake (or out of the cavern if you aren’t using the Vale of the Azure Sun), and has a map of the valley on him. The Karuat killed him in the tomb of the hero then dragged him here and staked him to the cavern wall. Parts of him have dropped to the ground. The Karuat took his sword, the magic item that helped him find exits from other worlds, and his money. He was from Barcelas, a vaguely Roman world.

Yes, you’ve heard of the valley. It’s a fairy tale. The kind of literate children’s adventure made famous by Charles Dodgson. Like Alice in Wonderland, the Magic Garden, or the Butterfly Halls. Magical places, but dark, with beautiful mushrooms and things sure to eat you on the other side.

The lake is well over 300 yards diameter. The cavern extends fifteen to sixty yards beyond it. Gray, sightless fish run from any light. The ceiling is twenty to thirty yards up. The rock-fall tunnel, if they are here because they were dumped after an exorcism, comes out ten yards above ground, just to the west of the river’s tunnel. The lake extends nearly to the edges of the cavern on its east and west sides, and to within five yards of the cavern on the north side. The edges are rock, hard and slimy.

The hole from area five of the Misty Court is in the northwest, fifteen yards up.

There is a raft, made from an unknown woody root, drifting against the shoreline. If they look closely or have a means of seeing distant things, they will see similar rafts against the opposite shore. Those rafts are tied to stakes in the ground. This one was, once, but it came loose when a carrion crawler chewed through the rope.

For every ten pounds over 500 pounds that is placed on the raft, there is a 1% chance every ten minutes that it will break up. It will take d6 rounds to break up.

The river runs 140 yards past the end of the map to the waterfall that exits below the castle.

Grinning Skulls (2)

The river rushes you toward bony hands, reaching for you from the walls. Skills grin out at you with strange, contorted visage from the sides, from the water, from the stone rushing toward you. An opening on the right rushes toward you… then past. Another. A light—you are propelled into open air, then flop down into a pool, the current driving toward a second waterfall.

This is the entrance to an ancient tomb complex of the Karuat.

Court of the Skeleton King (3)

A skeleton sits on a dirt throne. It holds a rod of silver in its left hand, but your attention is drawn inexorably toward the odd, inhuman skull. The mouth extends crab-like, or beak-like, or something… else. The eye sockets are at angles you’ve never seen in a human or animal skull but are closest, perhaps to the eyes of a—well, nothing, really. You’ve never seen anything like this.

Two skeletons, embedded into the walls, flank the throne. Two braziers emerge from the walls at the skeletons’ sides.

This is an ancient Karuat king, from when the Karuat ruled this part of the world. The skeleton holds a rod of silver (350 shillings in Crosspoint, 400 in Black Stag) engraved with interlacing designs reminiscent of Celtic knotwork but nothing at all like it. Flanking the king are two guard skeletons, set in the walls. The two braziers on each wall are filled with a hallucinatory drug. If the braziers are lit, any characters in the room must make standard ailment rolls to avoid the effects, per brazier. The gas causes religious hallucinations. It has an action time of two rounds, and a strength of 1.

Tomb of the Hero (4)

On a dirt dais in the center of this damp, musty room is a skeleton laid out in chain mail, a sword gleaming at its side and an intricately carved metal shield lying against the mound of stone and dirt it lies upon.

On a dirt dais in the center is a skeleton Karuat hero, laid out in full splendor. It wears chain mail, though the leather is long gone, wears a sword at its side, and an intricately designed iron shield (also missing its leather). The designs on the shield are of snakes intertwining with snakes. The metal is clean, as the Karuat keep it well-cared for. It is worth 100 shillings.

Special Items

Resources file

You can get the resources file at the Gods & Monsters web site, godsmonsters.com/Guide/Haunted. It includes maps, images, and other documents. The Death’s Head image is from Jill Robidoux under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Magic and Artifacts

The Curse of the Unseen

This cursed scroll was taken from Wendell Redstar, a prophet of the True Family captured from the Stigmas di Cristo. The first person to read it gains a paranoid regard for normal noises. Any noise with no attributable source is an ill omen, a creature sneaking up on them or a trap about to spring. The character can neither sleep, rest, nor concentrate for longer than a few minutes at a time. A willpower roll is required to cast spells and there is a penalty of one to all actions and reactions.

The scroll is in anagram. It begins:

Oh say unlove dances all. Or one way unveiled. The thought wind misses scorn and deals red ink, or drowns your grand, sour rank. Shy fool she rushed vanished fear where love and brewer drape mask.

Here rest the thin, roving flutes of your wild free rosin. Yes say revenant moon mice ate lies.

Unscrambled, it would read:

No candle shall save you. No dawn relieve you. In the darkness, around corners, through doors and misty windows, dangers lurk. You shall never be free wherever shadows form and dark shapes hide.

For you, the night is forever filled with unseen terrors. Every noise is an enemy come at last.

However, the text disappears on being read, so they’ll only see the scrambled text once and are unlikely to decipher it.

The Demon’s Head

The Demon’s Head was specially constructed to hold the Demon’s life force and still retains magical properties after the Demon is gone. The head is evil, and assists evil works. An evil person bearing it gains a bonus of 2 on all reactions, and a bonus of 20 survival. A good person bearing it has a penalty of 3 on all actions and reactions. Its bulk is 15.

The Demon’s Head may be destroyed by a person good, strong, and pure of heart. The destroyer must be Ordered Good or Chaotic Good with a strength of at least 20. They must be dedicated to and stringent in their application of, their moral code.

The Elven Sword

This is a +1 sword (+1 to attack and +1 to damage). Its possession grants the bearer a bonus of 2 to perception rolls. Elven swords are used by Rivelaelfte leaders and those on important missions for the Rivelaelfte.

The hilt is gemmed. The blade is slightly banged up, but remains in fine shape. It is marked by the symbol of the Rivelaelfte.

The Marrow Cross

Formed by the combined strength of soul of the victims of the Order’s depredations in its degeneracy, the Marrow Cross will grant a bonus of 2 to any attempts to exorcise demons; it will also grant a bonus of 2 to any attempts at turning undead. It also has the ability to grant power in weakness: in a place of power aligned to Evil, the Marrow Cross will reverse the penalty for using the place of power for Good, turning it into a bonus.

Powder of Darkness

A leather bag inscribed with a circle and a lopsided five-pointed star in the manner of Ralph Steadman. The powder inside is enchanted with Dead Night at level 4. This means that it has a diameter of nine yards and lasts eighty minutes. It automatically centers on whoever tosses the powder in the air, or the object it is tossed upon.

The Ring of Lemordin

Silver, translucent, with finely engraved hares that float just below the surface of the metal, this ring is imbued with the escape spell with a trigger and a delay. The spell is triggered if the wearer successfully attacks or is successfully attacked. It is delayed by d10 rounds. It is at the twelfth level of effect. See the description of escape for details, but the spell causes the wearer to teleport to the furthest surface within d1000 yards in a random horizontal and vertical direction. Once triggered, the spell is on the character; if the ring is removed, the escape still occurs. While the delay spell is active and the ring is worn, the hares seem to jump about in a circle around the ring. The ring may be used twice per day.

The ring has indestructible object at 12th level, for a bonus of 12 to reactions against destruction or damage.

The ring is extremely old, and predates the cataclysm. Ensender inherited it seven hundred years before his death. Ensender was a high elf, that is, alive before the cataclysm. He was 1,300 years old at his death in Illustrious Castle.

The Scepter of Tragos d’Illus

The scepter holds Tragos’s rib bone. His shell is tied to the scepter. His ghost doesn’t haunt the castle, it haunts the scepter. On nights of the full moon, Tragos will appear as an apparition. On All Hallow’s Eve he will appear as a full-fledged phantasm.

He’s a relatively willful ghost, even as an apparition, and will not appear so often to the same people as to make them less afraid, or encourage them to become more prepared for his Hallowe’en assault.

If his ghost is successfully destroyed, Tragos’s body will decay a hundred years in a few minutes time. Tragos’s body may not be destroyed except by destroying the scepter or Tragos’s ghost. Tragos may not venture further than 300 yards from the scepter. If the scepter is transported more than a mile from the body (or vice versa), the body will appear to go dormant (bugs and maggots will crawl away) but will not decay.

The scepter was created as an aid for summoning and controlling demons, but is tied to Tragos. For him, it gives a bonus of 3 to demon summonings and other demonic spells and rituals. For others, it gives a bonus of only 1.

Tragos’s apparition: Ordered Evil; undead 5; survival 33; move 20; defense 2; shapeshifting, immune to non-magical weapons; cold fear; magic resistance 5.

Tragos’s phantasm: Ordered Evil; undead 7; survival 43; move 20; defense 2; shapeshifting, immune to non-magical weapons; cold fear, illusions; magic resistance 10.

The Shield of Annis

Arthur Wells was born in the 881st year of the Cataclysm. He was left-handed. He disappeared in 909 AC, after leaving Crosspoint for Black Stag. Any male member of the Wells family will recognize the Shield, and any member or friend of the family will recognize the crest of the Wells. On the shield is embossed a well on a hill, and the morning sun. This is a +1 shield that had been handed down in the family since it was blessed by the prophet Robert Annis over four centuries ago.

The Spellbooks of the Order of Illustration

Three of the Order’s spellbooks survived the botched summoning. The Order were mnemonic sorcerors. Each is bound in leather, with a pyramid inscribed on the cover. The tenth volume has an eye inscribed in the pyramid.

Volume I

First Level Spells: angular reformation, farseeing, see whole

Second Level Spell: sensory assurance

Third Level Spells: locate origin, seek object

Volume VI

Fifth Level Spells: dispel magic, flame ward

Sixth Level Spell: clear portal

Volume X

Second Level Spell: dead night

Dead night is the enhanced version of the reversed sunlight spell, and was taught them by Wendell Redstar.

The Staff of the Dove

A golden staff head, of a dove in flight with an olive branch in its beak. It is worth around 900 shillings without regard to its spiritual qualities. This Christian staff contains two fourth-level spirits of healing. It may be used twice per day (once for each spirit) by any creature of Good moral code. The default manifestation is restore/deplete vitality, and any Good creature can use it to that effect. Prophets may manifest any fourth level and lower healing manifestation.

The golden staff head was a gift to the Order, given by the prophet Hanthur a century after the Order’s founding.

The Undeath Wand

Legend places the wand’s origins in Hell. It is covered in Greek inscriptions identifying it (to anyone who knows Greek, which no one does in Highland, or to anyone with the appropriate spell) as having been granted as a boon by Ekdulon (a demon of Hell) in exchange for meritorious service. The wand dates back to the ancients.

It radiates evil to any means of detecting moral code, and touching it to (or being touched by) a truly good person will cause d4 points damage per round. A short touch, as in combat, will cause 1 point of damage.

The wand gives a bonus to sorcerors of three levels for purposes of casting summonings and a bonus of one level for purposes of casting divinations.

The wand gives anyone with the Turn Undead specialty a bonus of three levels on attempts to control undead.

There is a ritual, which the Illustrators had not acquired, that allows those who worship the Night God of Death to double those bonuses during special times of the year, of which All Hallow’s Eve is one.

The wand is made of a dark, nearly black, ivory-like material with grains of brownish-red. It was a gift from Wendell to the Order. He gave the Order the information they needed to retrieve the wand from ancient ruins.

Books

The Elfen Ranger’s Journal

Among Ensender Eanderon’s notes are that an elf sword was rumored to have been found among goblins somewhere far south of Stone Goblin, by one of the religious orders there. He’s narrowed it down to the Illustrators or the Astronomers.

“Tragos asked how I knew it’s an unknown sword. I told him, we know where all the Elven swords are. We aren’t missing any.”

“I know there is a secret or hidden door in the back barracks, probably near the two guards forever on duty in the main corridor. The Order is not as small as it looks. There are still well over a hundred members. But they aren’t all living in those tiny cave-barracks and few seem to live in the countryside.”

The Notebook of Abacus Dome

The notebook contains mostly notes on the day-to-day running of the Order. A diligent search will discover a few entries that deal with the discovery of the dead at Illustrious Castle in 911. The notes are on small, loose-leaf papers wrapped in a leather folio. Each day begins a new page, though some pages can be on the backs of others. Paper is relatively expensive in Highland, and so they used front and back for notes such as these.

There are no notes for November 20 or 21. A search through the rest of the notes will bring up a handful of other times when Abacus missed a day or two, but not very many. Most of them are followed by a note about being too busy. In this case, there are no notes those days; this was, although he did not realize it, under Eliazu’s urging. Abacus Dome took detailed notes those days, but then tore them out later under Eliazu’s influence. Eliazu did not want a written record of any of the castle or its carnage, however, in the demon’s weakened state it had to focus on the most important part, and influenced the abbott to throw out his notes on the secret back room that leads into the underground.

Mess Hall Map

The abbreviations used by the map-maker are abbreviations of Latin words that denote what the room is for. Mostly self-explanatory, this is a map of the secret places before the summoning went awry.

The True Family

Worshipped in secret, in the shadowy places of the world, little is known about this sect. What little is known is known only by specialized scholars. Chances are, none of the player characters know much, if anything, about them. They sometimes refer to themselves as “the fit may rule”, an anagram for “the True Family”.

Worshippers of the True Family tend to be Ordered and Ordered Evil. Worshippers worship the entire pantheon. Their Gods include Nias, the Bishop of Bone, who commands the red-stick men; Laten, the Horse of Hunger who commands the five night riders; and Hetae, the Queen of Insects and the Hidden Word. Prophets of the Night Gods use spirits of order, death, charm, prophecy, and prophet.

Within this adventure, the corruption of the Order to the service of the True Family was performed by Wendell Redstar, a True Family prophet captured by the Order who, as prisoner, wormed his way into the confidence of Tragos and the other leaders of the Order.

Wendell brought three books to the Order, which can currently be found in the upstairs Secret Rooms (14). These are written in Latin, the Ancient tongue.

Lord Thew’s Family Tales

A collection of exploits of the True Family. One somewhat unique feature of the religion is that it explicitly believes in other pantheons; one of the True Family’s goals is to overcome and enslave all other pantheons, including the Christian God.

This book explicitly references Christianity, including the trinity, Mary, and Lucifer. It references the Greek Gods (which the characters may not recognize). It also references Arlindor and the Elven Gods. And there are some completely cryptic places, such as the Dry City and the Shells.

Among the Dry City are the papercuts, acephali (headless men), not flies, oblivion fleas, trivial pursuits, and prayer bees. In something to do with a shell, there are the First Fallen and the creatures of nowhere. The papercuts are accompanied by an illustration of a playing card and beneath it the words “Too late he heard that snapping sound.” A poem accompanies it, about a boy who reads late into the night, wasting candles, despite his mother’s urgings to sleep and work hard.

Johnny threw the book to ground.
Too late he heard that snapping sound.

Beneath his sheets he hid in gloom.
The snipping stopped outside his room.

The door flew open, in he ran:
The great, long red-legged scissor man.

He snipped and snapped from side to side.
One hand soothed, one hand lied.

When morning came, the room was bare.
The sun shone in, ‘twas no one there.

But on the bed his father built,
A John-shaped hole lay in the quilt.

The Fit May Rule

A catechism of the religion: a series of studies and rituals designed to convince the reader to join the service of the True Family. There are rituals for individual conversion as well as rituals for group conversion. Anyone reading this book must make a willpower roll at a bonus of 10 or be compelled over time to search out more information about the True Family, work out the anagram, and eventually convert. If they are guided to read it by a True Family prophet, there is a penalty on the willpower roll of the prophet’s level.

It’s a catechism. Look at the world around you. Examine your life. Your birth gods have abandoned you. The true family welcomes you back. Read, and enjoy.

Discussing Lesser Families

A description of rituals for summoning and binding the servants of other Gods, especially the demons “below the shell”, but also including what appear to be angels, muses, and dryads. Studying this book should be disgusting, enlightening, and confusing as hell. It will give the reader a better understanding of how Eliazu was summoned. But it will also introduce things the characters have no idea about.

This is a difficult text. The members of the Order who studied it did so for months before performing the ritual, and still failed. It also contains clues about how to reverse the process and send the demon back home. Successfully extracting that information will require an intelligence roll. A failed roll will give the reader some information, but not all of it. It takes one month to read it well; for every week under four weeks, there is a penalty of one to the roll; for every day under four days, there is a penalty of one. However much the roll was made by, give them that many clues rolled randomly.

According to Discussing Lesser Families, a summoned demon may be forced home through the following steps:

1. Open the circle with the creature’s sigil to allow the creature escape.

2. The circle is opened by inscribing the creature’s sigil in a smaller circle upon the circle’s edge.

3. The opening must be made in a specific direction.

4. The direction is the rising of the sun.

5. The circle that holds the creature’s sigil must be two hand’s diameter.

6. The circle’s width must be measured from the ritual’s performer.

7. Do not break the larger circle while inscribing the smaller one until the moment of the ritual’s voicing.

8. The ritual should be performed at the first rays of dawn.

9. If the ritual can be performed in a place of power, it is more likely to be successful.

10. The further you can be from the creature the safer you will be.

11. The creature, during the ritual, may be able to affect the physical world.

12. This thing reads like stereo instructions.

Discussing Lesser Families references The Summoning Powers of Words (see More When Doors Mow Spun Death) as an important encoded text, as well as Recalling the Fallen of the Lost Families (not found in this adventure), a set of rituals for calling “back” unbelievers who have “fallen to the shell lands”.

Discussing Lesser Families is also a mojo resource level 3 for True Family researches.

More When Doors Mow Spun Gifts

By Sam Noyuno

This is an encoded book on demon-summoning. It is an incredibly obtuse and, frankly, insane encoding method. Each sentence is an anagram. The title of the book is an anagram for “The Summoning Powers of Words”. The author’s name is an anagram of “Anonymous”. It mentions the First Fallen and the creatures of nowhere—but only in anagram.

It is unreasonable to expect your players to solve this riddle, except to guess that it is in anagram. That’s the important deduction. The rest can be handled in-game through intelligence rolls or practical mojo, although if they desire it you can certainly let the players work on the problem for as long as they want.

Translating this book should take a human lifetime for a 15 intelligence, and comparatively less for higher intelligences. The Guide should determine what knowledge is contained in the book. Once they figure out the scheme, you can let them decipher it for one mojo per sentence, or five hundred mojo per chapter. If they actually pay those costs, it should lead to some amazing and enriching—and very dangerous—adventures.

See the Props section for the encoded text of the first few paragraphs of the first chapter. Chapters include:

More When Doors Mow Spun Gifts

See More When Doors Mow Spun Gifts under Props for encoded text of the first few paragraphs.

Shearing Howl Dead Chants

Show test children throw this toe shaft at sad fig wights.

Ring of Rim as Mesh of Hate Lurks

Fire lash foe thaw doe mesh of hate lurks.

Count Once Dicer Rile Faith

Throw man dies lord.

The Summoning Powers of Words

Anonymous

Words are the source of power for the human race. Indeed, it is the written language that is the source of magic and the means of summoning. If you would summon Nowhere, you must know where on it is. Through words is the power of the True Family.

To understand the nature of summoning, you must know where those you summon exist. The World as we know it is not the only world. There are things below, and things above. And there are things in the realm of the Ether, and the realm of the Astral. The semi-material, and the semi-light.

Exercise utmost care when summoning from husk and shell and lower than shell. If you fail to protect the world from the demon, the Earth itself will refuse to accept the creature’s entrance into the world of blood. As a man vomiting, it will heave and expel the nightmare.

Reaching the Shadowlands

With the first light on the Gods was cast the first shadow. The shadowlands are the shadow of the divine and the shadow of humanity. The shadows are shell and husk. Mindless forms may be risen from the realm of husk to do the true family’s bidding. Powerful creatures may be summoned from the realm of shell under the true family’s control.

Raising from the Realm of Husks

The realm of husks are the shadow of life.

Calling to the Shell

The shell is the shadow of the divine. Creatures of the shell feed from fear, desire, pain, despair, and all the emotions of the living.

Creatures of the shell are restricted from appearing in the natural world. They may appear only through summoning. While summoned they are susceptible to banishment by sorcery, ritual, or divine command.

The Ritual for Coincidence

The world is random. Though we have bound it to stability, its natural state is chaos. An egg laid with the face of a God has no meaning but what we give it. Through this meaning that we assign, we gain power over the gods and all other creatures.

Coincidences occur every hour of our lives without attracting even momentary notice. There are combinations of simple natural objects that through the correct placement have the power of affecting the natural world, the divine world, and the shadow world.

The Delirium Box

The Delirium Box siphons husks from the living to create Ur-Men. The Delirium Box can also create minor Men from Nowhere. The Delirium Box is a gateway to the city where no one goes.

No More Stars

There is an abridged, version of More When Doors in the Library at Biblyon, entitled “No More Stars”. It was taken from the Order’s upstairs library after the Order died. Notes in the papers say that they believe it to have been written by Minar Taxos of the Astronomers, “one of the many Orders in the mountains of East Highland.” (But the Astronomers of West Highland have an excerpt that says it is from the Illustrators, if the characters have gone through The Lost Castle of the Astronomers.)

No More Stars contains “More When Doors Mow Spun Death” (without the title), “Shearing Howl Dead Chants”, “Once Dicer Rile Faith Count”, and “Elite Ox Bird Hum”. See Lost Castle of the Astronomers for an abridged text of the title chapter, that the Astronomers copied and stole during one of their raids.

Venison Stew

Posted in the kitchen is this recipe commonly served in Biblyon.

1. 15 pounds shoulder

2. 1 cup flour

3. 1 cup bacon lard

4. 6 cups boiling water

5. 1 bottle wine

6. 1 ½ tablespoon thyme, marjoram, and basil

7. 1 1 ½ tablespoon parsley

8. 4 large onions, chopped

9. 1 tablespoon salt

10. 2 teaspoons pepper

11. 16 carrots quartered

12. 4 turnips chopped

13. 16 potatoes quartered

Cut the venison into bite-sized pieces; dredge in flour and brown in hot lard. Add water, wine, herbs, onion, salt, and pepper and bring to boil. Simmer two hours. Add roots, cover, and simmer another hour. Add water as needed.

Props

Most of these props are nearly a hundred years old. You can make them look old by staining them with tea. It’s very easy. All you need is a large bowl, a bunch of tea or teabags, and some hot water from the tap.

Cut up the props so that only game world text (i.e., not the title or page number) shows. You might also cut around the sides to remove margins: there’s no reason for their paper to be 8.5 by 11, and they would not waste margin space as we do.

Put the tea or teabags into the bowl, and pour the hot water into it. The water should stain a dark brown (put in more tea if it doesn’t). Place the props into the water. Let them sit for a few hours (depending on how dark you want the paper to be), then bring them out and let them dry.

If they are meant to be scrolls, roll them up before they dry. As they dry, they will maintain the shape of the scroll. You don’t want them to be too wet when you roll them or they’ll stick together.

The unsent letter needs to be burnt as well. Do this in an open area with lots of water on hand! It is easiest to burn the correct locations if the paper is slightly wet. This will keep the fire from spreading beyond the needed area.

The part around the words “di Cristo” will be burnt, because that might be too much information. The part about the supposed treasure that the Astronomers have will still be there, because Eliazu will not at all mind if they head down south and never come back. The rest of it is up to you, although there should still be some sense of urgency left and a sense that someone is corrupting the Order. It takes work for Eliazu to burn something; there may be dark marks around the parts he is currently trying to burn.

The Bishop’s Letter

My friend I commend me unto you and would be right glad to hear of your welfare, etc. This is to advertise you that inasmuch as you now and then take some pains in writing unto me, I would be loathe you should think your labor utterly lost and forgotten for lack of writing again; therefore and because I reckon you to be some deal desirous of such news as hath been here with us of late in the matters of your old home, I intend to inform you a part thereof, according to the tenure and purport used in that behalf.

Saturday last began the celebration of Whit Sunday, and I am sure you remember the grand manner of the celebration among the people of our city. With all the crafts of Crosspoint thereunto well appointed, in several barges decked after the most gorgeous and sumptuous manner, with diverse pageants thereunto belonging, repaired and waited all together upon the Mayor. And so, well furnished, came all the procession into the square, where they tarried and waited for the Bishop’s coming to his seat. Once arrived and greeted by our Mayor, they like to brought the walls down with trumpets, shawms, and other diverse instruments all the ways playing and making great melody. From here the Bishop and Mayor together were carried by coach amidst all revested priests, guards, and councilmembers, and all the ladies and gentlewomen in robes and gowns of scarlet, to the great park which was filled to bursting with all manner of citizens.

Whereon the celebration was so intense we nearly did see the flames once more descend from heaven to the purple and painted faces of all the devout present on both stand and street.

Edgar, my greetings and prayers from Crosspoint. I hope this letter finds you well, your troubled spirit buoyed by the Lord. I am making inquiries into how to deal with your problems. You know my door is always open to discussion even though it be by letter, and I have enclosed some information which may aid you if your personal difficulties worsen. There is no truer family than that which you find yourself in. We have no need to look below the words we speak, to unscramble hidden meanings. Such is not our way. Beyond this is only God or the Devil.

In the spirit of peace, Rbt Ag

The Curse of the Unseen

Oh say unlove dances all. Or one way unveiled. The thought wind misses scorn and deals red ink, or drowns your grand, sour rank. Shy fool she rushed vanished fear where love and brewer drape mask.

Here rest the thin, roving flutes of your wild free rosin. Yes say revenant moon mice ate lies.

Notes from Discussing Lesser Families

This hand-written note is found in the book, Discussing Lesser Families in the secret upstairs room.

A circle will keep the host from becoming a host, and a mock court will provide a host for our guest. Should the court fail, the sigil to the lesser throne will reverse the trap.

√Circle

√Sigil

√Court

√Prince

√Scepter

√Wand

√Attendants—Redstar, Acastus, Cleophus

√Keeper of the lesser throne—Alogos

√Fast Engraver—Corlile

√Dusk

Erin Forney’s Maps

The Exorcism of Demons

This text is written in the Ancient tongue.

The priest must invoke the authority of Jesus the oath-giver. The authority of Jesus must be invoked upon the devil. The devil must not be given any choice but to bind itself to the oath of Christ. Surround the spirit with the heavenly shape, the endless circle, clean, and allow escape only to the Pope. The larger circle must completely contain the devil.

Facing the pope in purple, the reader must inscribe the sigil of the creature within a smaller circle two hands side to side. Do not break the circle until reading God’s word or the devil may attack both physically and through the powers Satan delivers unto it. Only on reading the word of God at the rising of the sun should the sigil break the devil’s prison.

The reader must himself be free of sin. Prepare by reciting our belief in Jesus.

Take forth a pinch of salt and spread it into the air before you. Take in a cup of virgin wood the blood of Christ, calling on the trinity as you drink.

Hold the cross in your hand and consecrate in the Lord’s language with the Pater Noster.

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God calls you! Draw forth this sickness from our mortal world!”

“Jesus Christ is Lord! He died for our sins, but lives forever! Everlasting life is God’s great gift to His children. Our Father treasures His children. Signs, wonders, and miracles pale compared to the joy of knowing God. Life as God’s friend is fun! Under God’s protection, peace reigns. Your life and reward are safe with Yahweh. Seek righteousness, O my soul! My desire is to follow God’s ways. Christ Jesus is our example. Emmanuel is the Way to our Father in Heaven. Hallelujah! Jesus Christ lives forever!”

“Shout for joy! The Anointed One reigns! Riches and pleasures in this world pale compared to God’s glory! Satan’s bait is no match for Yahweh’s righteous rewards. In our Father’s presence there is great joy. In Almighty God’s protected place, all needs are met.”

“Show me Your ways, dear Lord, so that I may walk with You. Allow me to stay with You always. Teach me to be righteous and holy like You. Help me to love all people like You. Infuse me with Your glory and compassion. Rescue me from evil thoughts, words, and deeds. Set a watch over me, Lord, and protect me from evil. Enshroud me with Your integrity and conquering love. Let your Holy Spirit be my constant guide. I set my will to obey You always. Only You satisfy my soul!”

“God Almighty, I love You!”

“Rejoice, for God is good!”

“Be joyous in the sight of the Lord.”

“Day by day, I will praise the Lord.”

“Sing praises to our God forever!”

Be faithful, and hold fast to the Lord, for nothing shall overcome whom the Lord protects.

Mess Hall Map

More When Doors Mow Spun Gifts

Sam Noyuno

So the four maps to Charon were cured here of war. Ten fun games cause doom to man in his writing, creating the lament that is his fee due god. We issue in you this world of humor, you mute women known. Wipe rough sword for those the fit may rule.

Test semen under no fat woman gods you nurture, you who mint them the noxious musks. He who draws to worlds will knit one toy net. Hinges vow to better hinge, and bar shale. Harm all strange metal, and adhere to the thin hate of the freer sin there. Tithe the lemmings, see math dial air.

Excise no mucous where son rents muted rank fright and shallow hells helm man. Fie on carp, the white fish whelp doth call totem’s force to rent refuse and entice your true fate to mold hot word bile to Elflore tract. Please exhale naive man thing, malt ire and vomit wight.

The Notebook of Abacus Dome

Nov 7

It has been nearly three weeks since we last saw an Illustrator. We feel as if some invisible string were fraying above us, soon to drop the sword. I have sent Roben and Tame to discover what the Illustrators are up to now.

Leren Praxos returned from the East with a few treasures today: a fourth copy of Dodgson’s Wonderland and some fragments of Ancient. Some he found in the ruins of Haven, but some were wide open in the bazaars of Crosspoint! We are slowly restoring the Library to its ancestral glory. I see Truman tomorrow to present him with these new gifts.

Nov 8

Truman and I had a long discussion about the future of the Library and the Order. He will re-open the Dormitory, and will invite several scholars to visit as in days of old. The shadow of the illustrators hangs over us as a shroud, tho. If they do not fade further of their own accord, there will surely be a confrontation some day, and we must be prepared. Truman suggests alliances, but the world is still tired from the wars. I see little chance of outside alliances in the near future. The most likely source of an alliance would be the Stigmas di Cristo whom they fought several years ago, but the di Cristo order has ever held a secretive lust for power. Nor would I trust the Astronomers even if they were to re-appear in High Town.

Nov 9

Leren returned also with several orders for copies of library books. This is good. We must stop living day to day. Arani in Black Stag, I trust, will also return with coins and manuscripts to duplicate—and add copies to our collection. Leren suggests starting a Tutoris “branch” from our root, in Crosspoint. Scholarship is rising again; the world awakens. He may be right. I’ve asked him to outline a plan, how many it would pull from the field and how much it would bring in.

Nov 10

Librarians and Tutors are cautiously recommending luminaries to invite to Vincent. I am surprised at the optimism which remains. Truman takes his notes and asks us to research the field of possibilities. Normally Leren would wait until spring to return to Crosspoint, but he is eager now to assist Truman’s search. Snow will come soon, so he must leave now if he is to safely cross High Town Pass.

Nov 11

I sent Arlen up to see Tame and Roben. No sign yet of anyone entering or leaving the castle. No raids, nor hunting parties, nor even leisurely walks. Can they have left? Are they planning something? I have instructed Arlen to organize a small party to search the surrounding area for any sign of military activity, raids on the farmers and others outside the wall, or anything out of the ordinary.

Nov 12

Managed to scrape by one more year, it appears. Just enough in trade and coin to fill the winter cellar from the final harvest’s last pickings. We shall certainly have our fill of turnips before the river opens again.

Nov 13

Awoke to a light snowfall. Beautiful on the mountainside and around the grove, but if it lasts it will make sneaking around the castle more difficult.

Nov 14

Arlen returned today with nothing to report. It has been at least four weeks since anyone has seen an Illustrator. Few mind the absence, though many do remember the old Order.

Nov 15

It has been 32 days since the last verified sighting of a Knight. Tame and Roben have camped at the river mouth for five days and have seen no one enter or leave the castle. Tomorrow we organize an expedition—a delegation, if anyone will greet us.

Nov 16

It is a charnel house. I write this in a tent by the river mouth. None of us will stay in or near the castle this night or for a long time. The whole place smells of rotting flesh. The dead are everywhere. It looks like they killed themselves—a mass suicide of the entire Order and the servants. There are not enough crossroads in all the world for this tragedy. Many still clutch cups in their fists as if they died in great pain. Others died at their posts or in their beds. I have instructed Marlin to remove the bodies carefully for a proper burial. It must be done. The cemetery will grow this year.

I will not forget the dead guards in the foyer, lightly armored as for duty. Their eyes bulged, but this may have been the effects of decomposition.

The old bazaar is still in poor repair. They never restored it after the goblins. They have barely maintained the castle. The towers are learning farther than they ever did. There are cracks in the walls that were not there when the goblins left.

Nov 17

Some of the silliest items are recorded in history: of all the little we know about their demise, we shall always know that their last meal was venison stew. The recipe was still on the countertop amidst the pots and pans. The door to the back is jammed into the walls. It is too beautiful to destroy, so I have instructed the others to wait before we force it open. There is enough elsewhere to keep us occupied.

The throne will be the hardest item to carry back to the Library. I have delegated to Tame the task of overseeing its removal and lowering it to the path.

Nov 18

The news is now out. A few farmers and townsfolk arrived today and began carrying off ‘souvenirs’. I have given Leren the task of assisting Marlin burying the bodies—and to commandeer any ‘sightseers’ into assisting them. That might keep the place free of tourists for another day or so.

I have set Roben to cataloging the Order’s books and transporting them to the Library. He say’s we have acquired at least two very interesting formulae: something for the manipulation of shadow and line, and a sort of magic cart or work bench. The latter, he says, bears the marking of the Costumers of Crosspoint, but if so they have not shared it with their colleagues here in Biblyon.

Nov 19

While counting in the shade, Roben found more bodies. I scolded him for following the path into the back rooms alone, but can understand the excitement of a new discovery. But, my god, there are so many bodies back there. It will be impossible to bring them out through the tiny passage. Yet it seems wrong to leave their bodies for looting. I have instructed Roben to keep the bodies a secret until we decide what to do.

The immensity of this act weighs on my mind. How could they do such a thing? Many must have left the Order before it came to this. I wonder if any left that night, and what they are thinking now?

Nov 22

It has been difficult to write about these last few days, and I struggle to put down into words what we all feel. We have emptied the castle of all learning, and leave the rest to the looters. How have the mighty fallen! I can see several flickering lights in the town below as I write this. We are its protectors now. We can step into the light. I will be glad to cleanse myself of the miasma in the bathhouses below when we arrive home tomorrow.

Nov 23

Truman greeted us openly on our return and thanked us for the increase in his Library.

Roben is off now to the north to follow rumors of books. Marlin is set to the task of creating a new planning committee to take hold of our future in this new world.

Nov 24

After this it goes back to normal Tutoris activities.

Protection from sorcery scroll

Armi Patrocini Veneficium

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

Eliazu’s sigil

Restore health scroll

Recuratus Morbi

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

The Unsent Letter

This letter is written in Ancient. You’ll need to age and partially burn this letter yourself.

We have heard the name Kristagna again. A visitor from the Long Lakes arrived on Saturday during services. Ensender is his name. He is the first of his kind I have seen, though many of the others claim to have seen them during the war. His presence makes Tragos nervous, which means that my Lord’s plans are nearing completion. As you know, I am not privy to the Order’s inner circle but I have no doubt that the Glory of God shall prevail in all my Lord’s plans.

The visitor has come looking for the Order of the Astronomers. There is rumor that they have an Elf-sword of which he would not tell us further. If it were not for the Order’s reduced number, this would almost certainly mean a new foray into the southern forest, for Tragos certainly covets an item of such power. It would do our Order well. Tho as reduced as the Illustrators are, there is no evidence that the Astronomers survived the goblin wars at all. If the di Cristo prisoner has his way, there will be more casualties in the castle, but I know that my Lord has this dark man under careful scrutiny.

I thank you for this post, but do wish that we could speak face to face again. Mark me: writing through post is like speaking through a closed door in a darkened room. I see the light on the other side through the cracks, but fear there is no person there. I thank you for your letter of assurances and the gifts you enclosed. I pray it will not be necessary to utilize such weapons in times of peace. My friend

GNU Free Documentation License

Version 1.3, 3 November 2008

Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <http://fsf.org/>

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Haunted Illustrious Castle

The Knights of the Order of Illustration once guarded the “Walled Library,” the remote town of Biblyon in the foothills of the High Divide. Today, Illustrious Castle is deserted, fallen to decay, and long-since looted of anything worth taking. Legend has the castle haunted by the ghost of its final abbot.

Biblyon and its library remain an important resource for scholars throughout the known world. But recent tales tell of demonic eyes in the darkness about Biblyon, hideous creatures feeding on deer and livestock, and night trolls raiding travelers, scholars, and farmers.

Are you prepared to brave the wilderness around the world’s remotest library and find the cause of Biblyon’s troubles?

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe?
Where the philosophers of this world?