shifty louts

Castle Xyntillan #1 - July 8th 1323 (Summer)

Party Members

Casualties

Loot

Narrative

In the sun-kissed, mountainside grape fields beyond Tours-en-Savoy, two would-be heroes took their first steps on a path that would twist through madness, horror, and ruin.

Aru the Quick, an elven apprentice whose fingers danced with arcane promise, and Ton Nosfeg, a novitiate of Her Solar Deity clad in humble robes and borrowed courage, made ready for the journey. Gold and glory beckoned.

They hired stout-hearted souls from the Tap and the Black Comedian, rough men with rougher edges, and set off to the accursed edifice known as Castle Xyntillan, spurred by Jean-Giscard’s decree to reclaim its treasures. The crows met them first.

A black flock circled above as the Gatehouse loomed, mottled with moss and time. Castle Xyntillan stood beyond, a monument to faded decadence, its broken bones still clothed in grandeur. They skirted its right flank, eyes flicking through the grime-frosted windows until they glimpsed a silken chamber draped in images of nymphs and dryads. A perfume of forgotten lust.

Rounding back, they approached the Grand Entrance, guarded by twin statues of snarling dragons. Ton, ever the polite one, knocked. Once. Then twice. No answer came. Only silence, deep as the grave.

Their retreat back to the Gatehouse was interrupted by a shouted command: “Stand and deliver!” From the shadows of the Gatehouse emerged three men with drawn bows, led by a snub-nosed brute named Gilbert. Suspicion turned to tension, and tension into fury as words were exchanged and names claimed. Gilbert calling Jean-Giscard “Jeannie,” his cousin. Parley teetered on a knife’s edge until Aru stepped forward and whispered a word of power. Three men collapsed into slumber.

The hirelings reeled. Alexander, the bowman, cried witchcraft and fled into the trees, leaving behind only his fear. The others, shaken but loyal, followed Aru and Ton up the broken stones into the belly of the castle. Gilbert’s golden pocket watch glinted in the dust, a trinket of a family feud gone quiet.

Within the garden, nature ran rampant. Vines choked stone pavilions, and a scent of roses hung thick in the air. Ravens watched from above as the party approached a pond and a statue of a maiden, her outstretched hand pointing to an islet beyond. Aru waded through the water to the marble pavilion and uncovered a sarcophagus engraved: “Tristano, our love-lorn son.” Four stone hands were molded into its lid, arranged like a silent invitation.

Their steps carried them deeper through the wild garden, past two decayed guardhouses where vines bloomed from skeletons clad in Malevol livery. Aru went ahead and paid for it.

A skeleton stirred and drove a halberd through the elf’s neck. Aru fell. Ton cried out, invoking the name of Her Solar Deity, brandishing his pendant in hopes of banishing the evil. But no light came.

Steel and blood met bone and rust. Noel and Kimo, the loyal footmen, fought with grim resolve. One skeleton was smashed to powder, the other felled with brute strength. The ravens shrieked in joy. Aru’s body was pulled back before the birds could claim him.

In the aftermath, a new figure slinked from a bush: Teecar, a dwarven thief with a crooked grin and a nose for gold. He joined their battered band, eager to plunder the ruin’s depths.

They pushed on through great double doors, into a hall littered with bone fragments and scraps of verdigris armor. A voice boomed, cursing their presence.

Pressed by threat and curiosity, the party ducked into a dusty chamber and then another, as footsteps echoed near. A muttering voice passed them by. Behind one door they found a webbed hallway thick with silken strands as wide as a dwarf’s forearm. They turned back.

They found an incense burner blessed by Ton’s order before a statue of an undead figure. The burner was massive, too much to carry, but sacred. They pressed forward.

From the darkness emerged the smell of vinegar and rot. Laughter. Clinking. The dining hall was filled with skeletons. Not hostile, just drunk. The undead mimed toasts and spilled wine that had long since soured into vinegar. Ton drank. Somehow. The rest mimed, and the skeletons cheered their manners. The group excused themselves politely and escaped with their lives, leaving behind the haunted revel.

Further on, the chapel awaited.

Within its crumbling walls, frescoes of grape-harvesting monks peeled from damp stone. Dust choked the pews. At the altar was set an opalescent spiral fossil, beautiful and wrong.

Teecar and a porter Nicole pried it loose. The instant Teecar touched it, reality fell away.

He saw. A sky of oil-slick violet. A plateau that smoked and cracked. Towers of glass bone and many-eyed titans striding its alleys. A city grown, not built. A ziggurat spun in madness, and a dodecahedron howled the names of things the soul should not know.

Teecar blinked, screaming silently. Only a minute had passed. To him, it had been lifetimes.

Shaken, the group returned to Tours-en-Savoy.

They buried Aru beneath the old elm on the hill. Sold the gold watch. Gave the spiral fossil away to some learned fool desperate for cosmic insight. They had only touched the threshold of Castle Xyntillan and already, it had demanded a soul. The crows would remember their names. And soon, they would return.

GM Thoughts

Because of the above, I’ve also given the Malevol family the Haute-Savoie coat of arms to represent the family’s heraldry.

It stands to reason (albeit totally not realistic) that CX itself and the Valley of Three Rainbows exist upon Lake Annecy.

1-3HD: 1 attack, 4-6HD: 2 attacks, 7HD: 3 attacks

Perhaps some sort of “group loyalty test using the highest ML rating of the hirelings + group leader CHA modifiers” to streamline that process rather than rolling individually??? I will also roll loyalty after witnessing magical effects. Alex the Bowman did this after witnessing Aru’s Sleep spell against Gilbert the Fox and bandits

I feel this is appropriate for inclusion as I’m unsure of the pace of leveling, given the amounts of treasure and player choice to take on hirelings may limit/hinder leveling during open table play. This may stay the same or I may opt to change this ruling if I can find an appropriate 1:1 XP value in the White Box: FMAG book. Examples include generic creatures such as skeletons, bandits, zombies, wights, etc. The difficulty in assigning XP values would come from the Malevol family NPCs and creatures unique to CX.