shifty louts

Castle Xyntillan #3 - July 24th 1323 (Summer)

Party Members

Overheard in the Market Square

An old chimney sweep tells you lurid tales of concealed shifts and secret doors in the fireplaces - ā€œA little soot wonā€™t hurt you!ā€

Casualties

Loot

Narrative

ā€œOne priest burned, another crushed, and the castle keeps its tally."

Docksodock sat across from Ben Mordechai in the lamplight, the custom Her Solar Deity medallion heavy in his palm. Mordechaiā€™s eyes gleamed as he recounted its historyā€”not some trinket from a roadside chapel, but a crusaderā€™s relic from the Holy War, blessed by the Lady herself. It could heal or harm in equal measure, Mordechai said, depending on whose flesh it touched. He offered 450 gold pieces for it, but Docksodock only smiled and closed his fist. Some treasures were worth more than coins.

When he returned to the company, Ton Nosfeg had found another to join the expedition: Ursa Harg-tonnor, an elven warrior sworn to Her Solar Deity. They gathered familiar hireling faces and a few new ones, their ranks a patchwork of loyalty, greed, and desperation.

The Gatehouse was empty. No Gilbert, no Foxes, no arrows. Goph, the light footman, confirmed it. Inside the first courtyard, the rose garden swayed in the breeze, and the crumbling shacks where Aru the Quick had fallen still stood like a memory best left alone.

Through the double doors, past bone shards and verdigrised armor, they pressed into the second interior courtyard. A place shaded beneath the massive donjon, choked with weeds and rubble.

Three statues loomed: a king, an ape-like creature, and a hunchback.

The apeā€™s mouth opened and spoke:

ā€œWhere time should not be told, the deepest night reveals a mystery of old.ā€

The hunchback addressed Ton as ā€œthe priestā€, probing their intentionsā€”friend or foe, what gods they served, and what they knew of the Apeā€™s riddle. Ton admitted no knowledge of the Chanson of the Grayl, to which the creature merely smiled.

Westward, the smell hit first. Rotting corpses, bitten, gnawed. They gagged and pushed through into a burned barracks, walls charred black, corpses in Malevol livery reduced to ash and bone.

Further on, two fresh dead adventurers slumped against the wall, ants crawling over them. One clutched a bottle of white wine, the other a war-horn. The hirelings swigged as Ursa confiscated the horn.

The barracks beyond were overturned, its shelves stacked with broken halberds. In the northwest corner, a full suit of armor gleamed. Ton donned it, testing the weight.

The vines struck without warning.

Green tendrils erupted from an western window and cracks in the stone, coiling around Tonā€™s plated form. Before the group could move, they dragged him down and crushed him, the suit becoming his coffin. His screams cut short with the snap of ribs, and then nothing.

Ursa and Docksodock fled, the others stumbling after, save for grim Goph, who stood ready with a weapon in hand until the others pulled him away.

As they backed away, a dwarf burst through a northern door, Krac Z Wall, panting about a ā€œreaper in the kitchen.ā€ They didnā€™t ask for details.

Through the charred barracks, they knocked out a section of wall, doubling back to the courtyard.

Northward lay another statue garden, most corroded beyond recognition save for a princess and a one-handed knight.

Eastward, a marble throne room lay swaddled in cobwebs. Light streamed through high windows onto the throne itself, flanked by two suits of armor and two headless servants in Malevol colors, who silently arranged a sedan chair.

Krac approached for the armor. Ursa warned of traps. None sprung. They stripped the plating and moved on.

Northward, they stepped into a grand ballroom, its floor alive with dozens of ghostly dancers swirling to an orchestra only they could hear. On a nearby lectern, a guest book bore names of high offices. Lawyers, doctors, priests, even the prefect of Tours-en-Savoy and the bishop of Chamrousse. Evidence of the Malevolsā€™ reachā€¦ and perhaps their guilt in the kingā€™s assassination attempt.

The ghostsā€™ rhythm seeped into their bones. Tarantism, the frenzied compulsion to dance. One by one, they fought it off, staggering into a side lounge.

The lounge was rich with silver cups, velvet rugs, and three breathtaking landscape paintings. On the table sat a hookah, its glass chamber swirling with a roiling blue cloud that pulsed faintly, like a living heart.

No one dared smoke.

They cut the canvases free, rolled them up, and with the guest book hidden among their gear, made for the road back to Tours-en-Savoy.

Blackmail, relics, and whispers of riddles now hung heavy in their packs. Castle Xyntillan had claimed another priest, but the survivors had teethā€”and something to bite back with.

Somewhere in its halls, the ape-statueā€™s riddle still waited.

GM Thoughts

Will also use miens and report back. This Worked a bit better to give NPCs and encounters a bit more flavor.

This session was particularly light on combat and Malevol encounters, though when it did occur, it occurred big!

Need to figure how best structure the Malevol faction turn

Likely use the Mausritter format given its ease of upkeep and management

What would be achieved, beyond more overhead for myself, especially in the context of an open table? A sense of verisimilitude, perhaps, but for whom? The Dungeon delves so far have just been a once-per-session thing, and Iā€™ve found myself just as quickly introducing new PCs and not particularly caring for the details of how and why these new PCs are in the same spot as the party. Introducing yet another random element for the sake of it may, in fact, leave a bad taste in the players' mouths if, by some luck, a TPK happens; nothing would be gained beyond the introduction of a plot element that players (returning or new) may never care about / encounter again. If anything, a more appropriate version of this would be to do this solely for the hirelings and introduce an NPC family for a little bit of melodrama.