The Abbot cursed Titus as the party fled the Sanctum of Sethariel, and nobody in Halwa could lift it. Father Jamar lifted it in one night. (S6)
Resolved (S6)
- Ismad pointed the party at Father Jamar of the Eastern Church; they went straight from the debrief to him.
- Titus stayed overnight in the chapel. The recovery worked.
- Total elapsed time from asking Uncle’s Men for help to cure: about a day.
What that cost: unrecorded, and worth pinning down. Somebody in the Eastern Church now knows a Hazadi noble’s bodyguard came home from somewhere carrying a malediction — and Ismad chose what Jamar was told, in the same conversation where he instructed the party to be quiet about the sanctums.
The theory this kills, probably
The wiki ran “it’s a soul-mark, not a curse” — that contact with a fallen servant of the Maker leaves something a stronger priest couldn’t simply remove. It came off in a night. So either it was an ordinary malediction from a hostile undead all along, or it came off too easily and something is still there. Nobody examined Titus afterward. Compare The Call at the Sanctum, which is a different phenomenon and remains open.
Speculation
Note the shape of the solved problem. The party spent a session assuming the answer was Lusia Balventia — the most powerful divine gift in Hazad, an unmarried countess, and a conversation that would have cost them the secret. Uncle’s Men had a working priest on file. The party’s default assumption is that hard problems require important people, and it was wrong here.
The Original Question
What is the curse, what is it doing to Titus, and who is strong enough to remove it?
What We Know (all S5)
- The abbot laid a curse on Titus during the running retreat up the tunnel stairs.
- The eastern priest in Halwa examined it and said this will require a much stronger priest.
- Its actual effects have not been recorded — worth pinning down.
- Context from Estelle: contact with a fallen servant of the Maker can leave a mark on the soul. Whether the abbot’s curse is that mark, or an ordinary malediction from a hostile undead, is unknown.
Why It Matters
Titus is Gnaeus’s man and has been with the party since Session 1. Beyond that: this is the first physical consequence the sanctum has inflicted on the party, and how it is cured tells them something about what they’re dealing with.
Theory: It's a soul-mark, not a curse
If Estelle is right that touching the divine leaves a mark, a “curse” from a man who touched it may be the same phenomenon secondhand — in which case a stronger priest may not be enough, and the party wants to know what happened to the abbot after his own encounter before letting anyone experiment on Titus.
Next Steps
-
Find a sufficiently powerful priest— Father Jamar, via Ismad (S6) -
Ask whether reporting the sanctum to the Church is unavoidable to get Titus healed— it wasn’t - Find out what Father Jamar was told, and by whom. Ismad managed that conversation
- Have someone look at Titus again. He was cured by the man who was handed the problem; nobody independent has checked
- The curse’s actual effects were never recorded and now probably never will be — note it as a gap in the party’s data on what a sanctum does to people
- Still worth asking Estelle about marks on the soul — she raised the concept unprompted, and it applies to Haroun whether or not it applied to Titus