An unfinished castle on a bluff above Halwa — a 200-year-old monument to failed conquest, and not nearly as abandoned as it looks.
History
Kraus, a Morschatti noble, arrived ~200 years ago intending to subjugate Halwa and began building a castle. The locals waged a campaign of rebellion and eventually poisoned him — one of the very few times fractious Halwa ever united. The castle was never finished. (S4)
What the Party Found (S4)
Explored under cover of a herder’s report about refugee squatters — less than half a day’s hike from the city. A wisp of smoke was visible above it from the ship coming in.
- Unfinished construction, keep in significant disrepair — but several courtyard-facing doors well repaired and recent.
- Kitchen fireplace and cookware recently used; Ari judged the cooking was for one or two people at most.
- Second floor: a well-kept door to a lord’s chambers furnished in Morschatti or Averoign style; wardrobe accouterments for a tall nobleman and a noble lady (average-to-petite; comb with strands of black hair).
- Tower room beyond: Lindse, the lord’s servant girl, hiding.
- Three locked courtyard doors (Ari picked them):
- Storage — long-term food and basic supplies for a garrison
- (Harder lock) A magic circle on the floor: strong magic, neither evil nor good, Warp sphere, Logos magic, runes in Celestial
- Another storeroom — with a hidden doorway behind supplies, narrow stairs down to a dungeon, and something locked inside it
The party fled with Lindse when the dungeon’s occupant stopped cooperating with being killed. Full analysis: The Lord of Kraus’s Folly.
What Was Actually Going On (S5)
Per Madeline Foussard — the “creature,” now recovered and talking:
- She came here hunting Constanza Bethlen, following a rumour from Halwa, and met a tall, sandy-blond swordsman, likely of Averoigne — the best fighter she has ever seen. He captured her.
- He held her in that cellar for about six years (her count; the GM dates the capture to ~Spring 1732, so nearer seven) and performed a ritual on her: blood drained, new blood fed to her. She came out of it unkillable and hungry.
- So the cell was occupied from Spring 1732, and the “lord” has been using the Folly for at least seven years — well before Lindse was bought and shipped in, and fifteen months before the Order of the Owl expedition reached the Sanctum of Sethariel in Summer 1733. He was here first. (GM)
Status
The cellar is empty; Madeline is loose in Halwa and reformed. The lord is still unaccounted for, the warp circle is intact, and he now has a broken-open cell, a missing prisoner, and a missing servant. Nobody has established whether he knows. (S5)