Maure Castle: Seltaren

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About the Saga

The Blackrazors retreat from Maure Castle to the city of Seltaren in the Duchy of Urnst, where they hope to sell much of their accumulated loot, and learn more about the ruins and the cults that once dominated them.

Timeframe

Cast of Characters

Notable Quotes

No quotes are available.

What Has Come Before

The Blackrazors and their newly discovered allies have defeated (at least temporarily) the mad ghost of a long dead wizard. They return to their home base to discover that two of their number, earlier presumed dead, are in fact only mostly dead. Eying their plunder, they decide that a tactical retreat from the dungeon would be prudent, and discuss teleporting to Seltaren, the former capital of the Duchy of Urnst. There they plan to send some of their wizarding types to speak with the esteemed leaders of the Wizardholme chapter house in the city while simultaneously hoping to find someone willing to purchase their ill-gotten gains.

The Saga

Sunsebb 1, 591

Master of Portals, Master of Life

The Blackrazor Guild’s new Master of Delvers, Jakob Dworkin, has returned from an expedition to the ruins of Brantis Hold where he learned that the dungeon there had recently been visited within the last few months. Worse still, a false wall had been found and destroyed, revealing a hidden vault and (it’s feared) the lich Brantis’ phylactery).

Alarmed by this, the slaughter of the Blackrazor Redshirts outside of Maure Castle, and George’s discovery of a possible portal to Necros in Maure Castle, he confronted Malphas and demanded to be sent into the field as soon as possible … and to secure help from a new adventuring group George had alerted him to: Order of the Final Rest.

He immediately seeks out the group’s leader, Andulf Truedeath and appraises him of the situation. He explained his fears of Brantis’ phylactery having been recovered, and the possibility that followers of Nerull may already be active around Maure Castle.

He teleports Andulf to Maure Castle (to the same rise that Sven went to) and then lead him to the Unopenable Doors (which he can open using his Bronze Key of Portals).

Retreat from Maure Castle

Jakob and Anulf Truedeath teleport to Maure Castle and brief the Blackrazors there on the events at Brantis Hold. Scrawl “Scrappy Lives” on the wall, then teleport to Seltaren in the Duchy of Urnst searching for knowledge and markets.

Travel to the Brewing Bench Inn, a fine inn where brew masters sit along side adventurers in drinking beer. Jakob secures rooms through the end of the month using guild funds.

Examining the tapestries that they looted. Look at the shadowy tapestry in a dark area, and discover symbols representing the somatic components for -- shadow conjuration (Wiz4), project image (Wiz7), shadow walk (Wiz6), shadow evocation (Wiz5).

Dividing the magical loot, Scrappy takes the Heward's Handy Haversack, Andulf takes +2 Heavy Steel Shield, Hogarth takes Gauntlets of Ogre Power.

The party sells their tapestries and a few other art items, yielding six shares of 3,380 gp. The platinum Seeker payroll was divided, yielding six shares of 142 platinum pieces.

Jarrean Truesight of the Wizardholme

The adventurers speak with Jarrean Truesight of the Wizardholme of Seltaren (referenced in Oerth Journal 3 in the article "Sorcerous Societies of the Flanaess"), who gives them a variety of information about the about Maure Castle and the cults with in:

  • The scions of House Maure did not die so much as retreat – while the Castle fell into ruin, the continued to live on in dungeons beneath it, where they conducted increasingly bizarre magical experiments.
  • Reports gleaned from Mordikanean’s expedition to Maure Castle 20 years ago reveals that at least four cults once operated there:
    • The Cult of Silver Dreams: Dedicated to exploring the most dangerous aspects of the astral plane.
    • The Cult of the Purple Stone: which worshiped, of all things, a purple stone said to have knowledge no man (or woman) was meant to know.
    • The Cult of the Long Shadow: powerful shadowmancers obsessed with the Plane of Shadow.
    • The Cult of Malchanthet: A debauched group worshiping the queen of succubi
  • Powerful artifacts relating to all of these groups remain in Maure Castle, though not all are apparent.
  • Two known items are:
    • The Sword of the Ebon Flame – an exceedingly powerful longsword writhed in black flames
    • The Whip of Red Shadows – a whip capable of ripping a man’s shadow from his body.
  • A powerful army of undead lurks on the dungeon’s lowest level, fighting an unending war against an even greater horror from before the birth of the gods.

With regards to the Cult of the Long Shadow, the wizard heard of its fabled vault, but only has scraps of information regarding it. He believes, based on his own divinations and research, that the Cult – indeed all of the Cults – had residences on the second floor of the dungeon, and that the Long Shadow had some sort of lair in one of the corners.

He found a few scraps of journal allegedly taken from the castle and sold by looters, which reads:

Summon the Spawn of Night, so they may embrace you.

Confront Your Shadow, so that you may know it.

Walk in the Darkness, for the true path is hidden.

Evoke the Twilight, bath in the sublime.

Discern that they can buy the spells they need to unlock the Shadow Vault … but determine it’ll cost 5,655 to buy the necessary spells, which split six ways among the adventurer is 942 gp. It will take a week (Sunsebb 5) to find or scribe the needed scrolls.

Meeting with the Silver Cloaks

Scrappy agrees scour the city for buyers of magic items. “Scrappy’s wearing his dwarven casual armor”. Finds two – a buyer for the Silvercloaks, and a Tenha lord ... they decided to meet with the leader of the SilvercLoaks at The Imperium, a high end restaurant where most of them are decidedly out of place. They are insulted by the matre’d, whom they eventually intimidate into demanding they be admitted.

There, they meet with Sir Tomas Dellin, leader of the Silvercloaks and a distant relation to Duke Dellin of Urnst. He agrees to pay them market value for the swords, armor and amulets they were looking to sell, as well as a few other miscellaneous magical items. They agree to meet the next day to carry out the exchange.

After the meeting concludes, and everyone leaves, Hogarth returns and demands entry to the Imperium and to speak with its owner. The matre’d tells him to go eat out of the sewers. The Blackrazor tries to intimidate his way past the door, but the matra’d summons two impressive-looking, mithril-chain wearing bouncers, who demand Hogarth leaves. He reluctantly does so. Once back at the Brewing Bench Inn, he charges the rouge Gaiseric with hunting down the owner of the inn.

Sunsebb 2, 591

The following day, the Blackrazors meet with Sir Tomas, who is true to his word and pays them handsomely for their magical treasures. The fortune is worth 46,530 gp, and most of the Blackrazors choose to leave their new found coin in the Royal Bank of Seltaren. Fonteyn and Scrappy are left behind in the city, while Charybdis decides she is done with adventuring in the castle, and leaves the group. Sven Kildare also takes his leave of the group, but agrees to stay in the city for a while longer.

Sunsebb 5, 591

Newly scribed scrolls in hand, Jakob, Ian, Thorin, Hogarth, Rex, Anulf and Alister teleport back to the environs of Maure Castle. The party forms up on the top of the hill, and attracts the attention of the blood ambiotes who swarm them, but are destroyed by Anulf’s divine will.

Then turn their attention to Maure Castle, returning to the second level. Find room with roiling smoke. Anulf enters, moving slowly into the smoke, leading his way with a pole, with daylight up, but still obscured by mist. Suddenly, he’s attacked by a creature of darkness; Ian tries to help and is attacked by his own. Another attacks Hogarth

Anulf tries to turn the shadow, but fails, then casts a cure spell, which drives the creature. Jakob drives one away by cast heal on Ian. They all re-attach, but Jakob is able to drive them all back by casting mass cure light wounds. The fight proceeds with the party casting heals to drive off or damage the creatures, and occasionally landing blows from magical weapons. On one memorable round, Thorin attacks and misses the slow shadow, hitting Anulf instead. Finally manage to destroy the creatures, but the black smoke remains. Alister determines that dispel magic will not drive it off, because the power comes from the taint of the Cult of the Long Shadow.

Experience

13th level characters received 1788 xp; 12th level characters received 2400 xp.