Connects to: 02.04, 03.30, 13.10, 14.11, 19.31.07 and 29.14.35.
Lady Anghart was raised as the heiress of this rundown keep in the backwaters of Thring. In her childhood she had no eyes for the rotten wood and the mildewed tapestries of her home but only ears for the stories of the great men who had claimed the hand of her foremothers: bloody-handed villains, shining heroes, quick-witted peasants and even a renegade member of the Necromantic Office who somehow managed to sire an heiress. She swore that her husband would be her match in the saddle and at the board of a hundred worries and know all of her hidden desires without speaking a word.
Her father had other ideas. The werebears of Lochgate (13.10) were ever a nuisance with their demands that he send his peasants to build and rebuild their lodge each year and her father promised her hand to any warrior who prove himself able to defend the Keep of Dreanach against them. And so came Grimvlech the Smiler, down from some mist-soaked hamlet in the mountains (02.04), who brought down a great bear with nothing but his silver teeth.
But however great a fighter he was, Grimvlech could barely stay in a saddle, even when sober, did not know the laws of the hundred worries and cared nothing for Anghart’s desires. So, without ever renouncing her inheritance, Anghart disappeared and her far more tractable sister wed the Smiler.
It was not long before Anghart’s father died and Grimvlech ruled Dreanach until one stormy night when Anghart reappeared with a band of strange companions, stormed the keep and fed her brother in-law to a pair of carnivorous apes she had acquired from somewhere in the utter south. They are not all she has brought with her, she also has a strange staff studded with yellowed human teeth and bound with strange enchantments and a large supply of sex change potions that she had stolen from Isane the Beauty.
Thanks to those potions there is now a man worthy of Anghart: a tall blunt-faced Thringman with a hair style suspiciously-similar to her own. While doing her best to keep up the illusion that she has found herself a lover, Anghart has announced wedding plans and hopes to rule as Lord and Lady of Dreanach. Her sister is not pleased with this, but there is little that she can do her in tower cell.
Connections:
- Grimvlech the Smiler’s original teeth were lost in the Cornfields (03.30).
- Anghart is hopeing to settle the nearby Lornfields after her marriage (14.11).
Hooks:
- Who or what is “Dreanach?”
- How could a member of the Necromantic Office father a child? Aren’t they all eunuchs? Do I want to know?
- For that matter is Anghart planning on having a child with her “husband?” Is that even possible?
- Any other interesting former lords of Dreanach?
- What is the board of a hundred worries? Some kind of board game?
- Where did Anghard get carnivorous apes and her tooth-staff? Who are her companions? What adventures did she have in the south?
- How is she planning to keep people from figuring out that she’s marrying herself? What are Thringish wedding customs like anyway?
- How have the Lochgates reacted to all of this?
- It probably wasn’t wise to steal from Isane the Beauty, was it?
- As long as Anghart was gone for more than a year and a day, what she did was illegal (see the laws of Thring). Is anyone in a position to do anything about that without getting fed to her apes?
The Lord in Stone
The now-dead father of Lady Anghart of Dreanach (15.11) was a renegade member of the Necromantic Office (29.14.35), which is somewhat surprising as the castrati that staff the Office are not generally able to father children.
What happened is that some years past the brave Lord Poddred had his soul forced from his body by the necromancer who then moved into the Lord’s body and ruled in his stead. In order to keep Poddred’s soul from flitting about and being a bother, the necromancer imprisoned it in the horned statue of Baron Autumn (16.16.07) that stands in Castle Dreanach’s main hall. For years after the poor lord had to watch the usurper strut about in his body, embrace his wife and despoil his treasures.
The anger that burned in his story heart grew year by year and he prayed to the god that was closest at hand: Baron Autumn. The god, having a finely-developed sense of irony, judged that as the necromancer stole Poddred’s body it would only be fair that the Lord have the necromancer’s body.
So now Lord Poddred inhabits the dead original body of the necromancer that had been kept preserved in alcohol in case the necromancer ever had need of it. Its booze-soaked undead flesh even now beats at the thick glass walls that contain it and hairline fractures have begun to spiderweb out from where the fists ceaselessly strike.
Connection:
- -The Necromancer’s body is completely lacking in teeth (04.30), which is perhaps one of the reasons he upgraded to an improved model.
Hooks:
- -Not much is known about Baron Autumn. Do you have anything to add?
- -Who was the necromancer? Why did he turn renegade?
- -What will Poddred do when he gets loose?
- -What properties do booze zombies have?
