Connects to: 18.07.
Before the elves sacked their hall, the Verlimes had a tall watchtower built here at the edge of the Kingswood. High atop it, a beacon fight was set so as to warn the Duke of the approach of any elven army. On the day that the elves came, that did precious little good for the beacon was never lit and the watchtower was thereafter abandoned to continue its watch over the trees alone.
Hooks:
- Does anything live in the watchtower these days?
Dungeons of the Iron Count
Hex 21.06.01
Connects to: 18.07.
The infamous Count Ota Verlime, known as the Iron Count, ordered construction of this doomed beacon not just to watch the Kingswood. He also chose it as the site of his secret prison. He made frequent trips to his beacon for news of the Kingswood and to interrogate prisoners. His suspicious nature was so strong that, after suspecting his half-orc torturer of passing secrets to the orcs of the Gray Mountains, he insisted on interviewing every prisoner personally. He extracted information from men, women, elves, dwarves and orcs about affairs within and without the realm. Over the years, he developed a theory involving a spy network of crystal balls controlled by elf sorcerers and factions within Shuttered. He became obsessed with proving his theory. He spent so much time in the prison, wracking his miserable captives with questions they could not answer, that his popular brother usurped him by doing little more than walking into his vacant throne room. Ota spent the rest of his life locked in his own dungeon.
The suffering of innocent prisoners created a psychic wound on the tower, which could be the reason its defenders lost heart at the sight of the elves. A coven of necromancers led by Hastra the Shunned uses a room deep in the ruin as a salon. They hold seances in which they burn essence of agony, an extract refined from suffering itself. The essence aids in drawing out tortured souls, and many sadomasochists find it quite soothing. Hastra leads the seances, seeking answers to lost secrets she may use to blackmail her way back into Shuttered. After dozens of seances, the coven has burned enough of the oil to darken the chamber’s walls.
The necromancers are careful to keep the door closed and sealed tight because they fear that the fumes will leak into the dungeon and animate the piles of bones strewn across the dungeon’s passageways. However, everyone in the coven is an outlaw somewhere. If they are discovered, they may take drastic measures to not get caught.
Hooks:
- Are there any shades of truth in Count Ota’s crystal ball theory? Which crystal balls did he suspect to be part of the conspiracy network?
- How does one refine suffering?
- Why was Hastra exiled from Shuttered, and why does she want back in?
- Are any necromancers in the coven associated with the Necromantic Office or Yaegha Six-Kidneys?
- Why are piles of bones strewn across the passageways?
