Up on the Mountain, After the Flood Session 6
Castle of Love
The party at level 2:
- Ama Ekström - Folklorist, Mage (Alchemy, Animism)
- Bugs - Mime, Rogue (Magic-Use: Technomancy)
- Nadine - Pilgrim, Priest of The Fates (Chronomancy, Divination)
- Vex Ire - Marine, Mage (Chronomancy, Shadowmancy)
The party arrives at the crumbled ruins of the Lovers' Castle without incident. One wing of the structure straddling the road remains somewhat intact and in the courtyard is a statue depicting Olibart and Issenda of the Legend of the Pierced Heart. But strangely this statue depicts the lovers turned away from each other, each figure missing a hand.
The party pushes inside the ruins. As they pass through a corridor a wall collapses revealing an ambush by small, humanoid creatures covered in rags and wielding saw-toothed cleavers which are easily dispatched. Further down the hallway the party finds a ruined shrine to the High One. There are 2 silver worth of offerings in coins scattered around, which Ama pockets. This will surely have no repercussions down the line.
The party encounters more groups of rag-covered humanoids through ruins, as well as the ghost of Ovilia, wife of Baron Amortis. She says that the Baron was also in a relationship with Emersenda, a woman from the town of Star's Cross, but Ovilia knew about that and was fine with it. Ovilia does not know where Amortis is, but suspects he may be in Star's Cross.
The party continues exploring the ruins, finding:
- the two missing statue hands
- a shrine to Death's daughters, four statues each with silver pieces over their eyes. Ama doesn't touch those ones
- An aggressive blood ooze
- A vat of bodies and blood, connected to alchemical equipment connected to a vial of what is determined to be some kind of resurrection juice - will bring someone back from the dead, but with a fey's iron vulnerability
- A bizarre effigy of Issenda, her heart pierced, made out of scraps and rags. Her eyes are mismatched jewels and her heart has the eight-pointed star of Abbadon engraved on it. No one wants to touch that.
- A note to the effect that Baron Amortis acknowledged a sword recently discovered in the Mountains of the Pierced Heart could be Olibart's from the legend and that he consented to send it back to Castle Valorous on Banner Lake.
With the hands returned to the statue, the two figures once again embrace and a compartment opens revealing enchanted inks. Ovilia's ghost also disappears, leaving in its place a magic locket that allows the owner to spend Health to heal someone else's Damage.
The ruins of the Lovers' Castle are quiet, for now. The party decides to head to Star's Cross to look for Baron Amortis.
The little rag guys are based off of the vulgar militia in Elden Ring, I loved the idea of using them as a faction in a TTRPG and I think they worked well even if they never really troubled the party except for a nasty crit on Ama (which in this case caused a slight Health reduction and debuff) - it turns out the extra 1d6 of Bonus Damage Nadine gets as a level 2 Priest is really good at this tier.
This was my first time really using a premade dungeon map I'd picked up in a pack somewhere. I generally don't have much use for these despite having quite a library of them. The layouts are usually too dungeon-y - long winding corridors, no real correlation to functional architecture - so it's very rare that I can make one fit. But in this instance, for tumbled-down castle ruins, I thought this one worked well here. The logistics of the campaign mean I should be prepared to use other premade maps as necessary.