Another week in #lore24.

Kiril

Kiril is a lordling from one of the villages north of Penca. Nobody knows exactly where he comes from but he is obviously a lord, complete with an armed retinue.

He has had some success protecting the villages from the orc patrols that have been growing more and more present since last summer, and he has growing power and influence in Penca.

He is also secretely a werewolf, one of the children of Marta. He left her last year after she had proven unable to protect the pack.

He is ambitious, devious and, at least for now, quite successful.

Dalinos’ Castle

Dalinos’ castle has been built around a very old pyramid, near the juction of the main rivers in the west.

The castle has been abandoned and ruined for centuries, its walls now barely above ground. On the other hand the ground inside the castle has been sinking, as if the pyramid was burning or dissolving it somehow.

The top stone of the pyramid was a block of pure gold, with protective spells engraved in the stones below. this changed when adventurers decided to get the gold and destroy the spells without understanding what they were for. The ancient evil that was imprisoned in the pyramid immediately left and headed south.

Of course, there is no reason to think this has anything to do with the plague that has been ravaging the region around Darkhold for months. I mean, nobody ever proved anything.

The Museum

The dungeons under Dalinos’ castle have been abandoned, re-occupied and repurposed several times.

It last was a magic school centuries ago. The school itself and its denizens disappeared a long time ago, but the school museum is still there. Among its marvels, a pool that serves as a one-way gate to the Moon.

The museum also still has a few mobile treasures. Among them, a large stone slab inscribed with rare spells (well, this one is not exactly mobile) and part of the blade of King Halav’s sword.

These treasures are protected by a magical guardian, summoned by the last museum curator centuries ago. The creature is bound by its contract to guard the museum and its contents. It wields quite powerful magic itself, and it can use a pair of bronze golems if needed.

It has also gone a little weird after centuries with nobody to talk to. Well, not really weird, more like completely bonkers.

Timor’s Trading Post

The old royal road runs west of river Volaga from the sea to the Confluence Lake then north along river Waterolde into the mountains.

A side road used to cross the rivers Waterolde and Shutturga north of the lake, to Halavos then Penca. The bridge on the Shutturga has collapsed a century ago, not long after the city of Halavos was abandoned. There have been at least two attempts at rebuilding it since, none of them successful.

Nowadays, traveling between Penca and the road involves crossing the lake by boat. The main pier by the road lies by Timor’s inn and trading post.

Timor runs the place with his wife, three daughters and four employees. Among these four, Dan is also a boatman, transporting people and goods from and to the town.

Among the regulars are the brothers Gar and Gor who live in a shack nearby, Constantin, a guide who can find his way anywhere in the area, and Tomescu, a logger that sometimes doubles as a bandit.

The Tropical Island

There is an island on river Waterolde, some distance downstream from Threshold, covered with strange trees not found anywhere else in the area. The place is always quite wet, but warmer than the surroundings.

On this island is a rocky mound with a cave entrance. This leads to a large underground cave with a rough altar. If you enter this cave at the right time, you may glimpse a translucent, ghostly figure kneeling in front of the altar.

Beyond the cave is an exit to a place that is definitely not the island. A small path leads down the rocky hillside to a dense forest. The place is damp and hot, and the calls of strange birds and beasts fill the air. A step pyramid can be seen in the distance above the trees.

Dona Sorelev

Dona Sorelev is the lead priestess of the Church of the Immortals (that the imperials call the Church of Traladara) in Penca.

With the recent power vacuum left by the retreat of the imperial legions, she has thrown her lot with the traladaran separatists against the new archduke. She has spent most of the last year meeting with the leaders of the various traladaran factions and trying to unite them.

She is wary of Kiril, even though his faction seems to be gaining the upper hand in the region around Penca. She barely knows him and shes is not even sure why she distrusts him, but she does.

Mika Dimitrescu

Alec Dimitrescu is the current master of the guilds in Penca. He has a fifteen-year-old son, Mika, who is currently as angry with his father as fifteen-year-olds can be.

Dona Sorelev has been quietly watching him for years and reporting to the Grand Mother of her order. The few times she has been caught, she explained it as keeping tabs on the families of important people, as all sane religious leaders do. It is probably true, but is it the whole truth?