Cursed walker, will you travel there? To the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead?
Our young ones are taken by the child-thief, Tergol, known for his vile crimes and alchemy of flesh. Distances shift, paths between places warp—as if this pale, lightless world possessed a will and bitter life, its mercy curdled to wrath over a too-long age. No one has seen the sun in years; the old care more for sacrifice and god-offerings than their bawling spawn. Doomsayers are proved right time and again, and embraced by hidden powers.
Who are you? The grave robber with silver glittering between cracked fingernails? The mystic who would bend the world’s miserable heart away from its inevitable end? Most likely, it makes little difference. Maybe it’s best to surrender, before all is drowned in welcome silence.
Life locked and failing in a DARK FORT.
WHAT WAS WRITTEN MUST BE KNOWN
I.
Anuk Schleger, monk of the Creton order, encountered the basilisk Verhu in the year 565 and set down that creature’s whispered prophecies. These lost texts came to be known as the Nameless Scriptures. 300 years later, while working on a new Cathedral, The Two-Headed Basilisks, an orthodox branch of the Creton order, uncovered Schleger's tomb and with it the Scriptures. Since then all events described within have come to pass. The prophecies are absolutely, factually true and have, thus, supplanted all other Scripture. Around this cathedral has grown Galgenbeck, the greatest city that ever was.
II.
The basilisks are two and two-headed. The four heads have argued for hundreds of years. Verhu predicts inexorable annihilation and, since he’s always right, has become utterly full of himself. His is also the head worshipped most. If you could learn the codes of the apocalypse perhaps the right offerings might avert it? Verhu loves his position and hungers for temples to be raised in his name.
III.
When the world was but water, dust and clouds, thick with plague-fat flies, came SHE, first of the basilisks. From the cracks of Bergen Chrypt SHE crawled. SHE bears the head of Denial, Lusi, who looks up and down. Yet all shall be well. Her twin Arkh, Head of Deception, claims to be the first prophet of truths now prostituted by Verhu. Few have ever seen her, the oldest, but many walk her twin paths. SHE spawned many since the dawn of time, their conceptions not without agony. All were cast down the cliffs of Bergen Chrypt, only HE survived. Down in the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead, his eyes locked upon the mountain’s peak, he spits out curses upon his evil mother. The head Gorgh is bitter, rank with envy that only his twin Verhu knows the damned truth. Time and time again his prophecies are brought to be. The piles of gold-gift riches from his faithful teeter and slide, so tall are they.
IV.
The world dies even now. Reality decays, truth becomes dream and dream, truth. Cracks grow in the once-stable structures of the past, allowing things misshapen and vile to worm through, emerging into day’s wan light. The world closes in, bounded to the west by the massive Bergen Chrypt with its catacombs and ice-caked peaks, and surrounded by the Endless Sea to the north, south and east. Many have ploughed the wave’s furrow in search of new lands. They all return, against their will. Alive or dead. One day all will blacken and burn. Just as the Two-Headed Basilisks have predicted. The world is dying, time is short. How will you face these last days? Robbing graves for soil-stained wealth, or facing down the apocalypse, hoping it can be fought?
THE WESTERN KINGDOM
The Western Kingdom, called Wästland in the songs of the simple and rhymes of the poor, once home to peace and wealth when Lake Onda gifted fish and the river-trade thrived. Now, terror and despotism stalk. In the secret citadel of the sad-but-gaudy city of Schleswig, King Fathmu IX schemes. Paranoid, fat and increasingly mad, he is consumed with psychosis and invisible fears. Obsessed with the prophecies of Verhu, the King raids and invades houses and villages, barns and temples. Nowhere and no one is safe, especially the poor. Taxed into starvation, the contents of their larders and storehouses are carted off by Fathmu’s men.
TÜNSTAL
Our tale begins in the eastern-most marshes of Wästland, north-east of Lake Onda, in the village of Tünstal, a dying agricultural community.
There, Lord Margar and his companions have just recently entombed his deceased aunt, the Lady Marathuk, in the crumbling family mausoleum, on the grounds of their now-destroyed manor, recently besieged by the heavily armed thugs of the tyrant King Fathmu IX, who plundered almost everything they owned, carting off their goods to Schleswig, though not before razing the manor to the ground with concentrated artillery fire, and leaving Margar and his aunt to fend for themselves among the ruins. She didn't last long. Now Margar is all that remains of his family's noble lineage.
In her Will, Lady Marathuk bequeathed the entire estate to her nephew and only heir, Margar, but alas, there is nothing left to inherit — thanks to King Fathmu — save for one thing: her dying wish!
The gloomy village of Tünstal, which the former manor once overlooked, squats a stone's throw from the ruined and long-abandoned Chapel of St. Olundan, near the wretched marsh that oozes from the eastern shores of Wästland — known as the Tragic Lands — into the Endless Sea beyond. Someone or something rotten lurks within the ruins of St. Olundan's, and Aunt Marathuk knew this, for her greatest heirloom — the Staff of Awful Light — was stolen, years before, and carried off to the chapel's sunken crypt. So she believed.
Though Lady Marathuk once offered great reward to any villager willing to enter the chapel and return the Staff to her, none have ever accepted, for fear of what is rumoured to lurk within! The villagers speak of strange screams heard echoing from the chapel's ruins in the dark of night, and whispered legends still circulate of the events concerning the sudden and violent closure of Mikol’s Infirmary — a hospital in the city of Galgenbeck, in neighbouring Tveland — in which, it is said, twisted experiments were conducted in bygone years. Some whisper of the cruel punishments — by the hands of the Inquisition of the Two-Headed Basilisks — inflicted upon those who worked in the infirmary. Others whisper of the peculiar sightings of those who supposedly survived said punishments, who some say fled southward on the backs of swift black horses, leaving behind open graves.
And yet, without the presence of the Staff, the village of Tünstal is surely doomed: for the powers contained within the Staff are all that keep Tünstal safe from the coming Miseries that herald the world's inevitable demise, as foretold by the Nameless Scriptures. Aunt Marathuk's dying wish is that the Staff must be retrieved from the chapel and returned to the village, before what is left of Tünstal is entirely engulfed by the ever-growing darkness! As the sky blackens and a strange mist rises from the cracked earth, Lord Margar realises time is short. He must head into the chapel, find the staff, and be quick about it!
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
- Lord Margar
A lazy, substance-abusing noble. Recently lost an eye when attacked by his own heirloom sword, who despises him utterly, though Margar claims the eye was lost in a heroic battle. Lost his ancestral estate at the decree of King Fathmu IX, and is now the last of his line. Has a strange habit of whistling loudly whenever he tries to hide, which he denies. Takes orders from a talking horse who is more intelligent than him. In fact, he has a weird general affinity for talking with animals.
- Fechr
An aggressive and highly defensive yet giggling deserter from King Fathmu's army. Abandoned his regiment after suffering an incurable, cursed wound. Proud owner of a magic horseshoe he found in a crypt, which he believes came off Death's horse. Keeps company with a small but equally aggressive dog. Finds Lord Margar's gang of misfits more tolerable than the King's army. For now...
- Giant Dances the Sea
A strange, staring, giggling creature that hatched out of an egg Lord Margar found in the swamps. Lord Margar keeps it as a sort of curiosity, and cheap source of food, for its ability to summon mysterious meals out of nowhere is quite useful for survival. But can it really be trusted? Where did it come from? Who or what does it really serve?
- Malaiz
A fat, suspicious hermit, originally from the cliff of Terion near Grift (though he has forgotten this, due to inexplicable amnesia) has wandered into Margar's company. Obsessively collects sharp stones for reasons unclear. Was stabbed once (he remembers not why), but a tiny steel shard is still embedded in his flesh, moving ever closer toward his heart...each day could be his last. Has a pet cat who follows him around. A practitioner of arcane arts, he can summon spells from thin air.
- Grin
A bitter, lazy and forgetful priest of some highly unorthodox faith (though Grin has likely forgotten its rites). Fleeing persecution from the Inquisition of the Two-Headed Basilisks in Galgenbeck, Grin has wandered south into Wästland and joined Lord Magar's company. Provides spiritual "guidance" to the group...whether they like it or not. Keeps a monkey as a loyal disciple.
- Prügl
A wholly boring, yet highly eccentric bard with an extremely competitive streak, his cracking bones alarm all who hear him pass by, yet the ghastly sounds he performs on his lute disturb the minds of his companions all the more. Claims he comes from frozen Kergüs in the far north of the world. In which case, he's travelled a long way to join Lord Margar's band, down here in the southern swamps of Wästland. Attempts to entertain the group with his tunes...not always appreciated. Made a pact with a strange power in exchange for survival...might be something to do with the weird cult he's fled.
ACT I: SCENE I
A ruined chapel in a withered rural landscape, on the shores of a slimy marsh, stretching out for miles beyond. Wind howls through its broken windows. Strange mists rise from the earth round about. Hammering rain blankets all, beneath a grey, sunless sky. The chapel's arched doorway yawns before you...
- Everyone state your actions!
