The Ghost Tower | The Devil's Tooth | The Thatched Tavern | Chalice of the Blazing Sun | Ruin of Saltern Priory
Welcome to the Sunday Supplement, Raging Swan Press’s weekly email for GMs. This week, we have one free download, one piece of legendry, one piece of lore and three miscellaneous campaign components for your game.
Should we develop any of these idea further? Comment below.
01: Sunken Fane of the Drowning Sisters at a Glance
Download
Serat the Storm Mistress is an ancient goddess, as old, capricious and unpredictable as the sea. Some worship her openly in the modern fashion; others, like the Drowning Sisters, cleave to older, more bloodthirsty practices and appease her with living sacrifices. In Languard, terrible deeds are wrought in the hidden and secret sunken fane below the old and rundown Chapel of the Sea’s Bounty.
Set in Languard’s Fishshambles district, this week’s Languard Backdrop provides you with the tools necessary to tangle up your characters with the doings of a heretical cult of the Storm Mistress. But will the characters slay a coven of old women out of hand, or will mercy stay their hands?
02: The Ghost Tower
Ashlarian Legendry (Adventure Locale)
The Shard is one of the most well-known parts of Gloamhold. Visible from Languard’s battlemented walls, the great ruin soars high above the ruined village of Greystone huddling far below. Neophyte adventurers—not ready for the terrors lurking in Gloamhold’s outer halls—often dare the Shard’s ruins in search of easy victories and gold.
However, persistent rumours speak of otherworldly portions of the tower that defy rational explanation or description. They speak of a so-called Ghost Tower accessible by adventurers clever enough to decipher a fiendishly complex puzzle buried far below the Shard’s ruins in a hidden, savagely trapped cellar. Old adventurer’s lore speaks of a band of adventurers who claimed to have discovered and deciphered one of the puzzles—an incredibly complicated and breathtakingly detailed mosaic of stars—in a cavernous vaulted chamber protected by merciless sentient magical traps. Since their success decades ago, no one is known to have replicated their feat, and the survivors of the expedition seemed reticent to discuss what they encountered inside the Ghost Tower.
For those who cannot find or decipher the puzzle, all is not lost. Sometimes the Ghost Tower's fuzzy, transparent outline, overlaid over (and soaring high above) the Shard, is visible at the height of the savage annual winter storms that lash the Mottled Spire. Local legends have it that at the height of the fiercest winter storms, when vicious winds tear at the ruins, bolts of lightning blast the surrounding rock and driving rain buffets the tower, the barriers between this world and the other weaken. For a brief time, brave adventurers can enter the tower, but they must explore quickly, for when the storm dies, the barriers warding the tower strengthen again, trapping anyone who yet linger within.
What otherworldly terrors lurk within this Ghost Tower is a matter of wild conjecture. However, the Ghost Tower has other colourful names, including the Tower Unseen, the Ephemeral Spire and the Citadel of the Wraith Kings. The last of these names perhaps hints at what lurks within...
See Also: Gloamhold.
03: THe Devil’s Tooth
Ashlarian Lore (Island)
This jagged spire of rock curves upwards from the roiling sea in a shape reminiscent of a huge fang. Standing deep in the Mottled Spire’s shadow, seabirds of fearsome size and ill aspect dwell upon the rock in profusion. Legends tell of an imprisoned devil trapped atop the Tooth; because of its isolated position in the far north-west of the bay, and its fell reputation, few sail within bowshot of this sinister rock to ascertain the truth of these rumours.
A strangely-shaped rock formation at the Tooth’s zenith is vaguely suggestive of a weather-worn ruin of great antiquity. Old mariner’s tales identify the place as a monastery or temple to some forgotten sea god, demon or other power. No records of such a place exist in Ashlar’s archives, and so its origins remain a mystery.
The few folk to attempt a landing on Devil’s Tooth report being stymied by the aggressive seabirds nesting on the rock’s flanks and the notoriously hard-to-climb spray-drenched overhanging cliffs. The climb is widely thought to be all but impossible for anyone without magical aid.
04: The Thatched Tavern
Campaign Component (Tavern)
Famed for the multitude of birds roosting in its roof, for the fecundity of its kitchen garden and the quality of its provender, the Thatched Tavern is a renowned landmark. Primarily of wood construction, the Thatched Tavern is a long and low building whose eaves droop almost down to touch the ground. A deeply dug root cellar lies under the tavern, which boasts two taprooms, seven private rooms, stables and a barn.
Standing slightly apart from a farming hamlet, the Thatched Tavern mostly caters to travellers, although locals can often be found in one of its two snug taprooms.
Risto Kallas runs the tavern along with his true love, Martta. Risto was a neophyte druid when he came upon Martta in the woods. Instantly smitten, he quickly gave up his love of nature for his love of Martta. They built the tavern together in a beautiful clearing at the edge of the forest and have lived happily together ever since.
Risto still loves the woods and often goes rambling. He knows many secret places—old ruins, abandoned mines, old cairns and the like. Sometimes he takes curious guests into the woods to spy deer, bears and even wolves.
05: The CHalice of the Blazing Sun
Campaign Component (Wondrous Item)
Wrought of the finest platinum, studded with rubies and diamonds and embellished with gorgeous engravings of the radiant rising sun, the Chalice of the Blazing Sun is a breathtaking piece of art. It is of incalculable value, even before its impressive magical powers are taken into account.
Dedicated to Darlen (LG greater god of law, order, justice and the sun), the Justicar, the Chalice of the Blazing Sun possesses great powers of healing and succour. Holy water poured into the chalice can be imbued with magical healing enchantments, and water thus treated can heal all but the most grievous wounds, cure disease, neutralise poison, remove curses and so on. Some believe the chalice has the power to return the faithful to life.
Invoking the chalice’s powers requires a devout follower of Darlen to perform a ten-minute ritual of worship in a location consecrated to his worship. To gain the benefits of the chalice’s powers, water poured forth must be drunk within ten minutes, unless it is instead poured into a specially crafted and blessed crystal vial.
The chalice’s powers are not unlimited, though, and must be recharged through a lengthy holy ritual involving prayer, fasting and bathing the chalice in the rays of the rising sun.
06: Ruin of Saltern Priory
Campaign Component (Adventure Locale)
Standing on a narrow, be-cliffed sliver of land thrust out into the Bitter Sea, the ruin of Saltern Priory is a forlorn, wind-battered place.
Dedicated to Serat, Mistress of Storms, the priory was once a bustling, prosperous house of worship. Extensive sea caves riddle the headland below the priory. The priory’s faithful used the caves for holy worship and communion with their unpredictable goddess. They also harvested the sea’s most plentiful resource—salt—therein boiling off the water in great pans of iron, ceramic, and even lead.
Despite its wealth, however, the priority was abruptly abandoned 60 years ago after some scandal or another—its exact details depend on who relates the tale. (Most such stories involve some combination of a treacherous prioress, a schism in the priesthood, a giant, luminescent pearl, and nefarious doings of a blasphemous or unwholesome nature.)
For a while, a small community of fisherfolk used the increasingly dilapidated and ruined priory as their home. Eventually, they, too, left, tiring of the miasma of isolation and hardship hanging over the priory. In their wake, they left nothing but piles of fish bones and a ramshackle shanty village built amid the ruin.
The few fisherfolk and sailors to come close to the place now report ghostly, devil-fires burning amid the ruins at night, and strange sounds of a most unwholesome nature drifting across the water. No sane fisherfolk come within a bowshot of the ruins, and not even the bravest of them come ashore to explore the crumbling ruins.
In truth, the ruins are not as abandoned as they appear. A gang of smugglers and blackguards lair therein, making the most of the place’s haunted reputation to carry on their illicit doings with impunity. They have also found the old priory’s crypts, but thus far, the magical portal guarding the crypts has defied their attempts to gain entry. That is just as well, for a pack of ravenous ghouls—insane worshippers of Ukre’kon’ala lurk within…
Hat tip to Richard Green for Ukre’kon’ala. Who (or what) is Ukre’kon’ala? Find out next week!
Ashlarian (proper noun) of Ashlar; Campaign (noun) a connected series of adventures; Component (noun) a constituent part; Legendry (noun) a collection or body of legends; Lore (noun) knowledge and stories about a subject
Thank you for reading the Sunday Supplement; I hope some of the above material makes it into your game or sparks your creativity.
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