Castles & Crusades A Lion in the ...

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A L
ION
IN
THE
R
OPES
Author: Stephen Chenault
Editor: Mac Golden
Assistant Editor: Nicole Chenault
Cover Art: Jason Walton
Interior Art: Matt Lemmons, Jason Walton
Cartography: Mac Golden
Art Direction/Cover Design: Peter Bradley
Interior Design/Layout: Stephen Chenault
P.O. Box 251171, Little Rock, AR 72225
email: troll@trollord.com/Web site: www.trolllord.com
A Lion in the Ropes is Copyright © 2004 Troll Lord Games. All Rights Reserved. ©2004 Troll Lord
Games. All Rights Reserved. Castles & Crusades, C&C, Castle Keeper, Seige engine, The After Winter
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15 COPYRIGHT NOTICEOpen Game License v 1.0
Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
System Reference Document Copyright 2000, Wizards of
the Coast, Inc; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook,
Skip Williams, based on original material by E. Gary
Gygax and Dave Arneson.
A Lion in the Ropes Copyright 2000, Troll Lord Games.
Codex of Erde Copyright 2001, Troll Lord Games,
L.L.C.; Authors Stephen Chenault, Mac Golden, Davis
Chenault.
Castles & Crusades: Players Handbook Collector’s
Edition Copyright 2004, Troll Lord Games; Authors
Davis Chenault and Mac Golden.
Castles & Crusades: A Lion in the Ropes Copyright
2004, Troll Lord Games; Author Stephen Chenault.
Copyright © 2004 Troll Lord Games. All Rights
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2000 Jason Walton.
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Castles & Crusades
A K
NIGHT
U
PON
THE
G
REEN
travel however, between the other villages and the tower of
the aged Lord Galveston. Because the adventure involves
several discordant threads designed to challenge the players
and to mislead them, the Castle Keeper should thoroughly
read the module and familiarize him/herself with the mys-
tery.
All Maps are located on Pages 21 and 22.
“So this is Capendu? It is a beautiful village. It will make
a wonderful home for this tired, old soldier. I shall display
my Lion banner proudly so that all may know me. You
have been too good to me, Luther.”
“Tis not my land, noble Galveston, the mage lays some
claim to it, he suggested we give it to you. But I dare say,
he probably wants you on the border between the Twilight
Wood and his wondrous town of Freiburg.” The paladin
laughed quietly. “So do not thank me until the land here
serves you well.”
Galveston looked out over the rolling green hills of
Capendu. He sat quietly for awhile, musing on the peace
which stood in marked contrast to the horror of the great
battles recently fought upon the Toten Fields, far to the
east. There, he stood as a peer of the wondrous Council of
Light. He fought alongside St. Luther and Daladon. He
slew a giant at the feet of the Arch-Magi Aristobolus, and
saw the horror of battle without mercy. It had, though he
did not know it, ruined him for war forever more. “I’m tired
Luther, and look forward to days of peace.”
“And you will have it my friend, you will have it.”
So did Lord Galveston, Knight of Renown, friend of the
Council, and soldier settle and make his home in Capendu.
The villages of Capendu, Arles, Tres, Contru and Mortsa
welcomed him for the protection he brought and swore
allegiance to him. He ordered a tower built upon the banks
of the river Rolth, between the villages of Arles and Tres.
He called to the Bishop in Freiburg to send clerics and
architects. From his own stores of money, he built a large
cathedral in Capendu, “Four Saints,” and installed the
acolytes of Demeter there. And the lands knew peace and
prosperity.
At least for a time.
The Adventure
Lord Galveston’s lands are plagued by murders. For the
past several months, people have been disappearing. Some
bodies have turned up, their half-mutilated corpses found
along the banks of the river.
Strange tracks of a cat-like creature have been found
around the villages, and rumors abound that a Charon Fiend,
a dreaded beast of chaos, has come from the Twilight
Wood and settled in the area. The latest victim is the
Deacon of the Four Saints Church in Capendu. His body,
found torn and mangled in the river, sent the alarmed
villagers to the aged Lord Galveston for aid.
Galveston is 101 years old and grown feeble. He can
offer little aid outside of hiring mercenaries. This he does,
but in the meanwhile, he orders that no one may leave their
houses after dark and that all doors and shutters must be
locked.
The source of the murders actually resides in Four Saints
Church. The engineers who built Four Saints placed her
foundations on the already existing ruins of an older building
in Capendu, a prison from the days of the evil Empire of
Aufstrag. Many poor souls lost their lives in suffering and
pain in the pits of the prison’s dungeon. So great the
suffering in the pits that some stayed, even beyond death, in
tortured agony, searching for peace. These Orinsu (an
ancient word meaning “Lost Souls”), have recently mani-
fested themselves, haunting the Church and the surrounding
villages. Every seven to ten days the Orinsu rise from the
crypts, animate the bodies of the churches’ gargoyles, or
sometimes, even the saints rendered in stain glass, and
come forth into the darkness to kidnap and slay whomso-
ever they find.
The cat-like beast stalking the villages is actually a lion,
recently escaped from a traveling circus. He still wears a
large wooden collar, dragging the twin ropes that bound
him. The tracks of the ropes led the villagers to mistake it
for the dreaded Charon Fiend, an actual creature with the
body of a lion and a mane of coiled serpents.
To complicate the situation a bandit group has moved into
the region. Under the notorious half-ungern, Garrick
Orange-Hair, they seek plunder and booty.
When the Players enter the picture, the villagers and/or
Galveston attempt to enlist them to fight what they believe
A W
ARNING
TO
THE
C
URIOUS
Aye, stop with the prying! Stop the reading of this tomb
forthwith! Stop, unless of course, you are crafty enough to
spin the tale of this bold adventure, to mesmerize the
players at your own council, and to carry its several threads
to their proper conclusions.
U
SING
THIS
M
ODULE
“A Lion in the Ropes” is a mystery. The module is
designed for 4-8 characters of levels 2-4. A cleric would
be extremely helpful, as would a ranger or some character
with rudimentary tracking skills.
The adventure occurs in the lands of Lord Galveston,
largely within the village of Capendu, and specifically in and
around Four Saints Church. It requires some overland
3
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A Lion in the Ropes
is a Charon Fiend. The Players must first unravel the
mystery of the lion in the ropes, find the bodies of the six
Orinsu in the dungeon underneath the Church, and then
destroy them. To do so, they must overcome Orange-
Hair’s bandits and the animated gargoyles.
gambling houses sprang up as well, and eventually, skilled
craftsmen, armorers, weavers and others settled in the
area. In time, the small village of Kapund-Ua grew up
around the castle.
During the Winter Dark Wars, however, the legionnaires
neglected the castle and abandoned it. They fled north and
eventually across the straights of Ursal to disappear forever
into the east.
The villagers stayed. They tore down the castle, using its
stone for houses and walls. Upon discovering the dungeon,
they filled the entrance with dirt and timber and promptly
forgot about it. In doing so, they inadvertently created the
Orinsu which now haunt Capendu.
Within the dungeon, buried in circular pits, were six men
condemned to die. Forgotten by the legionnaires and never
found by the villagers, the dead failed to find the peace that
comes with burial or cremation. So their souls, racked with
the uncertainty of their own deaths, became lost, doomed to
haunt the regions underneath the ground and above it.
A
DVICE
FROM
A
T
IRED
C
ASTLE
K
EEPER
As its not much in my disposition to guide people (in the
game or out of it), I’m reluctant to include this section. But,
I do think a few words might help other Castle Keepers out
there. Read ‘em if you want, ignore ‘em where you will.
This mystery revolves around three separate actors. The
Orinsu, the escaped lion, and the bandit, Orange-Hair. To
track the movements of all three, the CK should create a
time line and allow the characters to weave in and out of it
in a chaotic, albeit, realistic manner.
To maintain the mystery of the adventure, you should
have the party spot the escaped lion in the shadows. By
stressing the tendril like ropes coiled around the beast’s
neck you could add more fuel to the fire of the mythical
Charon Fiend. Moreover, the lion’s tracks, ropes/tendrils
included, should be spotted occasionally so as to entice the
characters into thinking that the lion, and not the Orinsu, is
in fact the source of the murders.
The Orinsu are men whose souls were never given
proper release. The characters can end their terror by
either destroying them or by giving them a proper burial
(see In Dungeons, Dark Things Sleep, room 10
below). The second method will not be easy for the
players to envision, so help them out. Make certain the
party is aware of the importance of burying the dead.
Mention the cemetery in the village and while the party is in
room 9, The Catacombs, make reference to the impor-
tance of burying the dead held by the worshipers of
Demeter.
L
ORD
G
ALVESTON
AND
C
APENDU
Lord Galveston settled in Capendu in 1045md. His vast
stores of money, earned on campaign in the east during the
Winter Dark Wars, went far in building the local economy,
improving the roads, fortifying his tower, and constructing
Four Saints. In the immediate aftermath of the Winter
Dark Wars, traffic followed the Freiburg road through
Capendu and into the western Kingdoms. Galveston and
the five villages managed quite nicely. The only ale house
in the area, Marlowe’s Tavern, expanded from a dirt
floored building into a respectable two-story establishment
with rooms to let. The Church, Marlowe’s and a few of the
more respectable land-holders, managed to shingle their
roofs in the famous green ceramic tiles manufactured in
Freiburg. Galveston’s land and people knew peace and
prosperity, and his lion banner hung with pride over his
tower.
This prosperity did not last. Avignon, eight days north by
road, underwent its own renaissance. Within a few short
decades of the Empire’s fall, the commercial sea routes
expanded and the port of Avignon, centrally located be-
tween the lands of the east and west, became the natural
conduit for traffic. As the great city benefitted, Lord
Galveston’s lands suffered. The east-west trade route
shifted north by a hundred miles, and the Freiburg road
through the village of Capendu saw less and less traffic.
Lacking their main source of income, the villages began to
dwindle in size, and Lord Galveston grew in years. Young
sons and daughters left in search of work, south-east to
Freiburg or north-east to Avignon. The elders passed on,
their bodies laid to rest in the cemetery of Four Saints, the
C
ASTLE
K
APUND
Many years ago, when fell Aufstrag dominated the
sprawling snowy wastes of Erde, the village of Capendu
served as a border post upon the East-West Imperial Road.
The legionnaires built a squat border keep along the road,
not far from the Twilight Wood, to serve as both garrison
and prison. They called it Castle Kapund, after its first
commander. Beneath its stone walls the legionnaires
constructed a dungeon, wherein they kept all manner of
“criminals,” both innocent and guilty. Many goodly folk
found their last resting place in the dungeons of Castle
Kapund.
Eventually, merchants set up shop near Kapund to sell
their wares to the legionnaires. Taverns, brothels and
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4
Castles & Crusades
wealth of days gone by a distant memory. The smaller
villages of Contru and Morsa vanished almost without a
trace. The timber of their houses was pulled down and
used in the other villages, or fell into ruins and slowly rotted
away. Only the mound, upon which sat the Great Hall of
Morsa, can now be found. Only the very old can point out
its location.
Lord Galveston has reached the almost unheard of age of
101. He is old and tired. His back is so bent that he almost
faces the ground. He cannot walk without the assistance of
his four men-at-arms, his only company. He lives in the
tower and rarely ventures forth. Occasionally, some of the
elder villagers, those who remember the days of prosperity,
travel to Tower Galveston to sing to the elderly knight the
songs of his youth, or deliver him personal gifts. His once
great wealth has slowly withered away.
been killed. Fourteen people have died, and only seven
bodies have been found. Those corpses found have been
horribly mutilated and dumped into the river, so that presum-
ably, some of the missing drifted downstream with the
current. The villagers, simple farmers and craftsmen, are
terrified and unsure of what to do.
Obviously, Galveston’s age hinders him from intervening
in the villager’s affairs. He is aware of the murders, but
has little resources to aid his charges. His one effort
involved hiring several rangers to track the beast down.
Because this was before the lion entered the area, the
rangers found nothing. They refused the marks of gold and
left the region for adventure elsewhere.
A L
ION
IN
THE
R
OPES
Two weeks after the rangers left, a lion escaped from a
traveling circus which had passed through Capendu some
months previous and wandered into the region. Villagers in
Tres spotted the large beast moving along the banks of the
river. They fled when one of their number mistook the
remnants of the lion’s rope leash for moving tendrils on the
creature’s neck. Thus started the rumor of the dreaded
Charon Fiend.
The poor lion is a little tame and very hungry, and is
prowling about looking for stray dogs, chickens, or the
occasional goat. If the characters attack the lion it will
defend itself. Otherwise, it avoids human contact.
T
HE
M
YSTERY
OF
F
OUR
S
AINTS
C
HURCH
When Galveston arrived in Capendu he ordered the
Church built upon the mound of earth where the old castle
sat. Upon discovering the dungeon the architects walled off
the back rooms and added its foremost sections to the
designs of the Church, using the rooms for storage and
other mundane purposes.
Eventually, however, an acolyte tore loose some of the
stones of the dungeon wall, discovering the forgotten rooms.
The Curate decided that the new rooms could serve as a
burial catacomb for fallen clergy. (In 1051md the Conclave
of Bishops in Avignon ruled that all clergy must be buried,
not in the common cemetery, but rather within the walls of
the religious house wherein they served). This act of
consecrating the burial chamber created the Orinsu. Left to
die in the deep cold pits, unburied and forgotten, the souls of
the men hovered in a purgatory between life and death.
The spells of the clergy laying their own to rest wrenched
the souls back to the world of the living. Lost and in the
pain of terror, the unknowing Orinsu began to haunt the
church and villages, hunting for something, though they
knew not what.
For awhile they haunted the dungeon and the Church,
their poltergeists turning over chairs or snuffing out candles.
They soon learned, however, that they could posses things
and make them move. The roof-top gargoyles and the
stain-glass castings proved the perfect hosts for the raving
mad Orinsu. Then began their silent reign of terror, coming
out about once every five days (or at the Castle Keeper’s
discretion) to fly or crawl through the villages, hunting the
living in order to visit out the horror of their suffering.
The murders began several months before the party
arrives in Capendu. Every five to seven days a person has
O
F
G
HOSTS
AND
D
EACONS
Adelton, the deacon of Four Saints, sent to his masters in
Freiburg for aid. None was forthcoming. Not believing that
a Charon Fiend was responsible, Adelton took it upon
himself to unravel the mysteries of the murders. The
gargoyle/Orinsu slew him, carried his body to the top of the
church, tore at it for several days, and at last deposited it on
the banks of the Rolth River. The unfortunate incident left
six young acolytes to deal with the terror of the monster and
the fear of the villagers.
5
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