Mordenkult
Mordenkult is the most infamous tavern in Hemlock Hollow; it is regarded as the birthplace of “black skaldism,” music best described as morbid, dark, and misanthropic.
• The bards who perform black skaldism music for the entertainment of rough crowds at Mordenkult paint their faces with stark black and white pigments to give themselves a startling, demonic appearance.
• Some alarmists claim that black skaldism is corrupting and encourages blasphemy, arson, diabolism, and murder.
• The tavern has several private rooms that can be rented on an hourly basis; these rooms are enchanted to make them safe against scrying and other forms of divination magic.
The Rackrend Estate
The Rackrend family are decrepit necromancers who own a crumbling ancestral estate on the outskirts of Hemlock Hollow.
• The house sits at the base of a brackish tarn, its foundations cracked and the land around it is choked with black weeds.
• The remaining members of the Rackrend family have inherited a familial duty to maintain the magical wards keeping a “sleeping” woman imprisoned within a glass coffin in the tombs that lie under their manor house.
• As part of the ritual necessary to keep the woman incarcerated within her glass coffin, the Rackrends wear black garb decorated with the yellowed remnants of ancient bones and don gilded, skull-like masks.
Streghastra Road
Streghastra Road cuts through the Kressig Woods to the south of Hemlock Hollow and ends at the northern gates of Creedhall.
• The road is haunted by a fiend known as Black Samael, who takes the form of a massive goat with jet-black fur, fearsome curling horns, and eyes that smolder with infernal flame.
• Black Samael has an especial taste for the flesh and blood of priests, clerics, and other devout followers of the Church.
