The Vulture

The version of Vulture House I posted here is very much a fey/Baba Yaga riff, but recently I've been thinking...what if it was a riverboat instead? Krevborna already has lots of fucked-up houses, but fucked-up riverboats are thin on the water. Plus, a riverboat fits the "Gothic Western" thing that the Vespermark has going on. 

The Vulture

The Vulture is a riverboat that travels the waterways of the Vespermark. It only docks in one place long enough to lure hapless travelers and “guests” into the perpetual fey masquerade ball that rages onboard. Visitors seldom leave alive.

    • The Vulture appears to be a luxuriously appointed riverboat; once inside, visitors discover that it features uncountable rooms that defy the ship’s outward dimensions. 

    • The boat is the site of a luxurious and never-ending masquerade ball presided over by Lady Devanya, an imperious and mercurial fey noble of the Summer Court.

    • Lady Devanya’s ball offers endless opportunities for dancing, feasting, gambling, and other pleasures.

    • However, Lady Devanya is capricious and cruel; anyone who breeches her ever-shifting rules of decorum or who refuses to wear a mask while aboard the Vulture will face her wrath.

    • Those who are obsequious enough, or who bring Lady Devanya a unique gift that catches her fancy, might be granted a wondrous boon—though this boon turns to ash as soon as they lose her favor.

Logan Tithe

The Vespermark’s most powerful villain is Logan Tithe, a vengeful undead gunslinger. The inspiration behind Logan Tithe is extremely simple: do you remember the undead gunslinger that Brom did for the cover of the old Deadlands? That shit rules.

Logan Tithe

Once a celebrated gunslinger of the Knights Labyrinthian, Logan Tithe was slain in a pitched battle with highwaymen. Unable to go to a quiet grave, Logan rose from the dead as a revenant with murder on his mind. After all of the brigands who participated in the ambush that took his life had been killed, he still found that death would not take him. For reasons he does not understand, Logan is cursed to ride the Vespermark, sending others to an eternal rest that has been denied him. He runs down travelers and caravans on a rotting stallion, but he does not ride alone—he is almost always accompanied by a posse of dead-eyed wights.

    • Appearance: Logan Tithe appears to be a worm-riddled corpse clad in a moth-eaten duster and a black wide-brimmed hat; he bears two hellfire-spewing six shooters at his hips. 

    • Personality: Though the embrace of death refuses him, he relishes sending others to their doom. 

    • Motive: He cannot still the Hell that's in his hands.

    • Flaw: Logan fears being hunted down by his compatriots in the Knights Labyrinthian.

Tserberon Falls and Vulture House

Two final locations of the Vespermark. Tserberon Falls has a bit of Ravenloft's Mists in it, mixed with Stephen King's "The Mists." Vulture House exists because I love putting a masquerade ball into my games--and this one has legs.

Tserberon Falls

Tserberon Falls was once a vibrant frontier town, home to a bustling livestock market. It is now enveloped by a roiling red fog teeming with monsters comprised of animate shadow.

    • Unbeknownst to the people of Tserberon Falls, one of their fellow townsfolk—a man named Johannes Metrovic—was an occultist conducting baleful experiments with blood magic.

    • One dark night, Metrovic’s experiments exceeded his grasp and he unwittingly unleashed a magical red mist that plunged the town into madness.

    • The townsfolk, including Metrovic himself, were warped into ravenous creatures of shadow by the calamitous red fog.

    • The crimson mist now spreads in every direction from the “Red Wound of Tserberon Falls.”

    • The fog moves slowly as it creeps across the Vespermark, but has been known to suddenly surge forth to engulf a settlement and consume its residents—transforming all living creatures caught within it into monstrosities. 

    • The Knights Labyrinthian track the progress of the mist, but they have yet to discover a way to counteract its growth. 

Vulture House

Vulture House is an ambulatory manor that walks the Vespermark on enormous bird legs. It settles in one place long enough to lure hapless travelers and “guests” into the perpetual fey masquerade ball that rages inside.

    • Vulture House appears to be a luxurious and otherworldly mansion with uncountable rooms; it is the site of a luxurious and never-ending masquerade ball presided over by Devanya, the fey Shadow Queen of the Autumn Court.

    • Devanya is capricious and cruel, and anyone who breeches one of her ever-shifting rules of decorum or who refuses to wear a mask inside Vulture House’s will face her wrath.

    • Those who are obsequious enough, or who bring Devanya a unique gift that catches her fancy, might be granted a wondrous boon—though this boon turns to ash as soon as they lose her favor.

Makhet Station/Old Perdition and Trevania

Two adventure locations in the Vespermark. I love the idea of a "ghost train," hence Makhet Station and Old Perdition. Trevania, on the other hand, is very obviously a dark play on Arthurian myth. In various ways, both locations can probably be traced back to my appreciation for Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. Makhet Station and Old Perdition also has at least a little inspiration from the Ghost Train set from LEGO's Monster Fighters; that thing ruled. Additionally, the cursed sword Drachenmort is a sentient black runesword as a tip of the hat to Michael Moorcock. 

Makhet Station and Old Perdition

Makhet Station is a remnant of the Vlaak Empire’s outposts on the western edge of Krevborna. In its heyday, Makhet Station was a railway hub for trains entering and leaving vlaak territory. 

    • Now abandoned and left to decay, Makhet Station is the terminus for a single train: Old Perdition, a beast of iron that belches steam and flame.

    • Old Perdition possesses a life of its own; it is unclear whether it is haunted by the specter of a vlaak engineer, inhabited by a demon, or something even stranger.

    • Those who wish to board Old Perdition must bargain with the conductor for safe passage—to do otherwise is to risk evisceration at the hands of the undead crew and passengers doomed to ride Old Perdition for eternity. 

    • Those who do come to an accord with the engineer invariably find that the train is headed to the destination they desire to travel to; it arrives by night amid mist and fog, lets its living passengers disembark, and then lurches away into the darkness.

Trevania

When an adolescent knight named Nadezhda Olashenko drew the black runesword Drachenmort from the rock in which it was embedded, the people of Trevania rejoiced to see the fulfillment of a foretold prophecy. To the folk of the town, this feat was a sign that Nadezhda was the promised templar who would lead an army to liberate Sibersk from the grip of its vampire overlords. 

    • Nadezhda has ignited a zealous and oppressive fervor in the town of Trevania. 

    • Acting under the fell influence of Drachenmort, a sentient blade that seeks to cause discord and bloodshed, Nadezhda’s paranoid dictates incite violence against supposed traitors, spies, and unbelievers. 

    • She is treated as a living saint, but her increasingly manic decrees have led to instances of false imprisonment and wrongful public executions in Trevania. 

    • Nadezhda’s proclamations are law in Trevania—very few realize that she is a fallen paladin and a puppet of the insidious magical sword that is always at her side.

Diremoon Revelator Shrines and Fort Huldea

The following two adventure locations in the Vespermark are meant to emphasis its status as the "wild frontier" far away from the mainstream Church and other loci of authority. "Location" is being used fast and loose to describe the Diremoon Revelator Shrines, since there are many of them dotting the Vespermark, but they were also a great opportunity to introduce a folk religion based on belief in Santa Muerte. Fort Huldea, on the other hand, is a classic convention of Wild West fiction, but I'm also giving it a little bit of gloss from Stephen King's Dark Tower books.

Diremoon Revelator Shrines

The Diremoon Revelators are followers of a folk religion that venerates Saint Vionka, a non-canonical saint, whom they believe intercedes on behalf of mortals in matters of death.

    • The Diremoon Revelators maintain no organized temples or churches—instead, they establish small shrines dedicated to Saint Vionka throughout the Vespermark. 

    • The Diremoon Revelators’ devotional shrines are most frequently found in areas prone to turmoil, violence, and danger.

    • Saint Vionka is depicted as a pale maiden clad in a black dress and wearing a matching lace veil; she is often shown accompanied by crows, ravens, and jackdaws. 

    • The Diremoon Revelators pray to Saint Vionka be to spared from “bad deaths,” such as deaths by violence or at the hands of the evil creatures who roam the land. 

    • The faithful hope that Saint Vionka will guide them to “good deaths” free from pain and strife. 

    • Saint Vionka’s faithful consider the undead to be atrocities; the most fanatical Diremoon adherents hunt undead abominations as a sacred calling.

Fort Huldea

Fort Huldea is a castle stationed on the wild frontier of the Vespermark. Fort Huldea is currently occupied by members of the Knights Labyrinthian, who are using it as their ad hoc headquarters.

    • Fort Huldea is used as a center of trade for the people living on the Vespermark’s plains; as their transactions take place under the watchful eyes of the Knights Labyrinthian, traders are expected to be fair in their dealings.

    • The Knights Labyrinthian also use Fort Huldea as a training ground for the young “squires” of their order who have not completed their trials and are not yet recognized as full members.

    • Squires are trained in tracking, wilderness survival, and marksmanship; they are also initiated in the Knights Labyrinthian's mystical teachings and peculiar version of laconic chivalry. 

    • Within Fort Huldea, the Knights Labyrinthian compile information on the Grail Tombs gathered in their travels across Krevborna.

Beltaire and Bordel

Two adventure locations in the Vespermark: a pilgrimage site where something very strange is happening and a frontier town run by a family of nefarious wereleopards people. Beltaire is a product of my fashion with Europe's bejeweled catacomb saints, as well as my love for the video game Blasphemous. Bordel is my Wild West-inspired take on Val Lewton's Cat People. (The name "bagheeta" is from Lewton's short story in Weird Tales that formed the basis of Cat People; it's definitely worth checking out!) There's probably also a little play on "leopards eating people's faces party" in there.

Beltaire

The ruins of Beltaire are a popular pilgrimage destination for the faithful of the Church of Holy Blood. Beneath the village lie catacombs that house the gilded and bejeweled skeletons of venerated saints. 

    • It is unknown who placed the sainted skeletal remains within the subterranean crypts or who took pains to dress them in sumptuous religious vestments.

    • The Church’s adherents consider it an act of faith to anoint the saints’ bones with blessed oil.

    • Oddly, the saintly corpses within the caverns are sometimes found to have changed posture or position—or to have moved to a different section of the catacombs entirely. 

    • The faithful regard these unexplained movements as miraculous, but there is a darker truth to the ambulatory dead of Beltaire; when the sun sets, the unquiet spirits of Beltaire’s former residents stalk the ruins in search of prey.

    • A thriving market peddling fraudulent saintly relics, fake holy water, and other chicanery has taken root just outside the walls of the ruined village.

Bordel

Governed by a scheming brothel madame named Katarina Valdemar, Bordel is a community of swindlers who survive by providing services such as gambling, saloons, and prostitution to travelers in the Vespermark. 

    • The sins offered in Bordel drain the town’s visitors like parasites, taking their coin before sending them on their ways, broken and humiliated by their vices.

    • Katarina and her family run the town as if it were their personal barony; those who stand up to their despotism are often found dead, badly mauled and half-eaten as if they had been attacked by wild animals. 

    • These killings are the work of the Valdemars—a family of bagheeta, catpeople who turn into hybrids of man and black leopard when angered or aroused, hiding in plain sight as bawds and procurers in Bordel.

The Vespermark

Art by Mike Royal

The Vespermark is an area of Krevborna not detailed in the first-edition book, but it will be featured in the revised version of the setting. I realized I wanted in an area of frontier wildlands, one influenced by the Westerns I grew up on.

The Vespermark

A Nightmarish and Lawless Frontier

The sparsely populated hills and plains west of Krevborna’s nominal bastions of civilization are collectively known as the Vespermark. Small towns, villages, and farmsteads dot the borderlands between the settled areas of Krevborna and the rest of the world. These outposts are surrounded by swaths of badlands and steppes littered with supposedly abandoned keeps, castles, and monasteries.

     An atmosphere of vigilante justice prevails in the often lawless Vespermark; its settlements are imperiled by unholy beasts and predatory outlaws, and it lies beyond the protective reach of the Church of Holy Blood. The lonely homesteads and towns of the Vespermark are encircled by perimeter walls meant to keep out monsters and bandits. 

Most settlements in the Vespermark practice their own forms of self-governance, but some are oppressed by local tyrants, hereditary boyars, mercenary bands, or cult leaders. People who live in the Vespermark are protective of the lives they carve out of the desolate landscape. They are often regarded as standoffish, justifiably so, as they often have good reason to be distrustful of strangers.

Hallmarks

The following elements and aesthetic notes define the Vespermark:

    • The Vespermark is the sparsely populated borderland between Krevborna’s “civilized” areas and the neighboring countries to the west.

    • The settlements of the Vespermark are self-governed, when they aren’t oppressed by local strong-arm rulers.

    • Strange cults that would otherwise be stamped out by the Church take root in the Vespermark.

    • Brigands, highwaymen, and monsters prowl the badlands and prey upon the Vespermark’s farmsteads and towns.

    • Unusual flowers, their scent both sickly sweet and redolent of rotten meat, grow in the wilds of the Vespermark.