```metadata
title: 'GUIDE: Deleran''s Crossing, A Town of Tragedy'
description: ''
tags: ''
systems: []
renderer: V3
theme: 5ePHB
```
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# TOWN OF TRAGEDY
A Town of Tragedies is a deep dive into a once quaint town that has come to the end of its rope. What was a thriving and wealthy community, Deleran’s Crossing has spent more than a century fading from glory. It is now a sad and beleaguered city struggling to survive in a world that seems bent on making its people suffer. The town is an ideal backdrop for those who wish to run a Fantasy Horror Campaign… in fact that’s exactly what I intend to do with many of the adventures I will be publishing this next year. Each Adventure that follows will either have new Maps, NPCs, and Locations, or build on the ones here.
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### The Guide Contains
- Area Lore, Local History, and Maps
- 70+ Detailed Locations
- 50+ NPCs, each with a Dark Secret
- Several Adventure Ideas and Concepts
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### ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Wizards of the Coast and D&D for the amazing job they do providing RPG Content for us to use!
- Original Story Written by Amplus Ordo Games
- All Maps and Handouts were done by Amplus Ordo Games using Inkarnate
- PDF Formatting done using The Homebrewery
- Cover Art: Flavio Bolla / CC-BY-SA
::
{{toc,
# Table Of Contents
- #### [{{ CHAPTER 1: Area History}}{{ 3}}](#p3)
- #### [{{ CHAPTER 2: Life in Deleran's Crossing}}{{ 3}}](#p3)
- #### [{{ CHAPTER 3: Layout and Locations}}{{ 4}}](#p4)
- #### [{{ CHAPTER 4: The People }}{{ 5}}](#p5)
- #### [{{ CHAPTER 5: Shadowy Figures}}{{ 6}}](#p6)
- #### [{{ CHAPTER 6: Adventure Ideas}}{{ 34}}](#p7)
- #### [{{ MAPS}}{{ 35}}](#p9)
}}
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## What is The AOG?
It started 40ish years ago. I still remember the day my cousin brought out this thin blue book with a white sketched dragon on its cover and a pile of strange dice. He told eight year old me that we were going to play a game where I could be anything I wanted (as long as it was an elf, dwarf, human, or halfling). I immediately developed that love of bringing people along on journey after journey, and through all the moments and four decades of playing, the trip has never lost its wonder.
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Now, I think we are best described as a network of Table Top Role Playing Gamers (Mostly D&D). I had been sharing my work online for some time but decided in April 2021 to open a Patreon and Discord. Honestly, I knew I was behind the Patreon Train, but it made sense as a platform. I’m not interested in money, but I am interested in sharing with and helping others in the hobby. So I run the site 100% free of any paywalls. More like a Digital Magazine than a Patreon.
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Almost a year in and we’ve grown quite a bit. We host One Shots through the Discord. I do a lot of requests for our supporters and some commission work. I coach many of our subscribers regularly on DMing and fantasy cartography. My son helps write our “Year One” series which are adventures designed for entry level DMs and players, and we use our content to run an after school Jr High Group. We even support a podcast my youngest son and I lend our voices to. It has been a busy year.
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If any of that interests you come find us!
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[PATREON](https://www.patreon.com/amplusordogames) Amplus Ordo Games
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[DISCORD](https://discord.gg/GDp7a3CFtA) Join the Network
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## CHAPTER 1
### The Area’s History
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## The Stolregard Barony
Let us begin with the Nation itself. Once a thriving part of Cetnovia, The Barony was founded long ago after land and title for the Eastern forests of Cetnovia were granted to Deleran Callington as reward for stopping the Kren Empire from using the Throne of Bones to dominate Cetnovia. Callington and his band of adventurers “somehow” managed to thwart a much superior force of Kren soldiers. (The truth is they were aided by another party who were time traveling and searching for a way to stop Orcus during the War of the Pentad). Callington’s group became national heroes and are all still celebrated, even in these dark times. Now one might get the idea that Callington and company “lucked” their way into glory, and while that may be true in regard to the Throne of Bones, they time and again proved themselves capable people and excellent leaders.
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At the time the forests Callington was titled were wild and dangerous. Cetnovia was by and large a land of rolling hills dotted with patchy trees. The thick gray oak forests laying at the feet of the Stolregard Mountains were both foreboding to behold and troublesome in reputation. However, the group, secretly knowing pieces of their own future, mastered the land they had been given and in doing so founded one of the most idyllic cities on the continent, Deleran’s Crossing. Built on a river island and a series of dells deep in the heart of the Gray Wood, Deleran’s Crossing grew and thrived. That was no easy challenge however. The land was riddled with pockets of angry Fey creatures and had more than its fair share of monsters lurking in the deep dark of the forests.
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Deleran and his followers overcame the challenges, and soon discoveries of rich and unique resources in the hills and mountains brought even more attention to The Barony. It became a travel destination for the wealthy and where the wealthy go, artisans are soon to follow. To say that The Barony flourished would be an understatement. In a small span of years the little forest settlement grew from hundreds to thousands. Other towns we founded and soon The Storegard Barony was a small nation inside of a nation.
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But not all was “perfection” in The Barony. The area is notorious for Magical Convergences, which while typically unnoticeable nuisances have been powerful enough to rewrite the history of the area and in one case the entire Sphere. The Callingtons, who held the ruling seat for hundreds of years, were a family plagued with tragedy. Deleran Callington himself was slain fighting a Blue Dragon that had taken up residence in the
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mountains. Others of his line were assassinated. One lost at sea. And near the end of their rule the line was afflicted with the curse of “The Unliving”. Through it all they were beloved rulers, for the most part, who did right by their people, and often at great personal cost.
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During the Pentad War, Cetnovia was torn apart and the Southern half was pulled into the Realms of Terror. The Barony was nearly destroyed by a tidal wave that came crashing their way as the sea rushed in to fill the now empty space. The Arch Mages Pieter Bonniet and Algren the Goblin, members of Callington’s original adventuring party, combined their considerable might to erect a magical barrier, and diverted the water. The strain of the effort killed Bonniet and left Algren shattered emotionally and physically.
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This saved the Stolregards, but contributed to the flooding of the Lavender Plains, Cetnovia’s bread basket, and killed tens of thousands. The Lavender Plains are now a stretch of sea, rarely deeper than six feet at High Tide and known as The Bay of Shallow Graves. The Southern area filled in with sea water, which lays almost perfectly still. No waves, no wind, no life. That area has become known as The Void Waters. With the Void Water to the south and the Bay of Shallow Graves to the North, travel in and out of the Stolregards became difficult. It was at this time that Cetnovia and The Barnoy separated. They remained close allies, as they were ruled by the same family, but the division marks the moment when the Barony began to truly wither.
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Both the Barony and Cetnovia were later dealt a major blow by The King of Worms. Who first planned the assassination of the current Barron Esmet the IV, and then launched the undead attack that killed Cetnovia's
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and the Barony’s rulers along with many other powerful heroes. The attack devastated the land and began the Plague of Worms. The Barony had not even begun to recover from the Plague when the Weave Drought hit. Deleran’s Crossing and many of the other settlements in Stolregard had come to deeply rely on Magic as a cornerstone of their society. Without it the nation began to fall apart.
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Forty years later and still recovering from its wounds, some a century old, The Barony struggles more than any nation on Krenshad. They are surrounded on all sides by reminders of tragedy and malicious beings, many of which held at least some of their dark powers through the Drought. The Convergences that plagued it also took a darker tone, and what was once a strange source of natural strength, now caused the forests and dells to darken and twist. The Gray Wood is now a haunt for wicked things that love darkness and love to bring it upon others even more. The people there still attempt to cling to culture and life, but living in the Barony is like breathing while slowly being strangled.
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Sooner or later you just give up. It is a place desperate for any hope and desperately awaiting a savior. The once mighty land is now little more than a string of failing settlements and forgotten villages. The Barony is on the verge of utter ruin… or perhaps renewal… Which it is, is anyone’s guess, but a betting soul would put their coin on ruin.
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As a visual reference the Barony settlements have a Gothic Architecture style to its buildings and culturally the people would feel rather West Central European. Racially they are pretty limited, 70% Humans, 10% Elves, 10% Dwarves, 10% Other and tensions have grown quite a bit over the past few decades. Thus the different races have for the most part formed their own little communities. They have all but abandoned the religious ideals of The Order and instead have embraced Otherworldly Spiritist Mysticism and Gypsy like Supersticions.
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The government is basically a royalty with the sitting royals titled Baron or in the Current case Baroness, Maya Snowbrooke, Great Great Grandaughter of Skylar Snowbrook, hero of the Pentad War. Maya is an indifferent leader, and it shows. The people of Stolregard struggle daily to make ends meet and receive little to no help from their crown, but they also do not suffer under a heavy burden of tax either. They also have no real enforcement of standard laws. Laws do exist, but no one really enforces them unless something dire happens. Each village and locality has become by and large self governing, or in most cases, governed by something powerful lurking nearby.
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The locals are extremely superstitious, and for good reason, Stolregard is a hotspot for weird things. The area has long been plagued with strange abnormalities, Planar Convergences and Fey Influences. The Stols have developed the attitude that “One should speak little evil or little good for evil is always listening” And in far too many cases it is indeed listening… Always…
## Deleran’s Crossing
The Capital City of Stolregard, Deleran’s Crossing is nestled deep in the foothills of the Stolregard Mountains and surrounded by dark and foreboding Gray Wood forest. Even in these late years and dark times it is still a sight to behold. The city is built upon a cliffed island surrounded by a series of ridges and dells cut out of the land by the Cold Rock River. The ruling seat, Castle Skystone, sits just above the higher points of the city on a plateau along the town’s northern edge. At first glance Deleran’s Crossing appears to be something out of a storybook, upon closer inspection it more closely resembles a Shakespearean tragedy.
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The geography surrounding Deleran’s Crossing causes it to be somewhat isolated as there are only a few roads in and out of the area. The Gray Oak Forest covers the foothills of the Stolregard’s and is filled with steep ridges and rocky slopes making roadwork a twisty and winding affair. There is one bridge-intensive road, The Baron’s Highway, that runs West out of town to the Void Waters and Northeast to the Bay of Shallow Graves. Most of the nation’s settlements can be found off this main road.
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After he was given the land, Callington gathered together a small army of settlers and Adventurers and headed East, searching for a proper place to establish a seat for his Barony. Eventually he found and fell in love with a large and steep series of ridges that had been split by a raging river. The group stopped there and began the process of building a settlement. Deleran’s Crossing was officially founded in 144 EOL.
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The choice of land was a fortuitous one. The lower lands in the valleys proved extremely fertile, making farming a rewarding endeavor, while the forest provided superb wood for construction. Stolwood Oak was once a renowned material used by the wealthy across the land, as it is both remarkably strong and beautifully grained. Furthermore, the hills in the area were found to be rich with precious minerals and metals, especially Iron and Copper, as well as an exquisite white marble.
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By 155 EOL, Deleran’s Crossing was a thriving town and Stolregard was attracting settlers from all over the Kingdom. However the Stol Lands were not without peril. Various predatory animals and even more dangerous creatures throughout the forest, often caused problems beyond the abilities of commoners and settlers. Furthermore, being close to the mountains, the more Eastern settlements were subject to occasional Goblin and Orc raids, and even a rare Ogre or Troll attack. In order to handle these issues Callington formed an Adventurer’s Guild, led originally by his Dwarven friend Malron Steelgrit.
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In 163 EOL the northernmost town in the Stolregard Barony was attacked by a Blue Dragon. The Baron, with his two sons, and a dozen of his most capable men tracked the Dragon to its lair and engaged it. The group managed to slay the Dragon, but unfortunately, most of them died in the battle, including the Baron and his eldest son. The Barony passed to Alexandre Calington who reigned in growing prosperity until his natural death in 207 EOL. The Barony stayed with the Calington family for over two more centuries. During those years the Callingtons suffered numerous family tragedies, but continued to rule with wisdom and grace.
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The Golden years of Deleran’s Crossing ended in 388 EOL, after the war of the Pentad, when travel in and out of the nation became far more difficult. They came to a screeching halt when the King of Worms decimated the Rulership of both the Stolregard Barony and the Kingdom of Cetnovia when he blighted the area with The Plague of Worms in 426 EOL. With the Callingtons all dead and locals dying from plague, the Barony’s Throne sat empty, and Castle Skystone was claimed by creatures of shadow and wickedness.
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In 440 EOL the Snowbrook family of the Alabaster Palace, the most prominent of the Noble Houses, claimed the Throne. Jynifir Snowbrooke, daughter of Skylar Snowbrooke, a Hero of the Pentad War rode into Deleran’s Crossing with another of the War’s Heroes, the Wizard Mirabella Sommerset, and drove back the Shadowy Evils inhabiting the white marble halls of Castle Skystone. Jynifir took the title of Baroness and worked tirelessly to restore Deleran’s Crossing to its former glory.
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For a time it looked as if she might succeed. The world outside was tearing itself apart as an Circle of Dark Wizards set their eyes on world domination. Stolregard’s isolation helped guard Deleran’s Crossing from that conflict, but Jynifir and Mirabella became concerned that eventually they would have to defend themselves. They turned their attention toward that looming threat, but when the Weave drought struck Mirabella vanished. Most assumed that without her magic the Wizard finally expired.
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What progress they had made slipped backward. Without the Wizard’s aid Jynifir struggled greatly to maintain order. She died several years later in 448 EOL, never realizing her dream when her son, Kensig Snowbrooke, shoved her from the walls of the Castle and took the Barony for himself. Kensig ruled the land with an iron hand and a bloody blade, but did continue his mother’s work of restoration. He in turn was killed by his son Ozrin in 462 EOL. Ozrin cared not for ambitious dreams of restoring the city. His ambitions amounted to daily drunkenness and a collection of concubines and children. Ozrin never married and the dozens of illegitimate children began to squabble for rights to the throne. In 487 EOL He was poisoned by one of his concubines which set off a bloody struggle between his offspring, now all violently competing for the throne. The Barony eventually fell to Maya, the young daughter of Seliny Thatcher. Maya won the crown almost entirely by sitting out the fighting until only a few of her rivals were left standing. She then slew them and claimed the throne and the family name.
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Baroness Maya Snowbrooke, now sits on the Stoleregard throne and rules over the Barony with nearly complete indifference. She had taken a husband, Donitis Jouqouis but he passed early on, and has a young son Endris whom she spends very little time with. It would seem the only interest she has is keeping her title. Maya was briefly roused when the Weave returned and Mirabella with it. The two reportedly argued politely, but not without venom. Mirabella resigned to her tower in the Snowbrooke Family Keep, The Alabaster Palace, and Maya returned to her brooding.
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## CHAPTER 2
### Life in Deleran’s Crossing
At one time five thousand people were packed into this little area. Tens of Thousands more in the Barony as a whole. The buildings here are typically three to four stories tall. Shops and businesses filled the lower floors while families divided the upper levels into housing. It was a little tight in places, but during its heyday the high quality of life here made up for the lack of open space. That isn’t the case any longer. Now many of those buildings are empty and in disrepair. Garbage and filth often pile in the streets, inviting vermin, spreading rank odors, and breeding diseases. The businesses left and the residents did as well… if they were still alive to do so. The population in the immediate area hovers around a thousand people, in a city that could hold many more.
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The income level is low. There is work and jobs, but pay is poor, usually bartering a day’s work for a half day’s resources. There isn’t really any way for individuals to get ahead. What little extra that they do manage to earn is usually spent in the taverns or on other morally questionable escapes, all of which are common in the city. That doesn’t mean there aren’t rich and powerful people in town, there are. But even they live lives that are an antiquated or crumbling reflection of the wealth that was once normal in this city, often reveling in dark vices and wasteful indulgence.
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Being a resident here is difficult, and life is pretty dismal. Despair and hopelessness are as common in town as rats and roaches. Low level violence and petty crime are a daily occurrence. The people do what they have to do to survive both physically and emotionally. There really aren’t many other options. A city watch does keep the peace, but it is pretty rare that they get themselves involved in anything that doesn’t have to do with a wealthy family or has a dead body attached to it. It is also commonly assumed that the watch is on the payroll of the local crime lords, and are paid well to look the other way. They work more as a poorly working public safety feature than actual constables.
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Deleran’s Crossing’s and the surrounding area have a strong mix of sorrows and desperation. These negative emotions swirl around a hotspot of otherworldly activity. The veils between plains are thin here. In some cases extremely thin. This attracts a lot of supernatural attention, most of it unwanted. Creatures lurk in shadows preying on the unsuspecting or those who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Dark beings such as Hags and other diabolical Fey have staked claims in the town and the woods nearby. They make many offers, all with strings attached, enough strings to tie a noose most would tell you.
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And then there is the Undead, both physical and spiritual haunt many places in the area, particularly the city. It is not unusual to encounter a ghoul in an abandoned building or face the spirit of some lost soul in a dark alleyway.
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It would be an ideal place for Adventurers to make a difference… if they don’t mind doing it for little to no monetary reward. At least not up front. There are some locals who have a bit to give and hold the hope that things will change, but it is going to take an outside force to make any real difference. The Baroness certainly isn’t going to help. In fact there are rumors that she herself is under a curse, but to be fair, there are rumors about anyone and everything here. Including rumors of lost treasures and hidden riches. Locals will also tell you that rich or poor… everyone here has a sad tale and usually a dark secret. That every building is haunted. Every dark corner hides danger. That there is evil hiding even in plain sight and it is always listening. They live in a fear that most of us would label unwarranted or exaggerated superstition, but most of us don’t live in Deleran’s Crossing.
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## CHAPTER 3
### Layout and Locations
At a glance the layout of Deleran’s Crossing is pretty straightforward. However, in reality it is fairly complicated. The majority of the city sits on a plateaued island in the Cold Rock River. The Northwest fork in the river is wide and swift. It is filled with rocks and hazards that most captains avoid, but the city long ago built a lock system in order to let ships from the other settlements pass through. It still functions, but most locals don’t believe they will hold up much longer. The southeast branch of the Cold Rock is thinner and slower, at one time it was the faster branch filled with raging whitewater rapids, but the bridge collapse that killed Baron Esmet IV created a blockage that slowed the flow significantly. Now the water only rushes when the locks in the West branch are fully closed.
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On the North side of the river, built up on some high cliffs sits Castle Skystone. Even now well past it’s glory years the structure gleams in sunlight during those rare moments the sun chooses to break through. Just east of there lies the small farming village of Crow Meadows. Technically it is part of the township, but it is independent enough to be self-supporting, which is a bit of a rarity these days.
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Just South of there, on the Eastern shore lies Fort Callington, a military compound that houses the Baroness’ local militia. South of there is the Durrand Winery and Vineyard, one of the only local businesses to still take in large profits. The Durrand’s are world famous vintners and many merchants gamble on the risks and rewards of obtaining their wines. It is said that a few successful trips to the Durrand Vineyard can garner enough coin to retire on.
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Down the road from the winery the river widens into a bit of a swampy mess. At one point there was a thriving fishing dock here, but as the water levels changed the water became inaccessible to it. Far to the south lay the old Abritrom Quarry and Mines, the original source of the White Marble the area was once famous for.
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West of the Quarry the river reconjoins forming Galvin’s Pond before flowing Southwest toward the city of Southbridge. One of the city’s locks can be found here, the other is just north along the river. The locks have almost full control over the height of the water. If it is closed fully the lake will quickly drain, for a short time. A few hours later the water backs up and begins to heavily flow down the Eastern branch. Heading back up the Western Branch toward the Castle lies a good sized port and large drawbridge which can be lifted to allow ships to pass. On the West edge of the river is the road toward Southbridge, which is lined with many houses and little farms, most of which now sit empty.
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Most of the city island sits well above the waterline, although it is low enough in the center that, on very rare occasions, when the river rises it has flooded. Heavy rains can also cause a problem. The runoff from the city tends to collect there. To handle that water an ingenious sewer system was developed. When working properly, it drains excess rainwater into the canals far below and uses the flow of the river to keep the tunnels fairly clean and the water moving.
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There are four bridges in the city crossing the river and connecting Deleran’s Crossing to the mainland and one other that leads to Crown Meadows. The Baron’s Bridge leads to Castle Skystone and is heavily fortified with two watchtowers and several gates. The Copper Crossing is a newer bridge connecting High Road to the Eastern shore at Fort Callington. It was built after the attack on Baron Esmet the IV destroyed the old bridge. Center of the Island are the East and West Draw Bridges, both of which have fortified gatehouses.
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A wide road crosses between those gatehouses, along its North side is The Barren Orchard. At one time it was a thriving wood full of fruit trees and was free for the people to eat from, if they gathered equal fruit for the Durrands. It no longer produces much fruit and is rumored to be haunted. A narrow roadway splits the Orchard East to West and leads to the Bronze Hall, a Dwarven settlement under the plateau. But dark stories of angry Fey Spirits and unwelcoming Dwarves keep people on the main roadway, which was at one time filled with traveling merchants. A few from the Barony still arrive to do business here, but it is mainly a camp for the homeless who would rather sleep outside than squat in one of the abandoned, and likely “haunted”, buildings.
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To the South the land rises up like the side of a shallow bowl. The locals refer to this part of the Island as Hillside. To the North up on a plateau is High Rroad. Hillside was at one point chiefly home to the locals who didn’t own a business in High Road where the majority of the wealthy lived. Hillside wasn’t poor however, and several of Deleran’s Crossing’s wealthiest, including the Durrands, owned mansions at the top of the hill. It has a boulevard full of local business that overlook the church and graveyard. Now all those things, just like the rest of the city, have grown dilapidated and survive in a state of disrepair. On the East edge of Hillside are the local slums, now often referred to as the Downs, and while most folks would tell you to avoid that place… most folks can be found there at one time or another. There are multiple taverns, all which host a variety of chance games, a fighting pit, and the Down’s one shining jewel, The Crimson Curtain, a cabaret of some fame and much infamy. More house of betting and bordello than boîte, the Crimson Curtain is a popular place of respite and vice that most locals indulge in one way or another.
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Up on the plateau of the island sits High Road. Here you will find what remains of Deleran’s Crossing’s most prestigious shops, businesses, and locations. Many of them still cling to life, but their thriving days are long behind them. There are several other locations of note here. The bridge to Castle Skystone sits in the North, as does the Arcane Tower of Pieter Bonniet and Algren the Goblin. The tower is, of course, believed haunted by the ghosts of the two Wizards. Truth to that one is, no one knows. Pieter is dead, and Algren hasn’t been seen in nearly a Century, but someone keeps the lights on. There is a University dedicated to scholarly and scientific pursuits and a sanitarium in the West. The University closed some time ago. Unsurprisingly the Wellstone Sanitarium is still in operation and does a good deal of business. A grand cathedral perches on the southern edge overlooking the Orchard. A large but overgrown park dedicated to the Callingtons dominates the center of Highroad. And finally, in the East, there are several governmental buildings and a long closed Adventurer’s Guild.
### INSTITUTIONAL BUILDINGS
**1) CASTLE SKYSTONE:** Skystone Castle was constructed during the first 20 years of of Deleran Calington’s rule. It sits on the highest point of the valley. Built from the polished white marble from the nearby hillsides Sky Stone’s thick and towered walls make it an impressive looking and militarily formidable structure. The ridge it was built on rises nearly 150’ above the valley and it’s tallest spire rises another 100’ above the Castle's courtyard granting a commanding view of the entire area. It is only safely accessible via The Baron’s Bridge, a massive gated and fortified bridge on the North edge of town. Baroness Maya Snowbrooke currently sits on the Stolregard throne.
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**2) THE CHAMBER OF VOICES (HR):** The Main Civil Government Building, The Chamber of Voices, much like Castle Skystone, is made of white marble and adorned with beautiful stonework. Inside there is a large rotunda which displays a visual history of Baron Deleran Callington the First and the founding of the town itself, painted with brilliant skill by Enzo Feruchi, who was commissioned by Baron Esmet the First to do artwork. The Chamber is a large building with a lot of empty rooms. It is still used by the locals when the need arises but not often, as most legal issues are dealt with between parties, many of whom would prefer not to involve the the Constabulary or the Government. Magistrate Vimar Melanis, a few local judges, and the Office of Taxation do keep regular office hours here.
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**3) THE CITY WATCHTOWER:** This large tower is built directly into the cliffside. It was at one time the only way from Hillside up to High Road. Travelers would either take the lift or use the spiraling roadway that winds around the tower’s interior. It is also home to the City Watch and provides a large barracks and offices for the Constabulary. The town’s prison is built back into the cliff taking advantage of the underground space below Highroad. The spiral road is rarely used anymore, but the lift is still operational and is most often used to move large and heavy cargo. Senloie Virisey is the current High Constable.
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**4) FORT CALLINGTON (HR):** The Barony does keep a small standing army, which is chiefly housed here at Fort Callington. It is a large forcem though, at one time it was far larger. Every community in the Barony is responsible for their own defenses, which typically include Malitia’s that are led by official military officers. Those officers meet and train here. Lord General Oton Dayspire commands the Stolregard forces.
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**5) THE LABOR HOUSE (HS):** The local government runs a hiring agency of sorts. More commonly known as Day Laborer Recruitment. They help businesses find cheap labor and help unskilled laborers find jobs. The Labor House is operated by Paul Martil
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**6) CROSSING’S SCHOOLHOUSE (HS):** School House doesn’t quite describe this place. It is rather large. Coming in at Four Stories with eighteen classrooms and a large common space. It is owned by the Barony, but run by Principal Gérard Baudelaire. For all its ills, Deleran’s Crossing does attempt to take care of its children, most of them anyway. The school does a fantastic job caring for and educating any residents. Meaning any children that actually live in homes and have parents pay taxes. Its not a perfect system, but it works for those connected to it. The principal does do group instruction for orphans and homeless children after school hours in the play-yard. It isn’t much but it is enough to teach many of them basic life skills like reading and math.
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**7) THE SWORDS OF STOLREGARD (HR):** The local Adventurer’s Guild, the Swords of Stolregard, had a long history before it closed its doors some years ago. At one point of time when the world was quieter, it was where Adventurer’s came to retire. However, as the Gray Wood became less forgiving, fewer and fewer members lived to see the retirement this place was once known for. The work became unrewarding and increasingly dangerous. Then one day, Emonie Vyvyan, the last surviving member, Guildmaster (for a day), closed and locked the doors. The building has since been subjected to more trespassing, looting, and vandalism than any other. Many looking for a warm place to stay, quite a few searching for hidden riches, some just angry that there is no one left to turn to when trouble comes.
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**8) DELERAN’S CROSSING UNIVERSITY (HR):** DCU was one of the most respected places of higher learning on the continent. It functionally closed its doors some years after the Pentad Wars, when it became near impossible for scholars and students to travel to the campus. The large structure now sits mostly empty and is a foreboding presence on the western edge of town. A small clutch of scholars and researchers still dwell in the school’s halls. They chiefly keep to themselves, and from time to time do attract new members, typically foreigners who have heard tales of the vast libraries and laboratories. The locals do not go often near the university, as rumors of cults and dark dealings plague its once sterling reputation. DCU still names one of its instructors as the school’s Headmaster. Wynra Moonseeker holds that title at the moment.
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**9) WELLSTONE SANITARIUM (HR):** The Wellstone Sanitarium is one of the oldest facilities in the Barony. It was founded shortly after Delaran’s Crossing truly began to grow. Inspired by the beautiful scenery and majestic view of the Gray Wood, Wellstone was built with the hopes of healing both the mind and the spirit of those who find themselves in its care. That ideal has always been met with mixed success. Healing the mind is a tricky business, and often enough patients suffered under the care of the staff. In time the Sanitarium became more of an asylum and was used to house the mentally unstable, not just those seeking wellness. During the Nightmare Plague of 324 EL the Sanitarium was filled beyond capacity. Rooms became cells and doctors became jailors. It is still in operation today, though the number of residents has dropped, and it to once again practices traditional medicine. Still, it is by and large a place to put the criminally insane or dangerously disturbed. Healing the body or the mind is no longer the main goal. Protecting people from the dangers within is. The Head Administrator of the facility is a halfling by the name of Halnad Bramblesong.
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**10) ST MARTIN’S CATHEDRAL (HR):** One of the most expensive Cathedral’s constructed on the Continent of Krenshad, St Martin’s is a sight to see. However, its dedication to the Patron Saint of the Weary is rather ironic. St Martin would likely find no rest here, as it is closed to the public due to a legitimate Haunting in the Crypts. Several attempts to rid the Church of the Spirits have been attempted over the years. The ghosts always return. The outside is kept in pristine condition, and repairs inside are made only in extreme situations.
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**11) ST REMIGIUS’ (HS):** The Church of the People. St Remigious is the Patron Saint of the Hungry. He was once incarcerated and starved by those demanding he renounce his faith. Remigius refused and for 12 years survived without eating. Today the Church is responsible for feeding the city’s poorest members. This task becomes more and more difficult as fewer and fewer people attend services. Still, Bishop Egan Callington tends the dwindling flock of the town with diligence and care, as a Callington should.
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**12) THE GRAVEYARD (HS):** With precious little above ground space the local Graveyard has many large above ground tombs and extensive catacombs. While it has never been “Problem” free, it has survived better than most of the town. It is often commented on as strange, that in a city crumbling awa, the Graveyard is one of the best kept features. But once you understand the superstitious nature of the locals it becomes clear that they have no intentions of upsetting the dead. Gravekeeper Willis MacDonnagul watches over the tombs and the stones with great care.
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**13) ESMAY CALLINGTON ORPHANAGE (HS):** Unfortunately Deleran’s Crossing has a fairly large Orphan population. More than the Orphanage can handle. It is run by Matron Adèle Mesny. The few people who can afford, and are inclined, to adopt a child usually come here rather than attempt to pick one off the street, as most children adopted out of the Orphanage are well behaved. Sadly, the Orphanage does have a rather “strict” reputation, and tales of abuse and neglect aren’t uncommon. Still, most folks belive that the orphanage does a far better service to the children than the streets do.
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**14) THE COLD ROCK PORT (HS):** The Cold Rock Port was one of the last major features to be constructed in town. In fact the city went nearly two and a half centuries without it. There were other smaller docks, but when the calamities of the Pentad War changed the landscape, it became necessary to increase waterway access to the city. Baroness Adahorn Callington ordered their creation along with the riverway locks. Most credit this decision with keeping the city alive in the decades to follow, although it was highly unpopular at the time. Dockmaster Francis “Quint” Mundus currently oversees the Port.
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**15) THE TENACIOUS STUDIO (HS):** Hillside was once home to what most believe to be the greatest Road Band of all time. During their travels they collected an amazing amount of art as well as created much of their own. They founded a large studio to not only display their own works, which have long since been bought or moved on, but encourage the growth of all art forms in any and all who had interest. For decades aspiring musicians and artists came here to play and pay their respects to a group of Bards that helped save the world, and knew how to rock! These days the studio is more of a community workshop for those who cannot afford to own an actual storefront. It is maintained by the Barony.
### NEIGHBORHOODS AND AREAS
**16) THE BRONZE HALL (HS):** There is a Dwarven Community under the High Road Plateau. The Dwarves were once a thriving part of the city, but have become more reclusive. They still help maintain the intricate underground infrastructure, and they do come out to trade with locals, but only Dwarves and Gnomes are allowed into the Hall unless they have special permission. The Hall is an oddity in the town. They exist as part of the Barony but self govern and self sustain. They claim loyalty to the nation and the Baroness, but that has never truly been tested. Many wonder if push came to shove whose side would the Dwarves be on. The smart money is on the Dwarves being on the Dwarves side. Their current leader, Archon, is one Kromdur Gold-Fist, who rumors say has no love for Baroness Maya.
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**17) CROWN MEADOWS:** The small settlement known as Crown Meadows is commonly referred to as The Village. It is technically still part of Deleran’s Crossing, but it is also a self-sustaining farming community. Most of the food grown for Deleran’s Crossing comes from The Village. This often causes a bit of tension, as folks living in the city tend to demand more than the Village can produce, and at lower costs. Jerimina Millwright acts as the Villages Spokesman when there is an issue between the town and the people of Crown Meadows.
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**18) THE WAREHOUSE DISTRICT:** Near the Docks there are a number of large storage buildings. Back when Deleran’s Crossing was thriving there was great need for goods storage. That need has almost evaporated and many of these structures now sit “empty”. The truth is they often become homes to vagrants and disreputables. Most people, including the authorities, avoid them rather than accidentally discovering or interrupting those who would rather not be bothered. The risk of such individuals taking offense at being stumbled uppon is just too great. Symon Okenbrau does his best to keep order in the Warehouse District.
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**19) DURRAND WINERY AND VINEYARDS:** The Durrands have long been one of the most wealthy noble families in the Stols. Their wines and ales are world famous and although their production and distribution has been severely impacted by world events, it has only driven the price of their goods up. The rich pay top coin for their wares. Many in town are deeply envious of the family’s wealth and over the years those feelings have turned bloody. Several Durrands have been killed in the Barony’s long history. They now keep armed guards at their estate and bring escorts with them at all times when they travel. The Winery is owned by the Durrands but run by the Elven Vinter Alurra Summersong, who has been with the family for centuries, and is likely the true source of the Durrand’s success.
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**20) MARKET SQUARE:** Located on the first tier of the Hillside loops, Market Square is a place mainly dedicated to the sale of finished goods. It was at one time a quaint forested boulevard with dozens of shops lining either side of the wooded road, but like all things in Deleran’s Crossing the Market Square isn’t what it once was. Only about a third of the shops are actually open for business, and the boulevard is terribly overgrown.
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**21) THE BARREN ORCHARD (HS):** Once a thriving apple orchard that the Durrand’s had planted in order to help feed the poor and fuel their businesses, the Orchard has not produced quality fruit in decades. Locals believe it is haunted, and while this may just be superstitious, it does often attract dangerous animals that somehow wander into town unnoticed.
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**22) BEGGAR’S HIGHWAY (HS):** This long stretch of road was at one time filled with merchant tents and mobile shops from around the world. Now it is a shanty town for the homeless. The rich make a show of their “kindness”, passing out coins to the beggars when they head to the Church for Sunday worship. Which, as insulting as it can be, is a main draw for the poor who often congregate here even if they are also squatting in one of the empty buildings.
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**23) THE DOWNS (HS):** At the East edge of Hillside is a neighborhood known as The Downs. It is a neighborhood of ill repute and rife with more disrespectable sorts of businesses. Gambling Houses, Pleasure Dens, and Shops catering to more taboo vices. This isn’t necessarily a neighborhood of “poor” folks as some of the more wealthy residents live nearby, and is one of the more densely populated areas. The majority of the business here are run by individuals who have become rich by taking advantage of the poor and downtrodden. And poor who spend their time and money here often never leave. The two mingle together in The Downs creating an odd mix of power and powerlessness.
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**24) THE SEWERS:** There is an extensive and well thought out sewer network running under Deleran’s Crossing and Castle Skystone. It is continually flushed out by the Cold Rock keeping the water in it fairly clean, as far as sewers go anyway. Unfortunately, like most things in this town, it has been severely neglected. There are random blockages and tunnel collapses. The only time maintenance is done in the sewers is when the need is dire, as dangerous creatures and individuals lurk in the waterways. Some say these tunnels were built around and through some natural caverns but no one wants to take the risk to verify that anymore. If there are caverns down there… great. No need to disturb them as long as the sewers keep doing their job.
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**25) ROADSIDE (HS):** The neighborhood of Roadside formed years ago when Deleran’s Crossing was growing too dense for some, and farming wasn’t an endeavor they were willing to pursue. They began to move off the island and build houses along the western road. There isn’t much left there but The Thirsty Weasel, a run down but functional inn, still manages to turn some coin. The Weasel is run by Mortin Prevshot.
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**26) SWIFT MARSH:** The Eastern fork of the Cold Rock widens just past the bridge. The water here spreads out substantially cutting between the rocks and tumbled stones that were once the bed of the river. The area is now filled with tall marsh grasses and dozens of wrecked ships, remains of boats sunk during a race held during the city’s Founder’s Day Festival. The main channel is much deeper than one would normally find in a marsh, giving the area its name, and depending on the height of the river the current here is treacherous, changing from almost stagnant to deadly swift with just a few inches of rise in the water.
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**27) GALVIN’S POND:** A small lake that is formed where the two branches of the river rejoin at the Southern tip of the island. It is a rather charming body of water to look at, but dangerous to the unaware. Swift and swirling currents here are deadly to swimmers, particularly when the water is high. Also, the water here is deceptively filthy as one of the main sewer drains dumps out here, and the wash from the others in the river ultimately finds its way here as well. The constant flow of water carries much of the surface sewage away, but the bottom sediment has become a thick muck of waste and garbage. This attracts a large share of foul beasts that feed off such things. From time to time the city will close the river locks allowing the pond to drain. This gives them a few hours to hunt down anything seriously dangerous and look for lost treasures and bodies… Galvin’s Pond has turned up more than its fair share of missing people.
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### TAVERNS & ENTERTAINMENT
**28) THE COPPER CROSSING (HR):** The third building to bear the name. The first was founded by Malrom Steel-Grit a member of Callington’s original group. It was a unique establishment, actually built over the roadway and the Bulwark Bridge. Patrons enjoyed the Dwarven food and environment as they watched travelers pass by. The Inn tumbled into the gorge when the Bulwark Bridge was destroyed. The second was constructed in the same manner, but it caught fire only a few years after being completed. The third sits off to the side of the bridgeway. It does well enough and is the inn of choice for the few wealthier travelers that happen to come to town. It is owned and operated by Malrom’s Grandson, Bhuel Steel-Grit. But most folks call him Steel-Grill, as they did his grandfather.
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**29) DURRAND’S TAPROOM (HR):** This is large and very expensive establishment, The Taproom is the place where the wealthy gather for wine, parties, and business that doesn’t concern the unwashed masses. In fact admission is by Membership or Passphrase only, both of which are strictly guarded, by actal guards. While not much to look at from the outside, the interior of this four story building is nothing short of opulent. It is said that more treasures of Deleran’s Crossing can be found in the Taproom’s linen closet than can be found in Castle Skystone. The Taproom has been around longer than many High Road business. It has endured mainly due to the ongoing success of the Durrand Winery, but also in large part because of its clientele. With limited access by the public the Wealthy have a communal place where the misery of Deleran’s Crossing feels quite far away. Remon Durrand runs the taproom for the family.
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**30) FERUCHI’S GALLERY (HR):** The Art gallery of the famous Half Elf, Enzo Ferucci. Arguably Krenshad’s most talented artist. Enzo, now nearly 180 summers, has retired to the warmer climate of the Xin-Ji Empire. However, out of gratitude for the many years spent in the Barony he left most of his collected works here. The Gallery is owned by the Barony, who has long ago removed Enzo’s actual works and locked them away in the Castle Vaults. What can be seen on display are well done replicas. Even the replicas are quite valuable so the Gallery has its own guards. The Gallery is open to the public and is one of the more well loved and protected establishments in Deleran’s Crossing. Curator Kensa Prideaux is in charge of the collection.
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**31) THE GOLDEN BARREL:** Crown Meadow has it's own tavern, run by the community, where their locals drink. It is packed nightly with dozens of hard working farmers, and it may be one of the only places in the area where there might possibly be hints of true happiness. It isn't an overly nice looking place, and there are several pots on the floor, strategically palced to catch leaking water during rains. The furniture is old and work. As are the locals that run the place. Still, no one seems to mind. It has a warm fire, great beer, and most of the locals' friends are all here. What more does anyone need. It's their own little slice of the good life.
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**32) HILLSIDE INN AND TAVERN (HS):** This is the largest drinking establishment in the city. The Hillside has always been the local’s bar. Now that Deleran’s Crossing doesn’t draw as many foreigners it has become more of the local dive bar. The rooms sit empty and unrented, and the clientele all know one another. It isn’t a fine establishment by any stretch, but the people here kind of like it that way. Hedrek and Tamara Moyle own and run this establishment.
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**33) THE CRIMSON CURTAIN (HS):** The Crimson Curtain, a cabaret of some fame and much infamy. More house of betting and bordello than boîte the Crimson Curtain is a popular place of respite and vice that most locals indulge in one way or another. Whatever you’re into someone at the Curtain will help you find it… for a price. The Curtain is run by three ladies, Mistress Elviesi, Madam Cecelia, and Matron Luana, although they do not own the establishment. In fact no one knows who owns the Crimson Curtain, although there are plenty of rumors. The stories range from other worldly beings, to the Baroness, to local crime syndicates. The last of these is most likely… most likely…
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**34) THE TRAVELER’S TALE (HS):** The Travelers Tale Theater isn’t nearly as grand as the Crown was but it continues to draw crowds with regular performances and shows. It isn’t quite self-sustaining, but that is by design, as the first week’s profits go toward helping the many needy in town. The theater has several wealthy patrons, including the Baroness who visits monthly. These patrons donate enough funds to keep the performers paid and the doors open. Brando Della Valle is the Show Master of the Tale and, thanks to the work the Theater does, is a beloved figure in the city.
### OTHER LOCATIONS
**35) CALLINGTON PARK (HR):** A large forested park in the center of High Road. It has a large pavilioned well, playing space for children, and a monument to Deleran Callington. The outer areas are somewhat well kept as several of High Road’s wells are found at the edges. The interior however, is another story. Most of that is buried under years of neglected and overgrown landscaping. The park is filled with briars and thickets, and no one really cares enough to tend it. Maybe it’s because criminals use it as a staging point for crimes in High Road. Maybe it’s because the locals have heard enough about the Callingtons and the good old days. Maybe it’s because there are other things that deserve attention before a park. Or maybe because a lot of people who go into the park never come out of it.
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**36) ALGREN’S TOWER (HR):** This tower is probably home to Algren the Goblin. Maybe. Algren and his fellow wizard Pieter Bonniet lived here for years when Pieter served as the Archmage of Cetnovia. Pieter was killed when he over exerted his magical powers saving the Barony from a massive tidal wave. Afterward a shattered Algren lived alone in the tower, rarely coming out. Most believe he still lives there, if he still lives at all… No one has seen the Goblin for decades, but someone or something still keeps the lights on. Many claim to have seen Pieter’s Ghost in the streets nearby and mysterious figures in the windows, but no one knows for certain.
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**37) THE CROWN THEATER (HR):** Once the pinnacle of entertainment venues, The Crown caught fire during a performance some years ago. Several guests were killed and almost half of the cast, as well as the owner. Typically an establishment like the Crown would have immediately been purchased and rebuilt, but no one bought the place afterward, and it has sat empty. Why? The locals believe the theater is haunted by those who perished in the flames. And why do they believe that? Because it is. The theater is haunted by the spirit of Malina Moineau the former director and a cast of ghostly actors.
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**38) ABANDONED DOCKS:** Until the building of the Port and the Locks, Deleran’s Crossing had only a few small docks for locals to use. The Cold Rock isn’t an easy to navigate river and in most places anything larger than a fishing boat wasn’t going to make the trip. Once the Port was finished most of the other docks were dismantled. It was decided to leave these ones intact for easier access to the Quarry and Winery. However, when the Bulwark Bridge was destroyed and the flow of the river altered the water drew too far away from the dock to make it useful. There were plans to move them closer to the water, but the tragedies that followed drew attention elsewhere and the dock simply sat and rotted.
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**39) ABRITROM QUARRY:** The blue white marble used in much of the construction of Deleran’s crossing was quarried here. There was also a fairly rich gold and gem mine at one time, but the veins have run dry. The Gnome Piam Abritrom, owned and ran this Mining Corporation for centuries. As Piam aged the mines petered out, almost as if she were connected to them. In fact that was the rumor. As long as Piam was alive the mines would keep producing. Oddly enough that came to pass. Shortly after Piam died the veins dried out. Marble could still be quarried here but there is no real need for such an expensive building material. From time to time someone gets the notion in their head that there are still untapped riches in the mines below and they go prospecting, but always return empty handed… if they return at all.
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**40) STANDING STONES:** Another ancient feature of the area. This one predates the Barony itself. It is believed that Druids long ago erected this circle of stones, most likely in response to Weave Energy and Convergences that frequent the area. There are no active Circles that worship here, although they are often visited by passing Druids and Rangers. The area is typically calm and safe, and seems to radiate a peaceful aura. However, during the 10th moon of the year this area takes on a dark and ominous tone. This has led to the belief that the site was built to contain tears in the veil leading to the Shadowfel.
**41) TOWER RUINS:** The floor of a ruined tower can be found here. No one really knows who it once belonged to. It was here when the town was founded. There are many strange tales about this place. At night one can sometimes hear moaning and wailing coming from this location… but that is usually due to some young couple… the tower is a frequent haunt for romantic trysts.
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**42) HILLSIDE GATEHOUSES (HS):** These two fortified structures continue to guard the main road in and out of the city. When the city was thriving the lines at the checkpoints were often quite long and took dozens of City Watch members to keep traffic moving. Now they are manned by a single Guard, if they are manned at all.
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**43) THE DURRAND ESTATE (HS):** The most majestic mansion in the city belongs to its wealthiest family. The mansion sits on the highest point in Hillside and has a fabulous view over the area. There are no shortage of rumors about the house and family, however, the truth is that they have kept a clean reputation. Whether that is because they are actually an upstanding family or because they are simply good at keeping skeletons locked in closets is a matter of much local debate. Tolliver Durrand is the current head of the Durrand Family.
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**44) CALLINGTON CHATEAU (HS):** The Callington family extended well beyond the Barony’s throne. While they were not eligible for the crown by name alone, they were and are wealthy in their own right. They did attempt to take up the title years before Jynifir Snowbrooke made her play for the Barony, but as true to the Callington family history, tragedy struck and they were unable to make a proper claim. They have all but completely removed themselves from the public eye and live quiet lives. They are occasionally seen at prestigious functions for the upper class, but they never stay long before politely excusing themselves. The youngest living son Goutier and his family run the estate and manage the Noble House.
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**45) THE GUIVERE MANSION (HS):** The Guivere’s are a longstanding property managers. They own a good number of buildings in town, most of them leased out to local business folk and families. They have a nasty reputation as uncaring landlords, and it is well earned. They would rather see a building sit empty than offer it up to struggling people. They have another reputation as cultists to an Elder Being, though no proof of their connection to such a dangerous entity has been proven. Still, their family has an unusually prevalent history of madness, and often meet untimely ends. Frequently discovered Eldritch runes and symbols on their properties have furthered that rumor as well, although to be fair, such things can be found in many of the structures in town. Perhaps it is all coincidental, but it is hard to deny that something supernatural surrounds the family, but whether they source or perhaps the target of it is another matter. The ancient Matron of this Noble Family is one Beatrix Guivere, and she is not someone to end up on the wrong side of.
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**46) MELANIS HALL (HS):** The family home of Magistrate Vimar Melanis sits quiet and empty most days. Melanis keeps an apartment in High Road near The Chamber of Voices, and rarely returns to the lonely estate. Vimar’s wife died in childbirth, and his infant daughter did not survive the winter. He never remarried and has no living relatives. He often states that he has no fond memories of the Hall, but he has not been able to bring himself to part with the place. It will pass when the last of my line dies with me, he tells all perspective buyers. There are a few servants and a groundskeeper that frequent the Hall, but otherwise no one has lived there for decades.
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**47) MORELY HOUSE (HS):** The Morely family was one of the first to arrive after the founding of Deleran’s Crossing. They owned Blue Water Merchants, a successful international trade and cargo business. The patron of the family sold the business and moved to the Stolregards where they ran logistics for the growing Barony. The family continued to thrive and became an integral part of the land. They held many positions of leadership and were held in high regard. Sadly almost the entire family was wiped out in the Plague of Worms. At least that’s the common story. The truth is the majority of them were murdered on night at a family gathering. The youngest son managed to escape with his wife and child. They were the only survivors. The killer was never caught, but those that know the truth suspect a Sanguine Star killer was responsible. The Morely House now sits empty. No one will buy it and attempts to demolish it have been met with supernatural resistance. It is yet another building that is clearly haunted. Those that have entered the premises describe feelings of deep fear, sadness, and anger. So deep are these feelings that they are overcome by the emotions fleeing the premises or carrying out violence.
### HILLSIDE BUSINESSES
**48) STONE-SIGHT EXPEDITIONS (HS):** (Long Closed) This was once an independent Adventuring Company, owned by the Dwarven Scholar and Knowledge Cleric Belson Stone-Sight. Stone-Sight and his Goliath bodyguard disappeared the night before he was to leave on an expedition to Panitube, one of his favorite treasure hunting spots. He left behind his wife Magdha Blast-Hammer and a daughter as well. His shop was closed and everything inside was sold at auction.
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**49) BERNARD'S ODDS AND ENDS (HS):** Bernard LeRue is a specialist at acquiring and selling other people junk. They say one person’s trash is another person’s treasure, and Bernard has proven that quite true. He carries a lot of adventuring gear that has been “found” after the owners met with an untimely end. He also has a lot of knick-knacks from just about every family in town. All these types things seem to drift in and out of his shop over time, and Bernard always seems to manage to turn a profit on them.
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**50) THE CAREFUL CLEAVER (HS):** This butcher shop is owned by Amand Allaire a man of fine taste and spicy reputation. The shop does most of the meat work in the city. The storefront deals only in quality cuts, while meats for stews and sausages can be bought directly from a slaughterhouse nearby. Most of what Amand deals in is either Venison, Beef, or Mutton… but for those with more exotic tastes the Butcher of Hillside has ways of finding what his customers are asking for.
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**51) KARGAMON’S MAPS:** This map shop has been in the Kargamon family for three generations. Its Founder was the foremost authority in the world on all things Cartographic and The Mythology of Treasure Maps. Over the years he had become quite wealthy through rather dubious means. The map business did not survive the calamities that befell the world and diminished, as so many things in Deleran’s Crossing that were great have. His Grandson has reopened the shop and sparked a renewed interest in Treasure Hunting. The musty old store has a fair share of business as so many individuals have begun looking for any means of escape possible, and that includes the high risk high reward life of a treasure hunter.
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**52) THE BREAD BASKET (HS):** The Breadbasket is a large bakehouse in Hillside. It employes dozens of workers to provide the bread necessary to even come close to feeding the city. It runs day and night constantly churning out more loaves. It is owned by Sonia Pasquier, a barker of the finest skill. Sonia and a few others in the shop handle all of the other baking requests, of which there are a considerable amount. Afterall, the wealthy need something to take their minds off the misery of the masses around them, so why not eat cake!?
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**53) STICKS AND WICKS (HS):** Clarisse Barrault’s family figured out long ago that anything that casts out the shadows in Deleran’s Crossing was a hot commodity. Opening Sticks and Wicks was a genius move. The shop specializes in goods uniquely crafted to keep away evil spirits and drive out wicked creatures. It’s almost all a gimmick of course. Clarisse makes all of her wares herself in the basement, but the locals don’t care. If there is even a chance that they could get a little extra protection or help against the darkness they’ll take it. Did I mention that it is “almost” all a gimmick. Clarisse does know a thing or two about magic and is well acquainted with the darkness and shadows.
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**54) THEODORE'S TEXTILES (HS):** The local textile shop keeps itself quite busy. Owned by Théodore Baume, Theodore’s Textiles has several full time employees and seasonally hires many more. Most of their workmanship and quality isn’t overly high, but most of the townsfolk could care less. Theodore himself handles the upper class goods, and does quite a bit of business with the shops in High Road.
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**55) LESAGE'S EMPORIUM (HS):** The Emporium is a run down business owned and operated by Ethan Lesage and his mother Rebecca who are the only living members of the family. Ethan is unlikely to start a family at this point. The shop deals in household goods and makes a fair amount of money. Sadly, it is obvious that the income is not used to better the establishment and spent instead on keeping Ethan well fed.
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**56) HILLSIDE GENERAL STORE (HS):** A small and practical store dealing in everything from groceries to tools to home furnishings, the Hillside General Store is a local staple of business. Owned by Perric Greentuft, a halfling whose family has lived in Deleran’s crossing since near the founding, is proud of his shop which he runs with typical Halfling sensibility. In most other places this little shop may be considered rustic. Here it shines like a well cut jewel.
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**57 BOUVIER'S APOTHECARY (HS):** The strong scent of arcane components waft from the door and windows of this little corner shop. The windows are brushed dark and little light is kept inside. The shelves are lined with bizarre and stereotypical items one would expect to find in a Occult Apothecary. What one does not expect is the friendly and beautiful young lady who runs and owns the shop. Elodie Bouvier, is a Vistani woman who keeps the town supplies with potions, medicines, and the occasional spell. Bouvier’s is an often whispered about but more often visited establishment.
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**58) CRYSTAL CLEAR (HS):** Edwardo Allenson, deals in Windows, Mirrors, and glass Housewares. If it can be made of glass Edwardo crafts it. The shop does well enough and is a a wonder to behold. Panes for windows alongside glasses and bowls reflected in mirrors give the place an unsettling feel as a shopper often sees reflections of themselves and their surroundings in a distorted and strange manner. In that regard it is a perfect reflection of the people in town. Edward hopes that someday the fortunes in town will pick up and all the broken windows will need someone to repair them.
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**59) BLAST-HAMMER’S (HS):** This is Hillside's Smithy, and a quality one at that. The forges here run long hours working tirelessly to meet the needs of the locals. One of the only Dwarves living outside of the Bronze Hall, Maghda Blast-Hammer can almost always be found in her shop. Although a good amount of arms and armor come out the the Bronze Hall. this large business takes care of most local needs. From tools to swords, if the locals need it Blast-Hammer’s makes it.
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**60) WINCHESTER’S WAGONS (HS):** Benjamin Winchester owns this Wagon business and has really fallen on hard times, although he has managed to hold on. It is a rather large establishment, as they need room for wagon construction, and sits just outside Market Square. Most locals in need of wagons buy from Winchesters, however, in Deleran’s Crossing and the Stolregard Barony, few locals need a carriage. Instead they deal mostly in farm carts and wheelbarrows.
**61) PELETIER'S PELTS (HS):** Irène Peletier has worked hard to make Peletier’s Pelts a profitable business. She has yet to succeed. She works out of a rundown establishment near just at the edge of Market Square. Unless you’re a local or know what you’re looking for it could be easily missed as the building is nearly falling apart. The place is just making ends meet and she does a fair amount of work in town, but the shop isn’t quite turning enough coin to better its circumstances. Peletier’s Pelts is yet another example of business resembling culture.
**62) MUMBLE’S CURIOS AND SECRETS (HS):** One of Deleran’s Crossing’s more odd oddities, Mumble’s Curios and Secrets is little more than a third hand junk shop. Founded by the famed Kenku Adventurer, Mumbles, but currently owned and run by Skree the Kobold. It is funded by a trust backed by the Alabaster Palace. Mumbles always wanted it to be taken care of, no matter who was running it. And so even though the shop rarely has a customer - due in large part to it selling actual junk and in larger part to being run by a Kobold who loves junk - it has been a Deleran’s Crossing fixture for a great many years.
**63) ZIPPER’S (HS):** This Zipper Factory is owned by the Snowbrooke Estate. Once all the rage, zippers are now a fairly common accessory. The Factory still does well enough though, and employs a good number of locals. The foreman Bolivar Snowbrooke isn’t known for kindness It's hard work and the brutality of the management keeps people away, even if the factory pays good wages.
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### HIGHROAD MERCHANTS
**64) A CUT ABOVE (HR):** A Barber Shop, owned by Cyril Cortot. The shop services the well off crowd in town, and they pay well for the skilled work. Cyril also spends weekends down on The Beggar’s Highway trimming up the downtrodden. While that may seem very altruistic, there is another thing that the A Cut Above is known for. Information. The shop collects a lot of gossip and spreads a lot of its own. Many of Cyril’s most valuable customers don’t come here for a haircut.
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**65) GRAY OAK WONDERS (HR):** Rayan Bertrand is a true master of the woodworking craft and his goods speak loudly of those skills. Gray Oak lumbering in the Barony has dramatically slowed due to the dangers presented in the work, but this large shop in Highroad still manages to do a good deal of exporting, and Bertrand keeps his place in good working order. Shoppers can find anything from beautifully carved figurines and statues to massive bedframes and extensive cabinetwork to small shelves and sets of spoons, but the buyer had better be aware when shopping here, as a single spoon will cost you a week's wages.
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**66) SOIREE (HR):** Soiree was opened by Mathys Roux at the height of the Barony. A shop for customed tailored suits and dresses that cost ten times what one should expect to pay would have failed in most other cities. During that time in Deleran’s Crossing people lined up for a genuine Roux outfit. In fact kings and queens from across the continent paid exorbitant amounts of coin for his work. In a way it was all a sham. His materials were quality, but his work was shoddy and never held up long. But his presentation was magnificent. And what did it matter? The rich would buy an outfit, wear it once, and then proudly tell friends they owned a genuine Mathys Roux. Mathys was murdered shortly before the Plague of Worms, and his spirit still haunts the shop. The building is well kept and in good order, although there are no records of upkeep. The city is in no need of more business space and so is done about the haunting. Afterall, Mathys still keeps his shop at the peak of all things classy. Looking through the windows of Soiree is like taking a peek into Deleran’s Crossing’s past, when it was common to spend a fortune to look their absolute best… if only for a day.
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**67) SHELF INDULGENCE (HR):** Margot LeBlanc is almost as ancient as her shop. The shop does little business and many believe that Margot doesn’t actually want to sell her inventory. Locals say it is easier to afford a townhouse than it is a tome from Shelf Indulgence. The shop is in constant financial trouble and has almost been closed a number of times, but Margot somehow manages to keep the doors open. Shelf Indulgence is a narrow and stuffy space taking up the center section of all three floors of a much larger building which is on the verge of collapse, and is packed dangerously full of books. In fact Margot was almost killed one day when a stack toppled over on her trapping her beneath a mound of moldering texts. Were it not for a rare visitor to the store she would probably be there still.
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**68) HOMESTEAD DECOR (HR):** Anne-Claire Serre and her classy boutique Homestead Decore do well enough in town to keep her in the lower tier of the upper class. The name is a little deceiving, as it brings up images of the trappings found in cabins and farmhouses. Her wares are quite the opposite. Her family has a longstanding trade agreement with one of the only merchants still willing to bring foreign goods to the Barony, and that has made them both quite rich. Her store isn’t overly large, but with what she charges for her goods it doesn’t need to be. One or two sales a month pay the bills and keep her in high social standing.
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**69) CLICKS AND GIGGLES (HR):** Tinkering and Toys isn’t something that one would think could turn a profit in Deleran’s Crossing, but somehow Nittlekeelink “Old Nitty” Tinknozzle has managed to do so. The shop is a wonder in and of itself. Visitors marvel as the mechanical creations filling the shelves at Clicks and Giggles. The shop is packed full of various items. Clocks, home appliances, and toys of all manner seem to be falling off the shelves. It is said that Old Nitty is touched and simply never stops working, and that may have some truth to it, but he also knows the value of his work and doesn’t simply let things walk out the door… unless he designed them to do so.
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**70) HIGH ROAD ARMS AND ARMOR (HR):** Harlin Tileck owns this majestic looking shop up in High Road. His wares are expensive and adorn many of the wealthy in Deleran’s Crossing, and that’s about all they do. Bleck is a brilliant smith but really only does masterwork level quality when it comes to figure and form. Making most of the goods produced and sold here art and not battle quality. They are designed for glamor, not glory, and those who take them into trouble usually find themselves in over their heads.
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**71) SIMPLY ENCHANTING (HR):** This store, once owned by Juliette Mariechiel, has sat empty for nearly a century. Juliette heavily enchanted the store with a dozen or more unseen servants to keep it pristine with no effort on her part. Those enchantments remain, even though Juliette has long since passed. Unfortunately for anyone interested in opening a business here, those same enchantments work against changes. The servants deem any goods that do not qualify as Arcane and “clean” them up. Another magic shop may be able to open here, but there is no market for such a high caliber of merchandise. And so the shop sits empty with perfectly painted and dust free shelves, and likely will till the end of time.
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**72) OPULENT ACCESSORIES (HR):** Luna Swansong, a elf of astonishingly stubborn resilience, has managed to keep a gems and jewelry store open in Deleran’s Crossing since shortly after the rich started coming to the city. For centuries she has been able to turn a profit and refuses to close her doors. To anyone's knowledge, she has never been robbed, but there are rumors that a few attempts have been made to heist her jewels. None of those would be thieves are still around to tell tales. Now whether that is because they are fiction and not fact is really anyone’s guess. But… it is strange that thieves thinking about robbing her have disappeared, and stranger still that no one has ever robbed her.
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**73) TOUCH OF CLASS (HR):** Another home decor shop in Deleran’s Crossing, this one owned by Gilles Barnier and specializing in restoration and antiques from the area rather than new or foreign goods. They proudly display items and art from the Golden Years of the city, and there is a good market for that type of nostalgia. Very few residents are alive from that time, but a great many of them would love to see a revival of that period. Although, little to no one is willing to work hard to see that happen. Still, a vase from the Castle Skystone that Vernetta Callington put flowers in at one time does manage to ease consciences and pay Gilles’ bills.
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**74) THE SEWING SISTERS:** The wealthy are always looking for something new to wear. Madaline Del’La’Croix owns the shop that makes that happen. This large establishment has very little on display up front, just enough to draw in customers. Where the real work of The Sewing Sister’s takes place is in the back. There are a number of private fitting rooms where customers are measured and fitted for outfits. Once an order is placed, the dozens of girls “The Sisters” in the back get to work immediately, crafting a custom tailored outfit, often within the day. It is a slick operation with a complicated reputation. Del’La’Croix is notoriously vicious tempered, and more than one of her girls has disappeared, although Del’La’Croix swears the girls were unwilling to work hard and have simply left town looking for easier opportunities.
## CHAPTER 4
### People That you Meet
Following are the backgrounds of many people that fill the homes, shops, and streets of Deleran’s Crossing. Most of the descriptions include some generalities on a person’s physical features and attitudes.
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Also are “Potential Dark Secrets”. *Potential*, they aren't all in play during any given time. In fact doing so may cause an unwelcome level of chaos. These are designed to provide plot hooks and adventures outside of a main adventure you might be playing in. But as in all things D&D, you go ahead and use them as you see fit!
#### MATRON ADELE MESNY
Matron Mesny is what most folks would call a “piece of work”, well most folks might use other phrases, but I’m polite to my NPCs. An older woman, well into Spinster territory, Adele never had much luck landing a man. She is attractive enough and was raised well, in an upper class home, to be prim and proper, but her stern attitude kept most of her courting to brief meetings over tea and empty dance cards at social events. The Family servants used to joke that her father had sold Adele’s sense of humor to some fiend in exchange for his second born, a son who was always the life of any party. Adele has always claimed she didn’t mind being alone, the thought of sharing a bed with a man turned her green, and while most believe she meant sick… green is also the color of envy. She did have her heart and eyes set on Baron Ozrin for a time when they were younger, but after a few weeks together the Baron moved on to a new lady, one more prone to giggling. Adele was heartbroken and left the Barony for almost a year before returning and taking over the orphanage. She is a strict woman with the children and sets very high standards for behavior. Those that learn to behave are often adopted, those that don’t are often severely punished.
**Potential Dark Secret:** As you may have guessed Adele’s time away was roughly nine months. She conceived a child during her tryst with Ozrin. She attempted to speak to him about it, but he threatened to have her executed if she ever accused him of such things again. She took over the orphanage never telling another soul about her son. She kept the boy from ever being adopted and he now works as a Constable for the City Watch. She has never told him who his parents are but she thinks about doing so often. However, the consequences of such an action terrify her.
#### ALGREN THE GOBLIN
Goblins are strange little creatures. They are extremely crafty and utterly brainless all in one swoop. They are most often ruled by their instinctual nature to survive at the expense of others and to take bizarre risks while doing so. The average lifespan of a Goblin is seven years. Just enough to put the creature into adulthood before some self inflicted catastrophe strikes. Algren is… different. He was born with a hyper intelligence that rivals the greatest minds to ever live, and had the self control and wisdom to understand how different he was. Others of his clan noticed and chased him from the tribe threatening to eat him, or to feed him to the flesh eating ants they had built their village near. Algren was found by Deleran Callington’s group and, of all people, it was Malrom the Dwarf who argued that they spare the goblin’s life. Algren grew and soon discovered he had great aptitude for Wizardry. He began to work and study alongside Pieter Bonnet and even taught at the Mages tower in Cetnovia for decades before it was destroyed.
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He was now hundreds of years old, leading many to believe that Goblins are ageless, and their stupidity is the only thing keeping them from dominating the sphere. Many believe that his power rivaled Pieter’s and the only reason he often took the role of apprentice was to keep bigots from burning the tower down. After settling in Deleran’s Crossing the two continued to have many adventures and to aid adventurers who came to town. The also spent much time with Steel-Grit, who too dusted off his old gear once and a while just for old times sake. Eventually Steel-Grit passed, which was hard but expected. A few years later Pieter was killed while he and Algren shielded the Barony from a tidal wave during the Pentad War. Algren never recovered from that sacrifice. He was shattered physically, barely capable of walking, but the emotional damage was far worse. Algren withdrew into the tower in Deleran’s Crossing, locked the door and never came out again. People claim to see him from time to time looking out a window or turning on the lights in the evening, but most believe the Goblin long dead and it is only the magical servants that keep the tower operational.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Algren is alive and unwell. Still a weak and crooked creature, forever changed by the events of the War, he seeks to undo that which was done to him and his friend. He has seen time travel in operation, and knows it potentially could be used to alter history. That is after all what the convergences do. He only need to find a way to master that raw power and focus it back to the moment that caused the great separation. Without that event there would be now void and now wave. His friend would be alive and his body unbroken. He is close to achieving that goal… but what if he is wrong? What if it doesn’t work, or perhaps creates a far worse outcome? I matters not. In his madness there is only one choice, to change everything that has happened in the last 100 years.
#### VINTER ALURRA SUMMERSONG
Alurra is a Wood Elf Druid of significant skill in regard to her ability to shape and tend plantlife, but not in much else Druidic. When the Durrand family first set their sights on the Sotlregard Barony as home to their new brand of vineyard they immediately enlisted the help of Allura. They knew the ground would be ill suited for the growing of grapes and had foresight enough to plan ahead. Allura at the time was a young elven woman who was really only interested in botany and the growing and tending of plants. She had shown much promise in Druidcraft, but had no real interest in being part of circles or living away from others deep in some wilderness. Instead she traveled to cities and plied her skills to the wealthy in order to make quick coin. When she was offered the chance to work for the Durrands she reluctantly took the job not sure what to make of what was at the time a colonization effort. She never regretted that decision. Centuries later she still tends the vines and orchards for the family and is secretly proud to be the real reason the wine they sell is so sought after.
**Potential Dark Secret:** What could make a wine made with fruit grown in a region so unwelcoming to grapes become so sought after that merchants would happily travel to such an out of the way and dangerous place as Deleran’s Crossing? Why Black Magic of course. Allura isn’t actually a Druid, she is a warlock to a Fey Patron who delights in spreading addictions and misery. She does tend the vines and does create amazing vintages. But each bottle comes with a dark blessing. Each sip is a potential addiction. Each and every time another glass of Durrand Wines is drained the potential for Allura’s patron to unleash harm on the imbiler grows. It is of course one of the reasons the Barony is so miserable, and one of the reasons that Allura has always insisted that there be a discount for locals.
#### AMAND ALLAIRE
Amand Allaire is the local butcher. He keeps a shaved head and a thick beard. His hair is black and his skin dark, but he has bright eyes and a charming smile. He is tall and well muscled, but is also very light on his feet. Amand, along with his wife and children arrived here from abroad a few years ago and he immediately put his great skill with a butcher’s knife to work. He also has a lot of contacts in the few remaining trade networks Deleran’s Crossing has. He uses these contacts to acquire a variety of foreign livestock to sell. He does this to take advantage of the often strange diets and requests many locals have. He sells exotic meat and spices in his shop and more common meats out of his large slaughterhouse.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Amand has a few secrets. Men with knife skills like Amand’s often learn them in places other than a butcher’s shop. Amand was one one of the Kren Emperor’s Reapers, part body guard, part assassin, part spy, all deadly. Reapers are sworn to the throne for life, but Amand fell in love and fled with his new wife. They’ve been a lot of places and left a lot of bodies behind. They were last in Balinovia where they expertly faked their deaths, and now live in the last place on the sphere that anyone wants to go. Amand is a man of few morals, and he does also, as you may have guessed, deal in meats that most folk would consider eating a heinous act. If you’re not picking up what I’m putting down… Amand doesn’t mind selling people to the right customers. He also has all the skills necessary to acquire his livestock in that regard. Lastly, Amand is a member of the Gilded Hand, a trio of merchants that control most of the commerce in the city. He took this place from the former butcher who after refusing to sell Amand the shop met an unfortunate end in a ally one night where he was flayed.
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#### ANNE-CLAIRE SERRE
The Serre family has money. The bulk of the family lives in Southbridge where they are the ruling Noble house. Anne-Claire moved to Deleran’s Crossing to get out from under the thumb of her father. She is a sharp witted and tongued woman. Most folks who know her describe her as a whirlwind of activity and a lot to handle. She is often both distracted and hyper focused on tasks and conversations, and from time to time suddenly feels the need to be secluded. She is in her mid thirties and the type of lady who knows what she wants and knows how to get it. Except when it comes to men. She has been married six times, divorced four, and widowed once. She has three children all from different fathers and one on the way with her current husband, Jaquis Duruord who is reportedly something of a mystic. Her family has several international connections which she uses to import goods to her shop. Her father does not approve of her life, but does continue to support it, perhaps out of fear that she will move back home.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Anne-Claire speaks to the dead. She doesn’t like it and she doesn’t tell anyone of her abilities. The dead come and find her and simply begin talking. They do not stop. This explains Anne-Claire’s often distracted appearing behaviors. It’s hard to pay attention to the people around you when the rotting apparitions of everyone ever murdered in the city are clammoring for your attention. The spirits also frequently possess her for brief periods of time, and are the main reason she has been divorced so frequently. It's hard to stay married to your new wife when your recently deceased secret lover is asking you why you dumped her in the river, through your new wife’s body. Which is exactly how her last marriage ended. Her newest husband is helping Anne-Claire learn to guide the spirits to rest, and to better reveal secrets. Secrets which they haven’t decided what to do with, but with access to so many restless beings the sky's the limit.
#### BEATRIX GUIVERE
This ancient woman is the head of the Guivere Family, one of Deleran’s Crossing’s oldest and most powerful Aristocrat Houses. This tall thin gray silver haired matron projects her age but there is no hint of frailty in her. She raidaites strength and being in her presence is an intimidating ordeal. The full house consists of seventy five members. Beatrix’s eight children and their spouses, her twenty seven grandchildren and their nineteen spouses, and her seventeen great grandchildren, only two of whom are married. They are easily the largest family in the township, although many of them do not live full time in the town. The Guivere family are property owners in the Barony, and they own a lot of it. The family all claim residences in Deleran’s crossing but her children have spread out across the Barony to manage their other holdings. A good many of them can also be found in the halls of Wellstone. The family has a history of serious mental illness and their number would be far larger had so many of them not taken their own lives or succumbed to madness that ultimately led to their demise. Town gossip is rather unkind to the family. Their mental health is often a subject of ill conversations, but so is their attitudes as loandowners. They own nearly half of Deleran’s Crossing but they charge exorbitant amounts for rent. Many of their buildings sit empty, and it would seem that they would prefer to keep it that way than allow the poor to take residence at lower costs. It is also rumored that they are Eldritch Cultists, and there is some proof in that regard. Their buildings are often marked with unsettling symbols and are notorious for strange occurrences.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Perhaps the least dark of the potential dark secrets, the Guivere’s are not actually awful people, well most of them. Nor are they cultists attempting to summon an Elder Being. They are in fact a family of Monster Hunters, though most of the family is uninvolved in the actual hunting. Over their long history many of them have been some manner of skilled adventurers. Warriors, Mages, Clerics, Rangers, and just about any other adventurer skill set has come from the family. They have fought and died in the shadows to keep the Stolregard Barony from succumbing to madnesses induced by the darkness. But as the famed Van Richten has often said “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” These sad endings have not dissuaded the family from what they see as their Divine calling, and they to this day continue the good, but costly fight against the ever growing darkness, and Beatrix, a Cleric of some strength, fears that currently, the darkness is winning.
#### BELIVOR AND BELLISANTE GUIVERE
Beatrix’s oldest Grandchildren are twins, and next to her they are the most involved in the family’s affairs. Beomont lives in Southbridge and Bellisante lives in Coldrock where they watch over the Guivere properties in those locations. Unlike most twins, these two share very little in common. Beo has dark hair while Bell’s is cornsilk. Beo is thin and bookish, while his sister is well built and athletic. Bell is wise and patient, while her brother, is intelligent but brash. The only trait they share in common is their piercing green eyes. You would think that such a pair would have fought like cats and dogs growing up, but in fact that is quite the opposite. They perfectly compliment each other’s strengths and weakness, giving their parents, servants, and teachers no end of trouble. The pair was often found sneaking through the mansion, and the neighbor’s mansions. They often escaped into town to run amok in the streets. Eventually they took their escapades into the crypts of the Graveyard, and were nearly killed by a ghoul.
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Had their Grandmother not found them and, as the stories go, beat the creature back to death with her umbrella, the twins would have been devoured. They were placed directly under their grandmother’s guidance, and far more well behaved after that incident.
**Potential Dark Secret:** The twins are the youngest members of the Monster Hunting side of the Guivere family. They have been trained for the role since their ordeal with the ghoul when they were children, and they are quite skilled at it. Unfortunately one of the two has no intentions on continuing the fight against local evils. Instead that twin has made a dark bargain. Instead of holding back the tide of evil has plans on opening the floodgates of wickedness on Deleran’s Crossing. Which twin is it? Well, I suppose that is a matter that shall have to be settled in the course of our players adventures.
#### BENJAMIN WINCHEWSTER
Perhaps one of the most secretive and gossiped about families in town, the Winchesters have had a long and bumpy history. Benjamin, his wife Luce, and their children are the youngest and only surviving WInchesters. They are a kind and good family, well liked, but pitied by the town. Benjamin himself is a strong gray haired man who looks well beyond his age. In brief, the story starts with his ancestors and a man by the name of Pratt. They founded a school for warlocks just down the road toward Brannover. It went to hell… almost literally… The stories are varied, but all of them terrible. Lycanthropes, Necromancy, Ritual Abuse, Ghosts, and even a Axe Murderer lurking in town and the woods. What ever the truth or truths were, Pratt had unleashed something terrible and the Winchester family was nearly destroyed in the process. Benjamin has tried hard to leave that all behind but it has not been easy. The town doesn’t forget things like that, and there was an incident just over a decade ago where much of the past came rushing forward. It weighs like a chain on his neck.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Very few know about it, but eleven years past now the Winchesters were attacked by a hag who was on the outs with her coven. The creature had stolen their twin infant girls and threatened to consume them. An adventuring party intervened and managed to defeat the Coven and drive off the wayward Hag. They rescued the children but other than Banjamin and his family, the other Winchesters - His brother, his sisters, and his father - were all killed. Publically it was a house fire. Privately it was the hag, an angry and spiteful creature. Since that time Benjamin has done a bit of research on hags. And as his twin girls approach their twelfth birthday he has done his best to prepare himself for the worst.
#### BERNARD LERUE
Bernard LeRue is an ancient gentleman whose dark hair has gone completely white and stands in stark contrast to his darker toned skin. He is nearly one hundred years of age, and for his age is surprisingly healthy. He does have a hard time breathing and does so through a specially crafted medical mask, doesn’t often get out of his chair, and certainly isn’t lifting anything. He relies on his shop hand Monty to do almost all of the day to day. The twelve year old lad doesn’t mind though and happily takes care of business for his boss. Bernard has an amazing eye for what can and will sell in his shop. To many it all looks like junk. To most of them, most of it is. Most of it. Customers always seem to find something they want hidden among other items.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Bernard is an “illusion”, but not the magical kind, at least not in the traditional sense. Bernard is actually a masterwork puppet designed to be unquestioningly lifelike and operated from the inside. So, who runs it? Why the dozens of children that live in the shop. Bernard’s Odds and Ends is the home base for a gang of orphan burglars and pick pockets. These children have thieving down to a science and they treat it like a game. A game that they are better at than anyone in town.
#### BHUEL STEEL-GRIT
The Steel-Grits are a founding family in Deleran’s Crossing. Malrom, Bhuel’s Grandfather, was one of Callington’s original adventuring party, and later helped him found the Barony. Malrom eventually hung up his battleaxe and instead wielded a meat cleaver. He opened the Copper Crossing and the inn quickly became a local sensation and ultimately a world famed establishment. A lot has changed since those days. Bhuel now follows in his Grandfather’s footsteps, and runs the third iteration of the Copper Crossing. (The other two were destroyed) Bhuel is a rugged looking copper toned Dwarf of middle age. He is a world class chef, and shrewd business manager. He is well thought of in town, but many think he spends too much time going on about his Grandfather and not enough time celebrating his own accomplishments. Either way he cooks some of the finest meals in the city, and he has well earned the nick name “Steel-Grill” the same that his grandfather bore.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Bhuel has a passion and taste for exotic meats. Now dining on a rare fish or a desert ostrich is one thing, but Bhuel is willing to pay top coin for meat from more nefarious sources. This does include fellow thinking beings, and while those have made some interesting meals, the Dwarf is far more interested in, say cooking up the meat from a Noble’s finest steed. Knowing that he is consuming something of great value to someone else somehow makes the meal so much more enjoyable to him. Almost as if the dish is salted with the tears shed by those who have lost what he has now gained. Were his tastes to become public there would certainly be an outcry against him, particularly since many of his closest friends have shared these special dinners with him.
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#### BOLIVAR SNOWBROOKE
Bolivar is an older man, but not quite elderly yet. He has a short temper and is not known for being kind. He has a family, which includes several grandchildren. He also has a large chip on his shoulder. He always fancied himself something of an Aristocrat, and by all rights he should be, he is a Snowbrooks afterall. But his father had done something to disgrace himself in the eyes of the upper class and Bolivar’s side of the family has been shunned ever since. He has hit a bit of good fortune lately when Baroness Maya asked him to be the foreman of the family Zipper Factory. Although she has made it clear that she cares not for the man himself, but her advisors say that doing so for the grandchildren to lift them out of the shadows would earn her some favor. The children even get to visit Castle Skybrook from time to time, but they have never actually met the Baroness.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Bolivar did not see the appointment as Foreman as a gift. Instead he took it as an insult. He has since been working for an opposing Noble house that has their eyes set on removing Baroness Maya and installing themselves on the throne. There is always some kind of plot in one of the Noble houses, everyone knows that, but this one actually has some teeth, and by teeth I mean army. They have recruited a number of mercenaries who are ready to move into town and help overthrow the Baroness. Two of them have taken Nanny positions for Bolivar’s Grandchildren and use each trip scout the palace more thoroughly.
#### BRANDO DELLA VALLE
Brando Della Valle, is the quintessential showman in all things. Tall and well built, with slick black hair and a pointed chin wrapped in a sharp goatee with a large handlebar mustache. He is Charming and Boisterous. Abrasive and Witty. Handsome and Despicable. All things to all people depending on the day. And depending on the day he is often quite miserable, at least deeply melancholy. He has dreams of grandeur whose edges lay far beyond the borders of this small sad little town. He is an ever dreamer. Always looking for greener grass. He does do well by his troop and it does greatly please him to see the Baroness at his shows, but he wants more.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Not long ago Brando encountered a woman. She captivated him, inspired him, motivated him, and betrayed him. Succubi know so well how to stroke a man’s… ego… Once she had him fully enthralled she began to push him. Since then accidents have begun happening at or near the theater. First, a simple stabbing. Not uncommon in Deleran’s crossing. Then a prop malfunction. A heart attack at the beverage cart. A slit throat in the dressing room… Desire is a dangerous flame. The fiend has promised him a path to making his dreams reality, but first, first she must acquire a few souls.
#### BODEN MORELY
Morely was dead, to begin with. The Morely family is a local tragedy, in a town of tragedies. The “official” story is that the Morely family was all killed by the Plague of Worms. And the timeline fits. But the truth is they were almost all murdered one evening during a faily gathering. Boden’s father and mother escaped with him never to return to town. Their family had owned a shipping company and as Boden grew he returned to the sea. Through a series of events Boden turned to an honorable style of Privateering. He was killed by one of his former crew while pursuing The Pirate Queen’s lost hoard. Though no one is sure why his spirit returned to Deleran’s Crossing, his ghost now haunts the Morely House.
**Potential Dark Secret:** As a child Boden had an imaginary friend. That’s not so unusual for a child, particularly an only child living in a large home. But this “friend” was unusual in the fact that it wasn’t as imaginary as his family assumed. Boden had formed a strange bond with a Boggart of unusual power and intellect. This creature for a time protected the family and kept their mansion vermin free, as a favor to Boden, but as the boy grew he wanted to play less and less with his invisible friend. This rejection enraged the Boggart and it killed his entire family at a gathering. As Boden’s parents fled the nasty little spirit cursed them, binding their souls to the house. Now that Boden has perished his spirit has returned and is trapped inside of the estate, and he and his family are all forced to play games with his old childhood friend.
#### CHRISTOFER LANDOLTZ
One of the oddest characters in this sad little town is Old Landy. Christofer is a gnome of great age. His hair is white and his beard is long. So long in fact he often trips over it as he goes about his business, and the hair on and in his ears is long enough to make a Dwarf’s beard rage with jealousy. He never speaks to anyone, and no one knows exactly where he lives. Although many suspect it is in Callington Park. He is such a mystery that no one even knows if his name is actually Christofer Landoltz, but that is what was written in the town records three hundred years ago, and that’s what they call him, when they are not calling him Old Landy. So what does Christofer do in Deleran’s Crossing? He tends the public gardens and the parks. Why? No one knows. He simply showed up one day and started working. He’s never harmed anyone and he does do a good job, although he has no help so he is fighting a losing battle against overgrowth. But that doesn’t seem to bother him. In fact, nothing seems to at all. Except one time when a dog kept him from pulling a weed. The city paid compensation for the dog, but not much, as after Old Landy had peeled it, all of the meat was salvageable and therefore profitable. The city deducted that from the pay out.
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**Potential Dark Secret:** Old Landy is under a Dark Fey curse. He is actually the reason the area’s plant life has become so unruly. He does of course tend to the landscaping around town, but for every square foot of greenery he tends he allows just a bit of Dark Fey energy to soak into the foliage. It takes years for those plants to turn into something more troublesome, but Old Landy has time. His curse will run him ragged until the area is ready to have its new Lord and Lady tear through the veil and claim the town for themselves. When one looks around at the site of things in Deleran’s Crossing it would be a fair bet that they could arrive any day now.
#### CLARISSE BARRAULT
Clarisse is a middle aged woman with dark hair and light brown skin tones. She is a wife and mother of five, two of which did not survive their infant years. Her husband tends the apiary in Crown Meadows, while she runs the family shop. She is a world weary woman who has had her fair share of sorrow. The Barrailt family business, Sticks and Wicks, is not one of them. The store has been in the family for a few generations now and done really well. There has always been some kind of lighting shop in the city, but when this particular shop opened the others closed up shortly after. Locals could easily buy the candles and oil lanterns at the general store, but since opening their doors the Barrault family has advertised that many of their good come with a Divine touch, making them far better suited for driving out the darkness. It was mostly an advertising ploy, but they did make an arrangement with the local Priest at the time to bless their candles in exchange for a significant discount for the church. Risky move as the church bought almost as many candles as the town. However, the superstitious nature of the locals helped the gamble pay off. Their business has thrived ever since.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Clarisse does know a thing or two about magic and is well acquainted with the darkness and shadows. Her business thrives for a reason. Her family has a dark spiritual patron. This entity imbues her goods with certain illusionary properties that feed off of the fears of people. Basically when someone is afraid, that fear manifests itself as simple auditory or visual illusions. These illusions are chased away by one of Sticks and Wicks holy candles. It’s an ideal set up, except for the fact that it is also one of the reasons the town is so afraid of everything. Clarisse has attempted to break the patronage twice… and she has lost two children because of it.
#### CYRIL CORTOT
Often called the Barber of Highroad. Cyril bristles a little at that title. His shop is indeed in Highroad, but he is a man of the people. He spends much of his free time helping the poor down in Hillside. Something the aristocracy deem to be simply wonderful. He is a younger gentleman with a wonderful talent for conversation and looks to match. He has never taken to courting, which is something many of the ladies in town lament and several of the gentlemen as well. Cyril’s love interests are the subject of much gossip and speculation. He bears this all quite well, though in an exasperated but good natured way. He always just tells people that he would be an awful spouse and would not want to afflict anyone with his constant presence.
**Potential Dark Secret:** The dark truth is that Cyril is already spoken for. Perhaps not in the marital sense, but his Dark Fey master is certainly unwilling to share her boy with anyone else. She uses Cyril to collect many things from the people in Deleran’s Crossing. Folk love to gossip while in the barber’s chair and information is very valuable, but more valuable than gossip are bits of the people themselves. A lock of hair, a clipping of nail, a drop of blood… all can be a powerful reagent in the right hands. Nearly everyone in town at one moment or another has had a trim given to them by the Barber of Highroad, and nearly everyone has become a memento in his collection. .
#### EDWARDO ALLENSON
Edwardo is a short bald and feisty man whose family originally hails from Balinovia. He is married with three children. Historically the Allenson’s have struggled most of their lives here, being among the town’s poor. The family has a bad history with drunkenness and internal domestic strife. Edwardo began working at Crystal Clear when he was just a boy. Ferris Joulivier, the owner at the time immediately recognized Edwardo’s skill, and took the boy in as a full apprentice. Ferris died some years later and Edwardo inherited the shop. Sadly Edwardo has not left many of the bad habits of his forefather’s behind. People do enjoy his company, but everyone knows he drinks too much and has a home full of strife.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Edwardo is in bed with the wrong kind of people. And I’m not talking about prostitutes, although there is that as well… When he was younger he angered several of the figures that keep the underbelly of the city running. They demanded payment and when Edwardo couldn’t come up with the coin, they demanded favors. Edwardo has taken on the role of torturer and hit-man for the syndicates, and he is good at it. He has a dark and sadistic side that fully embraces this calling. Those he works for and often those he has to work on, know him as Mr Mirror. It is a favorite modis opprandi of his to place a victim in front of a large mirror and force them to watch as he works. It is a terrifying and psychologically damaging ordeal. One he has delivered great success over to his employers with. Edward has recently finished a magical masterpiece in his glass shop. A Mirror of Life Trapping, and he simply can’t wait to put it to use.
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#### BISHOP EGAN CALLINGTON
The Callington name is a heavy weight to bear in Deleran’s Crossing. Everyone expects you to be a saint and a savior of the people. Most of the Callingtons weren’t any different than any other folk living in town. Egan however, is considered to be the stuff of Saints as far as most are concerned, even if they believe following the Divine is a load of hogwash. Egan is the Cleric who runs St Remigious’ Church in Hillside. It is a fine church and the community has done much to preserve it and vice versa. Egan went early into the ministry, shortly after marrying Kylia Dawnspire of Cold Rock. He and his wife have a deep passion to restore the Barony to a healthy kingdom, but there is only so much one can do, even if your name is Callington. Aside from daily services, Egan runs food distribution through the church using his limited Divine Empowerments to conjure healing and nourishment for the masses. While his wife collects clothing and other needs to be distributed among the poor. Together they make a real difference here in town.
**Potential Dark Secret:** The Callingtons have been plagued by tragedy their entire family history. Very few know this but the Family is under a powerful curse. Long ago, Deleran Callington crossed a Rakshasa, a powerful fiend who has taken an unending interest in sowing woes into the family tapestry. Egan was made aware of this curse early on, which is why he pursued the Cleric’s calling. But even putting the mantle of the Divine on seems to have done him little good. Recently he was visited by this fiend who has made an ultimatum of Egan. Help lure souls into fiendish pacts or watch his children die one by one. Egan has told no one of this terrible turn of events and has only days to decide what he will do.
#### ELODIE BOUVIER
Some say Elodie Bouvier is a hag and uses her business as a cover to ensorcel the local population. A lot of folks believe that. Her shop, after all, is a bit macabre and she does specialize in Vistani magics, medicines and potions that are closely related to what most people consider witchcraft. That doesn’t stop people from visiting her business. In fact she has one of the more popular shops in town. Elodie herself is a young raven haired vistanin woman of sharp wit and fetching beauty. She always dresses in black, typical to mourner’s robes, and really plays into the “witch” role the town has bestowed upon her, and then accents with the wild colors and flashy jewelry her people are known for. It has been good for business. She isn’t well liked due to her Vistani heritage and suspected connection to witchcraft. However, she isn’t hated either, her medicines have gotten many a young couple into or out of a jam depending on which stage of the relationship they are in, and her balms and elixirs have proven invaluable to those with indiscrete diseases. She also has aided most every other family in town, in one way or another, people get sick and more often than not, Elodie is the first person they turn to.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Being Vistani Elodie has strong connections to the Planes in general and particularilry to the Dark Powers of the Realms of Terror. She comes from a long line of powerful Vistan Women including the famed Madam Eva. These women possess supernatural abilities well beyond most of their Kin. Finding a class that defines her is very difficult, she has snips of Warlock, Wizard, and Cleric about her, as well as a little rogue spice. She isn’t nearly as young as she looks but uses a dark ritual to keep herself that way. Elodie presents herself as caring and helpful, and in many ways she is, but she does hold a deep grudge against the people of Deleran’s Crossing for how they treat her and her people. Her cures are often temporary keeping the customers returning for more, and once they’re hooked, they are exploited. Those that truly rile her anger are often cursed, and quite dramatically at times as well. The price to alleviate such a woe is always extraordinary. And all her prices include the silence of those involved. Death haunts many who have spoken ill of Elodie Bouvier.
#### ELVIESI, CECELIA, AND LUAN
The Maiden, the Madam, and the Matron of the Crimson Curtain. All three ladies of the night. All three, beautiful beyond measure. All three, even tempered and charming. All three sexually magnetic in their own ways. All three, far more shrewd than most folks taking advantage of their profession ever give credit for. Elviesi manages the younger employees and new hires. She gives careful attention to their needs and teaches them how to take care of themselves and spot dangerous clients. Cecelia is in charge of the experienced and older companions, who do most of the sheet work. Luan manages servers, dancers, and other entertainment. Together they run the Crimson Curtain but they do not own it. There is another side to their business. Those working in the sex trades learn things. People often talk to the workers as though they are close confidants. Probably due to the illusion of intimacy and safety a smart entertainer creates. The escorts in turn pass this information along to their employers, and the ladies pass that information along to the owner. Who that is? No one knows.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Patrons of the Curtain often comment on how much the three ladies look alike. And it is true, the resemblance is uncanny, which has led many to suspect that the business is a family affair. The truth is they are all clones of the same woman. They are constructs given life through magical processes. Who creates them is unclear but they have been used against and sold off to many patrons over the years. When that happens their master sends out one while activating her look alike. It creates an unquestionable alibi as the new clone is seen working at the Curtain while the other is out working or murdering…
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#### EMONIE VYVYAN
Emonie isn’t all that smart, she isn’t strong, and she doesn’t really have a way with words. There is little about her that would catch the eye of anyone she passes by. She is a young brown haired woman of standard features, and dresses in typical traveler’s clothing. But anyone who watches her in a more natural environment wouldn’t help but notice that she has a way with nature that easily baffles most people. Her father was a woodsman who locals say was a bit off. No one ever met her mother, and her father says she left soon after Emonie was born. She grew up among animals and plants developing a love and a passion for them. Dad taught her to hunt and track and to think like a beast not a man when in the woods. She took it all in and became a skilled Ranger. She can speak with animals and commune with plants. She doesn’t need or desire anything in the city, but did swear to protect it when she joined the Adventurer’s Guild. Sadly her party, the last party of the guild, was slain by some aberrant creature that was killing off livestock out near Brannover. Emonie returned to the Guild the last surviving member, and therefore its last Guildmaster, and then locked the doors, probably forever. She disappeared into the woods, but many claim to have seen her watching the roads, and are glad that she continues to keep them safe.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Emonie’s mother was a Kitsune, a fox like Fey Spirit, and gave birth to the girl as an experiment in what living a family life would be like. The experiment yielded undesirable results for the Fey and she abandoned the baby and her father almost immediately. Emonie begins to transform into a much lovelier and much more Fey looking lady when she nears Fey hotspots or creatures, some of her Kitsune features even beginto show. She noticed this while adventuring and asked her father about it. He reluctantly told her the sad story. After hearing him out she silently packed her things and left his house. She has not visited since. What she has done... is begun hunting fey creatures of all kinds, whether they be good or wicked. This hunt has recently begun to include beings like herself with distant fey heritage such as elves and gnomes.
#### ETHAN LESAGE
To most, Ethan Lesage is a strange and objectionable man. He is easily the most obeses resident of Deleran’s Crossing, and in a city where most folks struggle to keep food on the table, a man who eats far too much is a bit of a raw rub. He runs a Home Goods store in Hillside and does quite well, however, he spends almost all he earns on food. His shop and home are both in poor repair. He attempts to be friendly but his mannerism and hygiene do not help him. The only real redeemable quality Ethan has is that solely cares for his mother Rebecca, who has for many years now been losing her grip on reality. She lives in their home above his shop and can often be seen staring out the window.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Ethan and his mother are tormented by an angry Fairy whose affections were rejected by Ethan’s father. Ethan himself is under an Eating curse, he is always hungry and constantly compelled to eat. Each evening the Fairy prepares a feast for Ethan, and if he finishes it all she allows him to sleep that night. If he attempts to tell anyone about it he goes into a kind of allergic reaction to himself, and swells further emitting a rank odor that chases anyone nearby away. His mother is continually having her memories stolen from her one day at a time. Each dawn the Fairy visits her and tells her a riddle. If she cannot solve it the Fairy takes a memory. The first thing the Fairy stole from Rebecca was her memories of how to string words together so it is nearly impossible for her to communicate her plight or answer the riddle. Sadly it seems as if both the Lesages will die under thier curses.
#### DOCKMASTER FRANCIS “QUINT” MUNDUS
Not the most friendly man in Deleran’s Crossing, Dockmaster Mundus is one of the most well known. His loud boisterous laugh and corrosive language can often be heard all the way up in Highroad. He was a sailor in the Cetnovian Navy for some time until his ship was sunk off the Sorrow Song Shoals. They were transporting troops when a serpent took the vessel down. Hundreds of soldiers went into the water and the serpent picked them off one by one. The beast toyed with the survivors for days as they floated in the current on wreckage. Five days later they were spotted by a heavily armored vessel out of Southbridge that fired upon the serpent and chased it off. Mundus and 18 others were rescued. 232 others died in those waters. Mundus signed up with the Stolregard Navy and spent most of that time hunting Void Eels. Nasty creatures that live on the edge of the Void Waters and surrounding areas. The eels burrow their way through the hulls of ships and slither from cabin to cabin injecting sleeping sailors with a flesh dissolving toxin. About ten years ago he retired and moved to Deleran’s Crossing taking the Dock Master position. He still hunts eels, in his spare time down at Southbridge and has even caught one or two this far up in the Cold Rock.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Quint’s sanity was shattered pretty badly by his ordeal out in the Sorrow Shoals. He is genuinely certifiable. He has regular nightmares and suffers form suicidal thoughts frequently. He has a personal vessel and taken several trips back out to the Shoals, the hold packed with Black Powder, which he plans to detonate in a Sea Serpent’s mouth should one ever attempt to take his ship. Folks that know his story expect each time he leaves port to be the last time he leaves port.
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#### PRINCIPAL GERARD BAUDELAIRE
Gérard Baudelaire is one of the most loved individuals in town. He runs the city’s school and is a wonder with the children. He keeps an upbeat attitude that seems almost impossible to imagine given the environment in which they live. Mr B is a common household name among families with school age kids, and is always spoken well of. He is in his late thirties and a handsome man. He is currently unmarried and has never taken a spouse. Not from lack of potential candidates, as he is well pursued by the locals of marrying age. He is always gracious with those who approach him in that regard, but kindly dissuades them. He tells them that the children cannot afford to have his time divided between them and a family. That seems to only endear him more deeply into their hearts. There have been rare occasions where a rumor pops up of some wrongdoing. Those who spread such lies are oftentimes subjected to violent reactions. No one speaks ill of Mr B.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Our modern minds have a lot of dark places to go to when it comes to overly attached teachers and dark secrets. However, our Mr B doesn’t fit those stereotypical molds. However, Mr B is a serial killer. He uses the children, particularly the homeless ones, to gain access to families. From there he plays the part of caring educator to draw close to a Father. He is particularly fond of finding bad fathers. That man soon meets an untimely end. Mr B then assumes a great father figure role in the child’s life.
#### GILLES BARNIER
Gilles Barnier is a man of specific tastes. This well groomed gentleman in his mid fifties has specialized in antiques since first setting out on his own nearly forty years ago. His father ran a typical merchant’s shop in Cetnovia and did well enough to keep the family fed and out of rags, but Gilles always wanted more. He would often admire the finer things in his fathers shop and wonder why they would not sell. His father would explain to him that most folks do not have the money for such things. It was a true answer, but after watching people shop his whole life Gilles was of the persuasion that people will buy anything if you could only convince them they needed it. He set his eyes on Deleran’s Crossing as a place of great need, and desperate wealth. He isn’t wrong. While there are countless locals in poverty, much of the town’s and area's citizens have money, they just don’t let others know they have it. Gilles first created a buzz about how having properly restored items from the past is the height of class, and then he created a business that takes advantage of their desperation and dreams of living high class lives. He sell that which is old, at ridiculously high prices, in order to inspire people with what may be. The local upper class eats it up and keep Mr Barnier living high off his profits.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Gilles has a network of criminals who know where to find the objects he sells in his shop. Antiquing quality items is difficult work, and often those who have the items don’t want to part with them. Gilles’ people are the type that make offers that should not be refused, and if they are, well, sometimes those objects just go missing, and sometimes there is blood. They are also skilled grave robbers, although they try to avoid such activity. In this land stealing from a corpse often brings its ghost calling for you later. Gilles has more than once faced an undead problem thanks to a cursed and stolen item. But that’s what he pays his people to deal with. Currently they have their eyes set on the vaults in Castle Skystone. Rumor has it, the Baroness has not bothered to inventory her treasures, only her coin. That means she won’t notice if things go missing. Gilles is smart, but he also knows his window here may be limited. He is weighing haste against caution, and haste is likely going to win.
#### GOUTIER CALLINGTON
Goutier is the current head of the Callington family, even though he is the younger of the two living siblings. His eldest brother Delmond, died as a young man trying to impress a lady with how well he could balance on the Baron’s Bridge, his Eldest sister Alis passed away when she contracted a rare blood disease, and he older brother Egan is dedicated to the Church and therefore not eligible to be nobility. That leaves Goutier, a young bachelor of only twenty two summers. Not being the handsomest man in town matters little when your name is Callington. At least to suitors. But to Goutier it matters quite a bit. He does, of course, want to marry and start a family. He wants to carry on the Callington name. But he isn’t interested in doing so with a woman he doesn’t love. Furthermore he has recently learned of Rakshasha’s curse on the Callingtons, and he is now even more hesitant to take a wife, even if he wants one.
**Potential Dark Secret:** But that hesitation doesn’t necessarily come from fear. It comes from a conflict of interests. Not so long ago, after a night of cards, and drinking, Goutier made a deal with what he believed at the time to be a traveling merchant. A strange little gnome named Jorgen Jorgen Jorgenson. Jorgen had lost quite a bit of coin to Callington. Instead of paying up he offered to teach the young noble a few simple magical tricks. A cantrip here or there to help make friends and impress the ladies. The next time Jorgen came to town a similar transaction occurred. Soon Goutier found himself wanting more from the Gnome. He wasn’t stupid, he knew the little man was more than he appeared to be, but it didn’t matter. Jorgen happily obliged and a deal was struck. Jorgen became Goutier’s Warlock Patron. Soon after that Goutier and Jorgen were visited by the Rakshasa, who staked a conflicting claim on Callington citing the curse as ownership of the family lineage. The matter is currently still in dispute and now celestial authorities are involved. But as it stands now, Goutier is either going to have to give up his soul or his first born’s. He has not yet decided.
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#### HALNAD BRAMBLESONG
There are few figures in Deleran’s Crossing that can bring a shudder more quickly to a spine than Doctor Halnad Bramblesong. Halnad is a thin and well kept halfling with a tightly kept beard and handlebar mustache and well trimmed hair. He isn’t very old but he has long gone mostly gray but his hair still bears a few faint streaks of dark brown. Now, Halnad isn’t an intimidating man, nor is he unsettling in appearance or presence. No, the folk in town simply avoid him due to his profession. Running the local hospital and insane asylum in a town of depressed and desperate people isn’t something that makes you a lot of friends, even if you’ve preformed countless critical surgeries and delivered hundreds of babies. But all that is fine by Halnad, who rarely leaves Wellstone anyway. He has a small apartment on the second floor, and still often sleeps in his office. He is extremely dedicated to his work and is responsible for the physical and mental healing of countless patients.
**Potential Dark Secret:** He is also responsible for the demise of many others. Some of the patients at Wellstone are considered sick beyond recovery. Halnad is obsessed with using the magical ideals behind golem work to recreate living beings. He takes patients that assumably no one will miss and uses them in his experiments. He has never succeeded in transplanting the soul of one creature into another, but he has made tremendous strides in the area of transplant work. Including interspecies work. He hasn’t much thought about what he will do when he succeeds, but he knows it will change the world. Whether that is for good or ill will have to be seen.
#### HARLIN TILECK
There is no mistaking that this large dark toned man works with his hands. Harlin Tileck is a massive hulk of a human, standing about six and a half feet and rippling with muscles he is hard to miss in a crowd. He keeps his long curly hair pulled tightly back and braided into rows and bundled into a thick ponytail. He is covered with burn scars and from the look of it a few battle wounds. He was in the Stolregard army right after reaching adulthood, but settled down after his tour. He has a wife and four children. His size is deceiving and hides some of his greatest qualities, his pleasant demeanor, nimble fingers, and eye for detail. Harlin has a gift when it comes to the art of arms and armor. Each of his creations is unique and often perfectly tailored to the customer. He can make battle ready gear and has, but he prefers the ornate and ceremonial. Pay him enough and he will happily do both.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Harlin has a magical ring with similar powers to the *Alter Self* spell, just a touch more powerful, allowing him more flexibility in size and the ability to take on simple animal forms. This ring has enabled him to become the most elusive and successful burglar in the city. He has several go to personalities that he uses for various activities when casing a place. An Elf for observng an establishment, a Tabaxi for breaking and entering, a Bugbear for any heavy lifting, and a human for blending into a crowd. He is also fond of animal forms though these can lead to trouble in Deleran’s Crossing as a lot of strays and vermin end up in someone’s lunch sack. Unlike the traditional burglar Harlin takes the valuables he pilfers, usually sticking to precious metals and gems and melts them down, incorporating them into his work. He has often burgled a wealthy customer and used their own goods in the work he sells back to them.
#### HEDREK AND TAMARA MOYLE
You can’t get more local than the owners of the tavern most locals drink in. That is certainly the case of Hedrek and Tamara. The inn had been in Tamara’s family for as long as Deleran’s Crossing has existed. One of the first buildings constructed was a tavern and her ancestors ran the place that eventually became The Hillside. Hedrek and Tamara are a fine looking tavern keeping couple, both handsome enough, both a little thick, and both in their early middle age, and unfortunately still childless. Though not for lack of trying. They have spent everything they have and even taken out several loans on the tavern to pursue a solution to their infertility. This pursuit has increased in recent years as Tamara’s biological clock is ticking. Sadly their resources are now almost completely gone and soon the money lenders will own the Hillside.
**Potential Dark Secret:** The Moyles have taken advantage of the Hillside’s location. It sits on, you guessed it, a hillside, and overlooks Deleran’s Crossing graveyard. This vantage point gave them an idea. They need more wealth, and the dead do not. The couple has taken up a second occupation, grave robbery, and they are quite good at it. In the late hours of the night Tamara uses their inn as a lookout point while Hedrek creeps into the graveyard and gathers valuables. If they remain unsuspected they will soon have enough to pay off their debts, and maybe if their luck holds finally have a child. But luck is a scarcity in Deleran’s Crossing, sometimes even more rare than a child conceived by a barren couple.
#### IRENE PELETIER
Irène Peletier is a middle aged woman with brown stintones and darker features, except her eyes which are bright green. She has a strong frame and a friendly smile. Part of her family line hails from the tropics around Panitube and most of her wardrobe reflects that heritage. She is a skilled hunter and taxidermist. Most though she just works in leather. There aren’t many folks coming to the Stols looking to go hunting these days, and locals can’t afford a trophy most of the time. She is married and has almost a dozen children. “Her litter” she often calls them.
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They are well thought of, though most folks think the Peletier’s have far to many children. But her hunting keeps them well fed and her leatherworking keeps coin for the family budget.
**Potential Dark Secret:** As her story hints at. Irene is a Lycanthrope. Although not the traditional werewolf variety. Instead what she has carried is an ancestral issue. She is a Werepanther. Long ago before her family left the tropics of the Azure Sea behind, they were somehow cursed. Most days her abilities are a great boon to her work, but on new moons she is forced to transform and hunt without reason. Pure instinct. Typically she heads far from any town to do this, as not to hurt anyone. Sadly there have been times where innocents have camped nearby and she did not know until it was too late.
#### JERIMINA MILLWRIGHT
Being named Millwright almost guarantees you’re from a farming family. And well, it is certainly true in Jerimina’s case. This tough old gal has been a resident of Crown Meadows community since before she was a twinkle in her daddy’s eye. She is known by everyone here and very well thought of. These people are her family and she treats them that way. She and her late husband own the local farms here, leasing them out to other farmers, and one day she’ll pass all that along to one of her kids. But she ain’t ready to retire just yet, and even when she does she plans to keep the Spokesman title for the village in matters relating to the township proper. She is known for driving hard bargains but being honest and fair. Qualities that many in the area are sorely lacking. She is also known for whoopin anyone that tries to deal sideways, whether it be with her or anyone else. She has often been overheard saying things like “The only way we all get to see the sun once we’re in the ground is by treating others right.”
**Potential Dark Secret:** Its funny, sometimes the worst people are those you least expect it from. That would certainly be Jerimina’s case. In places where food is tight and a small circle of folks have a lot of control over the ebb and flow of that food those folks tend to hold a lot of power over how things operate. It would be very fair to say that Jerimina is more akin to Mob Boss than Grain Merchant. You see the city of Deleran’s Crossing needs her food, and Jerimina isn’t selling unless those with the coin are paying her the way she wants to be paid. Only one time did the government try to push back against her family. They killed her husband in an attempt to intimidate her. The next night was recorded in history as the Grain Fire of 488, nearly the entire winter store of Deleran’s Crossing was destroyed in that fire. Jerimina happily let the city starve in response while she and her family had more than enough to eat.
#### JHYMES KHASTAVIR
Khastavir, is the local face for Mother's Purse, the Organized Crime Syndicate. He is also known as “Two Shoes”, because he is quite fond of slapping people who cross the Syndicate in leg irons and dropping them off a local bridge. He is a thin tabaxi with gray fur with bright yellow green eyes. But he is also deceptively strong and extremely agile. Two Shoes carries himself in a cordial and polite manner, even when doing business that certainly end poorly. There are plenty of rumors as to who Two Shoes really works for, but no one knows for certain. What they do know is that Jhymes Khastavir is not someone you want to cross.
**Potential Dark Secret:** There are a lot of secrets a mob enforcer may have, and most of them dark. But Jhymes true dark secret is that MOther's Purse isn't real. At least not in the way people think. Two Shoes reports to a fiendish master, and a powerful one at that. For now that fiend seems content to keep to the shadows, but will it stay there?
#### CURATOR KENSA PRIDEAUX-FERUCCI
Kensa is a pleasant enough woman who has an amazing eye for art as well as a great ability to help others understand why a painting of a bowl of fruit is so fascinating. However, she is remarkably unpleasant to look at. As a toddler she was struck and run down by a horse cart. The accident crushed her skull and left her body twisted, her back hunched, and face disfigured. Remarkably she survived. However, her needs were now beyond what her family could afford and she was left in the streets of Veccia to die. But there she was found by one Enzo Ferucci, who saw something in the girl that no one else could. Beauty. Enzo brought the young Kensa home to Deleran’s Crossing and raised her as his own child. He taught her everything she knows about art and trained her to become quite the artist herself. In fact she is responsible for the majority of the replicas in the public collection. She now curates his studio and teaches others what she knows herself.
**Potential Dark Secret:** In a place like Deleran’s Crossing, being disfigured as terribly as Kensa is can cause a lot of unfulfilled desires. Friends are difficult to make. Gossip and rumors become particularly vicious. Love seems an impossibility. Many, in situations like these turn to dark powers to find any relief from their plight. Kensa sought out a hagand struck a deal. The hag gave her a ring and then instructed her to paint a masterpiece of the woman she wants to be. Then she was to cover it in the blood of a recently dead virgin, and burn the work. Kensa did exactly as instructed, even killing a young woman in order to get the necessary blood. She performed the ritual, but instead of destroying the work, the fire perfected it, and as it burned the ring became painfully hot but Kensa couldn’t remove it. When the ordeal had passed Kensa found herself transformed into the image in the painting. Sadly the change did not last, as the sun rose the change faded. She returned to the hag and demanded a refund.
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The hag told her that she could repeat the ritual and after enough souls had been consumed by the art the change would be permanent. Kensa has since murdered multiple young people. She has yet to be caught or even suspected, but there are tales of a supernaturally beautiful woman who haunts the town, looking for companionship. She always appears near the death of a young person. Those who encounter this woman flee in terror, and so even with her beauty Kensa Prideaux-Ferucci is still alone.
#### KHURVOR KARGAMON
Long ago, Khurvor Kargamon (The First), a Dwarf of great renown, was the foremost authority in the world on all things Cartographic and The Mythology of Treasure Maps. Over the years he had become quite wealthy through rather dubious means. He had begun to sell and then resell the same treasure maps to would be explorers. He argued that some creature almost always picked these places as a lair and so they would be naturally filled with the spoils of whatever those creatures had preyed upon. Furthermore, many who went looking for the treasures these maps led to never returned, so not only was there treasure at the end, but there was treasure left behind by the dead along the way. That kind of business darkened his reputation. Centuries later his grandson, Kargamon the Third, carries on the family business. He too sells and resells Treasure Maps, but does so along with any information he has on who has recently gone looking for it and how long ago. He ascribes to his Grandfather’s theory about unclaimed caves or dungeons, and those he deals with appreciate his honesty. You might think that “Treasure Maps” wouldn’t sell well in Deleran’s Crossing, but they do. For starters there is an unusual amount of hidden secrets in the wilderness of the Barony, due mostly to the Convergences, so the maps often pay out. But more importantly, there is an unusual amount of desperation here, and desperate people will do most anything to find some way out of their troubles. That includes hunting treasures that may be wild goose chases.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Khurvor doesn’t work alone. In fact Khurvor doesn’t truly work for himself. His family long ago incurred a debt of sorts when one of their maps led to the lair of a powerful creature. One that would have rather stayed unknown. However, the treasure map scheme intrigued it. It was honestly impressed with the creativity of the notion, and decided it wanted in on the action. And so it paid a visit to the map shop. Three generations later the Kargamon the Third is still sending people to their doom with a particular map he sells. Usually he waits to offer this particular map until he comes across those who would make a fitting offering. No one as yet has returned from this trip. But he doesn’t wait too long. He is responsible for fairly regular offerings, and the consequences for not providing them is severe.
#### ARCHON KROMDOR GRANITEBACK
The Dwarves of the Bronze Hall have long had a complicated relationship with Deleran’s Crossing, but for most of their shared history that complication has always ended in a mutually beneficial relationship. The past few decades have seen that relationship greatly strained. When Kromdor took over the ruling seat of the Bronze Hall he ordered the doors sealed and only opened under rigid circumstances. He is young for a Dwarf, only one hundred or so. Spectacularly young to have the title Archon bestowed upon him, but it was granted by council and therefore is unchallengeable unless proof of unlawful deeds can be brought against him. It is doubtful that will happen. His people love him and he hails from one of the strongest Dwarven Bloodlines on the continent. He has coal black hair and dark skinned features with eyes that shine like sapphires. Kromdor does not despise the people above, he simply does not want the disease of their misery spreading to his halls. He will wait them out and see if they slowly drift to the grave or restore their glory. Either outcome is fine by him.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Kromdor isn’t a Graniteback. In fact he isn’t even a full Surface Dwarf. He is half Duergar, and were anyone to find out otherwise he and his family would be exiled and shunned. Part of the reason he has closed the gates of The Bronze Hall is to keep others from visiting. The Graniteback Clan is massive, and can be found in every major civilization, and his story and forgeries are well made. Still, he isn’t interested in taking any unnecessary chances, no matter how slim they may be.
#### LUNA SWANSONG
Luna is the town Jeweler. She came to Deleran’s Crossing right at the height of its popularity and opened her shop. As business declined she managed to force the other Jewelers out of business. She now runs the only shop that specializes exclusively in the market, although a few others dabble, but mostly on the resale side of the business, as Luna rarely pays well for second hand goods. She is a Darker skinned elf with shockingly white hair, and enchanting Amethyst colored eyes , but she is not a Drow. She hails from the Whisperwood in Balinovia, and bristles at the notion of being closely related to her Underdark Kin. She has a cool personality and to the best of anyone’s knowledge never raised her voice. She is not well liked as far as friendships go, and is usually left alone when she does appear at gatherings, but she doesn’t mind. She may not be from the underdark, but she has no interest in the spotlight.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Luna may not be a Drow, but she is a devoted follower of Lolth the Demon Spider Queen. She looks down on the Drow and believes that her people are vastly superior and far more favored by her goddess. And that may be true, at least in her case.
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Luna is a powerful Warlock of the Spider Queen and has used that influence to infiltrate much of Deleran’s Crossing. Lolth has plans for the area. It has deep places beneath the surface and is covered with dark forests. Stolregard is a perfect surface home for her children and followers. A time will soon come when when her forces take the Barony, and she has promised Luna the Throne, in the Spider Queen’s name of course.
#### MADALINE DEL’LA’CROIX
Madaline Del’La’Croix is a woman with a nasty reputation and a magnificent professional one. An extremely attractive older woman in her mid sixties she is the end all be all of fashion and beauty in the city. It is said she could dress a Gibbering Mouther for a ball and the creature would go home engaged to be married. She keeps her hair up and tight at all times, her makeup is picturesque, and her poise and posture is always perfect. She dresses as a proper Noble woman of her age should, but the outfit always teases the glamorous possibilities of the season. She is a two time widower and has three sons who left to find their fortunes years ago. She gets letters from them occasionally, but none have any intention of returning home. Perhaps that is because Madaline may quite possibly be the most foul tempered individual on the sphere. She doesn’t simply have a short fuse, she has no fuse, and has been known to go from pleasant to viscous at the turn of a coin. She has never struck anyone above her class, but frequently beats her seamstresses, so badly in fact, that she has been arrested on more than one occasion. She was once facing a long sentence for crippling a young lady by smashing her fingers, but one of the wealthy patrons who frequent her shop “Simply couldn’t live without Madam Del’La’Croix” and paid the girl’s family to drop the charges.
**Potential Dark Secret:** You may be tempted to think that the world believing you are one of the worst people alive wouldn’t leave much room for dark secrets. You’d be wrong. The bottomless pit of darkness that inside of a person’s heart can always find a way to be worse. In Madaline’s case… much… much… worse. Remember that lady who couldn’t live without Madaline? That had nothing to do with dresswork. It had everything to do with beauty. Madaline is connected to a dark entity who trades souls for desires. When she meets an aristocrat who is aging out of their youth she begins to court the idea of hanging on a little longer. If that party is interested the conversation goes deeper. She finds out what they would be willing to trade, and for most of them the answer is anything. Madaline then makes a supernatural introduction and a deal is struck. Typically the rich find some other soul to sell off in this exchange, a servant, a homeless individual, their child, or any child, the orphanage has become a prime place to buy a soul cheaply. Together they sow an extremely accurate doll of the individual whose soul is being offered and then they burn it. The deal is done and the client has an extra decade or so before age begins to set in. It is an arrangement that has cost dozens of people in Deleran’s Crossing deeply, and put Madaline Del”La”Croix on the short list of people that utterly and truly deserve to go to hell.
#### MARGOT LEBLANC
Margot is a frail elderly woman somewhere in the vicinity of eighty summers. She was married and has a number of children but her husband died when the kids were young and the children have all either passed themselves or left the Barony behind them… along with their mother. She doesn’t keep herself all that well and can often be found wearing tattered unwashed clothes and with messy hair. She wears special lenses crafted for her so she could continue reading as her eyesight fails. These glasses make hee eyes look comically huge to the observer. But she isn’t really comical, in a lot of ways she is the stereotypical cat lady, just not with cats. No Margot keeps books. Thousands and Thousands of books. Like many businesses in Deleran’s Crossing, Shelf Indulgence has been in Marogt’s family for generations. She grew up among stacks of Fairy Tales and Romance Novels and Textbooks and Stories of Adventures and Memoirs of Tragedy. She has always loved reading and claims to have read every book in the massive store, although that cannot possibly be true. Also, she does have a cat.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Margot was driven insane some time ago when The Book of Vile Darkness came into her possession. Although it did not have the typical effect on her mind that the book normally imposes. Her memory had already been filled to overflowing with so many thoughts and ideas, many of the quite dark, that she was somewhat protected by the evil and at the same time unsurprised by its horrors. As one author she is fond of wrote eons ago “There is nothing new under the sun.” and that is doubly true of mankind’s propensity for evil things. Still, the book did have some effects, and someone someday will find the results of those effects - wrapped in cloth, covered in lime, and buried under stacks of books.(Bodies, there are bodies of people she killed under her books)
#### MAGHDA BLAST-HAMMER
Maghda is an older and lonely Dwarf. Her once vibrant red hair has turned ashen gray and her strength is starting to wane. Maghda had spent much of her life alone working in a shop on the other end of the universe. Until this “hafty”, mostly brain, older Dwarf Knowledge Priest by the name of Belson Stone-Sight walked into her shop with his band of adventurers. He began flirting with her by helping her bookkeeping and making her more money. Turns out it worked. They married some years later and she followed him through a portal to this Sphere in order to save Creation. They did, but weren’t able to go home.
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They settled here and raised their Daughter Maghda Stone-Sight, who shared her mothers skill with a forge and her father’s amazing intellect. Many years ago Belson and Goliath family “friend” Amoruk disappeared shortly before what should have been a routine treasure hunt to Panitube. When Maghda came of age she joined The Order as her father had and began searching for him. She has not been seen since just before the Plague of Worms. Maghda simply continues to work her forge as she had for the decades before Belson. But now she does it with an empty heart. She misses her family.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Maghda has come to the conclusion that Belson is likely dead. If not from adventure than certainly from age. He was much older than her when they met. But her daughter, that is another matter. She believes the young Maghda is still alive and she desperately wants to find her. She has spent a small fortune on investigators and the trail always goes cold in the Misty Vale. A place that once had another name. New Barovia. For a brief time Barovia had found its way out of the Realms of Terror and back to the prime. It settled just west of Stolregard. It disappeared again when the King of Worms decimated the area. Maghda is in the process of building a device that will open a portal to Barovia. There is a good chance that once activated things on the other side will be able to use it as well. Her plan is to quickly find her daughter, but plans rarely go as planned.
#### MALINA MOINEAU, THE GHOST:
Malina Moineau was at one time the Director of the Crown Theater. She was killed in the fire that ended The Crown’s many years of operation. Her Spirit now haunts the ruins of the establishment In life she was a fair half-elven woman with an remarkable talent for theatrics and performance. In death not much has changed. Only now she leads a cast of spirits and corpses in macabre reenactments of scripts that observers do not know or even understand. Although only those attempting to interfere with a performance have ever been harmed by the ghosts of the crown, very few dare seek them out. Most believe that such things are best left alone. Still, there are always some who want to know why the spirits remain and what could put them at rest. But know one knows. So for now, as they say in the theater… the show must go on.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Malina once operated a Thieves Guild out of her theater. Her co-conspirators would attend shows with the upper class and observe their behaviors and mark their wealth. Time and care would be taken but when they were ready they would put their well laid plans into action. The Guild was wildly successful and continued to push their limits. Theft, Kidnappings, and even Murder for Hire schemes all opperated out of the Crown. Until one day they crossed a Noble with fiendish connections. The theater was burned to the ground during the next performance. Now there is a curse upon those who steal in Deleran’s Crossing, though none realize it. The spirits of thieves who pilfer for greed are sentenced to perform at the Crown until their debts are paid ten times over, and very few ever become rich in Performing Arts. Particularly when no one is buying tickets.
#### BARONESS MAYA SNOWBROOKE
Skylar Snowbrooke was a warrior saint. At least she would have been Sainted had no the Order fallen into chaos after the Pentad War. Even so, she is held as Divine Patron of hopeless causes. Her great great Grandaughter Baroness Maya is no saint, but she may be a hopeless cause. She rules the Barony with a near total indifference. In fact she approaches much of life that way. Her complacent and often melancholy attitude should not lead one to believe her to be incapable. Standing just under six feet Maya is a well toned blond woman with pale skin, vacant feeling blue eyes, and fine features. She is a ferocious warrior who has bested several contenders and suitors who thought to take the throne from the almost emotionless woman. She fights with a supernatural power that sparks the memories of the old who heard many tales of Skylar Snowbrooke's abilities to touch the divine, though most doubt Maya is likewise connected. Rumors surround the Baroness. Whispers of dark pacts and ancient curses. Some go as far as to claim she is a servant of Orcus, her ancestor’s greatest nemesis.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Maya is indeed cursed. Her soul was ripped from her body when her mother Seliny Thatcher sold it to a Hag for her help in the plot to kill Maya’s father Ozrin. Maya’s emotionlessness is caused not by indifference, but by her inability to feel anything other than rage when she enters into battle. Should this secret get out it could cause trouble in the Barony. Were she to be redeemed? Well, no one knows what Maya is really like. An indifferent leader is far better than a true tyrant.
#### MORTIN PREVSHOT
Is your stereo-typical inn keeper. He is a darker toned man with average features and a little on the thicker side. One of the things that does set him apart from other locals is that he is not local. Mortin hails from the plains and hills of Chamsburg far to the Northwest. He doesn’t hide his heritage, but nor does he talk much about it. Locals mostly know because it is a minor subject of gossip. He and his family settled here some twenty years ago and he took over the local tavern renaming it the Drunken Weasel after some incident that happened back in his hometown.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Mortin is a Wizard of some skill. Well, was… Mortin began to practice some darker magic than was not allowed in his country. His former heroics in the name of the Kingdom afforded him some grace in the matter, but power is addictive and Mortin found himself deep in the clutches of its lure.
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He continued his practices and it got away from him, killing dozens of civilians. He was arrested and should have been exeuted, but the court showed leniency in conideration of past deeds. Instead he was stripped of his Magic and exiled. He has an Anti-Magic device infused in his spine that keeps him from being able to ever touch the weave again. He would give anything to his power restored, and considering his past ventures, anything for Mortin is a wide category.
#### REGENT OLLISTIR OLDUR’IMAR
Ollistir is Baroness Maya’s High Councilor. He is an elderly man just past seventy summers. He is a homely man with a thin weakened frame and gaunt sunken eyes that lead many to believe he won’t be around for many more. Which is a shame for the locals. Ollistir has been a faithful servant to the crown for many decades. He served under Maya’s father Ozrin and his father Kensig. Under Maya’s indifference and Ozrin’s lack of leadership Ollistir has quietly done his best to actually run the country although doing so has been quite difficult from behind the scenes, as he has many opponents in the Noble Houses who are constantly clamoring about what the Baroness actually wants.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Ollistir is Maya’s father. While he is not a wicked man and he has done much good for the country, he often used his power and position to lure Ozrin’s concubines into physical relationships. He was never cruel or abusive, in fact he was typically quite tender. Still, his affections were never fully returned by them. In fact they often pitied the ugly and lonely old man. That constant rejection has left him empty and bitter. He does not know that Maya is his daughter, but he suspects it. What would happen if he were to discover the truth? Her claim to the throne may become illegitimate and many would love for that to happen.
#### NITTLEKEELING TINKNOZZLE
Gnomes aren’t a strange sight in Deleran’s Crossing, but Nittlekeelink “Old Nitty” Tinknozzle sure is. Old Nitty is an ancient artificer who has spent his entire life making gadgets and toys to better the lives of good people. He has run clicks and giggles for creeping up on four centuries now, making it the oldest single proprietor shop in town. He is a hunched over, steely gray bearded, bald headed gnome who at any given time can be spotted wearing a half dozen different gadgets while he does his work. Things like magnifying lenses, stability bracers, and even a glove with numerous multitool attachments, are all the norm for Old Nitty. One thing he doesn’t usually wear, but is pron to putting on near the end of a conversation, is his hearing horns. After all the years of pounding and manufacturing he is mostly deaf, and needs his horns to hear just about anything. The town thinks he is a bit of an oddball, and they’re not wrong, but they do love him regardless. In a lot of ways he is a town treasure and there are very few houses that don’t have one of his toys in them.
**Potential Dark Secret:** You want me to make Old Nitty some sort of thieving mastermind who uses he toys to rob houses. NO. I’ve leaned into a lot of stereotypes here, so I’m not going to do it anymore. Old Nitty wanted a son, so he built one. A little mechanical boy. It worked. The boy could move, and play, and converse with the gnome. But it had no soul. Old Nitty was afraid what the town would do if they found Mechnochio, so he tried to keep the boy hidden. However, Mechnochio met a cranium rat and together the two left. Mechnochio was determined to prove to his father that he could be a real boy and started murdering people and replacing part of himself with their parts. It doesn’t always work out the way the little mechanoboy thinks it should, but he has made some progress. Someday soon he will have enough parts to return home and show pappa just how real he is!
#### LORD GENERAL OTON DAYSPIRE
Oton is the commander of the Baroness’ armies. He is a young and dashing raven haired man with more charisma than a bard worth their coin. His sharp mind and skill with a blade quickly put him at the forefront of choices to lead the army. He also happens to be Baroness Maya’s cousin by marriage, and heir to the Dayspire Nobility in Cold Rock. He and Maya grew up together and she has no problem crediting him for her skill with weapons. He has no direct claim to the throne and publicly states that he has no desire to ever sit on it. Still there are whispers of a potential marriage. Even if there was no romantic intentions the partnering of the two houses would make them both extremely powerful.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Oton has no intentions of marrying Maya. She refused to return his affections when they were younger, instead choosing Donitis. He has never let that slight go, and is in fact responsible for Donitis' death. He is formulating a plan to overthrow Maya. His soldiers are loyal to him and those that aren’t go on missions from which they do not return. He is close to having strength and support to march into the Castle and put a blade in Maya’s chest. But does she know he is plotting? Are his troops as loyal as he hopes? The thing about treachery is that it is so very treacherous.
#### PAUL MARTIL
“There generally are two types of poor. Those who want to work and those who want a handout.” That’s Paul Martil’s motto as he serves the unemployed in Deleran’s Crossing. Finding a legitimate job in the city can be extremely difficult. Most good jobs are taken and most short term jobs aren’t really enough to get you by. It causes a lot of folks to not care about what they do or who they do it for. Paul works tirelessly to overcome that attitude, and find people good jobs. He is a stocky middle aged man with a family of six at home. Most of the time he keeps an upbeat attitude, but its hard.
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The government doesn’t give the Labor House much coin to operate and the cut from the business he sends people to work for doesn’t pay well either. Paul has taken jobs for himself to make ends meet.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Paul sells people to the black markets. He finds someone who he believes is a drain on society, offers them a good job at a location, and then when the worker arrives they are captured by whomever is paying for a breathing body. After that they are never seen again. Deleran’s Crossing is so full of folks who legitimately want and need jobs that Paul has a hard time feeling bad about removing a few people who don’t really want to work from the candidate pool. But is a job going to go wrong someday? Will the town discover his secret? Would they even care if they did?
#### PERRIC GREENTUFT
Perric is about as stereotypical as they come. He is a halfling with sandy brown hair, shining eyes, round in the tummy, and goes shoeless, and always has a contagious jovial attitude. Both he and his shop (Which is half underground) are the picture of “Hobbit” lifestyle. He and his equally quaint family run the General Store in town. The shop deals fairly with the people and Perric does a lot to support local charity. The store is not just a simple mercantile, but one of the places businessfolk and workers mingle together during the day. The store always has drinks on hand for friendly patrons. Not much else can be said of this family other than the fact that they are loved by the locals.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Except there is more that could be said about this family. A lot more. The Greentufts are devout followers of Cyric the demi-god of strife and murder. They are solely responsible for a number of deaths in town as well as much of the interpersonal conflict between businesses, families, and the government. Keeping a shop where people gather means you have a place where information is traded freely. Following up on leads is a simple task for a well trained family of rogues and assassins. A few words here and a hint there and plots and plans all over town have been revealed and ruined. Families have been torn apart and businesses ruined. It’s all child’s play to the Greentufts. They also have a secret lair in the city’s sewers for making their more serious offerings to Cyric, which they do regularly.
#### RAYAN BERTRAND
Bertrand is a weary looking half centurarian. His hair is streaked with gray and his hands cracked and worn. He keeps up a fair smile and good countenance though. Almost always found in his shop Bertrand is a master woodworker and one of the few that understand how to bring out the true beauty of Gray Wood Oak. Bertrand has never married and keeps to himself for the most part, although he does from time to time visit the Hillside. He didn’t have a great childhood. He was an orphan and grew up in the streets. He was small boy and often picked on or taken advantage of. One day the former owner of Gray Oak Wonders, Vincent Shaffer, saw Rayan being picked on and intervened. Rayan began cleaning his shop out of gratitude. He eventually bought the business when Vincent became too old to work. He still cares for his old mentor, and visits him daily after hours.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Rayan has a list of names of those who mistreated him when he was younger. Many of those names have been scratched off. Some because they grew older and realized how they had behaved when they were young was wrong. Many other because they never realized that they were awful people and so Rayan Bertrand has murdered them. But not in some dark alley throat slitting kind of way. No, not like that. Rayan became aware of some interesting properties that Gray Wood Oak possesses. It is possessed. Not quite as direct as a spirit taking a body, but are is certainly spirits living inside of the wood. These spirits often feel trapped and are prone to making deals for their freedom. Rayan has learned how to set these spirits free and does so in exchange for crossing a name off his list. He sits and performs the carving and the ritual, and when it is done the last thing the victim sees is a menacing wooden statue.
#### REMON DURRAND
The third of the four Durrand family sons, Remon has been tasked with the operation of the Winery’s Taproom. Remon is a handsome man in his late twenties with striking blue eyes and a charming smile. He is currently serving his family as Taproom manager. Which he doesn’t mind in the least. It allows him to drink most of the day away and flirt with the local ladies. Both of which he does… heavily. It is hard not to like Remon, even if he is a drunk, but there is a line of angry spouses and jealous suitors who would love nothing more than to beat him senseless.
**Potential Dark Secret:** You would think that someone with Remon’s tendencies would have secrets relating to those issues. But those aren’t secrets. Everyone knows he is a drunk and a philanderer. What they don’t know is that Remon is a master thief. Most of what he drinks is light in alcohol and those he takes to bed he does so intending to casually gather information and perhaps pilfer a piece of jewelry or two. After all, no one is going to tell their spouse they lost their wedding ring while engaging in a tryst with a barkeep. But picking pockets and pumping maidens for information is child’s play to Remon. He has secretly been infiltrating the homes of the wealthy and helping himself to their wealth. He doesn’t sell any of it though, as a Durrand he has no need of money. Remon keeps a secret and well hidden hideout where he displays his most treasured possessions. To him, it is all about the score. Were he to be caught it would be a massive scandal for the Durrands, who for the most part have kept their family name clean.
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#### HIGH CONSTABLE SENLOIE VIRISEY
Keeping law and order in a town of desperation is a soul eating job. What damage to a Constable’s spirit is done when they repeatedly have to punish those stealing, not from greed, but simply to survive? Senloie has done the best job she can under the circumstances of her role. She does her duty, but often lets minor offenders escape. The locals say she has a big heart for the people, and that is really saying something, because she does not have one at all. You see Senloie Virisey is an “Unliving”, a sentient undead that does not suffer from the normal wickedness and drives her unthinking counterparts do. There are several Unliving that reside in Deleran’s Crossing and they have been here for years. In fact Baroness Adahorn Callington was one of the first. High Constable Virisey is nearing the end of her days now, far more skeleton than flesh, and soon she will crumble to dust. But that doesn’t seem to slow her down much. You can find her walking the streets day or night keeping an eye out for major problems.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Senloie has long been looking for a way to cure herself of her “affliction”. She was never able to see it as a race and only as a curse. She has therefore engaged in multiple heinous actions including sacrificing thinking beings to reverse it. She hates herself for what she has done, but has justified it in her own mind.
#### SKREE THE KOBOLD
So Skree, it is really unjust to just go all in on Skree being a Kobold, but the truth is… its fun to do so. Therefore, Skree is your typical, crawling trough trash, playing with broken things, putting way to much value in garbage, smelly, vulgar, ignorant, little bitty lizard man who wants to be a dragon. Skree wound up here after being forgotten about by an adventuring party who kinda picked him up as a pet. He was well behaved enough to be tolerated and even began running an almost functional resale shop. A few other locals helped him get established at Mumble’s, more as a joke, but it stuck, and so now for quite a few years Skree has worked as a shopkeeper in Deleran’s Crossing. Well, worked is really a generic term. He lives in the shop and spend most of his days finding garbage to eat… so…
**Potential Dark Secret:** Skree is actually Jurgen Callington, Esmet the First’s Uncle, and powerfully cursed. He always lives around Deleran’s Crossing and if he is ever killed he is reborn as a Kobold nearby with no memory of what happened to him. Long ago he had plans to build a chateau in a serene area of the Gray Wood but crossed a Dryad who protected the area. She politely attempted to dissuade him, but when he tried to burn her, things got ugly, literally. She changed Jurgen into a nasty little kobold and cursed him to live among the garbage of others until either someone convinces her to set him free or he learned his lesson. Jurgen has not learned and what little remains of his original personality still loves hoarding treasures for himself.
#### SONIA PASQUIER
Sonia Pasquier is considered by the locals to be a master baker. She could be world famous, or probably would be if anyone had care or coin to truly notice her skills. Even so she is one of the more influential figures in the city. Most would think it strange for a baker to be in such a position, but when you are responsible for the vast majority of a settlement’s provisions, people tend to pay attention to you. The Bread Basket is a thriving business that employs dozens of people to produce the necessary nourishment that Deleran’s Crossing provides, and Sonia does get to bake for the local nobles and serve the upper class citizens, but she dreams of leaving Stolregard behind and working in a palace far far away.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Sonia is a member of the Gilded Hand, a trio of merchants that control most of the commerce in the city. Not long ago she decided that perhaps leaving Deleran’s Crossing was the wrong move. Perhaps squeezing it for every possible coin was a better and easier option. After all everyone needs to eat and 80% of what the people in town consumed were her wares. All she needs to do to cause a riot against the officials is declare a “blight” on her wares and put the blame on her enemies. She also began to charge “favors” for food, and soon had most of the cities commoners indebted to her or doing things normal upstanding citizens wouldn’t do. It is strange to think that a baker could hold that kind of power, but the ability to create and aim an angry mob is something to be feared. She knew she couldn’t do this alone, and so she enlisted the help of two other merchants. If something suspicious were to happen to any of them the other two would react. This has resulted in the three of them becoming quite wealthy as the officials in town conceded to higher prices, but it has also earned them enemies who are sure to strike the moment they have a solid plan.
#### SYMON OKENBRAU
A hulking and rather impolite man with pale skin and dark hair, Symon stands almost seven feet tall weighs in at well over three hundred pounds. He has brutish features which lead many to believe he bloodline is mixed with orcs or maybe even an ogre. Symon has the task of managing the warehouses in the district near the Docks of Deleran’s Crossing. He does a fine job and the work isn’t overly hard, particularly considering most of them are empty. Much of his job has to do with chasing out vagrants from the empty buildings and keeping an eye on the goods stored in the others. Both tasks suit him fine.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Symon is far smarter than people give him credit for. When you look like a monster, people easily believe you have the brains of one. Symon likely has one of the highest IQs in town. Smart or not, there is a monster in there all the same.
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He is responsible for the disappearance of multiple young ladies in the past few years. Typically he snatches those no one will miss. The poor, the outcast, the working girl who can’t get a job in one of the houses. He keeps them locked away in an underground hideout built below the warehouses. Once a month a trader comes through town. The girls are sold to him and never seen again.
#### THEODORE BAUME
Théodore’s mother was a seamstress and he has always been fascinated by weaving and cloth. He is a fair looking middle aged man with a wife and two daughters. He has a very mild temperament, and doesn’t speak much. When he does it is short and to the point. Not impolite, just concise. Many find it strange that such a meek man could own such a large business. But he does, and he does so with efficiency and magnificence. Even his low grade textiles are of superior quality in that caliber of cloth. He doesn’t do much to help the town though. He is a businessman and his cloth is for business. Even the scraps and leftovers from production are not for charity. It is led many to view him as heartless, and concluding that his lack of interaction with people is due to his lack of human compassion and empathy.
**Potential Dark Secret:** That last bit is rather accurate. Theodore is a Doppleganger as are his children. His wife knows his secret and doesn’t mind. In fact she finds it all rather thrilling. He has found peace and happiness in his current role in the city, but his instincts for mayhem do get the better of him from time to time. During those bouts he leaves the home for a while, declaring he is going on a business trip. He then infiltrates the town, taking on the form of those he knows as both neighbors and friends and causes all manner of trouble. He engages in everything from tom-foolery to murder, what ever it takes to satiate his true nature.
#### TOLLIVIER DURRAND
Being the head of the Durrand family has never been a simple task. While some might consider having more money than one knows what to do with a problem worth having, being wealthy often brings weights most don’t consider. Running a business like theirs is a woe or weal situation. A single poor harvest season could mean struggle for years to come. Fending off the desires of other Noble houses that seek to ruin them is a constant battle, as is keeping the family alive in a land that would happily stab them in the back and rob them blind. And lets not forget that keeping family out of local gossip and scandals. Of course wealth has its perks, but never forget that the rich are often some of the most miserable people. Money can indeed buy short term happiness through diversion, but finding long term joy is another matter. Tollivier Durrand came to the estate early in his life, shortly after marrying Emma Wirtnerin of Brannover through a very beneficial arrangement, Tolliver’s father, mother, and younger sister died of Pale Fever. Not quite ready to take over the family business Tolliver struggled, but he managed to pull through with the help of his wife, and their faithful vinter Allura. His family prospered in a difficult time and he now, many years later, they have four sons and two daughters. Tolliver is a kind and gentle man, but one who lives a fairly haunted life. Not in the supernatural sense, but he has always been deeply burdened by the family name and business and has never gotten over the horrors of watching his family die. He does not speak much in the way of casual conversation and obviously suffers from bouts of extreme anxiety.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Tollivier is haunted by the spirits of his ancestors, particularly his father. He sees them in the halls and in the streets of the city. They have been useful in guiding him as to the ways of business, but often they terrorize him both awake and in his dreams. In multiple instances they have possessed him, forcing him to engage in acts unbecoming to a gentleman. This has pushed the kindly man into fits of bizarre behaviors and actions. He keeps a secret room in the Mansion where he attempts to draw conclusions that will help him satisfy the Spirits needs in the afterlife so both they and he can rest. However, these conclusions are often dark and wicked. He cannot bring himself to willingly engage in such things, but his sanity hangs on a thread, and if it snaps he has a long list of things he does not want to do.
#### MAGISTRATE VIMAR MELANIS
Vinmar has been the town Magistrate for some time now. He is not well liked and how he has stayed in power is anyone’s guess. He is a stiff no nonsense man who lost his wife and child when he was much younger. He never remarried and is the last of his family line, and when he dies the Melanis family line dies with him. He doesn’t talk much about his family history, but everyone says he is quite a bit older than he looks, with dark black hair and a matching beard perfectly trimmed and never out of place. That perfectionist drive seems only to apply to himself however, as he is really only interested in running the city just well enough to get by. He does handle anything that seems problematic enough to disrupt the status quo, but other than that he is extremely dismissive of the population’s wants and needs. Many believe this is because someone else is backing him and paying for him to keep his eyes turned the other way. One institution he does pay attention to is the orphanage. It would seem he has a soft spot for the children there. Although he never adopts any, he does make sure their needs are met.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Melanis is a warlock of notable power. Always a man of extreme vanity he offered his wife up to the darkness in exchange for power and lasting youth. The darkness heard his bargain and took it.
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When his infant daughter became ill, he asked again for his new patrons to help her. They instead offered him more life and magical strength. He took that deal as well. Does he have intentions for the children at the orphanage? Has he already traded some of them in dark pacts? Anything is possible in the shadows of Deleran’s Crossing.
#### LOCK MASTER WARNER KOLBING
Warner runs the city Locks, a rather important feature in the town. A good chunk of the Cold Rock is unavailable to larger ships without them. He is a scraggly fella with a rough look about him. Stubbly face, more than a share of scars, and a lot of Tattoos. He sailed with the Balinovian Navy helping to fight off the Orc threat from the Blood-Axe dominion that was about to pour over their borders an into their seas, but resigned his commission after dealing with a series of near fatal missions thanks incompentent Admirals who were nothing more than squallbing nobles looking to play with boats. Warner loved his country but loved his life more. Leaving behind the Balinovian Navy is hard, and they tend ot come looking for you. So he moved to Deleran’s Crossing where no one want to look for anyone. He enjoys keeping the locks, it is about as close to the water as he can get.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Warner is wanted for murder. In fact, Warner is wanted for several murders. His real name is Vincenzo Donato Arlando Mocenigo of House Mocenigo. He is a noble who grew tired of his sires wasting the lives of young men. And so he killed all of them one night at an officers dinner. Thirty seven Noble Balinovian Lords had their insides melted and drained out of their backsides thanks to the virulent poison Warner put in their wine. By morning the entire Admiralty of Balinovia lay dead in puddles of liquified organs, and Vincenzo Donato Arlando Mocenigo of House Mocenigo was never seen again. He spent some time on the pirate ship The Red Sky with Captain Boden Morely, and that’s where he learned the bleak state of Deleran’s Crossing. He was ambushed at a port by bounty hunters and thought that the Captain’s home town sounded just like the perfect place to never be seen again.
#### WILLIS MACDONNAGUL
Willis “Black Spade” MacDonnagul watches over the tombs and the stones of the Deleran’s Crossing Graveyard with great care. A bit of an oddity Willis is a Half Dwarf with thick auburn hair and a mighty beard to match. Dark green eyes peer out from under wildly bushy brows, and although his business is grim, it is easy to see he is typically smiling. He has a very odd personality and is prone to talking to himself. Those who overhear him sometimes feel as though his Human side is talking with his Dwarven side. Other than that being a Half Dwarf hasn’t made his life complicated but it has make him a bit of an outcast. He drinks at the local taverns but often alone. He doesn’t seem to mind much though, and does understand that being around him reminds people that one day we all end up in the ground. After all that’s where he got his nickname.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Willis does a little more than put dead bodies in the ground. He is the guardian of an Elven Vampire that dwells in one of the tombs in the Graveyard. It is rare that elves can contract such a curse, and when they do they often have far greater control over the wickedness that seems to naturally flow in their undead veins. That is the case with Hidinlar of house Duliciania of Silver Song, a once proud and noble Elf from a land far from Deleran’s Crossing. Hindinalr attempts to sate his hunger on wildlife rather than beings, something his Elven nature helps him to be able to do, but when the drive threatens to overcome him he seeks out only the violent and the criminal. One evening he saved Willis from a thieves blade and the Half Dwarf has protected the Vampire ever since.
#### HEADMASTER WYNRA MOONSEEKER
Wynra is a 60 something woman with sharp hazel eyes and strong features, but who also looks as if her skin has rarely seen the light of day. And it looks that way because it is true. Wynra Moonseeker is one of the most intelligent people in the nation and likely the world. She rarely speaks of it, but when she was younger she had a dream of a woman whose face shone like the moon. This woman begged her to come to Deleran’s Crossing and prevent her sister from killing her. Convinced the dream was a real message, Wynra left her native Cuzzano and traveled to Deleran’s Crossing. Turns out the message was true, but… well… it wasn’t a normal woman that was asking for help. It was something known as an Elder Child. Turns out when an Elder Being dreams they give birth to little imaginings of thiers that move off into the universe, typically to wreak havoc. Occasionally the Elder Being dreams of something kinder and gentler. That child tries to flee its siblings who instinctively hate it and go about creation doing good. The child that reached out to her became known as Moondancer and she was fleeing from her sister The Mistress of Strings. The Mistress was attempting to use Deleran’s Crossing’s famous serial killer The Sanguine Star Killer to trap and destroy Moondancer and Wynra was instrumental in stopping them once and for all. Afterward she settled into a teaching role at the University and continues her research there today even though the University isn’t really open anymore.
**Potential Dark Secret:** The ways of Elder Beings and their Children are not something mortals should delve into. Tales of madness and insanity often follow closely to those that do. Wynra has long since waded into the waters of lunacy, giving herself into the alien ways that her mistress, The Moondancer, approaches the world.
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This has led to some very strange and even dangerous behaviors as she continually attempts to conduct rituals that tear the veil between the planes and the Astral Abyss at the edge of creation. How far will she go to complete these rituals and what possible consequences could there be? Only time will tell… and time always tells.
#### CAPTAIN YORMAR KHUELIS
Yormar is a Rigochaldean Battlelord that arrived shortly before Ozrim’s assassination and the Snowbrooke siblings all killing one another. He was introduced to court as a Clansmen of Seliny Thatcher. He has since then operated as Maya’s bodyguard. He is loud and imposing, as are most of his people. He is also very smart, something that the masses of his education deficient homeland aren’t normally known for, What they are known for are deep connections to the Wilderness and the Fey spirits that live there. He has an uncanny ability to root out danger that many attribute to fey spirits that he "must" have brought with him from Rigochald. Other gossip that surrounds Yormar vary from tales of unreturned affection from the Baroness to designs and plots for the throne itself. It is also said that he has made deals with dark fey and that his presence here is part of fulfilling his end of the bargain.
**Potential Dark Secret:** Yormar is under contract with the Hag that Seliny Thatcher contracted with to kill Baron Ozrin. He has a wife and family back home. He traded away twenty years of his life in order to gain a boon that would pass to his children. That they would grow to be some of the greatest warriors in history. The Hag has since loaned him out as muscle to various individuals. There are several tiny fey loyal to the Hag that follow Yormar around and also do his bidding as long as it doesn’t conflict with the Hag’s. He is nearing the end of his contract and while he is looking forward to returning home, perhaps there are other things he would like to take care of first?
## CHAPTER 5
### SHADOWY FIGURES
There are forces at play in Deleran;’s Crossing that do not quite Qualify as a normal NPC, some are named and some are not named. Some are Myths and some are Legends come to life. Many of these were hinted at in the Dark Secrets portion of the NPCs or in the location descriptions. However, a few of these ideas are just one’s floating around in my head. Several of these people are groups who have their eyes on being the ones actually in control of Deleran’s Crossing and that puts them in conflict with one another. That also turns possibly enemies into allies as conflict does often make strange bedfellows. As with the rest of the guide, feel free to use or eliminate these ideas as you see fit.
:::
#### MOTHER’S PURSE
Hiding in the shadows of every level of the city is a criminal syndicate. It is completely unknown who rus this organization, and many inside of it believe that it is a supernatural being that does so. With how well they have stayed hidden that seems the most logical answer. They do not name themselves personally, but their agents often refer to themselves as employees of Mother and collecting for her purse. This has led the locals in the know to refer to the group as Mother’s Purse. Mother’s Purse controls or is paid a percentage of almost every criminal activity in town, including the vast majority of NPCs with Dark Secrets should you choose to play with any of them. They also collect protection money from local most of the local businesses. There have been attempts in the past to infiltrate and stop the organization, but those have ended in disaster for the local authorities. High Constable Senloie Virisey has made the decision that having Mother pull the reigns in on crime is an easier way to keep peace in the city than fighting it. A decision that those close to the inside of Mother’s Purse have deemed wise and beneficial. In fact she is from time to time consulted on the cities needs. After All if you rob a city to ruin, there would be no one left to rob.
#### THE NIGHT CIRCLE
There are few things more unsettling or more dangerous in the world than a coven of powerful Hags. There is no doubt that there is such a coven lurking in and pulling the strings on the town of Deleran’s Crossing. They have divided the area amongst themselves and each controls a different aspect of the city. One manages the forests around Deleran’s Crossing, her reach extending far beyond the immediate woodlands, from there she twists the natural into the unnatural. Another has embedded herself into the upper class, aristocracy, and leadership of the town, loving the backstabbing and treachery people in power engage in. The last has happily chosen the downtrodden souls whose misery she revels in, and takes great pleasure in compounding sorrow. Together they form the coven the locals whisper about as the Night Circle. The people are terrified of the coven, though no real proof of its existence has ever been presented. They simply know and understand that such things lurk in their shadows. Children are warned against making wishes, and adults dare not speak dark desires out loud. Those who commit dark deeds often watch over their shoulders. But the truth is, although the coven loves to take advantage of such situations, and will happily bargain with those who desire their help, they are often far more subtle than the citizens would imagine. They play long games of influence and debt and have their claws deep into the hearts of the people, who are oftentimes completely unaware.
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#### THE DARK FEY
There are numerous Fey Creatures lurking about Deleran’s Crossing. Most of them operate independently of one another, completely content to carry out their favorite tricks and traps against mortals. But there are also Greater Dark Fey that have invested themselves into the area and they are much harder to pin down. They are not quite an organization, more of a gathering. They do not have group plans or machinations. Instead it would seem that the beings that qualify as part of this group have more of a social bonding than a business agreement. They gather in the shadows and dark places of the town or in the nearby wilderness. It is said that there they swap stories and even gamble on the outcomes of the lives and fortunes of the locals. Their presence and interference in the day to day of Deleran’s Crossing often goes unnoticed, but from time to time they make their presence overly known. Speculation leads locals to believe that there is a certain level of escalation that happens as they attempt to one up each other’s plans. The locals are caught in the crossfire or used as pawns in their dark games. Sadly to the locals these “games” have left numerous families in tragic situations and more than a few bodies along the way.
#### THE COURT OF FIENDS
Fiends. From the Demonic to the Courts of Devils there are many fiends who have staked a claim in Deleran's Crossing. It is rare that they choose to reveal themselves, but their work is ever present in the town. Only a fool would believe that the courts of devils and demons would have no hand or interest in a place as miserable as the Barony. Many of the locals have made pacts with fiends. The Court manages those deals, and send their lesser minions to carry them out. When someone is willing to sell their soul to gain the affections of another the Court steps in to broker that deal. When someone is willing to murder thier neighbor in exchange for a Fiendish Boon, the court is there. When a cultist group dedicated to the Hells moves into the area, it is Court business. On the few occasions that the full Court has revealed itself much chaos has followed that event, as typically they only do so if they need to remind other entities and organizations of who they are and that their hold on aspects of this town is absolute. Otherwise their influence is as subtle as the mortals who engage in their deals keep it.
#### THE BLACK SUNRISE
The Black Sunrise Cult is an ancient following of an Elder Being known by most as The Other. Its actual name is a well guarded secret among the highest ranking members of the cult. The Black Sunrise has been hunted and battled across the continents. Often it has been thought that the final blow has been struck to their following, and still they always return. Almost certainly due to the influence of The Other and any Elder Children it may spawn to serve its alien objectives. The cult’s typical style of influence is slow. Infiltrate communities, recruit members, begin rituals, and eventually summon an Elder Child. Once such creatures are brought forth to our plane the Cult gives absolute devotion to them. The current cult is attempting to resummon an Elder Child known as Aberrant Black, an amorphous monstrocity fond of infecting the unsuspecting with little bits of itself. Left inside someone long enough and Aberrant Black will gain almost total influence over their minds. The Cult is planning on offering the entire city to the Elder Child.
#### MIRABELLA SOMMERSET
Mirabella Sommerset is a Cetnovian of Noble birth, born some one hundred and fifty years ago. She was an adventuring partner and friend with Skylar SNowbrooke, although the two had a bumpy relationship to say the least. Snowbrooke was a Paladin dedicated to the Divine and for a short time the Heavenly Avatar of the Grave. Mirabella is a Vampire Necromancer Wizard of great power whose morals often, and obviously, conflicted with the Paladin. All the same, they traveled and learned from one another, and when the fate of the world and its people were in the balance Mirabella showed up for the forces of good. After the Pentad War she became a bit of a recluse as she attempted to cure herself of Vampirism. She had collected multiple texts on the subject, some of them Divine gifts, but rather than fully commit to relinquishing her powers she instead attempted for decades to lessen the undesirable side effects. She had some success in this regard, and so never fully washed the undeath from her veins. When Jynifir Snowbrooke began her quest to claim the Barony, Mirabella emerged from her tower at the Alabaster Palace and helped her friends daughter ascend to Baroness. Most assumed she used her wizardly ways to extend her life, but it was her affliction that did so. When the Weave Drought hit Mirabella was almost killed. She turned to vapor as Vampires are prone to do and fled back to her lair. There she attempted recovery but it was unable to do so until magic once again returned. She then offered her help to Maya, as she did Jynifir, but the young Baroness attacked Mirabella, something most would consider suicidal. The wizard quickly realized something powerful was behind Maya’s abilities, and that power was enough to almost kill the Wizard. She fled to her tower and the Baroness did not pursue. She has not been seen since. If met Mirabella would be very interested in freeing Maya from whatever entity holds her captive. A great deal of that motivation would stem from a desire to control that power herself, but players don’t need to know that.
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#### THE GARDEN
Founded two hundred years ago by Saint Kainne, they believe that it is their sacred duty to fight the darkness and bring out beauty from destruction. They are a Divine following religious group although they no longer hold affiliations to The Order. They keep their own tennents and live by their own standards. Which is fine, since almost no one knows they exist. They keep their membership, rituals, and purposes hidden from outsiders. So much so that they will often search out records of their existence and destroy them. They are a problematic group as one of their tennents plainly supports the notion that the ends justify the means. “In order for goodness to flourish, the hard ground must be broken." They are strongly encouraged to save lives and spare the innocent, but they also have no problem with collateral damage, if they see no other way to gain victory. They reason that creatures in the darkness will murder hundreds if none stope them, therefore if a handful of individuals have to be sacrificed to save the multitudes, then sadly… so be it. They have recently arrived in Deleran’s Crossing under the guise of merchants, and have begun to set up a storefront to operate as a cover for their work. Magdha Stone-Sight was once part of this group.
#### THE TABLE OF ELDERS
The wealthy control the masses regardless of law, obligation, or threat. At least that is the idea behind The Table of Elders. There are many Noble houses in the Stolregard Barony, some quite large and powerful. Among these there are individuals who believe themselves to be the true rulers of the people. In many ways they are correct. They control commerce. They control housing. They control food. It does not matter who sits on the Barony’s Throne. What matters is control, and the Table of Elder’s has a lot of it. They are a secret group, and have used their combined and considerable resources to keep it that way. They control from the shadows and move the citizens of the Barony like pawns in a game. It is a game that they are good at playing. Still, secrets breed treachery and even among themselves there have been episodes of great conflict. Many of these conflicts have been quickly settled by blood and coin, while others have brought entire houses to ruin, the matters truly only being settled when their enemies house has been completely swept away. In a land with powerful fiends and fey lurking in the shadows, one may be led to believe that such a group would rank lower in the contests of control. You would be wrong, mortals have a way of upending and grasping power from hands normally well beyond their own, and if it is one thing The Table knows how to do is wrestle power away for those that claim to hold it.
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## CHAPTER 6
### ADVENTURE IDEAS
I'll just toss out a few ideas to get some easy adventures out of this guide. I do have lots of plans myself so I don’t want to spoil any of my future work, but here are some easy to grab ideas. Some of these same ideas I may publish myself later, particularly the dark secrets, but a lot of them I’ll be leaving alone for you!
### ONE SHOTS AND MINI-SERIES
#### Dark Secrets and Locations
Each of the Dark Secrets were designed with an adventure in mind. Many of the follow up adventures I will write to complement this guide will touch on them. In a similar, but more vague sort of way, most of the locations have a hook naturally built into them as well. All these should help you with a quick idea.
#### Escaped!
There are plenty of things in the area that would take people captive. Perhaps one of them has your players and they find a way to get out. But this adventure is out of they frying pan and into the fryer.
#### Merchant Protection
Deleran’s Crossing doesn’t see a ton of trade. It is hard and dangerous to get to. Starting a questline that focuses on those trade routes and making them safe could be a great time.
#### Building Restoration
There are a lot of rundown buildings in Deleran’s Crossing. Most of them have someone or something living in them. This adventure could be a mix of remove the squatters or infestation, gather materials, and rebuilding the actual structure. Of course something doesn’t want that to happen, so there will be complications.
### MINI-CAMPAIGNS
#### Factions
There are a few powerful factions in the city. Joining one of them is always a great way to generate adventure ideas. Or form your own and fight them for control. Form a rival gang and take on Mother’s Purse. Join the Garden or House Guivere and become Monster hunters. Enlist in the Baroness’ army and defeat her enemies, or join The Table of Elders and become her enemy. There is always something to do when factions are in conflict.
#### Restore the Glory / Pick the Carcass
This is a city on the verge. Some think it can be saved other just want to pick the bones once it dies. Have your players become the catalyst to either of those events. Bring Deleran’s Crossing back from the edge, or push it over.
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## The Stolregard Barony
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## Deleran's Crossing
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## DC With Locations
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## Town Scenes 1
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## Town Scenes 2
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## Town Scenes 3
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## Town Scenes 4
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## Town Scenes 5
 {position:absolute;top:120px;right:8px;width:800px}
\page
{{pageNumber,auto}}
{{footnote Town of Tragedy, February 2022}}
## Town Scenes 6
 {position:absolute;top:120px;right:8px;width:800px}