What Happened?

 

This section explains, in chronological order, the causal chain of events dating back to the year 1212 that lead to the context of this adventure. The Director should make themselves familiar with this information, as they may be called on to improvise many situations, conversations or encounters; not all of which can be covered explicitly in the Quickstart.

Specifically, there are two major sequences of events that transpired prior to the outbreak of Black Rot in Cosutanu that lead to the player characters being sent here. These are detailed below.

The Events of 1212

Toward the end of the year 1211, a feud between the canis Nectria family and the canis Radulesc family boiled over. Severu Nectria wrote a letter to the former Imperial governor of Cosutanu, Doma Cosutanu, demanding she authorize a duel between Severu and Gorgu Radulesc, the eldest son and heir of the Radulesc lands and titles. This was almost 30 years after the collapse of the Kingdom of Tulosz, and the Doma, who was then in hiding or exile in Bulostioi, denied having the authority to make a duel legal or binding.

Shortly after this letter was written, on 22 Fig, 1212, eleven members of the Radulesc family all died on the same day. Valor Radulesc, a priest at the Church of the Blessed Union in Cosutanu, was not among them.

On 25 Fig, 1212, the bodies of the Radulesc family were moved to Ul Tumo Puciosa, their familial tomb, and interred there. They were not embalmed according their wishes, merely placed in their respective sarcophagi and buried in sulphur powder.

On 30 Fig, 1212, Valor Radulesc was tracked to Ul Tumo Puciosa where he was discovered performing a ritual to Mol-Imit with the intent to raise his father, Gheorigu Radulesc from death in order to take revenge against the Nectrias.

Valor was killed and entombed, and Coins of Golmongarion were placed over the eyes of the family patriarch Gheorigu Radulesc to prevent him raising from the dead.

On 31 Fig, 1212, Valor Radulesc was declared ‘Denuntatiu E Blespematiu' (denunciated and damned) by the Church of the Blessed Union.

Most of the records of these events were destroyed by the Nectrias, and the events were lost to history

The Recent Events

Over two hundred years later, in 1423, Gavriela Nectria, who had been diligently working her way up the ranks of Grain Bank of Bulostioi, was granted a position as Assessor in the Cosutanu offices of the Grain Bank.

Daciana Mitriu, who had been working for years to place her son Iordan in a prestigious position within the Grain Bank, was enormously upset by this. As the matriarch of the Mitriu family, and a Consilier in the Town Council of Cosutanu, she turned her considerable powers toward rectifying this situation for the benefit of her own son and family.

Daciana began trying to dig up dirt on the Nectrias. She hoped to find a way to shame them and to potentially see Gavriela removed from her position so that her son Iordan could fill it.

Soon, Daciana uncovered the details of what had happened between the Nectria family and the Radulesc family two centuries previously, including the location of the tomb, and the fact that the curse of Mol-Imit might only be being held at bay by a pair of coins.

Daciana used her contacts in various organizations and families across the region to identify some suitable 'adventurers'; a group of sometimes bandits and troublemakers who could do some dirty work for her. Soon she was in contact with Danut Procop, and after a short negotiation, was able to hire him to assemble a group capable of venturing into the Radulesc Tomb to steal the Coins of Golmongarion.

In exchange for the Coins, Daciana told Danut Procop that he could keep whatever treasures he recovered from the tomb, which she understood from various records she had found to be significant.

In fact, Daciana did not care about the treasure, or even about having the Coins themselves. All she cared about was having them removed from the eyes of the corpse of Gheorigu Radulesc. She believed this would unleash whatever curse Valor Radulesc had called down upon the Nectrias, effectively letting all the skeletons out of their closets. She was right about the curse, but what came out of the closet was much worse than skeletons.

On 29 Bucket Danut Procop and his party came to town, gathered provisions, met secretly with Crisandra Lotti to get maps and drawings of the coins, then went into the tomb - a day's ride down the Yellow Road.

On 31 Bucket, inside the tomb, the halfling Corinne Gelgu was nabbed by spiders in the crevasse and killed before the others made their way down past the crypts and to the tomb itself.

Three of them made it to the Tomb itself on 32 Bucket, and broke open the door to Gheorigu Radulesc's burial chamber. They pried open his sarcophagus and stole the Coins of Golmongarion, which immediately released the curse.

Gheorigu Radulesc rose as a ghost, his wife rose as a wraith, and his three eldest children rose as draugr. Valor Radulesc - who had performed the ritual to Mol-Imit that ultimately brought his family back as undead, was rewarded by the Infernal Queen of the Damned, and so arose as a Requiant. Mol-Imit also chose to 'reward' Danut and his companions for unleashing the curse that had laid dormant for centuries by infecting them all with Black Rot.

Danut and his friends were quickly overwhelmed by the Radulescs bursting forth from their tombs. They fell back and tried to fight their way out of the tomb. Both Lorienza Lioni and Oskar Kankaras were seriously wounded trying to escape.

By the time they reached the crypts, Lorienza Lioni succumbed to her wounds, and the curse caused her to rise as a ghoul. Surrounded by sarcophagi with plenty to eat, she remained there after the other two continued on.

In the mines, Danut and Oskar were ambushed by cockatrices that they had managed to avoid on the way in. Oskar was killed, but avoided becoming a ghoul as he was rapidly ripped to pieces and devoured by the cockatrices. Only Danut made it out alive. He rode away, leaving his friends' three horses behind. These were all eaten by cockatrices.

Danut Procop rode back to town, returning on 33 Bucket and checked back into the Inn, unknowingly infected with Black Rot.

With no loot to show for his trouble and only the two Coins of Golmongarion, which he thought Daciana actually wanted, Danut attempted to contact Daciana to sell the coins for a steep price.

Daciana refused to pay him and refused to meet with him.

Meanwhile, starting on 33 Bucket there were a few possible sightings of the ghost. One every few nights. These were dismissed at first, but in hindsight, most believe they were legit.

Danut was getting sicker and sicker in the Inn, and finally Daciana became concerned that he would tell people what he knew, so on the night of 36 Bucket, she sent Captain Colmal Bucur to 'negotiate'.

Danut was not willing to take the small cash reward offered by Captain Bucur. He become crazed and attacked and bit Captain Bucur, who killed him. Captain Bucur took the Coins, filled Danut's body with rocks, and dumped it in the river, where it floated downstream and is now rotting tangled in some branches, 25 km down river.

The ruckus was overheard by Florin Vestiuc, who saw 'an orc' in the area, but would not be able to positively identify him.

After Danut failed to pay for his room on 37 Bucket, the Baciu family became worried he'd cut and run, and eventually had Kosmin Baciu empty his room and store his belongings. Kosmin contracted Black Rot, which then spread to his family and to others.

Captain Bucur was the first to fall ill due to the bite from Danut Procop, but he is tough, and he kept working even though he was sick. From him, the disease spread to Ramona Surdo who helped him tend the sores he had developed.

Over twenty nights, several sightings of the ghost were reported, leading up to the attack on Gavriela Nectria on 12 Trowel.

The number of infections rose a bit more sharply after the attack, and the disease was diagnosed as Black Rot, which led to people assuming the ghost was the cause of the disease. Really, this was due to the rising number of infected, an more people manifesting visible symptoms in the same timeframe.

Meanwhile, Captain Bucur was sequestered in the guest house to hide the fact that he was sick. He was given Cure potions by Daciana Mitriu to help him recover, but also to prevent discovery of connections between the Mitriu family and the 'skeletons' that she believed would soon be revealed as having come from the Nectria's closets.

The disease was loose in the town, and Daciana figured that her crimes were covered up, but the number of infections continued to rise, and eventually, on 16 Trowel, a message was sent to Dileniu to ask for assistance.