[Map] The Red Catacombs

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Beyond the Haunted Swamp and the three rivers there is a a lonely hill and on the top of it lies an old crumbling stone temple – the tomb of an evil warlock Sanguinar.

The lands around the three rivers were ruled for generations by the house Lacrimas. The house Lacrimas was known for its honest and wise rulers, but also for its knowledge in magic. In the past many of the younger sons and daughters of the house studied magic in the Highspire and served as the magus primus – the king’s personal mage and advisor in arcane matters. But this was before the king Eddard the Pure. When king Eddard found the faith in the Old Gods, he abolished the Ordo Magi and Highspire was taken down.

At that time Sanguinar de Lacrimas was a young noble, gifted in magic, but also well versed in combat. To purify the soul of young noble the king sent Sanguinar on a pilgrimage beyond the Long Sea to drive off the barbarians who had conquered the holy lands.

Over ten years Sanguinar was on his quest, but once he came back he was not the man he used to be. He was afflicted by some unknown illness that made him sensitive to daylight and unable to eat normal food. In secret he craved blood for nourishment and tried to resist his ever growing urges. Sanguinar kept himself alive by drinking the blood of animals, but it made him weak. During the nights he tried to find a cure for his condition, but no one could help. Eventually Sanguinar turned to the arcane lore, forbidden by the king, to find the cure. And a cure he did find, but before he could perform the ritual that would expel the barbarian curse bestowed upon him, the king’s inquisition stormed the keep of house Lacrimas and imprisoned Sanguinar.

The inquisitors took Sanguinar to a temple of the Old Gods by the three rivers. In the old temple the high inquisitor and his men tortured Sanguinar to death to purify his soul. Finally they locked him inside a stone casket sealed with holy symbols and silver chains to contain the foul powers that had infested his soul.

Years passed and the king died and a war broke between the quarrelling heirs and their allies. After the war, everyone had forgotten about the Sanguinar’s tomb, but the legend lived on. Not a soul has visited the temple since those times, but now the locals are in distress. People have gone missing and a hunter said that he saw a dark figure near the old temple. None of the locals are brave enough to go near the temple, so they sent a messenger to the nearby city to find someone who would be brave – or foolish – enough to find out if the Sanguinar’s tomb is still untouched.

 


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This map was originally published on Patreon with the support of my awesome patrons in June 2016.

Creative Commons License

This work by Miska Fredman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.