Vodacce

“The most extravagant thing a prince can own are his principles—all too often, their price is his life.” —Cristoforo Scarovese, Discourses

“For every martyr whose voice carries beyond the grave, there are ten thousand quiet corpses.” —Giovanni Villanova

To strangers, Vodacce is a baffling mixture of honor and depravity. Men exercise power over land and kin with impunity, while women warp the strings of destiny.

In Vodacce wicked words will get a man killed, but a wicked action could see him to the heights of power. Here, destiny serves ambition, inaction is sin and ruthlessness merely pragmatism. Male and female, young and old, noble and peasant, all dance on the spider’s web called the Great Game, though only a few prowl the center.

## The Great Game

The long, level roads that connect the cities and prov-inces of Vodacce are a remnant of the Old Empire, a silent testament to the peninsula’s last unified days. In the long twilight of imperial glory, ambitious men came and went, each seeking to claim a fraction of its power and prestige for his own.

The precise number of these pretenders has waxed and waned over the centuries; once there were three, today there are seven. But few or many, the stratagems and subterfuges employed by these so-called Princes have weathered the centuries and today are known by a single sobriquet: the Great Game.

Among the defining characteristics of the Great Game are its ruthlessness and omnipresence—the Vodacce say that only Theus sees more and forgives less than a Vodacce Prince. From a bacchanalian revel to the quiet of the confessional, the threads of the Game insinuate themselves into every aspect of life in Vodacce. In truth, the only place to shelter from a Prince’s anger is in the court of one of his rivals, and such safe harbor always carries a price. In this manner, even someone seeking safety and security from a momentary slip of the tongue finds himself reduced to little more than a Prince’s plaything.

The Game’s ruthlessness, in contrast, is little more than pragmatism. In a Nation where well-bred women can ruin a man’s fortunes and twist his very nature, a grieving mother, daughter or sister can be every bit as dangerous as an assassin. Early Princes learned, often to their sorrow, that the only sure way to victory is to be thorough in the destruction of one’s rivals.

Thus, even the limited niceties of warfare do not apply to the Great Game. A rebellious cousins infant daughter, spared out of momentary sentiment, may grow into a powerful Strega and pass her gift on to her own daughter. So tightly do the ties of family and honor bind that this child may use Fate herself to avenge the death of her grandfather. Should the guilty party go to an untroubled grave, his heir may inherit the hatred of his enemies along with his father’s fortune.

For this reason, a wag of the Old Empire once remarked, “call no man happy until he is forgotten,” and with typical Vodacce pragmatism, the Princes of old deduced that the easiest way to induce amnesia in their rivals involved regular and thorough blood-lettings. In addition to bringing the cycle of revenge to a close, such displays often have salutary effects on an uninvolved party, who may find his ambition lessened by the potential extermination of everyone he loves.

Sadly, this system of casual brutality perpetuates itself. A Prince who can no longer credibly threaten the swift, sure and comprehensive destruction of his enemies finds them multiplying beyond his reach. In turn, his bloody successor quickly finds himself bound by the same system, becoming both Prince and prisoner in one fell stroke.

## Le Streghe

“There are no coincidences in Vodacce.” —Marcelo, called “Il Pazzo di Potenza”

In Vodacce, you do not say that a man has fallen; you say that he was pulled. So all-encompassing is Sorte’s reach that people deem almost every occurrence with intention and motive behind it. The Vodacce presume that a temperate man who suddenly turns to drink experiences not a personal crisis, but rather has offended a powerful Strega. Similarly, a Vodacce accepts outrageous turns of fate and wildly improb-able coincidences without so much as a blink—when fate can be bent to serve a man’s ambitions, expec-tations based on the normal course of events no longer apply.

A peasant may believe that nailing seven spiders to his lintel keeps the Princes’ Fate Witches from cursing his harvest, but the proliferation of folk practices and superstitions that have sprung up in response to Sorte’s power conceal a deeper irony: a Fate Witch herself is nearly defenseless. The power of Sorte does not extend to its practitioners; a Strega cannot use her powers to benefit herself.

As a result, these formidable sorceresses are servants in their own homes. Cloistered, barely educated and shackled to their husbands by their marriage vows, the renowned Fate Witches of Vodacce serve the ambitions of their husbands against their will, be they brutes or gentlemen. What is more, convention requires each Strega to test all her daughters for the gift, condemning the next generation of women to the same fate.

Countless travelers from the other nations of Théah have wondered why women who wield the power to shape destiny itself tolerate such grim circumstances. The answer is as unsatisfying as it is simple: survival. Powerless to protect each other and possessing only the rudiments of an education, these women have little choice but to rely on others to shelter them from those they have wronged at their husband’s behest.

Complicating the situation is that the status of Streghe remains the one issue—perhaps the only issue—that all seven Princes agree on. Whatever an individual nobleman may think of his wife, no matter how much he may love her or admire her natural intelligence and ready wit, he knows in his heart that should she go unveiled or be seen at study, the agents of all seven Princes would descend on his family with all their customary thoroughness and brutality. From the first Prince to claim the title to the current seven, each has understood that his wealth and power relies upon the subjugation of these powerful women.

This tragedy, centuries in the making, may be entering a new phase. Morella Alouse Giacinni, wife to l’Empereur Léon Alexandre of Montaigne, and Domenica Vespucci, the wife of Stanisław II of the Sarmatian Commonwealth, both Streghe, left their homeland with the good graces of their Princes. Whatever the short-term gain these alliances bring to their allies in Vodacce, they have also provided these women with a taste of freedom and privilege unheard of in their native land.

## The Women of Vodacce

Men hold all the power in Vodacce, and yet the women could be all powerful. Through a few cleverly crafted laws in past centuries, women remain trapped in the hands of the men who wed or fathered them, unable to rise up and claim control over their own lives. A noble keeps his women on tight leashes, controlling what they learn, how they act and who they interact with, as much as he dares. Even a noble-woman who is not a Strega finds herself at the end of a gilded chain. A commoner has an easier time of things. For the most part, a common woman can do anything she wants, barring the necessity of reading or writing, forbidden even to the peasantry. Only a woman who trains as a courtesan may seek out higher education, and even then, those who learn to read are rare. One could say a courtesan has more power than any other woman in Vodacce, even the Streghe. While she may not control fates, she keeps her ear to the pulse of the Great Game and even dabbles in the politics of the Nation. Yet, the number of women who work and fight in Vodacce is no less than any other Nation. You would be hard pressed to convince a master Duelist that she possesses less power than a preening courtesan.

No matter what a woman does, the people of Vodacce often frame her by the men in her life. Her father’s name is sometimes more important than her own accomplishments. She is supposed to be demure, and her husband keeps her in check. Vodacce women live in a world of double standards. Men enjoy the company of courtesans, but it is scandalous for a woman to do the same. Men stay out late drinking and dueling casually, and yet a woman who challenges someone to a duel must be sure she does not break the Duelist Guild’s rules, or be punished. Men can sit around all day philosophising, yet if a woman attempts to do the same, she breaks the law. Women must step carefully in Vodacce, but all learn the song and dance and perform it with ease.

## Important People in Vodacce

### Prince Alcide Mondavi

The ancient Mondavi family traces their ancestry to the noble families of the Old Empire in an unbroken line of rice brokers. While possessed of the fine features of his forbears—chestnut hair, a strong jaw, sharp cheekbones and pale blue eyes—Alcide, his people say, loves books more than women and farming more than fighting.

If he does not love fighting, he certainly excels at it. Few have challenged the young Prince, and none lived to tell about it. In contrast to the braggadocio of many Vodacce bravos, Alcide destroys his enemies with phlegmatic indifference. Whether against an assassin’s blade or in a duel to the death, combat seems to be just another obstacle between the bookish Prince and his studies, one that he prefers to dispatch with haste.

This public face is a construct, a fiction the Prince’s rivals discover only too late. If Giovanni Villanova prefers to wear his mercilessness on his sleeve, so to speak, Prince Mondavi chooses to conceal his brutality behind his family’s reputation for complacency and diffidence. Make no mistake: Alcide Mondavi is a monster, and la Montagna di Cacciatori, his hunting lodge, a mute testament to the Prince’s psychotic cruelty.

The Prince keeps his lands orderly and free of undesirables through an effective, if immoral, policy of kidnapping and murder. Upon his accession, the Prince’s game wardens—in reality, a handpicked squad of remorseless killers—abducted the town of Elemosina’s scofflaws, racketeers and outlaws, and released them within the Prince’s private game reserve. There, Prince Mondavi hunted them down like animals, ending each life in an intimate whirl of blades.

Only this form of hunting still provides the Prince with any sense of accomplishment: to gaze into a man’s eyes in his utmost extremity, to witness his dawning realization that he is nothing more than an animal and then to end him. The predatory animals that prowl the mountain no longer concern Mondavi;

they merely help conceal the aftermath of his hunts since all have developed a taste for the flesh of humans.

Recently, the Prince’s ambitions have grown. No longer content to pursue his mad passions in private, he steers Vodacce toward a violent future. Quietly, he and his agents have begun to heighten tensions between the other Princes, all the while using his rice exports to buy the loyalty of bloody-handed Eisen mercenaries and the Inquisition’s most ruthless agents. If his plan succeeds, he will provoke a war among his rivals, grow rich selling rice to both sides and then unleash the worst his brutal allies have to offer on his exhausted Nation.

He plans to drown Vodacce in blood, and if it brings him a crown, so much the better.

#### Portraying Alcide Mondavi

Though never unkempt, Alcide dresses with little regard to the latest fashions, favoring plain garments and utilitarian cuts. In public, Alcide carries himself with an aloofness bordering on disinterest and has little time for social niceties. Few of his associates know of the monster that dwells inside Prince Mondavi, and those who find out usually do so on the wrong side of the hunting lodge.

#### Story Hooks

* The Heroes encounter a group of bloody and exhausted commoners just beyond la Montagna di Cacciatori. In terror, they relate a wild tale of kidnapping and abandonment on the mountain. While they initially feared an attack by animals, they soon realized people hunted them, people who trapped and killed several of their number and pursued the survivors down the slopes. They need the Heroes’ protection in order to escape the Mondavi lands.
* Rosa Esposito, a bravo, challenged Prince Mondavi to a duel to protect the honor of her charge, a young noble from Caligari. He refused the duel and now won’t accept her requests for correspondence. She worries about what happens to those who threaten Prince Mondavi, and asks the Heroes to help her protect her ward in case the worst happens.

### THE PRINCES

Each of Vodacce’s principalities are ruled by a single Prince. Not every Prince is a true Villain, like Alcide Mondavi; some can sometimes be downright Heroic. Some of the Princes are deﬁnitely Villains, enacting plots to assassinate, undercut and subjugate their fellows.

Gespucci Bernoulli is a man of wealth and excesses. He is a ruthless leader who believes that a show of force is a necessary ﬁrst action when threatened. Vincenzo Caligari is a spy and smuggler, and completely ﬁxated on Syrneth artifacts. He is a changed man, and many argue that he’s no longer a man at all. Giovanni Villanova might be the worst of the lot. He is pragmatic and ruthless, showing zero regard for friendships or family relations when in pursuit of a goal. He is the wolf the other Princes throw their enemies to. He is also the biggest threat to the other Princes and one of the few things that keep them all at bay.

On the other hand, a couple of Princes are unwilling to go to extremes to under-mine their neighbors. They stand on the strength of their wealth and power, but do not abuse those things. With a little push, they may even see the merit in helping the Heroes along.

Donello Falisci is a jovial man, if a bit wine-sotted. He may trade in secrets, but he is more likely to pick and choose where to sell those secrets than others with such power. Michele Lucani is a man of honor, refusing to force his wife and daughters to use their powers over Fate for his whims, instead working side by side with them. Alessandro Vestini is probably the weakest of the Vodacce Princes, even if his lands are prosperous. His wife runs his principality, and women have made great strides within his lands. He often feigns ignorance about which forms of scholarship the women in his principality choose to pursue.

### Anacleto di Rinascita

Foreigners who visit the library in the tower of L’Edificio find its keeper, Anacleto, to be almost preternaturally intelligent, willing and able to discuss topics as diverse as theology, natural philosophy and celestial mechanics at the highest levels.

The Bibliothecarius proves an attentive listener, quick to ask probing and insightful questions about lands beyond Théah or the ruins of ancient civi-lizations. From time to time he has even helped a frustrated archæologist unravel the secrets of a baffling artifact, provided the owner allows him to document anything she discovers for L’Edificio’s collection.

Though not widely known, the Invisible College has approached Anacleto numerous times about member-ship, only for him to rebuff them again and again. A devout Vaticine, Anacleto finds the anti- intellectual turn the Church has taken repulsive, seeing it as the inevitable influence of Castillian prurience on the dynamic and inquisitive faith he cherishes. Nevertheless, he refuses to associate with those the Church denounces, no matter how much sympathy he may have for their cause.

Only two topics frustrate the aging scholar’s curi-osity: the origin of Théah’s Syrneth ruins and the nature of divinity.

In the first case, L’Edificio’s accounts of murderously complex traps, inhuman architecture and strange materials from the ruins seem to point to something outside Theus’ plan for his children. The fascinating artifacts the Caligari family has hoarded do not seem to belong to any chapter of humanity’s history.

To the Bibliothecarius’ mind, they seem to be some-thing parallel and apart, devised by bizarre minds to suit outlandish hands. His sedulous pursuit of this topic has drawn Anacleto closer to the reclusive Prince Vincenzo Caligari, a man thirty years the scholar’s senior who moves with the strength and confidence of a man ten years his junior.

For the second, the reports of heathen gods walking Aztlán in the New World shook the elderly librarian to his core. If tangible, numinous beings indeed exist in lands beyond the sea, by what logic do scholars rule out their existence—either past or present—on Théah?

The deeper Anacleto and his scholars probe, the greater the sacrifices required to unravel the mysteries unfolding before them. In the further-ance of this research, both the Eruditi, the order of librarians, and their chief regularly perform acts that have indelibly tainted their souls, deci-sively wagering their hope of salvation against the promise of an earthly apotheosis.

#### Portraying Anacleto di Rinascita

Portly, with lively eyes, tightly curled gray hair and a bushy salt and pepper beard, Anacleto is a fatherly presence. He frequently peppers his discourse of esoteric subjects with earthy analogies and often inter-rupts a high profile lecture to deal with a wayward godchild’s problem.

He is a knowledgable man, When one of his inter-locutors brings up Aztlán or the Syrneth, his eyes light up, and he presses her for any details she may have to offer, happily bartering his own knowledge if required.

#### Story Hooks

* A Hero comes across a Syrneth artifact that defies his efforts to understand, with ad hoc attempts to activate it leading to injury or death. Since his usual contacts refuse to deal with it, he must take it to Anacleto and risk carrying a device of unknown power into the heart of Prince Caligari’s demesne.
* A book has gone missing from L’Edificio. Anacleto realized the tome was missing only after a visiting scholar came seeking informa-tion on some of the oldest Syrneth ruins in Vodacce. Anacleto has asked around the city, but no one has borrowed the book, and his records are suspiciously empty surrounding all books from that section. He needs someone to track down the book before the visiting scholar realizes it is missing.

### Desiderata,  Mistress of La Passione

A striking woman of indeterminate age, Desiderata is Vodacce’s farthest-famed courtesan. Mistress of La Passione, the Vestini family’s courtesan academy, she claims no kinship to that noble lineage. Indeed, unusual for any powerful Vodacce woman, little is known of her past—she meets any attempts to pry with courteous and charming deflections.

What people know obscures more than it illumi-nates: Desiderata arrived at the gates of La Passione as a girl and paid her tuition in full from a bag of mixed gold and gems of uncertain provenance. As the years progressed, she matured into a handsome young woman. Much sought after by the noble scions of Vodacce’s first families, she could never quite conceal her contempt for the loudmouthed and empty-headed noblemen. Paradoxically, this attitude made them pursue her all the more fervently, and Desiderata quickly extracted favors and finances from her besotted paramours.

She used these favors to secure La Passione’s inde-pendence from Prince and priest alike. A dalliance with the young Prince Marco Vestini established the school in perpetuity, while carnal knowledge of a Cardinal secured the school a writ of exemption from ecclesiastical persecution. When the school’s mistress grew too infirm to continue in her position, Desiderata, though quite young for such an honor, was the only choice to succeed her.

Since she assumed the title of Mistress of La Passione, Desiderata has played merry hell with Vodacce’s endless litany of double standards. She has openly taken lovers both male and female and refused to chastise her students for doing the same. One of her protégés was found abed with the wife of a Lucani nobleman. Desiderata conducted a brief inquiry into the wife’s situation. Upon finding that she had paid the courtesan for her time, Desiderata announced to a stunned Lucani that he should either satisfy his wife or reduce her allowance.

Desiderata has also modified La Passione’s curric-ulum, adding courses in self-defense, shooting and physical fitness. She managed to draw the ire of the Duelist’s Guild by teaching her students an unsanc-tioned style of knife fighting, which uses a stiletto—a weapon easily concealed in a courtesan’s elaborate costume—to attack the neck, abdomen and groin. The students of La Passione, often led by Desiderata herself, walk the gutted streets of Bassifondi, distrib-uting food and checking in on the indigent popula-tion that resides there. On a number of occasions, Desiderata has offered a precocious young girl from the slums an education at La Passione, free of charge, fueling speculation that her own past may be entan-gled with the blighted district.

#### Portraying Desiderata

As Vodacce’s foremost courtesan and a high-ranking member of Sophia’s Daughters, the Mistress of La Passione’s charm is professional, but so deftly prac-ticed that even those who know the game well are taken aback by her seeming sincerity. She diverts conversations to discuss her interlocutor’s favorite hat, presses him for the details of his haberdasher and praises his sophisticated taste. Among those who have earned her trust, however, she turns plainspoken, goal-oriented and ruthless.

#### Story Hooks

* Desiderata has heard rumors throughout Pacatezza of a nobleman who hurts his wife. The woman was once one of her courte-sans, and, acting through intermediaries in Sophia’s Daughters, Desiderata hires a Hero to look into it. When he arrives to rescue her, she refuses to leave her husband, because he will not release her daughter, a Strega, putting the Hero in a difficult position.
* Prince Vestini is snooping around La Passione. One of his favorite courtesans has not returned to his estate, and he searches for her. The girl overheard a conversation she should not have, and she fears he wants to make her disappear in a more perma-nent sense. Desiderata asks the Heroes to smuggle the girl out of La Passione in the night, making sure she has no knowledge of the details.

### Marcelo, il Pazzo di Potenza

Something of a talisman for the people of Potenza, Marcelo has been a fixture of the city’s life as far back as anyone can remember. His ravings outside the gates of Prince Bernoulli’s palace earned him the moniker il Pazzo (the madman). From his lank gray hair to the bunions infesting his bare feet, Marcelo looks every inch the crackpot people purport him to be.

Among the citizens of Potenza, stories of Marcelo’s rise and fall vary as much as the cadence of his rants. The conspiratorially minded claim that he was a Bernoulli cousin, tortured and broken for some heinous crime in the distant past. Others say that he was a somozzatore (frogman), who found some-thing beneath the city so abhorrent that it shattered his mind. Among the Potenza’s merchants, called colonelli, it is an article of faith that a vengeful Strega cursed him for reasons unknown, inflicting Marcelo’s current condition.

He spends his days ranting, raving and speaking in tongues, yet occasionally his words come out perfectly clear and concise. Sometimes he speaks of his past: the feel of his daughter’s hair between his fingers, the sunset along his favorite canal or the smell of his wife’s perfume. Other times, he speaks prophecy to whom-ever passes by. Whether prophetic or banal, these moments of devastating clarity surprise onlookers and capture their imagination.

Marcelo’s oracular moments have turned him into an unlikely soothsayer. Ship captains consult him before a dangerous voyage, hoping for a prophecy of perils to come. City fathers and guild leaders ques-tion him on topics so clearly beyond the disheveled beggar’s experience that it would be comical if they did not swear up and down that he had saved the city from catastrophe countless times. Even rascals and ragamuffins huddle with the flea-bitten prophet, seeking his advice on their petty conflicts.

By popular agreement, there are three forbidden topics: the Bernoulli family, artifacts salvaged from Syrneth ruins and the origin of his abilities. If someone mentions any of the three in his presence, he either lapses into a catatonic state for days or falls into a howling fit, spitting and scratching at anyone who disturbs him. In either case, his madness renders him at best useless and at worst dangerous to those who rely on his counsel.

#### Portraying Marcelo

Marcelo il Pazzo is not that old, though his unkempt grey hair and grizzled beard would convince you otherwise. He is aged beyond his years from his brush with Fate. His voice is sonorous and light; even when rambling incoherently, he sounds friendly and reasonable.

Marcelo suffers under a terrible burden: whatever caused his condition forces him to see all possible futures. The terrible strain of following the skeins of Fate as they twist and turn through the hands of Vodacce’s Streghe slowly cost him his family, his occupation and his very sense of self.

Beneath his disheveled appearance and behind his words lie an entreaty—always ignored by those who depend on his counsel—to return his life to him. He sometimes appears as a man trapped in a nightmare, while other times he seems blissfully unaware of his condition.

#### Story Hooks

* After encountering Marcelo and benefitting from his soothsaying, a Hero happens across an artifact she believes can lift his curse. Potenza’s merchants, politicians and rabble want to preserve Marcelo’s curse as a benefit to themselves and refuse to allow the Hero near him. What can the Heroes do to help Marcelo?
* As one of the Heroes passes by, Marcelo stops him. Completely lucid, Marcelo has a pleading look in his eyes. His daughter, long lost to him, is in grave danger. He knows not where she is, and only has a random set of visions to lead him there. If the Heroes would only take him to see her, he could save her life.

### Ippolito Malandrino

There is no more famous outlaw in all of Vodacce than Ippolito Malandrino, at least as far as he is concerned. An equal opportunity killer-for-hire, highwayman and pirate, Malandrino plies his trade by land and sea, from one end of Vodacce to the other. The high politics of Vodacce’s Villainous princes disinterests the bandit, who busies himself with pedestrian crimes, like armed robbery and kidnapping. Nevertheless, the dashing rogue rarely misses an opportunity to promote himself, often hiring local urchins to tell tales of his knavery before he arrives in town, hoping to make his targets more tractable.

Something of a peacock, he has been known to let his horse—the melodramatically named “Bucefalo”—go hungry to pay for a particularly fine cloak. Those who have suffered Malandrino’s attentions wonder why the Princes allow him to raid across their lands, speculating that he may have an arrangement with one or more of them, acting as a proxy when they need a villain who cannot be traced back to them.

Those of a more romantic bent tell a different tale: people say that one of the Princes murdered Ippolito’s lover when he wouldn’t betray his beloved Malandrino, and that his death broke the brigand. Blinded by rage and grief, the purportedly less depraved outlaw began a lifelong quest for vengeance, and his descent into villainy continued apace. These rumors never quite specify which Prince, the victim’s name or when any of this occurred, and given Ippolito’s penchant for self-aggrandizement and rumormongering, they are probably best discounted. Probably.

#### Portraying Ippolito Malandrino

The brigand cuts an elegant figure. Lithe and dark of hair, with twinkling green eyes and an easy smile, he both adeptly picks pockets and melts hearts.

Few live life with more brio than Malandrino, and his allure is undeniable. He can play the dashing rogue, the grieving lover and the anti-hero with ease, depending on which pose more likely gets him what he wants. At his core, he is deeply selfish, more focused on his own pleasure and leisure than any moral or metaphysical concerns. A Hero seduced by his easy charm finds herself left in the lurch when his goals diverge from hers.

#### Story Hooks

* Prince Villanova has hired Ippolito to scour the Lucani lands in pursuit of an artifact of the Old Empire, which allegedly contains proof that the last Imperator of the Numanari intended a Delaga to succeed him. As the last princely descendent of that ancient family, Giovanni Villanova intends to use it to make a claim on the throne, forcing the hands of his rivals and throwing the Nation into chaos. Can the Heroes stop the dashing outlaw before he achieves his goal?
* The stories of Malandrino’s quest for vengeance hold more truth than fiction. Malandrino seeks to end Prince Mondavi’s hunts, but does not have the wherewithal to do so by himself. His goal is to kill the Prince, but would the Heroes go so far?

### Mother Superior Teoﬁla di Tamamello

Courteous to a fault, Teofila di Tamamello welcomes all women of good heart within the walls of St. Dorothy in Agony. A good heart is not necessarily a restrained one, and families, both noble and common, have used Mother Teofila’s generosity as a means to offload daughters who could not, or would not, abide by the stifling codes of Vodacce society. Once forced to take orders, these women could be forgotten by their relatives and ignored by society at large.

Mother Teofila has done much to break down barriers between sisters and novices of different social classes, forging a community out of a collection of scorned and abandoned women. Teofila’s drive to create commonalities among her charges stems from her childhood in Tamamello, a border town in far northwestern Vodacce. There she saw brave women from the Sarmatian Commonwealth inveighing against the evils of war and preaching the gospel of suffrage. Enthralled by their message, she resolved to bring the same progress to her own Nation, taking orders at a young age to provide a modicum of protec-tion and privacy for her efforts.

A true woman of the people, Mother Teofila is considered considered dangerously progressive by the priests of the Vaticine Church, who consigned her to the crumbling church of St. Dorothy in Agony, hoping that life in a Vodacce backwater would teach the priest her place. Instead, she surprised them by taking in Vodacce’s unwanted women and bringing them to the Church, a tale of redemption that even the most conservative priest could appreciate.

Within the church walls, Mother Teofila subjects her novices to a grueling curriculum that emphasizes all aspects of a Vaticine education, including those out of favor with the current Church hierarchy. The academic grind, more than any individual student can handle, necessitates the formation of strong bonds among novices, so that the strengths and weaknesses of one offset the complementary aptitudes of another.

Currently, the Mother Superior is caught in a dilemma. Her relationship with Donello Falisci has brought material temptations and divided loyalties to her church. His donations have bought the church the best food and materials for lessons, which she appreciates, but it seems that some of her wards—though scorned by their own families—still long for the material comforts of nobility and status. Now she tries to distance herself from him without raising his ire.

#### Portraying Mother Teoﬁla di Tamamello

Mother Teofila’s warmth and courtesy do nothing to blunt the force of her intellect. Despite her age, she quickly susses out deception, insincerity and ulterior motives. Clad in the humble vestments of a Vaticine priest, she projects an aura of calming authority wher-ever she goes.

Decades of caring for Vodacce’s forgotten women and advancing the cause of Sophia’s Daughters have made her levelheaded and decisive in a crisis, and it takes a great deal to ruffle her feathers.

#### Story Hooks

* Mother Teofila needs a reason to distance herself from Prince Falisci without harming her charges, and she sees the Heroes as a likely cat’s-paw. She asks them to procure an embarrassing docu-ment from a Falisci nobleman and deliver it to a contact of Desiderata’s in Sophia’s Daughters, knowing her rival will make it public. The resulting furor will give her the pretext she needs to distance herself from the family, while bringing the ire of the Falisci to bear on Desiderata and the Vestini who protect her.
* Mother Teofila has secretly started teaching her wards how to read, a practice strictly forbidden in Vodacce. As long as it remains a secret, she is fine. Except, one of Falisci’s guards caught one of the girls with a book. Now Mother Teofila needs someone to convince the guard to keep her secret or find some way to silence him.

### Orlando Rabbioso

On the night of Voltadi, 3 Corantine 1666, the townsfolk of Baccante beheld a strange sight: a man, as naked as the sword in his hand, brawling with the town guard on a bridge over the Fiume di Vino.

Whether due to the ferocity of his swordplay or his state of dishabille, the nude knight appeared to get the better of the guard. When the light of the rising moon seemed to return the interloper’s wits to him, a guard settled the matter by using the lull to hazard a leap that carried them both into the river.

In the interrogation that followed, the bemused authorities received a tale delivered with more conviction than the outlandish circumstances ought to permit. In a thick Montaigne accent, the naked stranger explained that his last memory was of holding a pass in the mountains north of Buché against an irregular force of Castillian soldiers that had cut him off from the rest of the army.

Stranger still, his stilted speech and archaic manners appeared to support his claim that he was the cheva-lier of Montaigne myth who single handedly held off an army of Crescent invaders until his king could arrive with an army, though this would make him many centuries old.

After a brief audience, Prince Falisci declared Orlando a harmless eccentric and set the would-be knight free. Seemingly beyond the influence of Sorte, and rumored to appear wherever the greatest need, this ingenious gentleman has seen off bandits, pirates and worse. In one notable engagement, he saved the mayor of Sedilo from a pack of assassins, fighting with such puissance and passion that it earned him the epithet rabbioso or “the furious.”

While Rabbioso’s interventions are not always welcome, they arise from the sincere conviction that he is a legendary knight-errant charged with protecting the poor and helpless from the depreda-tions of the honorless and tyrannical. In one case, he disturbed the solemnity of a wedding because he believed the bride coerced.

Naturally, this notion has made him quite unwel-come in certain parts of Vodacce. A bounty rests on his head in Villanova lands, and to the extent the Mondavi and Caligari families tolerate Orlando in their provinces, it is because he has done nothing specific to earn their ire.

However strained Orlando’s relationship with the Princes may be, for the first time in decades the down-trodden and forgotten have a champion, a novelty as uncommon as it is dangerous in a nation accustomed to autocratic rule.

#### Portraying Orlando Rabbioso

Tall, blonde and brawny, Orlando Rabbioso seems to have emerged from a particularly implausible fantasy. Between his formal, antiquated patterns of speech, his adherence to ancient codes of chivalry and his truly atrocious accent, he seems nearly a caricature of the questing knight.

Whatever the truth may be, no doubt Rabbioso believes to the bottom of his soul what he claims to be. He is honorable to a fault, and will help any who have a grievance worthy of his attention.

#### Story Hooks

* Recently, Orlando took to the battlements of L’Aquila and announced that he would not rest until he brought the outlaw Ippolito Malandrino to justice. The two have played a game of cat and mouse that has captured the popular imagination, with stories—both real and fictional—appearing in fishrags up and down the peninsula. Orlando mistakes one of the Heroes as the infamous vagabond and does not let it rest until he proves him wrong.
* Orlando was brought from his time into the present by a powerful Syrneth artifact under the control of Prince Caligari. For his part, the Prince has no idea he is responsible for Orlando’s presence, but Orlando knows that his only way back to his time requires access to the Caligari museum. Will the Heroes help Orlando infiltrate the old Prince’s home to find the artifact?

### Vittorio Ribaldi

There is scarcely a man in Vodacce who has seen or done more than Vittorio Ribaldi. Born into a poor family in the outlying ghettos of Potenza, Ribaldi took to the sea at a young age. After fina-gling his way into the captaincy of a small barque, Vittorio began a life of adventure that continues to the present day. After cutting his teeth smug-gling fruit into freezing Ussura, he moved on to blockade running.

Vittorio’s illicit cargoes of food and medicine brought hope to the starving peasants of Eisen and the embattled partisans of Castille during each Nation’s time of war. When the Inquisition began to choke the life out of Vaticine scholarship, Vittorio and his crew commandeered an Inquisition caravel carrying a cargo of so-called heretics to the stake and released them on the shores of Vodacce.

When his exploits grew too numerous for the Church to ignore, Ribaldi and his crew took their captured ship, which they renamed La Fortuna, and set sail for Aztlán. There, if the tales are to be believed, Vittorio was shipwrecked, fought in a doomed peasant uprising against the Empress of Runakuna, defeated a Nahuacan Eagle Templar in single combat, then claimed his weapon and feathered cloak and wed a Tzak K’an princess.

That last appears to be beyond dispute, as the Aztláni woman resides with him in Fontaine, answering to the name Allegria, and doing her best to keep up with their three young children, all of whom seem to have inherited their father’s casual disregard for danger. Nor were his exploits limited to Aztlán, but the accounts of Vittorio’s later voyages to far-off Cathay and the Crescent Empire take days in the telling.

Whether the tales portray truth or not, Ribaldi retells them with a great deal of vim and has attracted quite a following as a result. When his acolytes ask why he abandoned a life of exotic travel and adventure to return to the mountain fastness of Fontaine, the old campaigner becomes enigmatic and withdrawn.

#### Portraying Vittorio Ribaldi

Vittorio Ribaldi is a middle-aged man with a magnif-icent silver beard and mischievous hazel eyes. People know Fontaine’s most colorful resident for his outlandish style of dress. He is never without his beloved striped poncho, a garment favored by the Runakuna of Aztlán, or his macuahuitl, an obsidi-an-studded war club beloved of the Nahuaca.

A raconteur to the core, Vittorio embeds political lessons into his tales and peppers them with hints about the ability of brave men and women to change the world. Ribaldi’s cell may contact those who show an interest in the Rilasciare.

By appearing to be little more than an incorrigible flirt and harmless old-timer, Ribaldi ensures that he never exposes himself until the rest of his cell has vetted any potential recruits.

#### Story Hooks

* Ribaldi plans to shake the foundations of Vodacce politics, recruiting an army of liberators to return the Nation to the democratic traditions of the Numanari. He has not decided whether to make common cause with Donello Falisci or simply wait for the Princes to exhaust themselves and strike. Through his cell, he employs Heroes on missions designed to test their loyalty and capabilities, sow discord between the Princes or probe the character of Prince Falisci.
* Ribaldi’s past has caught up with him. An angry woman, the jilted lover of one of Ribaldi’s flings before his marriage, has finally tracked him down. It would be fine if she wanted honorable restitution, such as a duel or a nice conversation. Instead, she is stalking him and leaving unpleasant gifts for him to find, insinuating a grue-some death. Can the Heroes help Ribaldi track the woman down before she does something extreme?

### Ronan Lehane

Ronan Lehane was born and raised in rural Inismore, the son of a half-Montaigne and an Inish lighthouse keeper. His grandfather taught him sword use at an early age. His sword skill was good enough to earn him entry into the Valroux Dueling School, and he spent most of his early years as a duelist-for-hire.

That is, until he met Edward Cranna, an Avalonian playwright looking for a leading man in his newest play, "The King of Blades." Ronan impressed the playwright with his mastery, and Armistead just had to have him in the play. The gig paid well, and Ronan fell in love with the stage after his first performance. That, and he fell in love with his leading lady, Lenora, a blue-eyed Marcher with a fiery spirit.

After the first season with the acting troupe, Ronan and Lenora were married, and Ronan had solidified his position as the best Hero actor the troupe could stage. His most famous role was as the King of Blades, but he took on every heroic, sword-swishing, swash-buckling role Armistead could come up with.

Ronan’s career on the stage ended abruptly when during the final act of a traditional Vodacce tragedy, a masked actor actually stabbed Lenora, killing her on stage. Ronan was unable to catch the culprit, and he left the troupe in search of whomever had assassi-nated his beloved.

Lonely, broken and without much hope, Ronan tracked the assassin across Théah. He left Inismore and made his way to Castille, where he finally found the assassin as he was boarding a ship to Vodacce. Ronan faced the woman, asking for answer, and ready to kill her. The story she told him earned her her life, but left him with even more questions.

She had been hired by an agent of Prince Alcide Mondavi. She didn’t know the reason, but it seemed the man wanted Ronan to come to him. She was to lead him there, upon pain of her own death, but only after killing Lenora. She had insinuated herself into the troupe almost two years before the assassination, which bewildered Ronan as to why Prince Mondavi would be so interested in him.

Now Ronan is in Mondavi lands, attempting to untangle a plot that runs deeper than just himself and his lost love.

#### Portraying Ronan Lehane

Ronan Lehane has pale skin with brown hair and eyes. He keeps his hair cut short, to keep out of the way while fighting. His athletic arms are covered in thin white scars from his dueling days. He favors muted colors and practical clothing for travel and practicing with the sword.

In his youth, Ronan was a happy man, smiling and flamboyant—traits he picked up from his mother. Now, he is quiet and driven. Every now and then, you may catch a smile or a quirk of his lips that shows his old self, but his grief over Lenora is such that he rarely lets himself feel anything other than a burning revenge.

He is not a fan of Vodacce in general, but especially despises Prince Mondavi and any who bow down to him. He is likely to help the Heroes if they ask, though he may ask for favors in return.

#### Story Hook

* Ronan has uncovered information about a powerful Streghe in the employ of Prince Mondavi. Apparently, she has foretold Ronan’s destiny and is the primary reason for his current situation. Prince Mondavi keeps her locked away in la Montagna di Cacciatori. If Ronan could get to her, he could find out what is going on, and deal a significant blow to the Prince. Will the Heroes help Ronan infiltrate Prince Mondavi’s hunting lodge?
* Lehane has insinuated himself close to Prince Mondavi, and was just about to enact his final plan when he received a letter from his old acting troupe. They claim to have new information about Lenora, they too troubled by her death. He can’t go meet them and take out Mondavi at the same time. Will the Heroes help him?

### Gregorio Zambelli

Gregorio Zambelli is a name feared and reviled all across Caligari lands. He serves as Prince Vincenzo Caligari’s chief assassin and wetwork specialist. Sure, sometimes he’s just coming by to pick up an artifact, from inside your locked vault. But more often, he is employed as a spy and assassin, ensuring the loyalty of those who get close to Prince Caligari.

Gregorio is a mystery, and has his own secrets. The first and foremost being that he was born as Lucrezia Constantina Iolande, the youngest daughter of a famous courtesan family. Gregorio always struggled as Lucrezia, enamored by the tales of Vodacce Bravos and the stories of derring-do. Lucrezia was supposed to be a good girl, trained as a proper courtesan and companion. Yet, she always wondered why the cour-tesan simulations never ended in “and that’s when you save the other women from the Villain and run off with his money.”

Lucrezia ran away from home as a teenager, and made her way in the streets, but as a non-noble, non-courtesan woman, the going was tough. She taught herself the sword after stealing a dagger, but feeding herself was difficult. That is when Gregorio Zambelli was born. Gregorio could go places Lucrezia could not, and could even learn to read and write. Gregorio’s life wasn’t easy, buy after a few well-placed kills, using his alternate identity as Lucrezia to lure unsuspecting victims, he earned a reputation.

Gregorio quickly found himself in Prince Caligari’s employ, and now serves as his most trusted agent. Of course, if Prince Caligari knew the truth about Gregorio, he might not be so forgiving.

#### Portraying Gregorio Zambelli

Gregorio Zambelli is petite with raven black hair and dark skin and nearly golden eyes. He is young for his rank and position, barely cresting his early twenties. He is boyish in appearance, and his voice is soft and light, when you can get him to talk.

Gregorio is loyal to Prince Caligari, and would do anything for him. His life depends on the man’s good graces, and he wishes to do nothing to disrupt the life he has created for himself. If the Heroes cross his path, they can expect a dogged foe who does not give up easily.

## Secret Societies

### The Brotherhood of the Coast

Those few Vodacce inclined to ethical piracy have already made their way to the Brotherhood’s ships, leaving only the worst scum to ply the islands off the peninsula’s southern tip. In truth, the Brotherhood has no allies in Vodacce waters, as the Princes resent their intrusion as much as the pirates do.

Between the Inquisitorial galleons in the Vaticine Gulf and the pirates and Princes’ marines everywhere else, the Brotherhood prefers to stay in the wilder waters of the Widow’s Sea. A Brotherhood captain has been known to take on passengers delivered to him by agents of Sophia’s Daughters or to pursue a particularly villainous competitor, but these always remain matters of individual initiative rather than Brotherhood policy.

### Die Kreuzritter

In Vodacce, the acolytes of die Kreuzritter occupy a few remote holdfasts at the edge of civilization. To the extent that agents interact with Vodacce society, it is to trace lost dracheneisen carried south by Eisen who fled the War of the Cross or gather information on monster attacks reported by locals.

Currently, Vodacce members of die Kreuzritter push to have all wayward Streghe declared “dark sorcerers,” while foreign acolytes resist the definition. What impact this debate will have on the activities of Sophia’s Daughters remains to be seen.

### The Explorer’s Society

If anything, the Explorer’s Society would like to be more active in Vodacce. It maintains chapterhouses in Potenza and Baccante at the sufferance of Prince Bernoulli and Prince Falisci. Efforts to make inroads into Caligari lands and find out exactly what the Prince does with his hoard of artifacts have met with disaster and tragedy.

Furthermore, the patron Princes occasionally remember that the Explorer’s Society exists and press members for artifacts and information in exchange for their continued toleration. Forestalling these powerful men—or giving up only the minimum required—has become a full time occupation for the heads of each house, limiting expansion opportunities.

### The Invisible College

As the Inquisition expanded its campaign of perse-cution of scholars across Théah, the Invisible College began to look for havens beyond the reach of Verdugo and his thugs. Though the deliberations were myste-rious to most members, Serafino was selected as a natural home for scholars under threat from the Vaticine Church.

Giovanni Villanova vowed to destroy the agents of any power—secular or religious—interfering in his affairs, and the city housed a major university of which the Prince was a benefactor, a sure sign of his commitment to science. Finally, the city’s notorious black market provides an ideal place to procure every-thing from new identities for fugitive scholars to rare reagents for further study.

### The Philosophi Sanguinis

In practice, the Invisible College’s foray into Villanova lands has worked out a bit differently than the Secret Society intended. While most scholars simply passed through Serafino, entering as a fugitive and departing under a false identity a few days later, a few elected to stay. These scholars, many of whom secured appoint-ments at the University of Serafino, find the lack of ethical or material constraints quite freeing.

Devoting themselves to the higher mysteries, these Philosophi Sanguinis, “philosophers of blood,” began to dabble in the occult: sorcery, unnatural creatures and particularly grisly artifacts became their specialty. Needless to say, Prince Villanova supports their work enthusiastically. He funds their projects, and in return they share their discoveries with him.

To the average citizen, however, the presence of these natural philosophers has been nothing but good. The advancements they have been able to come up with far outstrip those coming from Castille since the Inquisition’s reign. And if their methods are a little unethical, you won’t hear the commoners complaining when it means food on the table and a better quality of life.

An Eisen by the name of Rehor Heinzdorf has developed a rough theory of heredity, and his research into hybridization has allowed farmers to harvest greater yields from more robust crops. Thanks to medical research carried out in Serafino, several conditions previously believed untreatable can now be managed or prevented, and infant mortality has fallen dramatically.

Herr Doktor Heinzdorf has taken up a new avenue of inquiry. Noting that sorcery tends to follow noble bloodlines, he remains determined to understand the relationship between the two. If sorcery is a disease of the blood, he could undoubtedly formulate a cure, freeing Vodacce’s noblewomen from servitude.

What use Prince Villanova would put such a “cure” to is best left to the imagination, but the Philosophi Sanguinis have begun to interfere with both die Kreuzritter and Sophia’s Daughters in the pursuit of sorcerers to study.

#### Favor with the Philosophi Sanguinis

The Philosophi Sanguinis concern themselves with natural sciences and new discoveries, though they rarely care about the costs of such. They do not shy away from dangerous or taboo subjects, as long as it is in the name of discovery.

A Hero who belongs to the Philosophi Sanguinis may earn Favor in the following way:

* Delivering a forbidden reagent, dangerous artifact or unnatural creature for study by the Philosophi Sanguinis is worth 4 Favor.
* Smuggling a fugitive scholar into Vodacce is worth 5 Favor.

A Hero who belongs to the Philosophi Sanguinis can call upon them for aid in the following ways:

* Procuring a new identity for the Hero or another member of the Invisible College requires 3 Favor.
* The use of a forbidden discovery costs 10 Favor. The Philosophi Sanguinis dole out the fruits of their research sparingly, as they are hazardous to both body and soul. They may include—but are not limited to—a poison distilled from the essence of an unnatural being or an artifact capable of unleashing a ruinous curse. Whatever its nature, the effects of such an item are both dramatic and corrupting, something to be called upon only by Heroes in direst need. The player should work with the GM to determine the effects of the discovery. Whatever the item is, is one use only, and the Philosphi Sanguinem expect a full report on its effects once the Hero has used it.

### Knights of the Rose & Cross

A generation ago, the members of the last Rose & Cross chapter house in Vodacce died by poison during their evening meal, and the culprits disappeared into the countryside. Though rumors state that the Society still counts some benefactors among Vodacce’s noble families, the Knightly Order of the Rose & Cross prefers to leave the cause of chivalry to lone actors like Orlando Rabbioso rather than risking Knights.

Knights are in no way forbidden to travel within Vodacce, or even to act as their code dictates. Instead, agents are warned that Vodacce is not a welcoming home, and maybe they should take a page from the other Secret Societies and remain innocuous while traveling there.

### Los Vagabundos

While Los Vagabundos do not operate openly in Vodacce, the Nation remains an important part of their activities. Los Vagabundos make use of the prosperous Castillian community in L’Aquila to hide members whose activities in Castille have garnered too much attention.

In addition, donations from L’Aquila’s Castillians make up an important source of income for Los Vagabundos, and more than a few of them willingly look the other way when it comes to smuggling goods across the Vaticine Gulf.

### Močiutės Skara

Grandmother’s Shawl remains quite active in northern Vodacce, where its presence helped amelio-rate the worst impacts of the War of the Cross and the war between Montaigne and Castille. It owns a sprawling manse in Fontaine, which members use as a transshipment point for supplies traveling up the Sejm to Eisen and points westward.

The Society has a cordial relationship with Prince Vestini, who knows that without the Shawl, refugees would have surely overrun his lands.

### The Rilasciare

The Free Thinkers of Vodacce are a persecuted bunch, residing primarily on the margins of princely power. Profoundly influenced by Sarmatian political thinking, Vodacce’s Rilasciare work to expand the rights of the common people, curtail the influence of Sorte and weaken the Princes’ prerogatives and power.

Writers, intellectuals and common folk, tired of oppression at the hands of Vodacce’s Princes, envi-sion a future where a republic allows every man and woman a say in how they are governed and guarantees them a voice in the Nation’s major decisions.

#### Favor in Vodacce

A Hero who belongs to the Rilasciare may earn Favor in Vodacce in the following ways:

* Publicly exposing a Prince’s agent is worth 3 Favor. Common methods of exposure include pamphleteering, soapbox harangues or whispering campaigns carried out in the market or other public spaces.
* Humiliating a Prince or thwarting his goals is worth 5 Favor. Unlike exposing an agent, this humiliation need not be public—if the Prince knows and the Rilasciare know, that is enough.

A Hero who belongs to the Rilasciare may spend Favor in Vodacce in the following way:

* Causing a major disturbance costs 6 Favor. Whether inciting a bread riot that draws the guards away from a noble’s residence or orga-nizing a demonstration that clogs the streets near the gate and allows a Hero to escape her pursuers, agents of the Rilasciare’s pull with the common folk is unmatched. A Rilasciare Hero should note that such disturbances usually invite retribution from tyrants and must be careful not to put those he cham-pions in harm’s way too often.

### Sophia’s Daughters

Those who champion the rights and freedoms of Vodacce’s women are torn between two strategies for making these dreams a reality. The first, clandestinely advanced by Desiderata, Mistress of La Passione, claims women must seize their rights, by force if necessary. To that end, she has worked to ensure that the women of La Passione train in the “manly arts:” armed and unarmed combat, shooting, conditioning and other such physical pursuits.

In opposition to Desiderata’s dreams of insurrec-tion and armed struggle stands Teofila di Tamamello, Mother Superior of the Church of St. Dorothy in Agony and close confidant of Prince Donello Falisci. She believes that she can advance women’s causes without throwing the Nation into chaos. To that end, Mother Teofila schools her charges in politics, history and law, the better to advance the cause of reform from within. She plans to start a school for young noblemen within her church, in the hopes that early exposure to women of such talent and intellect will shape their sympathies in the years to come.

Neither side has been able to overcome the other, as each has the support of one of the founders of Sophia’s Daughters. Juliette stands by Desiderata, her teacher and mentor. Intimately acquainted with the amoral cruelty of Giovanni Villanova, she knows that only force prevails against him and his ilk. Valentina, while no less aware of her husband’s inhumanity, believes that open rebellion will lead to the deaths of thousands of innocent women at the hands of their husbands and lovers, a cost she is not yet willing to condone.

While the identities and relationships of those involved remain unknown to most rank-and-file members, the disagreement is very much in the air, and each Daughter finds herself drawn to one approach or the other.

#### Favor in Vodacce

A Hero who belongs to Desiderata’s faction of Sophia’s Daughters may earn Favor in the following way:

* Defending a Vodacce woman from violence or oppression at the hands of a man is worth 2 Favor. This defense is worth an additional point of Favor if it involved giving the man a violent message.

A Hero who belongs to Desiderata’s faction of Sophia’s Daughters may spend Favor in the following way:

* She may purchase the aid of a Strength 10 Brute Squad for 4 Favor using the same rules as the Rilasciare entry in the Core Rulebook (page 269). The squad is composed of masked Sophia’s Daughters, and unlike their disorganized Rilasciare peers, the squad may be given specific and detailed instructions as to what to accomplish. For an additional 2 Favor, the Brute Squad may be given a single special type and ability (see Core Rulebook, page 192) that the Hero may activate using her Hero Points. The squad lingers until defeated or the Scene ends, at which point it departs.

A Hero who belongs to Teofila’s faction of Sophia’s Daughters may earn Favor in the following way:

* Providing help to the downtrodden is worth 2 Favor, or 3 Favor if the recipient of this aid is a woman. The aid in question must be non-violent, something along the lines of advocacy, helping to find a permanent shelter or providing a source of food or money.

A Hero who belongs to Teofila’s faction of Sophia’s Daughters may spend Favor in the following way:

* She may call on a fellow Daughter for aid at the cost of 4 or more Favor. Her ally has all Traits at 3 and single Skill of your choice at 3 Ranks, though you may not select Aim, Brawl or Weaponry. You may increase her Ranks in that Skill by spending an additional 3 Favor per Rank, or give her additional Skills, subject to the same limitations, at Rank 3 for 2 Favor per Skill, but you may not do both. Her services end with the Scene.

## Places

### Bernoulli

Prince Gespucci Bernoulli controls a series of enclaves running along the eastern coast of the Vodacce penin-sula. Protected from landward invasions by swamps, mountains and shallow coastal waterways, these cities and towns live and die by the sea, depending on it for food and trade and subject to its whims in all matters. Currently, the cities of Pioro, Porto Spatia and Saint Andrea pledged themselves to Prince Bernoulli. He also claims the loyalty of the town of Orduño, whose odd name stems from nearby Lake Orduño, if you believe the Prince, or a lost bet with a Castillian admiral, if you believe the inhabitants.

#### Potenza

The first and greatest of Prince Bernoulli’s holdings is the ancient island city of Potenza, which guards the mouth of Lake Rosa and controls all seaborne trade with the lands of the Caligari and Falisci families. The ability to inspect and tax cargoes coming from two of Vodacce’s richest families, combined with the Bernoulli family’s exclusive license to trade with the Crescent Empire, have made Potenza a wonderland of wealth and excess.

As one of the oldest cities on the Vodacce peninsula, Potenza has grown from a hamlet into a formidable trading power, and its layout reflects this confused trajectory. The streets near the ancient center are cramped and twisting—an ideal location for late night assignations or assassinations—while farther out, grand boulevards reflect the city’s later prosperity. A rise above the great harbor once supported a fortress that later converted into the Bernoulli manse.

A sprawling complex of grand frescoes, white marble and gilded tracery, the palace leaves its visitors with no illusions about Bernoulli’s wealth and power. However, like the marines concealed within an opulent Vodacce carrack, the palace contains armaments every bit as deadly as those borne by the fortress that preceded it. In Gespucci Bernoulli’s lifetime, no enemy ship has stood against the guns of the palazzo.

#### Il Arsenale

Much of Potenza’s wealth and status derives from its skilled craftsmen and artisans, called colonelli in the local dialect. Nowhere is this reality more apparent than in Potenza’s secretive guild of shipwrights. Plying their trade alongside an artificial lagoon, and protected by thirty-foot walls patrolled by armed guards, these men and women can produce a barque in a day or a carrack within a week. The mysteries of this complex, known as il Arsenale, have proven diffi-cult to unravel. Most people know that membership in the guild is hereditary and permanent; they forbid marrying outside the guild.

An enormous longhouse constructed in the form of an overturned hull, il Arsenale’s guildhall is a thing of wonder. Called il Bastimiento, it provides a workplace, where everything from delicate ornamen-tation to major ship components are finished before installation. Cantilevered decks extend into the nave, providing work surfaces for a colonello, while a system of tracks, pulleys and platforms allows her to move pieces not only up and down, but also fore and aft. A colonello who cannot be bothered to wait for the next platform often navigates the interior by climbing on the rigging that operates the system.

Daylight enters il Bastimiento’s cavernous interior through oversized portholes along the keel and sides, while adjustable mirrors hung throughout the nave catch the light and reflect it wherever the colonelli need to focus during working hours. At night chan-deliers of wrought brass, glass and gold filigree supply light for meals and celebrations.

#### Gli Ghetti

Among the more peculiar features of Potenza are its outlying districts, known as gli ghetti, ghettos. In 900 AV, the city’s population began to outgrow the sliver of land it had been founded on. With their usual inge-nuity, the city leaders simply made more land. Using lumber cut from mainland forests, Potenza’s carpen-ters and engineers sank thousands of wooden pilings deep into the muck surrounding their island and then constructed stone platforms on these supports. Atop these foundations they erected homes, piazzas and palazzos, driving the supports further into the depths, where a combination of time, salt and silt have trans-formed them into something closer to rock.

Today, the outlying ghettos of Potenza display an architectural wonder unmatched in Théah, where opulent houses tower over the canals that lap at their front doors. Here, the streets are made of water, and people navigate these tangled arteries using narrow boats driven by a single oar fixed at the back. Flooding is a frequent occurrence, and even the wealthiest of Potenza’s residents shrug their shoulders at a little high water, wading through their parlors when necessary.

#### La Città Sommersa

The artificial expansion of Potenza’s boundaries has inevitably involved pitfalls, sometimes literally so: in the nearly 800 years since Potenza built its first ghetto, war, storms and the occasional earthquake have sent parts of the city to the depths. Few have the time or inclination to clear this detritus, with new construc-tion rising atop the ruin of the old, giving rise to what residents call “la Città Sommersa,” the Drowned City.

Whether starting from the edge of the city or a nearby canal, divers—called somozzatori, or frogmen—swim beneath Potenza, navigating the dense forest of pilings in search of treasures lost to the sea. Among Potenza’s poorer citizens, it is common enough to see young people goading one another to take longer and longer trips beneath the water, driven by the need to prove her bravery to her peers or simply in search of a trinket for a sweetheart.

The activity is dangerous in the extreme. What little light filters down from the canals quickly fades, leaving a somozzatore to grope his way from piling to piling, navigating by touch and memory more than sight. These would-be treasure hunters guard the locations of air pockets jealously, because once these vital way stations are depleted, they rarely if ever refill; even a room full of air can quickly become a death trap if enough rascals visit it.

Finally, the waters beneath the city serve as a dumping ground for everything from sewage and garbage to dead bodies. In addition to being wildly unsanitary, this refuse attracts both local sea life, from catfish to sharks, and worse. Potenza’s wealth means that a great many somozzatori return with valuable trinkets, but maimings and deaths constantly occur among the city’s frogmen. Many simply vanish: drowned, devoured or otherwise returned to the sea.

#### Carnivale

The origins of Carnivale, the oldest and most beloved festival in Potenza, have been lost to history. Some claim that it celebrates the triumph of a Prince over his rivals, others a religious event connected to the life of the First Prophet, while a few claim it a pagan rite dressed in modern clothing. Whatever the origin, Carnivale is celebrated by everyone in the city, young and old.

But what clothing! All winter long, a citizen of Potenza works to produce a costume of surpassing extravagance, which she debuts during the days of Carnivale. Custom and tradition expects a true cele-brant to make her own costume, but in recent days, a wealthy and well-connected citizen simply hires tailors to make up for his own lack of talent. This sort of behavior is particularly scandalous because it goes against the key tenets of Carnivale: anonymity and equality.

A secretive guild of colonelli provide the former by producing the masks for the event, called mascherari. To advertise their wares, these men and women stand on corners wearing their finest masks, while an interested customer may approach them to set an appointment for a home consultation. At the appointed hour, a masked personage—perhaps the same person, perhaps another, because mascherari traditionally wear different masks at each stage of the process—appears at the customer’s doorstep to discuss the finer details of his purchase.

Finally, the mascherari delivers the mask in a locked box to the client, to protect his identity during the festival. From time to time, the mascherari gifts a poor client with a far finer mask than she can afford, the better to confuse the issue of class during Carnivale. Of course, creating a substandard mask for a rich patron is completely unheard of.

Accordingly, only the mascherari can identify the revelers during Carnivale, and this makes the guild one of the most powerful in Potenza. The licentious nature of the festivities means that the mascherari end up knowing the secrets and shames of Potenza’s upper crust, a fact they are not shy about using to protect their business or advance their interests.

During Carnivale, anyone may approach anyone else, and the festivities are open to all. Participants construct their own costume in secrecy, ensuring equality despite a person’s status. Thus, a poor but talented seamstress may find herself the belle of a nobleman’s ball, while a wealthy merchant who has never held a sewing needle in his life may find himself friendless and alone if his costume does not measure up.

Whatever the costume, Carnivale gives a Potenza citizen a license to behave as he wills. Epidemic drunkenness and fornication abound, and the more harmless sort of plotting comes to the fore: an offi-cious participant who does not give himself fully to the spirit of the festival may find himself tossed in a nearby canal. The city even permits Fate Witches to take part, exchanging their translucent lace veils for a more concealing fall of black silk.

### THE PRINCES' LANDS

The Princes have divided much of Vodacce between them, centering their domains on a few rich settlements and parlaying that wealth into allies, armies and trade agree-ments. They jostle and squable, pulling at each other's holdings and trying to ﬁnd the cracks in whatever armor each has devised.

Whether his lucre comes from harvests, tariﬀs or taxes, each Prince knows his position to be as precarious as it is powerful. A few burned ﬁelds, a port aﬂame or proof of a rogue Strega, and each would ﬁnd himself a peasant as base as any other, should he even survive his fall from grace.

This combination of power and vulnerability makes the Princes such dangerous men and explains why each is a law unto himself within the borders of his demesne. Any who cross the border lines ﬁnd themselves in a diﬀerent world, and better be ready to crush his opponent,  or be crushed himself.

### Falisci

Prince Donello Falisci controls both banks of the Fiume di Vino, from its source in the mountains, north of Sedilo to its mouth on the northern shores of Lake Rosa. While old Vaticine records give the river’s name as Fiume Divino, the River of God, the peasants and nobility both agree that Fiume di Vino, the River of Wine, fit both ruler and land better.

Without doubt, the grapes that grow on the hills of the Falisci lands are the reason why the family’s holdings reckon among the richest estates in Théah. Such is the quality of Falisci wines that lesser gentry have beggared themselves for a rare vintage, while even Théah’s noblest count their cellars empty if they do not contain a few bottles of the eponymous wine.

#### Baccante

Where the Fiume di Vino makes a lazy loop to the east before winding its way the last few miles to Lake Rosa lies Baccante, the foremost city in Falisci lands. This is the Vodacce of Théah’s imagination: a city of marble amid rolling hills, dotted with olive groves and vineyards protected by rows of narrow cypress trees. The city itself is famed far and wide for its wine, and while many of the finest vintages price beyond an average citizen’s means, even the meanest table wine ranks several steps above its equivalent in the rest of Vodacce.

If wine is Falisci’s most famous export, it is hardly the only one. Located in the center of the Vodacce peninsula along a major arterial river, Baccante does a healthy trade in goods from across Théah. Ores and gems from the mountains north of Sedilo find their way downriver, exchanged for Lucani lace, Mondavi rice, Crescent goods imported by the Bernoulli family and fabrics from far off Montaigne and Avalon.

Falisci prides himself on open attitude of his cities and gives price breaks for imports and exports, as long as the seller does his business inside the city. The forum in Baccante rings with the shouts of hawkers from every Nation, each pushing the latest wares from their corner of Théah. In the space of an afternoon, a wanderer in Baccante can spend a year’s wages among its stalls.

All of this appears exactly as its ruler intends, for Baccante is a carefully constructed lie; the Vodacce of Théah’s imagination is exactly that, imaginary. The Falisci family may practice a gentler form of poli-tics than their peers, but they are no novices when it comes to the Great Game. Powerful men and women—lulled by Falisci wine and the comforts of the city—are prone to wagging their tongues, and the family always keeps informants close at hand.

Baccante’s carefully manicured appearance is the work of decades, and the highly professional bureau-cracy that runs the city knows exactly which family pays their wages and to whom they owe their alle-giance. The warmth and courtesy Baccante offers comes from that of an actor, not of a friend.

By creating the illusion of neutral ground and looking after such niceties as public safety, sanita-tion and commerce, the Falisci family has created a formidable clearinghouse of intelligence from all over Théah. The other Princes understand the perils that go along with a visit to Baccante, though they know the value of it as well. Where else in Vodacce can one catch up on the latest palace intrigues in Montaigne or hear the most appalling enormities about life in distant Ussura? The pull of the city is magnetic, and in the end, few choose to resist it.

#### Il Bugiardo

Tucked away in the ancient Numanari catacombs beneath Baccante hides the city’s worst kept secret: il Bugiardo, a seedy watering hole popular with expa-triates and agents of rulers both foreign and domestic. Seated at rickety tables abutting ossuary niches, spies, revolutionaries and outlaws drink, argue and exchange news.

The proprietor, a handsome young exile from Potenza by the name of Lelio, is famed for his outlandish lies, many of which contain a grain of truth. His stories are like puzzles, everyone trying to suss out the truth from the lie, and people take great pride in deciphering his secrets. Of course, for his part, he just likes to tell a good story.

Lelio strictly forbids combat within il Bugiardo, claiming it disturbs the sleeping dead, whom he has taken up a personal responsibility for. More than one scoundrel who disregarded Lelio’s policy has “taken a wrong turn” in the catacombs, never to be seen again.

#### La Vigna

While Baccante displays the most visible demonstra-tion of Falisci power, it is not the center of it. That role belongs to the estates at La Vigna, where the Falisci family lives and plays. A half-day’s ride north of Baccante, among fields of the family’s oldest vines, the compound encompasses ruins dating back to the Old Empire, which have been tastefully integrated into the more recent construction. The Falisci are masterful entertainers, and even the court favorites of Charouse covet an invitation to a gala at La Vigna.

Such is the wealth of the Falisci family that every half-dreamt vision of excess a partygoer might imagine becomes reality or close to it. Gilded foun-tains pump Falisci wine, while lovely courtesans entertain noblemen with their wit and beauty, and servants tempt guests with delicacies from across Théah. In contrast to the egalitarian debauchery of Potenza’s Carnivale, the revels at La Vigna invite only the select few.

Here, men exchange favors, conclude treaties and broker noble marriages that set the course of future events. It was at La Vigna that Morella Giacinni’s hand was proffered for L’Empereur Léon Alexandre du Montaigne, a match that threatens deeply held Vodacce beliefs; anywhere else, it would have been impossible.

Indeed, the design of the setting itself facilitates such difficult conversations. Built alongside the villa of an imperator of the Old Empire, the compound includes numerous ruined courtyards and ambulatories where dignitaries can hash out the troublesome details of an agreement over a glass of wine.

When it comes to matters that Prince Donello Falisci believes to be of particular importance to his family’s fortunes, he invites the parties to take a personal tour of the Falisci cellars and to sample rare vintages directly from the barrel. The honor is keenly felt and rarely bestowed; if the parties leave with an agreement in hand and perhaps the touch of a hang-over as a result, it all benefits the Falisci.

#### Postumi

The Church of St. Dorothy in Agony was established a generation ago as a home for dishonored women. Located on the northern outskirts of Baccante, it quickly became the dumping ground for families whose daughters had failed to live up to the oppres-sive codes that govern Vodacce womanhood.

Here, for the first time, noble and commoner mixed freely under a shared burden of scorn and rejection. In addition, the church afforded these women all the benefits of a Vaticine education, schooled in math-ematics, history, literature, languages and law. The church claimed to read the lessons to the women, but if they were caught reading a book or writing a letter, no one was really around to care too much about the indiscretion.

Touring the church upon his accession, Prince Donello Falisci soon realized that the sisters and their charges were some of the most intelligent, unconven-tional thinkers he had come across. He dawdled for a time discussing the nature of Theus and the history of Vodacce with some of its least valued citizens, and his visits quickly became commonplace.

After several years, the Mother Superior broached the idea of formalizing the relationship, and shortly thereafter Falisci clerks arrived bearing piles of busi-ness records, legal documents and some of the family’s less sensitive diplomatic correspondence. The results astounded the Prince—the analysis carried out at the church uncovered several merchants cheating the family and a number of troubling inconsistencies in the reports received from those the Falisci considered close allies.

Nicknaming the church Postumi, “the hangover,” for the clarity and pain its residents lent to his family’s affairs, Prince Donello began to solicit their opinions on more sensitive topics, eventually recruiting several of the brightest to serve as agents of the Falisci. The relationship has continued to deepen over the years, with the Falisci family providing for Postumi’s mate-rial needs while the women, abandoned by their own families, have found a valued and essential place in another’s.

#### Villanova

Across Vodacce, parents use the name Villanova to terrify children into doing their chores or to invoke as a kind of talisman against lesser evils. There is scarcely a family in Vodacce that more perfectly encapsulates the ruthlessness, pragmatism and indifference to ethics or morality than the Villanova.

Sheltered between the mountains and the sea, the Villanova estates are the scorpion’s sting at the end of the Vodacce peninsula, and none of the other Princes make a move without first considering how Prince Giovanni Villanova might respond.

#### Seraﬁno

At first glance, Serafino is nothing short of angelic. Set in a deep natural harbor against the sapphire blue of the open ocean, with fertile lands stretching for miles behind the city before fading into a picturesque mountain range, the city makes a convincing case for paradise. The city’s architecture only enhances the impression, as soaring marble spires and bridges lend the city a sense of verticality and grace.

While prosperous and well maintained, the city is neither a trading hub nor renowned for its crafts. The ships stop at Serafino because they carry the sort of exotic—and largely illegal—goods that might interest the Villanova family or its patriarch. From exotic toxins and unusual weaponry to stolen goods simply too hot to fence anywhere else, the black market of Serafino never lacks for activity. Nor is it particularly illicit, occurring on market days a few short steps from the more traditional market.

Of course, what is illegal in other lands is free game in Villanova. Prince Giovanni’s laws serve only to protect himself and his holdings. The activities that might get you put into prison in the neighboring princedoms are rarely noted in Villanova lands: from murder to possession of drugs, poisons, and dangerous weaponry. But, don’t pay your taxes, or fail to show respect to a noble and you’ll lose your head post-haste.

Ultimately, Serafino prospers, like all endeavors in Villanova lands, because it serves the interests of the Villanova family. Should they decide that the city threatens their plans, the family would not hesitate to burn it to the ground.

#### L’Universita dei Seraﬁni

Serafino’s true wealth lies not in goods, but in knowl-edge. L’Universita dei Serafini is a testament to what brilliant men and women can accomplish when utterly free from moral or ethical constraint.

Whether the rumors of vivisections and other darker acts are true or not, the medical science coming out of the university leaps far ahead of its peer institutions. A team of students claims to have cured the painful and deadly side sickness by cutting a living man open on a table, while others tout advances against typhus, cholera and even the white plague.

There is a darker side to this experimentation, as none of the students or teachers swear to avoid harming their patients. Whenever a new toxin or chemical comes to the attention of the Villanova family, they use the university as their testing ground. In most cases, a convicted criminal serving a long sentence is hauled out of jail and subjected to a number of tests; if he survives, his sentence is halved, and if he doesn’t he reaches a different kind of freedom.

In one particularly efficacious demonstration of such a compound, Prince Giovanni Villanova is said to have remarked, “What use are armies when a man can command death itself?” That saying, if anything, ought to replace the university’s motto above the school’s grand entrance.

Not everything is sinister experimentation at the cost of human lives. Much of the natural sciences practiced at the university occurs in chemistry labo-ratories, and relate to creating compounds to combat a wide variety of ailments. Of course, the only way to test those compounds is to administer them, but often any chance at a cure is better than suffering with a life-threatening illness. At least, that is what the reserachers and doctors at the university claim whenever anyone asks any pressing questions.

Then there’s the post-mortem dissections, where scientists learn about organs and whole body systems from cutting open the dead—a practice frowned upon nearly everywhere else in Théah.

### Caligari

The lands of Prince Vincenzo Caligari encompass the fertile eastern shore of Lake Rosa and the moun-tainous eastern coast south of Porto Spatia. This quirk of geography forces trade, bound for Caligari lands through the narrow strait at the mouth of Lake Rosa, to frequent “inspections” by ships belonging to Prince Gespucci Bernoulli.

As a result, blockade running and smuggling have become specialties of the Caligari family, enabling their illicit trade in artifacts and antiquities.

#### Il Bosco Grigio

A spine of young mountains guards the eastern coast of the Vodacce peninsula, rising thousands of feet in the air, with the highest peaks sporting snowfields through the heat of summer. Warm, wet air rising off the Numanari Approach to the east and the Vaticine Gulf to the west cools as it hits the mountains, falling as snow on the northern end of the range and cold rain on the islands to the south. In the Caligari lands, this phenomenon has given rise to a sprawling forest known as “il Bosco Grigio” or the Gray Wood.

While united by a single name, il Bosco Grigio is in fact two forests. To the west of the mountains, it is a deciduous wood of beech, chestnut and oak, where a citizen of Rinascita, Caligari’s main city center, is wont to stroll when she needs to escape the oppres-sive architecture of her city. The Caligari family owns the forest and has exclusive rights over any and all game and fowl hunted therein, but a citizen is free to explore the forest and gather fallen wood as he wills.

Over the centuries, the harvesting of deadwood and the wanderings of Rinascita’s citizenry have hampered the growth of the understory, giving the forest an open and airy feel. Today, it remains a favorite of young lovers and others who wish to talk far from prying ears, though those who use the privacy to plot against the Prince and his family have been known to suffer “hunting accidents” within the forest’s confines.

The forest is also where Prince Caligari houses his collection of Syrneth artifacts. Deep in the forest lies a mausoleum-like structure with only one door, report-edly made of solid dracheneisen. The door is locked with a mundane key lock and a locking mechanism clearly Syrene in nature. No one but the Prince knows what treasures lie inside.

#### Logana Cliﬀs

The other forest lies on the eastern side of the moun-tains. As the forest climbs into the mountains and descends their eastern side, it truly comes into its name. Here, evergreens take over as stands of pine, fir and spruce carpet the ground with a muffling layer of fallen needles. Clouds and fogs quick to burn off at lower elevations linger in the valleys, lending the forest a haunted air.

As the mountains reach the sea, they drop off in vertical cliffs to a thin, pebbled strand guarded by granite sea stacks. This denotes the realm of the legendary Longana, beautiful women with the legs of a goat who live in the storm-tossed coves where the Numanari Approach meets the Vodacce penin-sula. According to local folklore, any man who can convince one of these women to cross the mountains and marry him will know prosperity for three gener-ations, and a few sailors lose their lives each year searching for them.

Whether these women exist or not generates much debate in Caligari lands, and a more prosaic expla-nation for the deaths in this area can be found in the wrecker groups who work this stretch of the coast. Preying on ships cast about on the sudden storms that break as the sea air hits the mountains, unscrupulous people lure ships onto the rocks with false beacons or signals of safe anchorage.

Once they smash the ship and drown the crew, they scavenge what they can from the cargo that washes ashore. Never a people to let a mysterious death go to waste, the citizens of Rinascita believe the fogs that linger in the eastern forest to be souls of those drowned by the wreckers, who must await the embrace of either Theus or Legion before permitted to depart.

Few people spend time in the haunted forest, or the cursed shores, fearing to catch the ire of the dead. This makes the wooded area ideal for bandits and theives to make camp without fear of notice, which makes the forests even more dangerous. Of course, the only people who do enter the forest are those who know full well the danger, and maybe even anticipate it.

#### Rinascita

Amid the rolling plains of Lake Rosa’s eastern shore, the city of Rinascita inspires both awe and oppres-sion in equal measure. Built almost entirely of dark granite quarried from the nearby mountains, the city towers over its surroundings, while the unrelenting grayness of its construction lends a bleakness within its confines. While other Vodacce cities have a vital, chaotic urban core, much of the hustle and bustle of city life is conducted outside the walls of Rinascita, where peasants and merchants hawk their wares in a sprawling market before the city gates.

The interior of the city is another matter entirely. The cyclopean architecture seems to loom over Rinascita’s residents to such an extent that even during the busiest hours of the day the city conveys a sense of emptiness. Home to antiquarians and eccentric scholars, Rinascita is famed across Théah as a place of learning, though a foreign academician frequently describes her stay as an unpleasant if necessary chore.

The streets of Rinascita follow a distinct—if vaguely alien—pattern, as if designed by a mind unconcerned with the flows of people and commerce. Long arcing boulevards connect seemingly random points in the city, bordered by stone row houses placed cheek-by-jowl as if to forbid the creation of more useful byways and shortcuts. These thoroughfares bend back on themselves in strange zig-zag patterns, so that someone seeking to visit a friend’s home a hundred feet from his front door as the crow flies might have to travel half a mile along circuitous streets to arrive on foot.

The city’s somber mien finds a counterpoint in its populace, who remain, by necessity, some of the friendliest in Vodacce. Since the most direct route between two points may involve traipsing through someone’s home, the citizens of Rinascita are welcoming to a fault, offering hospitality to strangers and neighbors alike. This human touch helps offset the somber and confusing architecture of the city, and while the streets may seem empty, Rinascita’s homes stay filled with friends and strangers lifting glasses of wine and sharing meals together.

#### L’Ediﬁcio

All of Rinascita’s strange, twisting boulevards emanate from a plaza at the center of the city, above which looms a strange tower of smooth rock known simply as “L’Edificio” or the Building. Aligned to the cardinal points of the compass and rising over a hundred and fifty feet in the air, the tower houses the largest collec-tion of written work on Théah.

An order of librarians called the Eruditi maintains the complex and provides Prince Vincenzo Caligari with detailed information about every visitor to the library. The head of the order, Bibliothecarius Anacleto di Rinascita, is a beloved fixture of the city’s life. Far from an aloof academician, he is a true scion of the city, happy to discuss conspiracy theories with loafers in any of the city’s piazzas and a welcome visitor at homes both noble and common. Not above telling off a novice, he also helps researchers and other visitors navigate the library’s labyrinthine collections.

Among those collections, L’Edificio boasts more works dating to the time of the Old Empire than the Vaticine Church, and the Eruditi have protected numerous “heretical” tracts from the more zealous members of the faith. Here too L’Edificio houses some of the only extant manu-scripts dealing with the occult: philosophical and religious ruminations on the origins of sorcery and its relationship to Theus.

The dark corridors of L’Edifico contain everything from codices purporting to catalogue the forms and abilities of mythological beasts to wild speculations on the nature of the so-called Syrneth. Indeed, accu-sations dog the Eruditi that they harbor scrolls of forbidden knowledge within their walls. Never one to avoid an issue, the Bibliothecarius famously remarked that such calumnies emanate from Cardinal Verdugo, who, in Anacleto’s words, “never met a book he didn’t want to burn.”

L’Edifico welcomes any and all who wish to peruse the stacks, though books are not allowed to leave the premises. This results in scholars spending days at a time inside the halls, poring through books, making copies of important passages and sleeping in chairs or the cold floor in pursuit of whatever knowledge they seek.

### Lucani

Precious few in Vodacce know what to make of the Lucani family’s sudden rise through the ranks. Three generations ago, the head of the Villanova family granted a keep, lands and incomes at the uttermost end of the Vodacce peninsula, not including the Signore Islands, to Michele Lucani, the first of that name to claim the title of Prince.

While a Prince by courtesy only, his family’s hard work and perseverance over the past century have grown their holdings to the point where any laughter at their claims of nobility is quickly suppressed. Nevertheless, as arrivistes and near-vassals of the Villanova family, the Lucani have struggled to assert themselves against their rivals, and, though something of a paper shield, a web of advantageous marriages has kept the wolf from the door thus far.

The current Prince, Michele Lucani, named after his grandfather, has made the largest strides towards solidifying the Lucani principality as a legitimate power unto its own.

#### L’Aquila

The Lucani family claims noble blood by virtue of their long residence in the city of L’Aquila, once a fortified port of the Old Empire and the residence of a major noble family. From here, Lucani ships can patrol the narrow mouth of the Vaticine Gulf for pirates and quickly reach the major shipping lanes of the Widow’s Sea.

Bolstering their claim to nobility is the inarguable fact that the Streghe of the Lucani family have no equal in the power and subtlety of their art. If sorcery is a gift found only among those of noble blood, then surely the nobility of the Lucani family is beyond question.

Shot through with ruins of the Old Empire, L’Aquila and many of its structures date to those ancient days. As the empire’s glory faded, L’Aquila, a remnant at the end of the earth, preserved a fraction of its history and grandeur. Today, its citizens walk on the same streets that senators once trod, and the city guard practices in the barracks that held a legion of the Old Empire in days gone by. The residents of L’Aquila fiercely live up to that legacy and tend to be bluff, honest and hardworking.

In keeping with this salt-of-the-earth attitude, the city’s fame, commercially speaking, comes from its handicrafts. The textile industry in L’Aquila produces the finest cloth in Vodacce, and its tailors and lacemakers turn these into the latest fashions, which nobles and merchants seek after throughout the peninsula.

One can find the city’s carpenters, famed for their ornamental work, in both domestic settings and aboard ship, where figureheads from L’Aquila command high prices. Similarly, semiprecious stones from the nearby mountains support a growing number of lapidarists, while the rich clay of the lowlands supplies the city’s famed ceramicists with their material.

L’Aquila produces a peculiar decorative art form known as opere di commessi, where small stones of varying colors are inlaid into a large slab to create intricate patterns. The rarity of master crafters who practice the technique, combined with its surpassing beauty, have contributed greatly to the city’s prosperity.

In recent years, a flood of Castillian immigrants has stretched the city’s resources. Fleeing first the war with Montaigne and then the Inquisition, these refu-gees have settled into the rhythms of life in L’Aquila and infused the city with a touch of Castillian culture. The Castillians, for their part, have developed a kinship with these unexpectedly forthright and dili-gent Vodacce, and commerce between the Nations has picked up as a result.

#### Il Anﬁteatro

In the center of town, a massive circular amphitheater rises above a piazza dating back to the Old Empire. The structure looms over nearby houses and features relief art from the ancient past depicting gladiatorial combat and other blood sports.

The well-used amphitheater plays host to an idio-syncratic tradition of L’Aquila: any man accused of a minor civil offense that threatens his reputation may challenge his accuser to a trial by combat. If he wins or his accuser declines to face him, he forgets the matter and the crime is expunged. If he loses, he may not contest the charge further in a court of law and must abide by the judgment of the arena.

Combatants fight until one participant concedes the victory, but in the case of particularly obstinate or bloodthirsty parties, the contest can be to the death if both gladiators agree. Mostly, the fights are between hotheaded young men dueling over women or people accused, justly or unjustly, of petty theft. The forthright attitude of L’Aquila’s citizens means that serious crimes are rarely committed, but those that are committed reach beyond the remit of the arena.

The Castillian population of L’Aquila has brought one of their customs to the amphitheater: el Baile del Toro, the art of bullfighting. Initially repulsed by what they saw as the elaborate slaughter of livestock, the citizens of L’Aquila have warmed to the sport after the severe goring of several would-be toreros from Vodacce. Their spectacular failures convinced the locals el Baile del Toro requires more technique than they had initially believed.

The amphitheater sees action of one sort or another almost every weekend, and the social scene around these events is lively. For the lower and merchant classes, it provides a chance to see and be seen, as well as to lay bets on everything from the outcome—in the case of human contestants—to the length of time or the possibility of a goring if one of the combatants is bovine. A curious or dissolute noble attends from time to time, eager to take the pulse of the city or indulge his baser impulses.

#### Le Terme dell’Imperatore

The ancient baths of the Old Empire, located on the outskirts of L’Aquila, remain an important part of the life of the city. Without restriction by gender or social class, people use the place to conduct business, catch up on the latest gossip or simply have a soak. Whatever ancient system brings the hot water up from the depths continues to function, and the Lucani family strongly discourages further exploration.

The only area of the baths off limits to the general public is a secluded pool reserved for the use of Fate Witches. This provides one of the only unregulated social spaces for a woman with the gift. Here, bless-edly free of her husband or chaperone, she can take down her veil and be as Theus made her. Though there might be much to be gained by eavesdropping on their conversation, the prospect of dozens of enraged Streghe generally suffices to put off anyone tempted by the idea.

In truth, le Terme dell’Imperatore, for all its ancient marble and intricate friezes, is part of what makes L’Aquila such a pleasant place to live. The chance to mix with one’s betters—or the baser classes, depending on one’s position—free of any of the trappings that serve to mark these distinctions has contributed greatly to the social and economic life of the city.

Much of L’Aquila’s higher level business takes place in the baths, as people who would normally never socialize interact in the baths. Merchant and nobleman, or commoner and artisan, agree to contracts in principle while both parties relax at the baths, only to formalize them later.

And, if the idea of bathing nude in the sight of the opposite sex strained a Castillian to her breaking point, once she dispensed with her prudishness and accepted the tradition, she found it easier to integrate herself into the life of the city. Even if it was a touch too licentious for her taste.

#### Il Sottomarino

Deep beneath L’Aquila lies a spacious natural cavern carved from the relentless sea and incoming tides. The cavern system, only accessible from the water coming in from the Numanari Approach at low tide, is riddled with byways and long ponderous streams.

It boasts a natural harbor that can hold up to five deep bottom ships, though when the tide rises, the cavern’s ceiling is not high enough to allow a full mast. water flows from the harbor into streams that riddle the countryside, carving out deep caves within the hills. Some say small creatures live in those hills, but few pay attention to such superstitions.

Only a small group of people know of the caves beneath L’Aquila, or how to find the entrance. If more knew, surely the Explorer’s Society would be crawling all over the place, looking for ancient artifacts. The largest cavern is filled with remains from the Old Empire. The place is littered with ancient machinery, some of which still works.

Just beyond the main cavern are several smaller ones, and below them, even more. The waters in the deepest caverns are heated by warm air pockets from deep in Terra’s crust. This is where the pumps that bring hot water into le Terme dell’Imperatore lie, and this is where the Lucani family hides their secrets.

The Old Empire used the cavern as a storage space, fully aware that access to it is limited by time of day. When the Lucani family found the cavern, undis-turbed for centuries, they discovered neatly packed arms, dried foods (long disolved to near dust) and two long rowing ships, completely dilapidated from time.

Now, the Lucani have repurposed the cavern for a similar function. Inside they store food, arms and a few ships. The family spent years tunneling from the estate into the cavern, making an easy access in case the Villanova ever decide to retake their lands.

### Mondavi

The lands controlled by Prince Alcide Mondavi are idyllic and sleepy for the most part. With the Falisci family devoting much of Vodacce’s arable land to the cultivation of grapes, it fell to the Mondavi family to look after the Nation’s baser appetites. As a result, the low swampy land north of Bessarion and south of the Vestini River has been given over to rice cultivation.

And while being the only producer of a staple crop on the entire Vodacce peninsula has made the Mondavi family rich, the grubby nature of their enterprise has tainted their wealth with a touch of the peasant. Never one for gossip or large parties, Prince Alcide Mondavi has let the implied insult go unanswered, content to tax his lands and hunt near his estates.

#### La Montagna di Cacciatori

The Prince allows himself an additional extravagance: his private hunting reserve, encompassing the entirety of the only mountain in Mondavi lands. This moun-tain, known—with all the imagination one might expect of the Mondavi provinces—as the Hunter’s Mountain, is the eroded remnant of an ancient volcano. An elite corps of game wardens patrols the mountain’s boundaries, doing their utmost to ensure that the dangerous fauna within do not escape to trouble the countryside.

Prince Alcide Mondavi has imported white bears from Ussura, a pack of wolves from der Angenehme Wald in Eisen and even a lion from the Crescent Empire, though he found it provided poor sport in the cooler, humid climes of his home. The preserve’s population of deer usually suffices to see the more dangerous predators through the winter safely, but the wardens have trapped the lower reaches of the mountain heavily to ensure that winter storms do not provide wolves or other beasts with a chance to escape.

A peasant, for her part, understands the danger and gives the mountain a wide berth. Should the wolves come howling round her door, her long-standing relationships with the wardens who often winter in peasant villages provide a ready remedy.

And if no one notices the occassional person who goes missing in the reserve, or comes out with a bullet wound or cuts clearly made by manmade weapons, then all’s the better.

#### Elemosina

A small, quiet city on the shores of the Vaticine Gulf, Elemosina’s economic life is given over to the preparation of rice for export to war-torn Castille and starving Eisen. The trade is a lucrative one, as the Mondavi lands produce a staggering amount of rice, but the details are soporific. Often deeply disap-pointed by the laconic speech of dockside barkeeps and the lackadaisical attitude of the local jennys, foreign sailors provide what little liveliness exists. Desperate for a way to spend her earnings that does not leave her bored or otherwise disappointed, a sailor often starts brawls with nearby crews and bets on the outcomes, though this has the paradoxical effect of doubling the wealth of a sailor without providing him with anything else to do.

Only on market days does the city come alive, with residents displaying a connoisseurship of and passion for agricultural products downright baffling to outsiders. The price of a bushel of rice often leads to raised voices, muttered imprecations and, in extreme circumstances, bared weapons. The only death related to a duel over carrots was recorded in Elemosina in 1327 AV, and the victor’s grave on the outskirts of town acts as an informal pilgrimage site for farmers entering the city ahead of a market day.

The city also notably lacks indigents and other signs of extreme poverty. Upon his accession, Prince Alcide Mondavi claimed he had enough work in his family’s lands to occupy every set of idle hands, and the Prince has been as good as his word, finding gainful employment for the paupers and derelicts of Elemosina. This act has earned him a charitable repu-tation, unusual for a Vodacce Prince, and contributed to making Elemosina one of the cleanest, safest cities on the peninsula.

#### Palazzo di Agitazione

Prince Alcide Mondavi is also unusual among Princes for making his home within the limits of Elemosina, rather than retiring to an estate in the country. The vast, sprawling Palazzo di Agitazione is hardly an ideal residence, either. The Prince’s demesne takes up nearly a fifth of the city’s total land area, with the palazzo itself containing 2,143 windows, 1,252 fire-places and 67 staircases. The grounds sprawl further still and boast 1,800 fountains amidst the manicured shrubbery. Maintaining the palazzo and its gardens requires a small army of servants, and maintenance would be foolhardy if not impossible for anyone other than the Mondavi family.

The Prince does nothing without reasons, however, and the Palazzo di Agitazione provides him with an excellent one: something about the building, whether its location or its extravagance or its materials, makes a Fate Witch extremely uncomfortable and renders her all but incapable of using her gift. This discom-fort, in turn, means that the Prince can receive noble visitors in his home free of the usual concerns about the manipulations of Sorte. The experience is so unpleasant that few Streghe bother with a return visit, preferring to let their husbands do their own dirty work for a change.

It also means that Prince Alcide Mondavi lives alone, as his wife, a powerful Strega, prefers to keep a modest house for her own use and that of her daugh-ters beyond the palazzo’s grounds. She spares herself the constant irritation and pain of dwelling in her husband’s mansion, and her notoriously withdrawn spouse can take time to consult his books of history and law in peace. Their marriage is far from loveless, as evidenced by the Prince’s three daughters, and he makes a point to consult his wife on all matters of mutual concern. He trusts her as his confidante, even if her gifts do not allow her to live in his home.

### Vestini

After the upjumped Lucani, the Vestini are the most recent family to claim a principality. Their claims to nobility are in some ways more dubious than those of the Lucani, as Vestini noblewomen rarely exhibit the gift of Sorte, and those who do find themselves weaker than their fellow Streghe.

Free of the blessing and curse of the gift, a Vestini noblewoman improves her mind, pursuing education as far as her intelligence takes her. She cannot learn to read and write, but mathematics and arithmetic require only a knowledge of numbers. Thus, Vestini women outpace their sorcerous competition in the marriage market by developing skills that few noble-women possess.

It is said that a Vestini wife needs no sorcery to run her husband’s life, merely a tally book, a schedule and a pen. Prince Alessandro Vestini is not an altruist in the matter; instead, his wife is one of the smartest women in Vodacce, and without her support, his lands would fall to ruin.

Pacatezza

Located at the mouth of the Vestini River, Pacatezza is Vodacce’s hub for commerce across the Vaticine Gulf. Pacatezza trades in Ussuran goods coming down the Boyar’s River, Eisen goods shipped down Der Baueren, and exports from the Castillian heart-land flowing down the Soldano River past San Gustavo. The ring of foreign languages and the allure of exotic goods add a cosmopolitan sheen to a city already justly famous for its sophistication, and a sailor is as overjoyed to make port in Pacatezza as he is horrified to find himself a berth in Elemosina.

The city is famous for two reasons: its guilds and its women. Unlike the crafters of L’Aquila, the Pacatezza are chefs, painters, sculptors, goldsmiths and jewelers; they have dedicated themselves to epicurean delights, whether it be delicious food or beautiful art.

Beyond that, the Pacatezza pride themselves on the quality of their courtesans. A Pacatezza courtesan can discuss art, literature, mathematics and philosophy. Schooled in logic, rhetoric and grammar, she speaks with an easy and practiced cadence. In short, she rises as an island of sophistication in a sea of brutishness, and her company is anything but cheap.

The allure of Pacatezza courtesan schools attracts successful jennys from all over Théah, who attend in hopes of gaining sophistication and a patron, while providing the school’s clientele with a taste of the exotic and unknown. Not all jennys make the cut, as the famed courtesans of Vodacce are a cut above the rest.

#### La Passione

In the northeastern corner of Pacatezza, couched among green lawns and housed in a former church lies Pacatezza’s famous courtesan school. In a slightly sacrilegious nod to the school’s devout past, it kept the name of the church, La Passione, which surely needs no translation.

While many Nations consider the life of a courtesan to be a shameful pursuit, in Vodacce it is anything but. The Vestini family is famous for educating women to a level unmatched anywhere else in Théah, and many of the family’s ungifted noble daughters attend the school for a few years before seeking a husband.

The Vestini family neither denies nor exalts the sala-cious aspect of the profession; what men and women do in private is their own business. By educating the female half of the equation, the teachers at La Passione equip their charges to fend off the more brutish sort of suitor, while teaching them to recog-nize a worthy mate.

A far cry from the equality enjoyed by women in other parts of Théah, it ranks a great deal better than the ignorance or penury that surrounds many Vodacce women. This is mostly due to the school’s Mistress, Desiderata. She encourages students to learn martial skills as well as social ones, ensuring everyone trained at La Passione is capable of defending herself both at court and on the street.

La Passione is also famous for an annual tradition called la Tarantella, or the Dance of the Spiders. In an inversion of the usual state of affairs, during the Tarantella the courtesans adopt pseudonyms and attend the ball unmasked, while suitors, noble couples and other attendees must adopt the garb, masks and mannerisms of a courtesan. The experience is both freeing for the courtesans and sobering for the other participants, who quickly realize just how much work entails keeping up a steady stream of interesting conversation with total strangers.

#### Bassifondi

For all its delights, Pacatezza is not without its blem-ishes. According to local folklore, the thin sorcery of Vestini blood is not due to any weakness in their lineage but rather the dying curse of a Strega. As the legend tells it, this Strega of surpassing power found a Vestini courtesan worming her way into the arms of the Witch’s husband. Furious with the turn of events, the Fate Witch tracked her husband to his love nest, opened her veins and cursed them both with her last breath.

Whether true or not, the area where the Witch supposedly found her husband with his lover has been abandoned for decades. Few residents willingly choose to live in the city’s eastern quarter, known as the Bassifondi, and it now houses indigents, crimi-nals and worse. Sorcerous curse or urban blight, the fact remains that people coming down the Vestini River into Pacatezza must first drift through a wilderness of collapsed buildings, open sewers and derelict, rat-infested docks.

The only people from the city proper who frequent the area are students from La Passione, who distribute food and tend to the sick and dying. While the charity may seem out of character for normal Vodacce citi-zens, not a single student or teacher at the courtesan school fears to go out alone in the streets of Pacetezza, either in Bassifondi or elsewhere.

### The Unbound

While the Princes of Vodacce hold much of the Nation in their grasp, a few sanctuaries flourish beyond their reach. These places act as havens for those who live without the protection of a patron or who chafe at the confining social roles of Vodacce society.

#### Fontaine

In theory, Fontaine should be the coveted possession of one Prince or another. Straddling a tributary of the mighty Sejm River at the mouth of a fertile moun-tain valley, and possessing rights to the rich mineral deposits of the Valtulina Mountains, Fontaine has all the makings of a Prince’s plaything.

Unfortunately, getting to Fontaine from the Vodacce heartlands is more trouble than it is worth. The western slopes of the Valtulina rise between 10 and 14 thousand feet in the air, with passes few and far between their snowcapped peaks. Further complicating the situation are natural hazards including avalanches, wolves, bears and rumors of unquiet spirits, or worse.

As a result, Fontaine’s people possess a rugged self- reliance seldom found in the lowlands. Here, townfolk look after their own needs, and the Great Game finds little purchase in Fontaine’s alleys and markets. The town practices a radical form of suffrage, where every adult (man and woman) votes for a mayor, whose few responsibilities involve dispute resolution and ensuring public safety. A far cry from the autocracy of the prin-cipalities. The implicit challenge Fontaine poses to the Princes’ rule is largely ignored due to the town’s remote location and small population.

It has become a haven—perhaps the only in all Vodacce—for those pursued by a Prince or his agents. Here, outcasts enjoy a life free from Vodacce society, imbibing Ussuran liquor, discussing Sarmatian polit-ical theory and comparing the theological merits of the Objectionist and Vaticine faiths.

Aside from the iron mines that produce the ore for Fontaine’s exceptional steel, the Valtulina Mountains remain largely unexplored. Persistent rumors exist of Syrneth ruins above the snowline, but only one person ever claimed to find one. The man went mad shortly after and was found dead of exposure, having flensed the skin from his face with a rock. Nevertheless, Fontaine sees a steady trickle of archæologists and Caligari flunkies, who either return empty-handed or not at all.

#### Joppa

The Joppa family, another powerful Vodacce family whose wealth and influence rivaled that of the likes of the Falisci or Bernoulli, once ruled the city of Joppa and its surrounding lands. Now the city stands as a testament to what happens when you play the Great Game and fail.

More than a century ago, the Joppa family made a play to unite Vodacce under a single ruler. Francisco Joppa had made alliances with the Lucani, Falisci and Villanova families to undermine the others and raise himself up as Emperor over the principalities. When Joppa made his move, however, Villanova doublecrossed them. Prince Villanova leaked Joppa movements to the Vestini family who headed them off before much became of the coup. As a retribu-tion for the attempt, the other Princes sent military might into Joppa and overtook the city. They rooted out the Joppa family and killed them all, or sent them into hiding.

No one now claims the Joppa name. Those who might have descended from the cursed family long ago severed any tie or association with them. Ruins dominate the lands where a thriving city once stood. The city itself suffered little damage in the attack, but after the Joppa family’s decline, the residents moved to either Five Sails to the east or south into other parts of Vodacce. What remained of Joppa quickly fell to disuse and ruin, allowing thieves and indigents to move in. Eventually, without workers or merchants in close proximity to sustain them, they too moved away.

In the past few years, a small enclave of Sarmatian merchants and travelers took over the old Prince’s estate, refurbished the homes and restored them to their prior beauty. Surrounded by ruins, these lavish estates serve as secret vacation homes, hidden within Vodacce’s boarders, but without a Prince to tax or regulate them. Invited guests can enjoy the luxury of a Vodacce Prince’s home without the hastle of having to actually deal with the Vodacce. Few know of the estates of Joppa, and the merchants aim to keep it that way. From the outside, the city looks just as empty and ruined as ever, but deep inside the heart of the city, the warm glow of commerce lights the night.

## Sorte

Vodacce’s Fate Witches are tacitly feared, even by the men who wed them. Every nobleman desires to have Fate work in his favor, depending on his family’s ability to arrange useful marriages and secure the power of a Strega to boost his own schemes. Brought up from a young age to harness her power, a Strega exists in her own strata of society, with a tight-knit community of sorceresses. These women teach their practices to the new generations of women born into their power, aiding the political schemes of the Vodacce nobles who support them.

Most, if not all, of the noble families in Vodacce have Sorte running through their veins, and the sons of prominent Strega are often married off to other sorceresses in order to maintain viable magical lineages. Fortunately, the practice is widespread enough that the nobility can avoid the complications that arise from closely related bloodlines. The gift can lie dormant in families gifted only with sons, but even when the line “vanishes,” the families cite their sorcerous ancestors as marks of pride and status.

Streghe are easily identified at birth. Daughters gifted with Sorte usually carry il bacio de destino: a red birthmark said to be the kiss of Fate. These most frequently occur on the child’s cheek or neck, though it may appear anywhere on the body, and has a rough heart shape or one not unlike a pair of lips. Noble families often celebrate the birth of a Fate Witch with lavish feasts and parties, and the parents often betroth daughters born with such a gift within months to cement or strengthen political ties. For this reason, among others, raising a hand against Strega is a dangerous prospect; not only do you run the risk of her family retaliating, but any of their allies as well.

While most Strega are born to noble families, any female child possesses a chance to carry the gift. The nobility find and take daughters of commoners soon after birth to raise them among the upper classes, taught all the proper etiquettes of nobility and trained in her art. The loss of a daughter is not without compensation. Even the peasantry knows the value of a sorceress’ power, and the tradition of bartering is not exclusive to the nobility of Vodacce. The birth of a Strega into a lower-class family all but guaran-tees a more luxurious lifestyle. Of course, one who cannot keep up with the myriad unspoken rules of high society quickly finds herself disgraced and back where she began.

### Training

Streghe raise new Streghe from birth to take on their eventual role in society. A girl born to nobility studies under her mother, while one born to the lower classes obtains patronage from the families she will marry into, learning from the Streghe living there. While a Strega’s education extends to such things as etiquette and behavior, the men of the house frequently police her studies to ensure her education does not include anything forbidden.

As Vodacce law prevents Streghe from learning to read or write, all of their training is by rote and expe-rience. Isolated within their houses nearly from birth, Streghe spend their early lives learning the ins and outs of Vodacce’s social structure and all the proper etiquettes expected of a woman of her status.

From early on, lessons impress upon her the gravitas of her abilities. Her true training begins at the age of ten, when a Strega receives her first deck. This deck only contains the Lesser Cards, and she uses these to learn to read the Weave around her. By the time she turns twelve, when she begins her practical training in Tesse, she has a solid grasp of the Lesser Cards and can begin incorporating the Greater Cards, starting with the ones that resonate most with her readings.

Once she has mastered the basic deck, the Strega can begin learning her Tesse. As she gains working knowledge of all four Weaves over time, she receives the opportunity to decide which to pursue first. Most students gravitate toward Arcana as their first choice, the most common of the Weaves overall. Not all choose such a path, but the habit of Reading the world around them leads most Streghe to pursue a means of manipulating that information. Many Streghe strive to master the four Weaves, and those who can command every aspect of their sorcery are treated with equal parts awe and fear by any who know of the scope of their talents. If her instructor is unavailable for a time or does not know the particular Tessere a young Strega wishes to learn, she may for a time study with another family.

The education of Streghe trumps all alliances and rivalries; it is common practice to simply turn a blind eye to the practice. Streghe themselves often care little for the relationships between families and form tight friendships regardless of political lines. Unable to participate in most public affairs until wedded, and still largely isolated afterward, they have only others in their community to socialize with. More prag-matic than their hot-tempered husbands, Streghe consider the results of magic to be strictly business and very seldom allow it to interfere with their personal relationships.

While the nobility of Vodacce typically and exclu-sively wed Streghe, there are rumors of the middle class and peasantry keeping their daughters to marry them to other families in the same social circles.

Other rumors include Streghe serving as headmis-tresses to educate other young girls in schools existing near Vodacce’s borders. Details on such schools are difficult to come by; some doubt if they even exist at all. Those Streghe that exist outside of the nobility carefully keep quiet about their abilities, for fear of retaliation if society discovers them.

### Social Status

Sorte, as a force, carries with it its own title and place in society. Society considers all Streghe as noble-women, since the gift transcends her family’s status. The lack of surnames in most of Vodacce culture becomes largely beneficial in these cases. Unlike nations where noble names and titles easily pinpoint their lineage, locking those born to lesser status or lacking powerful surnames into their class, Vodacce removes those restrictions. The Vodacce widely understand the gift of Sorte as a powerful blessing, and the power itself confers status. Streghe, often considered their own family, as a whole take on the adopted surname Destine.

While some powerful families promise their daugh-ters from birth to cement alliances and the like, they often do not meet their intended until the wedding. Once she enters her training, the Strega lives largely isolated from the outside world, to minimize the poten-tial fallout from her first pluckings at the strands of Fate, and if not betrothed by the time she completes her training, she remains in her family’s home until marriage. While she typically doesn’t remain there long after completing her training, the years she spends training means the women that raise and teach her mean more to a Strega than her birth family.

In order to properly teach etiquette, powerful families host events intended to emulate the common social obli-gations a noblewoman encounters when she re-enters the world. Generally open to all Witches still in training and their teachers, the galas, feasts and other celebrations offer an opportunity for Streghe to test their abilities not only to pluck at Fate, but to decipher the complex social cues and intricacies of the courts. Streghe grow accustomed to their traditional gowns and veils and can practice their Tesse in a public setting.

Of course, to practice among the nobility could mean potential disgrace for those less perceptive or still learning. The events play hosts to local courtesans, who act as surrogates for members of the noble courts. Their close ear to the nobles and compre-hensive education make them excellent proxies for socialization, without the risk of losing face in a fully public setting. Courtesans also happily take on the Blessings of a learning Strega; courtesans generally accept that receiving a Curse is an unfortunate but necessary practice, with the understanding that it will not last past the evening. Older Streghe prohibit pulls at such events, as to use that Tessere in a social gathering means an egregious faux pas.

### An Unlikely Alliance

When the festivities finish, the courtesans and mistresses meet privately. Most believe they discuss and evaluate the performances of the students, but behind closed doors, the women instead go about their true business. Few noblemen know what truly goes on behind those closed doors, and even fewer admit it, but the quiet alliance between the Streghe and cour-tesans allows them to influence many decisions made concerning politics. Outsiders often wonder why the Fate Witches accept their lot in life as possession and tools, and the truth is that they do not fully accept it, but instead try their best to work around it.

While their husbands, fathers and employers may act protective and parental, Streghe still live a restrictive existence. These men continue to keep them under strict lock and key and under a watchful eye. An individual noble may give his wife a lot of leeway in his own private affairs, but in public, she remains demure and obedient. Not all men afford their wives this luxury in private, and those are the ones who suffer the most, and need the most help from the courtesans.

The Streghe trust the courtesans, who are often better educated and well-versed in politics, to give them sound political advice and aid. In exchange, they receive favors from the Streghe, be they beneficial to the courtesan or detrimental to her enemies. The guise of thinly-veiled disapproval and hatred between the two groups still exists in public, and on individual levels, many Streghe and courtesans do despise each other, but for the betterment of the lives of women throughout Vodacce and beyond, they willingly put aside their differences and work together for a common goal.

### Sophia’s Daughters

While many of the schemes altered or put into action by the women’s alliance pertain to matters within Vodacce’s borders, the highest echelon of Prima courtesans and Streghe also consort with Sophia’s Daughters. The group grew in numbers and spread through the trusted allies of its founders and most other members of their respective circles.

Members of the organization primarily use the rumored schools closer to the edges of the Nation’s borders, and agents carefully relegate their existence to gossip and hearsay. Without the eyes of the nobles, these schools have a much easier time arranging passage for Streghe to safe houses established in neighboring nations.

While easier to transport younger girls still in the midst of their training, it is not unheard of for adult women to flee as well. Those unmarried have an easier time of it, but even a Strega married for many years and miserable knows she has powerful allies who can assist in her escape.

Even outside Vodacce, Streghe are adamant about the training of new Witches. Many safe houses also serve as schools to aid in the continuation of the next generation’s studies, alongside such topics forbidden to Streghe within Vodacce’s borders. Escaped Witches learn to read and write, as well as other necessities for living outside the dazzling grandeur of Vodacce courts.

The most prominent escapees from Vodacce run the schools within these safe houses. They remain underground for fear of recapture, but often know the most about Weaves. These Mistresses often have to craft makeshift decks for their students and teach literacy alongside the meanings and titles of the cards.

Additionally, this helps grown women to learn to read and write by creating a frame of reference and helps younger students learn and memorize the meanings of the Arcana by recording them for refer-ence. Teachers encourage a growing practice within the schools to keep a written record of the proper methods of casting Tesse and ways to repay Lashes before Fate evens the scales.

#### Sorte Untrained

As more Streghe escape Vodacce and start lives of their own, the possibility of one growing up either entirely unaware of her power or using it without training increases. Even after leaving Vodacce, Streghe still insist that all must receive training, and for good reason: to alter Fate, you must pay a price. Request too much without offering anything in return, and Fate Herself takes what is owed, often to terrible effect.

While a trained Strega understands the systems in place allowing her to repay Fate, an uneducated one does not understand how to repay the debt she incurs—if she knows she incurs it at all.

A Strega born outside of Vodacce may not know her heritage until too late. It does not manifest until she reaches the age of ten. Where she would normally begin her studies, she instead lives her whole life an incredibly lucky individual.

While she’s young, things always turn in her favor. As she ages, if not properly trained, her luck slowly but surely turns against her. Even without the benefit of a deck, she begins to read the world around her as Fate reveals Herself. Should she choose to pluck at the threads, she learns by trial and error—condemning her targets to misfortune.

Stories within Vodacce depicting consequences of casting Sorte center on small failings. A single family falling into disgrace, a storm causing damage to a small part of town, or a duel ending with a victory for the lesser party. Accumulating excessive Lashes proves diffi-cult within Vodacce, as Streghe can see the strands of Fate wrapped about each other; if one has too many, her sisters force her to atone to prevent tragedy.

Outside of Vodacce, the stories grow cataclysmic. An untrained Strega may go years suffering through a bout of bad luck, slowly condemning those around her. Stories of famine, plagues or entire towns swal-lowed into the ground all tie back to one central figure. A Strega using her power untrained and unchecked is undone by the debts she incurs, and Fate prefers over-correction rather than not taking enough.

Fate’s backlash does not only effect the Strega; those she has used her power on also suffer. Tales of entire communities decimated or damned by one person’s misfortune are not exaggerated, and Streghe who hear of such instances do all they can to locate and educate those who do not understand their gifts.

#### Learning and Casting Untrained

Learning Sorte outside of Vodacce or without a formal teacher lowers the cost of the Advantage to one point. This cost applies for every purchase of the Advantage that is self-taught. A Strega may learn her first two Weaves within Vodacce at base cost, escape and learn the remaining two on her own at the lowered cost; she may discover her power on her own, learning her first Weave at the lowered cost and later find a Mistress who can teach her at the base cost for any others she wishes to learn. She may also learn to properly control the magic she has taught herself, paying one point to remove the consequences from untrained casting.

If the Strega has resources to help her learn (a deck, an instructor, a written record of the practice), she can do so safely; if she has none of these resources, learning her new Tesse requires taking on a Lash.

Casting Tesse without formal training is dangerous and difficult for the Strega to control. Whenever she casts, she or her teammates suffer from backlash as her clumsy fumbling with the strands of fate causes unanticipated results.

#### Arcana

While she can Read with ease, activating someone’s Virtue or Hubris is tricky. When the Strega casts a Minor Arcana, she rolls a die. On an even roll, she activates the target’s Virtue; on an odd roll she activates his Hubris. Her Major Arcana still works exactly the same as in the Core Rulebook, page 229.

#### Blessings and Curses

The Strega struggles with the scale of her Blessings and Curses. She rolls a die to determine the number of Lashes she takes before determining how beneficial or detrimental her Tessere is. You may spend Hero Points to roll 1 additional die per point and to pick the die you prefer.

#### Pulls

An untrained Strega often does not know how to anchor herself before she Pulls, and when she Pulls someone, she also gets Pulled. Any time her target moves, she also moves in the opposite direction. If her target takes Wounds as a result of her Pull, the Strega takes an equal number.

## Leggende of Vodacce

The Vodacce possess a rich tapestry of traditional stories revolving around the supernatural. After all, it is not such a strange occurrence once you consider that this Nation—and its people—are in constant contact with one of the most powerful forms of magic in all Théah. One that seems to be particularly attrac-tive to creatures that dwell beyond the natural world.

The following entries are taken from Lo Conto de li Conti (The Tale of Tales), the most famous collection of traditional Vodacce stories, whose compilation and current presentation is attributed to the esploratore Loanna Bazza.

### The Badalisc

There was once a village where the people fought, stole and schemed against one another without any recourse. The local Prince had grown tired of hearing cases of one neighbor denouncing another. To remedy this, he decreed that no one could accuse his fellows, and had to tolerate one another without resorting to violence, on penalty of death.

The villagers follwed the edict, but not in spirit. As time passed, each villager found more creative ways to offer offense and take revenge on her neighbors. So much so that, after a while, just and good people abandoned the village.

One family, however, refused to give up on the town. They were the wealthiest inhabitants of the place and, to them, leaving was not an option. They had heard legends of fierce creatures in the forest, creatures they may be able to employ in bringing the town back to its senses. So they went to the woods, looking for an answer. When they returned, they brought with them a hideous monster. The creature had a big head covered with something akin to goat skin. Two small horns stood out on top of its head, while fiery eyes glowed near them. But its most bizarre feature was its huge mouth, one big enough to devour a person whole.

The remaining inhabitants of the village thought the family had lost their minds and imagined the worse. Before anyone had any chance to escape, however, the creature started speaking in an unnatural tongue. The family’s daughter, a young signorina, started trans-lating the creature’s words.

To everyone’s surprise, the monster, through this young woman, started revealing all the villagers’ deepest and darkest secrets. At first shocked by the revelations, they then got angry but eventually laughed, all the tension and scheming rendered useless by the creature’s denunciations.

And so this village—and the family’s position of power—was saved.

#### Nowadays

Few that know this story believe it to be true and, instead, choose to interpret it as morality tale. Trust that if you make a plan against your neighbor, so too will they against you; better to trust your neighbor instead.

There is a village, deep in the northeast of Vodacce (some say near Sedilo or Fontaine), where a brave adventurer may venture deep into its nearby forest. If she does so, she can find a creature with the ability to reveal the intentions and plans of anybody around it.

The creature is elusive and hard to tame. A person must lock eyes with the creature to show he has no fear and remain that way for an hour to break its will. Even after he has control over the creature, if he turns his back on it, the spell breaks. Once tamed, the creature teaches him its language and happily allows him to tell it where to go. Once he asks the creature to make use of its ability, it magically transports back to the forest.

The Badalisc is a fiercely territorial creature and attacks anyone who comes into its den. If the inter-ested party does not lock eyes with the creature imme-diately, it fights until it defeats its enemies, is gravely injured (in which case it tries to escape) or is killed. The creature is not interested in any possession or gift, and only someone who has bested it in a staredown may understand its language.

The Badalisc is a Strength 6 Monster with the Teleporting Monstrous Quality.

### The Befana

During New Year’s Eve, an old Strega—some say the first of her kind—travels across all of Vodacce in only one night. From afar, she looks like a fragile old lady dressed in rags covered with soot, with a broomstick in one hand and a hamper in the other. With that broomstick, however, she traverses the skies faster than any bird, and inside the hamper, she carries judgment to all people in the land.

To those who have been good throughout the year, she brings gifts. Sometimes baubles, other times money or food for the needy. To those who have not, she brings punishment. Often in the form of bad luck, but sometimes in pain and suffering. Both are doled out at the whims of Fate, and no one is immune to her judgement from the loweliest of peasants to the haughtiest of Princes.

To thank or try to placate her, most families leave an offering of a small glass of fine wine and a small plate of their best food. More than for their nutritional value, these items reflect the devotion and respect of the Vodacce towards the Befana: the vigorous bringer of judgment who kindles hope in the hearts of the just and puts fear in those of the wicked.

There are many stories about the Befana’s origin. Some say she lost her only child and, after a long pursuit, made Fate Herself regret Her doings. Her sense of justice was so strong that Fate anointed Befana Her envoy, leaving in her hands the task of judging people’s behavior each calendar year. Other stories claim that she committed a terrible mistake long ago, one that she still tries to compensate to this day. Some say that she is the first of the Streghe, so intricately tied to Fate that she cannot die. She keeps Vodacce in check, otherwise her own progeny, the other Streghe, may lose their power.

Regardless of her origins, the truth is that during New Year’s Eve no one can escape the Befana’s judgment.

#### Nowadays

Even though originally the Befana may have been a single woman, in reality, today there is no one Befana. There are many.

In a Nation that forces women to keep silent and behave appropriately in public, many abuses ensue. The result is a long list of trespasses, offenses and injustices that would go largely unpunished—if it were not for the Befana.

Now a long network extends across Vodacce. One that registers every notoriously bad deed. These “witnesses” exist everywhere and they include people

you least expect—children, unmarried women, hard-working peasants and young couriers, just to name a few. They see, hear and, most importantly, remember and inform. Through encrypted messages, they let the Befana know who deserves a gift and who deserves punishment.

And the Befana themselves? Some are Strega, it is true, but many are just normal women trained to use deception and the Befana disguise to mete out justice. Taught not to attempt to right every wrong—or reward every right—they, instead, focus on making Vodacce a better place one New Year’s Eve at a time. Although Sophia’s Daughters look upon the Befana’s work kindly (and vice versa), both groups greatly differ when it comes to objectives and modi operandi. While Sophia’s Daughters seek to help Streghe escape Vodacce, the Befana wish to make Vodacce a better place for women to live.

A Hero interested in helping the Befana has to prove her worth in front of a number of witnesses. Since these witnesses are mostly invisible, it is very difficult to falsify such an instance. If it happens, however, the Hero receives the benefit of a wealth of information regarding misdeeds in Vodacce, and the responsibility to do something about them.

### The Biscione

In Vodacce, the old blood runs strong. And among the seven greatly respected—and greatly feared—families that maintain that strength to this day, one has power and position the stuff of much gossiping and speculation. The Vestini, at least according to the leggenda, possesses a mighty, immortal monster they can unleash on anybody who opposes them. One that they prominently display in their coat of arms.

The Biscione. The “Great Serpent” appears in the center of the Vestini blazon, an obscenely long and disproportion-ately big snake whose tail coils for what it seems like miles. The monstrosity possesses bright and glistening azure scales as thick as steel, with a fin-like membrane that traverses its spine. The most unsettling part of the picture, however, is its top. There you can find a profusion of red that represents the flesh and blood of a youngster being torn apart and devoured by the monster, its sharp fangs cleaving the poor child in half. Although the vivid painting provides reason enough to be worthy of remembrance, some whisper it compares nothing to the real Biscione. These people affirm—although never in public—that the source of the family’s wealth indeed comes from the beast’s accumulated treasure, an unintended benefit of its depredation. Other families therefore quickly stay away from the Vestini, fearing that they could turn this monster their away if they so desire.

They say the creature hungers for human blood, often that of the young. Some say the reason the Vestini are not as powerful as the other families is because they must feed their children to the creature to sate its desires.

A parent may tell stories of the Biscione to scare his children into obedience, threatening to let the Vestini know she’s been bad, and have them feed her to the Biscione.

#### Nowadays

The truth behind the Biscione reveals, as is often the case with these situations, a much worse reality than any fabled story about it. Whereas most believe that the association with the Vestini is something new, the family has been benefiting from the creature’s power for a long time, as long as the family’s original ancestors. This association, however, has come with a price.

A blood price. For the Biscione truly devours human flesh and, moreover, it dwells in a deep lake whose waters preserve the monstrosity. As a result, the Biscione is effectively immortal and forces the Vestini family to feed it or risk its ire. In fact, they hardly control the creature at all and have to content themselves with feeding their enemies to it.

The age or blood relation of the person to the Vestini family is irrelevant to the man-eating monster. All that matters is that she is flesh and blood. The Vestini themselves have been at odds with the crea-ture for some years, often unable to meet its voracious demands with just enemies alone.

To defeat the Biscione, any brave—or desperate enough soul—must try first to make it leave its waters. If confronted outside those waters, a Hero has at least more than a zero chance to defeat it. In that situation, all that is left is a gigantic snake with impenetrable skin and the strength to devour a horse in one bite.

On the other hand, anybody who wants to benefit from the waters’ healing and restorative properties has to indulge in the Biscione’s diet as well. As such, only someone who has eaten human flesh in the past day and drinks from the waters of the lake gets its benefits. Otherwise, drinking the waters alone proves to be extremely poisonous and can instantly kill any man or woman on the spot.

The Biscione is a Strength 10 Monster with the Aquatic, Chitinous and Powerful Monstrous Qualities. The Biscione’s waters have regenerative properties, and while in the water the creature gains the Regenerating Monstrous Quality.

Long ago a creature from the Otherworld fell in love with ours. And even though her land was magical and timeless, she longed for this world. On the Other Side, wishes turn into reality through sheer will, so the creature entered our material dimension.

With her, she brought others of her kind. In the material world, they all looked like women from the waist up and like goats from the waist down. Since they arrived, their favorite dwellings have been the harbors and cliffs on the coast of Vodacce. In these places, they live and remain hidden, observing the mortals and trying to discern whether they could reveal their true nature to them.

As such, no one knew about these creatures until one of them, named Longana, fell in love with a mortal man. Going against the council of her peers, Longana dared to reveal herself to the man in all her goat-legged glory. He immediately fell in love with her, and without a second thought, asked for her hand in marriage. Longana agreed, but with a condition: he must never ask her name. The man agreed and she accompanied him to his estate.

There they married and lived happily. After a while, they had children who looked human, but had their mother’s supernatural charm, and the couple could not be happier. The estate where they lived was particularly bountiful and fertile. In time, jealous neighbors started rumors that the mistress was a Strega or something worse. When she ignored them, they started teasing her husband, questioning how he could be married to someone whose name he did not know.

The man endured their mockery for a while, but eventually caved to the pressure. One night, drunk and weary of their malicious jokes, he returned home and asked his wife to reveal her name. With tears in her eyes, Longana shared her name and, without any more words, disappeared into the night, leaving her husband and their children behind forever and returning to her people with a broken heart.

#### Nowadays

The Longana—as people now refer to them—are even more difficult to find since their namesake’s tragedy. Some still dedicate their lives to finding them, so immense is their beauty, great their intelligence and powerful their magic.

Longana have the power to influence natural phenomena. They can, for example, prevent bad weather, preserve a crops’ health and even tame the most dangerous animal. They also possess knowledge of things unknown to mortals. Some say that the fabled loving prowess and intelligence of the Vodacce courtesans are a pale imitation of the Longana’s attributes. Some argue that the first courtesan was a Longana, and she passed on her knowledge and beauty to her daughters, forming the first courtesan family. Be that as it may, the company of the goat-women ranks one of the most sought after pleasures of any Vodacce noble.

In spite of numerous efforts, no one has seduced a Longana since the first. The truth is that the Logana, still curious about humans and their lives, fear suffering the same fate as that of the original Longana. They happily defy centuries of convention if they encounter an honest proposal or receive true appreciation. They pay atten-tion to honest men and women and those who have good inten-tions (which they can discern thanks to their powers). To find a Longana, brave adventurers need just explore the harbors and cliffs along the coast of Vodacce with a pure heart and honest words.

### The Monachello

The people from the deep south of the Vodacce nation have a unique legend. The abandoned abbeys and monasteries in those parts shelter the Monachello (Little Monk). This diminutive but thick supernatural creature dresses with long brown robes tied by a rope belt and wears a broad brimmed hat over its head (hence its name).

The creature is fond of playing tricks on people. She may pull off clothes, steal small items from bedrooms and even cause minor accidents to the most unfortu-nate of her victims. Some call them thieves, stealing items left out over night or money purses from inside people’s pockets, the owner none the wiser until he beings searching for his belongings.

Conflicting stories tell of Monachello that appear in the dead of night, after all other hope had faded, and offer help to desperate people without expecting anything in return. In these stories, the Monachello brings food and water to the sick, and money to the poor and destitute. Sometimes, they guide their bene-ficiaries to hidden hoards of treasure.

Whether that treasure resulted from their tricks or other ill-gotten means no one knows. A person in this situation usually receives only as much money or help as he needs to get back on his feet and nothing more.

If someone tries to take more than she needs, she is likely to end up on the bad end of the Monachello’s antics. Indeed, those who are rich or even just well-off seem to be targeted more often by the little creatures.

Since no one can come to an agreeement on whether the Monachello are beneficial or harmful, most people in the south of Vodacce prefer to avoid them at all costs—and they instruct their children and foreigners to do so as well.

#### Nowadays

The legend of Monachello is particularly located to southern Vodacce because these creatures live in the underground passages that connect the many hills in the area. These hillfolk are small and humanoid with opposable digits on their hands and feet. They are suited for living underground, which makes them sensitive to light, hence the reason why they only ever come out at night.

They model their appearance after Vaticine monks, some of the first people to settle the hills the crea-tures call their homes. They model their ethics and way of behaving in the same fashion. In their own twisted interpretation of the Vaticine Credo, the Monachello understand that they should help “good” people, whereas “bad” people should provide that help—knowingly or not.

To ensure this, the diminutive creatures move around houses and palaces noting good and bad persons. When someone is bad, they mark her house with an invisible brand. Any Monachello who sees the mark considers it an invitation to play the most annoying pranks on its inhabitants. Especially keen on stealing items, they subsequently give to good people in need.

When seen, Monachello can be persuaded with food or coin offered freely. They appreciate these gestures and are then open to converse with whomever offered the gift. They can be influenced, in this way, to focus their efforts on a given bad person or to specifically watch over a good one. They ask for nothing in return for their services, but may, if offered, ask the benefac-tors to help them with certain small objects or minor tasks, usually involving theft.

The Monachello is a Strength 3 Monster with the Shadowy and Swift Monstrous Qualities.

### The Wolf d’Aggobio

There was once a walled city that feared no army nor device made by men. Some tried, though all failed to take the city. Armies broke against the walls, and even the cleverest of tacticians could not defeat them. In its hubris, the people of the city declared that nothing could hurt them behind their high walls.

And then, the Wolf appeared. It was as big as a bear, with fur as hard as a rock, and teeth sharper than any sword. At first, the Wolf dined on the city’s livestock that grazed in the land outside the walls. Its appetite was so voracious that in just a short few nights, it ate nearly all the livestock avail-able. The people ran out of meat to eat, and had to purchase it from travelers who came to the city. Soon, news of the Wolf spread, and even travelers stopped coming to sell food.

Winter was coming, and the people of the town real-ized they would starve if they did not do something about the Wolf. They gathered their best warriors and sent them beyond the walls to hunt the beast, but each one fell under its immense power. Then it ate them all, and in that moment the creature tasted human flesh for the first time, and it tasted better than anything it had ever eaten.

The next night, the Wolf jumped over the walls and started dining on the city’s horrified inhabi-tants. They cried, and they pleaded, and they tried to reason with it, but the Wolf paid no heed to their feeble attempts to stop it. Instead, the Wolf ate until full and then left the city to sleep its big dinner off in the countryside. The next day, it came back, ready to eat its fill again.

This happened for a week, until a foreign woman came to the city in the city. The people were shocked to see her, and immediately told her the horror stories of the Wolf. Ignoring the people’s warning, she waited outside the city walls for the Wolf to appear. When it did, she walked fearlessly towards it. When she neared it, she extended her hand and patted the crea-ture on its head. Without any words, they both went away as if friends from long ago.

The city, though broken, was saved from the Wolf, and they never saw the unknown woman or the crea-ture again.

#### Nowadays

Apart from being a cautionary tale about the dangers of excessive pride, the tale of the Wolf d’Aggobio describes one of the most dangerous creatures that roams the countryside. Indeed, this nigh undefeatable beast thankfully only appears when a population becomes prideful enough to call its attention.

No weapon can inflict any lasting injury on the Wolf, and its strength and size make it a terrible foe. It is not completely indestructible, but only the most skilled combatant has a chance at hurting the creature, much less killing it. Beyond that, the Wolf simply devours most who try to stop it or stand in its way. In this way, the creature terrorizes towns and villages for years before moving on to other locales.

What can someone do if the Wolf knocks at his door?

The best way to truly deal with the Wolf is to tame it. Only a fearless person, pure of heart and who wishes the creature no harm, can tame it. Needless to say, few people in Vodacce—even in the whole of Théah—can fulfill such requirements.

In this case, the best opportunity for any population affected by the Wolf is to send envoys far and wide to look for someone with these characteristics. Finding someone like this is the stuff of legend and a worthy task to any Heroes willing to risk an encounter with an indestructible foe. Once someone tames the Wolf, both tamer and beast leave the material world to find peace together on the Other Side.

The Wolf d’Aggobio is a Strength 10 Monster Villain with the Regenerating and Powerful Monstrous Qualities.

### The Falsoseta

Streghe appear to have ultimate power, pulling at the strands of Fate, deciding the course of history not just for one person, but entire townships. But Fate is a fickle mistress, as any Strega worth her salt could tell you, and even they must be careful about what they play around with, otherwise they might get a backlash they are incapable of dealing with.

Few other than Fate Witches themselves know the stories of the Falsoseta: the creature that feeds on the Strega’s own luck, stealing her power and wreaking havoc wherever it goes.

The story goes that a Strega, at the height of her power, and who had mastered all the Tessere, got too full of herself. She claimed to have ultimate control over Fate, and for a time it seemed true. Her enemies fell before her might, and her allies grew in power and strength. She forgot that she only dabbled in fate, and was not Fate Herself. She stopped paying Fate for her use, and indeed stopped attributing her successes to Fate at all; instead, claiming she was Fate and all it embodied.

This went on for many years, Fate ever watchful of this one woman’s life, waiting for the best time to enact Her revenge. A group of powerful enemies banded together in an attempt to break the power of the Strega and her husband. She laughed, saying that she would destroy all their Fates at once. Yet, when she pulled upon the strand, Fate did not obey. Instead, what came was a wretched old woman with long slender fingers.

Only the Strega could see her, as she was created by Fate. She latched onto the Fate Witch’s shoulder and made off with her. When her husband came looking for her to help repel the invaders, she was nowhere to be seen. No other Fate Witch would help him, convinced the curse would get them as well.

The invades stole into his castle walls and destroyed him and his family. Now, no one speaks that Prince’s name, for fear that they may bring the wrath of Falsoseta upon them. Fate Witches caution each other to avoid hubris, or Fate will snatch them away.

#### Nowadays

Falsoseta may indeed be a construct of Fate, but she is not a punishment for hubris or refusing to pay Fate the correct appreciation. Fate gets back at those who refuse to accept Lashes in Her own way. The actual origins of the creature are unknown. Some postulate that the creature has always existed, but that only the Streghe are able to see her, and so they attribute it to Fate.

Falsoseta lives between this world and another, caught in between. She appears as a woman in all black, with a black veil over her face. Fate Witches say that behind that veil is nothing but a deep well of inky blackness. She has long spindly fingers that she uses to create false threads, silver and shining, between Terra and the other world, and these threads look identical to the strands of Fate that bind every-thing together.

One would think such an occurance a strange coin-cidence, but it is not a coincidence at all. Falsoseta has evolved to create webs to entrap her prized prey, Fate Witches. She even took on their appearance to blend in and hide among them.

When a Strega pulls upon a false Fate strand created by Falsoseta, she follows it back to the Witch. She then begins feeding on her power, and her luck. As she does so, waves of Fate ripple out and can affect anyone around the Strega.

Falsoseta does not feed just on Strega; anyone who accidentally runs across one of these threads and pulls it summons the creature. She may not get as much nourishment from a regular person, but any Sorcerer is as prized a catch as a Strega.

She is not invisible, nor does she snatch people away, at least not the way the story goes. Any Sorcerer can see her, through their attunement to the unnatural. She sometimes hides in the other world, which can make it seem like she has stolen her victim away. Often, before attacking, she appears as any normal Stregha, hiding in plain sight as it were.

Falsoseta is a Strength 4 Monster with the Tele-porting and Chitinous Monstrous Qualities.