Roznov

Roznov Covenant is the home setting for our campaign. It is a Spring Covenant in the Rhine Tribunal; home to five mages, five companions, and a great many restless ghosts. Its most prominent features are a ruined ancient fortress and a new, ominous tower.

#### **Covenant**

The covenant of Roznov is a small settlement located in a valley on the western side of the Carpathian Mountains, in the shadow of Mt Radhost.  Founded in 1220 on the ruins of a previous covenant destroyed more than a century earlier ago by unknown forces, it is led and protected by the magi Witold, Boda, Helfried, and Volos.  The region is sparsely inhabited and has no powerful nobility, allowing the covenant a high degree of unchallenged self-rule.  The community has established some small-scale farming in the area, but the majority of its food and goods are imported or purchased from nearby farms.  Most of its funds come from tolls enacted on merchants using a nearby mountain pass that the covenant maintains.

#### **Former Covenant**

Relatively little remains of the first covenant at Roznov.  Several structures were either partially intact or restorable when the new covenant arrived, but the majority of them were servant's quarters and workspaces - stables, storage, kitchens, etc.  The central keep is the only remaining structure that might have housed mages or their work, and it was completely bare of any useful materials or records.

The most notable remnant of the original covenant is the vast number of ghosts left behind by whatever catastrophe destroyed it.  Although no records of its population remain, the number and behavior of these spirits suggests that they represent the old covenant's entire mundane population from the time of its destruction.

The cause of the first covenant's destruction is still unknown.  The only information available comes from the behavior of the ghosts left behind, which indicates that it was sudden or instantaneous across the entire covenant, came without warning, occured between 2 and 3 hours after noon, and began on the east side of the covenant's grounds.

#### **Residents**

There are six wizards officially residing at Roznov:

1. Helfried Rafer of House Tytalus
2. Kresimir Nedobrodan of House Merinita
3. Svoboda Bonisagus of House Bonisagus
4. Volos Gulagin Koranov of House Verditius
5. Witold Saski of House Merinita
6. Athdara of House Ex Miscellanea

As of 1222, Roznov is home to 50-60 living souls in addition to the ruling magi - 12 servants and 25-30 laborers and teamsters, plus an array of specialists and guards.

Craftsmen and Specialists

1. Dimitar, Huntsman and Scout
2. Sister Agatha Nädel, Scribe
3. Arron Merch, Stonemason
4. Danica Kriska, Carpenter
5. Magda Dulka, Herbwoman and Physician
6. Timothy Nadze-Kluk, Stableman

Warriors

1. Doggles the Drog
2. Lajos the Mild
3. Progo Shuma the Half-Ghost
4. Tulák the Fae(-blooded)
5. Karol Hennigar, Turb Captain
6. An additional 8 living grogs of no particular repute

#### **History**

The present-day Roznov was founded in Spring 1220 by a multi-House group of (mostly) young mages. They did little restorative work on the original fortress, choosing instead to raise a mystic tower nearby.

See also: Roznov timeline

#### **Buildings**

* Walls - The original covenant was protected by a stone-footed wooden palisade and walkway closing the mouth of the valley.  The wall has rotted and crumbled in the intervening years and now provides only the mildest obstacle to entrance.
* Keep - The original covenant was based in a fortress, built along pre-castle lines; it is unclear if this was built by those mages, or left over from some even-earlier settlement. It is a large square building, two stories tall, with thick walls and a moat. Much of it was ruined by magical catastrophe and decades of subsequent neglect; today it is barely livable, even by the undemanding standards of the 13th century. The only notable original feature remaining is the iron-bound trapdoor to the catacombs below.  The keep now houses Magi Witold and Boda and their labs, as well as many of the Covenant's servants and craftsmen.
* Catacombs - Below the keep is a large space possibly connected to the tunnels that riddle Roznov's vicinity.  The covenant's minimal exploration of this catacomb has proven the presence of Infernal corruption, which has thus far precluded further exploration.  The entrance to the catacomb from the keep is a large, iron-bound trapdoor with sizeable bolts to seal it shut.  Magus Boda has added and maintains an ongoing Ward against the Infernal to the hatch in an effort to keep the evil beneath it contained.  The hatch is also a source of Corpus vis each autumn.
* Service Buildings - Several lesser structures were repairable on the covenant's arrival at the site, including the former covenant's kitchens.  Others now provide housing for the covenant's laborers and teamsmen and space for basic craftwork, while a set of caves carved into the mountainside have been restored for use as storage spaces.
* Stables - The former stables, located near the entrance to the covenant, have been converted wholly into lab space for Volos of Verditius.  The former paddock space attached to them is now filled with trees, bushes, and other plants in various stages of growth and is the first thing most visitors see on arrival. Particularly in Winter, the lab is the most comfortable and well-insulated structure in Roznov.
* Spring - The covenant's water supply comes from a natural spring in the mountain face on the north side of the grounds.  A small stream flows from the spring through the covenant to a gap in the southern end of the old walls.  The covenant's magi believe the spring carries some natural magic of freshness and rejuvenation
* The Corrupted Tower - In 1221, the covenant mystically erected a multistory stone tower on the southern end of the valley, replacing the ruins of an old workshop.  Intended to be the new center of the covenant and home to the magi's quarters and labs, the tower remains largely uninhabited due to possibly Infernal aspects that somehow crept into its design.  Writing in an unknown language is carved into the interior face of many of its walls, and a unplanned stairwell leads from the first floor into what appears to be the same catacombs as those beneath the keep.  While Magus Boda has warded these stairs similarly to the keep's trapdoor, only Magus Helfried has been willing to move into the tower.
* The Tower of Stars - Near the peak of the mountain range on the north side of the covenant exists the only evidence of Roznov's previous magi's workings - a ruined tower filled with the wreckage of a sizeable orrery.  Though its distance from the covenant proper presumably protected it from whatever disaster occured there, time and weather have been more than sufficient to ensure that little remains of what must have been a remarkable device.  However, the walls of the tower are still partly engraved and inlaid with designs showing stars and constellations, and every winter, as the stars begin to align with the tower's patterns, those inlays flicker with light and magic.  Their original purpose is indeterminable now, but they still provide one small benefit to the covenant: the area's frequent thunderstorms send rain washing down the sides of the tower that collects in a cistern beneath it, and along with the runoff comes small flecks of silver filled with the power of the stars.

#### **Ghosts**

Most of the grogs of the former Roznov persist here as ghosts. The traumatic manner of their deaths, and the fact that they went unburied for so long, seem to have arrested any movement towards Heaven or Hell. Instead they lurk in the ruins, repeating their day-to-day rituals, and reenacting their horrified deaths at approximately 3:00 PM each day. The mages are steadily learning how to coexist with these beings, mostly through ritual behaviors that mollify them about changes in their old pattern.

A few shades seem bound to their previous tasks, but not to the precise actions of their dying day.  Two guardsmen of the former covenant ceaselessly patrol 'atop' the elevation of the covenant's destroyed walls.  They descend to drive off spirits and other creatures that approach too closely to the grounds.  Numerous other ghosts within Roznov were guardsmen in life, but only these two actively defend the covenant rather than repeating their last actions eternally. Several of the covenant's living grogs and laborers have begun leaving handmade charms and portions of bread and salt at the base of the ruined walls for the guardian spirits.

The spirits of the former stablemaster and his assistant remain dedicated to the old covenant's stables, much to the dismay of Volos, who has claimed that building for his lab.  Apparently disturbed by the extensive alterations the magus has made to the building, they have abandoned their repetitive labors to attempt to undo his changes and, more recently, to actively sabotage his projects.  This is, in its own way, a hopeful sign, as it shows that the covenant's ghosts are capable of awareness, opinions, and planning when properly stimulated.

In 1223, Volos prepared an enchanted field of Lily of the Valley flowers on the grave where the ghosts' mortal remains had been buried, on a hillside terrace overlooking the covenant buildings. The smell of the flowers can restore a portion of the ghosts' awareness and memories and to make them visible and audible to the living, though they remain translucent, sound hollow and distant, and glow faintly with blue-white light. A few of the ghosts regain a degree of awareness comparable to living, but most remain much more limited. Unfortunately, the flowers' magic also leaves them with a compulsion to wander the forests when not otherwise occupied, giving Roznov a new, frightening reputation as haunted.

#### **Trade Route**

An old and abandoned trade route was reestablished in 1220, passing through the Carpathian Mountains. Roznov is placed very conveniently to shelter and supply passing merchants, and enjoys some profit from this. It also suffers some distractions, since it is contractually obligated to help in cases of emergency.

#### **Mundane Neighbors**

Roznov enjoys quiet relations with the surrounding area, mainly because this part of the Rhine is so disunified that no mundane power has the means to assert authority over them. Most mundanes, to the extent that they think of Roznov at all, associate it with the trade route. For those who are aware of Hermetic magic, Roznov is distant and unthreatening.

#### **Vis Sources**

Golden Apples - 4 pts Rego vis each Spring

Merinita Subsidy - The covenant receives 4 pawns of Vim vis every summer until the next Tribunal in exchange for Volos's work on a magical item requested by the Tribunal of 1221

Ghost Dust - The trapdoor in the keep leading to the catacombs seems to be a focus of power related to the covenant's ghosts - each autumn, following a night of terrible nightmares for all those resident, a layer of ghost dust can be found coating the trapdoor's handle worth 4 pawns of Corpus Vis.

Ruined Tower - Power leaking each winter from the ruins of the Tower of Stars is carried by rainwater into the cistern beneath it.  On average, a careful sifting of the cistern's contents provides 4 pawns of Vim vis per year.

Quest Beast Eggs- found in Spring. Each egg produces two pawns of Animal vis. Four were originally found, after a quest; it's unclear if the nest will produce more without another quest.