Crowkiss Hill is a Vault.
Description:
The ancient tribes reserved this resting place for one who, by the end, in service to a certain merciless Hour, was more scar than man. They sealed the entrance with binding-songs and mortared blood.
Start Description:
The one who came here before us had marked the door in the hillside. And here it may yet be, but it is sealed besides with stone and binding-spell.
Success Description:
It is almost possible to stand upright in this place, but the air is foul and our lamps burn low. Here is the warrior-king staked out on the funeral-stone, his bones smashed to keep him from walking. The orbits of his skull are bound with bronze.
End Description:
Others have been here before us - power still lingers, and no doubt they used it in their ceremonies. They have taken some of the warrior-king's funeral treasures, but left something of their own.
How to acquire
It is randomly awarded for exploring A Furtive Truth [ Secret Histories 4 ].
Obstacles
A Warded Door - overcome with one of: Forge, Knock
Rewards
The Book of the Centipede (Book)
Meteoric Bullet (Tool)
Bone Flute (Tool)
Piebald Pigment (Ingredient)
Greydawn Oil (Ingredient)
An Icy Atmosphere (Influence)
( Crowkiss Hill's warrior-king was probably a devotee of the Colonel. He might correspond with King Arthur, who was rumored to have been buried in Glastonbury Tor. )
Gladwyn Lake is a Vault.
Description:
Beneath the stark slopes of the fells, the mist-wreathed surface of the lake waits. There was a twin altar here before the Romans came; and a legend of a serpent who was sent to defile that altar.
Start Description:
Beneath the surface of the lake, or in some cliff-side nook, perhaps some relics remain for us yet.
Success Description:
There are ruins beneath the water - just beneath, at wading depth. The lake has risen a little in all these years, but not enough to keep us out.
End Description:
The chapel crypt is flooded, and the water soupy with old corpse-matter, but at last we bring up a wax-sealed coffer. Eighteenth-century? No older than that. Let's see what's within.
How to acquire
It is randomly awarded for exploring A Furtive Truth [ Secret Histories 4 ].
Obstacles
Younger Sister - overcome with one of: Edge, Knock
Rewards
The Orchid Transfigurations, Vol 3: Noon (Book)
Those Indignities Perpetrated By the Deceitful Fraternity of Obliviates (Book)
Witch-Kissed Oil (Ingredient)
Gwaer Inn is a Vault.
Description:
On a crumbling cliff above a grey sea, the Gwaer Inn squats, until the day the sea comes for it. It receives few guests - fewer since the owner closed his notorious library to visiting scholars.
Start Description:
We can reserve rooms at the Inn easily enough, but we can expect the locals - if they divine our intentions - to turn nasty. And if the library is still there, it will be well-hidden.
Success Description:
The room is bleached and quiet. The chairs are pale wood; the table is topped with white marble. A low draught blows through the ill-fitting sea-facing casement. In winter, it must be insupportably cold. A white-painted glass case holds a shelf of books, wrapped oddly in coils of copper wire.
End Description:
Some of the books are exotic eighteenth-century pornography. Others are botanist's journals. Some, however, have value for our studies. A yellowing note tucked into the spine of one reads 'Watch for me. - JC.'
How to acquire
It is randomly awarded for exploring A Furtive Truth [ Secret Histories 4 ].
Obstacles
A Warded Door - overcome with one of: Forge, Knock
Watchers - overcome with one of: Edge, Grail, Moth
Rewards
The Concursum Diaries (Book)
Those Who Do Not Sleep (Book)
The Shaven Lock Tantra (Book)
Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar (Book)
On Matthias and the Amethyst Imago: Loss (Book)
Keglin's Scratch is a Vault.
Description:
Here the Romans dug for silver, until they reached the unsanctioned space where the Names hid things not fit for sunlight. Many others have come since then, even as the tunnels crumble. Some have never left.
Start Description:
We prepare for the descent. We bring rope, tools, light; we arm ourselves against anything down there that may yet move.
Success Description:
The air is stale, and dust sifts worryingly down from the rock above, but the dead lie still. This chamber, with its chalked figures and ancient stains, looks promising.
End Description:
In a lead-lined sarcophagus lies the skeleton of a woman. She wasn't buried here: it looks like she crawled in to die... something has happened to the shape of her skull, pushing out the jaw like the muzzle of a beast. Scraps of rotting linen swathe her bones. Treasures lie among the remains of her clutching hands between her ribs.
How to acquire
It is randomly awarded for exploring A Furtive Truth [ Secret Histories 4 ].
Obstacles
Treacherous Ground - overcome with one of: Forge, Lantern
The Fretful Dead - overcome with one of: Edge, Winter
Rewards
The Victory of Crowns (Book)
Cracked Wildering Mirror (Tool)
Biedde's Blade (Tool)
Lockwood Fen is a Vault.
Description:
The reeking murk of the fenlands is ripe with furtive life. Taciturn locals still watch the sacred places of the small and secret gods, the ones that answer prayers.
Start Description:
Out into the mudlands. Somewhere, we are certain, is a shrine bedecked with precious oddments. If the locals try to kill us, we are probably heading in the right direction.
Success Description:
Here on a flat rock, inches above the marsh-water, is a throne carved of yew-wood, ripe with fungus, ornamented with tarnished copper. This is the shrine we seek.
End Description:
Apple-green paint marks ritual circles on the rock. The remains of sacrifices past squelch beneath our feet as we search the shrine. In a little hollow in the throne rests an oiled bundle of treasures.
How to acquire
It is randomly awarded for exploring A Furtive Truth [ Secret Histories 4 ].
Obstacles
Treacherous Ground - overcome with one of: Forge, Lantern
Watchers - overcome with one of: Edge, Grail, Moth
Rewards
The Flayed Tantra (Book)
Icon of St Agnes (Tool)
Wingèd Doll (Tool)
Vital Pigment (Ingredient)
