Voivode's Citadel is a Vault.
Description:
In the days of the great power of the Turks, a man of power ruled here. Over many years he fed many thirsts, until his own thirst overcame him. I have learned that both his treasures, and his victims, may remain in an untouched vault below the castle.
Start Description:
The Voivode's vault will be hidden well, and if the stories are true, his victims may not rest peacefully in the dark behind the citadel's walls.
Success Description:
Here is the Voivode's mausoleum. Swagged cobwebs hang like soft grey drapes. A great sandstone sarcophagus stands upright at the far end. It's empty.
End Description:
Someone has left a little heap of treasures before the sarcophagus, like an offering. There are no footprints in the dust. Whoever left them came here long ago, or else has no need to touch the ground when they pass.
How to acquire
It is randomly awarded for exploring A Forbidden Epic [ Secret Histories 8 ].
Obstacles
A Hidden Door - overcome with one of: Knock, Lantern
The Fretful Dead - overcome with one of: Edge, Winter
Rewards
The Book of Thrones (Book)
The Gospel of Zacchaeus (Book)
Twenty-Six Enticements, Seven Torments (Book)
A Catalogue of Uncharted Pleasures (Book)
Wakeful Tympanum (Tool)
An Urgency of Appetite (Influence)
The Cave of Candles is a Vault.
Description:
Every seventh sunset, the cunning man comes from the village below to renew the candles. The floor of the entrance chamber is a slick of stinking wax. He claims the light keeps the creature below cowed; but more likely the sacrifices he brings keep it too sated to emerge.
Start Description:
The ascent to the cave through the high passes will be dangerous. Whatever waits in the darkness below is probably more dangerous still.
Success Description:
The tunnels beneath the cave are smooth with the great serpent's passage, and chokingly dark until we come with our lanterns. But the chamber where it nested is surprisingly bright. Luminescent fungi flood the place with ersatz moonlight. Perhaps the candles drew it, not repelled it.
End Description:
A little cache of treasures, culled over the years from the serpent's meals. It has nosed them into a glinting pile.
How to acquire
It is randomly awarded for exploring A Forbidden Epic [ Secret Histories 8 ].
Obstacles
The High Passes - overcome with one of: Forge, Winter
Younger Sister - overcome with one of: Edge, Knock
Rewards
The Account of Kanishk at the Spider's Door (Book)
The Sky, the Soul (Book)
Ichor Vitreous (Ingredient)
An Intensity of Radiance (Influence)
Grunewald's Permanent Circus is a Vault.
Description:
A tiny city of patched tents around a white-washed farm. Hunched performers shiver in the dripping rain. Frau Grunewald has devoted her considerable fortune to the maintenance of this institution: who knows why? The circus performers dislike trespassers behind the scenes.
Start Description:
The circus folk will be ready to take up arms against us, and the power in the Circus, we fear, may be Worm-touched.
Success Description:
In the striped tent, coiling teratologies behind smeared and murky glass. In the grey tent, dripping fog that nuzzles us like a hunting cat - fog rank as an animal. In the black-and-starred tent, wonderful meshes of orrery and sculpture spangled with costume gems. In the red tent, the waxen priest in the glass coffin, and the books clasped to his chest -
End Description:
In the red tent, a madness of paper. The circus folk have pasted diagram-crowded paper to every surface: the anatomies of time, the dissections of old weather. The place stinks of Nowhere. We should burn it when we leave. A trestle table holds an unceremonious muddle of trophies and keepsakes.
How to acquire
It is randomly awarded for exploring A Forbidden Epic [ Secret Histories 8 ].
Obstacles
Watchers - overcome with one of: Edge, Grail, Moth
The Worms in the World - overcome with one of: Lantern, Moth
Rewards
Sunset Passages (Book)
The Ivory Book (Book)
Gartside's Sanskrit Reader (Book)
A True and Accurate History of the Shadowless Kings (Book)
Writhing Caul (Ingredient)
Jumble
Erudition
Tower Revek is a Vault.
Description:
The blasted stump of a building. The air festers. Whatever power destroyed this place still clings. Only one floor remains above ground, but we suspect more space below.
Start Description:
We will have to search assiduously to find whatever treasures might remain; and if the tower was truly destroyed in a battle between adepts, dangerous influences may still cling to it.
Success Description:
Beneath the tower is a cramped cellar with cracked slate walls. The proportions - it should be a perfect cube, but somehow there are too many corners. Blue light festers at the junction of ceiling and wall. The floor flexes, slowly, like the skin of a bubble. It echoes to a stamped foot. What spaces open beneath?
End Description:
Bundle the books into a sack. Hurry up the handholds to the tower-stump. The sky above ripples with cobalt aurorae. The hills around are washed with shudders of blue light. There is a high and singing sound from the stones of the tower as we leave. Lightning cracks from the sky, and suddenly everything is silent. The tower-stump is gone.
How to acquire
It is randomly awarded for exploring A Forbidden Epic [ Secret Histories 8 ].
Obstacles
A Hidden Door - overcome with one of: Knock, Lantern
The Creeping Breath Curse - overcome with one of: Grail, Heart
Rewards
The Furious Tantra (Book)
The Twin-Serpent Tantra (Book)
How the End will Begin (Book)
Bitterblack Salts (Ingredient)
The Kusnetsov Endowment is a Vault.
Description:
Prince Kusnetsov gave one fourth part of his blood-soaked fortune to the establishment of a Department for Eschatology at this provincial university. The staff have grown peculiar, now, and the buildings fester in a freezing swamp, but some of Kusnetsov's bequest, perhaps, was spent on treasures.
Start Description:
The journey to the Endowment buildings is not long, but the ground is difficult. We have sent three times for permission to visit, and received a less friendly answer each time. No doubt the staff will attempt to forbid our entry.
Success Description:
The library ceiling collapsed years ago. Many of the books have been reduced to swollen pulp by dripping water. Something must remain.
End Description:
A portrait of a genially smiling man - dark skin, bright eyes, neither hair nor eyebrows - watches over the ruined library. It is titled 'Don't Mind Me', and signed with an indecipherable serpentine scrawl. The paint is peeling. It watches us with its benevolent smile as we find intact treasures among the swollen books on the shelves.
How to acquire
It is randomly awarded for exploring A Forbidden Epic [ Secret Histories 8 ].
Obstacles
A Hidden Door - overcome with one of: Knock, Lantern
Watchers - overcome with one of: Edge, Grail, Moth
Treacherous Ground - overcome with one of: Forge, Lantern
Rewards
The Encircling Tantra (Book)
The Silver Book (Book)
The Burning Woman (Book)
The Iron Book (Book)
On Matthias and the Amethyst Imago: Pursuit (Book)
The Known-Unknown Tantra (Book)
