K24: First Stop - Taldane and Castle Falastra

Your first stop is the Alastin city of Taldane, on the northern coast. Taldane is a thriving agricultural and port city in northern Alastin, serving as the primary market for the region and maintaining strong ties with the city-states of the Ethestis — though it faces ongoing interference from Gemiri interests. Needless to say, getting off of a Gemiri ship here can sometimes put a target on your back; on the other hand, business is business. The city is best known for its plentiful mercenaries, drawn from the economically depressed plains, but this abundance of armed men has also led to serious issues with piracy and banditry, much to the frustration of the ruling Count.

Signore LaVorgna shares a rumor of a great treasure buried in the dungeons beneath the ruins of an ancient fortress located several days' travel into the wilderness from the city of Taldane, deep in the Alastish Plains. He would like you, his adventuring party, to go investigate the rumors and discover what treasures you can find in the ruins of Castle Falastra. The party will depart once he has concluded commerce, so he can join you. Your task is to explore the dungeon and keep your patron alive. 

Falastra Castle, once a formidable Iron Age hill-fort, was among the last human bastions to fall during the late Orcish waves of the Age of Iron and Fire (c. −750 IY). Its stone walls and earthwork defenses, built atop the bones of a long-abandoned Dwarven mine or fortress, were shattered in a climactic siege by a brutal warband of Orcs, ogres, and enslaved humans. Though the castle ruins were well known in later centuries, the deeper levels have probably never been fully explored, let alone looted.

Falastra held for nearly three decades as the westernmost outpost of a now-forgotten pre-Alastin principality, guarding an upland route between river valleys. The castle stood alone when a vast horde emerged from the Middlemounts, driven by goblinoid pressure from the north. The defenders were ultimately undone not by strength of arms, but treachery: an escaped human slave within the Orcish ranks revealed a forgotten side tunnel into the underworks. The defenders were overrun from below during a night assault. Survivors were few, and the castle was never reclaimed.

The surface ruins are widely known to be cursed or haunted. Locals speak of glowing eyes in the vaults, of whispering in old Kehler and Dwarven tongues, and of animals refusing to climb the craggy hill. Several attempts to excavate the ruins in past centuries ended in disaster: collapse, madness, or disappearances. While scavengers have picked over the upper works, no one has mapped the lower halls. Superstition, deep-seated local fear, and multiple vanished expeditions have kept all but the most desperate or scholarly away.