The Haunting of Calrow Ruins: Nonplayer Characters
Lady Bridgitte Nydaridien
Bridgitte Nydaridien is a proud noble in her mid-thirties and the daughter of Baron Ulrich Nydaridien, the same Baron under whose rule Calrow Keep fell into ruins. In addition to reclaiming the keep for her family’s honor and legacy—embodied in the ancestral crest of two argent swans addorsed on a field of sable—she also wishes to recover her father’s corpse, or at least learn how he died.
Bridgitte’s personal guard is meager (12 guards ), just enough to protect her encampment and her bodyguard, Ser Caomhan ( knight ), and must enlist adventurers to claim the ruins in her name. Unfortunately, her coffers have been depleted by paying Ser Paviss and his knights’ stipend for keeping watch over the ruins. What she can offer the characters is a dozen acres of arable land each as her vassals. If desperate, she will offer a simple star rose quartz (50 gp) from about her own neck, claiming that it belonged to her father and there may be more in the keep and the characters may keep the gems if they find them.
- Goal: Reclaim Calrow Ruins to honor her father’s memory and leave a legacy for her family.
- Notes: She’ll go to great lengths to cover up her family’s role in the downfall of Calrow Ruins.
- Beliefs: It is the duty of the nobility to look after the welfare of those from lesser birth.
- Personality Trait: Does not suffer fools or liars.
Lord Comsfor Polding
A feudal noble , Comsfor Polding is the third son of a lord of little importance. Possessed of neither brawn nor charisma, Polding has relied on his cunning ability to figure out what people desire and leverage that to his disadvantage. He is a portly man in his forties, roughly shaven, with a perpetual sneer on his jowls, and ready to offer a false smile that hides a long and vengeful memory.
While he is a lord in title, Comsfor owns just a meager bit of land to the south with no castle on it. The device on his banners—a peryton on a fess argent over gules—was invented by none other than himself after his father and older brothers were slain by perytons. He deems the Nydaridiens incompetent fools, and intends to “liberate” Calrow Ruins from their rule.
However, Comsfor Polding only has a small troupe of mercenaries (16 bandits and a bandit captain ) camped at the easter edge of Lach Gywren, and he must hire adventurers to claim the ruins in his name. He has 500 gp in his treasury, though he offers the minimum he thinks they’ll accept (starting at 40 gold split between all adventurers).
- Goal: Claim a castle and surrounding lands for his own to create a legacy for his family.
- Notes: His ambitious eye exceeds his grasp.
- Beliefs: No one will give us what we do not take for ourselves.
- Personality Trait: Jaded and sardonic with a dark sense of humor.
Ser Miel Paviss
Ser Miel Paviss is a lanky knight standing head and shoulder above the soldiers under his command. Sunken brooding eyes and a faint yellow scar at the base of his skull are the only physical clues that the knight is controlled by a gibberslug. He served under Baron Ulrich Nydaridien, and both were betrayed by Arista de Freh. One fateful night, Arista led Paviss to the grim tapestry, where the aberrant forces within the tapestry reached out and forced a gibberslug inside his skull. Unlike other gibberslug victims, Paviss did not turn into a gibberling . Instead, the unusual gibberslug gained sentience, killed the knight, and took control of his body.
The creature masquerading as Miel Paviss is currently charged by Bridgitte Nydaridien with ensuring the gibberlings stay confined to the ruins and do not infest the lands beyond. He is aided by 4 guards who remain loyal to him. The guards under his command are forgiving of their commander’s oddities but secretly suspect something is wrong. The creature within Ser Paviss is driven by an urge to understand its current state and how it is connected to the gibberlings . To this end, it serves the subtle telepathic commands of the gibberling brood mother and seeks a way to liberate her from the confines of Calrow Ruins. Currently this means luring outsiders to the Keep, and let its horrors fill them with terror and rage, tumultuous emotions that will feed the brood mother until she is powerful enough to gain total freedom from the grim tapestry.
- Goal: Understand the gibberlings that occupy Calrow Ruins—what motivates them, why they gibber at night, and where they came from.
- Notes: Can’t resist setting others on edge, playing on fears, or pitting them against each other.
- Beliefs: This mortal flesh is impure and deserves to be remade in the image of something greater.
- Personality Trait: Ser Paviss remembers those who died in the gibberling massacre, and he occasionally suffers a twitch while suppressing this memory.