Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
In this column, we take some of the lands from Magic: The Gathering and turn them into something you can use for your fantasy games.
The stats given in each entry assumes that you’re using Pathfinder or 5e for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This week we raise the dead at Castle Lochtwain.
Castle Lochtwain
Castle Lochtwain is a flying castle, one that travels slowly across the land through unknown means, moving approximately 10 feet each day towards an unknown destination. The Castle itself has existed for over 500 years, but no one knows where it was originally built. Everyone knows the tale of the inhabitants however, known as the Order of Midnight.
The Order of Midnight is a group of undead knights, sworn to defend the living against monsters. In life, they were all oath breakers, who tried to redeem themselves at the very last second before they died as a consequence of their own actions. Some unknown force brought them here after death to atone. Here, they somehow KNOW that they must serve for a century or more to earn their redemption, with the length of service seemingly determined by the magnitude of their original betrayal. Most of the knights wear raiments that are still recognizable (though they cannot be identified as individuals, their original country or order can be), but some of them are dressed in armor and tabards that are unknown on this world or time.
Lay of the Land
The castle is a floating island, topped with a gigantic castle of indeterminate construction. It is centuries old, potentially far older than the 500 years that people know of, but the methods of construction used are far beyond what anyone can make in this day and age.
The reason for this is simple: Castle Lochtwain is from the future, created millennia from now, in a style that they thought people used in the current day and age, and was created as a means of averting some disaster — presumably wherever Lochtwain is traveling to currently.
Castle Lochtwain is a conglomeration of strong walls and soaring towers from which fly wyverns under the control of the Order of Midnight as they set out to protect the innocent from the forces of evil. There is a constant bustle of activity as the undead knights care for their mounts, though how the good knights control their evil steeds is unknown. The knights themselves speak simply of a “holy union” that seems to redeem both mount and rider in the eyes of an unknown deity.
Dangers
Lochtwain is a dangerous place for the living, as it is filled with undead creatures of all kinds, the knights of the Order of Midnight. Even though the knights would never actively seek to hurt an innocent, their mere presence could cause pain or harm to a living creature. Their mounts are still alive as well and require sustenance, something that knights always provide, but few wyverns would say no to a snack that found itself in its lair.
The Order of Midnight is overseen by Lord-Commander Fell. Who she was in life no one knows, but she bears armor of a kind that has yet to be seen in this world, and unlike her subordinates, she rides a (seemingly) intelligent zombie dragon into battle. She has only been questioned on her sentence once, to which her answer was that she was sentenced to her duty for 10 millennia. The highest any other knight has so far been recorded to have been sentenced is 500 years. Whatever her crime or betrayal was, it must have been on a nearly world-ending scale.
And that concludes Castle Lochtwain. Next week, we look at another fortification. Hope to see you there. 😊
Kim Frandsen
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