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 seek out forbidden knowledge at Castle Vantress.
Castle Vantress
Where other castles defend the surrounding lands, Castle Vantress is different. While they do have a physical presence in the world, that is not their area of concern. Instead, the knights of Castle Vantress are dedicated to protecting mortal lives from forbidden and dangerous knowledge. To that end, they use any and all means, including some that others would consider immoral. To the knights, the dangers of certain forms of knowledge outweigh the need for moral fiber. Others would likely disagree, but Vantress doesn’t care.
Lay of the Land
Castle Ventress sits at the center of lake Lochmere on a small island. The waters of the lake are defended by undine warriors and wizards, but even the waters themselves are magical and capable of animating into the single largest water elemental in existence, which will obliterate any threat to Castle Vantress. In fact, some believe that the elemental is the FIRST water elemental in existence and that the mages of Castle Vantress have somehow (magically or not) coerced the creature into working with them.
Even if an attacker somehow makes it past the waters, the walls of Castle Vantress are thick and strong, and magical forcefields shroud the islanders from harm.
Dangers
Aside from the gigantic water elemental and the undine that inhabit Lochmere, the biggest threat comes from the inhabitants inside Castle Vantress itself. The knights here aren’t the warriors that most other realms would depend on, instead, they’re all magic users of one type or another. Some are full-fledged wizards and sorcerers, some are spellswords or eldritch knights, and still others are alchemists and inventors. Anything that requires an application of brains or knowledge more than it does brawn is welcomed here. Likely the greatest danger of all comes from the Grandmaster of the Knights of Vantress, an ancient lich known simply as the “All-Knowing Father.” Whether the lich founded the knights or not is unknown, though it claims that someone else did, long before it came along. However, as the lich is well over a millennia old, the claim can be somewhat disputed as it has certainly embedded itself in the very bedrock of the belief that holds the knights together. Despite all the scrutiny of its actions though, it doesn’t seem to have the same nefarious purpose as many other liches do and doesn’t seem to hoard the knowledge for itself to use, but simply to keep it away from the mortal races, at least until such a time that they are ready to embrace the knowledge in a safe manner. A young knight once asked the All-Knowing Father why this is, and the lich simply answered with “We tried to keep the secret of gunpowder. Look what happened when It fell into the hands of an unprepared world.”
And that concludes Castle Vantress. See you next week? 😊
Kim Frandsen
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