The Brothers first appeared as an order of benevolent priests and humble monks in black robes who followed a creed of kindness to the poor and service to the kingdom. Their rules called for humility and self denial. Other religious orders had no quarrel with their theology or their behavior. Their ranks grew as many commoners and nobles were drawn to the order by its good reputation.
The first headquarters for the order was a campsite, located in a forest near the edge of the realm. The Brothers said that their poverty and dedication to service allowed them no resources for more grand accommodations. Members of the Black Brotherhood built chapels in caves or constructed small temples on common land near villages. They said that these rustic shrines allowed them to be near the people they served. Services held by the Brothers at these locations attracted large numbers of common people, who supported the Black Brotherhood with alms.
Within 50 years of their first appearance, the Black Brotherhood had a number of larger temples and abbeys around the kingdom. Wealthy
patrons endowed them with lands and buildings in order to buy favor and further the work of the Brothers. The lands they gained were slowly expanded as the order’s influence grew. Many merchants willed part of their fortunes to the Black Brotherhood, allowing the order to expand their work even further. The Brothers became bankers, loaning money and becoming partners in trade throughout the kingdom. Within 200 years of their founding, the order was wealthy and influential, with chapters throughout the kingdom and spreading into nearby realms.
With their order well-established, the Black Brotherhood received royal permission to build a grand monastery in the hill country north of the kingdom’s center. Their abbot, a cousin of the king, asked for the royal grant of a specific hilltop called the Hill of Mornay. This hill was already crowned by ancient ruins that the monks proposed to clear away. Because it was land not wanted for agriculture, the king was happy to grant the request. He even donated money to build the monastery and encouraged others to contribute. With funds from around the realm, the Brothers completed their new monastery within a decade. It was a grand, sprawling edifice built of black stone and called the Black Monastery.
From the very beginning, there were some who said that the Black Brotherhood was not what it seemed. There were always hints of corruption and moral lapses among the Brothers, but no more than any other religious order. There were some who told stories of greed, gluttony and depravity among the monks, but these tales did not weaken the order’s reputation during their early years. All of that changed with the construction of the Black Monastery.
Within two decades of the Black Monastery’s completion, locals began to speak of troubling events there. Sometimes, Brothers made strange demands. They began to cheat farmers of their crops. They loaned money at ruinous rates, taking the property of anyone who could not pay. They pressured or even threatened wealthy patrons, extorting money in larger and larger amounts. Everywhere, the Black Brotherhood grew stronger, prouder and more aggressive. And there was more…
People began to disappear. The farmers who worked the monastery lands reported that some people who went out at night, or who went off by themselves, did not return. It started with individuals…people without influential families…but soon the terror and loss spread to even to noble households. Some said that the people who disappeared had been taken into the Black Monastery, and the place slowly gained an evil reputation. Tenant farmers began moving away from the region, seeking safety at the loss of their fields.
Slowly, even the king began to sense that the night was full of new terrors. Across the kingdom, reports began to come in telling of hauntings and the depredations of monsters. Flocks of dead birds fell from clear skies, onto villages and city streets. Fish died by thousands in their streams. Citizens reported stillborn babies and monstrous births. Crops failed. Fields were full of stunted plants. Crimes of all types grew common as incidents of madness spread everywhere. Word spread that the center of these dark portents was the Black Monastery, where many said the brothers practiced necromancy and human sacrifice. It was feared that the Black Brotherhood no longer worshipped gods of light and had turned to the service of the Dark God.
These terrors came to a head when the Black Brotherhood dared to threaten the king himself. Realizing his peril, the king moved to dispossess and disband the Black Brother hood. He ordered their shrines, abbeys and lands seized. He had Brothers arrested for real and imagined crimes. He also ordered investigations into the Black Monastery and the order’s highest ranking members.
The Black Brotherhood did not go quietly. Conflict between the order and the crown broke into violence when the Brothers incited their followers to riot across the kingdom. There were disturbances everywhere, including several attempts to assassinate the king by blades and by dark sorcery. It became clear to everyone that the Black Brotherhood was far more than just another religious order. Once knives were drawn, the conflict grew into open war between the crown and the Brothers.
The Black Brotherhood had exceeded their grasp. Their followers were crushed in the streets by mounted knights. Brothers were rounded up and arrested. Many of them were executed. Armed supporters of the Black Brotherhood, backed by arcane and divine magic, were defeated and slaughtered. The Brothers were driven back to their final hilltop fortress – the Black Monastery. They were besieged by the king’s army, trapped and waiting for the king’s forces to break in and end the war.
The final assault on the Black Monastery ended in victory and disaster. The king’s army took the hilltop, driving the last of the black-robed monks into the monastery itself. The soldiers were met by more than just men. There were monsters and fiends defending the monastery. There was a terrible slaughter on both sides. In many places the dead rose up to fight again. The battle continued from afternoon into night, lit by flames and magical energy.
The Black Monastery was never actually taken. The king’s forces drove the last of their foul enemies back inside the monastery gates. Battering rams and war machines were hauled up the hill to crush their way inside. But before the king’s men could take the final stronghold, the Black Brotherhood immolated themselves in magical fire.
Green flames roared up from the monastery, engulfing many of the king’s men as well. As survivors watched, the Black Monastery burned away, stones, gates, towers and all. There was a lurid green flare that lit the countryside. There was a scream of torment from a thousand human voices. There was a roar of falling masonry and splitting wood. Smoke and dust obscured the hilltop. The Black Monastery collapsed in upon itself and disappeared. Only ashes drifted down where the great structure had stood. All that was left of the Black Monastery was its foundations and debris-choked dungeons cut into the stones beneath. The war was over. The Black Brotherhood was destroyed.
But the Black Monastery was not gone forever. Over nearly two centuries since its destruction, the Black Monastery has returned from time to time to haunt the Hill of Mornay. Impossible as it seems, there have been at least five incidents in which witnesses have reported finding the Hill of Mornay once again crowned with black walls and slate-roofed towers. In every case, the manifestation of this revenant of the Black Monastery has been accompanied by widespread reports of madness, crime and social unrest in the kingdom. Sometimes, the monastery has appeared only for a night. The last two times, the monastery reappeared atop the hill for as long as three months…each appearance longer than the first.
There are tales of adventurers daring to enter the Black Monastery. Some went to look for treasure. Others went to battle whatever evil still lived inside. There are stories of lucky and brave explorers who have survived the horrors, returning with riches from the fabled hordes of the Black Brotherhood. It is enough to drive men mad with greed – enough to lure more each time to dare to enter the Black Monastery.
Oft pondered during fever dreams of wealth and power, the Black Monastery has been rumored to contain items of vast value...for those brave or foolish enough to venture within. Never before did you think that opportunity would be before you, but after returning from a successful venture slaying a seven headed hydra zombie - lo did the Monastery itself rise from the depths of hell and present itself to you. On a previously barren hill just outside of town, the imposing structure appeared overnight and stands there as an edifice - taunting you to investigate.
And investigate you shall. Your party has ventured forth in the dewy dawn towards the structure and it now grows ever closer in the distance. You can just make out the huge iron gates that sit at the monastery compound's entrance and need just make a choice of how you will breach the walls.
Mordecai approaches with the group, and when within 50ft he will cast detect magic and look for ambient magical energies
The tall aasimar gazes at the monastery and thinks upon the legends he has heard of the place. Waiting for his companions to gather he rolls his shoulders and checks his great sword for ease of draw.
A small wiry half-elf strolls along the path to the Monastery. He waves in greeting to the others already there.
Sorry I was late, but I needed to confer with the head of my Order"
"Concerning this dark place? What did they say Leng?"
The black helm swings towards the other man, waiting for a reply.
They were at a loss to explain why it suddenly appeared, but they all agreed that it was a bad omen."
"Yes, I wonder at the properties of this magical green fire, and why they would burn themselves with it."
Huffing and cursing, Hess coerces his stubborn Yak forward drawing the cart with his supplies. "Wait hold up I'm coming". Hess moves forward on foot leaving the yak's approach to the lad he hired to return him to the inn.
"Don't start without me"!
"Well, let us see if we are able to cleanse it. We are always willing to wait for you, Brother Grimlock, else who would be our guide in this place of darkness?"
He guards our souls as I must our bodies.
A figure clad in dark browns and greys comes around a corner of the wall which encircles the monastery. A coal black wolf with red eyes pads along at his side.
"It is a large edifice to be sure. These gates seem to be the intended entrance."
Mordecai will now examine the gate with detect magic
The Black Monastery is a huge hulk of a building. It was constructed in stages, with the workmanship and design of each addition varying slightly from the previous work. The exterior walls are very solid masonry and rest on an eight foot thick foundation of solid masonry.
The monastery roof is covered with dark, slate tiles. The roof is a jumble of peaks, chimneys and angles and gargoyle statues sit atop the edges - mouths wide open where they act as rain spouts. There are narrow windows visible but are covered with thick, opaque glass, colored deep purple.
The front entrance to the Black Monastery lies open. A black iron portcullis yawns wide like a set of jaws, revealing a high, wide, arched passage sloping up from the daylight you are in and into a seeming perpectual night in the courtyard. Coiled around the arched entrance, carved from the monastery’s stone, are a pair of black dragons. Their wings are folded down, over their backs. Their beaks meet at the highest point of the arch. Their bodies and tails appear to coil around the stone lintels on either side of the entrance. The eyes of these stone monsters seem to swirl with darkness, warning intruders away from the Black Monastery’s cursed allure.
Mordecai finds his attempts to garner magical insight are foiled most utterly. His art works as he intends, but it is almost as though the area which the monastery sits is outside of normal space. His magical sight reaches the blackened walls and gate... before simply failing to penetrate into the area.
"I suppose we should enter? Let us see what waits for us!"
Leng walks through the portal into the black monastery.
"interesting phenomena..." mutters Mordecai before he observes Leng go through the gate. Part of him anticipates disaster, while another imagines the dangers of this place to be more... insidious than an outright attack at the front gate.
Sasha follows Leng into the portal.
"What's interesting Mordecai?"
"my detection spell ceases as it crosses the threshold. I dont think it is an antimagic zone, but it is as if the place were simply out of range."
As you pass beneath the portcullis, you feel intangible hands tighten around your throat. Your breath becomes shallow and your movements furtive as though you fear disaster to leap from the shadows to consume you. Voices echo in your head, whispering that you should flee immediately, before nameless and shapeless things come to take you.
Sasha feels the press of the effect, but is able to shrug the worst through divine providence. You hear the voices, but are able to ignore them.
Beyond the gates and its silent guardians is the a large open area in the center of the Black Monastery. Perpetual night rules the courtyard and the moon holds silver sway. Because there is not even ambient sunlight, the stars over the courtyard are thick and bright. Planets glow red and gold against the field of night. Moonlight seems to echo from the stones, glimmering like foxfire from every surface. A cold breeze blows jangling through dozens of bronze chimes that hang from the eaves all around. Doorways and dark windows glare like black eyes. There is a crawling feeling of unseen presences, watching from every stone.
The courtyard is not empty. Tall grass stands almost four feet high, except where a stone path crosses the courtyard east to southwest, ending in a large pair of doors on the southwestern angle wall. There are two fountains in the courtyard. The east end of the courtyard is taken up by the remains of a garden. There is a cemetery against the south wall, directly across from the gates, dominated by a large, stone crypt. A statue of great size looms over the center of the garden.
The tall grass shows trails visible in the grass, leading to both fountains and to all of the doors opening onto the courtyard.
The first fountain lies directly in front of the entrance. Marble benches are arranged around a basin approximately 30 ft. across, filled two feet deep with water and muck. In the fountain’s center are statues of satyrs, playing pipes and dancing around a gnarled, marble oak. All around the tree its bark is formed into human faces, twisted in anguish. Water trickles from the eyes and mouths of these faces, running down the tree trunk and splashing into the basin. Large, brass bells hang from the stone tree’s barren branches, swaying slightly with the breeze.
Hess watches his Yak and cart disappear into the distance, then follows the others through the gateway.
Perception.
"This place needs a good clensing".
As Hess passes beneath the gateway, he feels what Leng has suffered...
Mordecai goes in too
"Beware lads, we've a giant about. See those fresh corpses there, mixed in with the skeletons? There's a giant footprint next to one of the orcs."
Sasha will motion towards the bodies and footprint.
Will Save
Hess hesitates for a moment at the warning, then steps forward cautiously.
Hess glances about at the warning, and heads towards the closest of the bodies. "Well let's see who or what we've got to deal with.
The bodies bear no minor wounds, having been crushed by a massive weight and their weapons and armor ruined. The is little else around them, or in the grass that draws your eye.
The wailing of tortured souls echos inside Leng's mind, distracting him from the task at hand. It take a great deal of concentration just to keep from joining them in their cacophony.
What is this about a giant?
Leng moves forward to examine the bodies of the orc's and elf.
Mordecai sees visions of shadowy apparitions rushing close, and at the last minute he shields his mind with the ghostfire. No less shaken by the ordeal, he continues forward wordlessly to where the group examines the carcasses.
"My skill at tracking is laughable at best, as you know. What do the signs tell you?"
Sasha stays alert for any signs of attack.
Hess looks at bodies for a moment, then heads towards the closest fountain. He stops about 10 feet short and tosses a stone or stick into the murky water before moving closer.
Knowledge: Religion (Looking at the symbolism.
After searching the bodies, Leng move on to examine the statue of the titan.
Mordecai will detect magic once more and slowly search the area that way.
Sasha looks at the track he saw earlier and attempts to discern where it goes.
The first fountain does not offer any overt signals as to it's symbolism or reason for being built. The proffered stick plops into the muck and half sinks... but nothing else happens.
Leng moves to get closer to the statue. It stands on a pedestal that is 10 ft. in diameter and five feet high. It is a statue of a titan, 25 ft. tall, crouched on the pedestal beneath the weight of a large, stone orb, like legendary Atlas holding up the world. The titan statue is made of black stone, the titan’s eyes are large sapphires and the titan’s fangs are jade. The titan’s orb is a massive sphere of gray marble that mirrors a half-moon shape across its surface, the same as the current phase of the moon.
Of all your eye crosses only the orb shows sign of magic... and even then it is but a faint aura.