Richemulot

Richemulot

A land where life is centered around seemingly egalitarian, urban life, Richemulot is a nation based more on merit than material wealth. The citizens are able to leave mostly clean lives without fear of the overt oppression or abuse of other lands. Yet beneath this facade of opportunity and equality, corruption festers like a hidden tumor. From the sewers beneath the streets to the closed doors of the elite, wererats and other horrors eat at Richemulot in secret.

Situated in the east-central Core, Richemulot is a land of pristine forests and sun-dappled places full of massive trees and fragrant shrubs and forbs. The mighty Musarde River winds through the domain, providing a vital trade route. The landscape is largely undeveloped, broken only by isolated cottages and farms, because most of the land's population is concentrated in its three large settlements. While travelers may not encounter a a single soul in rural Richemulot, the cities are bustling with people. Strangely, these ancient settlements retain an empty atmosphere; vacant houses, shops, and other structures hint that the cities could support up to three times as many inhabitants.

Not even the Richemuloise know why their cities stand abandoned; the original inhabitants of these silent avenues are a mystery. Regardsless, they were marvelous builders. The narrow streets are lined with beautiful facades of creamy stone, though the buildings are chipped and worn in places. The high rooftops are covered with thin, square wooden shingles and dotted with narrow, soaring spires. The cities are further blessed with elaborate sewer systems that twist deep into the earth. Richemulot's climate is temperate but mild; heavy snows are a rare occurrence in winter.

Major Settlements: Morgitny, Pont-a-Museau, Ste. Ronges

• Idyllic countryside—lush forests, gently rolling river valleys, open farmland and pastures.
• The Musarde River is the backbone and lifeblood of commerce, flowing south.
• The Silent Fields: Farming heartland west of the Musarde, where vineyards, pastures, and fields of rustling grain break up a wooded floodplain.
• Hundreds of shallow, overgrown ponds dot the Silent Fields, often accompanied by windmills built of smooth river stones.
• The Gasping Lake likes in the heart, murky waters concealing bountiful fish.
• Reputation as brigand country, with known infamous mercenary companies such as the Bitter Flame and the Serpents of Doom, hole up here.
• The House of Sages: densely forested region set on a limestone plateau east of the Musarde—steeped in esoteric strangeness, dotted with isolated farms and cottages. Clearings strewn with lichen-encrusted cobbles, hermits’ caves in low hillsides, and the crumbling ruins of castles, abbeys, and towers. 
• The Road of Whispers is the only true highway, cutting through the land and through all three major cities. Merchants, mercenaries, and pilgrims perpetually crowd its length.
• Lifestyle: Unlike in other realms, destitute poverty and decadent opulence are rare sights. Most lead modest, comfortable lives—the people could be said to characterize “both highborn taste and lowborn character, the sort of boorish indulgence that characters the merchant class in other realms.”
• Immigration swells every year, fugitives, heretics, and simple commoners seeking opportunity. Richemulot promises a roof over one’s head and a second chance as in no other land, but those who would accept such gifts must have the cunning to keep them. Despite the enticing veil of success that hangs over the cities, many Richemuloise are drowning in debt, run into the ground by the vicious competition and ruthless business practices of their neighbors. Though Richemulot has no true serfs, it has a hidden lower class in the form of indentured servants, who wear the same clothes as their neighbors but have little hope of ever recovering self-sufficiency.
• City architecture: narrow flagstone streets, cream-colored stone buildings tower two to four stories high, facades are chipped and worn and often encrusted with woody ivies and scaly lichens. 
• Natives give fresh coat of whitewash to the door and window frames of occupied buildings every year.
• Rooftops are conical or steeply gabled, typically finished in thin, square wooden shingles the color of charcoal. Narrow, soaring spires pepper the skyline.
• Ancient walls, bridges, and aqueducts are common. Public gardens and other green spaces are overgrown and neglected and are often associated with vermin. 
• The Church of Ezra: The Richemulot See is the most powerful stronghold of the Home Faith outside of Borca, but it has a symbiotic tie with the nobility and its loyalty is divided. The Mordentish sect has a smaller presence and smaller foothold on the populace.

The Law: Hereditary aristocracy. Richemulot is dominated by the Reinier family of Pont-a-Museau and informally ruled by its matriarch, Jacqueline Reinier. Jacqueline is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant and ruthless Richemuloise nobles, and fewer of her subjects would argue that the domain's fate could be in more capable hands. Indeed, while Jacqueline is undeniably conniving and conceited, she has a strong patriotic streak and believes firmly in a vision of Richemulot as a powerful nation with its own identity. She encourages outsiders to settle in the domain, asking only that they own a weapon and swear fealty to Richemulot itself. She has no community militias, but Jacqueline expects all Richemuloise to be prepared to defend the realm, especially against the ever-present threat of Falkovnia.

     The hereditary nobles of Richemulot have absolute control over most aspects of daily life in the domain. Aristocrats arbitrate civil disputes and regulate trade, and enforcers retained by individual noble families keep the peace. The nobles exercise their authority lightly, however. Power can be a transitory thing in Richemulot, and few nobles want to risk overstepping their bounds and finding themselves disgraced by a vicious rumor.

Pont-a-Museau

Pont-a-Museau is nestled at the slight bend in the Musarde River, where it joins with the River of Sacrifices. Towering levees, up to fifty feet high, stand on both riverbanks, protecting the city from flooding. Massive stone bridges connect either shore to an aggregation of man-made islands, each also supported on a freestanding levee.

• Ruled by the "Grande Dame," Lady Jacqueline Reinier.
• Lord Jules Audrix is the Commander of the Casque Safran, the most powerful of the watchman groups.
• Docks are at water level; a network of ramps, switchback stairs, and pull-driven platforms allow cargo and passengers to reach street level easily. Drawbridges on the major causeway permit vessels on the Musarde to navigate freely past the city.
• Businesses include fine blacksmiths, tinsmiths, shipwrights, apothecaries, and workshops where distinctive cheeses, sweetmeats, and confections are made. 
• Streets are narrow and labyrinthine, especially in the southern districts.
• The Plaza of Stars is a thronging market where Vistani can be found.
• The Academy of Richemulot offers training in philosophy, literature, linguistics, and natural science.
• The Cathedral of the Ordained Plague, built upon the remains of an ancient bathhouse, is the headquarters of the Church of Ezra. 
• Chateau Delanuit, the Reinier estate, is situated on its own island at the center of the city.
• Inns include the Fat Black Rat (wealthy), the Smoking Tallow (common), Dérivant de Pétales (Drifting Petals) (common to rich)

Setting the Stage

It is mid-October in the year 758 of the Barovian Calendar.

You each remember your lives—your storied pasts, your loves, your regrets—very well. Except for the previous year, 757. That one appears to be entirely crossed out in the ledger of your lives, as though it never happened. But it did happen, and you don’t recall anything about it. It’s as though the Mists themselves drifted into your mind and leeched away every shred of detail from that year.

And oddly, it was exactly one calendar year’s worth of time that you lost. Your last proper memories were on December 31st of the year 756. Then...nothing. You woke up on January 1st of this year, shivering and hungry, inside a rowboat that seemed to have run aground on a beach by the Sea of Sorrows somewhere on the border of Mordent and Dementlieu. In that same literal boat were three others in a similar state, and each was clearly as stupefied as the next. Each had the same memory loss...

Cordelia Savorgnan - Human (noble) warlock
      A well-to-do arcanist from the realm of Darkon, which is as vast and wondrous as it is grim. Her station was obvious the moment she first began to speak, but she seems more capable of treating with commoners and brigands than any noblewoman you’ve seen before. She doesn’t faint at danger—she casts sinister spells at it! It didn’t take long to see that she was a practitioner of the arcane arts, which further stirred remembered tales of the dead rising from their graves in her homeland.

Cosmin Lazaravich - Half-Vistani (charlatan) fighter
    A gypsy-blooded swordsman barely out of adolescence. You’ve never personally known any of the Vistani before, but it didn’t take long to see that he embodied the dextrous skills and passions of those mystic, nomadic people. But he also embodies—if one is honest—a bit of the knavery also associated with them. He seems like the sort of friend who would steal for you and thereby place you in a difficult moral—and possibly legal—position. The kind of friend who gets you into trouble more often than saving you from it.

Hanzel Geiger - Human (soldier) barbarian
     A tall enforcer from the cold northern land of Lamordia who is disturbingly at ease around the pistol and lucerne hammer he favors. Although he is amicable and quick to friendship, he never seems entirely comfortable with where he is—or with himself. His unusual gait and more unusual left arm presented its own unsettling mystery you’re still unraveling.

Nathanos Reade - Human (acolyte) cleric
     A young anchorite from Mordent who makes friends easily—maybe too easily. His faith in Ezra, the Lady of the Mists, seems honest and pure, and he is quick to demonstrate the benevolent light of his goddess. But he sure does seems superstitious for one whose church allegedly defies the powers of darkness. Still, simply having an anchorite around makes the Mists themselves a tiny bit less fearsome.

So what is the cause of this missing time? Sorcery? Witchcraft? The work of a master hypnotist? Had some sort of curse robbed you of your memory? You don’t know yet and you only a few sparse clues. You appear to have suffered no physical harm from your missing year, and you bear no new scars that you didn’t already have.

What of your clothing? You were wearing simple, unadorned white robes like those of a monk, a priest, or an alienist’s patient. Beneath, you had only a thin layer of one of your more familiar sets of clothes, but those were soiled and torn as though they’d been thrown away but were recovered again after long disuse. The robes were in much better shape, only slightly weathered by the elements.

• Your possessions: Most of your personal effects were gone, but you each retained a couple of items important to you—heirlooms, weapons, or treasured items you would never have willingly parted with. It’s some small comfort knowing that whatever did happen, you managed to hold onto these.
• The boat: Resembling the sort of dinghy that larger ships use to go ashore in shallow waters, the boat itself offered no helpful information. It bore no woodworker’s signature and could have come from anywhere boats are made.
• Location: When you wandered into the nearest settlement, a tiny seaside village on the Dementlieu coast, no one there seemed to recognize you and the boat didn’t resemble any in its shipyards. When you consulted local maps, there were no noteworthy islands in the region—certainly nothing so small a boat could have reached. So how did you come to land where you did?
• The List: Tucked in one of Cordelia’s boots was a folded piece of parchment, which contained a list of names written neatly by an unknown hand. Several of the names were crossed out. Based on some of the names, they each seem to have come from a different realm in the Core...

M. Dolcetta (Borcan)

H. Geiger (Lamordian)

E. Jonasson (Kartakan)

A. Kilianus (Falkovnian)

C. Lavalle (Richemuloise)

C. Lazaravich (Vistani)

V. Lupescu (Barovian)

N. Reade (Mordentish)

C. Savorgnan (Darkonian)

G. Soulette (Demenlieu)

A. Yonescu (Invidia)

Staying together, you managed to earn some money and get back on your feet. From Dementlieu, you traveled across the border to Richemulot, knowing you’d at least be able to find a place to stay in one of its large—and largely empty—cities. After a few days of squatting, doing odd jobs, and doing some investigation among the locals in the city of Pont-a-Museau, you came across your first solid clue. Such as it is. You deduced the identity of one of the other people on the list. Sort of.

The Richemuloise name—C. Lavalle—is that of a young woman who lived with her family in the carriage house of an abandoned château in this very city. According to legend, the Château Durant was the home of the Durande family, one of Richemulot's most promising "old blood" aristocratic families. About ten years ago, tragedy fell upon them, and the rumors of what actually happened are dramatic and numerous, and rarely consistent with one another. In a single night, the entire family and all its servants were murdered—by ghosts, by a deranged killer, by one of its own relatives, by the wererats who the citizens believe live beneath the city! Who knows? 

The only survivors of that night: the family of Raimond Lavalle, the chauffeur who’d been employed at the estate for years. Whatever happened to the Château Durant left the carriage house, where Raimond lived with his wife, son, and daughter, completely untouched. Some suspected the Lavalle family for being involved in the massacre somehow, while others attribute their survival to their faith in Ezra, the Lady of the Mists. The family had ties to the Mordentish sect of the church and were said to be a kind and generous people—they never had a negative word to say about anyone, kept to themselves, and lit candles every night in honor of the dead. Yet the fate of the Durande family had become a shadow over them, casting suspicion. Few spoke with them thereafter, furthering the mystery.

Château Durant itself was boarded up and was declared off limits to anyone—by the order of Jacqueline Renier, the de facto head of the city (if not all of Richemulot). Yet the Lavalle family was allowed to remain living in the carriage house and Raimond himself continued to work as a freelance coachman.

That is, until about a year ago or so. When you came to the carriage house to ask about C. Lavalle—locals said Raimond’s daughter was named Cozette—you found it had been abandoned by her and her family. The food in the pantry and kitchen had all been spoiled and some rats had to be chased away—like everywhere in this land—but it was otherwise furnished and comfortable. It seemed like the family had left suddenly one night. This was months ago.

So you took up residence here, hoping that the Lavalle family might return and bring with them a piece of the puzzle. Meanwhile, it’s given you a comfortable place to stay in the city from which you can regain some of your own lost fortunes. They left few clues behind. In one room you did find a small portrait the family seemed to have left behind in their obvious haste: a portrait of Cozette herself when she was a child.