[AL rolls his history check, and his eyes light up with connections made...]
I have a story to tell you, my friends. It is a story about Raventree Manor, the haunted house on the hill. A story that I learned from books and scrolls, not from personal experience.
Raventree Manor was not always a place of horror. It was once a beautiful home, built by Lord Darius Corvinarus 60 years ago. He was a wealthy and powerful noble who wanted to create a legacy for his family. He hired the best architects and craftsmen to design and construct a magnificent manor of white stone and glass surrounded by a lush forest.
He lived there happily with his wife and children, hosting many guests and events over the years. He was respected and admired by everyone in the region. But his happiness did not last. One winter, his wife fell ill and died, leaving him heartbroken and alone. He dismissed most of his servants and stopped receiving visitors. His children came to see him occasionally, but he was not the same man he used to be.
He became obsessed with death and the afterlife and started to dabble in dark magic. He turned his manor into a laboratory of necromancy, experimenting with corpses and spirits. He hoped to find a way to bring his wife back or to join her in the beyond.
But he only unleashed evil upon his home. His dark magic corrupted the manor, filling it with ghosts, monsters, and shadows. His children stopped coming, fearing for their lives. The locals started to notice strange noises and lights coming from the manor at night, and rumors of curses and hauntings spread like wildfire.
Nobody dared to go near Raventree Manor anymore. Except for some foolish adventurers who thought they could brave the manor and find some treasure or secrets or glory. They all met their doom at the hands of the shadowy creatures that lurk in the ruins. Some never returned, some came back mad or cursed or worse.
I’ve read their accounts, their journals, their letters. They tell of horrors that no mortal should ever witness or endure. They tell of things that made them scream and run for their lives. They tell of things that they can’t forget.
So trust me when I say this: we don’t go to Raventree Manor. Because it’s a place of horror where death awaits anyone who enters.
And that’s the true history of Raventree Manor.
[The Line Breakers top to consider what AL just told them, when Oskar speaks up]
All I ever heard of the place is the estate is home to hundreds of giant spiders, some large enough to take down men with a single bite, and that they’ve seen man-shaped forms hanging from the tree, wrapped in webs.
[Yaevinn leans back against an old oak and says]
Well, I think I found the path up to the manor if we want to head up there?