Books, Books & More Books
The team are called in to the recent building work going on in Eschbach. They have found in the northern part the ruins of an old tower with old scroll & books dating to Roman times. And they get an offer by the Motte-and-Bailey builders to build a library.
Plot points/Scenes
The team is called in by some of the workers in the expansions that are taking place. Some have found the overgrown / buried parts of an old Wizard's tower at the north east edge of the works. Ther seems to be at least one room left and protected by magic. This can be dispelled easily enough but they aren't sure what lies within.
When the rubble & overgrowth are removed ther eis an entry way down using rope to scale it.
Getting down they will find an old library of different books, and a shocking surprise. Hidden in the darkness is the protector of the library, a basilisk. The team will have to kill it.
When this is done there are many old documents and books collected though most are useless, damaged by time, mouldy, wet, crumbling to dust. What they do find is history of the time the Romans controlled the region. These wil tell that the village od Escbach was already settled by the ancestors of the Saxons & Barovians. The village was turned into a minor fort with the tower that used to stand there at the centre. Money, metals, Germanic mercenaries, foodstuffs & slaves all exchanged hands here.
At one point a carved stone stood at the east of it in the shape of Mjolnir and was about the size of a fist. It supposedly had magical powers and helped with defending the region. Towards the end of the Western Roman Empire, the wizard ordered it moved south to the old evil grove and tried to use it's power to stop the evil grove but both he & it was destroyed by the evil there. This proved too much for the Romans who promptly left and the village to it's fate.
Most of the time before this was one of few places the Romans could deal with the Germanic peoples but was soon run over, with a Saxon shaman taking over to monitor the site. He eventually carried out a mission to keep the tower hidden as he found a papyrus scroll there hidden amongst the books and it turned out to detail elements about the Order of the Gash. So, he buried in the floor and summoned a basilisk to guard over it all this time.
The team can still dig this up, finding not just it but some other minor parchments written in Germanic script about the local pagan practises. A few beautiful bages are sealed too, wrote in Latin and taken from a Bible of which has been worked in a way to look like someting out of the Book of Kells.
At the same time workers will ask if the team want a library & the necessary items to furnish it be built in the Motte-and-Bailey. It wouldn't cost anything extra and they could store what they find there along with any parchment, scroll, book or legal document the local church doesn't want or need. it can also be used as a study as well by whoever wants to.
Related Characters
Related Organizations
Related Locations
Comments