Between the orc-stalked Tusk Mountains and the bogs of the Shudderwood lies a prophecy of ruin. Across the secluded northwestern corner of Ustalav called Vieland, the ancient Kellids raised monuments to strange powers of the deep earth and distant stars. Today, these idols of misshapen gods go unheeded, overlooked as rustic curiosities or repurposed as bedrock for an age of arrogant reason. From the hills rises a bastion of science and new truths, haughtily ignorant of the past’s mute warnings.
The Kellid druids and scarred priests who raised megalithic monuments like Vieland’s Hornshrine, the Bardstone, the Teeth at Granab, the Gate of Masgath, or dozens of other menhirs, dolmen, and barrow mounds vanished long before Varisians settled in the shadow of the Tusk Mountains. While some scholars suggest the region’s barbaric tribes sought to emulate the impossible monuments left by the Thassilonians of the west, others suggest the rise, worship, and fearful abandonment of a whole pantheon of strange gods, pointing to repeated carvings of grisly sacrifices to snake- and toad-headed abominations. Lore hunters, arcanists, and neocultists regularly seek to unveil the secrets of the runecovered stones. Although most attempts culminate in disappointment, tales of both wondrous events—like levitations, miraculous healing, and mystical visions—and nightmarish episodes—such as the conjuring of invisible predators or opening of paths to unspeakable realms— assure continued interest. Vieland’s historical mysteries and attraction to scholars resulted in the founding of the prestigious University of Lepidstadt in 4422, which over the past centuries has achieved renown across Avistan as a center of learning, traditionally in history, philosophy, and theology, but in the past decades increasingly for its schools of alchemy and medicine. Numerous university professors’ staunch and outspoken advocacy of social revolution led many to claim that the “idea” of the Palatinates was born in Lepidstadt, a distortion nonetheless supported by several deans’ positions in the county’s ruling council.
A rugged country, Vieland’s hills and dales pitch from the western mountains, breaking in stony waves that gradually mire down in dense swamps and woodlands. The dusty knolls scattered below the Tusk Mountains scatter across land that might otherwise make fine farmland, their boulders and precipitous slopes making the land better suited to herding than most other forms of agriculture. These hills have also hidden fantastic discoveries for centuries, as only recently have investigators come to realize that many of the formations and scattered ponds are actually the remains of gigantic tumuli and hidden burial shafts. Such peculiar geography lessens only marginally as the Shudderwood spreads to cover the county’s eastern reaches, its murky depths gripped between the Lesser Moutray River and the Troll’s Tail, forming the Dipplemere, a boggy land known for its deadly fecundity. Aside from the trolls and marsh giants said to hunt the region, tales abound of territorial plant creatures and ancient swamp lords with the power to command the rotting mounds.
Vieland’s people are generally welcoming, with a reputation for enjoying hearty meals and strong drink. While this primarily applies to the herders and hunters, even many of those in Lepidstadt who consider themselves above such provincial stereotypes lose their pretentiousness during the county’s numerous memorials and festival days. Over the centuries, the University of Lepidstadt has infected even those city dwellers who have never attended the school with a skeptical disposition, viewing the superstitions of outsiders and rural peoples as baseless and quaint. Some of the county’s rustic folk take umbrage at their cousins’ arrogance, but most let the slights pass, knowing that there’s wisdom in tradition, that bloodroot and holly protect a home, and that in the dark arrogance is just another word for fear.
Noteworthy Locations
Although Vieland is a relatively small county, numerous fascinating and deadly sites dot its hills and swamps.
Canter House: Also known as the Throne Between Sun and Stars, Canter House was the estate of the Canter line of Vieland rulers throughout the latter half of the fortieth century. Here Count Aldus Alton Canter and his associates formed the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye, participating in countless secret rites and debaucheries. About 200 years after Canter’s disappearance, his family home burned. As it did, a towering ovular monolith—like some gigantic otherworldly egg—was revealed, the building constructed around the 33-foot-tall monument. Devoid of symbols or explanation, even baffling Canter’s heirs among the Palatine Eye, it stands quietly year-round, save for the exact moment of the year’s end, when something within seems to pitch and sway. Fortunately, whatever lurked within Canter House lacks the might to break its ebon shell.
Lepidstadt: Home of prestigious Lepidstadt University and county seat of Vieland, Lepidstadt is detailed further elsewhere.
Schloss Caromarc: The castle of Vieland’s former count, the private but ingenious Alpon Caromarc, stands within the Shambling Swamp. It’s highest tower rising above the sagging tree line, the castle seems to be loathed by the violent thunderstorms that occasionally roll across the county, as many have witnessed it struck by lightning—sometimes multiple times during a single storm. Remarkably, the aged castle still stands and bears no mark from fire or lightning strike. When asked about the phenomenon, Caromarc seems unaware, suggesting that perhaps the wonder is a trick of malicious will-o’-wisps or swamp gas.
The Palatine Council of Vieland
Of the three councils ruling the Palatinates, the council of Vieland functions most like the realms’ architects intended—to the endless frustration of the land’s people and rulers alike. Populated by several of the palatinate’s wisest and best-intentioned citizens, the council’s members include altruistic landowners, deep-thinking patriots, esteemed judges, and the more erudite of the University of Lepidstadt. Yet when the doors close upon the council chambers, the matters discussed often have less to do with regional administration and more to do with the philosophies and morays of an ideal government. That is to say, with the literati in control, governance strays from the needs of the moment into endless academic debate.
Due to the gravitas with which each of the council’s members regards his or her position, every decision faces scrutiny from myriad angles. Meetings become mired in academic lecturing, much to the frustration—and boredom—of the council’s less scholarly minority. Systems of debate and reorganizations of responsibilities to streamline the council’s efforts inevitably result in further waste. Frustrated council members argue for and against the time spent in argument, and so the whirlpool of inefficiency spirals on.
Breaking with the spirit of the council’s mandates, several members have resorted to administrative vigilantism. While the land’s ruling body can’t be trusted to address pressing matters with the necessary exigency, council members like architect Eton Valryn, local judge Embreth Daramid, and Dr. Leis Richleau of the Lepidstadt University School of Medicine have employed personal agents to effect change. Utilizing their own fortunes, calling in favors, and patronizing adventurers, the frustrated council members ostensibly seek to create the change they joined the Palatine Council to foster. While such might be their goals, already agents in their employ have paid lethal prices. The ease with which one might govern behind the back of a f lawed and distracted council excites even altruistic imaginations, and slowly dreams of secret lordship take shape in the shadows of Vieland’s council.
Notable Personages
Others beyond the Palatine Council hold considerable influence over the ruins and lecture halls of Vieland.
The Beast of Lepidstadt: For more than a decade, the Beast has prowled the hills and alleys of Lepidstadt, a creature of incarnate rage and diabolical lusts who stalks the night, preying upon the just and unjust alike—or so the stories go. The truth of the matter is quite different. Created by a younger, angrier Alpon Caromarc to avenge him against those who stole his county from beneath him— the first being the creature’s supposed creator, Henri Mortiz—the f lesh golem possesses near-human intellect and a naturally peaceful, if inquisitive, demeanor. The legend of the Beast consumes the nightmares of Lepidstadt’s people nonetheless, and despite the golem’s pacifism, someone or something has been killing within the city’s shadows for years.
Alpon Caromarc: Although accounts record Count Caromarc’s beneficent abdication of his title, the deadly fury of a genius rarely gives its subjects time to prepare. Thus rose the Beast of Lepidstadt, the instrument of Alpon Caromarc’s revenge upon a new age of fools. Yet after his bloody thoughts cooled, the former count gradually accepted his place in the new palatinate. Although death lurks in his past, Caromarc spends his declining years delving ever deeper into life’s mysteries. Knowing that even the supposedly advanced thinkers of Lepidstadt would condemn him for his research, he keeps his experiments and their sometimes-horrifying results hidden, his grand estate at Schloss Caromarc having undergone numerous renovations through the past decades, making it a fortress of privacy.