Black and soot-stained, the ruins of the monastery stand by a small gurgling stream in an empty, rock- pocked field. The ruined church is splayed open and the half-fallen stone arches, which once held beautiful stained-glass images of devotion, now point skyward like the bleached bone ribs of a carrion- picked corpse. The silent court- yard, which formerly echoed with murmured prayers to God’s glory, is now overgrown with grasses.
The burned-out Benedictine monastery of Saint Sylvester is
Agatha
Characteristics: Int 0, Per +1, Pre
+1, Com 0, Str –1, Sta 0, Dex +2, Qik +2
Size: 0 Age: 19 (19)
Virtues and Flaws: Peasant; Puis-
sant Ability: Second Sight, Second Sight, Student of the Infernal Realm; Infamous (Devil Worshiper), Lost Love (Sara), Offensive to Animals.
Personality Traits: Lonely +3,
Scared +1
Reputations: Devil Worshiper +4
(local area)
Combat:
Dodge: Init +2, Attack n/a, De-
fense +5, Damage n/a
Knife: Init +2, Attack +7, Defense
+6, Damage +1
Soak: +0
Fatigue Levels: OK, 0, –1, –3,
–5, Unconscious
Wound Penalties: –1 (1–5), –3
(6–10), –5 (11–15), Incapaci-
tated (16–20), Dead (21+)
Abilities: Animal Handling 3 (cat-
tle), Area Lore: Parish 4 (farm- ing), Athletics 1 (climbing), Awareness 1 (searching), Bargain 2 (demons), Brawl 3 (knife), Chirurgy 2 (cuts), Folk Ken 2 (clergy), Guile 2 (fast talk), In- fernal Lore 3+2 (curses), Leader- ship 1 (coven), Living Language: English 5 (slang), Second Sight 4+2 (demons), Stealth 1 (sneak), Survival 2 (cooking), Swim 1 (rivers & streams)
Equipment: simple peasant
clothes, a knife.
Appearance: Agatha is a lonely
young blonde woman. She works on her father’s farm- stead, but many parish folk will not drink the milk she collects — with great difficulty — from the cows. (Milkmaid is not the best occupation for someone who is Offensive to Animals.)
and unoccupied buildings. The largest and most damaged ruin is the church, once the heart of this mo- nastic community. The other build- ings are fire-damaged too, but less so, and were once sleeping, kitchen and dining facilities, a workshop where the monks worked at manu- facturing fine leather goods, and (beside the stream) the remains of a small tannery.
Nearly 50 monks lived at the monastery. The only inhabitants of the site, now, are a large, proud, black cockerel and his harem of hens. The birds roost in what was once the monastery kitchens.
The field surrounding the mon- astery lies fallow, too rocky to be easily farmed.
Other features that the player characters can discover follow.
• The site has an Infernal aura of 3. Characters with Infer- nal Lore should be able to infer that evil acts occurred at the site, either in the past or currently.
• The relics and other church treasures have been looted long ago by Owen the Beast. There is no hidden treasure to be found.
• A few hundred feet to the north of the monastery is a mass grave.
• There is a crypt underneath the church. The entrance is obscured and obstructed by fallen stones.
• The black cockerel, located in the ruined monastery kitch- ens, is possessed by the Clo- ven Hoofed Monk.
• There is an Infernal regio within the church. The Infer- nal regio has an aura of 5. The presence of the regio can be detected via the usual means (see ArM5, page 189). From the outside, the regio appears black, empty, and quiet; it smells of soot and tastes of ash. the mAss grAve
A mass grave, a few hundred feet north of the main monastery complex, contains the burned bones of the massacred monks.
The grave is hard to find (Per- ception + Awareness roll against an Ease Factor of 12), as plants have long since grown over the disturbed earth. The center of the grave is marked by a simple stone
cross, which would be about six feet tall, and easy to find. How- ever, the marker has been pushed over and lies flat on the ground, obscured by grasses and weeds. The surface of the stone cross is covered in scratches that spell out apparently nonsensical Latin phrases. Characters with a score in Infernal Lore recognize that such a defacement is suggestive of in- fernal rituals. However, there is no other apparent evidence of infer- nalism at the grave. The scratches are too old to be Arcane Connec- tions to their author.
When the monks were interred they received a proper Christian burial. The burial rites were con- ducted by a delegation from the Benedictine monk’s mother house, but it was such a long time ago that the parishioners have forgot- ten this detail.
the crypt
Beneath the church is the crypt. This is where the Bene- dictine monks buried their dead, when the monastery was live and active. Any character searching the ruined church finds the crypt.
The entrance to the crypt is obstructed by fallen masonry and partially burnt and rotted wooden beams, but a very small charac- ter (Size –2 or less) can squirm through the gaps. Other charac- ters need to move the obstruc- tions, which could be trivial for a magus. For characters using unaid- ed muscle power, make a Strength roll against an Ease Factor of 12; if
several characters are cooperating, add the positive Strength scores of the assisting characters as a bonus to the roll.
The interior of the crypt is cool and dark. Although soot-stained, it is not badly damaged by fire. The crypt consists of a wide corri- dor (7 paces long) that terminates in a square chamber (about 400 square feet). The corridor is filled with shelves where the bodies of the lesser monks were laid out. The terminal chamber has stone sarcophagi for the senior monks to rest in. Inscriptions on the sar- cophagi indicate that monks were interred in the crypt between 1117 (the date that the monastery church was completed) and the burning of the monastery in 1200.
Looters have already entered the crypt. The bones of the dead monks are strewn about the crypt and the sarcophagi have been pried open, although the bones older than the mid-12th century are already dust. Everything of value has been taken.
the blAck cockerel
Proudly striding around the ruins of the monastery is a large black cockerel. He spends most of his time pecking at, flapping his black wings at, and otherwise terrorizing a harem of a dozen hens that he keeps sequestered in the ruined monastery kitchens.
The hens are ordinary mun- dane chickens, descended from the birds kept by the monks. The cockerel is descended from the
same incestuous population, and he is possessed by the Cloven Hoofed Monk.
The demon has invested 1 Might Point in the possession of the cockerel. This means that an independent Infernal Might 1 copy of the demon resides within
the cockerel. The copy is entirely independent of the original de- mon and has the same powers and statistics (but no physical body and less Might). The possession allows the demon to use the senses of, and to manipulate the body of, the cockerel. The demon amuses
himself by running the cockerel into walls, and making it fall off its perch in convulsive fits; this abuse has turned the cockerel mad. A spell equivalent to Demon’s Eternal Oblivion can exorcise the demon
from the cockerel. This has no other effect on either the cockerel