d20 HighMoon Media Productions Bardic Lore - The Villa of Mysteries.pdf - HighMoon Media Productions - R5700

Bardic Lore: The Villa of Mysteries

www.HighmoonMedia.com

This product requires the use of the Dungeons & Dragons,

Third Edition Core Books, published by Wizards of the Coast Inc.

This product utilizes updated material from the v3.5 revision.

Bardiicc Loore

The journals of Amergin Ó Míl

The Villa of Mysteries

Our time in Londinium was mostly miserable,

surrounded as we were by all those buildings with

nary a view of nature around. The Ard Righ and I

could not wait to return to the lushness of Ierne after

our negotiations, but affairs of state demanded we

make one more stop, at a place called the Villa of

Mysteries. A cavalcade of senators accompanied us

two, hungry to be seen with the High King and High

Bard of Ierne, even if we were only “barbarians.”

I was just happy to leave the city behind, even if it

was for the southern Albionan countryside. Due to the

large entourage with which we traveled, we had to

camp overnight during a trip that should have only

taken a day, but it did have the benefit of allowing us

to fully appreciate the villa in broad daylight. We first

crossed a fancy gate that marked the entrance to the

estate. Tall, spear-like trees—cypresses, I was

informed—created a natural fence around the vast

property and stood as soldiers flanking the path that

led up to the villa proper. As we got closer, pairs of

statues of creatures I’d only heard of in the myths of

the invaders replaced the cypresses: centaur, pegasus,

medusa, and the god they called Bacchus in a central

and prominent spot right in front of the entrance to

the house. A dark-haired, olive-skinned woman who

was unmistakably the mistress of the estate awaited

our carriage with a veritable army of servants. She

introduced herself as Mirella Valerianus, and ignoring

Bardic Lore: The Villa of Mysteries

www.HighmoonMedia.com

the power-hungry senators, took the Ard Righ and

myself to our private quarters deep within the house

complex. As much as I didn’t like the architecture of

the so-called Empire, I had to accept that this villa

was beautiful; frescoes adorned every single wall, lush

carpets from places I did not know exist spread under

our feet, thousands of tiny colored tiles formed

amazing patterns and spectacular images. The lady

Mirella noticed my gaze wandering about, and offered

to give me a personal tour. She showed me rooms

normally off-limits which made the public rooms look

like the slums I’d seen in Londinium, including a room

with a gigantic picture of the god Bacchus seducing a

young woman (whom I was told bore the likeness of a

Valerianus ancestress), and a room bearing a

three-wall fresco depicting the rite of initiation of a

novice into the mysteries of the cult of Bacchus. I

spent most of that night engaged in conversation with

the lady Mirella, comparing points of view on

everything from art and music, to politics and religion.

She was quite interested to learn about Ierne, and was

quite forthcoming with information about her own

culture, giving me great insight into the mindset of

these centuries-old invaders. The next day the Ard

Righ and I attended various unofficial talks at the

villa, laying our position as clear as we had during the

official talks in Londinium, until the lady Mirella

demanded her visiting guests be allowed time to enjoy

her hospitality, a gesture I was not able to thank her

enough for. She gave us a tour of the baths (it’s a

strange obsession these people have with bathing), the

school and temple building, with its massive library of

written works, and the gardens, which, although

sculpted and manufactured, were nonetheless

breath-taking. Everything in the villa was meant to

impress, and despite my best efforts, it accomplished

its intended effect. Early the next morning we were

escorted to our carriages by the lady Mirella, who

extended personal, private invitations to the Ard Righ

and myself to return at any moment to the villa,

whether on an official function or not. As we pulled

away, and I turned back to see the olive-skinned

beauty waving us farewell, I thought I may just have

to take her up on her offer. Now, however, the shores

of Ierne beckoned, and I longed to be home again.

—From the journal of Amergin Ó Míl

A large, sprawling estate located a day’s ride

outside the city of Londinium, the Villa of

Mysteries is a center of both faith and knowledge,

as well as innocuous hub of political power that

affects both the city nearby and the Empire itself.

Though the Valerianus family has been in

possession of the villa and the land for the last two

hundred years, the villa’s history stretches back to

the time of the Republic, to a time when civilization

was just arriving on the shores of the barbaric coasts

of Albion, being one of the first actual buildings

aside from the military outpost by the river.

Throughout it all, the villa has been witness to the

tide of history, having seen more generals, senators,

kings, nobles, and even Emperors, than any other

existing Imperial structure in Albion. And

throughout it all, the villa simply plays its part as a

grand stage for all these personages to play.

History

Early records are sketchy and vague, though they

do reveal that the villa was first built some twenty

years after the initial arrival of the legions to the

shores of Albion. Constructed at the behest of a

petty, but wealthy, noble of whom nothing else is

known, the building stood some two days ride from

the outpost; far enough for complete privacy yet

close enough for monitoring of all affairs. It is

believed all tenants of the villa were killed by a

barbarian raid, as the next place where the villa

shows up is in a will from said noble to a niece

named Lucretia Valerianus, back in the capital.

Lucretia, however, never got to see her inheritance,

as she had no desire to leave the comforts of the city

for the wilderness of Albion. Lucretia did make one

change to the villa, and that was renaming it after

herself. Many years later, Lucretia bequeathed the

Bardic Lore: The Villa of Mysteries

www.HighmoonMedia.com

villa to her granddaughter, Cilia Valerianus, only

daughter to Lucretia’s only daughter. Cilia was

already on her way to Albion with her husband, the

famous architect Caesar Palladius, as he had been

summoned to help design and construct the new

city of Londinium.

Merriam opted for a more modern approach and

held a contest awarding a commission at the house.

The winner was a man by the name of Leonitus

Gaius, an excellent painter who not only fell in love

with the house, but also with its owner. Somewhat

shy, Leonitus hid his affections for a year,

completing two rooms in the meantime. For his

third and final piece Leonitus decided to his art to

help his plight of love. Sealing himself off in a

newly completed room in the expanded eastern

wing for three months, Leonitus created a work of

art that survives to this day and actually gave the

room its name, the Room of the Seduction. The

walls were painted in a pastoral scene that reflected

the scenery of the Valerianus lands around the villa,

leading to the great scene painted along the

fifteen-foot long wall. The portrait showed

Bacchus’ seduction of a young initiate, the demure

maiden looking longingly and enraptured as the god

played his spiderweb-stringed lyre with unearthly

passion. Leonitus used himself and Merriam as the

models for Bacchus and the initiate, hoping his

message would be clear. It was, and shortly

thereafter Leonitus and Merriam were married at

the villa. Merriam and Leonitus had three children,

a boy named Illustrius and two daughters named

Luccia and Iridia. Though the fate of both Illustrius

and Iridia is unknown, Luccia, however, married a

soldier named Victor, and lived at the villa with her

husband and parents.

Villa Lucretia

Under Caesar and Cilia, the villa was refurbished

and remodeled, taking advantage of the latest

architectural techniques of the Republic. The villa

was spacious; though slightly less than half the

space of the modern house complex, it still

provided ample space for Cilia and Cesar, their

servants and storage cellars for the merchandise

they imported from the continent.

A year later Cilia and Cesar were blessed with

the rare birth of twin daughters, Livia and Merriam,

and 3 years later with a son, Ignatius. For the next

20 years private and public records show the villa

functioning well, a lucrative trade established with

Londinium, and the children growing up and

following their callings: the twins returned to the

continent to be inducted into the mystery rites of

Bacchus and become ordained as priestesses, while

Ignatius followed on his father’s footsteps and

became an architect, eventually helping with the

construction of the city as well.

Decades passed, and eventually Caesar and

Cilia died, leaving the villa to their three children.

Both Livia and Ignatius were married and well

established in the world by the time of their parent’s

death, so the villa was left in Merriam’s hand to

manage and live in.

When Merriam died three years later, Leonitus,

following the wishes of his dead wife, drafted a

proclamation that placed the villa and its lands

securely in the hands of the female Valerianus heirs,

never to be taken from them. It took some major

political muscle and more than a few favors, but

one way or another, the edict was signed. His

daughter’s future secured, Leonitus spent the next

five years painting a number of frescoes in the

house, all featuring his wife and daughter as visions

of the various goddesses. Leonitus also made

detailed sketches for a new fresco to adorn a whole

room depicting the mysteries of the initiation to the

worship of Bacchus, but never got to paint his

The Valerianus Legacy

A few years later, Merriam began some of her

brother’s proposed expansions to the house, with

both her inherited wealth and the lucrative trades

with Londinium giving her great freedom in

pursuing the new constructions to the house and

surrounding lands. One of Merriam’s priorities was

the sparse interior decoration of the house; painted

as it was with subdued colors and frescoes,

Bardic Lore: The Villa of Mysteries

www.HighmoonMedia.com

second masterpiece as he died just a day after

seeing his granddaughter, Deneira, be born.

Villa of Mysteries, in honor of the many initiations

into the mysteries of the cult of Bacchus performed

there.

In the decade following, Luccia made extensive

additions to the land around the house, turning the

villa into a majestic complex. A service wing was

created to house the growing number of servants,

and the sumptuous gardens, twice and a half as long

as the house itself, were finished. By the time of the

beginning of the Empire, the villa was on its way to

becoming a self-sufficient estate boasting top-notch

city engineering in the middle of the Albionan

countryside.

After Erania, who had a markedly demurer

personality than her mother, left to train at the

capital, Deneira finally settled down and married

another devotee of Bacchus, Avernié Valerianus. At

this time she also began to install the villa’s main

form of security, the Guardians, a group of 12

statues each depicting a magical beast, which could

be animated to protect the villa. By the time

Deneira died, half the statues were in place, the villa

had doubled in size and was serving as a haven for

Bacchans from Londinium and beyond, extending

secular and religious education, and protection.

Deneira

After her mother’s death, Deneira, now named heir

of the villa, engaged in various project around the

estate. From this period emerged the lake in the

gardens, and the Nymphaeum, the nymph’s

fountain. Deneira’s greatest addition to the villa,

however, was the school complex. Housing various

rooms for lessons, a gigantic library and a temple to

Bacchus, it was this building that cemented the villa

in the pages of the history of Londinium at large.

Erania

In contrast to her mother’s sensate tendencies,

Erania was purely a seeress, and a strong one at

that. Having a stronger sense of duty to the Empire

in general than all her predecessors, when Erania

began to have visions of war to the north she

immediately made arrangements to journey in that

direction to aid as she could, asking Avernié to take

care of the villa in her absence. It wasn’t long

before the visions became true in the form of the

war with the tribes of Alba.

With her extensive wealth, Deneira began a

massive acquisition of literary and academic works

in a variety of fields, but geared towards those

subjects she felt a model citizen of the Empire, and

a noble woman should know. She sponsored a

number of writers from all over the Empire to

create new works for her library, on topics such as

Imperial and World history, the various fine arts and

geography, as well as poetry, drama and music. In

order to celebrate the new school, Deneira began to

host days-long Bacchanalias, devotional revelries

in praise of Bacchus. It was in one of these revelries

that Deneira became pregnant, eventually giving

birth to a daughter, Erania.

This marked the first time the villa found itself

without a clear heiress; with Erania engaged in the

war, the possibilities of the lands ending up without

an inheritor were alarmingly real. Bacchus,

however, watched over her own, and shortly before

the construction of the wall, Erania returned to the

villa, in bad shape but alive, only to discover

Avernié had died a year prior, and it was her son

Marcius who had been running the villa since.

Though the war raged in the north, Erania had

returned for one major reason, her rape at the hands

of a barbarian from Alba. A beautiful baby daughter

resulted from the vile crime, a girl Erania named

Mirella; a new heiress had been born.

While informal at first, this was the beginning

of a still-standing relationship with the greater cult

of Bacchus; the villa became a kind of private

retreat for followers of the god to increase their

knowledge and pursue their devotion in secure

privacy. Years later, the complex was renamed the

Erania and Marcius later married and resumed

some of the leftover projects around the villa,

Bardic Lore: The Villa of Mysteries

www.HighmoonMedia.com

including an underground waterway and sewer.

With the use of Imperial engineers, and with a

healthy dose of gold and luck, both projects were

finished in record time. Minor repairs were

undertaken around the house and garden to adapt to

the new source of flowing water, and several new

fountains were installed, much to Erania’s

fondness.

loved. Mirella continued work on the baths, and

commissioned a great marble mausoleum for her

family, to be erected at the edge of the villa’s land,

as well as finishing the creation and installation of

the last five Guardians, including the great statue of

Bacchus that greets all visitors approaching the

house.

Mirella Valerianus now stands as the sole heir

and mistress of the Villa of Mysteries, house, center

of education, haven for worshippers, and sacred site

to the glory and mysteries of Bacchus.

Stored in the library, among family documents,

Erania came across the sketches done by her

grandfather for the frescoes of the initiation

mysteries. Within days a room next to the private

house temple had been prepared and notices sent to

the capital for a new competition to find an artist to

paint the frescoes. The winner was a young and

inexperienced, yet highly talented painter named

Venezio; work on the room began almost

immediately. Five years later, the Room of the

Mysteries was finished to phenomenal acclaim.

Erania also reinstated the feasts at the villa; though

more subdued in tone than those established by

Deneira, the spirit remained the same.

The Villa

The Villa of Mysteries sits comfortably on a small

and gentle hill overlooking fertile fields to the west

and a small river to the south. The villa is

approached along a solitary road that leads all the

way from Londinium. Although the lands are not

fenced by any kind of gate, a ring of tall cypress

trees, brought in from the capital, marks the

boundaries of the villa on all sides.

Mirella

By the time Mirella was initiated into the mysteries,

a great bath complex had been started at the villa,

almost as grand as those found in the capital itself.

After Marcius’ death, Erania became completely

withdrawn, leaving the reigns of the villa in

Mirella’s hands, while she passed her days in

contemplative meditation in the gardens she so

The house complex itself sits on a raised

many-arched platform where carriages and horses

are taken care of and that leads to the servant wing

and quarters. The whole façade of the house is

decorated in rich white marble from the nearby

quarry with accents in dark obsidian shipped from

the mountains to the west. To the right of the house

can be seen the two-storied school and temple

The 12 Guardians

These are marble guardians (see New Creature below) arranged in the following order (from south to north,

as one approaches the house): pegasus, female centaur, minotaur, dragon, medusa, chimera, male centaur,

griffon, cyclops, satyr, basilisk and Bacchus. The guardians have the following spells stored within them (all

spells are cast as a 10th-level sorcerer, DC 20 where applicable):

2 guardians—the pegasus and the griffon—have the spell fly in storage.

2 guardians—the satyr and the basilisk—have the spell silence in storage.

2 guardians—the male and female centaur—have the spell shield other in storage.

2 guardians—the medusa and the minotaur—have the spell bestow curse in storage.

4 guardians—the dragon, the chimera, the cyclops and Bacchus—have the spell fireball in storage.

All the marble guardians at the villa are keyed to one amulet worn by Mirella. Though there are 11 other

amulets, one for each guardian, they only work when worn by the villa’s stated heiress (Mirella in this case).

d20 HighMoon Media Productions Bardic Lore - The Villa of Mysteries.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: