[@HeySeuss]: so I was in the mood to write a bit and I threw what follows together on a whim, perhaps to serve as a bit of inspiration for the setting and as a possible intro for the character I'm thinking of playing. Feel free to use what you like and disregard what you don't! I'm not particularly attached to any of it, so if it's incompatible with what you had in mind, no problem. I just sometimes think through lore better by writing and seeing what happens.

[hider=An Interview at Castle Castaigne]


He arrived just as he sun was setting over the Whiteclaws, the sky painted in brilliant swirls of orange and gold. The pearlescent spires of Castle Castaigne glowed pink as they caught the last rays of the dying day, and he stopped his horse atop a rise overlooking his master's lands. Silver mist lay like a blanket over the hilly sea of merrow and tea plantations all around, and the air rang with the songs and calls of the harvesters as they finished their picking.

He sat there, quite still, for some time, features hidden under a dark and hooded cloak, until the sunset faded into crimson twilight and the air grew cold. 

-

"You're expected," the seneschal told him, after he had entered through pale, vaulted gates to Castle Castaigne, "His Radiance is taking the air in his private garden. I have instructions to show you to him immediately."

He swung off his horse, heavy boots meeting flagstones with a thud, and the seneschal waved a plump hand at some stable boys to attend the animal. "This way, please," the seneschal said, and led him through a maze of vaulted halls, echoing chambers, and courtyards open to the stars. Guards and servants stepped aside at his approach, bowing and doffing caps and helmets. He was known here, and feared.

They found His Radiance deep in the castle, seated at a stone table in a courtyard run riot with bloodflower vines. He was reading a slender book by the flickering light of a lantern, a decanter of wine at his elbow. Tall, broad chested, with a thick head of raven hair just starting to grey at the temples- middle age well suited Odysseus Cavendor, Archduke of Castaigne and Master of the High Marches.

"Nagath," said the Archduke, looking up from his book, emerald eyes flashing, "What have you found?"

"The daughter, Your Radiance," he said with a bow, stepping from a shadowed doorway into the moonlit garden. He pulled his dark hood back, revealing himself at last. He was that rarest and most reviled of breeds- elf and orc- his skin pale and tinged only lightly green, his features strong and handsome...at least, on the right side of his face. The left of his face was something out a nightmare. Skinless, reddened scar tissue stretched taut over the contours of his skull, studded with patches of bare bone. The expression frozen in a lipless sneer, teeth stretching back to the jaw. His left eyelid had been burned away with everything else, leaving only a bloodshot orb staring from a gnarled socket. 

"Isabella lives?" said the duke, unmoved by his companion's grisly visage. 

"She was hidden away at Ravenstein Keep after the King's death. The garrison are loyalist holdouts under Lyser Verigott."

The Archduke sipped his wine. "Who else knows of this?"

Nagath cleared his throat and said, "Lord Ozwald, at least, and he's already moving. He's contracted with sellswords to take the fortress."

"Slippery fucking wizard," the Archduke said quietly, "Which company?"

"The orcs." Nagath replied.

"He wants her dead then, not captured." sighed the duke.

"He wants the Throne, Radiance."

[/hider]