Crimsonkeep

Several centuries ago, Redcastle was a thriving town, with industry and technology far beyond its surroundings. Surrounding populations saw the town's technology as magic - and perhaps it was, with technology that would become commonplace four hundred years later. It had such wealth that the lord of the manor used to challenge thieves, once a year, to rob him as an exercise for his guards, with free passage and loot for the few contestants who survived. Thus a few artefacts escaped the insular village every now and again, building its legend as the decades passed.
The tradition had knock-on effects, however. As the glaze fell, every year the crowds grew larger, and where criminals congregate, crime rises. Eventually, the annual event was surrounded by so much theft and violence in the village at large that the locals took up arms to depose the lord and expel the criminals.
The village was consumed by the tripartite melee, with villagers, guards and crooks all fighting each other. The criminals - and the lord - were eventually ejected, but at a terrible cost. Over 1200 thieves and murderers, along with almost two thousand villagers and guardsmen - fully a third of the village's population - lay dead, the castle's once luxurious halls running red with gore and finally earning it its name for more than its red-tiled roof.
As the village burned the survivors dispersed, preferring to seek a new life elsewhere rather than wallow in the charred remains of that monument to arrogance and destructive testing.
Now Crimsonkeep is inhabited only by a small community of custodians and security guards who make a slim living guiding tourists around the ruins.

RUINED SETTLEMENT
85

Founding Date

-871

Type

Village

Population

17 (current 5800 (peak)

Location under

Chessex

Owning Organization

Historic Linnadeigh