The Downfall of Centerlight Hearth

As told by Emmet Galston, Eshu taleteller

This details Centerlight prior to the Events of the Campaign of Requiem of Dreams and the arrival of Dante Pyreen and Company

The tale of this freehold is best told among the dying embers of a campfire or the whispered hush of a back alleyway. One of murder, intrigue and undying revenge, Centerlight Heart is inextricably connected with its former overseer, Baron Roland Stuhl. Stuhl was an intelligent Eiluned; traditional but not completely bound by the old ways. Mortally he was a teenager of the 80’s turned businessman of the 90’s. His political savvy and financial knowledge were instrumental in keeping the lands of Centerlight firmly in the control of the fae and not the city of Seattle. He felt comfortable in the inner city; taking on vassals who did as well. His rule wasn’t extraordinary, nor was it bad. He led with an even hand, kept his people decently happy and had enough mortal influences as well as fae support to stay firmly in command.

The problem came as he was nearing his grumpdom, and he met a very ambitious countess named Georgina. Georgina was recruiting followers to her unusual political views; something that Stuhl didn’t necessarily oppose – at first. He certainly did oppose it when he found out how much magical and even pharmaceutical manipulation she was using to sway people to her side (drugs, lies and cantrips, bay-bee!). The more he dug into her past the more he found out about an up and coming political player in his own house with a very warped, egocentric view of fae society. He saw her as a wanna-be cult leader and decided it was his duty to expose her.

Needless to say, when Georgina found out she was incensed. After trying several lesser methods of pressuring Stuhl to stop, she finally came up with a plan to put an end to his opposition, completely.

Three days before highsummer festivities, her spies went in. Any fae who couldn’t be bought off to leave quietly, was quietly shanghaied out of the city; leaving only Stuhl and a few of his closest advisors in the barony on highsummer night.

As the sun sank lazily in the sky, a blood red moon rose above the city. The first reveler for highsummer appeared – a tall sluaghess dressed in black velvet. She brought with her to the barony three flesh eating chimerical dogs; starved for a week and bound to placidity under her control. She marched into Centerlight, let the dogs free and disappeared. Outside Georgina’s henchmen sealed the freehold –both magically and physically, leaving guards at the exit to the trod in case anyone got past her cleverly created wards.

Two weeks later fae started to trickle back into Seattle, both those who had left for pay and those who were shanghaied. The stench of death seemed to linger in the air, though nothing seemed out of place –that was until they got to the sealed freehold.

The inside stank like rotting meat; and when light was shone within, it revealed the mangled remains of several of the baron’s advisors. Those with the strongest of wills (and stomachs) ventured forward, trying to find the baron or what killed him. The corpses of the dogs were found in the back by the trod, but all the wards were still in place. No one ever found the baron’s body that night, and so rumors started to trickle out that he survived. It wasn’t until a clean up crew arrived that they found otherwise.

The cleanup crew opened the freehold to find that all the pieces of the slain advisors had been collected and ‘reassembled’ – all the pieces were laid out in the right order with a bloody ring painted around them. The crew was shocked, and figured the baron was alive and crazed from the attack. They got the last half right.

Before they could even get the first body moved an apparition in the shape of Baron Stuhl appeared, and the corpses started to move, attacking any who trespassed. The clean up crew left with great haste, dragging their wounded out before sealing the freehold. The last thing they could hear was Stuhl’s ghostly scream as he cried out about being betrayed.