THE LAST ROOST OF THE BEAKED GOD
On the ungovernable border land between the North Eastern Crystal Frontier and the Imperial canton of Blackacre, the jagged Maiden Tomb mountains meet the sea, straggling out into the shallow, dark waters as a series of seamounts and spectacular cliffs. This land is home only to neolithic goat-herders, backwards fishing villages, and near abandoned outposts of various powers: Carceral Templars, the Warlock King’s Court, Imperial Syndicates, piratical Smugglers, and perhaps even the Ghouls of the Mud Isles. Rugged and fog shadowed, there are few reasons to come to this liminal land, beyond escape from elsewhere. Yet even here the hand of humanity has left a mark - a great ruin that constantly draws explorers, plunderers and tomb robbers - the ancient monastery of Mont Sainte Bec.
Built onto and within one of the pillars of rock that jut from the broad bay called the Black Mirror, Sainte Bec has stood from the earliest accounts of the region, a monastery that predates recorded history, devoted to the worship of the antediluvian avian deity … the enigmatic “Beaked God” whose worshippers once held dominion over a great dominion. Now in ruins, only two generations ago the monastery was still a place of opulent wealth, tithed by pilgrims for the cleansing songs of its choir and plied with generous gifts. A “Protected Hersey” under the laws of the Empire, the monastery had persisted, outwardly unchanging, collecting tariffs on sea trade and tithes, gaining a reputation for the power of its militant orders (falcon and ebon knights) and the availability of divine succor from its ancient god for those who could pay a high price.
