Battlemap
Fork House
Every portrait faces the locked eastern door, as if waiting for the heir to come home.
The buried lower rooms of a once-prosperous manor preserve the household's final night in unsettling detail. Its shrines, prison cells, servant quarters, and hidden vaults remain arranged around a sealed eastern wing where the dead master still keeps court.
Cold air leaks through the stonework, carrying the smells of wet plaster, old rosewater, lamp oil, and rust. Floorboards creak where there are no boards, distant pages turn by themselves, and a faint bell sounds whenever someone crosses from the manor's upper rooms into its buried foundations.
☠ Threat
A possessing spirit called the Borrowed Heir inhabits the preserved body of Iru Serrat, the manor's last heir. It commands the dead household through bells, portraits, and written orders, slowly turning intruders into obedient servants. The spirit is strongest in room-9, but its influence appears wherever old household rules are obeyed without question.
History
The manor was built by the Serrat family beside a fork in an old road, then expanded beneath the direction of its steward, Otxo Berri. The lower rooms served as chapel, prison, library, servants' hall, and vault. When the young heir returned from war changed and murderous, Otxo Berri sealed the family below and tried to imprison the thing wearing the heir's body.
Encounter Table
CRA faceless servant in a damp uniform carries a tray of empty glasses and politely asks intruders to report for supper.
A bundle of curtains, laundry cords, and skeletal hands drags itself along the ceiling, leaving a trail of dust.
A cluster of ink-black moths shaped like tiny open books flutters from cracks and attempts to settle over written magic.
Rumours & Whispers
The old manor has no upper floor anymore, but people still see lamps moving behind its buried windows.
A servant named Vela survived the sealing and hid somewhere below, though no one agrees whether she is living or dead.
The family heir returned from war speaking in two voices and demanded that every door be locked from the outside.
A brass key made from two rival keys can command the manor's dead servants.
The manor's bell rings on nights when someone in town breaks an oath.
Quest Hooks
Quest giver: Pela Ordu, a magistrate's clerk with ink-stained gloves.
A local magistrate wants the party to recover the Serrat family seal from the buried manor before a rival claimant uses it to seize several estates.
A legal writ of protection, 40 gp, and a favor from the magistrate.
Quest giver: Toma, the gravedigger's blunt twelve-year-old son.
The village's missing gravedigger was seen entering the manor with a lantern and has not returned. His family believes he went searching for proof that the dead still speak.
A silver mourning chain and the gravedigger's savings of 25 gp.
Quest giver: Sura Pell, a soft-spoken antiquarian from the road market.
A scholar believes the Forked Key can open an ancient archive beneath the manor, but does not know that the key is also the only tool capable of binding the Borrowed Heir.
A translated spellbook page and one uncommon healing draught.
Corridor Notes
Portraits of former household members hang at uneven heights. Their painted eyes are scratched away, except for one portrait that has been turned to face the wall.
A narrow strip of faded blue carpet runs through the passage, marked by muddy child-sized footprints that begin at Room 2 and end at Room 5.
A cracked servants' bell pull hangs beside the archway to Room 10. Pulling it produces a distant chime from the locked eastern wing.
Copper pipes set into the walls carry whispers from Room 12 when the trap mechanism there is active.
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