Godefroy's history and present!

[kottakinge]

Hello fellow DM.
I'm actually ran Howls in the night in Mordent and my PC are about to finish the story (that was quite long!!this is the 4th sessions for such a short adventure, but hey! i like to take my time!), i want to make new adventures in Mordent for them, some of those will include Godefroy.
While reading some of the threads in the forum, i see that some of you know some intersting stories about Godefroy.
What is his role despite be the guardian of Gryphon hill.
Where can i fond infos about this darklord (someone said gryphon hill was nearly burned to the ground, where the hell he knows that?).
I have the Gaz3 which describes Mordent, but i don't see many informations about Godefroy in it, did i miss something?
Thanks for ur replies.

[Mortepierre]

What is his role despite be the guardian of Gryphon hill.

Uh? He is neither the guardian nor the caretaker of the House on Griffon Hill. Heck, he isn't even the original owner! That said, he does consider himself the new owner of the place and strongly objects to "corporeals" moving in.

Where can i fond infos about this darklord (someone said gryphon hill was nearly burned to the ground, where the hell he knows that?).
I have the Gaz3 which describes Mordent, but i don't see many informations about Godefroy in it, did i miss something?
Thanks for ur replies.

According to Gaz3 (p.131), the House on Griffon Hill was attacked about a decade ago and nearly destroyed. If it had been, Godefroy would have gone down the drain. So, yes, he is very much afraid of that ever happening again (which is why he has taken a more proactive role these days)

Info on the darklord can be found in Gaz3, p.129-133. Struck me as quite complete but then it's only me...

[The Giamarga]

Check out the Phantasmagora on Gryphon Hill thread.

A search on "gryphon hill godefroy" in this forum turns up more excellent threads. Make sure you have the "search for all terms" checked.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

IMC I've always allowed for the remote possiblity of a permanent death for a DL, after an exceptional amount of work. Godefroy is normally unkillable because the House will bring him back, but I wrote a scenario in which the PC's managed to put him down for good.

IMC, I played Godefroy as a petty brute hiding behind a facade of nobility. He's all about appearances and reputation, and therein was his great weakness: in Godefroy's eyes, his successful evasion of justice (his family's deaths ruled accidental) preserves his precious nobility. Destroying him would require having him brought to trial and convicted of their murder posthumously.

I'm not going long on details here, but let's just say that conducting a trial while fighting against the legions of the netherworld is a complicated affair. Especially when they kill the judge before a verdict can be rendered.

[kottakinge]

Thanks.
Next time i'll read the f...... manual more carefully
Deepshadow: i'll love ur idea about the trial.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Why thank you! I'm please you like it, so let's see if I can dig up more on it...just a sec...

The PC was drawn into the confrontation with Godefroy via the Weathermays. IMC Jules had a "stroke" that had rendered him mute, but the PC was a dreamwalker who found his way into Jules' nightmares and learned the truth about the Weathermays, Godefroy, and Jules' mysterious affliction. Pardon the wordiness of what follows; this was my attempt to build the PC's empathy so he'd have the resolve to destroy Godefroy:

You turn to see a woman in gold-trimmed green, her head a crown of rolled black hair wrapped in red-orange ribbons, walking up and briskly taking your arm while offering her hand to the her admirer. Your confusion begins to clear as you see the people turn toward you in polite applause, the woman in green whispering into your ear the words that pour ice water into your veins:

"Smile a little wider, Jules. We only have one daughter, and with the fates willing, she'll only get married once."

Well, so much for meeting Jules in his dreams and talking to him about all the strange things going on. For whatever reason, his dream has put you in his role. You relax a little more into your role of the proud father, noticing with only a little anxiety that your clothes have changed to suit the role, just as in Mara's dreams. When your new son-in-law Daniel lifts the veil to kiss his blushing bride, however, you feel your heart hammering fit to burst: it's the woman you saw in Daniel's bed, and she hasn't aged a day.

Almost thirty years after his wedding day, you caught Daniel Foxgrove making love not to his mistress, but to the ghost of his dead wife.

Needless to say, that was a malign paradigm shift there.

Nauseated by the sheer horror of this revelation--to say nothing of its many ominous implications--you don't notice at first as the scene lurches around, mirroring the realignment in your psyche. When everything settles again, the guests are gone, and the family is posing for a portrait. Daniel and Alice share a modest embrace, both still in their wedding clothes. Your and your wife stand side by side, trying your best to look proud and regal. George is only fourteen, dressed in a purple doublet that doesn't suit him, posed in thoughtful, intellectual look that suits him even less. Despite having all of you posed according to his wishes, the young painter still seems dissatisfied, especially with you and George, to whom he insists on assigning poses that are totally out of character.

Cue the overseer of the dream!

Looking back at your foe, you see his painter's smock has been replaced by the traditional noble dress of Mordent, and his brush has elongated to the size of your walking stick, its filthy bristles spattering sticky red paint on the walls as he shakes it menacingly.

"I sat helpless far too long, father," George's voice echoes into your mind. He's older now, grim and bitter, regardingly you with a coldness you thought he only reserved for monsters. For a moment you are alone with him, standing in the foyer of Heather House.

Unbidden by your own thoughts, you cry out after him, "We need you here, son! I need you, Mordent needs you!"

"Mordent? Mordent forgot long ago what the Weathermay name ought to mean, father! They care nothing for nobility, and why should they? What has nobility ever done to them but draw bread from their mouths and call it taxes? What have you even done to change that, father, overlooking the city like a child at an anthill? I can't blame them for how they feel, father; all I can do is make sure they don't blame me."

He turns to leave, but as you move to follow, to plead with him more, you see the painter again, here in the foyer, working on one of the portraits of the many master of Heather House. He's painting George, painting him getting on a roan stallion, whistling to a pair of coal-black dogs, and riding away...forever....

The painter laughs maniacally, and you find yourself back in combat with him, his wounds magically healed. You know George is gone without looking behind you, and you beg Daniel to put whatever strength he has left into it, but it's no use. Daniel's thrust goes deep into the painter's arm, a blow that would cripple any other man, but the painter merely grins, relishing your dread as thick blood, black as tar, dribbles down to the paintbrush. Shoving Daniel to the ground, the painter makes two more swishes with the brush....

...it's been almost half an hour since the screams ceased, and another hour before that since the doctor disappeared back into the bedroom with an anguished look on his face. A man of twenty-two, George sits beside you again for the first time in five years, distraught beyond anything you've ever seen from him, your hands around his shoulders feeling his arms tense with every breath, inhaling anguished grief only to breathe it out again as helpless rage. Between breaths, the door opens on Daniel, his blonde hair brown with sweat and tears, his eyes red, barely choking the words out:

"Cover the mirrors."

Rage, white hot like a branding iron, sweeps into George. His screams and accusations are noise in your ears, drowned out by your own heartbeat. Your baby girl, dear sweet Allie, is dead, and though the doctor was able to save her precious girls, you fear they will never see the sun rise, for how can there be light in a world without her? As you cover mirrors, you catch a glimpse of a painter in the foyer, his brush illuminating a bed stained through with dark blood....

...George and Alice gone, Daniel raising the twins Laurie and Gennifer with the help of servants, your house seems so cold, so bare between their visits. Days and weeks pile up on your aging frame like earth on a coffin, steady and inexorable. When George finally returns home with a fiancee, ten years after you gave him up as bones in some beast's lair, you feel a surge of joy with the thought that your son may settle down and continue the Weathermay name he's fought so hard to ennoble. Your heated arguments with your son went unmentioned--if unforgotten--and you were able to make a modicum of peace for the sake of his new bride. Such a delicate beauty, too, with a demure, exotic air and a name to match: Natalia.

George never even said goodbye that time, his silent departure the ice that finally cooled the fire of those arguments. He hadn't brought home a fiancee, he'd brought home the world he'd become tangled in--one of hating and waiting and hunting, never letting your guard down--and had learned why those two worlds should never meet. You understood the horrible need he had to slay this one last beast--the one he had loved--but you also knew he might not come back, even after slaying her. He had become a part of that world out there, and he would convince himself he could not come back without bringing that destruction to your doorstep again. That was the excuse that would cover his terrible shame, his deep wound she had left when she cut his family out of his heart....

....your Martha died shortly after George left, her health having diminished rapidly with the repeated blows to her spirit. Mourners came from far and wide, but the two you most needed were the ones you couldn't find, despite the number of times you searched the crowd. She'd spoken of Alice just before she died, Martha had, and after all the mourners had gone you remained at her side in the Weathermay Mausoleum, sitting on the stone lid and talking to her, unwilling to walk back into the house and tell the workmen to shut her away forever. This place of death was but four minute's walk from your house, yet it seemed so distant, a world apart from beating hearts and laughing children, food and cheer and home. As you talk with her, you pace, and as you pace, your wandering eyes discover a strange name: Lord Wilfred Godefroy. What's a Godefroy doing here in the Weathermay Mausoleum? Even as you ponder the question, you hear the scrape of wood on stone, and turn back to Martha's sarcophagus to see the painter finishing her portrait on the top, ensuring she will always be remembered not as a breathing, living, loving woman, but as a cold dead corpse....

Mad with rage, you and Daniel begin beating savagely on the laughing painter. Finally, after a dozen wounds that would kill any man you know, he fixes you with his monacle-rimmed eye and snarls, "Haven't you figured it out yet?" Intent on proving some point, he looks around at Daniel, white-faced and ashen-haired, sword poised directly at the painter's chest. Throwing himself forward, the painter ignores the sword that now juts bloodlessly from the back of his black tailcoat, intent only on smearing blood and paint all over Daniel....

....you see him now, drifting through the wall to talk to your son-in-law, just as he has a dozen times before. You try your best to look through him, focus on the wall behind him, but your eyes linger on his a moment too long, and he stops, raises the cane over your head, and calls to Daniel....

As he rams the cane into Jules' throat, rendering him mute, you force yourself to pull away from that terrible scene as much as you can. The way he held the cane was unmistakable--this is the same spirit that beat you with a fireplace poker! That ghostly cane he carries draws the passion from anything it touches, which explains why he chose a similar weapon to beat you to a pulp--or try to. But if Jules' psyche has been so damaged by that cane that he can't manifest a dreamself--which is why you've been taking his place--then you've got to repair some of that damage before you can talk to him. As the cane falls again, you remember Mara's twisted feeding, and you know there's a way to repair him here, now, before any more damage is done by your psyches chafing against each other. Drawing upon the last of your strength, you turn your face upward at your tormenter, and stand up out of the wheelchair, causing the outstretched ghostly cane to thrust straight into your chest. Willing your charisma to flow into the dreamscape, you watch as the ghost stares, shocked, then solidifies and drops roughly to the ground, his skin puckering with red welts like that on Jule's neck--marks left by that awful cane. Writhing and shrinking, the ghost finally bursts apart like rotten fruit, and from that festering mess crawls an old man, climbing up out as if from deep down under ground, limbs shaking like a newborn foal. Lifting him to his feet, you kick the noxious mess out of his way and offer him the wheelchair.

Setting into the familiar chair, Jules fixes you with a raised eyebrow and smiles. "So pleased you could make it," he wheezes with an air of mock formality.

Gasping from the damage you just inflicted on yourself, you lay down on the bed next to him, also smiling. "Likewise," you shudder.

The two of you finally together, Jules is able to fill in a few more gaps. The ghost you saw, bearded and monacled, dressed in a noble's apparel yet with the sadistic ferocity of a wolverine, is Lord Wilfred Godefroy, the very man Jules found buried in the Weathermay Mausoleum. His command of his veritable army of ghosts is enforced through two means: only Godefroy can grant a spirit permission to leave Gryphon Manor, and should any of them displease him, they face his wrath beneath that accursed cane, just as Jules did. This news is perhaps the most shocking of all, and yet it makes sense that the ghosts can fear the cane, for it drains away the passion that keeps them here in this world, their very existence. With control of so many ghosts, it's a short step to controlling humans, which Godefroy does when he wishes through possession, threats, blackmail, or more subtle means, such as controlling Daniel by threatening the ghost of his beloved Alice. Even though he knows Daniel was recruited unwillingly, this betrayal was so hard for Jules that he occasionally speaks of Daniel in harsher tones that Godefroy himself.

Jules begs you for your assistance in ridding this menace from his life and his country, saying that he cannot go to his grave leaving his loved ones in such jeopardy. Together, the two of you begin making a list of people who might be able to help....

[/quote]

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Geez, that was long. Now you've got me reading over this old adventure; there may be more here that you'd find useful, but I don't know if you'd be interested. Would you like more of the fight itself, or of how the verdict was rendered? I can try to abridge it for you.

[The Giamarga]

I for one would like to hear more very much. This is excellent stuff.

[Joël of the FoS]

I for one would like to hear more very much. This is excellent stuff.

Just, wow, indeed.

At the end of Howls in the Night, I "updated" the peaceful ending with the image of the Ann's ghost being peaceful and thankful while slowly fading, but then suddenly looking like pulled toward the village, while her face changes to horror.

That is of course Godefroy's pull.

I've already introduced Daniel Foxgrove's uneasiness with having the PCs around (Godefroy told him to get rid of them). So Godefroy is around IMC.

I'm not sure what do after with these ideas, but Ann should be encountered again (save my soul, again). And some of the topics from DS are too cool not to mix with it.

Joël

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Gee, I don't know what to say! Okay, here's a little more:

IMC I siezed on the idea that Godefroy had been attacked by a skilled and well-equipped group of adventurers. It says so in his history...but in never says what happened to the adventurers. I decided that Godefroy tortured them to death in creative enough ways that most or all of them became ghosts, and they now serve him...or else. This group of adventurers still work together as a crack combat unit, but now they do so on Godefroy's behalf. What follows is Dakin's encounter with these adventurers, and his first glimpse of Wilfred Godefroy.

(For the sake of clarity, Dakin is a ranger-wizard with ghostsight and dreamwalking powers, and this scene takes place before the previous one in Jules's dreams.)

After your first dreamwalks, you return rapidly to full consciousness, eager to explore Heather House without the burdens of attendants or expectations of courtesy. If you are to remain here, you must be comfortable here, and for you that includes knowing the arrangement of every room, hall, balcony and broom closet. Drawing a deep breath to enliven your senses, you sit up and slip quietly out of your canopied goosefeather bed--far too soft for someone used to sleeping on the ground. Kneading aching muscles knotted from the soft bed, you shake your head as you realize that, once again, your host's attempts to make you comfortable have only made your life harder.

Almost immediately, a flicker of movement causes you to spin around, following something silent and shadowy as it tries to dart out of your field of vision. Your trained ranger eyes follow, circling around to catch the source in peripheral vision, instead of looking directly at it as you would in full light. Your ears strain against the silence in your room, picking up a few tiny sounds beyond--a frog, a bird--but nothing within these four walls. You turn toward the door, wondering if you are merely paranoid, but knowing deep down that you are not.

Your right hand reaches innocently for the handle of the door, but you edge left a little, letting the shadow hide the gestures you are making with your off hand. The silence of the night is broken by a sibilant hiss from your lips, and you yourself melt into the shadows of the room even as you nudge the door gently open. Under the guise of invisibility you wait--watching, listening, patient as a snake. Holding your breath, you count almost seventy beats of your heart and are about to exhale when you see a head rising up through the floor. He's lean, with, a mop of curly black hair that hangs low over bushy eyebrows and a thick mustache, and a greataxe raised ove his head, ready to strike.

Your heartbeat quickens as you realize that you have just inadvertantly foiled a near-perfect assassination attempt. Still far from safe, you exhale as slowly and quietly as you can and scramble to assemble as much information as you can about your foe. He's now shoulder-deep in the floor, and from the way he keeps ducking down into the floor, he's probably talking to someone downstairs. Another ghost? No, it could be anyone--in a house this large, any of the servants could serve multiple masters, and even your host might have a reason to want you dead. One thing is certain, though: they knew you could see ghosts, otherwise the axeman wouldn't have bothered to hide in the floor. Your ghostsight ability isn't totally secret, but it's far from common knowledge. Any of the servants could have picked it up at dinner, as could Daniel or George. Gennifer and Laurie knew before that--who else? You cast your mind back to the two ghosts you saw on the streets of Mordent, both very upset at having been seen. Could there be a network of ghosts in Mordentshire? Could all of them be working together, toward...what? A ghostly conspiracy seems a little far fetched, but at this point you can't rule anything out.

Being invisible already, you would prefer being inaudible as well, so that you might follow your assassins and explore the with impunity. You wait until the ghost's head is fully under the floor before beginning the incantation. He jerks his head back up at the last of it, but by his expression it appears he's unsure exactly what he heard. Regardless, your transparent body has now dissolved into insubstantial mist, allowing you to explore and spy without fear of being spotted or overheard. You poke around under windows until you find a hole large enough to slip through and ease into the courtyard, where a black coach sits ominously in the pale orange light of a quarter moon. Between the massive gates behind you dangle the legs of the axeman, while another figure--a thin woman wielding small blades in each hand--floats faceup nearby, apparently ready to dart up and catch you by surprise once you are engaged. Movement in the coach startles you and you turn your attention toward the man emerging from it, an older man with graying hair, dressed in finer clothes than the other two. At only a whisper, the axeman and knife-woman drift silently to his side, thier eyes full of fear. Slowly sadly, he shakes his head.

"We can't fail!" the woman wails. "Don't forget what he did to Radin! We can't go back, we just can't!"

"We have our orders, Iroya. If either of them go wandering, we call everyone back and get out of here. Anyone who can see spirits is too dangerous to have around."

"That's why we kill 'em!" scoffs the big man. "I don't see why he let the old man live, but as for this other, we almost had him! No blood, no muss, died in his sleep, master is plea--"

A hiss from the older man silences the axeman's rambling. He's tall, possibly Barovian stock, perhaps with some Vistani blood. The older one is obviously the leader, though it seems he takes his orders from another. Who could their master be? Your interest in their conversation nearly betrays you, as the older man begins casting about for magical auras. You just barely get out of the way as he sweeps around, trying to make sure the area is safe. In desperation, you dart under the carriage, realizing as you do so that it has no substance--it too is a ghost. Anyone who looked into this courtyard would see nothing at all unusual, you think with a shudder. No wonder they want you dead.

You remain under the carriage as the wizard drops his spell and resumes talking. Apparently they are waiting for someone else to join them, and just as you consider going out to search out this lost member of their group, he arrives, walking out of the side doors, down the stairs, and gazing out at the others. A chill runs over the three ghosts, and you realize this must be their master. After a few seconds of silent appraisal, he walks briskly out the coach, ignoring them completely. From your vantage point, all you see is polished shoes and a cane, yet an aura of menace settles over the area that makes you dread this man--this thing--more than anything you have ever faced before. The others wait breathlessly for some word, but they do not like what they hear:

"He escaped you," the master says evenly, his voice clear and sharp as broken glass.

"We'll find him!" the woman moans pathetically, breaking into insubstantial tears. "He can't be far! Please let us try again!"

"Enough simpering, you dolt!" the man snarls. "Your 'other chance' will come, more because I need him dead than because of any service you've done. I've worked far too long on my holdings to have them disturbed now. Now, get back in position before I decide to prune you of your wretched weakness."

The three scramble into positions, the older man sitting up in driver's position and the other two sitting in the back like footmen. You see the woman still shaking as she tries to stifle her sobs, and her failure to do so making her all the more unconsolable--she's a nervous wreck. Her wracking sobs turn to rigid immobility as the master of the carriage chuckles darkly.

"My poor dear, what kind of savage do you take me for? I could never let someone so _weak_ ride in such a dangerous position. Come up here with me--I insist."

Stiffly, the woman gets back down--her feet inches from your head--pauses to receive some word of warning or encouragement from the axeman, and then steps gingerly inside the coach. You hear no creak of the boards under her weight, of course, only a slight whimper as she sits down alongside her master. A rap on the roof with his cane sends the coach rolling slowly forward, easing through the closed doors of the gatehouse like so much fog. Likewise you follow, staying as close as you can to the carriage as it sails into the air like a kite, trailing foxfire like a comet's tail. You haven't the time to follow it all the way, but you can see that it heads for Gryphon Hill Manor, the massive and ancient edifice that squats like a lonely vulture on the highest hill overlooking the town. You watch the eeries blue chariot disappear into the trackless grasslands around the manor before turning back around to explore Heather House.

You explore the place dutifully from top to bottom, taking best advantage of your mist-form. You find your hosts and the servants all sleeping soundly, though you are certain someone in the house was reporting to the master of the coach. Thoroughly familiar with the grounds but fearing another attempt on your life, you finally settle for dreamwalking someplace out of the way. The hayloft is easily accomodating, and you should be able to get back to your rooms quickly in the morning, before anyone goes to awaken you.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Later, the PC found the following information in the library at Heather House.

The library has only a few books that shed any more light into the histories of these noble families. According to one tome, the Mournesworths were powerful sorcerers who summoned the Mists to Mordent from a world far beyond. The Mournesworths were sucked into the rift from whence the Mists came, and after feasting upon their flesh the the Creature arrived in Mordent, fought with the Alchemist, and retreated to Gryphon Hill, as Laurie herself said. The Mournesworths are compared to the Blackburn family of Blackburn's Crossing, a town not far from here, another family who practiced sorcery and met an untimely end. Another source claims that the Mournesworths were not sorcerers but seers, who predicted the coming of the Mists and the Creature who came with them, but chose to flee instead of warning others, a crime for which they were horribly cursed. According to this author, the Mournesworths became one with the Mists they feared so much, seeing everything but being unable to affect the events they see. Both accounts claim that the Mournesworths disappeared just before the Mists arrived in Mordent, and the authors both believe the timing was more than a coincidence.

You search the library for over an hour, but you find nothing on the House on Gryphon Hill itself except a few references in an old book on Mordentish funeral traditions. Apparently the House itself is considered a vortex of evil and the supernatural in Mordentish customs, and many of the funeral traditions focus on helping the departed avoid being pulled in by the forces of the house. As proof of this influence, the book cites the biography of a powerful Mordentish seer, one Emily Morgault, who claimed she gained the power to see spirits after a ghost tried to use her body to avoid the house's inexorable pull. Not only was the attempt at possession unsuccessful, but something about his failure allowed the entire town to watch the man kick and scream as the forces of the House dragged him in. Apparently this was the event that caused people to claim that anyone who ever lived there would return upon death, but the Seeress Morgault (as the book calls her) claimed that this was only one of many spirits drawn into the house against their will, although she was the only one who could see the others.

Too bad you can't find the biography itself, but maybe the twins can find you a copy. The idea of Gryphon Manor as a vortex for spirits has an appropriate note to it, but surely it can't be the whole story, for what about the spirits you saw here at the estate last night, and in the town? Were they some of the few who resisted, and were therefore immune? Doubtful; they were well-equipped, well-trained, and well-led. If there is a division in the spirits of Mordentshire, those you have been facing have been among the majority. Without more books to read and nobody else awake, there is only one other way to gather the information you need. You pack up your documents, douse the lamp, and head outside to see if your new horse is anxious to be ridden.

[The Giamarga]

Awesome stuff.

I can see why those adventurer ghosts did not kill Jules Weathermay, but what about Michael Jendalis?

How do you see the role of Sir Samuel Cosse and the Lamplighters? (I really need to finish my writeup of Cosse and Finhallen sometime soon..)

How does the Ghost Loop fit into your version of Mordent?

[The Giamarga]

Thanks.
Next time i'll read the f...... manual more carefully

Sorry if i came across rude. But I do not have much to offer as i did ot run any campaign in Mordent. But those thread stuck with me. Esp the first one is awesome...

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Awesome stuff.

I can see why those adventurer ghosts did not kill Jules Weathermay, but what about Michael Jendalis?

At the time, LotB hadn't been written yet. My take on things was that anyone caught sneaking in Gryphon Manor was killed by the undead. I'd have to redo things now that he's part of things.

How do you see the role of Sir Samuel Cosse and the Lamplighters? (I really need to finish my writeup of Cosse and Finhallen sometime soon..)

Cosse was busy with other things at the time--having a city full of doppleganger dropped into your lap is somewhat distracting--but there was a Lamplighter involved in that adventure named Grant McDarrow. I played him as a combination sheriff/detective.

How does the Ghost Loop fit into your version of Mordent?

The transubstantial ring? It's there, it's just not involved in this particular adventure. At the time, John hadn't given his writeup, and I was too involved with other things that had happened to try and make a lot up from a single reference.

Anyway, the trial part in IMO a lot more interesting. It starts with Godefroy framing Dakin for several crimes, but Dakin manages to get himself cleared. In a last-ditch effort to get the charges to stick, Godefroy pulls out one of his greatest tools: he has a captive doppleganger that he's used to impersonate people, and he uses it to impersonate Laurie Weathermay to testify against Dakin. Even still, Dakin managed to get free of the charges, and by getting the doppleganger inside a circle of protection, he convinces it to help him pay Godefroy back for making it a slave.

Dakin also arranged for Jules Weathermay to be healed, and Jules and George show up at the end of the trial to add their testimony to Dakin's regarding a "ghostly conspiracy." With this and other testimony building up, and stuck in the doppleganger without control, Godefroy finally gives in and reveals himself:

Pointing to you with the head of his cane, Godefroy sniffs , "Is this what you wanted, Dakin? You need no more proof than this! We can finally dispense with this dog and pony show and decide things in the time honored tradition of killing anyone who stands in our way. Just to make things fair, I'll have a handful of my servants with me--what do you say we give these gutter trash something to gawk at?"

As the townsfolk watch in horror, Wilfred Godefroy stares down at you, his challenge hanging in the air between you like an axe waiting to fall.

"Well?" he demands, "are you prepared to step up and fight on behalf of Mordent?"

As you are about to answer, Jules turns to you, his eyes bright and fierce like you had never thought possible. Your words stick in your throat as Jules steps down beside you and turns to Godefroy.

"Point of order, milord!" barks Lord Jules in his trembling tenor. "Dakin is here as part of my cause! If there is to be a duel, let it be between Weathermay and Godefroy!"

Godefroy blinks and changes his baleful glare towards Jules, who stands frail yet defiant beneath his feet. "A duel? You wish to fight me for Mordentshire?"

Drawing a deep breath, Jules is slow but firm in his reply. "Not quite, Wilfred. By right of gentry, my son will act as my champion. And--as you just said--this fight is for Mordent."

Godefroy's eyes bulge for an instant, then a slow dark chuckle trickles from his throat, building into a steady tinny laugh that seems to cause the very air around him to twist in pain.

"Jules, Jules, ever the diplomat. Still trying to keep us all civilized. Very well, let the people of Mordentshire bear witness to this duel between the last of the noble houses."

Jules is picking up speed, eager to use his cunning tongue while he still has it. "If they wish to, Wilfred, they may do so, but duels are dangerous. Let them go, and if the battle turns awry there will still be a town left for the winner."

Godefroy's sneer of disgust lingers for a few seconds as he floats down to face Jules nose to nose. His nod is almost imperceptible, but a muffled crash in the distance signals that the courthouse doors have flown apart, people streaming out like water from a burst dam, rushing into the cold winter light and blessing it for warmth.

They all know that Godefroy isn't going to play by the rules, but they hope to buy time whie twins and another accomplice are at Godefroy's tomb, stealing the cane that gives him his power over ghosts. Of course, Godefroy cheats openly, and Dakin cheats back in secret--with Godefroy screaming foul at every turn--until finally Godefroy realizes too late what they're really doing:

He stalks forward as you retreat invisibly, despite your best attempts to move silently, his ghostly ears homing in on some delicate sound you don't know you're making. His cry of triumph comes even before you realize you're stumbling, and as George finishes off Godefroy's champion, Godefroy raises his cane over his head to strike--

--only to find himself holding empty air. He gropes and looks behind him, wondering how he dropped it, when abruptly his pistol vanishes, too. In sudden realization he whirls on Jules, furious with hate, but Jules only grins, even laughs, defiantly mocking Godefroy in the manner of a man who has lived too full a life to care how or when he dies. It's an attitude you're familiar with, and even as you back away carefully, you allow your own laughter to ring out from the judge's bench, shrugging off all the terrible ghastly intrusions into your mind. As the depth of the plot against him begins to unfold before Godefroy's eyes, the voice of Judge Morgault, reinvigorated by prayers and George's success, booms out of the darkened judgement seat:

"Lord Wilfred Godefroy, you are here to stand trial for the murder of your wife and daughter! How do you plead?"

"WHAT IS THIS?!? You dare to put me on trial--"

"Your crimes against this people are many, Godefroy; I list only your wife and child because those crimes you committed in mortality."

"Absurd!" sneers Godefroy. "Their deaths were accidents!"

"We have evidence otherwise, much of which is still being gathered, as you noticed. How do you plead?"

"NOT GUILTY!" snarls Godefroy.

"Very well. In the interest of haste, I call Estelle Godefroy and Lilia Godefroy as witnesses!"

"No!" shrieks Godefroy, ascending up towards the upper loft, his eyes darting around suspiciously.

Hand in hand, Godefroy's wife and daughter walk through the doors of the courtroom, savoring the revulsion and horror in his face. "We were murdered in cold blood, your honor," Estelle says in a high, breathless voice. His eyes bulging with apoplexy, Godefroy calls them liars, a whore and a whore's whelp, but Morgault calmly enters their testimonies into evidence. Realizing what's at stake, Godefroy predicably commands all his ghosts to attack the judge. Several of them hesitate until he reminds them that he still controls whether they will ever leave Gryphon Hill again. Regretfully they advance on the judgement seat, but you've had enough conversations through whisperthrowing to be more than a little prepared. As Grelinn feels his way down the darkened steps from the judge's bench, Morgault and the warden take cover under the lectern as the flame-ghost unleashes a rolling ball of real flames.

"Ha!" cries Godefroy, darting out of the way of his wife and daughter as they soar up towards him with hands outstretched like birds of prey. "Where's your justice now, wretch! I may not have my cane, but I'm still a Lord among men!" Then, to his ghostly servants, he snarls, "Freedom forever to they one who slays the judge! Never linger at Gryphon Hill again!"

What follows is a free-for-all, with the most powerful ghosts of Gryphon Hill--including several spellcasters--doing their damndest to destroy judge Morgault. The good guys enter more evidence, including the deathbed confession of Judge Morgault's ancestor Emily Morgault, mentioned in the post above. She saw more than she claimed to see in her books, and Godefroy terrorized her for it. The good guys finally manage to get the genuine murder weapon into the courtroom, as the final piece of evidence, and one final ally shows up to help them seal the deal:

As the fog clears, though, you fear the worst: drained by the poison, Jules and Morgault are not looking very well, and combined with his injuries from the duel, you know that George must be near death as well. Only Daniel appears well enough to fight, which you doubt he can do well at all. Seeing your despair, Daniel places a hand on your shoulder and leans in close.

"If worse comes to worse, my role as mayor allows me to act--," he cuts short as he spies something behind you.

Expecting he's been surprised by the doppleganger, you turn to see four floating, glowing longswords destroying the wraiths and spectres, who are retreating toward their commander--the wizard you struck with the cane. Directing the blades are two vaporous masses of white you formerly mistook for fog, but which are actually white-robed women--high wardens of the church! With wonder you look toward the battered door, just on the edge of the ring of fire. That's why the hot side pointed out--they weren't keeping you in, they were keeping the anchorites out! The breeze that bore them here whisks them to your side, where one consecrates the ground to Ezra while the other begins healing the wounded. Your attention, however, is once again drawn to what nobody else sees: in the center of the room, a ten-foot tall Bastion Otrava has skewered Hatheway on her massive longsword and is commanding two animated blades to hack down the monk whose vile powers have been bolstering the undead.

Godefroy isn't quite finished:

Just as Daniel suggests that perhaps Godefroy and his forces have fled back to Gryphon Hill, you hear Godefroy's chuckle echo through the room.

"Rescued by a woman, Jules? What a mockery of nobility! If you'd wanted a rest, as a gentleman all you'd needed was to ask. My remaining servants have been patient so far, you must admit; I doubt they'd mind waiting while you catch your breath."

His countenance darkening, Jules holds a hand up to the warden about to heal him and look upward toward the faceless source of the echoes. "W-waiting?" he stammers.

"Certainly, old chap! Surely you didn't think that handful were the only corpses Mordent interred during the last three centuries! Surely the House could gather up more than two heretics, a necromancer, a traitor and a defrocked clergyman! Didn't you notice the lack of werewolves? If ever there was a man died evil, it was old man Timothy, grandsire of half of Verbrek. I've got quite a few madmen from Saulbridge as well who'd love to get acquainted with the ladies."

As he speaks, the windows darken as if night has fallen, and a terrible weight seems to press in from all around you. Suddenly a dozen phantoms emerge from the walls around you, with more pressing in behind them. Up through the hole crawl mouldering corpses, eyeless sockets straining for you. George takes a swing at the nearest one, but the blade passes right through. As Grelinn and the doppleganger exchange looks and shake their heads, George breathes a sigh of relief. "Illusions," he scoffs.

"Not all of them, dear nephew," clucks Godefroy. "Look harder."

Wary of Godefroy's treachery, you join the scans for evil and thoughts with your own search for magic, and together you begin pinpointing real ghosts in the crowds of illusionary images thronging around you. Several of them rush forward as they are identified, but with five of Ezra's servants protecting a consecrated area they are quickly driven away and cut down by the spiritual longswords. After the third group is dispatched, George shakes his head.

"It's an endless shooting gallery," he snorts. "He knows we're going to run out of bullets eventually."

Otrava sighs. "These groups are too large to take on in melee yet too small to make turning worth it."

"The oldest trick in the book," Jules agrees. "Attrition,"

Sure enough, soon two of the spiritual weapons wink out of existence, then two more. Grelinn exhausts his ability to turn undead, followed by Alec. Bastion Otrava's expression grows bleak as she explains that when her own spiritual weapons end, you'll have to start engaging the undead in melee after turning them, or risk having Godefroy recycle them back at you after they have been turned away. Further, both she and her wardens are exhausting their positive energy. She has a few spells that might even clear the room, but what would preven Godefroy from refilling it.

The throng backs off for a moment, and Godefroy's chuckle seems to float around you from many directions at once. "See what happens when you place your faith in a woman goddess? I've always thought churches are just another kind of brothel anyway, created by old whores who discovered that after a certain overripeness has set in, repentance pays better than lying on their backs. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Bastion?

The Bastion's haggard face goes grim, her thin blue lips turning white as she lets out a long, slow breath.

"Or perhaps you haven't told them about your life before you came to Mordent?" Godefroy muses aloud. "Can't say I blame you. A church of forgiveness and all that, promising to be as willing to forgive your past as you were willing to forget it. I've often wondered how far such forgiveness extends, though."

Bastion Otrava shakes her head sadly and braces her holy symbol to repel more undead. "Forgiveness is available to everyone who accepts it, Godefroy. Even you."

Godefroy's strangled snarl is barely comprehensible. "LORD Godefroy, you worthless trollop, and don't tell ME about forgiveness: I've done nothing wrong! I'm entitled by right of birth to everything I've taken, and everything I've done!"

"Everything, Godefroy?" you ask, hoping beyond hope that he can't hear the bait in your question. "Did Estelle deserve to die?"

"Yes!" he screams.

"Lilia?"

"She had no right to interfere!"

"Morgault!" you whisper breathlessly, "That's a confession! Find him guilty!"

"Indeed it was," says Jules with wonder in his voice.

"Confession entered," booms the voice of the still invisible Morgault, "Lord Wilfred Godefroy, you are hereb--"

Morgault's voice ends in a horrified scream as blood spurts in all directions from the defenseless old man. Bastion Otrava and the Wardens are at his side even as he falls, but by the expanding pool of blood, you doubt the judge is alive. Grelinn is about to be sick, Alec and George go white, and the resounding laughter of Godefroy rings down like brass bells all around you.

So close, and yet so far....tune in soon to see how it all ends!!

[DeepShadow of FoS]

"Are you sure you trust these women with your wounded, Jules?" the ghost teases, "As I was saying, I can personally attest that one of them is highly dangerous. Here, let me show you."

Bastion Otrava's eyes get wide, and she screams as whatever invisible force laid Morgault low begins hacking into her with terrible precision. Her true horror begins, however, as a sudden wound in her leg begins spurting. Before she can tell the woman to stop, one of her wardens leans forward to heal the wound, only to fall to the ground herself, heaving out bloud in great gouts. As she watches her faithful friend die horribly, Bastion Sarlota Otrava dissolves into tears, placing her hands over the wound and begging all of you to stay away. Another wound appears in her arm, and a few drops of purplish blood have already hit Grelinn and George, both of whom fall to the ground in agony.

"Tsk, tsk," clucks Godefroy, "Such a danger to those around you, Bastion, was it really responsible of you to come here? Was it your place to rescue men, when you could place them in so much more danger? But then I can't really blame you for being thoughtless and irresponsible. Women are like that by nature, aren't they?"

Cradling your son's head as blood trickles from his mouth, you look over at the Bastion, now sliding away from all of you on her hands, trailing deadly purple blood with blue tears dripping from her face. "I'm poison," she gasps in horrified agony. "I'm sorry...."

Jules is next to scream, but it's not him being attacked: wicked red streaks are appearing in George's flesh as he confulses in the throes of the poison. With an oath, Jules siezes the cane from you, but the creature has already disappeared by the time he can turn around to fight it off. With a heavy sigh, Jules turns to regard his dying son...and cracks the second warden across the head with the cane. Stunned by the action as much as the blow itself, the woman is caught off guard and falls to the ground, staring up at Jules as he brings the weapon down again upon her skull. You rush toward him, only to trip over something invisible on the floor. Morgault? No, this is something else, something moving, something only partly solid. A force like the weight of a horse holds you down as Jules stands over you, gloating.

"How arrogant, to think you were the only one who could cast spells. The only one who could become invisible. Yes, quite arrogant."

"Godefroy?" you gasp.

"In the flesh," he chuckles. "Such as it is, I suppose, but Jules knew what he was risking to duel with me. He forfeited the rights to this body, and I claim it as part of the spoils."

Still not fully understanding, you look around for the hound, but Godefroy shakes his head.

"We've have your little friend for a while now; the hound you've been with is just another illusion. No circle of protection hedging out my control of Jules; the messages he was supposed to be sending came from one of my many accomplices. We'll be sure to take good care of your dog for you."

Your three remaining allies all stare at him helplessly, until suddenly the doppleganger twitches for a moment, shuddering and sobbing something about it happening again. Suddenly he smiles and his grey flesh shudders into a solid version of the female assassin, clothes and all. After several moments looking at her fingers with new wonder, the assassin kneels at Jules' feet and kisses them tearfully.

"You've earned it, my dear," Godefroy clucks with Jules' voice, not bothering to tell her to get up. "Your work on all three of them was quite good," he says with a slight sniff, glancing over at Otrava. "Oh, dear Bastion, I'd keep pressure on that, no matter how much you'd prefer to cast spells. If it starts spraying again, you might have another death on your conscience, and wouldn't that be a shame?"

The "female assassin" here is the woman adventurer who was whimpering a couple posts back, with the carriage. In case anyone is wondering what's happening here, let's just say

[arterial strike feat] + [ermordenung victim] = [BAD for everyone]

That is, everyone who isn't incorporeal and undead....