That's So Raven

Type: Ruined castle-compound / cult seat / auction venue Region: Wooded land north of Phandalin, off the Phandalin / Conyberry / Leilon crossroads Current Tenant: The Heiress of Orcus (and her goblin retinue) Status (latest): Post-auction; post-Heiress. The auction completed in session 034; the Heiress fell in the post-auction combat in the courtyard; her hoard was distributed to the party. The site is now open for whatever the next layer of successor-cult tenancy turns out to be (banked).

Description

A ruined castle-compound in the wooded land north of Phandalin — quiet at the moment of AC's session-033 reconnaissance, despite the activity inside. The forest around it is disorienting: AC spent hours lost on his approach despite a clear sense of direction, until he found a circular goblin-patrol route and aimed for the center of the loop.

The compound's back wall has a sewer drain (brush-and-moss-covered; the lock alone is un-mossed, indicating regular use). The drain opens onto a side of the courtyard, inside the walls. AC picked the lock easily and used it as a vantage.

Layout (as scouted)

• The walls — castle-grade ruin; quiet on the outside.
• The courtyard — open to the sky; goblins carry wood and copper braziers for tomorrow's auction.
• An overhead walkway rings the courtyard. (Patrol-and-overlook structure; an ambush bottleneck for any party that enters through the drain.)
• The main hall — visible from the courtyard. Where the Heiress sleeps, surrounded by goblins and food.
• The sewer drain (back wall) — the back-door, now compromised in the party's intelligence (AC's sketches). Locked again behind him.
• The auction-floor configuration (observed session 034):
  • A shimmering wall-of-force globe rings the courtyard inside the palisade. Rain rolls off in cascading rainbows; each guest who passes through is dried, brushed, and pristine on entry — prestidigitation-finished on the way through. Moist desiccated on entry and had to carry water for the rest of the night.
  • Five great copper braziers burn around the perimeter, tended by Walmart-tier goblins (one-hit-point class).
  • The Heiress sits propped on cushions at the courtyard's side wall — attended by goblins who feed her grubs and stuffed worms; crushed at least one goblin under her own bulk during the night. Wears a glowing-blue medallion (the Medallion).
  • Auction items sit out on tables and pedestals — no overt physical-security cordon; no one is worried about theft because tracing-and-recovery would be trivial against any thief who could be tracked. The Society of the Veil perimeter handles the force-deployment concern; the room handles itself for everything below that threshold.
• (More to be filled in if the party returns post-Heiress.)

What the Party Knows

• Tenant succession: The site has had three known owners, in order:
  1. The Cragmaw Clan (goblinoids) — original bandit-tenants.
  2. Zariel cultists / the Mephisto Twins — not the present-day Twins themselves, but their forerunner cell — who took the manor from the Cragmaw and used it for Zariel-cult work.
  3. The Heiress of Orcus and her goblin retinue — who took it from the Zariel cell. (Per the Heiress of Orcus stub: "lost" to her followers some time before session 005.)
• The Heiress is on-site. AC saw her sleeping in the main hall — huge, Ogre-ish, obese, festering pustules, surrounded by goblin servants laying out food and braziers.
• The compound is prepping for tomorrow's auction. Wood and copper braziers being staged; goblins on round-the-clock prep cycle.
• Patrol pattern: circular. Goblin perimeter detail walks a closed loop in the surrounding wood.
• The wood disorients. AC was lost for hours despite trying to head straight in. (Greg, decide: ward, fey-touched ground, Blight-touched ground, or character-coded.)
• A northern-species elk corpse lies on the patrol route — eaten on, not cleaned. A predator took meat without dressing it. Either the elk was brought from the north as supply or something else in this wood took it.
• A body lies at the cut-tree ambush on the road north of the manor — crow-feather-notched arrows in it. (Possibly Vlokgaran fletching, possibly Raven-Queen-iconographic, possibly The Spider-network.)