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Mousillons

Castle Mousillon is a Fortress-City and the ducal capital of Mousillon. The city of Mousillon stands near the mouth of the River Grismerie, surrounded by swamps. It seems to be slowly crumbling back into the swamp, but somehow it still survives. Few parts are actually maintained, the walls being one of the main exceptions. The repairs are not pretty, but they are effective—the residents of the city want to keep the inhabitants of the swamps out in the swamps.[1a]

The economy of the city is something of a mystery. There are taverns, brothels, drug dens, fighting pits, and places where even darker vices are indulged. There are shops selling forbidden books, the accouterments of forbidden cults, and poisons and assassins’ tools of every variety. There seem to be no basic food shops, or tailors, or any of the normal requirements of a city. Most of the residents seem to have some business outside the walls, and wagons and boats laden with basic necessities arrive every day. Most observers think that the Mousillonians barter among themselves for the basics.[1a]

Overview

Built on the site of a handsome Elven city and now fallen into ruin and lawlessness, the city of Mousillon is a battle-scarred sinkhole of poverty, crime, and depravity. By Bretonnian standards, it was a large and prosperous town two centuries ago, the Ducal Palace at its centre and stout defensive walls that had stood since Landuin's reign. Much of its prosperity can still be seen in the splendour of the palace and the houses of some of Mousillon's richer plague victims, but large stretches of the city are now ruined and abandoned, and clusters of hovels house the poverty-stricken inhabitants too terrified of the city's ill reputation to spend their nights within its bounds. Most activity in the city is centred around the docks, where ships that fly no flag come and go, often under cover of night, and the wrong word can get your throat slit in an instant.[2a]

The city is split into several areas, often largely isolated from the others thanks to the stretches of ruined, haunted city between. Some parts are as treacherous as the most monster-plagued forest, and all of it shares the common evils of criminal violence and disease.[2a]

The Charnel Hills

The entire population of the city died between 1219 (2297) and 1322 (2300) when it was besieged by the forces of the king. The Red Pox struck and wiped out almost the whole population of the duchy, hitting the city the hardest. And when the Pox was done, the dead were heaped up in the streets. Rather than simply leave them to rot and further foul Landuin's legacy, the king ordered the bodies the city's dead and the Pox victims from his own army to be buried in mass graves outside the city walls. The Charnel Hills are teh result, low rises of the earth where the soil was piled up on these mass graves. Even after two hundred years they still stand in mute testament to the magnitude of the suffering inflicted by the Red Pox.[2a]

The plague dead are still buried in teh shadow of the Charnel Hills, with new plague pits opened regularly. Because of this, the soil is fouled beyond belief, and just breathing the air can be lethal. Some of the dead rise as Zombies, while flesh-eating Ghouls hunt for fresh bodies to eat. Though only just beyond the city's walls, a visit to the Charnel Hills requires an armed expedition and plenty of luck. Apart from the mass burials, however, there are reasons to venture into the Hills. Foremost among these is the fact that many plague dead are buried in an indecent hurry, and the Red Pox outbreak of 1319 took nobles as well as the poor. That means many bodies were buried with jewellery and money still on them, making the Charnel Hills a rare source of treasure in Mousillon. Nobles from elsewhere in Bretonnia have even been known to offer rewards for bringing back an heirloom that was interred in the Charnel Hills when a relative died of the Red Pox. No one knows if a grave robber has ever actually collected such a reward, but if they have, then they surely received more wealth than they could ever otherwise find in Mousillon.[2a]

The South Gate

With the North gate ruined and haunted by Zombies from the Charnel Hills, everyone entering the city from elsewhere in Mousillon does so through the South Gate. The Gate is of original Elven design and retians its grandeur in spite of the scores of hovels that cluster around it. A community of poverty-stricken peasants has grown up around the gate, existing by begging, stealing, or occasionally trading with people entering or leaving the city of Mousillon.[2a]

The South Gate is a dismal place inhabited by peasants who do not even have swamping rights to their name, and it is the default home of anyone who, through superstition or outright fear, does not wish to spend their nights inside the city itself. Travellers entering through the South Gate can expect to be stopped at every turn by plague-scarred beggars pleading for food or by would-be cutthroats demanding money.[2a]

The Grismerie

As it winds through the city, the River Grismerie becomes wide and sluggish. Its waters are irredeemably foul, choked with rubbish, filth, and corpses and fairly bubbling with all manner of poxes and plagues. The river's waters are dubious enough upstream, but in the city, they are positively lethal. Though there are no officially enforced laws in the city, common mob justice uses drowning in the Grismerie as a punishment. When the Grismerie reaches the sea, it forms a wide harbour where ships can dock on either bank.[2a]

The Chapel Quarter

Most of the city's inhabitable buildings are in the southwest of the town, centred on the Grail Chapel built by Maldred on the southern bank of the Grismerie. The houses here are poor and ramshackle, often far grander properties divided and fallen into disrepair, but the streets are reasonably free of non-Human threats, and most importantly, the well in the square outside the Grail Chapel is the safest source of drinking water in the city (and possibly the whole of Mousillon). It has ever been known for outsiders to drink unboiled water from the well and not perish. Almost everyone who lives in the Chapel District makes a daily journey to the well to collect water and take it back to wherever they live. A self-appointed militia guards the well, with support from the priesthood in the Chapel itself.[2a]

The Grail Chapel is handsome and lavish, perhaps rather too ornate to be a truly humble offering to the Lady. Crusted with gargoyles and layered in carved depictions of Gilles' Companions and their Twelve Battles, the Chapel is a wonder compared to the rest of the city. Only the black patina that still remains from the smoke of the siege and the plague-stricken beggars dying on its steps suggest that it belongs here. Inside, the Chapel has been stripped of all its statues, furniture, and finery, but it is still an impressive sight with shafts of pallid sunlight reaching between its pillars and a mighty altar to the Lady.[2a][2b]

The Chapel is run by a group of men and women calling themselves "the priesthood". These are no Grail Damsels, however, and they do not administer alms to the poor or sing the praises of the Lady. The head priestess, Aurore, runs what is best described as an organised crime syndicate based in the Chapel. Aurore and her "priests" sell blessings, religious indulgences, and superstitious trinkets to the city's inhabitants. Few here would engage in a risky activity or make a significant decision without first travelling to the Chapel and spending what little they have on a prayer or religious trinket from the priests of the Grail Chapel. Some even come in from elsewhere in the duchy, making a sort of pilgrimage into the city for a few words of prayer. It is not that everyone in Mousillon is stupid enough to believe Aurore's priests really do the work of the Lady (although plenty of people are), but rather that with so little in the duchy that is holy, they take what they can get. Aurore's prices range from one thumb-sized black snail shell for a few words of blessing, to a fatted pig for the right to drink from the Chapel's own grail (a pretty but totally mundane chalice). Even nobles have been known to make the trip to the Chapel to receive a dubious blessing from Aurore herself. The popularity of her services has made Aurore Mousillon's most successful businesswoman and one of the most profitable criminals in all Bretonnia.[2b]

The Chapel bustles with activity, with a queue of thugs, beggars, and more waiting to buy a tiny piece of holiness, all surrounded by a gaggle of people drawing from the well. The militia protecting the well are supplied with weapons and other support by Aurore, because the proximity of the well to the Chapel helps bring in more customers. Aurore has not yet dared to charge for using the well, since even a "Grail Damsel" such as herself could not hope to survive the violence that would surely result from denying the people their only source of clean water.[2b]

Bridge Quarter

The River Grismerie defines the city, and Landuin's Crossing is the largest bridge across the river (and the only surviving stone bridge in the city itself). The Bridge Quarter serves the needs of the dockside gangs and the crews of the ships who come into the docks, making it a sinkhole of vice. Brothels, drinking pits, and gambling holes are the more respectable locations on and around the Crossing. A few blocks of concentrated debauchery, the Bridge Quarter is where the little money that comes into the city is spent.[2b]

The Quarter was once a relatively prosperous district. Its upmarket houses have been converted into drinking dens and bordellos, and its streets are little better, with cutpurses mixing with the beggars and thugs. Landuin's Crossing itself now groans with jerry-built structures, since the bridge itself is the prime location for drawing in sailors from the docks. The Fallen Heaven, a combination of musical hall and tavern, is the largest and most profitable establishment in the Bridge Quarter and consists of an ugly, rickety building perching precariously on the bridge.[2b]

Source

  • 1: Knights of the Grail (Fantasy Roleplay 2nd ED)
    • 1a: pg. 83 - 84
  • 2: Warhammer Fantasy RPG 2nd ED -- Barony of the Damned
    • 2a: pg. 12
    • 2b: pg. 13
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