Ruby

The Sanctum

4 min read

The Sanctum

The seat of The Ghostwalkers beneath Godmere — a Gothic bone-church carved out of the bedrock the city was built on, hidden under the noble district of Harlon’s Hill.

Description

The Sanctum was once a true church, deconsecrated and lost to memory long before The Ghostwalkers took it for their own. Its old devotion still arches fifty feet overhead in cold stone, the ribs of long-dead saints holding up the dark above the altar. The vaulted hall is as wide as a high-court audience chamber, lit only by torches lit one by one as the Society descends, never by daylight.

The altar at the far end sits on a raised dais. There is no glowing circle. No focus. No rubies. Whatever happens at the altar happens in the dark, and the chanting in the great hall has been heard echoing up through the bedrock for as long as anyone in the Sanctum cares to remember.

Access

The only known entrance is concealed inside a grandfather clock in Lord Javier LeBeau’s study, in the LeBeau Family manor on Harlon’s Hill. The clock’s hands must be set in a poppy-coded sequence (one, twelve, six, three) — the same sequence carried in the family portraits hung around the study. With the sequence set, the entire clock swings outward on a hidden mechanism, revealing a spiral staircase that descends through brick, then stone, then bedrock, into the cloak-room at the foot of the Sanctum.

It is unknown whether other manors on Harlon’s Hill have similar entrances.

The Cloak Room

At the foot of the staircase, before the great doors of the Sanctum proper, lies a low cloak-room. Six doors lead out of it. Five are lit. One is not.

Along one wall, a row of cubbies holds the Society’s masks:

The brandy bottle that accompanies the descent is refilled on the way down by the Reaper in attendance.

Patron

The pact at the heart of The Ghostwalkers is sealed with Mammon, fiend of greed. Each new initiate, on speaking the words of acceptance, is bound to him in person — Mammon manifests in the Sanctum to take the bargain.

This was confirmed in Session 13, when Blastran Starweave — under the guise of Danton LeBeau — spoke the words and Mammon stepped through.

Known Events

Session 13 — The False Pact

Blastran Starweave, wearing Danton LeBeau’s face, accepted the pledge under duress and panic. Mammon arrived. The deception was exposed by a Siren’s Detect Magic the moment the rest of the party broke into the cloak-room. In the chaos, Lord Javier LeBeau bargained on his knees: the intruders’ lives in exchange for his true son Benny LeBeau delivered by dawn. Mammon accepted.

In the fight that followed, the Siren was killed by Zog Ironheart (suplex, skull cracked on the stone), two Reapers were dropped by a Shatter spell channelled through their own Arcane Gate, and Neil the magnificent — the Reaper who cast the Slow spell — was set alight by Blastran Starweave and revealed as a Ghost Walker and Blastran’s former teacher.

Zog Ironheart refused Mammon’s offered pact and was impaled on the demon’s pitchfork. The party fled into the unlit sixth door of the cloak-room, leaving him alive and fighting under the protection of Bronn’s first ever successful Sanctuary spell.

The unlit passage’s destination is unknown.

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