News from Castle Nicodemus

In the year and a half (!) since we last looked in on events in the area around Castle Nicodemus (a pre-empted siege attempt by a company of five score orcs), a mere 3 months have passed in Anglia. All agree the chronological flux between Anglia and Europe has become increasingly more erratic. From Migellito’s point of view, his caravan has returned to “the fields he does not know” every 2 weeks, consistently, over what he and other caravan stalwarts claim to be more than a year and a half. However, to those who have become regular residents of Renard’s Folly and The Blue Rabbit it is sometimes only a day or two between visits from the caravan, and sometimes as much as a month, with none involved being able to puzzle out any sort of pattern.

Winter is solidly entrenched in the Anglish countryside, with leafless woods, clear cold skies, and snow-blanketed fields only occasionally punctuated by patches of brown grass. The first sabbat appropriate for placating Dagon down in the fens of Blackmarch to “benevolently” allow conversion to Tsathoggua has long passed, but another approaches in early February, only a couple months away.

The traditional Anglish corken roast

Visits from the nearby subterranean refugee village of Underbridge have slackened considerably, recently. This is not to the liking of most of the mercenaries, since the occasional home-cooked enticemen.. er.. meal had become a welcome counterpoint to “more supplies from Europe.” During what was usually harvest-time for the locals (fouled this year by the orc occupation) most of the men even warmed quickly to the oddity of “roast corken,” an animal which brings to mind equally the qualities of both large pheasants and large marine crabs. Some scouting reports in the direction of Bridgewater (the above-ground village from which the refugees fled, built almost directly over Underbridge) say the orcish military occupation forces may have dwindled to the lower end of their usual range of 30 to 300.

In Castle News, Cadogan Dee, mercenary footman, languishes in one of the Renard’s Folly jail cells, suspected of the murders of other mercenaries Niels Noorlander, Helmut the Saxon, and Harbrecht of Utrecht. Found cowering in the cold shelter of a rubble pile near the Castle edifice dubbed “The Great Laboratory,” Dee still claims “I don’t remember anything!” The Dutch contingent is particularly doubtful of his innocence, owing in no small part to the blood on Dee’s lips when found holding Harbrecht’s severed hand.