The Redoubtable Chapel, Raduta Keep, Wachter Province, Barovia

[Snowflame]

[While the Templar knights of Von Zeklos keep are an ordinary sight; something new has appeared. Upon the walls, clad in dark metal armor lined a holy ezrite green with a kilt to match. A large elephantine Forfarian stands atop the walls shooting the undead from afar with a crossbow. Rumors has it he is looking to speak with Heinrych Frauenlob for a formal baptism into the 4th sect of Ezra and a confession for mysterious crimes past]

::NEW!::

[As soon as the fat man was up on that wall he was asked rather sternly to step down. So he did and can no longer bee seen at the keep.]

[Paragonville]

A man of Vistani origin, a recently baptized layman of the Fourth Sect, has been spending great amounts of time assisting the small workforce present at Von Zeklos Keep in clearing debris, and repairing the gate.  He goes by the name Andrzej.  Some make note of his speed, and how he is able to move about and complete simple tasks in little time at all.

In the times he is not working, he silently prays and meditates near the ruined fountain, with a tome of the Fourth Sect in his lap.

[DM Stygian Witch]

A squad of Wachter Guardsmen was seen marching in formation along the Old Svalich road. They proceeded to the boundary of Vallaki jurisdiction at the bridge over the Lunar River. The grim men remained silent as they scouted the landscape. At the command of their leader they returned to Wacther land before night fall.

[Paragonville]

The few workmen on staff seem to work overtime from inexplicable reasons, hauling rock and recobbling the courtyard. 
Rotten hay, wood, and the like is burned. 
The Layman Andrzej Tugurlan is often seen in their ranks when he is not secluded to his own devices, doing his best to assist in their toils. 

[DM Stygian Witch]

A small encampment of soldiers has been erected just west of the Lunar Bridge. Barricades and a tent denote a Wachter Squad collecting tax to cross into Zeklos Lands. A single sign marking the annex ordered by Burgomaster Ivan Wachter.

[Geiger]

The grim faced Falkovnian who leads the strange Ezrites of the Darkonian creed from the ruined keep of von Zeklos, is seen these days standing on its walls barking orders and tasks to be done about the whole of the keep's jurisdiction. These strangers have made efforts to ensure that the soldiers coming from Krezk and elsewhere in the Wachter provinces can set up camp outside their walls, or within the long untended farmsteads.

Also of note, under the command of that same Falkovnian, the strangers be they cult master or mundane believer are savagely destroying beast and bandit alike, with hundreds of pelts from wolves and other animals hung from the walls, as well as those heads of greedy men, who thought these roads to sport easy prey.

Beast or bandit, it is no time to be unawares west of the Luna River..

[Geiger]

A banner has been risen at the keep, upon it a sword blazing with powerful flames lying against a kite shield. To some it shall seem similar to the Ezrite holy symbol, to others, perhaps some other god, but the former is likely the intent.

Along with this there seem to be careful moves being made to clear debris, and ready rockfalls along the walls of the keep with the plentiful rubble there. The Falkovnian cultmaster could very well be preparing for a siege, or a battle of some kind. As to whether it shall be on behalf of the Wachters or the Ionelus' it cannot be overtly seen.

[Kendric98]

Layman Heris Jarian can be seen helping to direct and clear the rubble, at night he is joining the patrols of the area before returning to the chapel and collapsing into bed.

[Paragonville]

Bandits encroached onto the Zeklos Farmsteads last night, only to be met by the black robed layman of the Fourth Revelation.  They attempted to flee, but he was too quick.  He subdued each of them, muttered something to the group of men before carrying out the cold task of snapping each of their necks.

The message is clear: those who seek easy prey in the Zeklos Lands shall not find it.

[DM Stygian Witch]

A small encampment of soldiers has been erected just west of the Lunar Bridge. Barricades and a tent denote a Wachter Squad collecting tax to cross into Zeklos Lands. A single sign marking the annex ordered by Burgomaster Ivan Wachter.

Come morning four dead Wachter Soldiers and one dead Vallaki Guardsman lay upon the bridge. The information remains vague but the out come is clear. A storm is brewing in Barovia, a storm called "War"!

[Geiger]

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUJZa2DeTMk[/youtube]

The efforts at the ruined keep have seemingly been unceasing. The sound of hammers and movement of material is heard day and night. A basic supply line between the Keep and the Border Outpost Zeklos has developed, where workers returning from foraging expeditions have been bringing wood to be processed. Evident of all this construction is the beginnings of refurbishing a tower within the keep...

Their Falkovnian cultmaster continues his routine of barking orders, or praying loudly from the walls as his followers toil. However, now, at night he can be found staring off from the walls towards Vallaki or the Wachterlands, as if expecting something....

What is happening out west?

[Geiger]

Smoke is seen rising from the keep in the early hours and rumors of a battle of some kind move their way towards the Zeklos Outpost, though, if the rumors are hinting toward the truth this was nothing to do with the tensions rising between the Ionescus and the Wachters...

[DM Stygian Witch]

A dark cloaked shadow walks amongst the burned out ruins of farms and fallow fields. A specter of past sins and forgotten guilt.

[Geiger]

[The grim swordsmen atop the walls of this keep seem quite alert - whatever madness has transpired and brought the whole of the Wachter Provence to be awares and readied for conflict has also stirred these men to look this night - not for supernatural malignancy - but for the plotting and scheming of mankind alone. Barrels of quarrels are set every so many steps along its crumbling ramparts - spikes are put down in the roads coming to the keep and solemn hymns are being sung.]

[DM Stygian Witch]

The stalwart templars of Raduta Keep have been laid low by the evil beneath the ground. More blood added to the dark legacy known as Zeklos Keep.

[Mereyn]

Not long after the massacre at Raduta Keep, with it vacant, a lone Borcan Anchorite has made the chapel his residence.
Before locking himself in to spend days in prayer, the man refreshes and issues a new announcement...

[Truth_USMC]

From the Zeklos farmlands in the distance, an elf clad in dark armor cases the keep from afar, observing his findings until the warning decree regarding the cursed grounds are issued.

[Master Librarian]

Marking the departure of a Borcan Anchorite, another lone green-cloaked figure, garbed in finery, can be frequently seen manning the walls of the accursed and desolate keep of Raduta.

[Master Librarian]

In the days to come, the same lone figure can be witnessed traversing through the farmlands which make up the keep's environs, tearing down the weathered-worn notices and putting up a new batch of written deterrents for all those of curious nature.

[DM Stygian Witch]

With the arrival of the first blanket of snow rumors spread that a new detachment of Templars has reoccupied the haunted Raduta Keep. A new toret has reclaimed the once abandoned chapel. Wanderers and passersby claim that once again the walls and battlements are manned by stalwart defenders in green.

[snowfox]

Activity around the Keep has been steadily increasing over the recent week, with much coming and going of green-cloaked people, as well as visitors who are quickly ushered into the chapel by one of the guarding Templars.

[DM Tarokka]

Rumours are going wild about the visit of Bastion Otrava of the Second Sect in Vallaki. It is not clear if she's spending time in the Refuge of the Fifth Light, but it's given for granted she's going to be the one to celebrate the mass for the First Epiphany (5th of May) in former Von Zeklos, now Raduta, Keep.

[DM Tarokka]

The rumours turn more insistent as the time of the First Epiphany approaches.

// I may have a small event on the 5th of May around 17-19 GMT +1.

[DM Tarokka]

The lady Bastion actually came in the Raduta Keep, in a carriage carrying the Ezra shield. People murmured a lot about Vallaki Garda escorting her there in the west. The murmured even more about the rumours of the kidnap of Warden Martel by some neuri rat. Ezra can take money, but it is always problems, people say.

[Better Dread than Dead]

[Word spreads of a battle between the Ezrites occupying what was once Von Zeklos Keep and a formidable host of undead monstrosities, the one leading the Legions of the Night seeming to be a scythe-wielding figure clad in macabre-looking armor, with unsettling pale skin. Many adventurers visiting Raduta were slain, while others fled to the hallowed ground of its consecrated chapel. While it seemed, for a brief, desperate, dark hour, that the dead would be triumphant, Ezrite templars both zealot and Pure Heart poured out from the chapel alongside the adventurers still-living, and drove the undead away into a full rout, away from the keep's walls. For now, light is victorious over dark... yet the blood now staining the cobbles in Zeklos Keep's courtyard are a grim indication of how costly the victory was.]