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Copyright Informat ionHawkmoon: Secrets of Tragic Europe ©2008 Mongoose Publishing. All rights reserved. Reproduction of of this work by any means without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden. All art and text herein are copyrighted by Mongoose Publishing. All signifi cant characters, names, places and items featured in Hawkmoon: Secrets Of Tragic Europe the distinctive likenesses thereof and related elements are trademarks of Michael Moorcock and Multiverse Inc.

This game product contains no Open Game Content. No portion of this work may be reproduced in any form without written permission. To learn more about the Open Game License, please go to www.mongoosepublishing.com. This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United Kingdom. This product is a work of fi ction. Any similarity to actual people, organisations, places or events is purely coincidental.

RuneQuest is a trademark (TM) of Issaries, Inc. Produced under license from Issaries. All rights reserved. Printed in the UK.

Contents

Credits & Contents 1Introduction 2Dramatic Personae 4The Honour of Count Tierkreis 9The Lady in the Chapel 16The Demon in the Crystal 32The Moon Bog 48The Divine Mother of Jaguars 63The Guardian MachineOf Soryandum 77The Betrayal 95The Crown of Chaos 98The Time of Fire and Darkness 118To Serve the Balance 132Appendix 1 - Friends and Foes 135Appendix 2 - New Monsters 150Index 157Map 160

Author Gareth Hanrahan

EditorCharlotte Law

Cover Art Pascal Quidault

Cover Design Iordanis Lazaridis

Proofreading Chris Longhurst and Ted Chang

RuneQuest LogoAnne Stokes

Interior Illustrations German Ponce, Jesse Mohn, Leonardo Borazio, Nathan Furman, Philip Renne, Robin Bowles

Print ManagerEd Russell

PlaytestersBrian Bertrand, Sean Brown, Tina Cook, Matt Dunn, Craig Freeman, Cindy Freeman, Bryon Gelineault, Paul Palmer, Robert Poulin

Special ThanksMichael Moorcock

Credits

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Introduction

INTRODUCTION‘What is it?’ Hawkmoon asked the Warrior in Jet and Gold. ‘Surely no natural thing?’

‘An ancient artefact,’ said the warrior, wrought by a forgotten science and a forgotten race who sprang up sometime between the fall of the Death Rain and the rise of the Princedoms. Who they were and how they were brought into being and died, we do not know.’

- The Mad God’s Amulet.

The Secrets of Tragic Europe campaign sends your Hawkmoon characters delving into the hidden history of the world. The ancients possessed science and sorcery far beyond even the greatest dreams of the Serpents of Granbretan and there are still places – haunted, secret, terrible places where the relics of the ancients can be found. To command these lost magics is to command the same spells that brought the Tragic Millennium down on suffering humanity.

Right-thinking men fear these relics. Sorcery – or dread science – almost destroyed the world centuries ago. In Tragic Europe, learning is distrusted and scholars are feared. A good man is virtuous in his ignorance. There are a few who have dared learn something of the ancient’s ways. Count Brass of the Kamarg, for instance, has invented all manner of weapons and cannons based on rediscovered principles of science, while his friend Bowgentle knows occult philosophies lost to lesser scholars. In Espanya, the scholars of Al-Andalus preserve some scraps of lost science and of course, Granbretan’s might is founded on its scientifi c sorcery, its mass-produced magic. The Serpents and the Ferrets seek out artefacts and lore from the past, to put them in the service of King-Emperor Huon and his dreams of conquest.

Of all those who seek the secrets of the past, there are two whose names are repeated again and again in the courts of Tragic Europe. The fi rst is that of Joyeuse, the mysterious sorcerer and tomb robber of the early years of the Tragic Millennium whose cryptic diaries and scrolls are now considered almost as valuable as the relics they

describe. Second is a baron of the Germanian court, Count Tierkreis, the albino scholor, who has thrown his vast inherited wealth into acquiring relics and tomes.

In the Secrets of Tragic Europe campaign, the characters are hired by the eccentric Count to recover the secrets and relics of the past. Guided by the journals of Joyeuse, the baron sends the characters in search of several treasures:

In the haunted mountains of Carpathia, the characters face the peril of The Lady in the Chapel.In the crystal city of Parye, a jouster conceals the secret of the Demon in the Crystal.In Eire, there is a village that appears only once a century, where the ancients yet live. The characters will fi nd it in the Moonbog.In Ukrania, the Mad God's crumbling kingdom yet holds a deadly secret - the Divine Mother of Jaguars.In Arabia, the ghost city of Soryandum left behind a cache of wondrous treasures. Brave characters may be able to fi nd a way past the Guardian Machines of Araby.On returning to Count Tierkreis, the characters are attacked and betrayed by the Dark Empire. Through a series of unlikely events, they fi nd themselves transported to the land of Garathorm, where they endure the trial of the Crown of Chaos. Transported to the ancient days of the Tragic Millennium, the characters battle in the war-torn streets of old Londra in the Time of Fire and Darkness.Finally returning to Tragic Europe, the characters struggle for balance and justice as they learn To Serve The Balance.

The Secrets of Tragic Europe CampaignIn this campaign, the characters are assumed to be adventurers or wandering sellswords, who are drawn into the service of Count Tierkreis and sent off in search of the various artefacts and treasures described by Joyeuse. As they travel the length of Europe, facing all manner of dangers, they uncover both the secret history of the Tragic Millennium and their mysterious employer.

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Introduction

The campaign begins in Berlin (see the Hawkmoonrulebook, page 33), where the characters are hired by Count Tierkreis’ aide, Jarek, to fi ght a duel on the Count’s behalf. If they acquit themselves well, then Tierkreis hires them for several dangerous missions in pursuit of artefacts described in the notes left by Joyeuse.

The default time period for this adventure is before the invasion of Europe by Granbretan, before the Hawkmoonnovels begin. The Dark Empire is a rising threat and has already captured Scandia and parts of France but they have not yet begun to march on Parye or the Belgic States. It is the brief summer before the bitter wolf years

to come. It is possible to run Secrets of Tragic Europe during or even after the war – sidebars will describe the necessary changes.

You can also run the individual quests as stand-alone adventures, instead of as part of this campaign. Again, a sidebar in each adventure gives plot hooks to draw your characters into the quest for that particular relic.

Each adventure lists suggested numbers of advancement rolls and Fate Points. Characters should be approximately Seasoned (150 skill points) at the start.

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Dramatic Personae

DRAMATIC PERSONAE

There are six individuals, other than the player characters, who will play key roles in the Secrets of Tragic Europe campaigns. In many cases in the scenario, dialogue is suggested for these characters and other NPCs – try to avoid just reading this dialogue out verbatim from the book but use it as a guide for how and what the NPCs tell the characters.

Count TierkreisThe Albino Count of BerlinTierkreis comes from an ancient and wealthy Germanian family and is the heir to an incalculably vast fortune. He should be the most eligible bachelor in Berlin and one of Prince Lobowitz’s closest allies. However, the Count is an albino – pale, crimson-eyed, and sickly. He is too weak to lift a sword or to ride a charger in battle and suffers from wracking coughs and fi erce seizures. His doting parents sheltered him all his life; he grew up surrounded by books and scrolls and tutors and has little in the way of social graces.

Tierkreis left his family home in Nürnberg and came to Berlin to pursue his research into history and sorcery. He visited court once or twice but was roundly mocked by the cruel Prince Lobowitz’s coterie of hangers-on and sycophants. Tierkreis’ poor standing at court is the hook that draws the player characters to him (see page 11) but he pretends not to care about how others see him; his obsession is the past, not the present. The albino count is never without a book in his hand. However not a dusty book; he has his servants carefully clean every tome, because dust affects his delicate lungs and he begrudges every hour spent away from his workshops and libraries. He is prideful and quick to anger but also eager to forgive and to show his friends the wonders of the past. Emotionally, he is very similar to a clever child.

In Berlin, he has taken the fabulous Lietzenburg Palace as his home and fi lled it with all manners of treasures and strange machines. In the winter, other palaces in Berlin glow with warm fi res, bright gas-jet lights and the sounds of music and dance. Now that Tierkreis is in town, the Lietzenburg is quiet save for the endless clattering of

calculating machines. The lights in the windows have an eerie, pale-green glow and only one woman dances solemnly in the ballrooms.

The albino desires above all to bring back the wonders of the past, to raise Europe out of the ashes by the force of his intellect alone. He also dotes on Lady Phora, who is a guest in his house.

Playing Count Tierkreis: Tierkreis is, to put it simply, socially inept, shy and rather ignorant to life outside himself. He has trouble reading the emotions of other people and can unintentionally insult people. If possible, get the players to underestimate him.

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Dramatic Personae

Lady PhoraThe Albino’s GuestLady Phora is a mystery and a curiosity in Berlin. Everyone who knows Count Tierkreis knows of her and has a story about her. This is what is known about the Lady Phora: she is young and pretty but very sad. She speaks only to Tierkreis but does not appear especially fond of him. She resides with him in the Lietzenburg Palace, in her own suite of rooms and rarely leaves them. She might spend a whole day staring out the windows at the rain or take a book from Tierkreis’ library and read but a single page of it over and over as if searching for some hidden meaning.

Some nobles of Berlin, attracted by her mystery and her beauty, invited her to balls and to dinners, which proved to be a mistake. Firstly, if Phora is to attend, then Tierkreis must be invited too and the albino’s galling lack of graces and strange behaviour make him an unwelcome guest. Secondly, if Phora does attend a ball, she does not

dance with even the most handsome or charming rake. Instead she dances alone, to music only she can hear. If invited to a dinner, she picks at her food and makes no conversation, and somehow manages to give all the other guests the impression that she has heard all their gossip and amusing tales before, years ago and is now profoundly bored by them.

When questioned about her, Tierkreis says that she is a friend of his family and that it is his duty to care for her.

Playing Lady Phora: She is quite literally not all there. Play her as mysterious but also empty. Trail off in the middle of conversations and never let the players be sure if she has forgotten everything or is just pretending to have forgotten everything.

JoyeuseThe Candle-bearer of the Second Dark AgeIf Lady Phona is a constant, silent presence in the albino’s life, then Joyeuse is a constant and voluble absence. The great scholar-thief of the Second Dark Age – the ill-defi ned period of the latter part of the Tragic Millennium, after the strange weapons had fallen silent but civilisation had not yet begun to rebuild itself from the ruins – left behind various scrolls and books detailing the lost secrets of the ancients. Tierkreis has memorised all her extant writings and every second sentence he speaks begins with some variation of ‘if you consult Joyeuse’ or ‘as Joyeuse said’. Tierkreis has books by a thousand other scholars but he esteems Joyeuse above all the rest.

Relatively little is known of Joyeuse’s own life. She was a traveller and adventurer in the broken wreck of Europe after the walls, when barbarian tribes roamed the ruined cities and mutant-haunted wilderness, when ignorance was held to be the highest virtue, scientists were lynched or burned at the stake and the fragile science enclaves and research cities were besieged and burned. She explored the changing world, recording those places where relics of the past had survived the bombardment, where the wonders of the past yet endured. She travelled all of Europe – she was in Roma when the Red Church was founded and the annals of the King-Emperor’s court in Granbretan record that Joyeuse visited Huon soon after the sealing of the throne-globe. Some accounts speak of her being pursued by mysterious demons and in her attempts to escape the attention of these otherworldly horrors, she went on long journeys overseas and vanished.

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Dramatic Personae

Lady Phora’s Secret

Count Tierkreis is a secret servant of the demon Arioch, a lord of chaos. He promised to sacrifi ce Joyeuse, an agent of Law, to Arioch but Joyeuse escaped him in the past. He managed to clone Joyeuse’s body but was unable to retrieve Joyeuse’s soul. Phora, then, is an empty shell, a living testament to Tierkreis’ failure.

The curious relationship of Phora and Tierkreis is discussed further on page 13.

She left behind no children and no fortune, although peasant legends in many places speak of Joyeuse’s secret treasure cache, a buried chest fi lled with magic and gold. Nothing remains of her existence but a few books and scrolls that have been copied a hundred times by scribes and cryptic scratches on the walls of tombs and catacombs that say ‘Joyeuse passed this way’. She was the fi rst and some say the greatest, of the scholar-thieves.

Playing Joyeuse: The characters will not meet Joyeuse until the end of the campaign but play her as the exact opposite of Lady Phora. She is focussed, determined, resourceful and down-to-earth.

Jarek might as well be invisible and indeed he often seems to fi nd the Eireishman a little distasteful.

If anything can break through Jarek Connolly’s smirking façade, it is the mention of the Dark Empire of Granbretan. Many Eirish bear grudges against the Dark Empire, which treats their island as a hunting ground but Jarek’s enmity seems strangely personal…

Playing Jarek: He is a barbarian with a veneer of civility. While Jarek has learned enough to properly organise a formal dinner or greet a noble duke of Berlin in the correct fashion, he has never lost that barbarian capacity for violence. He should be a friend to the characters and has a charming manner despite being ready to rip your throat out with his teeth.

TaragormGrand Constable of the Order of the FerretTaragorm, the clock-obsessed master of the Palace of Time in Londra, is the Grand Constable of the Order of the Ferret. It is the duty of that particular beast Order to uncover the secrets and technologies of the past, to raid the tombs of Europe for lost sorcery and to aid the Order of the Serpent in putting these recovered secrets to the service of Granbretan. Taragorm is a peripheral fi gure in Granbretanian society, dismissed by many as a fool but his researches into the nature of Time are destined to bear a terrible fruit.

Taragorm is described more fully in the Granbretan sourcebook.

Playing Taragorm: While Taragorm only shows up briefl y in this campaign, his appearance should be a memorable one. The Master of the Palace of Time is less of a cackling mad scientist than his colleague, Baron Kalan and prefers to focus on one particular project instead of dozens at once. All his life, he has been obsessed with mastery over time. His plans are intricate, like the ticking cogs of a clock, all coming together to strike at once. Give the players the impression that Taragorm knows everything they are going to do before they do it.

The Warrior in Jet & GoldA Servant of the RunestaffThis cryptic fi gure in ornate armour stalks Dorian Hawkmoon across Europe, and is connected to the almighty Runestaff. The Warrior appears only in time of

JarekThe Albino’s Major-domoJarek Connolly is Tierkreis’ chief servant and right-hand man. He is a rogue from the barbaric island of Eire. Before becoming Tierkreis’ aide, he was a footpad, a thief and a con artist and some would say that Jarek is no doubt plotting to relieve the albino of his fortune. Jarek always has a mocking grin on his face and seems insolent even when bowing and scraping.

He does everything for Tierkreis, from organising servants to staff the vast Lietzenburg Palace and dressing his master and Lady Phora for their infrequent balls to spying on other noblemen or acquiring rare tomes and relics. The albino barely acknowledges Jarek’s service; to Count Tierkreis,

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