The Return of Baron Davian Macabre
In the waning days of autumn, when the skies above Edana were bruised violet with stormlight, a black carriage bearing the sigil of a six-pointed star cut through the misted fields east of the city. Its arrival marked the return of a name once whispered with reverence — and later, in hushed fear — to the Kingdom of Mercadia. The name was Macabre.
House Macabre had been old when Mercadia was young. Their line stretched back to Maethos “the Macabre”, a captain of dread reputation who had stood beside Merenthal the Kelt, the warrior-king who first bound the fractured tribes of the realm beneath one banner. From those blood-soaked beginnings, the Macabres had risen through loyalty and cunning, granted title and land for their unflinching service to the crown.
But noble houses are like torches — bright in their burning, quick in their dying.
Three generations past, the flame guttered.
Lord Thanatos Macabre and his lady Angelique were the last of that proud line before the fall. Their tragedy was spoken of for decades after: the death of their son Eleison, the last heir of promise, had driven them to despair. When grief turned to obsession, they are said to have sought out forbidden means of return — the profane art of Necromancy, whispered in alleys and condemned from pulpits.
When at last their surviving son Davian returned from abroad, he found only ruin — the family manse overrun with decay, the once-polished marble halls veiled in rot and shadow. Thanatos and Angelique were discovered lifeless amid remnants of failed alchemical rites. Davian, though shaken, acted swiftly and in silence. Whatever profane works had been attempted, he burned the evidence, bricked away the vaults, and buried his parents in the City Crypts of Edana. Their graves yet stand — moss-eaten but legible — and some whisper that Lady Angelique’s spirit still wanders, searching eternally for her lost child.
Ashamed, Davian turned his back on Edana. He left Mercadia to the intrigues of courtiers and warlords and sailed south beneath foreign stars. There, he forged a new life under a new name — the Black Star Trading Coster, a mercantile company that grew infamous for navigating the perilous coasts of Ka’Mella, Tilverton, and the far northern lands of Kelt.
In Ka’Mella, Davian dealt in spices and glass with desert princes and the cunning merchant-wizards of the sandborn tribes.
In Tilverton, he bartered in salt, timber, and secrets in the swaying cities built above the mire.
And in Kelt, amid the endless struggles of warlords and petty kings, he learned the cruel arithmetic of profit and power.
Years passed, and the coffers of the Black Star swelled. But gold, for all its glitter, could not erase the weight of his family’s disgrace. And so, with both wealth and will renewed, Baron Davian Macabre has returned to Mercadia — a man forged by exile and ambition.
Ahead of him, he sent trusted emissaries: the Venn Sisters, Kyree and Soraya, sharp-tongued and sharper-witted twins known in trade circles for their loyalty and cunning; and Khazamyr of Ka’Mella, a wizard-merchant of desert birth whose jeweled eyes see profit and peril alike. Together, they prepare the restoration of the Macabre Keep, a weathered fortress east of Edana whose cold halls echo now with the ring of masons and the scent of new mortar.
But Edana has changed. The Iron Legion of Kelt — once a sellsword company — has been elevated, reformed, and renamed as the Kingsguard, now sworn wholly to the crown. Their banners hang from the city’s walls and their discipline is ironclad. They are led by Lord Commander Magnus Empyrean, a man whose ambition rivals his loyalty, and whose word carries weight even in the royal court.
If Davian is to reclaim his family’s honor, he must navigate a court as perilous as any battlefield.
He must win the ear of Councilman Cedric Warren, the pragmatic statesman whose counsel sways King Lando Narindun.
He must earn the respect — or at least the restraint — of Lord Commander Empyrean, whose vigilance leaves little room for ghosts of disgraced houses.
And perhaps most unpredictably, he must contend with Larissa Aylomeinne, the Court Mage — brilliant, observant, and possessed of a compassionate heart that belies her power. Her mastery of lightning is renowned throughout Mercadia, yet her greatest strength lies in her perception: few secrets survive her gaze, and fewer still escape her empathy.
As the bells of Edana toll the hour of his return, thunder rolls across the city, and for a fleeting moment the stormlight catches on the spire of the old Macabre manse, making it gleam like black glass. The city watches, whispering of curses and redemption, of ghosts and gold.
Baron Davian Macabre has come home.
Whether he returns as savior or specter remains to be seen.