Jacqueline Renier

Domain of Disease, Isolation, and Wererats Darklord: Jacqueline Renier Genres: Disaster horror and gothic horror Hallmarks: Contagion, crumbling infrastructure, martial law, rats and vermin, wererats Mist Talismans: Plague mask, rat's tail, snakeoil curative Like a pendulum, Richemulot swings perpetually between hope and despair. Some days, the sun rises over Pont-a-Museau as if it were an ordinary city, and not one in which many of the buildings stand empty and abandoned. On those days, people move freely through the open gates, and the silent, heavily armored guards of the Casques Silencieux watch over calm promenades and markets. But a day or a week or a month later, the first telltale cough cracks amid the crowd. As people evacuate the streets and lock their doors, rats crawl from the sewers in tremendous numbers. Shortly thereafter, the gates slam shut. No doctors come, and no information arrives; the populace is left to die. The Gnawing Plague stalks Richemulot, arriving without warning. It comes with the rats, but it doesn't leave with them. For weeks or months at a time, life becomes an interminable wait as people peer out from between slatted windows and wonder how long the plague will last this time. Inevitably, frustration and fear beget superstition and violence. Eventually the gates open, signaling that the city is safe again. How the Casques Silencieux know is a mystery, but their judgment always proves correct. And so the cycle goes, from ruin to relief and back again, with de facto ruler Mademoiselle Jacqueline Renier ever above it all, t i relessly working to pull her realm back from the brink of total collapse. NOTEWORTHY F E AT U R E S

Those familiar with Richemulot know the following facts: • The Gnawing Plague, or simply "the Gnaws," is a • deadly, recurring ailment that a ffl icts Richemulot. Richemulot's royal family died of the plague. Mademoiselle Jacqueline Renier, the nation's most • prestigious aristocrat, rules as temporary warden. When the plague swells to epidemic proportions, the state police, the Casques Silencieux, enacts • martial law and quarantines whole cities. The government organizes no food or medical aid for quarantined communities, leaving residents to • contend as best they can. Richemulot's cities contain an inexplicably large number of buildings, an amount greater than their • highest populations would have ever warranted. Rat swarms prowl city streets like packs of dogs.

R I C H E M U LO I S E C H A R ACTE R S T h e people o f R i c h e m ulot k n ow h o w u n expectedly death c a n a rrive. T h e d o m a i n i s pred o m in antly popu lated by h u m a n s and h a / fl in g s with dark h a i r colors and various rich s k i n ton e s , many of whom bear the m a r k s of c h i l dhood d i seases o r m e d i c a l treatments. When p l ayers create c h a racters from R i c h e m u l ot, con s i d e r a s k i n g t h e m t h e fo l lowing q uestio n s .

How do you avoid the Gnawing Plague? The G nawing P l a g u e v i s its R ic h e m ulot reg u l arly. When the p l a g u e comes and the cities face q ua ra nt i n e s , how d o you stay safe ? Do you keep a stockp i l e of food a n d other s u p p l ie s for t h e i nevit a b l e lockdowns? Do you rob your n e i g hbors o r rely o n t h e i r k i n d n e s s ?

Are you a survivor o f t h e Gnawing Plague? D i d someo n e t e n d to you while you were s i c k ? Did you u n d e rgo a rem a r k a b l e treatment? W h at scars o r p a inful memories do you have from t h e experience ?

How did t h e G nawing Plague change your destiny? D i d you r c h ances fo r e d u cati o n , travel, or a pprenticesh i p van i s h ? Were you a noble who lost all they had? Were you b a n i s h e d from y o u r com m u n ity w h e n you got sick?

SETTLEM E NT S AND SITES

The majority of Richemulot's population is divided between its three walled cities, Mortigny, Pont-aMuseau, and Saint Ronges, though villages and isolated farmsteads dot the swampy countryside. PONT-A-MUSEAU

The capital of Richemulot, Pont-a-Museau straddles the Musarde River, its buildings dominating both banks and the islands and bridges between. The city's abundant space could easily house twenty thousand souls, but although it's Richemulot's most populous city, fewer than half that number live here. Still, Pont-a-Museau's casual sophistication hints at a cosmopolitan past. Indeed, the sprawling, foreign architecture gives rise to one of Richemulot's most widespread folk tales-that the people living here now aren't the land's first inhabitants. The citizens of Pont-a-Museau share their city with rats. These vermin are a ubiquitous presence, and visitors become accustomed to the flash of sudden movement at the periphery of their vision. Some say they are Jacqueline Renier's spies. This rumor might contain truth, as many who whisper it vanish i n the night and are never seen again.

Chateau Delanuit. Upon an island in the center of the Musarde sits Chateau Delanuit, the hereditary Renier estate. From here, Jacqueline Renier rules Richemulot. She holds audience from her parlors and public courtrooms, but her private residence is sacrosanct, and few outside her family ever visit it. Unknown to all but the Renier family and their staunchest allies, Chateau Delanuit stands above the inscrutable Inverted Court, a downward-spilling palace that connects to the vast sewer system of

Pont-a-Museau and beyond. This is the epicenter of Richemulot's polity, the clandestine home of its wererat families, and the true capital of the domain. SAINT RONGES

Though Saint Ronges shares the same mysterious origin as the rest of Richemulot's cities, the cause of its depopulation is well known: the Plague strikes harder here, and for longer, than anywhere else in the domain. This was not always so. When Jacqueline Renier first ascended to the throne and imposed her law upon the land, the people of Saint Ronges resisted her rule. Renier granted the city its freedom, absent the support and infrastructure of the state. To this day that remains the case, though the dwindling People's Council of Saint Ronges has long since learned its lesson. The council has repeatedly petitioned M ademoiselle Renier for mercy. For now, she is still considering.

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MORTIGNY

Mortigny is both the smallest of Richemulot's three cities and the most overcrowded; its streets are congested and its buildings strained to capacity. The town resembles an extended tenement, with new construction built atop old and hastily thrown together shanties lining the inside of its walls.

Mortigny is quickly quarantined during surges of plague, but anyone is allowed to enter the city so long as they do so with the understanding that they can't leave. Small communities across the domain send their sick to Mortigny, both to be rid of them and because the city has Richemulot's largest concentration of medical practitioners. The best of these healers work at Mortigny West Clinic under Doctor Simone Temator. Doctors across the city fight tirelessly to aid the sick and research new treatments for the Gnaws, but ultimately their work does little to curb the disease. Many desperate practitioners have turned to unconventional methods to halt the plague's spread. JACQU E L I N E R E N I E R

A century ago, Richemulot was a lively place. I n those days, not a building stood vacant as merchants from both ends of the Musarde set up shop along the broad boulevards of Pont-aMuseau. As wealth trickled into the merchants' coffers, those of low birth began to taste the benefits of nobility. Renier saw how the city was changing and tried to convince her family of the danger it

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M A P 3.12: R 1c H E M U L O T