The Lay Curators of the Ossuary

Ptolus is a city built upon its own dead. Beneath its towers and crowded streets lie forgotten kingdoms, ancient crypts and passages that descend into darkness older than the city itself. In such a place, secrets have a habit of surviving, and sooner or later there are always fools (or adventurers) willing to go looking for them. 

So it was that four unlikely souls came together beneath the shadow of Ptolus, united by two common enemies: the servants of Chaos and the sinister House Vladaam.

The oldest of them was Lúthien Thalinor, a Moonsilver Elf and zealot of Lunas, one of the dwindling Elder Elves who still remembers something of the world before his people were destroyed. His kin were scattered and slaughtered in ages past, their great city of Dreta Phantas dragged into the Underdark by the Drow through the terrible power of Chaos. Those who survived remain trapped below the earth to this day. Lúthien has devoted what remains of his long life to hunting the Chaos cults that infest Ptolus, seeing in their blasphemies the same ancient evil that brought ruin upon his people. Where others see superstition, he sees history repeating itself.

Torvax Runesmith is of a very different age. A Grailwarden dwarf, Torvax belongs to a people who long ago decided that progress was worth more than blind reverence for tradition. Wizardry, science, runes and gunpowder are all tools to be mastered, and Torvax has mastered more than most. He has come to Ptolus seeking his vanished mentor, following a trail that leads beneath the city towards the lost dwarven realm of Dwarvenhearth, where ancient lore and forgotten technology may yet survive. If there are secrets buried there, Torvax intends to uncover them, though whether those secrets wish to be uncovered is another matter.

Then there is Flint Quickfingers, a Saelas Faen thief raised among the travelling caravans that wander the lands alongside humanity. For a time, his home was the Rogue Moon Trading Company, until the blades of House Vladaam ended that life in a bloody ambush. Flint survived. His friends did not. He has carried their deaths with him ever since, and beneath the quick smile and quicker fingers lies a simple purpose: revenge. The Vladaams are powerful, entrenched and dangerous. Flint knows this. He also knows that powerful men can bleed just as readily as anyone else.

And finally there is Bragman the Bold, eldest son of a respectable mercantile family whose fortunes were made through the noble trade of pickling. Yet while his family dealt in barrels and ledgers, Bragman dreamed of adventure. Inspired by the tales of his great-uncle Bagbo Biggins, he abandoned the comfortable future expected of him and set out to see what lay beyond the family business. Of all the company, Bragman may be the least prepared for the darkness beneath Ptolus. He may also be the one most delighted to find it.

Their unlikely alliance owes much to Brother Fabien, an archivist of the Order of the Dawning Sun, the monster-hunting arm of the Lothian Church. Fabien is a learned and astute man, though perpetually exhausted by the weight of ancient scrolls and forbidden histories piled upon his desk in St. Gustav's Chapel. Through him the four adventurers have found both common purpose and practical support. Fabien has given them the use of a small Church property in Graveyard Close, near the Necropolis, and - perhaps more importantly - official papers granting them the grand and thoroughly unglamorous title of Lay Curators of the Ossuary. 

According to the Church records, their duties involve surveying old properties, counting skeletal remains and sealing breaches in forgotten sub-crypts. In reality, the title gives them the legal right to carry weapons, cast spells and enter restricted crypts, basements and sewer passages across the Necropolis, Midtown and the Warrens without attracting the attention of the City Watch.

And so the company has its headquarters, its Church patron and its official duties. They have enemies in the shadows, mysteries beneath their feet and a city full of secrets waiting to be uncovered. For now, they are merely the Lay Curators of the Ossuary.

But Ptolus has a way of giving such titles rather more meaning than their creators intended.