Chateaufaux

Chateaufaux is the imagined pastoral heart of Dementlieu, a place of cultivated grace, rustic charm, and genteel fantasy—at least in the minds of the nobles and urbanites of Port-a-Lucine. Spoken of with nostalgic affection or smug superiority, Chateaufaux is thought of as the expansive, sun-dappled countryside surrounding the city, dotted with summer villas, vineyards, and quaint villages. In truth, Chateaufaux exists more in the collective imagination and propaganda of Dementlieu's ruling elite than in verifiable geography.

If Chateaufaux exists at all, it is not what the nobility believes. A traveler who strays too far from the coastal roads might find:

• Manor houses sealed in fog, where music still plays to empty chairs and the staff repeats the same day endlessly, unaware they are watched.
• Villages where time loops, where farmers rise to reap crops that never grow, and goods are shipped toward a city that never receives them.
• Farmhands with hollow eyes, who speak of the “Countess of Dust” or “the Harvest that Never Ends,” offering warnings that make no sense—until it’s too late.

In many ways, Chateaufaux reflects Dementlieu's greatest lie: that there is still a wholesome countryside, a place untouched by the rot of illusion and masked horror. Those who press into its supposed territory may instead find a patchwork of fraying dreams, haunted manors, and stage-set villages where something watches from behind the hedges.

Chateaufaux is Dementlieu’s greatest lie and most seductive delusion—a phantom countryside that flatters the illusions of nobility, cloaking unspeakable horrors in lace and perfume. Whether it’s a cursed place, a dreamtrap of the Mists, or simply a collective hallucination upheld by dread and denial, Chateaufaux is as dangerous as it is beautiful. To seek it is to step off the stage—and into the teeth of the truth.