Thorne Siblings

What does one do when you wake one day to find out you're squatters on the property of sleeping legends?

   

A Price to be Paid

  When family is the singular guiding light in your life, is there any evil you wouldn't embrace to save them from tragedy? This is the question that Nicodemius Thorne had to wrestle with as he watched his wife and four children wither before his eyes. Thorne was a member of the old College of Magic, and he spent his life mastering and teaching the arts of Enchantment. He was also an esteemed member of Balmoral's nobility who maintained a small barony east of Carda's border. By all accounts, Thorne was a good man who walked the path of peace even when peace was as painful a path as war.   During the war with The Autumn Queen, Nicodemus was an ever-present voice calling for a cease-fire and a means forward. He allowed escaping gnomish refugees to pass through his land, but refused to let Tairos' defenders launch assaults into the Amberholt from within his barony. Baron Thorne was an advocate for calm until it became impossible to continue. Tairos' defenders showed him clear evidence of the existential threat the Queen posed, and reluctantly, he surrendered his neutrality in favor of joint survival. The Queen never expected to see a forced march from the Thorne borders, so they were mainly left undefended. This is what allowed Tairos' remaining heroes to strike the final blow and spare the land a bitter execution. This decision would have dire consequences for Nicodemus and his entire family.   Scattering members of the Shadow Court fled to whatever dark corners of the continent they could seek out, and one of those members, Tuathla, cast her darkness upon the Thorne Barony. She held rank within the Shadow Court as its Cipher of Miracles, a figure known for expertise in old fae magic. She set her fiendish pets upon his people to rip and tear, spilling as much blood as possible. In the end, Thorne would find her and kill her, but it changed nothing. The people of his barony were slaughtered and with Tuathla's dying breath she laid a dreadful curse upon Nicodemus' family. They would wither away, both body and mind, until their lips drink blood from the heart of a Lord of the Shadow Court. Tuathla's curse seemed unbreakable, the Shadow Court was believed destroyed by most of Tairos and with The Queen's Rebuke unfolding across the land, using magic to find them was nearly impossible.   Nicodemus burned through Manacite experimenting with means of breaking the curse or stymying the progress of the disease. All his efforts were in vain. Instead, he turned to treating the symptoms. After exhausting countless efforts, the only option left to him was to preserve their physical bodies while seeking ways to heal their minds. He chose Vampirism, kidnapping a vampire from the freezing expanses of Frostmere's territory and harvesting their blood. He tweaked and experimented upon the loathsome creature, attempting to perfect the Undead disease, specifically its healing ability and metabolism. He hoped to make their brand of vampirism capable of curing the mental wasting that they suffered from. And, he hoped to slow their metabolism and thus tamp down the thirst for blood they would suffer from. All he managed to do was create an enhanced physical healing ability and make a minor dent in their blood cravings. Seeing no other choice, he transformed his family into vampires.   This act bought time, but the cost was paid in tragedy. Many of the few survivors of his estate became prey for his family, and unwilling to let his choice cost good people their lives, he animated any who became meals for his family as simpler undead. His hope, steeped in delusion, was to find cures for these servants in time, too. His family was lingering longer and longer in their bouts of frenzied madness, and only blood could bring them moments of lucidity. In one of those moments, his wife, Lucretia, realized she needed to end this and attempted to burn down the castle and kill her family. In the end, Nicodemus stopped her, and rather than see his brand of reason, she cast herself out into the sunlight to embrace final death.   Crushed by her loss, Nicodemus came to realize that the solution wouldn't be found here in his crumbling barony. He used his flawless knowledge of Enchantment and the last of his manacite reserves to lay a spell over his entire estate, placing his children in an eternal slumber and the numerous other undead into a dream-like state that would confine them to the property. He would leave the estate in search of a curse. Whatever happened to Nicodemus is unknown, but he never returned to the castle.   His spell would remain active, recasting itself continuously over the centuries. It was controlled by a special hourglass that required a special ring and a command phrase to activate. Nicodemus entrusted one of the undead to carry out this duty in his absence, and the hollow-minded automaton did so.    

Debts Ignored

  Then came Ridley's Prospect and with it the grave robbers that Lupin Ridley attracted. A group of those grave robbers managed to penetrate the castle, stave off its slumbering effects, slay the undead manning the hourglass, and pry the control jewels out. One of them found a sleeping Ciprian and prepared to stake him when he woke. In a starved and feral state, he slew most of the grave robbers and chased the others into the wilderness. He hunted them down, fed on them, and prowled the woods for months on end, eating beasts and hiding from the sun. He wandered aimlessly and crossed into Carda's old territory. He's unsure of what transpired there exactly, but one day he woke from his frenzy, fully lucid and free from the mental withering. Tuathla's curse was broken. He had no interest in investigating how this happened; he instead rushed back home to see if his family was restored and if his father had returned. Neither was the case. His sisters still slept in their sarcophagi, dead still stumbled about the property, and there was no sign of his father. The only change at all was the lights. Lights across the lake. Someone was building a settlement where their barony once stood.   Ciprian found Ridley's Prospect. It was early in its construction, but even then, it was an exciting place full of new faces, new handsome faces worth indulging in... and feeding on. He never killed anyone he considered innocent. He brought several to Thorne Castle and fed them to his sleeping sisters, helping to keep them fed and healthy while they slept. He also learned that he would have to be the one to maintain the sleeping spell on the property. In his absence, while feral in the woods and carousing in the prospect, the sleeping spell was crumbling, damaged beyond repair. It would require nightly maintenance lest its effectiveness rapidly fade.   He would do his best over the coming months to keep the spell active (missing several days while in hedonistic pursuit in the Prospect) and keep his sisters fed, hoping that maybe blood would heal their minds or at least keep their bodies in good health. While at home, he tidies up, dusts the shambling undead and cleans their uniforms, tends to the castle estate, and deals with any threats that might invade the grounds. While in the Prospect, he masquerades as a high-priced harlot in the Silver Tail Saloon, sating all his urges while seeking out some of the settlement's worst to feed to his sisters.