19. The Gilded Shackle - Zilchus

Once a modest chapel to Zilchus, god of wealth and influence, The Gilded Shackle now festers like an open wound on the main road through Nulb, its once-pious stones blackened by swamp mildew and corruption. It wears the facade of a church but functions as a black-market banking house and coin-cleansing operation for Nulb’s bandits, pirates, smugglers, and—most damningly—the Temple of Elemental Evil.

High Priest Jereader Zomawyn, a former coin priest from Dyvers, Free Lands of, has turned this location into one of the most quietly influential nodes in the Temple’s second rising—despite not serving Iuz or the Elder Elemental God himself. He serves coin. And coin serves evil.

The Chapel of Zilchus

A Beacon of Wealth in a Village of Poverty

Description

Located near the heart of Nulb, the Chapel of Zilchus is a stark contrast to the crumbling buildings and filth that surround it.

• Structure: A weather-worn wooden building, its facade repaired with sections of fine Dyvers stone.
• Exterior Symbolism: A faded symbol of Zilchus remains above the door, but someone’s painted chains over it in black pitch.
• Interior Splendor: Part shrine, part counting house. Behind warped pews are ledgers, strongboxes, and guarded chests. A rotten incense smell lingers in the air. Candles burn with greasy yellow light. Worshippers rarely kneel—they haggle.
• The Back Office: Behind the chapel lies a hidden chamber, where loans, black-market deals, and money laundering are arranged.
• The Vault: Beneath the altar lies a trapdoor and stone stairwell leading to a compact vault and meeting chamber—used for quiet dealings with Madame Selentis, Lucius Graeme, and emissaries from the Temple.

“Zilchus does not favor the weak. He blesses those who take what they are owed and crush those who would steal from them.”

The Political & Criminal Web of the Chapel

Role in Temple of Elemental Evil Operations

• Officially Neutral: He claims to be outside Temple politics but works as a financial node for the cults.
• Funds Transfers: Belsornig and Romag use the chapel to stash gold from raids and slave sales. Alrrem’s loot is sometimes exchanged for reagents.
• Ledger Washing: Jereader’s clerks ‘clean’ the coin and merchandise coming in from the pirates, notably Tolub’s crew, and bandit caravans arriving via the Wainwright depot.
• Broker of Bribes: Jereader arranges payment to corrupt garrison leaders, local mercs, and spies across the Viscounty. He also sells silence—keeping records on those who cross the Temple’s agents.

❖ Politics and Relationships

• Hedrack: Sees Hedrack as a terrifying but useful warlord. They’ve never met in person. Uses Lucius as proxy. Jereader prefers Hedrack’s long-term vision to the chaos of the elemental priests.
• Lucius Graeme: His primary contact and fixer. Jereader launders coin; Lucius ensures his protection from the Temple’s internal politics.
• Madame Selentis: They’ve built a stable but cautious alliance. She stores some prisoner-sale earnings through the chapel’s vaults. Jereader fears her ambition but needs her bandits to escort coin shipments.
• Tolub: Regular client. Pays in gold and loot. The chapel repairs and inventories Tolub’s ledgers (via Jereader’s scribes).
• Romag & Belsornig: Each secretly believes Jereader favors the other. Jereader feeds both sides just enough—hoping to stay standing when one of them finally falls.

❖ Chapel Staff and Defenses

• Enforcers: 2 bandit bodyguards (Veteran stat block) and 1 accountant-thug (Rogue 3 / Cleric 1). They guard both coin and silence.
• Magical Traps: The hidden vault is protected by glyphs and alarm spells. Jereader will not hesitate to call on Lucius or Feldrin if the Temple’s funds are endangered.
• Wards Against Scrying: Lucius helped cast protection from detection rituals over the building’s lower levels.

❖ Adventure Hooks

• The Golden Ledger: A Temple courier has lost a book of coded ledgers en route to the chapel. It contains blackmail material, sacrificial names, and a cipher key to Belsornig’s aquatic agents.
• Coin for Blood: The party uncovers that a local girl sold into slavery was part of a recent shipment—bought and sold through Jereader’s silent auction in the chapel basement.
• Price of Forgiveness: Jereader offers sanctuary—but demands the players assassinate a rival priest in Hommlet who threatened to expose him.
• The Dyvers Connection: The bishop in Dyvers, a corrupt old ally of Jereader, has received a shipment of holy relics looted from Veluna. The trail leads back to Nulb.

“A tithe to Zilchus is a down payment on your own future. Pay wisely, and prosperity follows. Fail, and you’ll see what poverty truly means.”

— High Priest Jereader Zomawyn

DM-Only Section

The Secrets of The Chapel

The Vault of Coin and Contracts

The Iron Box — Day Trade Coffer

Beneath the crumbling altar lies a warped panel that slides aside with a hiss of stone and mildew. Tucked within is a squat iron coffer bolted to the floor—its surface etched with rusted sigils of Zilchus and old merchant runes.

This is where the chapel handles the greasy coin of daily trade: protection fees, laundering cuts, slaver tithes, and bribes to passers-through. Every gold piece has a story, and none of them good.

• Function: Used for routine transactions, payouts to bandits, pirate exchanges, and quick bribes.
• Contents:
• 5 full coin rolls of 100 gp each
• A purse of marked silver for laundering purposes (200 sp)
• Folded temple tithe slips and two merchant shipping receipts marked with forged seals from Dyvers and Verbobonc.

The Hidden Vault — Zomawyn’s True Hoard

“No one tithes to Zilchus with prayers alone.”

– scrawled in chalk on the underside of the trapdoor

Beneath a cracked floorboard in Jereader Zomawyn’s personal quarters—under the straw mattress and past the moth-eaten curtain—rests the true treasure of the Gilded Shackle. A square of iron-bound blackwood conceals a heavy trapdoor, sealed with a complex latch requiring both a key and a whispered prayer to Zilchus (DC 17 Religion or Thieves’ Tools check to bypass).

The Chest:

• Make: Dwarven-forged, imported from Irongate decades ago. Reinforced with iron bands.
• Protection:
• Poisoned Needle Trap: A spring-loaded fang inside the locking mechanism (DC 16 Dex Save or take 3d10 poison damage and be poisoned for 1 hour).
• Warding Sigil of Silence: The chest is magically silenced if tampered with, preventing spells like Alarm or Knock from alerting others.

Contents:

• 1,200 gp in assorted currencies (Velunese marks, Dyvers trade thalers, and Nyrond bulk mint)
• 300 pp in Temple-marked plates (each stamped with a cult sigil)
• 6 soul contracts inked in blood (names of pirates and bandits bound to eternal debts)
• A book of unofficial ledgers mapping the Temple's black-market trade from Nulb to Dyvers
• A magical contract scroll (binding oath, usable once per month by Zomawyn)

Rumored Additions:

Some whisper there's a gold-plated holy symbol of Zilchus once stolen from the Church treasury in Verbobonc, hidden here under a false bottom in the chest—proof that Zomawyn’s piety is a farce gilded in sin.

Meet the Gilded Shackle Guards

You scarcely step across the threshold of the Gilded Shackle before heavy boots scuff against the stone floor behind you. Turning, you find yourself facing a thick wall of armor and muscle—two grim-faced men in tarnished banded mail, each bearing the sigil of a broken coin. Their leader, a broad-shouldered brute with a crooked nose and a battleaxe slung across his back, steps forward, his mouth twisting into a humorless smile.

“Well, well... look what’s slithered in,” he growls, his voice like gravel. “Word ‘round here says you’re walkin’ with debts unpaid.”

Another of the thugs spits to the side, shouldering a heavy crossbow with casual menace.
The leader jabs a thick finger toward you.

“Zomawyn don’t like bein’ forgotten, and we don’t like wastin’ time.” His tone sharpens, cold and businesslike. "You pay what’s owed—or you pay another way."

The others fan out lazily, cutting off your retreat, their hands resting on axe handles and crossbow stocks. One, a wiry man with a scar across his forehead, sneers.

“Funny thing ‘bout the Shackle..." he chuckles. "You walk in free. You leave heavier—’cept when we got to carve the weight off ye first.”

The leader chuckles without humor, shifting his battleaxe with a metallic scrape.

“So... what's it gonna be?" he demands, his eyes hard as river stones. "Gold, blood, or both?"

The room stills. Even the candlelight seems to shrink back from their presence, awaiting your answer.