Compare Revisions

11 Overview
22  
33 Zdislav is the alderman of Laslea, Coen's home village in Vale Sangora. Official material introduces him as an exception to a hard fact about the valley: few Sangorans live long enough to see their grandchildren, let alone their great-grandchildren, and fewer still survive to pass on warnings about what waits in the woods, the swamps, and the mountains. Zdislav lived long enough, and he wrote it down.
44  
55 Within the pages of his diary he records a solemn warning for future generations: fear the darkness, and beware the unknown. That single line is the closest thing the valley has to a summary of itself.
66  
77 He bears two small round scars on his neck, sitting over a vein. Puncture wounds in that arrangement point to direct contact with vampires. Whether he gave blood willingly or had it taken from him is not stated.
88  
99 Why the Stories Matter
1010  
1111 Official material is explicit that the tales shepherds and miners share around a fireplace get dismissed as superstition or foolishness, and that they endure for a reason. They are warnings, passed down not to entertain but to prepare. An alderman's diary is the written form of that same habit, and it is why an old man's notebook matters as much in this valley as a soldier's report.
1212  
1313 Zdislav also shared his stories with Albertus Taurinus, the chronicler who set down an account of the valley's history. Across several visits he described legends handed down through generations of Carpathian mountain people: warriors from ages past decked in gold and coloured plumes who fought pale wraiths among moonlit peaks, tiny forest folk with cat's eyes and forked tongues and teeth like needles, ancient ruins filled with bubbling blood, horned mountain beasts that kept to the high passes, and lizards the size of horses burrowing in peat bogs.
1414  
1515 Folklore and the Bestiary
1616  
1717 Several of the creatures in those stories line up with things confirmed to be in the game rather than with generic fantasy monsters. This is the framing the developers use throughout: a creature is introduced as local legend first and met as an enemy second. The Bestiary follows the same order.
1818  
19+ 
1920 Folklore DescriptionLikely CounterpartHorned mountain beasts of the high passesThe Uriashi, the mountain folk villagers describe to outsiders as hornedTiny forest folk with needle teethPossibly the Sanzhana, the impish creatures who forage teeth from corpsesDwellers in the mines and tunnelsThe kobolds, who hold the mines above and below ground and know every tunnel in themLizards the size of horses in the bogsPossibly the tatzelwurms, named by the developers as folklore creatures in the gameAncient ruins filled with bubbling bloodNot identified; the ancient undead are the confirmed occupants of the valley's sealed ruins
2021 The matches that are not certain are marked as such above. The developers have named the uriashi, likhos, kobolds, psoglavs, and tatzelwurms as folklore-derived creatures in the game, and have said more of the bestiary would be revealed over time.
2122  
2223 Role in the Valley
2324  
2425 As village elder, Zdislav's authority now exists at the pleasure of Brencis's regime. Laslea is a small hill settlement well away from the political centre at Svartrau, which likely means lighter direct oversight and also less protection. Before the vrakhiri took the valley it sat under the rule of the old knyaz Skender Dragosti, and it did not escape the spread of the plague.
2526  
2627 The scars on his neck suggest that rural standing counts for little where the blood tax is concerned. Official material describes the village church as a place of community gathering where villagers seek comfort, share whispers, and hold on to faith, and an alderman sits at the centre of that kind of small, tightly connected settlement, where Coen grew up knowing everyone by name.
2728  
2829 The Valley's Other Record-Keepers
2930  
3031 Zdislav is not the only person in Vale Sangora keeping a written account. Father Florin maintains a diary tracking the people around him, their habits, their fears, and the subtle shifts in their behaviour as the valley heads toward a new dawn. A collector named Vicho records the strange objects that pass through his hands, including a bleeding ivory figurine a shepherd brought him. Written accounts are one of the main routes by which the valley's history reaches Coen at all.