Castle Falkenstein 1e - Falkenstein Places.pdf

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Castle Falkenstein
C
astle Falkenstein. Amazing. Timeless. Endless.
Raised by the sorcery of a Faerie Lord, creat-
ed from the imagination of a mad king, it
towers over the silent dark forests and sapphire lakes
below, spearing into the brilliant dawn from the top
of its mountaintop fastness. It is a place of immense
mystery, of great power, brought into being on the
foundations of a medieval robber baron’s fortress,
clad in smooth, warm stone and the stuff of dreams; a
place where knights joust and lords and ladies play.
against the forces of Progress arrayed against it. It is said
by some of the staff that when Auberon returned the
King to his throne, he made his friend a promise: that as
long as Ludwig reigned, Falkenstein would ever be a
place of wonder; it would always be larger and more
amazing than even a mad king could imagine it. So far,
the Faerie King’s promise stands unbroken.
Beyond One Reality
I’d hoped to show you a map of the entire struc-
ture of
Falkenstein,
but what
I
know of the Castle
is only a fraction of its infinite galleries, halls
and rooms. Most of the main Keep and
the immediate towers surrounding it
are well known, but there are dozens
of branching levels and outbuild-
ings, spires, minarets, guardhouses
and parapets scattered all over the
mountaintop. It is said that when
Auberon raised the Castle from
the ruins of the old keep, he
wove into it all the power of the
Faerie Veil itself, and that
Falkenstein reaches not only
through this dimension, but
into others as well. One thing is
true: Falkenstein is indeed muta-
ble; there are wondrous rooms
that appear and disappear without
a trace, secret passages that open
into other realities, doorways that
shift without warning. Those who stray
off the well-known passages of the Castle
without escort sometimes never come back;
complete strangers have been known to wander in
from distant regions, speaking in tongues no one
knows, wearing clothes from alien times and places.
Falkenstein is King Ludwig’s home; he rarely enter-
tains visitors there, preferring to hold court in Old
München or at his lesser palaces. Occasionally, great
state events such as Balls and treaty signings are held at
the Castle, but the day-to-day business of running
Bayern is done at the King’s
Residenz
in the Capital.
Marianne, Colonel Tarlenheim, Morrolan, Rhyme,
and myself are the few who actually live within the
immense fortress. “For you have all truly earned this
place in the clouds,” said Ludwig once. “You are
Falkenstein’s first and greatest defenders.” I’m not sure
about
that,
but the Castle
has
become my home.
History
But the Castle is far, far older than
most people imagine. Even before the
original castle was raised, a Roman
border fortress stood on the summit
of the mountain. Before that, the
Falkenburg—Falcon’s
Mountain—
was the site of an ancient temple
of unknown origin; the standing
stones still make up part of the
central keep today. And the
Dwarfs know of a time when the
crag of Falkenstein was a gate-
way into Faerie itself, perhaps the
first doorway into the New
Europa of the Ice Ages. Their leg-
ends talk of caves below the sum-
mit, far deeper than any dungeon,
where Time stops and even the most
powerful Dragons fear to tread. The
sorcery of this citadel goes far into the
core of the Earth, and grips the wellsprings
of Magick with raw, red talons.
Mad King’s Vision
I know what mad King Ludwig
i n t e n d e d
Falkenstein to be. I’ve seen the original drawings: vivid
watercolor sketches created by the great stage designer
Christian Jenk, whose hand also brought
N e u -
schwanstein
into vision. As the King saw it, Falkenstein
was to be his greatest castle: a Neo-Gothic splendor fit
for a robber lord himself; a place where his fantasies of a
bygone age could exist in perfect solitude. But when
crossed with the power of the Sons of Danu, Ludwig’s
mad vision became greater than its creator could imag-
ine. I wouldn’t put it past the wily Elflord to use the
power of this ancient place to shape a secure fortress for
Magick itself: a sanctum of Sorcery that could stand
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Tom’s Map of The Known
Portions of the Castle
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Castle Falkenstein
hen Auberon raised his arms and shouted, ‘Now it begins!’ Blue light shot from his hands, and
the entire fortress rocked as if struck by earthquake. Then, slowly, one by one, as if lifted by
invisible giant’s hands,
the
very stones of the keep began to rise into the air. They circled and
spiralled around Auberon like drunken birds, while the blue lightning
crashed and
the
wind
howled. They seemed
to multiply themselves even as
we watched,
rising, shaping,
stacking into
place like child’s blocks. Then Auberon brought his hands down in a grand sweep, and a mil -
lion metric tonnes
of
stone crashed to
earth
with
a deafening detonation that echoed off
the furthest mountains.
Dropped, exactly as you see today, complete and whole; an entire new castle on the ruins of the old! Furniture and
all!
—Col.
Fritz von Tarlenheim,
Remembrances
Tarlenhiem,
“T
Master of the
Eight Seas?
Bayern
astle Falkenstein
is located in the mountains of a small Middle-
New Europan country called
Bayer n
(also known as Bavaria
to us English speakers). At the time I arrived, it had been ruled
for several years by an “evil” Regent overseeing the insane
King Otto. My arrival was meant to change that by helping get
King Ludwig on the throne to replace his younger brother.
Since most of my adventures have happened here, it’s worth some description.
I
could
just repeat the facts about the Kingdom of Bayern (in fact, later in
this letter I will) as described in the
1851 Illustrated Atlas and Modern
History of the World,
but right now, I want to give you a feel for the place I’m
living in. If ever there was a “fairy tale” kingdom, this is it. The entire place is
generally made up of rolling, grassy hills, covered with sleepy black and white
cows and rustic farmhouses. Most of Bayern’s towns are tiny gingerbread vil-
lages right out of a picture postcard, with whitewashed walls, wooden cross
beams and window boxes spilling over with geraniums. There’s always a vil-
lage church with a kindly old pastor, and a friendly inn where you can get a
good, hearty meal and an ornately decorated stein of the best beer in the
world to wash it down with. The villagers are friendly and stalwart, with
round red faces and cheerful dispositions; unless they think you’re a vampire
(or something worse, like an Anarchist), they’ll welcome you into their
homes, feed you and help you out when you’re in trouble. And the village
girls are wholesome, healthy and good-looking in a milkmaid kind of way.
Rural Bayern is also
Faerie
country; the “Kindly Ones” like the deep dark
woods and the clean, well-kept farms of the local peasants. It’s not uncom-
mon to encounter a Brownie sweeping out your room in the inn, or catch a
Goblin playing tricks on the family pet. Pixies dance in the fields during
moonlit nights, and the
Weisse Damen
(a local nature Faerie) often come to
the edge of the forest to tend to growing crops and straying children.
To the south, Bayern rises through foothills and valleys until it reaches the
towering, snow-capped Southern Alps. Here, you can find the largest clans of
Dragons
, whose pterodactylic forms can sometimes be seen soaring on the
thermals.
Trolls
and
Giants
also lurk in the high crags, coming out to attack
lone travellers, or staking out the passes to extract tribute. (You knew troll
bridges had to come from somewhere.) But the most well-known inhabitants
of the Alps are the
Dwarfs
; with their huge cities dug deep into the sides of
the mountains, and their underground factories belching steam into the sky
on cold winter mornings.
The cities of Bayern are equally picturesque, especially the Capital,
Old
München
(or Munich) with its tall, elaborate brick apartment buildings and
bustling shops crowded along the narrow cobblestone streets. Museums, the-
aters and cafes provide entertainment, and great somber Universities and
Libraries provide education and knowledge. The streets are thronged with a
mix of horses, wagons, carriages, “automotives” (a kind of steam vehicle), and
busy city folk going about their daily lives.
Bayern—a typical country in the very atypical world of
Castle Falkenstein;
part Faerie tale, part Victoriana, and completely, uniquely Steam Age.
O
ne of the first things that
weirded me out when I
saw a map of this place
was the huge sea that runs right
down the middle of the New
Europan continent. The
Inner
Sea
, as it’s called (in various lan-
guages by the nations along its bor-
ders), is about half again the size of
Lake Superior in the United States.
Since it’s a salt-water body, it is
technically a sea even though at its
widest point it’s not much more
than three hundred miles across.
Now comes the next question,
the one I had when I first saw the
map: How the heck did a sea end
up in the middle of what ought to
be Flanders? Even assuming the
Inner Sea was simply a flooded ver-
sion of the Rhine Valley, it still
didn’t explain the fact that it’s
thousands of feet deep in some
places.
So I went downstairs and asked
Morrolan, my handy font of infor-
mation. The answer I got (should
I choose to believe it) was typically
Falkensteinian.
As the legend goes, some-
where back in the mists of New
Europan pre-history, a tall Faerie
Lord, blazing with light, descend-
ed to the top of a high alpen peak,
summoned tremendous power
and smote the Earth asunder. A
vast rift opened between the
mountains and the Nord Sea,
which rushed in to fill the gap.
And so the Inner Sea was created.
A tall Faerie Lord? Aw, hell. I
don't
wanna
believe it ...
There are times when this
world makes me totally crazy. This
is one of them.
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South
Inner Sea
PRUSSIA
AUSTRIA
Bayreuth
Wurtzburg
Nuremburg
The
German
Princedoms
Regensburg
Landshut
MÜNCHEN
Augsburg
Starnberg
Hohenschwangau
Falkenstein
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