This is kind of a self-indulgent post but whatever. Been thinking about mashing The Curse of Strahd up with the Mozarab Latin American setting implied by San Serafin. I never quite understood why Strahd doesn’t’t just kick the shit out of the party as soon as they show the smallest signs of competence (the adventure has an explanation, but I don’t find it satisfactory). I’ve tried to give it a more fairy tale/folklore vibe with constraints that make the cat-and-mouse game between Strahd and his hunters more interesting. Anyway, I’m changing Ravenloft to Hacienda San Cuervo, which is perfectly exactly as dorky as the original. ANYWAY…
There are seven Dead Men of New Barbary, each given special dispensation by the gods of death to reside in the Lands of the Living. They may only leave the darkness of their house on their assigned day of the week.
Dead Ohache’s day is Friday, and he lives in an iron house.
His flesh is flush with false life, his teeth are like a coyote’s teeth, and he licks them with a long red tongue. Everyone knows of his eyes, for they are as yellow and as mean as the summer sun, and they can see lies on a speaker’s breath.
Dead Ohache wears a calabash on his belt, from which he drinks and from which he draws his power. It is filled with blood: the fresh blood of his servants, subjects, and slaves, the cold blood of his brides and grooms, the bubbling blood of the ancient beast that hangs helpless and eternally wounded from the rafters of his house.
He has six spouses who administer to his hacienda when he is confined to his house. They are beautiful and evil and love him dearly, for he keeps their hearts locked away with his most valuable treasures.
His house is iron, it is narrow and tall, it juts from the earth like a nail from flesh. His house is a place of disorder, and he does not rule his land well. By Dead Ohache’s decree, all blood and all corpses in Hacienda Cuervo are his by right to take. The dead are not buried, but put to work, and the living are hunted and used for labor like animals. Dead Ohache is is a careless master, and his administrators are many and fractious. The villages on his holding’s border have attained some measure of prosperity, but everyone has a friend or relative carried away to labor in Dead Ohache’s fields, struggle in his mines, or bleed out for his supper.
Things to do in and around Hacienda San Cuervo
- Dead Ohache’s depredations have awakened a mummified holy ancestor from its funereal repose. Rozerie, the Monday Regent of the Hacienda, will pay you to take care of it before the Tuesday Regent hears about it.
- The brother of one of Dead Ohache’s kidnapping victims has put out an exceedingly generous standing offer to anyone who can rescue his sibling from the Dead Man’s mines.
- A scholar in Otra Tetuán is writing a necrography of Dead Ochache and wants to know why the Sheikha and Sheikh of the Dead have given him permission to reside in the Lands of the Living. The University is backing up their research with a reward.
- Pirate-cleric Sayyida al Hurra wants a crack at Dead Ohache’s treasure, and she wouldn’t mind exorcising him either. Figure out where he keeps his vault and not only will she pay you, but she’ll let you come along on the heist for a share of the spoils.
- Rumor has it some rebels are getting ready to raid Dead Ohache’s sanguinary. Both sides are putting out an all call for anyone who can pick up a weapon.
- There is a particular and exceedingly beautiful flower that grows in the yard of Dead Ixe, Ohache’s bitterest rival. He wants a cutting so he can grow it for himself.
