Locations in Wintermount: Dark Tales

The Black Abbey: A History

Founded in 376 AD, the Black Abbey of the Upper Tyne was first built as a house of God, long before it became a refuge for those cursed with Wolfmagic and exiled from society.  The monks there lived by a strict set of rules: to let go of the influence of the outside world, to forgo the pleasures of the flesh, and to pray for the salvation of mankind.

Built by Abbot Reinhold, the Abbey was the ultimate tribute to God: expansive, functional, and filled with dark, rustic beauty.  When the long winter of 497 AD arrived, so did the first set of refuges cursed with wulfmagic.  The Abbot, nearing the end of his life, accepted them with open arms and gave them a home and a purpose.  Among the first set of wolven monks was a man named Conri, who would become the new Abbot after Reinhold’s death in the year 500 AD.

Reinhold himself had dark secrets: namely, a mysterious black box he kept in his office containing a demon that had plagued him in his early years before he imprisoned it.  A young man named Aethelwulf sought refuge in the Abbey, and a year later he and Abbot Conri were the only monks in residence when the demon was unleashed, possessing the Abbot and driving them to do the unspeakable.  

After the two returned to a lay life, the box remained, though it had already set its sights on a new victim in Abbot Manfred, Conri’s replacement.  Within a year, the Abbey had burned to the ground with all the monks trapped inside, save one. He brought the box downriver and returned it to the possession of Conri and Aethelwulf, who were immune to its influence and able to keep it hidden in their home: a Keep on the edge of the lands of Frost Arbor within the Kingdom of Wulfhæfen until they finally succumbed to age in 678 AD.