The God Citadel

Travellers did not know this place. They could not. If they turned their horse towards it, the horse would shy away. If they set their eyes to the horizon on which it lay, their eyes would twitch and shift. Caravans would wind their trails casually around it. Never hard enough to wonder why the path they took drifted, but never through this place.

This place held the God Citadel. This place was old. This place held power. This place was almost unknown. Almost. Over the centuries there had been a few curious adventurers, the odd fleeing bandit, and occasionally a thorough cartographer who had stumbled across it. Evidence of their journeys were sketchy at best, but fragments were told through tattered journals, in fireside tales, and in the parchments of discredited maps that showed places people knew not to be true.

X Marks the Spot

With his domain expanded after the border skirmish, the Vampire Lord sent his eyes and ears out on leather wings to survey his new lands. The foul magics that linked the fell bats to the Vampire returned images of plains and forests, hills and valleys. Fairly standard terrain spread across an unassuming expanse. Bored with the view, he sent the psychic command to call his minions back to his ancient keep.

Knights in Shining Armour

The bats circled the tower, shrieking and flapping in their insidious way. To outsiders, it was just noise. To the Vampire Lord, the shrieks and flaps carried meaning: Knights on horses, pennants flapping, searching, searching.

This time the encounter would be no accident. The Vampire was prepared. He knew they'd be searching for more mystic items, artefacts, cursed objects and the like. And he wanted them. And he also wanted the knights dead.

Dredging the Swamp

The Vampire Lord, furious at his defeat by the orcs, traversed the countryside back towards his castle in the deep of the forests. Some small villages were encountered along the way, and his sycophant necromancer underlings were more than happy to replenish his ranks. Unfortunately there were no trolls or great legendary warriors among the villages, so the zombie trolls and wights went unrenewed.