#1

The Tower of Magnatious Tarbell

By OpenRPG Team

A forgotten reliquary still holds its last warden. Magnatous Tarbell, once sworn to the Eternal Flame, bound himself to the Starlight Reliquary — a relic that grants glimpses of what may come. Sustained by its visions and burdened by what he has seen, he endures in isolation. To free him is to return a living witness of the past… and a man who may yet guide those willing to bear the weight of foresight.

Status
published
Chapters
6
Encounters
1
Updated
Mar 17, 2026
dungeon-crawlfaith-attunedliving-legendlow-fantasyopenheimreliquary

Navigation

The common room in Harford is thick with grain dust and low voices. Between talk of weather and tithe, one story passes more often than the rest: a ruined watchtower deep in Thornskull Forest.

They say it once belonged to a man named Magnatous Tarbell — a warden of the Church, or the crown, depending on who you ask — who vanished there generations ago.

A local factor now offers coin to any who will find the place, learn what became of it, and return with proof. Few who have gone looking have come back. Fewer still speak of what they saw.

Adventure Overview

Synopsis

A forgotten reliquary still holds its last warden. Magnatous Tarbell, once sworn to the Eternal Flame, bound himself to the Starlight Reliquary — a relic that grants glimpses of what may come. Sustained by its visions and burdened by what he has seen, he endures in isolation. To free him is to return a living witness of the past… and a man who may yet guide those willing to bear the weight of foresight.

GM Prep

Background

Magnatous Tarbell was once entrusted with the keeping of sacred relics, serving as a warden in the early years of the realm. Among them was the Starlight Reliquary, a device said to grant fleeting insight into what lies ahead.

When his apprentice sought to use it for gain, pressing it beyond its proper bounds, Tarbell chose containment over risk. He sealed both himself and the relic within a lead-lined chamber beneath his tower, believing isolation would quiet its influence.

The tower fell into ruin, and the forest reclaimed it. Only the hounds he kept — fitted with prayer-bound collars — remained, lingering long after their master was lost.

Magnatous Tarbell endures as a worn relic-warden, more sustained than truly alive. The Starlight Reliquary does not preserve him — it guides him, moment by moment, away from death. His life has been stretched thin by its use, each decision weighed against what he has seen.

Through the prayer-bound collars of his hounds, he has, at times, reached beyond his prison — offering fragments of warning or insight to those who passed near enough to hear. In this way, he has borne witness to the passing of years: wars fought and forgotten, lords risen and buried.

He remains clever and devout, but hollowed by long penance, a man who has survived too carefully for too long.

World Context

Setting

Thornskull Forest lies two days’ travel northwest of Harford, where the land rises and the trees grow close. Black pine and thorn-oak crowd the remnants of an old watchtower, its stonework split and sinking into the earth.

Charcoal burners still work the outer woods, their smoke drifting low between the trunks. Few of them go near the ruin.

What remains is half-swallowed by moss and root: worn steps leading downward, cold flagstones beneathfoot, and the hidden workings of an older design — iron levers set into hearthstone and wall. Below, a sealed vault endures, its air close and still, as if something within has not yet finished its purpose.