The tower doesn’t appear in any of the history of the town or kingdom and no one who calls Cornettica home has ever written about it. It’s almost as if the tower doesn’t even exist to these people. There is a very small section in the library dedicated to journals and letters left behind by adventurers who had claimed to come from the tower. The oldest journal comes from about a year ago. It belonged to a man named Seamus O’Reilly. He describes his first encounter within the tower to be very similar to what you experienced. Ripped away from his life, he woke up on the ground with a collar around his neck and a faceless voice describing with glee how this was his first experiment. Almost every journal describes their start in the tower as such. It seems that many of the adventurers gave the voice a name. Some called him “Bob” or “George”; one named him “God of Insanity”, and another simply stated “he is the Devil and he walks among us”. These last two seem to have been written by those who lost their minds.
Except for the difference in personality from the journalers, each describe pretty much the same thing. Every floor was a puzzle with a boss that needed to be defeated. Some describe the death of party members, but that the death wasn’t permanent thanks to the collars that kept their life force intact. There is also evidence that time within the tower is completely separate from time without. Several adventurers describe spending weeks to months inside the tower only to leave it and find it was the same day as when they went in. A few journals show their owners decent into madness, the writing becoming incoherent and unreadable. Yet others showed the strength of will by the owners and love letters show how even others were lonely, pining for their loved ones and hoping to be reunited one day. It appears that those who die more frequently within the tower are the ones that are most susceptible to falling towards insanity. You’ll notice that the further into the tower an adventurer got, the less they detailed their time spent. Most eventually just state “Went in. Killed a thing. It never ends. I just want to go home now.” Every journal seems to abruptly end, presumably at the time of their disappearances. It doesn’t appear as if any of these adventurers made it past level 8 of the tower.
The Kingdom of Isara has a fairly familiar history that surrounds most places. It’s filled with periods of out right war, times of disease and plague, stories of fallen kings, and years of peace and prosperity. Interestingly, the kingdom seems to be in a relatively new time of peace following what was described as “the darkest of days”. Late in the reign of King Strahd (who had become king at the young age of 18 after his tyrant of a father was mudered) a cult of necromancers made themselves known. They called themselves the Skulls of Orcus and everywhere they went was followed with chaos, destruction, and death. Many of the smaller towns who had little protection was completely destroyed. King Strahd began to amass an army from every capable body he could summon. The most horrible of wars between the king and the necromancers ensued. Soldiers often found themselves fighting their fallen friends and family as the necromancers raised body after body. A few even went insane from the emotional strain of it. The war lasted five years and thousands lost their lives, including King Strahd. King Linold took the throne after his father’s death and continued to fight in the war with renewed vengeance. The enemy found themselves suddenly on the defence and where they had been winning the war, they now were losing. A few short months after King Linolds assention, the Skulls of Orcus suddenly disappeared. No one knows what happened to them or if they are even still out in the world. King Linold vowed that never again would his people have to face the horrors seen within that war and as a measure to protect his people he made sure that every town, no matter how small, had a set of his own highly trained guards. The kingdom now seems to be in one of the most prosperous times it has ever known and King Linold is most loved by his people. It is known that he will spare no expense to keep them safe.
The town of Cornettica was founded by the Northrums. The Northrums were an influential family in the grand city of Wellborn and well liked by the royal family. They were miners by trade and were credited for inventing better, safer ways to mine. In the early years of King Tribus’ reign (great grandfather to King Linold), Marius Northrum came to this land to survey. Upon discovering within the earth there lay valuable resources, he petitioned the king permission to mine the area. The king happily gave the land to Marius and his family and even helped to fund the building of the town. Cornettica prospered from the mining of precious rocks and minerals for decades with the Northrum family in the lead. When King Strahd made his call to arms in the war against the Skulls of Orcus, Wes Northrum happily answered the call with his only child Stanley. Both perished in the war and without their knowledge or leadership, the mines fell into disrepair and was soon completely left abandoned. Luckily, Marius had had a mind for business and had built the town in an advantageous location for trade. He had known that the mines alone wouldn’t keep his town thriving forever. Trade between Wellborn and the much smaller outlying towns is what keeps Cornettica prosperous now. Not to mention the waves of strange adventurers.
When you research about the medallion, the closest thing you can find to it is the symbol dedicated to a cult of Necromancers called The Skulls of Orcus. The only thing is there is a slight difference between what the Skulls used and what’s on the medallion. Both depict a skull sitting on top of a staff, but the medallion has the image of an open eye within the background.
Information you find on the Skulls:
The Skulls of Orcus is a necromancer cult that has been know to cause a lot of trouble within the world. Many of the deadliest wars in the past are thought to have been influenced by them; but only one has seen them fight out in the open and on the front lines: the Necromantic War. The Skulls seem to have disappeared since the end of that war ten years ago. There have been no sightings or mention of the Skulls of Orcus for the last ten years and it is thought that they may have been killed by a rival cult or by some unknown heroes.
The Skulls of Orcus worshiped the God, Orcus. Their primary goal was to reap chaos and destruction anywhere they can. They often sacrificed the souls of their victims to Orcus, believing that the more they fed him, the stronger he would be should they ever need to summon his aid. The members of the Skulls all wore plain black robes. The only indication that they were members of this cult were the pendants they all wore, which depicted a skull sitting on top of a staff.