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The Bereny Bugle
‘Blowing our horn for the People of Bereny’

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PLASMAISE THREAT LOOMS

IN WINTERWARD

Dateline: 14-04-519

The Bereny Bugle can report that the plasmaise menace released from the Castle of Count Kainen is getting dangerously close to the kingdom’s populated areas.

The danger from these undead creatures was recently brought to the Kingdom’s attention by Lady Faile, the Lord Crusader of Shanna, but at the time it was believed that the danger was only in the immediate vicinity of Castle Kainen itself, on the eastern borderlands of the Kingdom. However a Bugle reporter in the village of Evangeline, just to the north-east of the city of Wintred, and well to the east of Castle Kainen, can reveal that there are plasmaise just outside the village borders.

The Bugle has learnt some more about the nature of these creatures. They are the creation, not of Kainen himself, but of the vampire-like Brood that inherited his castle (and who massacred an expedition from the Dei Vigilare a couple of years ago). The plasmaise are a hybrid of the vampiric and the living, and thus unaffected by the limitations of vampires, and were created for the specific task of helping to conquer the world. They were stored in a magically sealed vault beneath the castle, ready for animation. Now, although their masters are reported destroyed, it would seem that their time has come and they have been released.

There are rumours that any human - possibly any creature - killed by the bite of a plasmaise will itself become one. If this worrying rumour is true, there is grave danger to the Kingdom if the creatures reach a major population centre.

Lady Faile and her crusaders are believed to be pursuing other plasmaise to the north of Castle Kainen. “So far my scouts have only seen them in the area of Kainen Keep,” she told us, “although there is a direct road link from there to the Wintred road.”

Fortunately Evangeline is hardly a major population centre. It was once part is a busy estate, but as trade and business moved elsewhere in the economic downturn, the estate fell into decline and was dissolved. Evangeline remains, but is a shadow of its former self, its shops mostly boarded up, and its roads dusty and unwelcoming. Its population is now little more than three dozen.

Other nearby population centres may also be at risk however, as the two plasmaise seen by our reporter at Evangeline may be part of a wave of the creatures spreading out from Castle Kainen. Just to the north is the estate of Castle Stormgarde, which is administered by Dame Bethanica M'Grue on behalf of her father Baron Tycho M’Grue, whose duties as Governor of White Tower Island keep him in the Underworld. Here the threat from the plasmaise is being taken seriously and preparations to defend the estate are being made.

“Castle Stormgarde always remains at the ready for any threat that appears, and the plasmaise will be no different,” Dame Bethanica told the Bugle. “I am aware of their general direction and have made wagons available to the people living here should we need to send them away until the threat is dealt with. I have also recently hired an architect to help beef up the defences, and anyone who has recently visited the estate can attest to the amount of militia we have at the ready.”

Dame Bethanica is however making no plans to retreat from the estate herself. “I believe Lady Faile to be correct about the seriousness of the matter, so I will not take chances with the populace of the estate, but I cannot simply abandon my post without gauging the enemy myself.“