Crail Estate

Everywhere else in the Fold, wealth is measured in stacked floors and shared walls. Here it is measured in empty grass.

Overview

The Crail Estate is a four-storey manor in a wealthy residential district of the Fold, nearer the innermost wall than to Meranthas. It is the home of Lord Oswin Crail and the site of the party's heist for the artifact that opens the sealed lower level of Calthar.

It is recognizable on sight without an address, because it has room. In a district where every building shares walls and hoards square footage, the Crail house sits alone on an island of green grass behind a tall iron fence, set back from its neighbours. Private space is the one luxury that cannot be faked in the Fold.

Exterior

Front gate — Flanked by two private guards. Not vigilant; a comfortable posting.
Front door — Reached through the gate.
Service entrance — On the side, used by kitchen staff hauling boxes. Locked by the cook when he leaves for the night around 7 p.m.
Cellar doors — Sunk into the rear courtyard. Heavy, reinforced, double doors barred from the outside with an iron padlock. The party's eventual point of entry.
The fence — Tall wrought iron with pointed tips. Loud when climbed badly.

No derelict or abandoned buildings stand nearby — this district does not permit ruins, leaving no natural vantage for surveillance.

Interior (mapped in Session 05)

Cellar — A wine cellar. Tall wooden racks, bottles, produce, kitchen stores. No traps. One staircase up.
Kitchen — Directly above the cellar. Dormant and dark at night, ranges cold, surfaces scrubbed.
Servants' passage and quarters — Off the kitchen, running toward the front of the house.
Dining room — North of the kitchen.
Parlor — South. Expensive sofas, a rug, a hearth burned down to embers, crystal decanters of liquor. Marked by the party as loot for the way out, to disguise the job as an ordinary burglary.
Entry hall — Parquet floor, console table, and a grand staircase climbing the left wall to the second floor.
Trophy room — Second floor, west/left side of the front facade. Glass display cases visible in silhouette through a window a servant opened for the evening cool and left open. The party's objective.

Second Floor (mapped in Session 06)

Landing and hallway — A long runner rug down a corridor of doors, several with lamplight behind them. At the far left end, a closed door with light flickering underneath — the trophy room.
Guest bedroom — Front-facing, open door, lamps lit. A maid in a plain dark dress, hair tied back tight, making up the bed with her back to the corridor. She never saw the party.
Library-den — Across the hall, unlit. Walls of books, a dry bar, a cold hearth, couches arranged around a fire nobody lit, a small writing desk, and a blanket trunk. The only portrait in the room is Lord Crail himself in his finest clothes — no family, no pets, no children. The first guard died here and was folded into the trunk.
Stairs to a third floor — Visible from the landing. Unused; the house has four storeys and the party has seen two.

The Trophy Room

Far larger than the street silhouette suggested — a two-level gallery with a catwalk and rolling bookshelves, not a single room of cabinets.

The artifact — The Crail Artifact, taken.
The raid case — A display case of household trinkets taken during Inquisition night raids, each mounted beside a plaque giving its owner's name and age. Among them the effects of Ilivarra, Phaerun, and Zibrisa. The party smashed the glass.
The shelves — Scrolls and tomes documenting Civilian Relocation Operations, carried out by Rookk. Jorath judged the real operational records are kept elsewhere in the house, likely an office the party never found.
The second guard died on the catwalk stairs. That blood was never cleaned up.

Security

Two private security guards at the gate — plain clothes uniformed only to the house, no garrison or Inquisition sigils. Both carry pocket watches; one wears an ornate jewelled pinky ring, the other smells of tobacco.
Guards walk the perimeter at irregular intervals by day, tightening to roughly every 20 minutes after dark.
Guards rotate inside at the top of the hour — a movement invisible from the street, and the one that caught the party on the staircase.
Street patrolmen pass roughly hourly and exchange friendly nods with the gate guards. Any alarm here summons city guards who know the men inside personally.
Household staff are active throughout the house at night, lighting lamps and preparing rooms for the lord's return.

Sessions Set Here

Session 05 — The party cased the estate for fifteen hours, entered over the fence and through the cellar padlock, and was detected on the staircase at the top of the hour. Heist ongoing.
Session 06 — Both private guards killed on the second floor, the trophy room reached, the artifact taken, and the raid case smashed. Lord Crail came home.

Role in Session 07

(Off the recording, per the GM's recap.) Lord Crail came up to the collection room with guards and was killed there along with everyone who fought. He fired a fire bolt out of the window during the fight, and crowds gathered at the gates and in the street.
The party took a bundle of papers from a desk, left through the way they had entered, went over the fence, and escaped through the alleys.

Status

A murder scene. Lord Crail lies beheaded and disemboweled in his collection room with his guards dead around him. The artifact is gone. The fire bolt through the window drew a crowd before the party got away.

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