<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>The Scarlet Moon</strong></span><br/><em>A gothic horror Pathfinder adventure</em><br/><br/><hr/><br/><div class="floatright">(http://static.zerochan.net/Scarlet.Devil.Mansion.full.1189284.jpg)</div>The city of Urgasburg lies nestled high in the eastern mountains, keeping to itself and wary of outsiders. Originally founded by a cult of Urgathoa seeking a hidden home where they could worship their Pallid Princess without fear of being exposed and hunted down, the settlement soon attracted necromancers and sentient undead who yearned for civilization without persecution or prejudice and found acceptance in the embrace of the goddess, giving Urgasburg the unofficial moniker of The Undead Sanctuary. Joined by a population of exiles and asylum-seekers, some vagrant and some permanent, the living and the undead co-existed. What began as a humble hamlet grew into a small city cramped into the limited space afforded by the mountains, new floors haphazardly built on top of former roofs, buildings clawing for space above while shadowing the narrow alleys below.<br/><br/><strong>The Silver Truce</strong><br/><br/>The Silver Truce of Urgasburg, dating back to the founding of the city and rumored to have been originally decreed by Urgathoa herself, is the foundation upon which living-undead coexistence is built. During the day, or more precisely from moonset to moonrise, a truce is in effect and the undead shall not harm the living, and vice versa. But from moonrise to moonset, all on the streets are fair prey, whether flesh and blood to sate undead appetites or trophies-to-be for hunters of the undead. In those dark hours sanctuary can be found in the safety of one's home; in a mirroring of the customs of hospitality, it is forbidden to enter an abode without an invitation from its owner, nor is it allowed to harm or charm such an owner from the outside.<br/><br/>Within the boundaries of the city the negative energies cause mindless undead to comply with the Silver Truce, while sentient undead, like the living, retain what free will they already possess. Those who violate the Silver Truce soon find themselves on the receiving end of Urgathoa's wrath, as delivered by her loyal enforcers at the cutting edge of a silver scythe. The Silver Truce dictates the rhythms of daily life / unlife in Urgasburg; the majority of residents make sure to return home and lock their doors before the moonrise. They refuse to let anyone in until moonset, not even friends or family trapped outside in the streets; those too weak-hearted to resist have long been consumed by one shapeshifting predator or another. As a result, the residents of Urgasburg are a distrustful lot, wary of their neighbours and even more unaccepting of strangers from outside the city.<br/><br/><strong>The Scarlet Moon</strong><br/><br/>Eternal night has fallen upon Urgasburg. The moon hangs low, unmoving, its hue the eerie blood red of a lunar eclipse. Without the sun's warmth, temperatures have dropped and the city is caught in the throes of winter. No one, not even the Clocktower, knows why, save perhaps Urgathoa herself, but she has been silent ever since it began even to the highest ranks of her worshippers.<br/><br/>The first few weeks were chaotic, but a semblance of order has returned with the Clocktower bells ringing out the moonrise and moonset hours of the Silver Truce as they are supposed to occur. For the most part the clergy of Urgathoa has managed to enforce the Silver Truce by the bell tolls allowing citizens to carry on with their daily lives while a solution to the scarlet moon was being sought. Crops have failed in the cold and dark but the House of Feasting provides rations of a mysterious meat for the citizens. However, the fragile existence is being threatened, for traditionalist dissidents, who recognized only the not-yet-set moon and therefore viewed the streets as their rightful hunting grounds unlawfully denied them, are increasingly challenging the majority view and attacking citizens on the streets even during the supposed truce times. They point to Urgathoa's silence as evidence of her disapproval of the way the Silver Truce is being carried on in direct violation of the unsetting moon.<br/><br/><hr/><br/><strong>Notable Factions and Places of Urgasburg</strong><br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">The Three Houses of Urgathoa</span><br/><br/>Urgathoa is the goddess of excess, disease and undead; the three Houses are conclaves dedicated to their particular aspect of the goddesss, as well as actual buildings housing each House.<br/><br/>House of Feasting: Some of the people most hospitable and most accepting of outsiders, the House of Feasting also provides rooms at a reasonable charge for visitors to the city without their own abode. They worship Urgathoa by eating, drinking and fucking to excess, sometimes all at the same time, and freely invite others to join them in their decadent rituals. The magnificence, opulence, and perversity of their feasts-turned-orgies rival what an emperor and his harem can host. During the Scarlet Moon, they have somehow managed to produce rations of a mysterious meat for the citizens, giving them out for free as an act of charity.<br/><br/>House of Healing: The doctors and natural philosophers who venerate Urgathoa as the mistress of disease seek to reproduce her mastery over sickness. In doing so they have learned both how to cause and how to treat almost every known illness, and then some as yet unknown. Sometimes a desperate soul arrives at the House of Healing in the hopes of finding a cure. Sometimes they even do.<br/><br/>House of Unliving: There are those who see undeath as another form of life. The most secretive House, what happens behind their doors is a mystery to the uninitiated, and the initiated are few, far between, and carefully vetted.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Clocktower</span><br/><br/>The Clocktower is an offshoot of the House of Healing that turned to topics other than disease and thus began to dabble in secular research. It attracted brilliant yet disturbed minds who delved into questionable topics that they couldn't elsewhere without risk of ending up on the wrong end of a peasant mob or burnt at the stake. The members of the Clocktower, many of whom were practitioners of the arcane arts, raised up the eponymous Clocktower that gave them their name. It became one of Urgasburg's landmarks and could be seen from almost anywhere in the city, but was protected by enchantments that prevented its entrance from being found by nonmembers.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Peacekeepers of the Silver Truce</span><br/><br/>A militant branch of Urgathoa's worshippers who enforce the Silver Truce and fill the role of Urgasburg's police. Their signature weapon is the silver, sometimes mithral for high-ranking members, scythe that they carry both as a symbol of office and a as deadly effective tool. Once they only had to content with the occasional fool who disregarded the Silver Truce, but with the Scarlet Moon they have been pressured by both opportunistic truce-breakers and traditionalist dissidents deliberately working against them.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Order of the Pale Dawn</span><br/><br/>A sect, some would say a heretical sect, of Sarenrae devoted to protecting the living from the undead from moonrise to moonset, the hunting hours under the Silver Truce. Like mainstream worshippers of the Dawnflower they revere the dawn, but the dawn of the moon instead of the sun. Their founder reportedly came from the lands of the far East and they have adopted a Far Eastern aesthetic ever since. They run a shelter in the middle of living-populated Urgasburg which is essentially a fortified courtyard with defenses overlooking both inside and outside. Perhaps the only place in the city that would accept people in at night, it is a refuge for those unfortunates who find themselves locked out in the streets after moonrise and still wish to make it to the morning alive.