Danse Macabre Scenario 1-Explanations
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What Happened ?[edit]
Place : (fictional Benedictine abbey) Saint Laurence of Valfranc in the French Alps
Date : January 1346
Forbidden Books[edit]
The abbey is dedicated to Saint Laurence, holy patron of librarians. The purpose of this abbey is to preserve knowledge.
The Abbot Alberic von Brecht was a friend of pope Benedict XII (now deceased) in his youth and as such have obtained the right to keep and preserver any books, even the ones prohibited by the church.
Nobles from all Christendom would pay fortunes to secretly store their prohibited books there, especially any books that would indicate them as former heretics (books about Catharism or the Templar Orders) and condemn them to prosecutions.
Those books are stored and maintained, but nobody except the abbot has the right to read them.
Descent into Madness[edit]
Father Arnaud Capiton, the prior of the abbey (second in command in the abbey) is the chief book binder. As such he is in charge of restoring the forbidden books but has no right to read them.
In 1345, a wealthy merchant called Eugene Clavicule travelled to the abbey and deposited several highly heretical books.
Father Arnaud secretly bypassed the rule and read them, it broke his faith and he descended into madness.
He then sent secret letters to the merchant and together they plotted a mass murder in the abbey.
Arnaud's Plan[edit]
Their plan was to lace all candles with a breathing poison that would render all monks mad and they would gradually die. Eugene Clavicule is in fact a merchant of poisons, hence his ability to help Arnaud in this endeavour.
Poisoning started in early 1346 and after six month of exposure lots of monks committed suicide and madness started spreading, leading the abbot to suspect a poison in the food or water.
To divert the attention away from poisons, Arnaud decided to make murders look like the work of Satan.
He took a monk that he disliked, poisoned him, then removed his face and put a book instead. (To make it appear as if his face had been eaten by a book)
