Rainoga

Once the centerpiece of whispered fascination and dread, Mandorcai’s Mansion looms like a rotting tooth in the otherwise genteel smile of Bloomridge. The estate’s sudden appearance decades ago defied reason, arriving fully formed and staffed with silent, pale-eyed attendants who refused all but their master's command. For a time, it dazzled with decadent galas attended by Bloomridge’s finest, hosted by the somber wizard Mandorcai—his presence as unsettling as it was enigmatic. But just as swiftly as it had emerged, the mansion sealed its doors, its owner vanishing without a trace. Then came the black pentagonal invitations. Those who entered never returned. The Flaming Fist investigation ended in blood and madness, and now the building stands boarded and silent, avoided even by the desperate. The Council has long since abandoned attempts to reclaim or destroy it, and tales of its hunger have become part of the city’s darker folklore.

Mandorcai’s Mansion crouches like a wounded predator behind a rusted wrought-iron fence, its dark gables and sharp angles at odds with the elegant Bloomridge townhomes around it. The building is unnaturally tall, its windows thin and cathedral-like, their panes cloudy as if weeping smoke. Ivy climbs the façade, not green but ashen, its leaves papery and brittle, whispering in windless air. The grounds are choked with dry, yellow grass that never grows nor dies, and the heavy front doors bear ancient sigils faintly visible beneath the boards hammered over them. A constant shadow seems to cling to the structure, unaffected by sun or moonlight. The air nearby is colder, subtly pressing in on the skin, and the scent of mildew, iron, and extinguished candles lingers always, no matter the season. Even when no one is watching, the house appears to watch back.