The creature that once called herself Lucretia was born to a small but noble family in the south of Stirland. Her mother died during childbirth, and she was a sickly child. As the summers passed and the girl grew older, her childhood illnesses faded and it became apparent that she would grow into a beautiful young woman.
Lucretia’s father, Lord Leoline, held her dear to his heart throughout her young life. Although he was poor, he hired a private tutor for her, and she learned how to fill her mother’s footsteps. As she grew, she learned to help manage the household, keeping record of their dwindling accounts and trying in vain to balance their business transactions. She kept watch over the household servants, and by the time she was sixteen, she had a deep understanding of the inner workings of her family’s home and noble standing.
Nonetheless, the Leoline Family holdings were shrinking substantially. As Lucretia aged, and as she grew more and more beautiful every day, her father saw the opportunity to marry her to a wealthier family and perhaps secure an agreement. Lucretia reluctantly agreed, not wishing to disappoint her father or drive her family name to ruin. Banquets and balls were held in which dozens of wealthy and very handsome suitors were brought before Lucretia to marry.
Although each of the men was immediately captivated by Lucretia’s beauty, they were no match for her wit or her stubbornness. Many blamed Lord Leoline for allowing her so many freedoms during her youth. Worse, rumors that she was a witch, and enchantress, or a sorcerer abounded. Many of these rumors were dismissed as the results foolish rustic nobles meeting a woman of unsurpassed intelligence. Nonetheless, there were unexplainable oddities within Lucretia’s household, such as doors which opened and closed upon her approach, and a tendency for fire sconces to go out as she passed.
The constant parade of suitors continued unabated until a carriage arrived bearing a new kind of guest. The young girl who exited the carriage was far too beautiful to be just a serving girl, but that’s all she was. Camilla had been sent from an equally poor Stirland family to work in the kitchen and to clean clothing. Lord Leoline had bought her services at an exorbitant price, just to spare her family from ruin. He gave Camilla the best of servant’s quarters and the lightest of workloads, and was happy that there was at last a girl of Lucretia’s age to show her how to be more ladylike.
Camilla and Lucretia became fast friends, and very close. In return for her company, Lucretia taught the new arrival to read and write- skills that she seemed to pick up at an unheard of rate- and also arithmetic and the other skills which Lucretia had learned under her father’s eye. The two girls went on frequent rides through the countryside, and Camilla was always entertaining her master’s daughter with stories of lands beyond. Of course, neither girl could have ever possibly been to such exotic places, but the detail that Camilla poured into each story kept Lucretia riveted.
The only blemish on the whole of their relationship was Lucretia’s dreaming. Every night, after Camilla retired to her private quarters, Lucretia would have the most disturbing of dreams. Sometimes she had nightmares of dire beasts entering her chambers and biting her on the neck and chest, draining her blood and leaving her weak and exhausted in the morning. On other nights, the beasts were replaced with sweet and beautiful Camilla, who would hold Lucretia in her arms, and comfort her as she- like the beasts- fed upon Lucretia’s crimson blood.
When Lucretia confided her dreams in her father, he immediately banished Camilla from the family castle. Leoline put the girl aboard a coach and sent her back to her family. Although he was poor, he made no request that the substantial fee he had paid to her family be returned to him. He only wanted Lucretia to be well. To his dismay, his daughter was grief stricken to see her only friend and confidant leaving her in this way. Lucretia’s father had to order his guards to confine the hysterical girl to her chambers for the next several weeks.
Two days later, the carriage bearing Camilla did not return. Lord Leoline was a noble man, and although he had banished her from his household, he wanted to be sure that the young maiden had returned home safely. He dispatched two riders to follow the trail of the carriage and return with news of the girl’s health.
It was another four days before the riders returned. Lucretia had fallen ill since Camilla’s absence, and was still recovering in her chambers. The news that the riders brought was quite upsetting. On the second day of their journey, they had found the carriage. It was overturned on a nigh forgotten by-way. The horses’ throats had been slashed as though by an animal, and the carriage man was torn apart in a gory spectacle. Of Camilla, there was no sign. The riders decided to carry on to the girl’s home, to see if by some miracle she had survived the brutal attack, or to carry news of her fate to her parents. They arrived at Camilla’s family estate to discover an eerie scene. The castle lay in ruin and decay, overgrown with vines and ancient trees as though it had been abandoned for a hundred years or more.
When the news of Camilla’s fate reached the already unstable Lucretia, the girl was thrown into turmoil. In a fit of madness, she escaped from her quarters through a third story window, landing on the ground as deftly as a cat and disappearing into the night. Horrified, Lord Leoline dispatched his guards to find the young girl and return her home before she came to any harm. The men set off on the next morning, following the tracks of the young girl, hot on her heels.
They followed her trail to the edges of Hel Fen, a forbidding tract of swampland that was said to be the abode of all manner of evil things. The men returned sorrowfully to Lord Leoline, to bear the news that his daughter- clearly distraught with Camilla’s demise- had obviously committed herself to the swamps to die. Grief stricken, Leoline himself fell ill and died several months later when his heart simply stopped beating. With no heir to the estate, the Leoline name passed into the mists of time, forgotten.
That was one hundred and thirty years ago. In the time since, the swampland of Hel Fen has become overrun with all manner of dead things, who sleep uneasily in the peat bogs of the marshes. Just short years after Leoline’s demise, Knights began to enter the bog in search of signs of the fair lady Lucretia, who may have escaped death and ventured through the bog. Any who could find her and win her heart would be able to claim the Leioline estate. The fair lady was never found, and many of the Knights who rode into the darkness of the swamps were never seen again.
To further add to the mystery, there are stories from the peasants of Stirland that a pale lady matching Lucretia’s appearance still travels the countryside, hand in hand with a woman who could only be her beloved Camilla. Now, the quest for Lucretia has taken a darker turn. Evil magic is said to be afoot, that one so fair could walk the lands for a hundred years without the blemish of age.
Now knights seek out her lair in the swamps to run her down. With each attempt, more knights disappear into the slow mire of the bogs. Those who survive bring back outlandish tales of beautiful maidens living in a manor of pale ivory, or of darkly clad knights who turn them away from the deepest parts of the swamps- deathless men with beastial ways and prodigious strength. Whatever truth these tales might hold, Lucretia and Camilla have become staples of Stirland folklore. The beautiful maidens who wander the wild places of that untamed land, and the parade of restless dead and captivated suitors who follow behind them.