L'Oriflamme de Brume

A flat, featureless plain some hours west of Vauclerc, drowned in a thin and restless mist that never lifts. People walk in and, now and then, do not walk out; and all who cross it feel watched. Most would sooner take the long roads around than the haunted way through.

At its heart stands the Oriflamme itself — a ragged cloak run through by a spear, planted in the empty field. The cloak is the body of Ragsmuena, a mist-nymph; and because fog wanders where other nymphs cannot, she hears half the country’s secrets, which she trades to passing adventurers as rumours of desperate beauties awaiting rescue and old treasures ripe for the taking. She tells it well. She is also entirely malicious, and enjoys nothing so much as watching some brave fool take her up on it and die.