The player characters have gotten into the group for a large-scale item hunt organized by Old King Althun. It was a great item hunt, filled with great dangers (there was even a dragon!) and backstabbing from rival groups. Tensions were high and a few people even died, but in the end your group was victorious. Your price? A castle and land! You're basically a baron at this point. Play your cards right and you make become a Duke! Or even King! Your dreams are, no doubt, fulfilled.
On the carriage ride to the castle, the coachman tells you the history of the castle. Originally, there were a bunch of inns upon a well-travelled trade route. As the innkeepers grew richer, so were more buildings enacted to better supply themselves. Instead of a few animals for each inn and purchasing grain as merchants came and went, it would be far better to build the the farms! After all, there was plenty of open land. The old King, Althun the first, this king is Althun the 2nd, enacted a castle into the mountain side as a way to watch over the trading route and make sure they were paying their taxes.
As the group gets to the entrance of the town, they find it pretty much abandoned. Nature has started to overtake the walls, the gate door has been knocked over, just about everything looks to be in disrepair. Worst still, there looks to be no inhabitants except for monsters. It's going to be a real fixer-uper. The coachman tells the group to have fun and it's far too dangerous for him to get any closer, so he's turning around and going back home.
