The Great Room - Heart of Ben Bison

You enter a high-roofed hall, hewn from the living stone, its midnight-blue barrel-vaulted ceiling spangled with softly shining silver stars. Columns carved to resemble living trees march the length of the chamber, screening aisles to the north and south. Among the branches supporting the vault of the roof are hung cunning crystal fruits of many jewel-like colors which light the entire hall with a soft, shimmering radiance as they glow in response to the balefire's blaze.

The main part of the room is clear and open, its floor is entirely covered by a rich green carpet as soft as moss. The aisles to either side are appointed with comfortable chairs and low tables arranged in informal conversational groupings. A cabinet in the south aisle contains a well-stocked bar. Books, games, and bowls of fruit, fresh bread and cheese are set out on the tables. At the far end of the room, a few shallow steps lead up to a low-ceilinged inglenook, where deep oak settles flank the freehold's balefire burning in many colors in a deep, broad, baronial hearth. To either side of the nook, passages lead deeper into the hold. Their curtained recesses seem forbidding to those who would proceed further without an invitation.

Tapestries line the long walls with scenes of a woodland hunt. The huntsmen are kithain, their quarry a milk-white stag with branching antlers. As you look away and then look back, it seems that events have unfolded in the mean time. The stag has taken cover in a thicket, the master of hounds has lamed his horse and given up the chase.

A bright banner hangs above the arch of the nook, showing the blazonry of House Fiona beside the device of the Barony of Ben Bison: Azure, a mountain Argent from which issues a river Azure and Vert (a silver mountain on a blue field, from which a blue and green river flows).

As you step into the room, a lop-eared pooka in Fiona livery bows in welcome, offering what you take to be a compliment before grinning and darting off down a side passage. In spite of this odd greeting, you relax with the thought that you are both safe and welcome here, under the terms of the Escheat.

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