DISCLAIMER: Codex Venator is one shared campaign for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, created by Andrea Lucca, Alex Melluso and Enrico Romeo. The setting deals with issues such as racism; misogyny; explicit violence; religious extremism; experiments on living creatures; power abuse; limitations on personal freedom and occultism. This is not a setting with light themes and, for this reason, it is good that the reading is reserved for an adult audience.
In no case do the authors of these stories, of the adventures of Codex Venator or of other material derived from it intend to support or justify illegal behavior that is detrimental to the dignity of people.
The Ordo Fabularis thanks Magister Sermonis Alice Gritti for correcting the texts and collaborating in the drafting of the story.
Disclaimer: These are the tales of the Bologna hunts. There is a risk of spoilers for those who have not yet played the first season of Codex Venator.
I feel the need to write these words in the (albeit in vain) attempt to alleviate the terror that grips my mind, and to better fix in my memory the events that saw me and my travel companions protagonists of events that I never thought I could live in person.
Although it is true that in times so sick and difficult it is not strange to hear of things much more terrifying and incomprehensible, I would never have imagined becoming the involuntary protagonist of such macabre stories and witness of such a massacre.
If anyone ever finds these documents, know that the hand that trembles writes these notes, others is none other than Fra 'Venazio. I was sent by Father Romeo and by the Dogma, to carry out my apprenticeship in the City of Bologna, as is customary for new followers who want to take the dogmatic path.
I hope that the words that are running unhindered in my mind will be inextricably linked to reality through this writing of mine, so that they will live in imperishable memory in the mind and memories of anyone who will be able to find them.
Knowing about the dangers outside the walls of the eternal Roman city, as is customary, for some time before leaving we tried to find a sufficient number of men and hunters heading towards the Emilian lands, to join forces and make everyone's trip safer.
Even the carriage, reinforced with heavy iron bars (so heavy as to require the use of eight horses for its towing), could not get me off that oppressive feeling of tension. A perennial and whispered tension, slowly dripped by the fog that has perennially surrounded the expedition during the whole journey undertaken. Sometimes a light coat that seemed to accompany the creaking of the wheels towards an infinite limbo of darkness and black warmth, sometimes impassable wall, such as to seem impossible to cross.
Not even the presence of the Roman hunters, absolutely necessary and at least obligatory for such a perilous journey, could not ease the pain of a journey that has now become interminable.
Only at the end of the third day of travel did something happen that I will never be able to erase from my memory, so much so as to wish now that I had never received the gift of sight. While I was intent on distracting my tired and worn-out mind from the agitation, a first violent blow caused the heavy carriage to slide, slamming my tired limbs towards the opposite side of it. Before I could fully recover from that sudden jolt, a second blow, much more violent, accompanied by the shouts of the men and the clearly suffering verses of the horses before it, made it completely overturn on one side, and me with it.
I don't know what happened in the meantime, but when I managed to reopen my aching eyes, a horrible vision appeared before me, corrupted by the perversion of evil and daughter of the Extraordinary Reality. Never would I have imagined that I was faced with such a blasphemous existence, such as to make me wish I had never embarked on such a path.
While I was lying on the ground, covered up to the shoulders by dirt and slush and with my face turned towards the sky, in front of me perched on my torso a small being, outside the grace of the Unnamed, stared at me with his empty eyes, in what could barely be called a face. Covered in mud or made of it, I can't say for sure, the creature gave off a smell of rotten and wet earth, which permeated my nostrils, while approaching what I suppose to be its mouth to my face.
That it was the will of the Unnamed, that it was the last spark of hope that exploded in my last moments, I do not know with what force I was able to throw that hideous creature against what remained of the carriage now torn up revealing the impact, under that cloak of mud and rotten flesh, a small, completely human skull.
Horrified by that scene, dazed and exhausted, I felt the presence of the Unnamed who, through his will, gave me the strength to be able to react and flee.
Around me, the horror on Earth. The mutilated Hunters' bodies hung along the sides of the road, like a macabre ornament to celebrate my escape. Under those dripping bodies, dozens of creatures equal to the one that attacked me just before, stared at me, or rather, stared at them, like faithful devotees who silently take part in a macabre procession.
And when my body no longer responded to my mind, the latter was captured by what seemed to all intents and purposes a mephistophelic laugh, coming from one side of the road.
I don't know how long I ran.
I don't know how long I prayed.
I only know that when my hope was about to go out like the last of the votive candles, I saw a light, brighter with every step, light up before my sight. Huge towers soared in the dark, raising their fiery arms to the sky, illuminating the walls and roofs of the great imposing city that rose beyond the door in front of me. Bologna stood out in front of me, merciful and devoted.
With the latest efforts I asked for help, and from there I only remember the days spent in what the locals call the Hospital of Death, and the loving and conscientious care of Magister Galvani, a doctor and curator at it.
Even though several days have passed since that terrible event, I still can't forget the horrible emptiness of the pupils of those beings and that laughter. That high-pitched, shrill and angry laugh, which still accompanies me, clutching my heart in a cold and rigid grip, in my deepest nightmares.
Friar Venazio Cimisella
