The Fall of House Vexmoor

A tale as told in the Moonstone Mask of Neverwinter.

The bard was not fooling anyone. Six feet tall, with pale-blond hair spilling in careless waves to his shoulders, he was dressed in a confection of green silk and enough jewelry to ransom a minor barony. Even in a den as notorious as the Moonstone Mask, where pirates rubbed shoulders with masked nobles, the sight of Danilo Thann ‘under cover’ was laughably obvious.

He leaned across a polished table as if it were a stage, cup in hand, gray eyes twinkling with the sort of mischief that only came from someone who’d been thrown out of better places. A tray passed with Selgaunt brandy and smoked Neveren trout, the air thick with perfume and pipeweed. His voice dropped low enough to make the drunks hush, though a knowing smirk played at his lips. 

“Once,” he began, “there was a house of velvet and silver. A house that shone under Selûne’s gaze, proud as a peacock strutting in moonlight. Vexmoor, the name was. You’ve heard it whispered. You’ve seen the seal pressed into old wax—a wolf’s head, jaws closed tight.”

He let the pause hang just long enough for someone to cough.

“But the thing about houses of velvet and silver,” he went on, “is that velvet frays. Silver tarnishes. And sooner or later, someone tracks mud across the carpet.”

A ripple of laughter from a half-orc sailor at the bar. Danilo raised his cup in a mock salute and drank to it.

“They say it began with Lady Calistra. Beautiful, devout, too kind for politics. Found drowned in her own bath at the Neverwinter estate. The bathwater was calm as Selûne’s face that night—too calm, some said. Darius, her lord and loving husband, spent gold enough to pave the High Road hunting the truth. He reached out to the priestesses of the Dancing Moon, petitioned the Silverstars with offerings fit for a temple treasury, hired priests, wizards, even spies. Came up with nothing but echoes. No poison. No blade. No foul play. Only water.”

Danilo’s voice dipped softer, theatrical, the flair of a Harper’s spellsong brushing his words.

“And when they begged her to return—when clerics bent their knees and offered her breath again—she refused. Said she would wait for Darius under the moon, as Selûne intended. Imagine that. A husband with coin spilling from his hands, and all she wanted was his soul beside hers in the after.”

He smiled without humor, sharp as a knife.

“Servants scrubbed that marble tub for weeks, but whispers lingered in the stone.”

The Daughter of Shadow

Danilo swirled his wine, letting the tale rest just long enough for the audience to lean in. A dwarf miner muttered into his beard; a tiefling courtesan adjusted her veil. And near the back, half in shadow, an elf sat too still, his eyes reflecting the lamplight like chips of starlight—too bright, too knowing for mortal gaze.

Danilo’s eyes swept the room, and when they crossed the elf, he paused—as though recognizing something that made even a Harper’s son wary.

“But grief breeds shadows, doesn’t it?” Danilo said lightly, tapping the rim of his cup once, twice, like a heartbeat. “And shadows have a way of sticking.”

“Not long after Lady Calistra chose the Gates of the Moon, Selûne’s silver domain—yes, my friends, she refused resurrection, refused to return from the arms of Selûne herself—their daughter Vaerra faltered. Not the kind of faltering a priest can poultice away, nor the kind that coin can buy off. This was a curse. A shadow curse. First, her laughter came with an echo not her own. Then her reflection moved half a breath behind her. And then the young woman herself began to blur at the edges, as though she were smoke lit by moonlight.”

He sighed, theatrically but with a note of real sorrow.

“The experts were called. All of them. Oracles, hedge-witches, even one of the Avowed of Candlekeep, who once stared at the Weave until it blinked first. And every last one said the same: once she is gone, she will not remain. She will wander the Shadowfell, lost to Selûne, lost to her family, lost to everything.”

He paused to sip his wine, though his eyes flicked again to the quiet elf at the back, as though expecting him to interject.

“And Darius—her lord and loving father—he would not have it. Not his daughter. Not another. They say he would have burned down half the Sword Coast and salted the ashes if it meant keeping her hand in his.”

Danilo’s smile returned, a flash of mischief sharpened to a knife’s edge.

“Instead, he dug down. Down into Leilon’s earth. Down into the old mines, where the stones beat like hearts and shone with the light of dreams. Feystones, they’re called. You’ve seen them, glittering in trinkets or charms. But those are scraps, crumbs. The true stones—the ones House Vexmoor held by ancient right—those are fuel for miracles. Or damnation. Sometimes both.”

The Pact Remembered

“See, House Vexmoor wasn’t merely wealthy. They were chosen. Long ago—when most of us were still arguing over mud huts and fire pits—their bloodline struck a bargain with the Seelie Court. Some call its moonlit faction the Silver Night. A pact under Selûne’s gaze, blessed by moonlight itself.”

A half-orc scoffed. “Fairies and pacts. Sounds like a drunk’s story.”

Danilo’s grin flashed. “Ah, but drunk stories are often true. And besides—what do you think kept your shiny rocks from turning to dust in your purse? The Fey hold their bargains tighter than any banker.”

He spread his arms wide, nearly knocking a dwarf’s mug off the table. “Leilon’s mines. The only true veins of feystone on the Sword Coast. Gems that crossed the boundaries of dream and shadow, stones that sang with the Weave itself. Power beyond power, and responsibility to match.”

He leaned closer, voice dropping low. “The Feywild has two thrones. One draped in laughter, the other in grief. The Seelie dance in moonlight; the Unseelie gnash their teeth in shadow. And when sorrow grows heavy in our realm, they say it’s because the Unseelie are winning. This shipment—the very one waiting in their vaults—was meant to turn the tide. To hatch the first new archfey the Seelie had seen in a thousand years. The Duke of Moonlight, they whispered. An heir not of flesh, but of crystal and dream, wrapped in moonlight’s cradle. A beacon to drive back the shadow.”

A hush spread across the room, even among the drunker patrons. Only the elf at the back shifted slightly, as though the name struck a deeper chord. The room smelled faintly of frost and wet leaves—scents that had no place in a seaside tavern—and the crowd shuffled uneasily.

Danilo tapped the table, hard enough to rattle the glasses. “Imagine that, friends: a godling in waiting. And the Vexmoors were the midwives, holding the basket. That was their burden. And that”—his gray eyes glittered with mischief and something darker—“was the choice Lord Darius faced when his daughter began to fade.”

The Choice

Danilo let the words hang, swirling in smoke and lamplight. For a long moment, the only sound was the crack of the hearth and the shuffle of mugs. Someone coughed. A gnome near the door muttered, “A godling, born of stone? That’s a Harper’s tale if ever there was one.”

The bard’s grin curved, knowing. “Ah, you’d be surprised what the Fey consider birthright.”

From the back, the elf’s stillness deepened. His eyes, catching the firelight, seemed to glimmer a shade too brightly.

Danilo straightened, brushing a fall of pale hair from his face, and his tone shifted, softer now, edged with gravity.

“You see, this is the part where most tales would give you a villain. A knife in the dark. A traitor at the gate. Easy answers. But the fall of House Vexmoor? It came not by blade nor poison, but by a father choosing between his blood and his oath.”

He set his cup down with a deliberate clink, like a gavel striking judgment.

“In his study, they say, Lord Darius laid two letters before him. One, from the emissaries of the Silver Night Court, written in silver ink that shimmered like starlight. Deliver the shipment, and House Vexmoor shall rise higher than it ever dreamed.

“The other, from a priest of Selûne, one of the Silverstars themselves—swearing that a final ritual could hold the curse clawing through Vaerra’s veins. But only if the feystones were poured out like lifeblood.”

Danilo spread his hands, rings flashing in the firelight.

“So there he sat: Darius Vexmoor. Steel in his spine, velvet on his sleeve. His wife gone to the Gates of the Moon, his daughter fading to shadow, and the Duke of Moonlight unborn in crates of stone. The weight of gods and family pressing down on one man’s shoulders.”

The bard’s grin returned, sharp as a knife.

“And when dawn came, the shipment was gone. Stolen, he said. A lie as neat as silver script. But the Fey—ah, the Fey don’t forgive. And the Fey don’t forget.”

 The Aftermath

Danilo’s smirk faded. He let the silence stretch until even the gnome at the door leaned forward, wide-eyed. Then his voice dropped, velvet draped over steel.

“Vaerra lived. If you can call it that. The curse did not leave her, but it did not take her either. Half-shadow, half-flesh, her hand cold as river glass when her father held it. She could walk, she could laugh, but the laughter always came with an echo—a second voice trailing just behind, darker, hungrier. And her…” He let the word linger. “Her smile—never hers alone.”

The bard traced a finger through the condensation on his glass, leaving a crooked trail.

“And while she lingered, the Duke of Moonlight died unborn. The Fey’s cradle cracked empty. A thousand years of promise dissolved into dust. Betrayal, they named it. Treachery dressed in velvet lies. And from that moment, House Vexmoor’s fall was not a question of if, but of how far.”

He leaned forward, voice rising now, no longer soft but cutting, commanding.

“The Lord’s civil halls turned their faces. Allies vanished like snow in spring. The vineyards soured—wines once poured at kings’ tables turned to vinegar in their casks.  Their mercenaries were slaughtered in ambushes, as if the enemy read their orders before ink dried. And Ser Jendric Vexmoor, their heir of steel, sold his sword to other banners. A proud house of legions, reduced to hiring back its own son.”

The bard’s hand swept across the table, scattering crumbs like ruined estates.

“One by one, the pieces were sold off. The grand Neverwinter estate. The coffers, pawned. Until all that remained was a ruin on the coast: Fort Leilon. A fortress cursed by history, shattered by raiders, toppled during the Spellplague, and never once held without ruin following. And yet there the Vexmoors burrowed deep, clinging to the mines beneath it—the last veins of feystone that kept Vaerra’s curse at bay.”

He straightened, green silk glittering, and his smile returned—cruel, theatrical, unpitying.

“That was the fall of House Vexmoor. Not in fire, not in blood, but in rot and whispers. In bargains broken and debts unpaid. …And still, they endure—because love, my friends, can damn you every bit as much as it saves you.”

Epilogue—The Tale’s End

The Moonstone Mask held its breath. For a long moment, no one moved. A dwarf crossed himself with a mutter to Moradin. A half-orc sailor stared into his mug as though the dregs might give him courage. Even the tiefling courtesan’s tail was still.

At last, a grizzled man at the bar gave a low chuckle. “So that’s it, then? A house ruined ‘cause one lord loved too much?”

Another spat on the floorboards. “Love don’t sour wine. That was curses, through and through.”

Danilo only smiled, thin and knowing, and set his empty cup down with theatrical care. “Some say Darius Vexmoor saved his daughter. Some say he killed a god unborn. All agree…” He let the pause stretch until the silence grew sharp,  “he did not fail quietly.”

It was then the elf at the back stirred. For the first time all night, he leaned forward into the light. His eyes swirled like galaxies, bright with a thousand shifting stars, and the tavern’s warmth dimmed as though a cold wind had slipped in from nowhere.

Danilo’s smirk faltered. He had noticed the starlight gaze before, but now he knew. A member of the Fey Courts had been listening all along.

His voice was soft, but it cut through the room like silver drawn across glass.

“His daughter would have lived. As shadow, yes—but lived. Instead, the Duke of Moonlight lies unborn, and the pact lies broken. May House Vexmoor rot in the shadows it earned.”

A hush fell heavy. No one met the elf’s gaze. In that moment, even the fire seemed to burn lower. And when the crowd finally turned to look again, the seat at the back was empty—save for a single ring, a plain band of silver set with a shard of feystone that still glimmered faintly in the candlelight.