The Rose Guard is the legendary adventuring party that came to the Gauntlight keep roughly five hundred years before the current campaign, defeated the sorcerer Belcorra ("the Horror"), and — at the cost of their member Otari's life — founded the town that bears his name [S1, S5, S8]. The group originated from Absalom and numbered at least four heroes: Otari (rogue), Bulrajani/Bull (fighter), Asefna (cleric), and Zarmavdian, with a figure called the Huntress also referenced [S28, S29]. The Otari blacksmith Carman Rajani descends from their line, and the character Venris has idolized their legacy since before play began [S9, S15]. Their heroic reputation erodes steadily across the campaign. A green-light inscription confirms they defeated Belcorra but never knew of the vaults below [S10]. A darker truth surfaces at S30: Asefna killed Bulrajani, an internal murder the town legend never recorded [S30, S36]. Their four personal icons — collected as relics — ultimately unlocked a sealed barrier in the vaults at S37 [S37]. The deepest revision of their legend comes in the later sessions. S50 reveals that after their victory the Rose Guard members suffered for years under an empty-death curse, several of them — including Volrajan and Asefna — eventually crumbling to dust [S50]. S51 ties this same curse directly to Venris's affliction [S51]. By S58 the party learns that fragments of the Rose Guard members' souls remain bound to the relics they now carry, and that several members never crossed the river of souls [S58]. Recall knowledge at S59 shatters any remaining idealization: "they all got fucked" [S59]. As of S60, the Rose Guard's legacy is further entangled in the present through Carman Rajani — a devil named Irvane specifically wants Rajani because of his Rose Guard bloodline and connection to their artifacts [S60].
1 open hook remain on this record.
The Rose Guard enter the story as Otari's founding myth: a band of heroes from Absalom who marched on the Gauntlight keep, confronted the dark magician Belcorra ("the Horror"), and paid for their victory with the life of their rogue, Otari, whose name was given to the town the survivors built around the bay [S1, S5, S8]. From the first session the legend is specific enough to feel real — the Gauntlight's recent battle damage is already being attributed to a Rose Guard clash — yet distant enough to be safely reverential.
Early sessions flesh out the human scale of the myth. The blacksmith Carman Rajani carries the bloodline of their fighter Bulrajani, and the character Venris bonds with Rajani precisely over shared Rose Guard enthusiasm [S9]. A glowing inscription inside the vaults — "The Horror fell to the Rose Guard" — confirms the deed, but also notes the party apparently never knew about the labyrinthine vaults beneath the keep, which becomes structurally important: the very dungeon the players are exploring existed outside the Rose Guard's victory [S10].
The first fracture in the myth arrives at S28-30. Named members are enumerated — Otari, Bull (Bulrajani), Asefna, Zarmavdian, and the Huntress — and their personal icons are revealed as a set of physical keys needed to pass a barrier deeper in the vaults [S28, S29]. Then S30 drops the bombshell: Asefna killed Bulrajani. The "heroic order" kept a murder within its ranks, and Otari's founding story elides it entirely [S30]. S36 shows that this betrayal has begun to circulate in party conversation — Venris, the Rose Guard superfan, now reckons with the knowledge that one member executed another [S36].
S37 turns the Rose Guard from legend to mechanism: the collected relics finally let the party breach the sealed corridor and descend to the next floor [S37]. Their artifacts have served their narrative purpose as dungeon keys — but the story doesn't stop there.
The most devastating reassessment of the Rose Guard's story comes clustered in sessions 50-51. S50 reveals that defeating Belcorra was not a triumphant ending: in the years after their victory, the Rose Guard members were afflicted by an empty-death curse. Volrajan, Asefna, and at least one wizard among them eventually succumbed, crumbling to dust — a slow, cursed unraveling rather than the heroes' clean retirement that town legend implies [S50]. S51 makes this personal by establishing that the same empty-death curse now afflicts Venris, the party's most devoted Rose Guard fan — the heroes' unfinished spiritual business has literally reached forward five centuries to touch the person who loved them most [S51].
Sessions 58 and 59 supply the metaphysics underlying the curse. The Rose Guard's membership was diverse — dwarves among others — and critically, several members did not cross the river of souls after death. Fragments of their souls remain bound to the very relics the party has been carrying [S58]. The recall-knowledge gloss at S59 is blunt: the "everybody lived happily ever after" version of events is false. "They all got fucked" [S59]. The spirit of Otari himself is referenced as tied to the party's current situation, connecting the founding member directly to ongoing events.
As of S60, the Rose Guard's shadow extends into a new threat. The devil Irvane has taken an interest in Carman Rajani specifically because of Rajani's Rose Guard bloodline and his connection to the faction's artifacts — the Rosa Argentis among them [S60]. The founding heroes of Otari, whose legend shaped the town's identity and whose relics opened the vaults, have now become the reason a devil is actively targeting one of the party's allies. The Rose Guard's story, far from being a closed chapter of history, is a live liability five hundred years on.