MacCain Castle
Rising from the Highland mists, MacCain Castle has been the seat of the Dukes and Duchesses of Strathlourne for more than seven centuries. Its first stones were laid in the early 1250s by James MacCain, the first Duke, who built the stronghold to guard clan lands from Viking raiders. When his daughter Eilean inherited the title in 1295, she did more than expand her father’s work, she transformed it. Eilean raised new towers, and added the great hall that still forms the castle’s heart, giving the fortress the scale and grandeur that endures to this day.
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The castle’s earliest legends are also its darkest. After the Battle of Largs, six captured Viking warriors were chained in its dungeons. Tortured without mercy, they refused to reveal the resting place of Ragnar’s body. They died defiant, and for centuries since, guests and servants alike have spoken of clanking chains in the night or glimpsed bearded figures in the torchlight. Their ghosts are said to walk still, reminders that MacCain Castle was forged in blood.
Later centuries brought transformation as well as turmoil. In the 16th century, the castle was refashioned with the turrets and spires that lend it its fairytale silhouette. Yet beauty could not shield it from danger. In the 17th century, the 13th Duke was murdered by a V.R.K. operative disguised as a pilgrim. His severed head was discovered the next morning mounted on a pike above the castle gates—a brutal message that the clan’s enemies had not been vanquished.
In more recent history, MacCain Castle served as a convalescent home for wounded Highland soldiers during the First World War. In the Second, it became a listening post and code-breaking centre - not for ordinary signals, but for occult transmissions believed to be directed by V.R.K. operatives working with the S.S.
Today, MacCain Castle endures as both home and bastion. It remains the residence of the Dukes and Duchesses of Strathlourne and the heart of a 140,000-acre estate. It is the gathering place of the MacCain clan, but also the headquarters of a war older than most kingdoms - a struggle whose final outcome is yet to be decided.