Baron Castante was the local organizer of the Cult of the Golden King. Together with the Collector, he recruited Zingaran nobility in the cult. They were mainly milked for gold and then cast aside. Loyalty of the Baron had been bought by visions of mundane and sorcerous power. He was promised nothing less than the throne of Zingara. Ultimately the Zingaran cult was responsible for contacting Nerfertari and organizing the expedition to Pteion.

Castante kept close contact with one of the masks, which had chosen representative of a Messantian merchant house as its puppet. It taught sorcery to the baron, who had been learning very quickly during the passing year. (Retraining Noble levels to Scholar.) The mask had obtained an Atlain Man-Hunter as a bodyguard. The woman proved worth her pay – though she was unable to protect the Messantian from being murdered by Alcemides, Noam and Dionysos.

The heroes were manipulated and later openly hired to oppose the baron by Thothmekri, the mysterious priest of Set. Baron Castante was killed after a heated fight, cursing Noam with his dying breath. As part of the plot, a ritual dagger belonging to the Cult of Ibis was left stuck in his corpse. One of the most noteworthy possessions of the baron was a small chest full of Atlantean Stone-eater. How he had obstained such powerful alchemical tool remains a mystery.

Later on, the heroes learned that the Baron had sent young Korzetta to Stygia as his agent. Neither he or Korzetta didn’t seem to understand how expendable they were. Acheronian stones were still sent from Messantia to Kordova, when the heroes stumbled upon the mining operation. Thus it is likely that the loss of Castante was not a final blow to the cult in Zingara.