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Post by DM Leverage on Mar 9, 2013 4:55:18 GMT -5
Dragonspear Castle - Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting -
This famous ruined fortress dominates the long, lonely run of the Trade Way south from Daggerford (past the High Moor), The once-mighty castle of the adventurer Daeros Dragonspear has become home, over the centuries, to a succession of fell beasts and monsters, from orc armies to dragons and dark fiends. Scoured out repeatedly by intrepid adventuring bands, its crumbling, plundered halls are taken as a lair by brigands or monsters, only to be cleansed again.
A decade ago, armies from Waterdeep and the other trading towns of the west mustered to purge Dragonspear of fiends who had slipped into Faerun via a portal in the castle's lower levels. Priests of Tempus erected a shrine within the castle walls to keep a lid on Dragonspear's monstrous emigrants, but the shrine exists in a state of perpetual siege against bugbears, chitines, devils, drow, orcs, quaggoths, and other beings that find a way into Dragonspear through the Underdark. Adventurers who visit Dragonspear to assist the Tempuran defenders will be gratefully received and allowed any plunder they can wrest from the castle's unwelcome denizens.
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Post by DM Leverage on Mar 9, 2013 4:56:01 GMT -5
- Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast -
Over the years, Dragonspear Castle has become a name equated with great evil—as dread a name as Hellgate Keep. Once the proud castle of Daeros Dragonspear, a famous adventurer of the North, Dragonspear has become a ruin inhabited by wave after wave of evil creatures. Many colorful but false legends have grown up around the Castle, but here I’ve set down, as best I can, the truth about Dragonspear—as revealed by several great archmagesl and corroborated by several tomes of lore at Candlekeep. For most readers, this will be the first time the tale of Dragonspear has been truthfully told.
Daeros was a bearded half-dwarf, a magical and rare half-breed of human and dwarf as tall as a human, but with the burly physique and affinity to stone of a dwarf. He rescued and befriended a copper dragon early in his adventures, and after he seized a fabulous fortune in gems used by a beholder in an abandoned dwarf delve to lure prey, Daeros decided to retire. He chose the site of the dragon’s lair: three low hillocks at the western edge of the High Moor, some 200 miles south of Daggerford. The dragon, Halatathlaer, had grown tired of constantly fighting off thieving orcs and goblins, but was loath to leave its home. Daeros gathered humans and dwarves loyal to him and built his castle around the dragon. It was a large and splendid structure, composed of a massive central keep surrounded by a strong ring of four towers (the inner ward). Around the keep was a spearhead-shaped outer wall of nine great towers. Dwarves were welcomed at the Castle, and a city of small stone cottages and delvings beneath them grew rapidly within the walls. Dwarven fighting prowess made Dragonspear a secure fortress and a place of growing influence.
Daeros was often seen flying over the High Moor on the dragon’s back in those days. He wielded a long spear (some say 40 feet or longer) against foes on the ground and summoned his troops with a horn. His energetic raids hurled the orcs and trolls back, scouring the moor until it seemed clear of them. Unfortunately, Halatathlaer was old, and grew weak. More than one wizard coveted the dragon’s hoard and used shape-shifting magics to spy on what was there and how it was guarded. One Calishite mage, Ithtaerus, created a spell that allowed him to teleport the sleeping dragon away to the wastes. He then revealed what he’d done to Daeros by means of a magically sent vision that falsely showed the wizard creating a gate through which the dragon was taken. The gate was actually a portal to Avernus, uppermost of the nine layers of Baator —a portal that would only be activated by the death-blood of a mortal. The enraged Daeros plunged through it, weapons ready—and was slain by the wizard’s spells. The gate opened, and several baatezu came through it. While the alarmed dwarves of Dragonspear battled them, the wizard looted the dragon’s hoard at will and then returned Halatathlaer to the inner ward, bound in magical slumber.
Then the evil mage called upon several dragons he knew, telling them that the copper dragon of Dragonspear slept, near death, and it and its hoard were easy prey. Three young and ambitious dragons heeded and took wing to Dragonspear. They met over the fortress and fought, destroying Halatathlaer and much of the castle before slaughtering each other. The last survivor, a black dragon named Sharndrel, was enraged to find the hoard it had fought so hard for looted so that only coins were left, and barely enough of them for the wyrm to bed down on. It went seeking the triumphant and overconfident Ithtaerus, found him gloating over the best wine of the castle in the upper chambers of the central keep, and blasted him with its acid until his bones crumbled to powder. The castle was left as a shattered ruin, eagerly raided by orcs, hobgoblins, bugbears, goblins, and trolls from the moor until all the dwarves were dead or had fled. The serpentmen even sent a large war party to search it for magic, and they bore away all they found.
Then hobgoblin chieftains seized the castle, They used it as a base from which to raid the caravan road and the lands around; gathering orcs and trolls into ever-larger bands until Waterdeep and Baldur’s Gate raised armies and cleaned the castle out. The victors set an armed temple to Tempus (called the Hold of the Battle Lions) in the cellars to guard against creatures using the gate, for it seemed indestructible. Some spell laid on it hurled back magics used against it and sent forth ghosts of creatures slain in the castle to attack those approaching it Seasons passed, and more baatezu in Avernus discovered the other end of the planar link. Stealthily at first, and then in greater numbers, they came through into Toril, overwhelmed the temple, and took the castle as their own. It is this foul evil that was recently broken and driven back to Avernus. Though the gate was magically sealed, most folk believe that it will be reopened again and that the stain of evil will never leave the castle now.
Today, the outer wall of the castle is breached and broken in many places. Its great gate is a gaping hole, and from there a road leads straight to the inner gate, whose doors have also fallen. Though the inner ward is still a defensible—if crumbling — fortress, the former city between it and the outer wall has become scrub vegetation, pits (the former cellar delves of the dwarves), and heaps of stony rubble. The central keep is a blasted shell, the gigantic skeleton of a dragon draped over the broken walls, and the interior floors fallen in. Most of the surrounding inner ward towers stand relatively intact. Travelers fleeing from trolls, brigands, or worse in this area could take refuge in one of these and defend it.
Beneath the castle flows an underground river. It runs from an unknown source north into the Misty Forest, and there turns abruptly southeast. It can be entered from a certain cavern in the eastern reaches of the forest, and its main passage is large enough to be navigable by boats, although many lurking monsters, drownhole side passages, and whirlpools make this a dangerous route. The river runs southeast along the edge of the moor, and then turns northeast and passes under the southwest tower of the castle’s inner ward. There it connects with a trapdoor and shaft in the cellar once used for waste disposal. It flows swiftly on to a large and permanent whirlpool and thence drains down to unexplored depths in the Underdark. If one wins past the whirlpool, the river runs on to emerge as a waterfall in a ravine (one of many such clefts in the High Moor), where it flows out into a small pool. The pool drains away into the depths again.
Dragonspear Castle is still a popular destination for adventurers and thrillseekers. Many poke about in the half-revealed dwarven cellars—but anything that can be found easily has been carried away already, and trolls and orcs lurk in the ruins, awaiting prey. Brigands use the castle, and more than one misty night has seen a wild spell battle between rival adventuring bands caused by brigand trickery. The outlaws lie in wait after setting in motion their plan, and hope to seize gear, wealth, and magic from the weakened survivors—or dead victims—of the misunderstanding they’ve brought about.
Every season brings new plans for the rebuilding of Dragonspear Castle in the taverns of Daggerford, Waterdeep, Scornubel, and Baldur’s Gate, but somehow such plans come to naught. Some say it is the castle’s ill luck, caused by the great evil of the baatezu. Others blame covert work by brigand “lords,” the Zhentarim, and the Cult of the Dragon, all of whom either want the castle for their own or want it to stay a ruin.
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