Altered cleft oasis

An oasis within a small mesa canyon.

The whole mesa / canyon system is perhaps 1 mile across. From afar it looks like an ordinary mesa, but with greenery and plant growth around the edges.

Strange, alien-looking plants grow within this oasis; they present all manner of dangers to those who approach them.

Basilisk family lair

In a shallow cavern beneath a gully floor is the former lair of a family of basilisks.

The cavern has low ceilings in the passageways (5 ft.), so that Medium creatures have to stoop to pass (and take squeezing penalties if fighting); the main cavern is deeper (10 ft.). The young and eggs are in a large nest at the back, with adults having sleeping places among the stalagmites at the cavern sides. The middle of the big cavern has a somewhat soft, muddy floor (and is 3 ft. lower than the surrounding areas).

The cavern is damp, and smells slightly of decay (like decomposing leaves); there’s also an odd, somewhat acrid scent, like a snake lair, perhaps. There’s no illumination; other than the occasional drip of water and the skittering of some cave insect, it’s quiet.

Eggs and young may be found here, and sometimes the parents. The basilisks have been slain; the eggs and young, removed. The place is empty now.

Caledas

Large town, ~150 miles east-southeast of Drylake.

Caledas is a town of almost 5,000 people, standing on the joining of two rivers. It is a center of trade for this region; merchants come from a hundred miles away and more, to ply their wares here.

Most residents of Caledas are human, with a small contingent of half-orcs, and even a handful of hobgoblins. The people of Caledas are fairly tolerant of outsiders, as they’ve seen a few odd people pass through the town from time to time.

In addition to the town guards, Caledas hosts a garrison of the king’s troops, stationed here to guard against incursions of barbarians and half-orcs from the south. There has been little activity of that sort lately, though, and the soldiers tend to be bored most of the time. Military service is seen as a good (and not very dangerous) way to earn a decent living, and—for the ambitious—a way to rise through the ranks of society.

People

• His Excellency, Bishop Adelmo, of the Temple of the Revelation
• Father Agustin, priest at the Temple of the Revelation
• Don Valencio, a wealthy noble
• Don Silvio, a noble
• Don Bosco, a noble
• Don Marco, a noble
  • deceased (killed by the intellect devourer)
• Modestus, a wizard
  • Placidus, a wizard, apprentice to Modestus
  • Alba, daughter of Modestus (also a wizard)
• Renzo, archer in the king’s troops, and a student of Modestus
• Nulrenak, an alchemist
• Don Celino, commander of the king’s troops

Locations

• The Coral House
  • an expensive tavern; a gathering-place for rich, bored noblemen and their hangers-on
• The Temple of the Revelation
  • temple of Pelor; a beautiful structure of white marble, airy and full of light
• Don Valencio’s estate
  • a sprawling residence standing on a riverbank in Caledas, ringed with high walls of imported stone, elaborate ironwork, and painted stucco; the picture of opulence
• Nulrenak’s residence
  • ringed on all sides by high, forbidding walls; surrounded by empty lots and abandoned houses
• Tower of Modestus
  • a mile outside of town; tall, imposing, and grim, radiating a palpable sense of dread
• The Nodding Rooster
  • a cheap, low-class tavern; a real dive
  • however, features several private back rooms, each of which has a separate back entrance, which open onto separate paths through a densely thicketed grove behind the tavern

Cool grotto

A subterranean grotto with plants and a stream.

A cave in a twisting maze of valleys leads to a cool grotto. Plants climb up the walls and hang from dripping stalactites; this is a veritable subterranean garden, lit by glowing mushrooms, with a stream winding its way through it; insects and tiny frogs live among the plant life, and small, blind cave fish swim in the stream.

At the back of the grotto is a passage deeper into the earth, in which marks of some large predator’s passing may be found.

Drylake

Small town; one of the last outposts of civilization on the western edge of Donaille.

Drylake is a town of about 2,000, perched on the eastern edge of a bowl-like valley which once held a large lake (hence the town’s name). The shallower eastern slope of the former lake-bed now houses a dense cluster of farms, where crops of all sorts are grown. Two trade roads meet at Drylake; the travelers, pilgrims, and merchants along these roads are the town’s primary source of income.

Drylake is the western-most settlement which is formally held to belong to the Illustrious Kingdom. Of course, one would probably be hard-pressed to find anyone in Stavronne, the kingdom’s capital, who could locate Drylake on a map. Still, some of the older townsfolk remember the king’s tax assessors visiting the town within their lifetimes; so Drylake pays its taxes diligently. (The lack of raids from orcs or bandits within living memory must be taken as evidence that the people’s tax money is well spent.)

At one time, before the lake dried up, there was no town here, but only a scattering of fishing communities huddled all around the lake’s shore. Then the water level began to drop; eventually, what remained of the lake wasn’t enough to support even a meager fish population, and the locals faced a real threat of starvation. It was a stroke of tremendous good fortune that the lake’s receding waters left behind soil that (unlike much of the surrounding steppe) proved extraordinarily fertile. The fishing villages were abandoned, and the eastern slopes of the lakebed became farmland (the western part of the lake being too rocky or steep to be settled). Some enterprising residents of the newly unified community built a trading post on what was once the lake’s eastern shore, where travelers on the road that passed just alongside the lake’s edge could buy food and supplies. Soon a town had sprung up; “Drylake” was the name that stuck.

Dusthill

Frontier town at the edge of the western wastes.

Even though it’s the largest of the frontier settlements scattered along the edge of the western wastes, calling Dusthill a “town” might be giving it too much credit. The town center (such as it is) consists of ten or so buildings—the town jail, the tavern, a handful of shops. (There’s the barest hint of a “main street”—a stretch of open space between the buildings of the town center, running from one end of the cluster to the other.) Loosely scattered around this core are a number of homesteads. The total population is not quite a thousand.

There’s no government in Dusthill—no mayor, no town council—because there isn’t really anything for a government to do (and the sorts of people who come out to the frontier aren’t keen on being told how to run their lives, anyhow). Anyone can come, claim a plot of land that isn’t occupied, build a house; anyone can trade or do business with whoever they like. That doesn’t mean that Dusthill’s lawless, though; there’s a sheriff here (elected by the locals, though word is that he runs unopposed every time—nobody else wants the job), and folks won’t tolerate antisocial behavior. Mostly, though, people just mind their own business.

Most of the structures in Dusthill are built of mud brick (though there are a handful of exceptions). Wood’s too scarce to build with, out here; the few trees nearby are thin, bent, twisted things, no good for lumber. Food’s a perpetual problem, too; cattle don’t thrive here, nor many other domestic animals; and the land’s no good for most crops. Some of the locals raise goats or llamas; some grow beans and other legumes; some hunt lizards (and even stranger game) out in the wastes. A caravan stops by once a month, and the people of Dusthill trade for foodstuffs, metalworks, and other needed things, exchanging snakeskins, giant lizard teeth, “medicinal” cactus flowers, and some even more exotic products of the wastes.

Lately, there’s been a steady influx of newcomers into town—would-be adventurers and fortune seekers, brought by the spreading rumors that there’s wealth to be found out in the wastes, and opportunities on the frontier, for those who can seize them.

Goblin warrens

Cramped, stinking cave-warrens teeming with goblins.

Entrances to the warrens line a deep ravine.

Korrulan’s home

Here lives Korrulan, with his disciples.

Around 20 people live here. They are a diverse mix of ages (including a couple in their late teens and a white-haired grandmother, and everything in between) and races (hobgoblins, half-orcs, humans). There are more men than women, and humans are the majority.

All here live simply and equally, sharing the burden of routine tasks, helping one another, and admitting of no distinctions of rank or status. Each member of this tiny community pursues his or her own path to the attainment of perfection.

People living here include:

• Korrulan
• Nem (m H-o)
  • a big, muscular man, skilled in unarmed combat
• Emeric (m H)
  • a good-looking middle-aged man; a wizard (though one could never tell by looking at him)

Lower caverns

Caverns that lead to the Master’s domain.

Old guard tower

An old guard tower on a hill.

Supposedly “haunted” by “ghosts”, according to some goblin.

Wights reside here, as well as strange animate skeletons that are covered in blood and gore.

The hilltop

Attach:Old_guard_tower_ground_level.png Δ | Ground level

Attach:Old_guard_tower_first_level.png Δ | First level

Attach:Old_guard_tower_second_level.png Δ | Second level

The top of the hill is mostly flat, perhaps 300 feet across; low earthworks ring the hilltop. A path ascends to the hilltop up the hill’s south side.

The ground of the hilltop is strewn with a great multitude of bones. These poke out of the ground, or lie half-buried in the sand and dirt. The bones are scattered, and many are broken. Most of the bones look like they could be from humanoids, although there’s definitely a few which are clearly from somewhat bigger creatures.

At night, the bones animate and rise, becoming a small army of skeletons—of gnolls and goblins, mostly, as well as worgs and some other creatures. They re-enact a series of battles against the occupants of the tower, who appear as the ghosts of human warriors. Then, as dawn approaches, a ghostly paladin emerges from the tower’s crypt, rallying the defenders and pushing back the assault. Morning finds the skeletal army returned to scattered bones, and the ghosts nowhere to be seen.

The tower

There are some mostly-destroyed ruins of what were a small handful of auxiliary buildings. The tower itself is wholly intact, however. It is a very sturdy three-story stone structure, a bit over 40 feet square; the rooftop boasts crenelated battlements. The ground floor has a front door on the south, facing the center of the hilltop, and a back door on the north. The second and third floors have windows facing in the cardinal directions; the north and south windows are narrow and iron-barred (little more than arrow slits), while the east and west windows are large… but quite thoroughly boarded up from the inside.

The first floor of the tower is mostly open space; furniture, shelving, etc. stood here once, but what remains of these now lies moldering in piles of scrap in the corners. The second floor is a barracks—an open space with a number of cots, plus a half-dozen tiny, cell-like rooms. The third floor features a simple bed and a sturdy wooden writing desk a pile of smashed planks and scrap wood, which might have been a desk at some point. Staircases connect the floors.

On the east side of the tower is another door, which opens into a narrow corridor that runs along the eastern edge of the tower’s first floor. This ends in a set of stairs going down; an archway in the stair landing bears a magically glowing sun symbol—the mark of Pelor.

The crypt

Attach:Old_guard_tower_crypt.png Δ | Crypt

At the bottom, the stairs open into a crypt, wherein stands a single stone sarcophagus. A plaque at the foot of the sarcophagus reads:

Sir Berengar
the last paladin of the west
died 231 r.c.

In a side wall of the crypt is a doorway or tunnel opening; however, it is thoroughly bricked up.

Outcast cave-village

Cave-dwelling of a small band of exiles from the Master’s tribe.

A series of linked caverns, around a main cave whose floor and walls are built up with stone dwellings. Poor-quality construction here tells of a people who are unused to building and living in this way, and must adapt to novel circumstances. Less than a hundred people live here.

The outcasts here hate and oppose the Master, though they are nowhere near numerous or strong enough to challenge him. They hold the outcasts of other camps in the region (who hope to get back into the Master’s good graces) in contempt.

Andoras (formerly an enforcer in the Master’s service) leads these people. Mirala (formerly a priestess) is his wife.

St. Aurantius Castle

Abandoned castle, ~25 miles southeast of Dusthill. Currently infested by undead creatures.

Strange crystal cave

Damp cavern with glowing mushrooms and odd crystals.

A cave mouth high on a hillside opens into a cavern where strange crystals and mushrooms grow; moisture condenses on the cool walls and drips down in rivulets. Flowing water may be heard, but no source is visible.

Sunset Heights

On a broad, flat-topped rise stand over a dozen structures which look like the skeletons of some great monoliths. The tallest of them rise to well over a hundred feet in height.

Near the outskirts of the group of structures, a large metal sign can be found (it once stood upright upon two posts, then was almost wholly buried within the earth, and now dug out and lies upon the ground). The sign is quite faded, but can still be read. Upon it is a simple, stylized image of an orange-red sun setting over green hills, and two words: Sunset Heights.

The structures are quite regular in placement and internal arrangement. They have rectangular footprints, of up to 200 feet across, and they are constructed in the forms of grids of massive pillars which support evenly spaced horizontal planes.

Close examination reveals that these were clearly buildings meant for humanoid habitation. The exterior walls are almost entirely destroyed (lending the buildings their skeletal appearance), but vague suggestions of doors, windows, balconies, etc. can still be seen. Sand and earth have buried what were once the ground floors of the buildings, which, evidently, used to be even taller than they are now.

Within the buildings are corridors, rooms, stairwells; even the smallest of the structures seem to have been capable of housing hundreds of inhabitants. The structures are damaged by time, and do not seem entirely stable. Some of the floors are treacherous, with chunks of flooring being wobbly or cracking; many walls have large cracks running through them, and the entire structure sometimes emits worrying creaks and groans.

The construction of the buildings is quite alien, both in techniques and in materials. Something like stone can be seen in exposed parts of walls; great beams of what looks like steel; other materials even less familiar. Within the rooms on the upper floors can be found furniture, which is similarly baffling: familiar in form and purpose (chairs, tables, couches, beds, dressers, cabinets, and the like), but in unfamiliar styles, and of unknown composition (there are items that have the appearance of wood, but show no signs at all of rot; metallic parts that haven’t rusted in what must be centuries; and parts of an even more exotic make-up).

On the lower reaches of the buildings are signs of squatting by savage humanoids (gnolls and goblins)—remnants of cooking fires, trash piles, markings on walls, old bones. Even these are very old, however—decades, if not centuries. There is no sign of any more recent inhabitation.

The Master’s domain

Subterranean domain, inhabited by humans, ruled by the Master.

A series of caverns, inhabited by some thousands of humans. The Master rules here, following the dictates of “the Goddess”, and dispensing her gifts to his people.

To pass between the Master’s domain and the surface, one must pass through the Lower Caverns, where all manner of peril awaits.