DM Xanatos Gambit Locations
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Moonreach Keep
Physical Description:
Northeast of Narfell, past the scar, the cold road and the Icelace, amidst the very edge of the Icerim Mountains is a coastal fortress called Moonreach Keep. As it was in the past, and as it is once more today, its namesake comes from the central tower, taller than its outer walls. The tower was designed to house numerous lookouts, beset by numerous windows and fortified balconies. Indeed, the tower is said to have been built high enough to pierce the clouds, enabling the tower's denizens to gaze upon the moon. The tower was and now again remains surrounded by layers of fortified stone, including a heavily secured inner layer. This inner layer comprises the majority of the keep's inner quarters. A large, spacious courtyard follows, itself protected by outer walls. The Keep is surrounded by thick maritime fog.
Public Knowledge:
Military historians are unsure who it was that initially built the keep. Some have argued it was age-old warlocks who erected the tower using magic, and scaled its height to make communion with entities among the stars. Others claim it was a faction of demon-binders, who used it as a temporary headquarters for a bygone war. There is a strong suggestion that the keep was, at least one point in its history, used for the occult, supernatural, and otherworldly -- of whatever type, if not something stranger.
There is agreement, nonetheless, that long ago the City of Peltarch occupied the keep as a forward expeditionary force against the Eastlander Bandits. After having liberated the keep from the Eastlanders, Peltarch's military housed the tower with its scouts and spell-casters, and manned its walls with soldiers. That was to launch offensives from the keep against various bandit camps.
The defeat of the bandits, the tower's faraway position, and the city of Peltarch's domestic turmoil diminished its interest in Moonreach Keep. The city abandoned its position there, and left the tower in a state of disrepair. Eventually, the tower crumbled. The rest of the keep fell to derelict, and the overall fortress became ruins.
More recently, however, those kept informed by military observers understand that Moonreach Keep has been restored. The restoration was completed sometime in the middling past, likely through a combination of physical and magical construction. For a time, it was occupied -- once more -- by bandits. That was in the past. More recently, it is manned by one or perhaps several armies. Soldiers man its walls, notably those raising the banners of certain noble houses, as well as bannerless soldiers draped in darks and grays.
It has since been confirmed that Moonreach Keep is the current Seat of the Cleimant Council. This explains reported sightings of bannermen of the house Gor, house Stockley, and house Brokenblade, each former houses of High Hold. It also used to house the various mercenaries under the employ of house Sepret. Or, at least, Bennek Sepret, though they have since left the Keep and, indeed, perished elsewhere in Narfell during Geroldine's invasion.
The thick fog that surrounds the keep and permeates the region as a whole is laden with traces of magic. The fog has proven resilient to both mundane and magical monitoring. Apparently, spy-glasses cannot pierce it. Scrying efforts and any means of magical communication are also futile. Recently, however, this fog has waned, and magical efforts have proven more fruitful, though still not as reliable as most diviners would hope.
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Aslant Castle
Physical Description:
Behind a magic gate, hidden past a cracked arcane seal, and beyond a semisomnous threshold, are the lopsided rooftops, crashed towers, and crumbling battlements of Aslant Castle. Its full depth not yet known to the Locus Operandi, something that is liable to change if the party is able to explore its levels. For now, when it comes to the Locus, they have barely accessed the abandoned observatory, which floats on a mote above at topmost pinnacle of the castle, a mote from which they dropped down onto the castle's tilted & crashed rooftops. Alas, the Locus was repelled by the castle's residents: on the one hand, rabid chimeric beasts with sewn wings, transplanted claws, and fused with moonstone, who organize to besiege their adversaries, silvery knights and mages who defend the castle and fly the banner of crescent silver. All beneath an endless night, beset by a frozen moon that neither moves nor fades.
Public Knowledge:
The castle's true geographic location is in serious doubt. Previously subject to a powerful magical seal, the castle's arcane gate is now cracked open. It remains a mystery whether it was the Locus Operandi or May Celine's assassins who first broke the seal. Either way, the Locus Operandi has pursued May Celine's assassins to this location. The Locus was forced to retreat after a failed attempt to explore the lopsided rooftops, but is rumored to have plans to return and to resume the hunt for the assassins. For their part, the assassins already seem rather familiar with the castle's complex layout. Much remains unrevealed about the castle, including notably the mechanics of its planar gate/seal, for what purpose the assassins have come here, and its historical or other connections to the province of Moonreach, its Keep, and its residents.
Thematic Music:
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Aureate Ruins
Physical Description:
Located in the depths beneath Moonreach Keep, seemingly fused and sunken into the earth and stone, this cascade of decaying architecture is the corpse of an empire, and monument to a dead devotion. The stones, once painted a veneer of gold, are now tarnished and dulled to a defeated, pale tallow-yellow. It is an open question whether the builders ever once used true gold, though from time to time a more genuine glitter can be found amidst the ravaged stone.
The devastated structure is damaged every which way: some have crashed together, as evidenced by damage to the sides; others, from an impact, as evidenced from damage above; and others still are damaged bottom-upwards, their rooftops intact but lower portions having absorbed sudden and violent blow, as though from severe crashing or earthquakes.
Though long having been laid low & destroyed, it shines with a sort of ruined majesty. Viewed from afar, the sheer height of its crumbling ramparts, the magnitude of its abandoned aqueducts, its slanted and devastated temple structures, and the very many walk-ways, roof-tops, and streets encompass its enduring & decrepit splendor. Its walls are etched with glowing runes. They are in a lost language. Arcanists recognize them as the reason why, despite the ravages of time and whatever other great calamity that this ancient architecture has endured, it nevertheless remains recognizable, reasonably intact, and navigable.
Public Knowledge:
According to the reports of adventurers, the ruins are haunted by the memories of their past, and the damage inflicted by an unknown calamity. Adventurers who have managed to reach them reported conflict against ghostly soldiers, mages, priests and more, adorned with the tarnished golden armor of a bygone age. Enemies appear to relive some long-past battle or catastrophe. Defeating them causes the strange soldiers to fall and, in some instances, ephemerally dissipate -- effectively clearing an area of the threats. Yet returning to that same area later on sees the very same enemies, walking the same paths, uttering the same noises.
Tangential research so far suggests it was once the premiere site of rune-crafting and runic magic. Rare and archaic books describe the profound and fearsome rites that took place in its holy fane, to transform, elevate, and imbue their champions with runic might and magic. Their strongest warriors were adorned with runic transcriptions -- ancient words of power -- upon their armors and blades and, in some cases, even their flesh.
Recent quakes beneath Moonreach Keep have once again opened its perilous passages.
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