Connects to: 30.03, 31.04 and 40.06.
Although it is difficult for the kobolds that live in the upper floors of the Broken Spear (40.06) to procure food, the creatures are cunning. They climb down their tower and creep west into a part of the Kingswood where the elves do not go. This is the rose garden of Amelar the Immaculate.
When they approach the garden, the kobolds wrap their faces in cloths soaked in foul-smelling paste. If they do not, the smell of the roses will enchant them and draw them ever deeper into the briars, their minds filled with visions of ever more beautiful roses deeper in, until they become entangled. Creatures that become entangled in the roses draw the attention of the falcons that nest within the garden, their feathers as blood-red as the roses, who are immune to the fragrance of the garden and feed upon its victims.
Those who approach the rose garden closely will notice that it is actually a hedge maze composed of rose bushes and that there is an entrance on the northern side and that several rose walls have been burned to ash in the east. They will also be able to see the skeletons of various creatures embedded in the briars. Those that are easily accessible have been stripped clean by the kobolds, who take anything of value as well as certain bones. The kobolds also harvest the roses, which they cast into fires lit atop the Broken Spear, which draws migratory birds (and other things) into the kobolds’ nets.
Deeper within the rose maze are more perils and strange plants growing up among the roses. They include trees with fruit that resembles twining limbs, night-black berries that weep purple juice and trees with exposed roots that touch the earth in a thousand places. More bodies can be found here, including that of Jerome Olmsted, the only son of Lord Zeem Olmsted (31.04), still clad in plate mail with the silver key of his house etched upon the breastplate. Lord Zeem would give a great reward to any who would bring home his son’s bones and possessions and would give as great a punishment to any thieves who would dare to wear or sell his son’s armor.
At the heart of the garden is a building of some sort, but it is obscured by a great mass of roses.
Residents:
- Amelar the Immaculate makes this place her home. She is the Ancient Gardener, an ancient elden druidess and the mistress of this garden. Also known as the Hierophant of Constant Sorrow because elves forget all that is unpleasing but someone must keep their memories.
Connection:
- Lord Tristifer of Blackhorn Keep (30.03) owns a blood falcon taken from the garden.
Hooks:
- What other dangers lie within the garden?
- Do the plants of the garden have any useful properties? Who wants them?
- What was Jerome doing in the garden? Is his armor magical?
- What lies at the center of the garden?
- What (who?) burned part of the garden?
- Aside from migratory birds, what else have the kobolds caught in the nets that they’ve set up atop The Broken Spear.
- Now that Jerome is dead, who is the heir of House Olmsted?
