Connects to: 03.13, 14.02, 16.17, 17.06, 24.11, 26.16.02, 27.12, 29.14.13 and 38.05.
Near the eastern edge of the Kingswood is a twisted tower of strange metal that no art known to humans can cut or melt. Some legends maintain that it that it is the spear of the God of the City of Shuttered Windows, and it fell to earth after he used it to defeat Tiamat. Some of the oldest elves of the Court of the Kingswood claim differently, though, and remember seeing it fall flaming from the sky and shaking the earth when it finally struck the ground. Elves are known to spin tales to make themselves appear older and wiser than they are, and have a longstanding grudge against Alberon and his cult.
The tower itself can be entered through several puckered and scorched holes in its side, and the interior is made of the same strange metal as its outer walls. There are dozens upon dozens of floors, connects by ladders or strange, empty shafts that must be scaled with ropes and grappling hooks. Kobolds have taken up residence in the upper levels, and the bottom is occupied by gnolls who hunt the lands east of the Kingswood, but leave the kobolds be for fear of their traps. The gnolls themselves are (if you can imagine such a thing) unusually hideous; some have strangely colored fur, others are covered in suppurating sores, and it is rumored that their chieftain has two heads, like an ettin. Perhaps they have taken up dark magics and been warped as a result, because adventurers who have been brave enough to go near the tower at night report that the lower levels glow from the inside with an eerie blue light.
Subhexes:
- 40.06.01 (Courier Bats): strange bats carrying mysterious packages are sometimes found in the kobolds’ nets.
- 40.06.02 (The Lady and Her Works): a wizardess one conducted her experiments here and her consciousness inhabits the tower still.
- 40.06.03 (The Journal in Green): a journal can be found here that rants strangely about circling stones.
Connections:
- Far to the west, one temple of dead Tiamat still remains (03.13).
- Kobolds may have arisen from the Mind Chambes of the Infidel (27.12).
- One of the Furhoofs once did the Lady a favor (17.06) and was rewarded for it.
- A strange artifact has been discovered in Thring that is made of the same metal as the Broken Spear (16.17).
- The blood that fell from Tiamat had strange effects on the land in many places (26.16.02).
- Some of the kobolds and gnolls that live here set off to the west on the prompting of a strange device some time ago (14.02).
- After tiamat died the windows of the City that lead to far lands were shuttered (29.14.13).
- Tiamat’s black head fell some distance west of here (24.11).
Hooks:
- Might a thorough exploration of the tower shed light on its origins?
- What dark sorcerers are the gnolls working in there?
Courier bats
The kobolds of the Broken Spear take advantage of courier bats attraction to burnt roses from the Garden of Amelar, setting ambushes atop the tower to kill the bats and steal the objects they are carrying.
Rumor has it that recently the kobolds have retrieved from a courier bat an item of great value, perhaps even one with mystical properties. If this is true, it is doubtful whether they will understand its true significance.
Hooks:
- What did the kobolds find?
The Lady and her Works
Hex: 40.06.02
Connects to: 19.31.05, 37.07 and 51.29.
The Broken Spear has had many masters over the centuries. Before the current gnoll chieftain took over the lower floors of the tower, it was ruled by a sorceress known as the Lady. She arrived from far lands and drove the former inhabitants of the Broken Spear into the darkest corners of the pile. There she drew on the power of her own arts and the strange energies of the mysterious metal that the building is composed of to conduct research on the molding of living flesh.
The Lady acquired the services of several kobolds and a small band of exiled male gnolls, who gathered what she needed and ensured that she was not disturbed in her researches. The kobolds were promised certain trinkets and the gnolls mates. Agents hired by the Lady abducted female gnolls from the matriarchies of the southern plains (51.29) and brought them north in cages along the Welt Road that passed through the Lands of the Night Cattle.
Things both fair and foul were given life by the Lady and, when suitable subjects were unavailable, she dabbled in alterations of her gnoll servitors. But one day a wyrm erupted from the depths of the earth, twisting through the halls and stairs of the Broken Spear. The Lady did battle with it but was finally killed. However, in her final moments, she spoke a word that sent her spirit from her body and into the metal of the tower. Since then the tower has been animated by the Lady’s soul, or at least some portion of it, and none know what she is now capable of or what she now plots. It is said that the gnolls have found her hidden study and have taken up the study of her arts, in a most clumsy fashion…
Hooks:
- Just what can the spirit of a dead wizard trapped inside a twisted tower of alien metal DO? What does it want? How much control does she still have over the gnolls? How much has her present condition changed the Lady…
- What are the gnolls now capable of?
- Is it true that the Lady can be returned to life if the correct body is found for her?
Connections:
- One of the Lady’s creations, a creature named Zor, now lives along the banks of the Witchwater (37.07).
- The Lady is partially to blame for the creation of the ettins (13.06).
- One of the Lady’s former apprentices is Orhan, one of the Viceroys of Jahur (19.31.05).
The Journal in Green
Hex: 40.06.03
Connects to: 25.04.02.
In a disused room in one of the lower levels of the Broken Spear lies a book bound in green leather within a pile of gnollish garbage. This is the Journal in Green.
