Revel's End

Revel's End was a prison built on a cliff-side overlooking the Sea of Moving Ice in the Frozenfar region of the North. It was used by the Lords' Alliance as of the late 15th century DR to hold some of The Sword Coast's most heinous criminals.

Purpose / Function

Revel's End held individuals convicted of the most serious crimes committed against the member states of the Lords' Alliance, specifically those given the lengthiest sentences or who had proven too politically connected to be securely interred elsewhere, and those criminals who were too hardened or too dangerous. All prisoners were issued unremarkable and hoodless robes, given a unique identifying number, and were bound in manacles when not alone in their cells. Prisoners spent their time either in their cells or working in chain-gangs doing menial labor such as cutting ice from a nearby frozen river. The whole operation was overseen by a warden and by the Absolution Council, a ten-member committee formed of representatives from each of the Lords' Alliance's member states. This council determined if and when to release a prisoner on parole, with the warden serving as tie-breaker when the council was deadlocked.
Guards in cold-weather gear kept constant watch around Revel's End and its perimeter, always alerting the whole prison to anything suspicious approaching the prison. New arrivals—whether prisoners or visitors—could approach by land, sea, or air, and would be spotted from the guard towers. Visitors by land or sea were escorted to a guard room adjacent to their entrance where all weapons were confiscated and a meeting was arranged with the warden. The warden had leeway to offer shelter to visitors for up to two days, and could permit visitors to meet with a prisoner as long as the warden was also present for such a meeting.
Fresh supplies and rotating members of staff arrived by ship.

Architecture

Location

The prison was situated on the far northern coast of Icewind Dale, due north of Lonelywood. It sat atop northward-facing 160‑foot-high (49‑meter) cliffs overlooking the Sea of Moving Ice, and was carved out of the northwest side of a massive rockface known as the Windbreak, so-named because it also served to shield the prison from harsh winds off of the Reghed Glacier.
There was no road that connected Revel's End to the rest of civilization, so the most reliable ways to access the prison were by sea or by air. For travel by sea, a pier was located at the base of the cliffs with an elevator leading up to the prison. The elevator was essentially just a large wooden box that followed a scaffold up the cliff, and it was raised and lowered via a crane at the top. For travel by air, a mooring for airships was located atop the prison's tall central tower.
For travel by land, a horse-drawn sleigh bearing an iron cargo hold well-secured with chains and padlocks was used to transport prisoners and guards across the ice in the 1490s DR. With prisoners inside the hold, it had three armed guards outside, one of them the driver. Taking no chances, the gates were opened first and the sled was backed into it and locked to the gate walls, so there was no gap to the outside world. Only then was the compartment opened and the prisoner escorted directly into the prison courtyard.

Structure

Revel's End was constructed as a panopticon, wherein individual prison cells encircled a central surveillance room. The primary prison structure was a single-story, 20‑foot-tall (6.1‑meter) building with a six-sided star shape that had four two-story, 40‑foot-tall (12‑meter) guard towers erected at the northwest, northeast, southeast, and southwest "apex" points of the star. The northeastern and southwestern arms of the star were dedicated to open-air courtyards paved with flagstones, which granted prisoners some space for exercise when weather permitted. The southeastern corner of the structure backed into the Windbreak from which the whole prison had been carved and constructed, and some interior rooms were tunneled into the rock itself. A four-story, 140‑foot-tall (43‑meter) central tower lined with arrow-slits rose above the panopticon surveillance room to loom over the rest of the structure.

Interior

Nearly the whole prison was magically heated to 68 ℉ (20 ℃) and illuminated via continual flames. Despite this, it could often be cold enough freeze the contents of the waste buckets. It contained a number of limited amenities for the staff and guards, including a mess hall, barracks, armory, guest rooms, stables, a meeting room, and a storeroom. The kitchen contained an iron stove, and drew water from a magically heated cistern on the roof. In addition to a well-stocked pantry, the kitchen took advantage of the naturally frigid weather to create a cold storage area out of an an unheated side room. The prison also included a hospital, courtyards, and a privy, which were the only rooms a prisoner might see outside of their own cell if they were injured, given time for exercise (weather permitting), or if it was time to empty their waste buckets respectively.
The hexagonal "core" of Revel's End encompassed the prison's central surveillance hub and the two-dozen individual cells immediately surrounding it. Each cell was intended to hold up to two prisoners, and contained only an iron bunkbed with two thin mattresses and a bucket for waste. From the surveillance chamber at the base of the central tower, guards could observe all cells through arrow slits. This room also contained a magical console that allowed the prison's guards to control the gate to each cell, magically amplify a speaker's voice throughout the entire compound, and adjust the intensity of the continual flames providing illumination throughout the whole of the prison.
Within the second level of the central surveillance tower, some 120 feet (37 meters) above the prison's main level, was the Hall of Absolution. This floor also contained the warden's office and living quarters. The roof of the tower was situated another 20 feet (6.1 meters) up, and had little protection from the elements save three 6‑foot-thick (1.8‑meter) walls to the north, southwest, and southeast. A wooden drawbridge could be lowered off the tower's northeast edge to provide an airship dock.
The Hall of Absolution was a chamber that served as the meeting place for the prison's governing body, the Absolution Council. It was decorated with banners bearing the symbol of the Lords' Alliance. Prisoners up for parole were manacled and brought to stand before a large curved table that dominated the room. Behind this table were eleven high-backed chairs, with the five on the left and the right each adorned with the symbol of a member of the Lords' Alliance, indicating the councilor who would sit there during hearings. These hearings were always attended by the prison warden, who sat in the unadorned central chair. The Absolution Council could also meet in a small chamber with a round window; they sat behind a table with places for only four members and prisoners might be left unmanacled, likely if considered safe.
Set within the floors of the courtyard and corridors were iron rails holding sliders. These were linked via chains and locked onto a prisoner's manacles, preventing them from moving in any other direction whilst being escorted by guards around the prison.

Defenses

The prison employed a variety of security measures to ensure the safety of its staff and guarantee its prisoners could not escape. Guards patrolled through the panopticon and the entrances every 20 minutes or less, and were hyper-vigilant for anything suspicious, ranging from the casting of spells to merely conversing with a prisoner using their real name instead of their number designation. Each cell was blanketed by a permanent antimagic field and their barred gates were impossible to force open with brute strength. Every other door and hatch in the prison was made of reinforced iron and enchanted with the arcane lock spell, which only allowed prison staff to open them. Even if a prisoner managed to escape, they would have to flee across the tundra in 0 ℉ (−18 ℃) weather or worse. Nevertheless, escaped prisoners Holga and Edgin managed to do just that.
At any time, the warden could place Revel's End on high alert by uttering the command word "maristo". This caused the whole prison to be illuminated in red light, signaled all 75 guards to arm themselves, and granted them the ability to see invisible objects and people.

History

Revel's End was constructed at the order of the leaders of the Lords' Alliance some time in the 15th century DR. Workers labored hard to build it in such harsh conditions.

Type

Prison

Parent Location

Icewind Dale

Owning Organization

Lords' Alliance

Characters in Location

• Varram