Westwood Keep and the Harpers of Waterdeep
In 1490 DR, a group of adventurers were granted land by the Lords of Waterdeep on the southern edge of Westwood to the north-east of Waterdeep (near the hamlet of Amphail). There, they built a keep and began attracting fellow adventures to their cause. While his allies traveled across the planes, the Bard and harper agent known as Weyland organized a rebirth of the Waterdeep Harpers following their destruction at the hands of the cult of blackcloak (whose attempt to resurrect the mad mage Hallaster Blackcloak was foiled by the group). When the group returned from their extra-planar adventures, most set off again on their own adventures throughout the faerun.
Weyland, however, continued to send his agents throughout the sword coast. While investigating a possible resurgence of the Zhentarim in the town of Loudwater (following up a lead he had discovered years prior while adventuring), he was found dead in his inn room. His body was desiccated, as if drained of life. The innkeep remembered seeing a peculiar Gnome hanging about the common room that night, but didn’t remember him ever renting a room or ordering any food. The only item missing from his room was his magical (and sentient) rapier Talondil The Foul.
Back at Westwood Keep, the harpers elected a new leader and continued the work started by Weyland. Their most successful project of the last 100 years was a coup in the port city of Luskan that saw the pirate captains of old replaced by a benevolent Elven lord with a penchant for the flamboyant. Piracy was outlawed, and through a deep network of spies the new Elven ruler (named Jarladuin) rooted out the old pirates lords and had them suffer the prisoner’s carnival (a gruesome and cruel gauntlet of public torture that was a mainstay of the pirate lords’ rule). Luskan became a sister city of Waterdeep, and trade between them and the other cities of the sword coast flourished.
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