Stonespire Keep

The imperial fortress of Stonespire Keep has long guarded the western portions of the Achenae peninsula from monstrous incursion, but was severely damaged in a civil war in the year 496. The ruined structure provides minimal protection to the population of the surrounding town, which has recently fallen under the rule of the alchemist Elias Radenos.

The keep, although of minor significance and all but lost to history will rise as the players' home stronghold.

Architecture

The fortress of Stonespire was constructed wholly out of locally quarried limestone, and the external walls were made of limestone ashlar. The lower fortress consisted of a pair of walls, to provide some shelter from the west, although it was never heavily fortified to the west.. The inner fortress, the halls and rooms cut out from the hillside, consisted of four floors and provided housing forty soldiers, an armory, a larder, an alchemical laboratory, and a warehouse for collected tolls. Above the hillside, the fortress completed the other half of the camp's octagon, and was marked by a pair of watchtowers flanking the river on both sides, and a heavy wall that protected workshops and other industrial works that would require the access to the water. Outside of the upper walls, was situated the town of Stonespire.

In modern times, however, the walls of Stonespire Keep have all but crumbled, and the northern-most of the watchtowers has collapsed entirely. The southern watchtower stands, in part, but only two of the tower's four stories remain standing. The outer wall of the lower town has been fortified with a wooden palisade constructed from locally chopped timber, but no attempt has been made by the townspeople to reconstruct the stone walls of the lower town. The inner fortress, or a portion thereof, has been moved into by the locals.

History

At the time of its construction, the tower that would come to be known as Stonespire Keep was intended as a simple toolbooth, collecting money from boats shipping timber and limestone down the central Arsanias river. As the province of Achenae grew and there became an increased demand for local construction materials, a small industry developed, in which laborers would unload the boats at the top of the falls, use cranes to lower the materials down the falls, and reload them onto keelboats for the remainder of the trip to the provincial capital. As these laborers built a town around the tollbooth, it became a target for the more bestial residents of the Mountains of Metsovo, and the wooden tower was rebuilt, and its sized increased to hold a small imperial garrison.

Over time, the town of Stonespire, which surrounded the eponymous keep, continued to grow and the tower was incapable of providing adequate defenses for the local residents, so the tower was again leveled to make way for a more fitting structure. An imperial fortress was carved into the limestone hills and served as a connection between the upper and lower falls, and the stone quarried from the fortress' interior was used to build a pair of watchtowers over the river, and a series of walls protecting the upper town. As time continued to march onward, the fortress of Stonespire Keep grew to be a symbol of imperial authority reaching deep into the fringes of civilized territory and a reminder to the people that their monstrous foes that once plagued wild spaces were no longer a threat.

In the ages after the Angelos Restoration, during which the keep was destroyed, Stonespire was left as a ruin, as major construction projects were completed and the collection of tolls on stone and timber was no longer a major source of revenue, and the near eradication of monsters in one of the Empire's most civilized provinces rendered such a fortress obsolete.

Current State

After the destruction of the keep in 496, no need was seen to rebuild the stronghold and the area was gradually abandoned by imperial interests. The town of Stonespire has maintained itself by means of sustinence-level farming and light industry, but was often the victim of raids from bandits and nearby bestial humanoids and poverty is widespread. The keep is currently occupied by a group of mercenaries-turned-bandits under the employ of Elias Radenos, an alchemist who has raided what remained of imperial stores in the keep and set up his laboratory in the second floor of the extant western watchtower. The populace, rather than face a slow extinction at the hands of those who habitually raided them, have accepted Radenos as overlord, despite his penchant for cruelty.

Maps

• 

  The Town of Stonespire and its Environs

RUINED STRUCTURE
496

Type

Fortress

Parent Location

Achenae

Owner

Elias Radenos

Characters in Location

• Elias Radenos