Goldbolt

This magnificent six-towered, twin-courtyard castle is a citadel of good. The lands around are ruled by Karn Serrand, a paladin serving Rao. The castle occupants keep watch over the fiends, monsters, and mad things prowl ing the borders of Chathold. Serrand is proud of his lineage which he claims goes back to Queen Yalranda herself, and of its unswerving allegiance to the ethos of Lawful Good throughout the centuries. Serrand and Carwend dislike each other, the animosity being greater on the paladin's part. Still, Carwend knows the vital importance of this citadel in keeping the deranged evils of Chathold at bay, and he keeps the place amply provi sioned and supplied. This is as well, for there are few farmers left in Serrand's lands to feed the men there now.

Serrand's army contains only men of trustworthy (LG, NG, LN) alignments, and several priests of Rao and Pelor have taken refuge with him. The most powerful single defender of the castle, however, is the storm giantess Hierranea. Far away from her normal abode, the giant arrived here shortly after the fall of Chathold and announced herself to Serrand.

Well aware that storm giants are chaotic, Serrand was about to politely dismiss her when the clouds overhead grew instantaneously as dark as the fate of Chathold. The giantess reached up to touch one of the castle towers with her left hand, and in her right drew down from the clouds a golden lightning bolt which traveled, it is said, as far as the horizon and exploded above Chathold with a deafen ing thunderclap. Stunned, the paladin meditated on what to do and received a vision from Rao, instructing him to take the giantess into his citadel. Serrand also later discovered, in the castle library, an ancient tome speaking of the ability of certain priests to generate the power of this golden lightning from the site where the castle was built, and Serrand renamed the castle Goldbolt in honor of this prophecy and his strange visitor.

Building a tower for Hierranea has been in progress for more than a year. The giantess is a priestess of Stronmaus, the giantish power of sun, storms, and skies, and she is good-humored and liked—though half-feared on account of her enormous size by the defenders of the castle.

Hierranea has prophesied that the lands west of the castle, around Chathold, will crumble and vanish into the sea within a few years, and Goldbolt will be left as a sea castle. She has a reputation as a prophetess which almost equals her reputation as a priestess. Hierranea is known through virtually all the western lands, and evil things and spies from adjoining lands fear to approach this great castle on account of her.