Lake Aqal

Lake Aqal is a strange, wondrous place. Many hundreds of square miles in area, the lake is over 1,800 fathoms deep in places. It is fed by many underground springs and the Artonsamay rises here. Rumor tells of a magical cataclysm or the falling of a great rock from the sky many centuries past, which created this great basin, but the origins of its many islands are quite unknown. Dotted all over the lake, these small rocky islands are covered with fine, rich soil and heavy vegetation. They vary from but one square mile to over thirty square miles in size and many are connected by long ribbons of rock barriers. The vegetation of some islands is virtually impenetrable and even the barriers bear huge trees over a hundred feet in height with enormous canopies. Thus, much of the lake is under tree cover. Unusually tall, willow-like trees even grow on huge, drifting masses of organic detritus around the lake.

Lake Aqal is noted for its animals and monsters of unusual size and strength. Natural animals like giant otters, beavers, rats, frogs, toads, and lizards are 50% likely to be half as large again as normal (50% addition to Hit Dice, +25% to damage) and 10% of them are truly enormous variants with double the normal Hit Dice, +50% to damage values, and -1 to AC values. This is one place where giant frogs and toads are much more than a nuisance creature. Likewise the leeches which infest some of the islands. The huge fish of the lake are similarly enlarged, with giant crayfish and truly massive pike being the major hazards. Giant water beetles are common here, as are giant dragonflies, and the lake certainly holds eels as thick as an elephant's leg and crocodile-like water lizards of disconcerting sprinting speed as yet unstudied by Oerth's sages.

Monsters are 25% likely to have +1 HD if normally of 6+1 HD or below or +2 HD if normally 6+2 HD or above. Of these, 5% of them are of vast size, so add one-half of normal HD value, but do not apply this to any dragons which might he found here. Ettercaps and kech infest many of the islands and the heavily wooded flood plain, which extends for some 30 miles east of the lake, while aquatic carrion crawlers, a nest of enormous margoyles, and numerous merrow are among the other indigenous fauna. So far as rarer monsters go, both water nagas and greenhags have been reported in Lake Aqal and a very old green dragon lairs on one of the largest central islands. Rumor tells of a marid in the lake and a mist dragon, but these tales have not been verified. But, then again, reliable verification is hard to come by here. All this makes Lake Aqal interesting, but probably a place to avoid if not for persistent rumors of permanent magical effects here. That magic is the force which has established the teeming fecundity of plant life and the rare size of animals and monsters, is doubted by few. Whether the magic is attributable to a sunken relic or artifact, or some magical spring, is not certain. Water taken from the lake radiates magic very faintly, but has no obvious effects on the drinker and the magic decays after ld4 hours of being drawn. If it could be harnessed, however, the effects could be enormous. A warband of 20,000 orcs is bad enough, but one where a quarter of them had additional HD would be so much worse. Likewise, boosting the size of Iuz's monstrous trolls, giants and charmed monsters could enable the demipower to act crushingly against the good nations who still oppose him.

Some of the lake's islands are likewise said to have been home to a group of very seclusive and ancient wizards as powerful as the Wind Dukes of Aqaa or the Glittering Wizards of the Isles of Woe in Oerth's pre-history. These islands are said to be almost alive as entities in themselves, assaulting those who set foot on them with hails of stone and rock as the very earth churns underfoot. Whether any of these tales are true and what remains of the long-dead wizard’s magical treasures and hoards, is a matter of pure conjecture.