The Rent

A petty local landowner, Sir Pierell Dempstren, maintains a fortified mansion house and powerful 50-strong militia in the lands here. His source of wealth is a coal mine. Veins of coal skirt around a geological fault, the Rent, which gives the place its name and makes work here very hazardous.

Dempstren manages to supply Archbold with his full due, to avoid attention being closely paid to what he does here. Dempstren wants to avoid attention be- cause his workers are zombies and slaves. He secretly buys slaves along the south coast, and he usually has them killed and then animated by his cousin, a 7th-level priest of Nerull who escaped from Aerdi during the late stages of the war.

Obviously, Dempstren is desperate to keep the secret of his mines profitability. He is paranoid about any intrusions into his lands. For around five miles in every direction around the mine, land is fenced off and posted with signs reading, "Keep Out! Trespassers will be Impaled" One or two senior militia men know what is happening within the mine, but they have kept quiet about this ... so far.