Deadstone Cleft

Canyon on the Stone Giants

In the desolate, fog-shrouded foothills of the Graypeak Mountains is a dead-end canyon with the petrified bodies of stone giants embedded in its hundred-foot-tall gray walls. The corpses create a sense of unease and dread, warning visitors that Deadstone Cleft is a place of death. As cold wind passes through the canyon, it produces a moan that seems to issue from the gaping mouths of the bodies, adding to the eerie atmosphere. Dotting the canyon walls are several openings that lead to stone-carved tombs and other chambers, some open to the sky and others beneath hundreds of feet of stone. Carved stone bridges also span the canyon.

NPCs

Prose Edda Voice: Short, simple speech

• Her husband Joheem
• The Great Stillness - Olach Morrah
• Sughar Du a.k.a. the Spotted Lantern Fly that creates a black sooty mold - very poisonous to plants/trees. Thane Kayalithica is convincing the other stone giants that the humans are the reason for this plague. 

Thane Kayalithica

• Tells her followers that she’s heeding the will of Skoraeus Stonebones
• Neutral evil extremist because she is under the influence of the Steinfang

Hydia Moonmusk

• Voice: Primitive, short and to the point “You cross cross the Blue Bear Tribe, You suffer”
• Leader of the Blue Bear tribe; used to be primarily firbolgs but now humans
• Daughter of the late Great Chief Brosh, Grand Daughter of Kriga Moonmusk - very powerful old crotchety woman that spearheaded the efforts to make the Blue Bear Tribe a matriarch Great Granddaughter of Dantan Moonmusk.
• Gladiator stats
• The Plasha un Karsete (Plague of Karse) is spreading - searching for the Talisman Other stones are trying to reach out to connect with it causing strange phenomonon. Kriga lives among the Fey and Stones in Star Mounts nearby to Karse.

Kriga Moonmust the Ascended

• Rests deep within the High Forest atop Star Mounts. She is revered among the Fey and dragons that reside there, both Chromatic and Metallic. It is the one place in the realms where occasionally the kin of Bahamut and Tiamat can co-exist. My concern is that Star Mounts is located dangerously close to the Plasha un Karsete.

Dantan Moonmusk Voice: “The stones they speak, my bones they creak. Hostility or tranquility, what is it that you seek?” Bald head, with very look bovine ears and chin. Half man, half firbolg. Has incredibly long curly hair from his sideburns that falls down to his chest (Payot with Orthodox Jews). Because he is shirtless, you can see that his skin is liver spotted but rather than tan pigmentations it is splotches of hide. He wears a cross body sash, from which hang small bottles varying in color. Stands about 6 ½ feet tall.

• Great great grandfather of Hydia - partially scenile.
• He too can enter the Olach Morrah
• Does not support Kaylithica, but too old to care.
• Steinfang - Magical stalactite, the Steinfang, into which the giants carve questions. The carvings fade on nights of the new moon and are replaced with answers. The giants believe that these replies come from Skoraeus Stonebones himself, DM: In truth they are produced by an ancient, evil earth primordial trapped under the Graypeak Mountains since the dawn of time. Human and dwarven miners have long avoided the canyon for fear of antagonizing the stone giants known to dwell at Deadstone Cleft. The stone giants don’t tolerate uninvited guests in their hallowed halls, attacking them on sight.
• Tells Willow: The ones you travel with, tell me of them? They bare the Blessing of the Grandfather Tree. Answers they seek lie it the peaks of Star Mounts.
• "The stones they speak amongst each other you know. Word travels pretty fast. Answers that you may seek to a common enemy of you all, lie the the Peaks of Star Mounts. Travel there when you are ready to unveil the mystery that binds you all together.”

Developments

Tomb of the Skodkong (7)

• Here lies the tomb of the Skodkong (“Fog King”), the first of Deadstone Cleft’s thanes. Unlike most stone giants, the Skodkong had pale gray skin — hence its moniker.
• The chamber is open to the sky and has 100-foot-high walls. Pools of rainwater have formed on the floor to each side of a giant slab of pale gray stone. Three dead, fossilized stone giants in alcoves loom above the tomb, posing no threat to intruders. This soft clay tomb however is actually the reshaped body of a stone giant, which has giant hand-shaped indentations all over it.
• The first character who attempts to reach into the slab is irresistibly pulled into it, after which the stone instantly hardens. While trapped in the stone, the character is restrained, can’t hear or see anything, and has total cover. The character hears a deep, rumbling voice say, “Ask!” in Common. The character can now ask the Skodkong three questions, and it provides truthful, all-knowing answers that only the character can hear.

Chandelier of the Ordining

Storm - Mighty loin, Lightning, corral

• Longing for his Lioness, searching the cosmos for her far and wide

Cloud - Wise eagle, whisks of clouds, wind, moisture

• Searching the land for rare treasures to bring back and safeguard in its nest

Fire - Powerful grizzly bear, flame and molten rock

• Gathering resources for their long hibernation - no concern for others. The roars of the flaming bears cut through the cosmos, it’s reverberations creating a massive

Frost - Fierce Great White Shark, ice, covered in frost, leaving a tracer as it moves

• Seeking out something they cannot find, leaving a wake of destruction

Stone - Steadfast Bison, stone, rubble, and sparkling uncut gems

• Fed up and chasing away intruding vermin from their land, one above the rest causing the herd to blindly stampede ahead.

Hill - Careless boars, dirt, mud, large pieces of earth

• Scouring for food in a hoglike gluttonous manor. One boar in particular much larger than the rest, consuming most of the food, even resorting to eating other swine, its own kin.

Deadstone Cleft

Type

Military, Base