Dreadhold Prison

The Country of Kasr has dozens of small prisons. There are debtor prisoners, crowded and filthy, where many of the poor pass through for short durations. The military maintains detention facilities. Many of the larger and more powerful houses have their own small prisons. However, there is one prison where the most dangerous, violent (or merely politically inconvenient) prisoners are sent. It is the maximum security prison facility known simply as Dreadhold. This is the place Kasr sends those people that it wants to forget about. Dreadhold is a heavily fortified structure theorized to the hidden deep in the mountains just southwest of Pa'Shar from the prison town of Black Rock. The prison is a citadel hidden by a clinging shroud of dark fog and protected by the powers of the strange black stone from which it is hewn. Dreadhold is built to hold criminals too dangerous to be kept within another prison. The minimum stay here is ten years, but life sentences are not uncommon. Dreadhold is harsh and conditions are brutal. Even the threat of being sent to Dreadhold is often enough to break the most hardened criminal.

History

Two thousand years ago, Karrn the Conqueror founded a prison colony on an island he called Blackrock. He used it as a place of exile but did not build a true prison. The dissidents and criminals stranded on the island lived in a small thorp that has since evolved into the village of Gaolgate. Over the years, a few of the later kings of Karrnath made use of the island, but it was largely ignored. As the Lhazaar Princes spread out across the region, the people of Blackrock were either taken as slaves or became subjects of the princes, and eventually the island fell empty again. Centuries passed before Blackrock came back into the public eye. King Galifar I was more of a diplomat than his ancestor, Karrn the Conqueror, and even as he fought his war of conquest he realized he would need a place to hold hostages and political prisoners, people too important to kill but too dangerous to be kept close at hand. During his wars in the Ironroot Mountains, Galifar encountered the dwarves of Clan Kundarak and saw their skills with traps and fortifications. Soon after, he recruited a band of Kundarak dwarves to build his prison and assist in securing it. Within a century, Clan Kundarak had become House Kundarak. Backed by the power of the other dragonmarked houses, the Kundarak barons convinced Galifar l's weaker willed grandson to cede the fortress to the dwarves who built it. The renamed island of Dreadhold became part of the territory of House Kundarak, for as long as they continued to serve the Kingdom of Galifar. This arrangement continued for almost eight hundred years. With each passing century, the dwarves expanded the prison, adding new levels and new warding spells. Architects added vaults to the fortress and magical workshops where artificers and wizards could work on secretive projects of the house. Today, Dreadhold is an important enclave of House Kundarak, second only to the capital city of Korunda Gate. In 896 YK, the Kingdom of Galifir collapsed into civil war. It soon became dear there would be no swift end to this conflict In 900 YK, the Lord Warden of Dreadhold, Zaxon d'KuncLuak, contacted the leaders of the land. The rules under which the prison had run were a contract between Galifar and House Kundarak, but Galifar was no more. Dreadhold would continue to serve as a prison, but it would thereafter be an independent operation. Any legitimate authority could send criminals to Dreadhold, provided they paid for the stay. Today, the present prisoners of Dreadhold include deposed Lhazalar princes, heirs who betrayed the dragonmarked houses, war criminals, and insurgents from across the Five Nations. Some say Zaxon has made mysterious and unknowable arrangements with the High King of Valenar and has had dark dealings with the Inspired lords of Sarlona. The prison island of Dreadhold rests off the northern ranges of Cape Far. It was first established by Karrn the Conqueror as a place for exiling overthrown rulers or aristocrats who have fallen from favor, it was eventually converted by the early Galifar kings into an almost inescapable prison for those too important to execute and too dangerous to be left free. The dwarves of House Kundarak maintain the prison, which houses the most dangerous criminals from across the continent, including numerous war prisoners sent here for wartime atrocities. Most of the dwarves consider a tour of duty at Dreadhold to be equivalent to exile, but the bearers of the Mark of Warding make sure the prison stays secure despite the drabness of the place. Rumors persist that an important prisoner from Karrnath is imprisoned here[1], and that the dwarves use the prisoners to mine Khyber dragon shards from deep chasms beneath the island.

Type

Prison

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