Caer Dineval
Population 250
“When last I visited Caer-Dineval, I found the town speaker livin in an old fort at the top o the road, perched up there like a lord in is castle. Whats he lord of Yd like to know. A little pride is well an good, but never will I under¬stand the vanity o men!”
—Beorne Steelstrike
Goods & Services
Dinev's Rest Inn
Built in a shallow dell, protects from the wind, a relief.
Run by Kadie, vivacious young woman with fiery red hair. Her father was the ex speaker and while she is happy to be out of the Caer, she still complains a lot.
Very spacious. People sit around a common room around a central fire pit swapping stories.
One of the first buildings you see when entering the town.
The Uphill Climb Tavern
Perched ontop of the hill near the entrance of the Caer
Run by Roark, a ruggedly handsome fellow who takes pains to stock a variety of foodstuff from Bryn Shander.
Intimate, upper class and loungey-it's contrasted by the front bar where sailors race up the hill to unwind. Last one up the hill buys a round.
Culver's Shop
A house turned shop
Run by Culver Ailsen, isn't so much of a merchant as he is a collector. Aging widower with no children.
Really interested in the history of Icewind Dale and Ten-Towns and collects anything he can get his hands on. Perfect place to find something you can't anywhere else.
Knows a great deal about the history of Icewind Dale. He loves to share his knowledge with anyone who will listen.
In generations past, travelers to Caer-Dineval had to make their way east from the hills around Bryn Shander and then cut north, following the rocky shore of Lac Dinneshere until after several weary hours they spied a small fortress (the “caer” for which the town is named) jutting up from the prominence where it overlooks the lake. These days, visitors to the town can take the Eastway to Easthaven, and then hire a ferry to take them across the lake to Caer-Dineval. Only those who have no coin to spare, or who have more than a small carts worth of goods to transport, still take the rude trail that wends its way up the lakes western shore.
Whether arriving “by land or by lac,” visitors are immediately confronted by the fortifications for which the town is famous: its clifftop caer and the now-ruined watchtower at the mouth of the harbor. Most of the town’s buildings line the path that winds down the steep slope from the caer to the harbor, perched on the rocky face like cliffside nests. Newer structures have been built out along the approach coming up the western shore. The effect is that visi¬tors enter Caer-Dineval in procession, filing up the narrow street past the buildings on either side, from which the residents watch with a mixture of inter¬est and suspicion. If travelers do not turn aside into a shop or tavern, the road brings them to the top of the bluff and deposits them at the gates of the caer.
The Bastion of Lac Dinneshere
The caer was built over four hundred years ago by the Dinev family, before Ten-Towns existed as anything more than a few scattered camps of explor¬ers living off the land. A displaced Cormyrean family whose sire was purportedly of noble extrac¬tion, the Dinevs built their castle on the cliffs over Lac Dinneshere in a bid to claim sovereignty over the unsettled lands of Icewind Dale. When the castle-dubbed Caer-Dineval-was completed, the workers and their families settled in the outbuild¬ings they had constructed farther down the cliff face, along with the families of the few retainers the Dinevs had brought with them. Over the next several years, many explorers in the region came to see the caer for themselves, and some decided to trade their tents in the hunting and fishing camps for a cozy cot¬tage in the shadow of the walls of Caer-Dineval.
No sooner had the small town taken hold than a marauding tribe of ores swept down from the tundra to put it to the torch. Rather than flee their new¬found home, the residents rushed to the clifftop to seek refuge in the caer. But the Dinevs, alarmed by the size of the ore tribe and the speed of its approach, barred the caer’s gates and refused to open them.
The ores fell upon the stranded people and slaugh¬tered them to the last one. The Dinevs survived the initial assault, thanks to their redoubt, but after three weeks of confinement in the caer, they were so weak¬ened by hunger that they were unable to resist when the ore raiders scaled their walls. Thus, their brief rule in Icewind Dale came to a bloody end.
The caer remained in the ores’ possession for the next several years, although it changed hands a few times during that period as factions among the ores fought each other for control of the castle. By the end of that time, the small camps of humans in the dale had grown larger and more numerous, and the future inhabitants of Ten-Towns decided that they could ill afford to have a fortified encampment of ores so close to their communities. For the first time in their history, warriors from the disparate human settlements banded together. They marched on Caer-Dineval and drove the ores from its walls. The victors claimed the castle, its lands, and the lake beyond for their own, and those with families brought them there to settle. The descendants of those proud people live there to this day and keep alive the memory of their ancestors’ deeds.
Today, the caer’s keep is a glorified residence for the town’s speaker, Crannoc Siever. Although its sturdy wooden fortifications are still capable of withstanding the attacks of ore and barbarian raiders, the people of Caer-Dineval remember the grim lesson of the Dinev's. They flee from incursions to seek shel¬ter behind the better-defended and better-supplied walls of Bryn Shander.
Goods and Services
Dinev’s Rest,
situated at the low end of town on the lakeside road, is Caer-Dineval’s inn, and one of the first buildings that travelers reach if they arrive on foot. Built in a shallow dell a little way back from the cliff line, the inn is spacious compared to Caer-Dineval’s other buildings and blessedly sheltered from the winds that buffet the rest of the town. Inside, visitors sit in the common room around the central fire pit, swapping stories about their travels; the walls behind them are adorned with faded banners bearing the Dinev coat of arms. The innkeeper is Kadie, a vivacious young woman with fiery red hair. Her father was the previous speaker of Caer-Dineval, and as a child she lived with him and her brothers in the caer. Kadie speaks about her town with pride and can tell visitors all about the history of the caer. She doesn’t miss living there—the keep, as she’ll readily relate, is too drafty-and she doesn’t think Crannoc has done poorly by the town, but Kadie is not bashful about observing that the current speaker doesn’t listen to folks as much as he ought to... not like her father did.
The Uphill Climb is a tavern perched at the top of the approach to the caer, with spectacular views of the lake and the docks below. Although it has a solid core of local patrons, the Climb also caters to the town’s more upscale clientele-well-to-do travelers and merchants who have coin to spend on more than just beer and fish chowder. The proprietor, a ruggedly handsome fellow named Roark, takes pains to stock a variety of foodstuffs from Bryn Shander’s market, and he always buys the best brews out of Good Mead. The tavern has a private dining area where the speaker of Caer-Dineval meets with merchants, adventurers, or anyone else who has important business with the town. The intimate atmosphere is only occasionally ruined by the cheers from the front room when patrons from the dockside tavern finish their nightly footrace up the cliffside road to the Climb’s front door, usually followed by the sounds of retching. The last runner through the door traditionally buys a round of drinks for the house.
Culver’s Shop
isn’t really a shop-it’s a house, and its resident, Culver Ailsen, isn’t so much a merchant as he is a collector. An aging widower with no children, Culver keeps himself company with the many books, maps, and curiosities he has collected over the years. Whenever traveling merchants come through town, Culver is one of the first to introduce himself—shak¬ing their hands, asking their story, and then getting to the serious work of poring over their inventory. Culver has a particular interest in the history of Ten-Towns and Icewind Dale, and he eagerly buys anything connected with the accounts and letters he has read.
Culver doesn’t restrict himself to historical memorabilia-he picks up anything that interests him, whether it’s a halfling stick-and-ball game or a finely etched dwarven dagger. Because of his tendency to acquire all manner of odds and ends, the locals stop by Culvers anytime they need something they can’t get from one of the town’s crafters.
As a result of his voracious reading, Culver knows a bit about nearly everything in the dale-knowledge that he will share with those who care to listen (he prefers to talk over a pint at the Uphill Climb). In particular, Culver has read several accounts of Akar Kessell’s war against Ten-Towns a century ago, and the relics he has acquired from the Battle of Icewind Dale are his most prized possessions.
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