Howling Fortress
Near the headwaters of the Bloody Run, this ancient fortress is carved some 350 feet up on the side of a granite crag that rises 600 feet above the neighboring Bent Wood. From the ruins of a gatehouse at its base, a causeway runs from the forest floor up the side of the cliff to a gaping stone maw in the massive walls, all that remains of the fortress’s once mighty gates. Through the opening and delving deep into the earth is a complex that, over long years, has been used as a dwelling place, a citadel, and a prison.
The site dates back thousands of years to the Age of Dragons when titans and their giant servants walked the land. These massive beings are thought to be the original builders at this location, dwelling in grand galleries far below the surface. No one now knows the titans’ purpose in delving here, though it is known that the deepest halls lead to natural caverns and tunnels which, according to rumor, connect to the world-spanning depths of the Under Realms. They abandoned the site for some unknown reason, and millennia later, a group of paladins devoted to Muir repurposed the ancient abode and transformed it into a fortress they called Muirgaard. They built their cloister here and incarcerated some of their world’s most dangerous creatures deep beneath the citadel. Villains, monsters, and fiends bided their time in the paladins’ escape-proof cells. However, the construction of Muir’s temple in the Stoneheart Valley eventually rendered the prison here obsolete. The god’s disciples transferred the inmates elsewhere, leaving Muirgaard unoccupied once again.
Within a few years, creatures from the unending caverns beneath Muirgaard began to repopulate the forsaken site. At some point, the Blood Clan gnolls made the old citadel their new home. Recently, the clan fell under the baleful influence of a bloodthirsty wyvern they worship as a god they call Yulanupior. The monster’s insatiable lust for carnage spurs the gnolls to perform nightly sacrifices to the vile entity. The sound that occurs during these ghastly rituals earned the Howling Fortress and its environs its current name. To meet Yulanupior’s surging demand for fresh souls, the gnolls expanded their base of operations to include waylaying passing caravans and travelers from nearby Apothasalos. The city has taken keen interest in the recent spate of disappearances in the vicinity of the Howling Fortress, which has prompted some of the metropolis’s business enterprises to urge the harmost to take decisive action to address the rising threat.
While the gnolls undoubtedly pose a significant menace in the region, legends speak of far greater evils in the depths below the Howling Fortress. Few believe the titans simply walked away from their former home countless eons ago without leaving some trace of their presence in the ruined galleries. Likewise, while the paladins never acknowledged any successful escapes, it seems plausible that at least one of their prisoners outwitted Muirgaard’s security and made a dash to freedom somewhere within the apparently bottomless chasm beneath the fortress. And deeper still are the ceaseless tunnels that may lead to the Under Realms below Akados. It is safe to say that the gnolls and their erstwhile deity represent just the tip of the iceberg of what awaits adventurers who dare explore the depths beneath the Howling Fortress.
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