The Kilead Catacombs

Beneath the slumbering rural town of Kilead lies a vast network of tunnels and passages, many forgotten, others blocked off and used as basements and storage.Though the existence of the catacombs is well known to all the residents the scale and original purpose of the network is lost in the mists of time. To most it is just convenient storage, but to others it is the means of moving through the city undetected.

History

Kilead is a small rural town that acts as the center of a sparsely populated, distant region of the kingdom of Erestea. While the current human settlement has been around for about 400 years the fork in the river where it lies has been populated for far longer than that, far longer in fact than the people of Kilead can even imagine.
Many different peoples, trides and civilizations have called this region home. Several thousand years ago this region was in fact home to a community of gnomes who called themselves the Delvers. They had once been a mining clan in the eastern mountains but the rise of the dwarven empire forced them to seek other means of living and other places to search for minerals and the bounties of nature, for they were a curious people. After moving out of the mountains and down the valley they started delving into the soft plains looking for what spoils the waters had brought and over time they developed ways of keeping the water out of their tunnels. Eventually they came to the place now called kilead and here they found a large deposit of a mineral known as Kavanite in Maya, the language of mages, or Otinium in Gnomish, which has strong magical protective and shielding properties. Over the next few hundred years they constructed their settlement here, 90% of which they build below ground, following the mineral veins.
They infused the tunnels they built with the Otinium and runes of protection and built chambers, and temples stretching deep underground. The settlement because of the Otinium trade and the clan grew. However all things come to an end. A warlord from the south got wind of the riches of the gnomes and came north to claim it as his own. The gnomes were crafty but they were a peaceful people and could not resist the ravaging warlords troops and were all killed. The tunnels however withstood the assault due to their magical reinforcement. The warlords people were not miners however and could not continue the work the gnomes had started and when they found the region devoid of other plunder they quickly moved on leaving behind only smoking ruins.
The tunnel entrances were covered by the flooding of the river and the network lay forgotten for centuries until the coming of the five druidic circles more than a millenium later. The druids found the tunnels and, sensing their magical nature, used them for rituals and safety but the constructed nature of the place did not suit them. and they over time they retreated to the surrounding woods.
The catacombs were not used again until Kilead was constructed. When the new settlers found the old tunnels a few brave souls tried to explore them but got lost in the labyrinthian depths. The settlers therefore decided to simply use the upper levels as basements and bricked up the tunnels leading further down. Now no one thinks about them anymore and what treasures lie in their depths seem lost to time

Type

Catacomb

Parent Location

Kilead