The Slumbering Wyrm | Icuthar | Gahlgax Atarrith | The Grim Wood | Six Odd Things in a Gelatinous Cube
The Slumbering Wyrm
Adventurers | Inn
This rambling inn and tavern has expanded several times in recent years. As business gets better, so does the inn encroach upon the surrounding buildings. Its owner, the half-elven Allyshe Aralivar, always seems to have enough money to buy that which is for sale. Thus, slowly, the inn—now more of an interconnected array of buildings clustered around the cobbled courtyard of an old coaching inn—has come to dominate the surrounding neighbourhood.
The inn’s size is just one of its most notable characteristics—the other is its clientele. The Slumbering Wyrm is an adventurers’ haunt, and boasts a sizeable semi-permanent population of such folk. Some are retired, others semi-retried and yet others just enjoy some downtime between adventures. Some of the retired and semi-retired folk even run small businesses from their chambers, which draws more folk to the inn. Allyshe, of course, takes a cut of all such transactions made on the premises, and many folk assume that this is the source of her near inexhaustible supply of gold.
Icuthar
Extant Kingdom | Demon Worshippers
This supremely ancient and supremely evil kingdom—perhaps the oldest human kingdom extant in the world—lies in the distant grasslands of the far south. It has endured much—insurrection, invasion and intifada—in its long, dark history, but Icuthar endures.
Straddling several lucrative trade routes, Icuthar maintains a near-stranglehold over the supply of certain luxury goods much in demand in the cooler northern kingdoms. Its powerful navy protects its coast from both pirates and crusading Darlenites who, sailing from their protected anchorage at the Castle of Good Hope, seek to check and stymie the dark tide of Icuthar’s influence. Similarly, Icuthar’s ironshod legions protect its borders and regulate all overland trade and movement. Getting into Icuthar is almost as difficult and dangerous as getting out of Icuthar.
Many-stepped ziggurats surmounted by mighty weather-worn statues of the Faceless Dragon loom over Icuthar’s towns and cities. From these looming crypt-fanes, sorcerer-priests reign supreme over the kingdom’s cowed populace. To placate the masses and to offer great sacrifices to their demonic patrons, the implacable sorcerer-priests hold great gladiatorial games in sunken, blood-soaked, ichor-drenched arenas. At such events, doomed slaves and prisoners fight among themselves or sometimes against the sorcerer-priest’s demonic pets for the only prize worth having—survival. Sometimes the priesthood turns their pets loose at night to sate their hunger on whoever they choose.
The greatest and oldest of Icuthar’s ziggurats dominates Yulth, its ancient, Abyss-tainted capital; here dwells the Demon-King Incarnate. Scion of a bloodline said to stretch back millennia, the Demon-King Incarnate is Icuthar’s supreme authority and is said to consort with the Faceless Dragon itself.
See Also: The Faceless Dragon
Gahlgax Atarrith
Demon Lord
An elder being of almost unimaginable power and depravity, Gahlgax has existed for millennia uncounted. Wreathed in flame and shadow, Gahlgax is instantly recognisable as a demonic being of immense power. However, those who look closely may recognise his undead nature—his fangs are unnaturally long for a demon’s, and although a creature of darkness himself, he casts no shadow.
Orcus himself blessed Gahlgax with undeath a score of centuries ago, after the balor stymied a rival’s plot to steal the infamous Wand of Orcus. Orcus, in rare good mood after torturing and dismembering a particularly obnoxious and strident paladin-hero, drank deeply of Gahlgax’s blood to create the unholy abomination that now serves him.
Such is Gahlgax’s depravity and infamy that he appears in the holy scripts of many good-aligned faiths with epithets such as the Light Banisher, Destroyer of Hope or simply the Corruptor. It was Gahlgax who was responsible for the disappearance of Enkidu Shuruppak, the so-called Purple Archmage, after the foolish and colossally arrogant wizard sought to summon and control a balor. It was also Gahlgax who single-handedly destroyed the Darlenite Temple-Fortress of Barir-Kar after the priests and paladins of that place came dangerously close to discovering certain secrets relating to the Wand of Orcus. Countless other heroes have fallen before his blade or been destroyed by his deceptions or sorcererous magics.
Gahlgax dwells in the terrible fortress of Calaunsur, a benighted place of fused bone and flaming shadow, fire and death set deep within the Abyss. Here, protected by legions of lesser undead, vampire guards, powerful skeletal spellcasters and countless demons, chief amongst whom are a triumvirate of graveknight mariliths, Gahlgax sits upon the Moaning Throne.
Crafted from the fused skulls of Gahlgax’s greatest enemies and rivals, powerful and unique magics unknown to mortals bind the souls of the slain to their skulls. Thus, his enemies are doomed to an eternity of suffering and madness.
The Grim Wood
Bugbears | Hill Giants | Forest | Mountains
Growing up the flanks of a gloomy, snow-capped range of forbidding, titan-bulked mountains, the Grim Wood is a tenebrous place of lurking sudden death. The Grim Wood is an elder world untouched by humanity’s civilising touch.
Here, through the perpetual gloam beneath the brooding and silent, densely packed firs and conifers lurks danger and death. Snow leopards and tigers come down from the mountains to hunt the forest’s upper reaches, while lower down hill giants dwell in huge steadings. From their mighty holds, the hill giants lumber forth to battle the more numerous bugbear tribes of the lower hills. Where the hill giants are brutish and unimaginative, the bugbears are masters of deception, terror and ambush, and thus the brutal contest is finely balanced and unending.
If it were not for the forest’s rich resources—plentiful lumber, luscious pelts and more—few humans would dare the Grim Wood. But these natural riches, along with persistent rumours of an easy pass through the mountains, draw them hither. Other rumours speaking of old ruins of strange and troubling design clinging to the mountain sides, of odd discoveries in various time-worn, snow-hidden cairns, and of a lost dwarven mine-hold buried somewhere in the mountains draw a steady stream of adventurers to the Grim Wood. Few who enter the woods are ever seen again.
Six Odd Things in a Gelatinous Cube
Six Things | Dungeon
The remnants of a skeletal hand yet clutch a fist-sized, faintly glowing crystal shard. A person holding the crystal can command it to increase its radiance to that of a blazing torch or to reduce it to that of a guttering candle.
An arced spray of gold and silver coins suspended in the cube makes it appear as if a cloud of coins is sweeping toward the party.
A dormant sentient sword is suspended in the cube. It only animates when it is adjacent to a living humanoid; this could happen within or without the cube.
The stone head of a grimacing medusa—complete with intricate snake-hair—is suspended in the cube. The head is exceptionally detailed.
An ornate silver hand mirror is suspended in the cube and reflects and amplifies the party’s lights, making it virtually certain they see the cube coming.
A disjointed and jumbled bone cloud hangs in the gelatinous cube. The bones belong to a slumbering adventurer consumed long ago. His spirit—a vengeful and confused poltergeist—lingers on in the bones and attacks any recognisable humanoid investigating his bones.
Campaign (noun): a connected series of adventures; Component (noun): a constituent part
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