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Temples

The Ladyhouse

Nestled in a hollow among the green, pig-roamed hills east of Corm Orp is this large, prosperous center of wor-ship to Sheela Peryroyl, the halfling goddess of nature, growing things, and agriculture. The Ladyhouse is filled with flowers and climbing vines inside and surrounded by gardens

4The location of Corm Orp is shown on the map found in the entry on Hill’s Edge, later in this chapter.

outside, including “wild” gardens, which are preserved plots of tangled weeds, shrubs, and scrub trees. Trav-elers should take note that these and the roadside wood lot in Corm Orp itself are sacred to the goddess and should not be burned, cut into for firewood, or otherwise despoiled.

Halfling worshipers bring their best flowers and plants to the temple for use in breeding and in rituals, and the clergy spend their days working with the halfling farmers, keeping watch over the hills for Zhentarim raids, thieves, and wandering beasts who might harm the crops, and chanting the praises of Sheila the Watchful Mother. (The hogs are a constant lure to wolves. One expert archer among the priests has even developed a recipe for wolf stew!)

The clergy are led by the widely respected matriarch Alliya Macanester, the Old Lady of Corm Orp. Her wisdom and foresight have prevented weather spoiling the crops on two important occasions: the Great Frost of early 1346 DR and the drought of 1322 DR, which brought down desperate attacks on Corm Orp, as on so many other places in Faerûn, from starving monsters.

Inns/Taverns

The Hungry Halfling

This wayside house was originally a local human lord’s manor and still sports an elegant stone entry arch

and gatehouse. Within is a courtyard, muddy in all weather because of the spring that wells up in it to run through the wood lot and then sink down into the underways again. Also inside is a low, timber-built taproom, and behind it—down a long corridor that adds privacy—the old stone manor, which now forms a very comfortable inn.

The Halfling is a favorite of traders who travel the Dusk Road. They like its quiet, slightly shabby rooms because they’re peaceful and feel like home. The staff see that the rooms are always fully furnished with writ-ing paper, spare boot thongs in the walk-in cloak closets, old slippers in a variety of sizes for wear around the inn, a few bottles of fruit liqueur and mintwater for late-night thirst quenching; sharpening stones for weapons, spare candles and wicks—

and all the other useful clutter found in one’s own home. Much of this stuff does get “borrowed” by the needy—

but then, that’s what it’s there for.

As much as possible, regular guests are given rooms they prefer to better make them feel at home. The inn has rugged food boxes insulated with wool sacks in which hot food is brought from the kitchens to the room of any guest who likes to eat alone—or at least avoid the cozy dining room.

Most don’t avoid the dining room, though. The food served there is as good and hearty as popular lore cred-its halflings for. (The chicken

dumplings are superb.) This inn is definitely recommended.

Darkhold

Today, this black stone fortress is feared and hated by folk all over the Coast lands—and much farther afield in Faerûn—who’ve never seen it and hope never to.⁵ I am one of them. For obvious reasons, I dared not approach this grim stronghold—even in disguise—and can only tell you what I know of this place of death from questioning others, some of them long-lived and mighty in lore.⁶

From this fortalice (small fort) in Darkhold Vale (a cleft high up on a rock shoulder of the huge mountain known as the Gray Watcher of the Morning), the Zhentarim now raid down into Sun-set Vale more or less at will, using hip-pogriffs, hendar, foulwings, and even more fearsome aerial steeds⁷ as spies to

seek out caravans, holds whose militias are elsewhere or weakened, and other easy prey. Travelers are advised to avoid Darkhold’s reach as much as possible—

and to be aware at all times that Dark-hold’s reach includes almost all of Sunset Vale by night or whenever the defenders of Vale settlements are busy elsewhere.

Once a castle of the Giant-Emperors, Darkhold was built for folk of giant stature. (Some sages say the Giant-Emperors were but slaves of the deca-dent archwizards of Netheril who had the castle built by an elemental. The giants styled themselves Emperors only after Netheril fell and they were left to their own devices.) To human senses, its

Most tales of lore agree that whatever the castle’s origin, it came to be inhab-ited by giants, proud and willful robber-folk who raided the lands around the castle (verdant Tunland, then grass-lands inhabited by countless herds of wild beasts—not the swamp so much of it is today—and the halfling-held lands of Sunset Vale) at will. The giants repelled halfling attacks and bold dwar-ven and human probings with ease, but in the end slew each other. Two rival princes slaughtered their sire and all the other giants by poison, spells, traps, and hireswords in their mad struggle to eliminate each other. Some tales say they ended up fighting each other in the otherwise-deserted castle, stabbed each other’ and crawled off to separate hid-den chambers to die. Their ghosts haunt the castle, striving for supremacy one over the other still, whispering so as to set one Zhent against another in an unending spectral struggle to rule the castle.

halls, stairs, and chambers are vast—

and icy cold in winter.

With all the giants dead, the Keep of the Far Hills stood empty. It was soon plundered by bold human and elven adventurers, and one of them, Othlong Blackhelm—he whom the ballads call the Robber Lord—made it his home.

He soon fell to treachery and his suc-cessor, Angarn Surfyst, used the castle as a base for brigandage in his turn. He, too, was slain by one of his followers, who set himself up as the Wolf Knight.

5The location of Darkhold is shown on the map in the entry on Hill’s Edge, later in this chapter.

6Elminster snorted when he read this, and said: “And what ye couldn’t worm out of Alliya and Cylyria and me, ye just went ahead and made up.”

7The latest rumors speak of dragon-breeding experiments and hitherto-unknown draconic horrors that have resulted from them. When abroad in the Vale, watch the sky, and be wary.

The Lich-Queen Varalla

History doesn’t even recall his name—

his throat was cut by a lady captive in his bedchamber one night. She turned out to be a sorceress, and a colder, more cruel brigand than the rest, rul-ing Farkeep as Sarunn Thoon (the bal-lad “The Witch of the Far Cold Hill” tells her tale). She fell in her turn to a cabal of masked wizards who turned out to be mind flayers, and held the bandit-warriors of the castle in mind-thrall until they died in service and only zom-bies were left.

Then a dragon struck—a white wyrm, most say though accounts vary. It laired in the keep until slain by a dwarf hero, Harristor Thunderswing, who later went under land to form his own clan in the Lightless Lands and was

never seen again. The empty castle was roamed by monsters—histories record both a beholder and a leucrotta using it as a lair at various times—and then was taken by brigands. They were slain by an adventuring company, the Wildmen of the North, led by Brundar Tigerbane. He renamed the castle the Wild Hold and refortified it, but he fell in battle, along with most of his followers. The castle changed hands again.

A succession of petty rulers—some of whom styled themselves Lord Knight of the Far Hills, and at least one of whom called himself the Duke of

Sun-set Vale—held the castle for 200 years, holding sway over varying parts of Sun-set Vale. SunSun-set Keep became a hold well known (if not respected) among merchants traveling between the Sword Coast and the Sea of Fallen Stars.

The rulers of the Keep raided passing trade, fought with those who sought to drive them out, and either prevailed or were cut down and supplanted in their turn by a new petty lordling who grew into another proud robber baron—

only to fall in his turn. At length one was left so weak by an attack that he and his few retainers perished under the claws and fangs of wolves and other monsters made bold by hard winter weather, and Sunset Keep became a monster hold again.

It gained the name of Darkhold when a lich-queen rose to rule it, extending her skeletal hand out over the Vale to raid and to rule much as her human predecessors had done. She used skele-tal warriors, zombies, more sinister undead, and the monsters of the Keep who had submitted to her to enforce

her rule. Those monsters of the Keep who did not submit, she destroyed.

Some say this lich-sorceress, Varalla, fought at the Battle of Bones. Others say she was an archsorceress of lost Netheril, freed from ages-long slumber by a monster smashing an inner wall of the Keep. Whatever the truth, Darkhold became a name of horror as word spread of the dark spells worked by Var-alla to aid her undead minions as they raided far afield over the Coast lands and as far east as the outposts of Cormyr.

Tales of Varalla’s new spells lured the Zhentarim into attacking her. Using gob-lins who were promised easy treasure and mercenaries who weren’t told what they’d have to fight, the Zhentarim used their magic and Zhentilar troops to smash Darkhold’s defenders and

inter-From that moment in 1312 DR on, Darkhold has been a Zhentarim base. It has grown into a fortress rivaling the Citadel of the Raven in importance if not in size. Now home to a thousand Zhen-tilar under the wizard Sememmon, magelings, and priests of Cyric, Dark-hold is a waystop for Zhent caravans. Its patrols roam from Asbravn to Skull Gorge. Beware them! Don’t be lured by tales of mighty spells and secret ways by which to reach them!

rupted the lich-queen at her studies deep in the castle. While she traded spells with Manshoon of the Zhentarim and his magelings (many of whom per-ished in the fray), the dark priest Fzoul Chembryl used magic to reach her and felled her with a special mace that worked similarly to a mace of disruption.