Instructivo para uso de Equipo de Medición

Instead, dopplegangers, organized and aided by foul mind flayers, slew and impersonated Durlag’s compan-ions. After the shocked dwarf discov-ered the first impersonation, he was attacked by all the others and spent a terror-filled tenday frantically fighting his way around his own fortress, chased by monsters who wore dwar-ven forms but sought his death.

This massive, isolated keep stands atop a rock pinnacle south of the Wood of Sharp Teeth. Only adventurers should approach this seemingly deserted fortress—death awaits within.

The tower was built by Durlag Troll-killer, son of Bolhur “Thunderaxe” the Clanless. Durlag was a great hero of the dwarves, an adventurer who slew several dragons single-handedly and over a long and successful career amassed a great hoard of treasure. One dwarf who dwelt in the tower with Durlag for a time spoke of rooms full of gems and a great hall strewn with dusty heaps of gold coins. “We took what we needed, freely,” he said.

With the aid of hired dwarves, Durlag dug many chambers and pas-sages in the tor and raised the lone tower above it, planning it as a seat where he could found a dwarven com-munity and grow old in peace, sur-rounded by happy, prosperous kin.

In the end, alone and victorious, he was powerless to stop the last fleeing pair of illithids. Fearful they’d return, Durlag hired the best craftfolk he could find in Waterdeep and Never-winter and began to rebuild his tower

and the tor beneath as an elaborate succession of traps, magical wards, secret passages, sliding prison cham-bers, and triggered weapons—perhaps the most extensive assembly of such deadly devices in all Faerûn. A succes-sion of spell wards were added, linked to at least three ward tokens. Unfortu-nately, no one alive today knows just which tokens control what areas. All three function as keys to pass magically held doors.

These traps are known to include shield portals, which are carved stone shields linked magically so that a dart, axe, or other missile weapon hurled into one would emerge from another, elsewhere in the tower. The shields themselves function as permanent wiz-ard eyes or crystal balls, allowing an unseen watcher to observe from afar.

Other traps include massive stone swing-hammers set behind false doors.

When the doors are opened, a massive stone ram bursts forward from behind them to smash intruders against a far wall. There are also climbing shafts inset with ladders of metal rungs.

Touching certain rungs causes all of them to retract into the stone so that climbers fall, or triggers metal blades to shoot out from the seams between the stone wall blocks, transfixing climbers.

Deeply suspicious of all Faerûn—

anyone could be a foe seeking to betray him for his gold!—Durlag retreated inside his tower, defending it against the adventurers he knew would come, lured by tales the trapbuilders would inevitably tell. They came—and fell or fled before the traps and the axe of

Durlag himself, who would creep up via secret passages to strike from the shadows.

For several centuries things went on like this, as the increasingly eccentric Durlag lived on fungi and mushrooms growing in the deepest caverns—and, it is cruelly whispered, the bodies of intruders (although this has never been substantiated). At length he died, and presumably his bones still lie in some inner room or passage, guarded—along with his riches—by the thousands of traps built to defend his home.

Every season adventurers mount new expeditions to Durlag’s Tower from Baldur’s Gate and Waterdeep, armed by the exhaustive maps and

notes of earlier bands. Every year, they get a room or two deeper into the deadly maze before giving up and bringing back the bodies of those vic-tims they could get out.

Unfortunately, in recent years the tower has acquired new inhabitants: a dozen or more will o’ wisps that seem to work in organized groups to battle those who win past the traps, and that feed on those who perish in them.

Some say the will o’ wisps are led or directed by a gigantic wisp with fey spell-hurling powers, but others report seeing illithids accompanying the wisps. Some hold the view that the mind flayers are controlling the wisps, and others that the mind flayers are servants of the rumored Over-Wisp

Known Ward Tokens of Durlag’s Tower

Some of these are undoubtedly false—how many such keys would a wary-minded veteran adventurer leave lying about, anyway?—but some are certainly real (they’ve worked in the tower). They can be rented from Bal-durian concerns (ask at the Blushing Mermaid) for 1,000 gp per month or more each summer by adventurers dazzled by thoughts of gold and glory.

A trio of these are depicted on the pre-vious page.

Durlag’s Tower has become a Still, there seems as yet no shortage of reckless seekers-after-adventure, and every season more journey to Durlag’s Tower to try to win his gold—

and the reputation that seizing it will bring. Certain shops in Baldur’s Gate, Waterdeep, Athkatla, and on the isle of Mintarn do a brisk trade selling ward tokens to Durlag’s Tower.

just as the lesser wisps are. The truth remains a mystery for now—and will be revealed, I suspect, only at a very high price in the lives of adventurers.

tourist attraction. Enterprising mer-chants in Baldur’s Gate, Berdusk, Beregost, and Nashkel mount expedi-tions to view it for 50 gp a head, round trip, all meals included. Such trips usu-ally feature hunting along the way and always include a daytime foray into a few of the well-known tower cham-bers, their traps tastefully adorned with skeletons and warnings that the tower is haunted. (The water of the forecourt well is safe to drink, but lone travelers using it should beware lurking brig-ands and the occasional bugbear.)

From a nearby camp, sightseeing trips always return to the keep by moonlight, to see the haunted fore-court of the tower. Strange cries, hurled stone axes, and flitting, ghostly apparitions are provided by accom-plices of the tour guides. Such sham horrors are sometimes taken advan-tage of by wandering will o’ wisps or brigands, which is why such expedi-tions still carry a cachet of danger up and down the Sword Coast, and the legend of Durlag’s Tower grows from year to year.

I have myself seen one apparition at the tower gates: the silent figure of a robed mage, standing in midair about as high off the ground as two tall men standing one on the other’s shoulders.

He faced the tower, raised his hands to cast some unknown spell, then acquired a look of fear, trembled, and his body was swept away as if torn by unseen winds or claws coming from the tower. This phantom is know to appear often, but no one knows who the mage is—or was—and what he was doing when he died so spectacularly.

Elturel

This city is the farming center of the Fields of the Dead, and its Hellriders guard and police not only Elturel, but much of the farmed and settled portions of the Fields along the Skuldask Road, the Dusk Road, and both banks of the River Chionthar. The long patrols of the Hellriders, 30 riders strong, pass along the roads every four hours, night and day. The upkeep of the patrols is aided by lodges (stockaded outposts) placed strategically within their patrol area, where food, water, flammables,

weapons, and fresh mounts are kept for them. These lodges are protected against arson and casual theft by strong wards, one of the tokens for which is shown below.

Elturel is ruled wisely and well by High Rider Lord Dhelt, a paladin of Helm who is ever-vigilant when it comes to the defense of his city—and to lawless elements who might skulk in to do busi-ness in it. A just, no-nonsense ruler who leads patrols on the road as often as any of his war captains, Dhelt keeps the city a clean, law-abiding place, a firm mem-ber of the Lords’ Alliance. His 2,000 Hell-riders are superbly equipped and trained—a fearsome fighting force equalled by few realms in Faerûn, Hell-riders must be skilled at the use of horse bow, lance, and saber before they are allowed to ride the roads,

Travelers can rejoice in the safety of Elturel’s reach, which extends as far as Triel along the Dusk Road, as far as the intersection with Thundar’s Ride along the Skuldask Road to the north, as far as Scornubel along the Chionthar

upstream, as far south toward Berdusk as Windstream Lodge (one of the Hell-rider lodges), and as far downstream along the Chionthar as Stone Eagle Lodge (another Hellrider lodge). It’s easy to tell these boundaries. Sheep and cat-tle wander on all sides when you’re inside them, and brush is cut back, with hedged and stone-walled farms here and there. Outside Elturel’s sway, farms and livestock are gone, and scrub trees and shrubs are everywhere.

Landmarks

Elturel thrives on trade. It’s a city of folk passing through. Barge trade on the Chionthar meets overland trade in the city where a six-wagon ferry crosses the river. The heart of the city is a cliff-sided

Ward Token of a Hellrider Lodge

tor, a natural stronghold that was held by trolls and then orcs before humans drove them out and first settled here. Its south or river end is capped by the soar-ing turrets of High Hall, the castle from which the High Rider rules. A long, wooded park runs along the ridgetop of the heights, watered by a spring that rises in the cellars of High Hall and runs down the Winter Garden to cascade off the tor at the northern end in a spectacular series of falls known as Maidens’ Leap.

On the slopes around are the tall, nar-row, many-balconied homes of the nobles. Below this High District are the flatlands of the city, known as the Dock District. The Dragoneye Dealing Coster has a major waybase hard by the docks, and the caster’s organized presence and the watchful patrols of the Riders, assisted by a trained and loyal guild of handlers (goods loaders and unloaders on the docks and wagons), keep this one of the safest dockside areas in all Faerûn.

To the east, warehouses and hovels crowd together around the docks and

the crammed stalls of Shiarra’s Market.

The more prosperous and orderly homes and shops west of the heights are still part of Dock District, but are

increasingly referred to as Westerly, a separation used to imply cleanliness and prosperous success—or, to look at it from the other view, laziness, soft living, and pretentious arrogance. Whatever the sneers exchanged, no one denies that this city is wealthy

The traveler can wander about any-where in Elturel in perfect safety. The chief danger is from pickpockets, not knife-wielding thugs. No thieves’ guild is tolerated in this city—and the best way to attract some hard questioning from a lot of eager-looking Riders with drawn swords is to whisper that so-and-so is a member of or such-and-such an inci-dent is the work of a thieves’ band.

The inns and taverns of the city are all fairly good—the lone exception that comes to mind is the poor but cheap Oar and Wagon Wheel Inn, and even it is always crowded with noisy patrons. The establishments described in this guide are among the most interesting—that is, shady and rough—in the city.

Elturel is home to a shrine to Tempus and two important temples. Both of the temples give temporary shelter and aid to the devout. Helm’s Shieldhall is a large holy fortress ruled over by High Watcher Berelduin Shondar, also known as Bereld the Just, a stern priest who leads as many Rider patrols as Lord Dhelt. The High Harvest Home, a temple to Chauntea, is presided over by High Harvestmaster Baulauvin Oregh—one of the most goddess-favored servants of Chauntea in all Faerûn.