Sunken Citadel
The Sunken Citadel is a place of deep scars and deeper history, a fallen monument whose shadows stretch beneath the wilds of Valoria.
A Fortress from the Sky
Without warning, the Citadel fell screaming from the heavens in 1448. Some historians speculate the citadel was a shattered flying city or a weapon loosed during an astral war. The only thing all can agree upon is the force of its strike.
The blackstone keep struck the earth like an asteroid, its devastating impact burying it deep in the earth near the then-fledgling town of Oakhurst. Despite some superficial damage, the core of the structure endured, its halls and chambers preserved in unyielding stone.
A Contested Ruin
For many years, the Citadel lay unexplored, feared by locals and avoided by travelers. In time, it became the home of the Wyrmfangs, a noble clan of red kobolds from a nearby cave in the Thrymnar Mountains.
When the Citadel was later discovered by Cragmaw goblins in 1647 AS, it became the centre of a brutal territorial struggle. Lead by the cruel warchief Durnn and his shaman, Gafar, the goblins proved to be wily foes who turned much of the keep into a no man's land for many years.
Echoes of Corruption
Not all threats in the Citadel were external. Within its deeper, earth-choked chambers lurked Belak, an arrogant druid from the Miritar Druid Circle, and his giant frog familiar, Kulket.
The pair had been drawn to the ruin by the Gulthias Vine, a sentient pumpkin vine grown in corrupted soil which telepathically beckoned to the power-hungry druid. Believing the mighty vine to be a blessing from Silvanus, Belak did everything in his power to proliferate its vile gourds in the soil near Oakhurst.
An End to the War
The conflict ended decisively in 1658 AS when a band of adventurers—Ghormm, Kashmir, Raq and Ixnay—slew both Durnn and Gafar while investigating the vine's eldritch fruit. They then ventured deeper, confronting Belak and his army of pumpkin-headed zombies and eviscerating the Gulthias Vine's massive central gourd.
An uneasy truce between the Wyrmfangs and the Cragmaws followed, but it did not last. With their leadership broken, the remaining Cragmaws were driven from the ruins, scattering into the wilds to trouble Miritar Forest.
Though he was believed slain, Belak's corruption endured. He soon unleashing the remnants of his army upon Oakhurst, during their Hallow’s End festival. His final death came at the hands of the same group of heroes, who destroyed his reanimated corpse during a showdown in Oakhurst's graveyard.
The Wyrmfang Domain
Today, the upper levels of the Sunken Citadel belong to the Wyrmfangs, ruled by the ancient and shrewd Queen Yusdrayl.
Under her guidance, the kobolds have transformed the broken halls into a defensible subterranean stronghold. Traps line narrow corridors, chiseled murals of draconic legends adorn cracked walls and shrines to legendary dragons flicker with guttering flame.
For a time, the Wyrmfangs kept a prized pet: Calcryx, a young white dragon wyrmling. Her presence was both a symbol of pride and a dangerous gamble. That gamble ended when Kashmir slipped the wyrmling a scroll of Knock, enabling her escape.
Unaware of Kashmir's actions, an enraged Yusdrayl banished Calcryx's keeper, Meepo, from the Sunken Citadel. She issued him a simple ultimatum: return with the wyrmling or face execution. At present, Meepo manages the barracks at Trihorn Stronghold, following any leads he can on Calcryx's whereabouts.
The Descent Below
While expanding their tunnels, the Wyrmfangs breached a long-sealed fissure leading into the Underdark. Emboldened by their discovery, the kobolds constructed a crude but functional wooden elevator to explore the depths. Two scouting parties descended... and never returned.
Hesitant to send more of her kin into the unknown, Queen Yusdrayl summoned a group of adventurers: Klash Sparkfoot, Razeia and Vexia Soulbane. Joined by Yusdrayl's champion, Zakba the Deathless, the party were lowered into the inky blackness to determine the scouts' fate.
What they discovered was grim but not malicious. A wary community of myconids, long isolated and deeply territorial, had thought the reckless kobolds to be invaders and slaughtered them.
War seemed inevitable, until Razeia implored the myconids and kobolds to consider diplomacy and mutual necessity. Willing to overlook their initial misunderstanding, the two groups forged a fragile peace.
A New Alliance
Today, the Sunken Citadel stands at the heart of an unprecedented arrangement.
The myconids receive bodies of deceased kobolds, which they use for nourishment and, through spore-based reanimation, labour. In return, the Wyrmfangs have been granted territory in the Underdark and access to rich veins of orichalcum and platinum; wealth beyond their wildest imaginations.
What was once a fallen fortress has become a living nexus and, quite possibly, the seed of a hypogeal empire.
Comments