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Book of Eldritch Might III: The Nexus
Starlight Wells of the Dao About 50 years ago, genies from the Elemental Plane of Earth, called dao, arrived in the valley. They had learned something of the place’s history but ignored the castle atop the nearby hill. They focused their attention instead on the valley floor. Using slave labor from a nearby human village as well as local orc and hobgoblin tribes, the dao drill deep wells to get at the liquefied starlight. The stalwart citizens of nearby Banaton defend themselves against these dao slavers as best they can. Fearing the inherent and subtle power of the people of Banaton, the dao prefer to gather their slaves from elsewhere in the region. The dao use magical pumps, powered by the Placing the Portal toil of their slaves, to Try placing the portal from the Nexus halfway between the village of Banaton and Castle bring up the liquid Arthanath (see map on page 61). This will allow starlight from the deep the player characters to discover the villagers’ inadvertent spellcasting powers gradually, wells. The liquid staras they draw closer to the settlement. light proves so difficult to get hold of, however, that the dao must move the wells often, creating even more work for the slaves. Their wells and storage facilities are all underground, where they can more easily construct portals to the Plane of Earth. Of late, while mining out a cavern for a new well, the dao and their slaves have broken into a section of ancient catacombs, where they found people imbedded in coffinlike pods called tem-
poral wombs†. These artifacts are the creation of the starlight mages, some of whom apparently saw their doom coming and sealed themselves within these containers of woven starlight. Within them, no time passed, and these awakened elves have become real problems for the dao, for the starlight mages are not happy when they emerge from the magical wombs. One thing is for certain. Arthanath has withstood the ravages of time with greater fortitude than any human-built fortress ever would. Despite the years, today it appears to be in excellent condition—only slightly weathered and worn.
Using This Location in Your Campaign You can place this remote location anywhere in a campaign world. Its secrets—the liquid starlight, the inadvertent spellcasting, and dragon magic—are perfect surprises to introduce into a game to spice things up. If Castle Arthanath’s history does not fit into your world’s history, you can change it, or make it a tale of just one way that humans learned magic. The secrets of dragon magic can still be found in the area, and it may be just such secrets, or the rare mention of them in ancient texts, that bring the PCs here in the first place. The people of Banaton do not know the secret of dragon magic, but they do know of nearby ancient ruins where they might be found—places where those who learned from the dragons in Castle Arthanath set up their own residences in ancient
