Quick places: Voldset

A little different than usual, more drama? or just interNPC bullshit

On the edge of the Sweetwater Basin in the midst of the thick, boggy jungle there. Curiously built with stone, it is a tiny outpost on an outmoded trail through the jungle. A portage was cut near the river a few miles away, so passage and water became easier to get for travelers elsewhere. It is abandoned more or less.

Castle built by the Kleppers to defend against elves. They were convinced the natives were all devil worshipers. Now interred in the crypt below, Othaniel and Avis Klepper brought a band of blind gargoyles they controlled with them to make building easy. They were reluctant but obedient servants and can shape and move stone very easily. Several still perch around the empty palisades, still as statues.

The Kleppers had two children who took over Voldset, maintaining its use as a waypoint for travelers. They also inherited their parents' fear of elves and devils, however, so the gargoyles will brutally attack anyone they hear to be elvish or associated with known demons.

Cultists of the Subtle Mire now meet in the crypts. They are led by Fastred Klepper, granddaughter of Othaniel and Avis, who regularly speaks with dead to receive xenophobic advice from her gruff grandfather and gossipy grandmother. She uses tar conjuration against anyone interrupting her consultations, but welcomes non-elves to worship with a drink of black milk. She wants to recruit an army of black-weep cultists to join with her in wiping out or enslaving the "subhumans" and has already begun poisoning the water of the basin against them. Drinkers or swimmers have a 1/6 chance to encounter dark motes in the water and must save against poison or start going blind and puking up tar over 1d4 days.

Haveran Klepper, Fastred's estranged cousin, lives with his elven wife Uyle across the lake. He witnessed the bound elemental within a gargoyle escape in his youth and developed a desire to help the good of the whole. He seeks to undo the damage his family has caused to the basin and is a disciple to the elf shaman. His adopted tribe has taken over the duty of helping travelers that Voldset once held, and offer perception- and movement-increasing magics.