Well, now it’s almost finished! Thank you so much for the directions! Also, we are working on a Homebrew adventure there, could you give us any ideas of intrigues and rumors? pic.twitter.com/Yu0jCpoq5Q
— Eduardo F Vieira (@mineirodabahia) December 6, 2018
1/28) Circa 1280 DR, the wizard Zund used a stone golem to build Zundbridge, and many folk down the years have searched for the golem, many clinging to the belief that it’s buried in the height crowned by Zundkeep (or even…#Realmslore https://t.co/ny2IaYRNuC
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
3/28) Unfortunately for would-be golem owners, the golem (with its commander, Zund) are long gone. However, the many searches over the years have resulted in little abandoned dug pits here, there, and everywhere on the…#Realmslore
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
5/28)4/28) … riverbanks and the slopes below the keep—and that softened, disturbed soil has been tunneled into by badgers, ettercaps, and a vast menagerie of small furry foragers and predators. Sightings of which have in turn led to… …many local rumors that there’s a “monsterkeeper” resident in a concealed cave nearby: a crazed human hermit who breeds monsters for companionship and as guardians, to keep folk away from him. This rumor was false, but…#Realmslore
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
7/28) …became true in recent years: a hermit living wild found his snares in this area nigh always full, and moved here to take advantage of the ready meat food supply. Digging out a cave large enough to keep the rain off him in summer (in winter, he walked to Waterdeep to live wild there, as the heat given off by various city activities, or digging into the dung-heaps outside most stables, and sleeping within them, is enough to keep him from…#Realmslore
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
9/28) …freezing to death), he broke through into a small underground tomb-complex, which is now his home and where he breeds fungi and small furry critters (predominantly the human-hand-sized Greater Vole) for food. Some voles… escape, and their scurryings lure wild predators to the vicinity. Which in turn has given rise to rumors of Zundbridge having a resident deepspawn; a gate or planar rift linking with a teeming-with-wildlife-because-#Realmslore
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
11/28) …10/28) -uninhabited-by-humans-or-goblinkin world or plane; a wild magic area that sharply increases fertility, or a crazed resident druid who frequently uses magic to make one critter into three or four.
Smugglers made heavy use of Zundkeep as a sheltered-from-the-elements goods-drop in the days before Waterdeep took an interest in garrisoning it, and they persist in trying to do so even now, hoping that the presence of the Deep’s soldiers and…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
13/28) …patrols will keep safe what goods they can hide near or in the castle. Several stones on the outside keep wall on the side away from the river were levered and clawed enough out of position to create a small cavity behind them, the gap being “mended” with rocks gathered from the wilderland hills around, and in this small space sacks of coins and trade-bars and the like are often left—or cryptic coded messages directing those “in…#Realmslore
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
15/28) …the know” to where, nearby, goods are cached.
Many outlaw bands use Zundkeep as a landmark without ever approaching it, and one of these bands (the Brown Gauntlet) includes a mage who casts dancing lights and similar spells to illuminate the heights of the keep with different hues and patterns of light as night-signals to allied outlaws, fences (buyers of stolen goods), and trading contacts.
This has in turn led certain folk ignorant…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
17/28) …of the presence of outlaws locally to believe Zundkeep is either haunted, or alive with fey magic, or is even built over a tomb crammed with powerful magic from which magical emanations are “seeping out.” Some of these folk have even mounted expeditions to try to circumvent the Waterdhavian armsmen and try to find and break into this fabled tomb.
Which is likely not under the keep itself, but surprisingly, isn’t mythical, either; …#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
19/28) …according to Elminster (and, long ago, Khelben ‘Blackstaff’ Arunsun, too), there IS a long-hidden underground tomb somewhere near Zundbridge, or at least its entrance (a spell-hidden “door” or gate leading to the actual tomb, elsewhere), where there is powerful magic: a Netherese artificer lies buried with his restless, magically-powerful, and in many cases zany magic items.
Another of these outlaw bands active in the Zundbridge area is…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
21/28) …Zarafear’s Bright Dagger, and Zarafear, a spitfire of a woman who dwells in North Ward in Waterdeep and enriches herself in part due to the smuggling and thieving of her Bright Dagger (whose members use her city home as a “safe house” to hide in, and healing refuge when wounded), is pursuing a plan to work with certain ambitious doppelgangers to replace and impersonate Zundkeep’s handful of permanent garrison soldiers (as opposed…#Realmslore
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
23/28) …to the patrolling majority), so as to be able to have Zundkeep double as contraband storage and a remount stable (fresh horses) for the Bright Dagger, while retaining its role for the city of Waterdeep. On the face of it, it would seem impractical folly to think the soldiery wouldn’t notice something amiss, but the doppelgangers have subtle plans involving impersonating Watch officers and muttering about “secret agents of the…#Realmslore
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
25/28) … Palace,” and involving the assistance of some unscrupulous wizards to work illusions and other spells, to make it all work.
And then there’s a lurking goblin adventuring band who hunt human peddlers and the like in the vicinity of Zundkeep, and have their own designs regarding extending some existing subterranean goblin “halls” (modest tunnels with rooms opening off them here and there) to reach Zundkeep’s dungeons, or at least to…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
27/28) …come up under the castle within its ring-walls, so as to be able to plunder the keep at will—and storm it if need be. The goblins have their own wild plans for conquering the keep and making the fortress their own, scaring away humans attempting to retake it with the use of tethered undead beholders (of which they have two, discovered in an underground cavern and netted there for future deployment).
In other words, there are all…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
28/28) …sorts of conflicting intrigues and rumors quietly swirling about Zundkeep; it’s up to you which are true, and which will develop into more than talk.
Hope all of this is of help.— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 7, 2018
