Lake Krag lies in the north-eastern corner of the realm. It is an often overlooked part of the kingdom: most citizens from the capital might have heard of Kragstone’s wheat-based liquor, but would fail in placing the region on a map. It’s a frontier region, where the laws and customs of the capital are often too alien to take hold, and too far from anyone interested in enforcing them. People of the Lake Krag region are used to rely on each other and to distrust foreigners. Surrounded by unfriendly territories and savage wilderness, each village has its own system of watches. Farmers will avoid being caught outdoor after nightfall at all costs, feeling safe only behind a reinforced door, a bright fireplace and a couple of large guard dogs. The Lord of Kragstone’s duty is to ensure the safety of the region, but in truth it’s just not possible with the few men he commands. Due to the geography of the territory and lack of soldiers, anything past the fertile Fael River Valley, where Kragstone lies, is left to its own. No one is expecting help from the capital either: the only time the king’s army ever visited this corner of the kingdom was during the Orcish Crusade. After the key battle that ended the crusade and created the Sinister Pit, the king’s army hasn’t yet set foot in Lake Krag again.

Lake Krag is a region region full of history and inspiration for adventures.

This article is part of a multi-part series. In this first article, we explore all the locations in the northern part of the area. You can find more details and many adventure hooks after the jump.

Areas of interest and story hooks

The Savage Hills & Yakfolk tribes

A ridge of hills hosting a number of wild beasts, this area is renown for the large hippogriff population, who can be seen fighting in the sky on a clear day. North of these hills, yak-folk nomadic tribes rule the land, divided in autonomous tribes. And any sane human would do best to avoid them, as they are know to practice slavery and blood sacrifices of prisoners.

Story hook: hippogriff (half-horse half-eagle flying creatures) are prized flying mounts, but they have to be trained since young age. A group of hunters from another corner of the kingdom traveled all the way to the Savage Hills to capture a few exemplars. However they pushed too far north and were taken prisoner by the yak-people, probably to be sold as slaves to another tribe. Now the only hunter that escaped the ambush made it back to Kragstone and is looking to assemble a rescue party.

The Adder Forest

The canopy of the Adder Forest is so thick that very little sunlight reaches the ground. At the center of the forest, where the oldest and tallest trees grow, the ground level is shrouded in a permanent darkness, creating an eerie atmosphere closer to what one would expect in a cave. Very few people got to witness this: many of those who enter the forest are never seen again. Stories of werewolves, hags and giant snakes are enough to keep away the others.

Story hook: a disease that causes high fevers and bouts of uncontrollable rage has been affecting isolated farmer families in Nola and Colvodia. A scholar from the capital suggest it’s a disease carried by werewolves and transmitted by fleas. Werewolves are known to have a remedy against such disease, but no scholar knows what it is. This raises two more questions: why are werewolves secretly visiting farms without attacking, and who will be brave enough to visit the werevolves to learn the cure?

Trolls Moor

The moor is considered no mans land. Tales about the moor often involve ghosts, witches and other malign creatures. There is a road that crosses the moor leading to Crommannu, but it hasn’t been used in years. The last traveler to venture there told of a sinister tree with dozen of hung bodies and of an entity, known as The Watcher of the Stars, that seems to rule over all creatures of the moor.

Story hook: Egil is a trader whose youngest son has been cursed with a painful disease behind the power of the priests of Lake Krag. Desperate, Egil ventured in the moor to ask the witches for a cure. He obtained a dark magic potion supposed to cure the disease, but the was a price to pay. Cured from the disease, the son is now slowly turning into a creature of the night. This came to the attention of the local priest who demanded Egil to be imprisoned for practicing dark magic. Now the family is desperate to find someone else to cross into the moors to bargain another deal with the witches before the son is lost forever.

The Onyx Ruins

This castle was built on what was once an important border between an old kingdom and the Ducky of Auzat. The lord of the castle, believing himself strategically essential, demanded more and more from his sovereign until his arrogance could not be tolerated anymore. The king descended on the castle with his army, breached the walls and executed the lord and his family with an exemplar cruelty. Ironically, the destruction of this castle enabled the Duke of Auzat to immediately invade the kingdom. All that remains of the castle today are these ruins and the ghosts of those that perished here long time ago.

Story hook: some foul creature have been digging up graves in Nola and feasting on the decomposed bodies. Everyone is assuming necromancy to be involved, and according to a vision received by Aureus, Nola’s priest, an evil entity has claimed the Onyx Ruins and is responsible for the desecration. This is what Aureus wants everyone to believe. In truth, the priest himself is responsible for the disappearing bodies. He just set up the Onyx Ruins as a false lead building on their sinister reputation, and prepared a deadly trap there for anyone looking into investigating the matter.

The Sinister Pit

This is the site of the final battle of the Orcish Crusade. An orc horde, led by an avatar of an orcish god, penetrated into the kingdom and clashed with the King’s Army just south of Adder Forest. To destroy the avatar, the Royal Astronomers had created a mechanical weapon able to capture the power of distant stars. The weapon exploded almost annihilating both armies but the orcs suffered the biggest losses and the avatar was disintegrated, ending the crusade. The Sinister Pit is a mile-wide depression in the ground caused by the explosion. Since then, the land in a radius of a few miles can not sustain life, and surges of raw magic sweep the depression. It is a deadly place where no living creature can survive long, and animals that spend too much time in the vicinity mutate into ferocious abominations.

Story hook: the residual energy in the Pit facilitates opening portals to other worlds behind the stars. A sorceress traveled all the way from the other side of the continent to perform such a spell in an attempt to contact an alien entity. She’s looking for some mercenaries to protect her from the dangers of the pit while performing the portal ritual. But the mercenaries will discover too late that the beasts of the pit are only their last concern: members of a secret organization followed her all the way and will attempt to hijack the portal for their own goals.

Eastern Gate

This fort marks the end of the kingdom: anything north or east of the Gate is not under the control of the king. Built after an unsuccessful orc invasion during the Orcish Crusade, the fort is supposed to watch over the road that leads to Crommannu. The fort is not meant (and not able) to stop an enemy army. The main function of the 20-something men manning it is to warn the rest of the kingdom, with messaging pigeons, fast horses and a warning beacon, of the approach of any enemy. In more than 100 years though, the fort saw no action, and the discipline is not as strong as it should be, with the soldiers growing lazy and litigious.

Story hook: the warning protocol in use at Eastern Gate is quite elaborated. In case of a wandering dangerous creatures that might randomly walk down from the Trolls Moor or Adder Forest and pose threat to the nearby farms, but not to the kingdom, the soldiers just lock themselves inside the fort and light a warning beacon. Three nights ago, the beacon was lit and it’s still on. Farmers are starting to get worried and want someone to go investigate. But by the time someone gets to the fort, the beacon is off and the soldiers deny ever lighting it. They do however all seem nervous around those send to investigate and behave oddly, clearly impatient for them to leave.

Dark Halls of Torûn

This dwarven citadel in the mountains was one of the last ones to be abandoned, when the Dwarven Empire decided to retreat into the inner part of their mountain kingdom and cut all contacts with any other race. Before leaving, the dwarves sealed the inner chambers and laid out traps to prevent their sacred halls from being violated. This did not stop bands of orcs, human bandits, treasure hunters and even a crew of giants from trying though. It seems that they all failed to get to the inner sanctum, but in the process opened the way for other creatures to sneak in and nest there. In short, the Halls are filled with deadly traps and monsters and the promise of hidden treasures.

Story hook: a group of treasure hunters descended into the halls and managed to steal a magic artifact, with only a few of them surviving the process. Once emerging from the halls and reaching Eastern Gate though, it became clear that the artifact was protected by a dwarven curse. At night, the treasure hunters fled the the fort leaving the artifact behind. Now someone else has to take the responsibility to bring the artifact back to stop the curse, before its deadly effects spread even further into the kingdom.

The Falcon Plains

This large prairie is the perfect hunting ground for owls, hawks and falcons. But between the tall grass, other predators can move undetected: foxes, lynxes, wolves and even the occasional bear inhabit the area, hunting anything from hares and marmots to deer and elks.

Story hook: hunters in the area reported a large amount of dead deer, elks and wild pigs left to rot in the prairie. They seem to have been killed by a big predator, and yet not eaten. While bears and wolves will eventually dispose of the carcass, the sheer number of preys slaughtered is putting the ecosystem at risk. The Lord of Kragstone is organizing a large-scale hunt to find and kill this vicious beast.

Nola

Nola is a village sitting on the shore of Lake Krag. Its villagers are fishermen, farmers and hunters, but even with such abundance of resources, the population is not as big as it could be. The village was hit very hard by a deadly disease and lost more than half of its population, before it was discovered that the source of the disease was the foul water of its wells. Now the old wells have been plugged and new ones have been dug in other locations, ending the emergency. Still, half of the houses in town are empty and the superstitious people of Lake Krag believe the diseases to have been a sign from the gods. Farmers talks about Nola as “the cursed village”, discouraging people from moving in.

Story hook: after plugging most of the wells in and around the village, the water started to drain from the village well in the main square. It is now empty, but not yet plugged. Early reports, from a brave volunteer that was hoisted down, reported that there is a tunnel branching from the bottom of the well. The village is looking for volunteers to explore the tunnel and gain any insight of what causes the disease.

Howling hills

So called from the noise of the wind that flows through the cracks of many rocky outcrops, the Howling Hills are home to many animals and a few more creatures. Some of the outcrops that dot the hills have a topology that reminds of a maze, with high walls and intricate passages. These offers the perfect shelter for a sparse population of brownies, short humanoids of fey nature, and the occasional leprechaun. Due to the difficulty of navigating the rocky terrain, and a host of superstition and legends about the little people inhabiting them, most civilized people avoid these hills.

Story hook: the little people in the hills have co-existed with the nearby human settlements for centuries without any problem. However, recently some incidents were connected to the creatures of the hill: from three separate villages, three babies were snatched from their cradles. The hunters called to help discovered tracks of a wild hog – brownies’ favorite mount – leading back to the hills, leaving little doubt on the culprits. What did the babies have in common? They were born blind. Could a fey prophecy be somehow be the reason for the kidnappings?

Island of the Lost Ages

Everything in this artificial island is still, cold and austere. The ground is entirely composed of white marble slabs, anchored a few feet below the water level to a submerged reef. Tall statues and wide decorated pillars, all that remains of many shrines and temples, tower a few feet above any visitor. The island is a jungle of marble walls and metal statue, permanently shrouded in a dense fog. No one knows who built it, but a few altars scattered around the island clearly indicates it was built to celebrate some ancient religion. Nothing grows on the island, not even grass. For years, local lords demanded to be buried on this island, a practice strongly discouraged by the priests, but none the less very popular. The practice finally came to an end when a funeral procession, 30 men strong, never came back from the island. Nowadays, lords are placed on a ceremonial boat and left to drift in the direction of the island with the aid of the wind.

Story hook: Regalis II, once Lord of Kragstone, was buried on the island at a time when visiting the island was still an option, 160 years ago. As the current ruler of Kragstone died without leaving any heir, many families claimed to be distant relatives and invoked the right to rule. Regalis II was buried with a ceremonial book containing a family tree, and the only other records of his family history were lost in the big fire at the castle a few years ago. Someone should visit the island and retrieve the book to confirm which family noble family is the next in line of succession, before the struggle for power in Kragstone becomes too violent.

Further reading

Read about the remaining locations in the second article.