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| Sketch done by passing adventurers |
This ancient fortress is found in the depths of the Great Marsh of Soderfjord. It dates back to before even the Nithian Empire, and was created by the strange Mogreth reptilian culture of lizard-folk and serpent-folk. It is surrounded by a powerful forcefield, a dome about 300 yards in diameter, that acts in a similar way to a Wall of Force spell, preventing creatures from entering or leaving the dome. Unlike a Wall of Force spell, this forcefield also seems to prevent teleportation and Dimension Door spells from bypassing it. On the perimeter of the dome are six obelisks, each about 50ft high and engraved with glowing hieroglyphs and runes. Those mages and scholars who have passed by are sure that the obelisks are involved in maintaining the forcefield, and that if the obelisks were somehow deactivated or destroyed, the forcefield would collapse and the fortress could be properly investigated.
In fact the fortress may be of Mogreth origin but the obelisks were created by the Nithians to quarantine the fortress and prevent the creatures therein from emerging. This arrangement has held for the last two thousand years but now an ambitious chaotic sorceress wants to get inside and will do whatever it takes to seize the treasures and arcane secrets for herself.
Naztherane and the Tablets
Naztherane has set up camp on an island in the swamp about a mile from the fortress perimeter. After a brief attempt at brute force (using summoned water elementals, charmed hill giants and various battering rams and other devices) she realised that the obelisks could not be knocked over or undermined - they were locked in place by the forcefield they generated.. She has been deciphering the glowing hieroglyphs on the obelisks and has noticed that as well as the hieroglyphs there is also a socket in each obelisk for a tablet - magical keys for six locks as it were. She has already acquired three of the tablets which bear cartouches of the Nithian mages that established the obelisks and forcefield. That leaves three more which, according to her divination, are scattered across the Known World in places once colonised by the Nithians - one is on the Isle of Dawn, another deep beneath Minrothad City and a third one somewhere on the Thyatian island of Hattias. The first three have been acquired by a combination of archaeology (the first was in Nithian ruins in the north of Ylaruam), trading (the second was bought from a curio shop in Glantri City) and brute force (ambushing and killing treasure hunters who found the third tablet on the Karameikian coast not far from Rugalov).
Naztherane has divined the general location of the three missing tablets and is organising expeditions led by her lieutenants and apprentices to get hold of them. If she gets hold of all six tablets she will be able to deactivate the six obelisks and the forcefield will disappear. Naztherane keeps the first three tablets in Leomund’s Secret Chest, so her camp followers can’t steal them.
Naztherane and her followers
Naztherane: human female, Magic User 12, align Chaotic,
Str 8, Int 17, Wis 10, Dex 14, Con 10, Cha 14
Equipment: Ring of Protection +2, Bag of Holding, Spellbook, Wand of Acid Arrows (8 charges), Dagger +1, Wand of Negation (10 charges)
Naztherane will try to assess other people in the marsh (such as PCs) and will usually present herself as a neutral scholar, studying these strange obelisks and the fortress they protect. She may try to use the PCs to find the missing tablets, promising significant rewards of gold and magic items, though always accompanied by one of her apprentices to make sure the job is done. If the PCs already possess a tablet and she finds out, she will do whatever it takes to take the tablet for herself, whether it be bribery, fraud, threats or straightforward attacking the PCs and taking it off their dead bodies (as she did it before in Karameikos). Or she might make a deal with the PCs and then screw them over once she has the tablet.
Zeekeel: human male, Magic User 6, align Chaotic
Str 11, Int 16, Wis 12, Dex 10, Con 14, Cha 13
Equipment: Wand of Magic Missiles (15 charges), Spellbook, Dagger
Zeekeel is Naztherane's first apprentice. He is as ambitious and duplicitous as his tutor and is infatuated with her and as such is very loyal to her and a bit jealous about other apprentices. He will be protective of her around adventurers he does not trust.
Damro: human male, Magic User 5, align Neutral
Str 8, Int 16, Wis 13, Dex 15, Con 9, Cha 9
Equipment: Spellbook, Dagger, Wand of Webs (5 charges)
Ambitious and eager to learn secrets and arcane knowledge but he is becoming less happy with the unpleasant methods used by the group. He knows that Maygalli feels the same way but is less vocal about his concerns.
Tannishree: human female, Magic User 5, align Chaotic
Str 10, Int 15, Wis 7, Dex 13, Con 13, Cha 10
Equipment: Spellbook, Dagger +1, Ring of Levitation
Unstable and possibly psychopatic. Naztherane views Tannishree as useful for doing dirty work such as murder and torture. Although Tannishree is ambitious, she has the attention span of a squirrel.
Muhamrar of Ylarum: human male, Fighter 7, align Neutral
Str 16, Int 12, Wis 12, Dex 10, Con 15, Cha 14
Equipment: Scale Mail +2, Shield +1 Scimitar +1 +3 vs elementals
Muhamrar is loyal and fierce. He is nomimally a follower of the Eternal Truth but is really motivated by money, which Naztherane has promised lots of. He commands 10 warriors, his hired blades:
Hired Blade: human fighter 2, align Neutral, equipment: Scale mail, scimitar, shield, 2 javelins.
Maygalli: human female, Cleric 6, align Neutral
Str 10, Int 12, Wis 16, Dex 8, Con 14, Cha 10
Equipment: Banded Armour +1, Mace +1, Shield, Holy Symbol,
Maygalli worships knowledge, and reveres the Nithian deity Thoth. She wants to investigate the fortress for academic purposes and initially believed that was Naztherane's intention as well. But she is getting quite concerned with Naztherane's methods and has twice expressed worry about excessive violence and treachery. She suspects Damro feels the same way.
Gorff: Male troll. align Chaotic. Charmed by Naztherane and completely loyal to her. Useful in dealing with other trolls and scaring away monsters of the marsh. Gorff also has some native knowledge of the surrounding marshland.
Inside the Fortress
The Mogreth lizardfolk and serpentfolk who created this fortress used it as a major centre of military and economic activity until the collapse of the Mogreth civilization.
Crucially this fortress also contains two magic portals to other worlds. One is to Shegdreth, the Slithering Realms, a whole world overrun by the serpent folk. The other is to an unknown world that is cold, dark and populated by undead. The Nithians tried to close or destroy these portals but could not, and found that creatures, both reptilian and undead, kept wandering out of them into the fortress. This is why the obelisks and forcefield were created - to keep the inhabitants on the other side of the portals from taking over the whole marsh and then threaten the rest of Mystara.
Monsters found in the fortress include:
There are also various traps dotted around the fortress, especially along routes the serpentfolk anticipated intruders would follow. Some can be deactivated if the password in the old Mogreth language is spoken, but it is unlikely that random adventurers would know this unless they searched for clues elsewhere in the fortress.
Treasure is a mixture of old Mogreth coinage and gems (the fortress was also used by the Mogreth equivalent of tax collectors), Mogreth magic items (the armour may be fitted for reptilian forms but many of the weapons and magic-user items can be used by humans) and the library. The library is not exactly a conventional treasure - it is a vast collection of papyrus scrolls that have survived for over a millenium. Only some of those scrolls are directly useable by magic users, though those that are will often have long-forgotten spells unknown to even the wizards of Glantri or Alphatia. The great majority of the scrolls are of Mogreth history, religion and culture, plus some administrative record-keeping. These are of great interest to scholars and sages, but not to most adventurers.
