Black Forge Keep

Category	Marvels
Continent	Brucrumus
Region	Hells Womb
Owner	none
Built	unknown
Map	Lirgaza

Alien structures loom overhead, thick squat towers surveying a valley filled with noxious, steaming ichor. The skies are rent with flashes of lightning and swirling darkness. The echoes of bellows and the rhythmic pounding of hammers reverberate, remnants of a bygone era.

Tavder Godsmiter, caravan guard - "Black Forge"

Black Forge is a haunted dwarven keep situated on the northeastern edge of the Gelugon Range. This alien place is caught in a time rift, shifting between the world of Bal-Kriav and the world of Oerth on a random day and time each year. The source of this rift is a device known as the Prism of Black Forge, one of two Prisms of Worlds created by a half-Tragaran Modron named Tome. The other Prism, located in an open area of Paradomea City, allows travelers to cross over to a different time and world, potentially becoming attached to their new "home world" if they tarry for more than one cycle. In contrast, the Prism of Black Forge works in reverse, enabling one-way passage from Oerth to Bal-Kriav, and also causing a growing feeling of belonging to the strange world around them.

Beyond the rifts, the keep serves as the abode for the spectral legion that erected this formidable stronghold, entities from a bygone era and realm. Explorers of the keep consistently report sightings of ghostly apparitions of dwarves, unaffiliated with the Dulun-Khâl in any capacity, alien yet akin. Laborers and warriors, they traverse the ramparts, continuing the tasks they once performed in life. Those who have ventured deeper, emerging victorious, amassing bags of coin and plunder, all affirm that upon their return with wagons and beasts of burden, they must re-engage all they presumed were vanquished.

In the Year 1500, a specialized division of the Pharêthôn ventured into Black Forge. Under the guidance of Dax, a First Dead, they searched for ancient lore. They utilized their arcane abilities to decipher the bones, only to find most were indecipherable due to age and other factors. Other ancient bones spoke of a powerful dracolich named Memmourn holed up in a large grotto, a formidable Shade named Breezull wielding spell energies akin to a master arcanist, a menacing Mummy Lord named Threllkell that hurls twin bolts of lightning, and perhaps the most feared of all, an undead dwarven king named Grunger Wirebeard, who moves through stone like an Earth Elemental, with a touch of death, wielding an impossibly sharp dwarven-axe named Wirebeards Revenge.

When the war had concluded, and our armies tread upon a path of skulls, I shall return to Black Forge.

Dax Jagg, the founder of the Pharêthôn - "Vow To Return".

Anecdote

The League of Ten, wielders of the Prism of Black Forge, were the pioneers in documenting their foray into the keep. Their journal, presently exhibited in Nuciregmas, states that the paramount enigma of Black Forge Keep is a rune stone recounting the narrative of the Wirebeard Clan.

Deep into the earth we descended, pursuing seams teeming with gold, silver, and precious gemstones. Traces of Mithril compelled us ever deeper. We found ourselves at odds with the ebon brothers, subterranean goblins, and trolls with hides as unyielding as stone.

Two cycles have elapsed, returning once more to the affluence of another realm. The mithril culminates at the banks of a verdant sea. Traversing this Green Nebulous, we acquire allies and further adversaries.

Ten years have elapsed, and an abundance of mithril has been discovered. Engineers have demolished an ancient stone dam, unleashing a sinister ichor into the sea below. Now revealed is a lattice-work of mithril, along with a captivating purple spire. Driven by its alluring glow, workers wield hammers and screws, becoming oblivious to the mithril's presence.

I have become an abhorrent creature. I traverse the stone like a Xorn, consuming the vital force of those once cherished.

Grunger Wirebeard, dwarven vampire king - "The Purple Shard"