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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HolyMan" data-source="post: 5351812" data-attributes="member: 84167">Locations[sblock=Diamond Lake]The lively mountain village of Diamond Lake is a muddy smudge on the map of thehills east (3 days by horseback) of the fabulous Free City to which it is subject. Most of Diamond Lake’s inhabitants are miners and laborers; serious folk who spend most of their lives toiling below ground. When not working, the miners celebrate along the Vein, a seedy road lined with alehouses and brothels. Overall, the village is a sooty, sullen place prone to unpleasant bursts of violence and passion. But Diamond Lake holds plenty of opportunities for adventure, for the uplands on the lakeside opposite the village are rife with ancient tombs that for centuries have named them the Cairn Hills. Diamond Lake (small town)• Population: 1000• Alignment: N• Limit: 1000 gp• Assets: 40,000 gp• Isolated (96% humans, 2% halflings, 1% gnomes, and 1% other races)• Authority Figures: Governor-Mayor Lanod Neff, Sheriff Cubbin, Garrison Commander Tolliver Trask.• Mine Managers: Balabar Smenk, Chaum Gansworth, Ellival Moonmeadow, Gelch Tilgast, Luzane Parrin, Ragnolin Dourstone. Nearby Locations: Blackwall Keep: Blackwall Keep is a small, stockade fortification with a single tower hosting some 40 militiamen. Patrols going through the Mistmarsh often assemble here. Though this keep technically is not located in the Cairn Hills, it is under the command of the Commander of the Cairn Hills. The road to Blackwall Keep is not particularly safe. Bandits and hostile humanoids are the primary threats. The Bronzewood Lodge: The ring of crumbling menhirs on the bluff overlooking Diamond Lake is a remnant of the Old Faith, the Flannae druidic culture that once inhabited the region. They too came to the hills for the ancient cairns, seeing them as monuments to great ancestors of the invisible past. Although Suel and Oeridians displaced the native druids during great migrations over a thousand years ago, pockets of indigenous architecture and culture remain. Foremost among these near forgotten practices is the veneration of Obad-Hai, the Shalm, the brooding patron of wilderness and natural order. The Cairn Hills: A few hundred years ago, intrepid explorers discovered a fantastic cache of priceless artifacts entombed in one of the hundreds of ancient burial complexes hewn into the crags surrounding the city of Greyhawk. The trove attracted legions of treasure-seekers to the Free City (then a mere trading post), and unbelievable wealth plundered from the tombs. The wealthiest explorers became the city’s first nobility, and Greyhawk quickly became associated with easy wealth and fabulous archeological artifacts from long-dead civilizations that appeared to predate the emergence of gnomes and dwarves in the region. But the wealth didn’t always come easy, as many of the forlorn tombs provided deadly surprises in the form of bound demon guardians, relentless constructs, and ingenious magical wards and traps. The hilly lands surrounding the city became known as the Cairn Hills, and the hunt for lost treasure became an important part of the region’s cultural heritage. But the treasure didn’t last forever. Eventually, the cairns dried out, and unplundered tombs became more and more difficult to locate. The Twilight Monastery: About two hours north of Diamond Lake, a towering crag called the Griffon’s Roost casts a dark shadow over the muddy road to Elmshire. From a perch hundreds of feet above looms the cat-infested Twilight Monastery, a three-towered monument to Baklunish monks out of the distant west. Two score monks honoring the goddess Xan Yae dwell with the monastery, dedicating themselves to a litany of exercises meant to perfect the body and spirit. The secretive monks hold dusk as the holiest of hours, and sonorous chants emit from the Twilight Monastery’s central courtyard when the night sky appears in the heavens. [/sblock]</blockquote>

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