Northkeep

There is no clear way to get to Northkeep these days. A road may take you there one day but not another. You could arrive through dreams, or by getting lost, either in the woods or your own mind. Sometimes focusing on the keep can aid your passage there, and that is how the first of the keep-folk are returning. Only the drembles seem able to arrive at the keep consistently, and they already have a healthy population among the Stones.

Those that find their ways to the keep are greeted with a sight a far cry different than in years past. Newcomers find themselves scattered about a field of floating stones, hovering in an ethereal world of in-betweens. Rocks and chains all seem to lead to a colossal monolith at the heart, where two waterfalls frame a tall, dark doorway into the depths of the keep...

Northkeep is a place stricken with wanderlust. Generally places aren't known for feeling the need to roam, but it becomes apparent in Northkeep's storied past. Many years ago, in a hazy past, the keep rose from the rocky spires high in the northern mountains. This old castle was abandoned when overrun with a ghostly horde. The keep was rebuilt in the mountains of Raal, north of Eileadora but south of the Silver Basin that housed the kingdom of Silvaria. Raal, the ancient being that the mountains were named for, arose from its slumber in an attempt to destroy the keep. But its long sleep had made it weak, and it was defeated by denizens of the keep. With the last of its power, it attempted to wipe the keep out of existence. A mysterious and dark power countered it. Instead, the keep was torn out of reality and into a pocket plane called the Northern Edge, a land of bitter seas and wind on the northern edge of the world. Raal was trapped under the keep, assumed slain. Since there was still a portal back to the real world, the keep's hardy occupants settled into the Northern Edge. The keep suffered the occasional plague or political intrigue, but for years all was well. Then Raal rose again, its chains bursting from every crack in every stone, tearing the keep to rubble. The Northern Edge grew unstable and forced all of its former occupants back out into the real world, where they scattered to the four winds.

It is currently unknown what happened after that, but in recent times the old keep-folk are feeling a pull in their minds. Memories of the old windy bastion are surfacing like an acute sense of nostalgia, drawing the keep-folk back home...