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The Grave of Tella Th'un.

Four hundred and eighty years ago, a kingdom rose and fell in the lifespan of a single man.

Cisalgu has always been more of a region than a country, for as long as men can remember at least. Yet there was a brief, shining time of thirty two years that it was more, so much more.

The Algus were scattered settlements of tiny human farming communities. The people lived simply not out of a desire, but because the land was so hostile and unforgiving that it was impossible to live otherwise. Ogres and goblins and beasts even worse prowled the forests beyond, and the more organized troupes of these creatures often raided and demanded tributes of the peoples of the Algus. It was a life of generation after generation of subjugation, until the rise of Tella Th'un.

Th'un was a mercenary, skilled with the bow, his short, curving sword, and with a horse. In time he discovered there was greater profit to be had raiding the goblin villages than in escorting caravans through the region, and in very short order he had gathered a handful of like minded warriors around him.

Bolder and bolder grew their raids, until the time that his brave ninety horsemen and he turned a tide against a raiding force of three hundred hobgoblins, their swift maneuvers catching the inhumans completely off guard. Distributing the defeated invaders' weapons among the town, he demanded a levy of twenty warriors in payment for the rescue, with a pledge to return should the town ever need him anew. They went to the next town and repeated the gesture, his army swelling in size with each stop.

The Cisalgu Riders became a legend in the woods, roaming ceaselessly between towns in bands of thirty or forty warriors, swiftly bringing word of hobgoblin movements from point to point and rallying the greater number of the horsemen to moments of crisis. Within ten years, Th'un was king in all but name, and two more brought him even that title.

Three major campaigns were launched to "purge" the dark hills and forests beyond the towns, and town militias were raised as standing, local forces to compliment the nomadic Riders. Raids fell off and all but ceased for the duration of his time on the throne.

And then, as humans tend to do, Tella Th'un died. His warriors, in accord with his instructions, took his body to a secret place in the woods he had so long defended and laid him to rest, swearing their fealty in a sacred rite that burned the memory of the Grave's location from their minds.

As the years passed, the Riders split apart, some leaving for lands beyond in search of new wars, others fighting against eachother in a bid to control the Algus, and just as many dying in the renewed raids that Th'un's death had brought. In time, the kingdom itself split apart and dissolved into memory. Many of the Algus themselves remain as a virtue of their standing militias and small bands of riders still associated with them, but the dream of Cisalgu as a nation-state is all but dead save in the hearts of a few romantics and dreamers still living in the towns.

As to Th'un's grave, it has never been discovered. His wondrous sword and bow, which never needed sharpening or replacement, are lost with him. What treasures might he have been buried with? What secrets lie in the lost grave? Was it a Caern, as was the custom of the Algus, or was the foreigner buried as the legends suggest, beneath a riverbed briefly dammed, and then allowed to flood over the burial?

What secrets await the brave who seek out the Grave the Riders forgot?

This has been taken from the campaign I am planning. In all likelyhood my players will never go to Daaken Falls, so i thought I would hare it:

Daaken Falls

The mighty river Daaken River flows from the Gyldenholm Mountains, forming the northern border of the Grydd Tribe. The river terminates at the Misty Chasm a huge great tear in the ground. The river flows straight into the Chasm, forming the Falls, the spray and mist the Falls create give the Chasm its name.

It is believed that the Chasm has no bottom and that the Daaken River falls either forever, or forms a gateway to the Elemental Tempest. The truth is that the river falls into the Underdark forming a great lake in the darkness.

The Falls are well known and due to the dangers few travel the river close to the Misty Chasm. On the very edge of the river, overlooking the Misty Chasm itself is the town of Daaken Falls.

The town is the Thanehold of Powtyr Clan, a minor clan within the Grydd Tribe. The Powtyr are an isolated clan and one that has become wary of outsiders. The constant roar of the falls reverberates through the town and is said to be the cause of the inhabitant’s strangeness.

In ancient times the inhabitants would sacrifice children and the old to the Falls, throwing them into the Chasm. This practice was thought to have been stopped over a hundred years ago by the then Penthane of the Grydd. In the place of humans animals were sacrificed. Though frowned upon, the Powtyr were allowed to continue this practice.

Over a year ago strange lights were seen on cloud covered nights, from deep within the Misty Chasm. This was accompanied by strange dreams amongst the inhabitants of the town, prompting them to return to their old sacrifices. This has been kept secret from outsiders and so far only the sick or deformed have been thrown into the depths.

Somehow one of the sacrifices survived the fall and his broken body was found by the koa-toa that live in the lake and taken to their aboleth master. The abomination read the child’s mind, learning about the town above. Plans have begun to invade the human settlement.

The increased Underdark activity has been noticed by the Powtyr. They often dream nightmares involving water. Also now when the lights are seen in the darkness they appear accompanied by the sound of distant drumming. The Powtyr are now thinking of increasing the number of sacrifices.

(snip)

Sunsorrow Watch:

The fortress of Sunsorrow Watch is the point of the spear, sitting atop the high cliffs of a peninsula that guards an approach to a sheltered bay, watching for any intruders beyond the sea.

So named for the constantly foul weather that rakes in from the south, Sunsorrow Watch is far removed from the greater glories of civilization, and the men who walk its walls have little contact with the outside world, save for a string of pathetic fishing villages that huddle in the shadow of the cliff.

A post at Sunsorrow, so far from anything else, is tantamount to exile for most, but there are men who have reason to stray from the guiding light of the distant kingdom, and they find a secure but distant shelter from the world at Sunsorrow.

The keep maintains a garrison of approximately 100 men, including 15 rangers and the crew of a single small Ketch stationed at the fortress and moored at the docks at the base of the cliff. The fortress also currently has a single spellcaster, a young acolyte of the church named Ethan Van Dyre.

While Sunsorrow Watch is typically a peaceful outpost, and the Ketch is used to rescue imperiled fishermen more than anything else, the nearby villagers have begun to whisper of strange happenings: of dead things washing ashore with the tides with a gritty black ooze in place of blood; of fresh catches of fish spoiled rotten by the time they are dragged ashore' and of a strange, heavy mist that is encroaching from the south, having already swallowed a small island there so completely that the fishermen swear the island no longer exists...


Dust Falls and Downtown:

Hundreds or thousands of years ago, the place now known as Dust Falls was a great lake fed my a mighty river. Over time, however, the current of the river and the weight of the lake eroded the bedrock around the mouth of the river of this high-mountain lake, until it crashed down into an undiscovered series of labyrinthine caves below. Over and over again, the rush of water crushed the roofs of the caves below it, eventually carving out a mile-wide, ten-mile deep hole in the world. The river has long since dried up, and now only a small trickle of dust falls down from above, giving the place its name.

Standing at the lip of the hole is a town that takes its name from the place. It acts as a launching-off point for the perilous journey down the chasm by way of a series of branching caves and ledges that winds its way down into the darkness. Thanks to the surrounding mountains, little sunlight ever reaches the town of Dust Falls, and more than a mile or so into the chasm, even that dwindles to a faint glow from above.

Ten miles below the surface, at the bottom of the long trail leading down the chasm, travelers come to the gates of Downtown, a fortress city that guards the opening into a vast cave in the deepest reaches of the pit. Though the road to Downtown -if it can be called a road- is perilous enough, the people of Downtown know that they guard the entrance to something far worse, for the cave they stand at the mouth of is a direct connection to the Underdark and all the horrors it contains.

Both Dust Falls and Downtown are cosmopolitan places, and while neither is a safe place for anyone who doesn't know how to handle a weapon, Downtown is far worse in that regard: its residents fight a constant war against the encroaching darkness from below, and violence between the town's defenders is as common as battle with Downtown's would-be invaders. Downtowners live in a deadly, benighted place forgotten by the light world above, and they know it. Still, the opportunity of finding the ancient, untold riches of the world below attracts enough new blood to keep the city alive.

Dunharrow Keep
"Two worn doorposts upon the hill," the children sing. A full moon sees myriad windows light in an invisible mammoth, the "Manor-Upon-the-Hill." Now the earthly posts sport ghostly doors. Enter! See! The lights, and now the manor, are visible from the inside, and the formorian masters are busy cooking yet another magical beast in their giant kitchens. "Will you save the beast?" The cooking creature asks, unicorn, dragon-child, or whatever it be. "Lift me from the pot, and fortune will be with ye; let Dunharrow see you, and might as well get in beside me."