Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
In this column, we take some of the lands from Magic: The Gathering and turn them into something you can use for your fantasy games.
The stats given in each entry assumes that you’re using Pathfinder or 5e for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This week we find refuge within the stones at Castle Garenbrig.
Castle Garenbrig
Castle Garenbrig is also known as the Underfort. Castle Garenbrig resides within a single gigantic rock that fell from the sky centuries ago. Local humans and giants, who had long lived with an uneasy truce investigated the rock and found that it had landed exactly at the center of a confluence of leylines. Their shamans believed that the meteor had somehow been attracted to the leylines, as a gift from strange gods. For a long time, they avoided the site, believing it to be a transgression against the gods to head there, but after a few years, they realized that they would need to do something. The site was attracting powerful monsters, and if given time, something would eventually settle there, that they could not handle. Everything that grew near the stone became bigger and more aggressive, through a manner that they didn’t (and still don’t) understand.
So, the giants and the humans tried to build on it, but failed. Any building that was erected on the stone mysteriously fell, as if it was undermined from beneath, but the locals had not given up. One day, their leader, a Storm Giant named Garen, discovered that stone mined directly from the rock itself did NOT fall when built, and a great project was started to mine the stone and build a castle. It didn’t take long until the miners realized that the tunnels they were digging would serve well as part of the fortifications, and as such, the above sections were built with only some of the stone from the excavations.
Lay of the Land
Castle Garenbrig is much like an iceberg: Only 10% is seen, but the real 90% of the fortifications are underneath, which means that there isn’t actually much to see. A single large watchtower stands atop the rock, giving it a commanding view of the countryside around it, and two smaller towers guard the main entrance to the place. Several air shafts have been drilled through the rock, and there are a number of emergency exits, though these have been hidden through both magical and mundane means to prevent intruders from finding a way in.
But it is what surrounds the Castle that, to most, is the most remarkable feature. All around it can be found samples of animals and plants grown larger than life. Everything here is huge, usually twice their normal sizes, though this extends to those who are born here only. Those who migrate here aren’t affected unless they are humanoid.
Dangers
Castle Garenbrig presents a number of threats — the rock itself seems to attract intelligent and dangerous monsters, though it is unknown why. None of them have told the defenders WHY they come, and even under extreme interrogation or magical coercion refuse to say why only revealing that it is somehow important.
Large animals and plants are a fact of life as well, and many newcomers have lost their lives to rampaging herds of animals such as cows, simply from being unaware. After all, a herd of cows can normally trample folks, but when an adult bull goes from weighing one ton to two tons instead, they suddenly become more dangerous.
One danger, if it can be called such, is more insidious, and only affects humanoids. Those who move here start to grow noticeably. And within 10 years, they transform from their normal old selves and into actual giants, though only doing so in size — they do not gain any of the natural abilities of giants themselves, even if they resemble them. Giants themselves are unaffected, except for Storm Giants that live here. Though the transformation has taken a millennium, Garen, the first Storm Giant that moved here and a leader since that time, has become a Titan. So far, he is the only one to have completed this particular transformation, but Castle Garenbrig has become known far and wide as a land of giants among men.
And that concludes Castle Garenbrig. Next week, we look at another fortification. Hope to see you there. 😊
Kim Frandsen
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