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. Today we head into the mountains with our eyes set on the Clifftop Retreat.
Clifftop Retreat
The Clifftop Retreat was created long ago by an unknown church as a place of meditation, but in modern times it has been taken over by a different religious group, a holy order who have named themselves the Cathar. The Cathar are either unaware or uncaring of which deity it is that they support, what seems to matter to them is a holy writ upon which their sacred wows are inscribed. Only a few of these vows are known outside of the order: A vow of celibacy, a vow of poverty, and a vow of protection of the weak. But the order moves in mysterious ways, and every so often, even those they supposedly protect are caught in the crosshairs. The Cathar just shrug and wave it off as “for the greater good.”
Clifftop retreat is their home, and while the Cathar are very secretive, it has been discovered that they are hiding some ONE or some THING deep in their fortress holdings.
Lay of the Land
Clifftop Retreat sits high in the mountains but is somewhat separated from the other, surrounding, mountain peaks so that it is bathed in sunlight at all times during the day. During the night, it is very brightly lit, with multiple overlapping enchantments lighting up the night sky, and making the Retreat appear like a shining beacon for miles around. In fact, those in the lowlands surrounding the mountains often use it as a point of reference when navigating deep forests or traveling during the night.
Two bridges lead up to it, making Clifftop Retreat very defensible though no one ever remembers it being attacked. Close examination of the bridges has revealed that they’re just as old as the Clifftop itself, but that they’re designed to collapse outward as if trying to keep something in, rather than to keep attackers away from its walls. In recent years examination of and excavations near the bridges have been strictly forbidden by the Cathar as one bridge nearly collapsed when one of the support beams was knocked loose by a careless engineer. Since then, they have been very careful with who they allow past the guard posts at the end of the bridges and making certain that any visitors know that some areas are off-limits, even with the best of intentions.
The buildings are made mostly of granite, but all of them have large stained-glass windows. These windows have been painted over by the Cathars to hide the original images from view, with thick white wash paint – applied vigorously and multiple times. Though none of the current Cathars seem to know or remember what the original images were, the whitewash is vigorously reapplied each year, just in case.
Dangers
The holy order of Cathars themselves are fairly dangerous to anyone who is out to hurt the weak or innocent, as most of them are accomplished fighters or champions (paladins if you’re playing 5e) and more than capable of defending themselves, but unknown to anyone but the grand master of the order is a terrible truth: the order is doomed. They are fated to protect the Clifftop Retreat until an as-yet-unknown date when the creature that is entombed beneath the Retreat will escape and devastate the world. The creature is a nascent abyssal lord, captured long ago, on the eve of its capturing its own layer in the Abyss, and held here for centuries. Its ascension ritual has yet to be completed, but due to the nature of it, can be done so shortly after the demon escapes, killing thousands in the process, and imbuing it with the souls it needs to complete the transformation.
As it is, it is chained and SEETHING with rage, beneath the Clifftop with only the prayers of the faithful Cathars keeping it in check, even as they are unaware of its presence. The Marilith (PF2 / 5e) has been planning its escape since and believes that it is getting close, as it has been using insidious whispers to influence the second in command of the order, to get him to kill the current master, and claim their position. Once that happens, the creature will be free, and the first to die will be the order. Chyltani the Riven Lady will be free once again. And soon.
See you back next week. 😊
Kim Frandsen
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Great stuff!
Added to the Blog Database.
https://jonbupp.wordpress.com/blog-database/dungeon-master/chapter-5-adventure-environments/wilderness/mountain/