1507 Norstone

An infuriating profusion of watery ditches and mud-choked pathways.

• Terrain: Boggy forest (4), Aldweald
• Lost/encounters: 3-in-6
• Ley line Hoad (p18): Arcane spell-casters perceive the feeling of having just awoken from a dream.

The Unearthly Glade

Deep in the quiet calm of the airy beech woods in this hex, a wide glade is overrun with sighing grasses. This place has an odd air, feeling dreamy, welcoming, and yet also somehow forbidding.

Unnatural sensations: Arcane spell-casters and fairies sense something wrong or unnatural about this glade, as if space itself were twisted or broken here.

Magical detection: Detection of magic, invisibility, or dimensional warping reveal a 20′ dome of magical energy at the centre of the glade.

Touching the dome: Once thus detected, the dome may be touched, revealing a shimmering, silver door that leads into a parallel dimensional space.

The Parallel Glade

Entering the door in the invisible dome, one appears at the edge of a glade nearly identical to that in which the dome stands, with a few key differences.

Perpetual night: This glade is always veiled in night, lit by a full moon.

Misty boundary exit: The glade is surrounded by mists. Entering the mist causes one to reappear in the original glade, beside the door in the dome.

Monolith: At the glade’s centre, where the invisible dome is located in the real world, stands the Norstone.

Norstone (Hidden)

A great, square monolith of red/purple-striated stone—20′ tall and 8′ to a side. It can only be seen and accessed in the parallel glade.

Guardian: Anyone approaching the stone attracts the attention of the Audrune Morthgwail —the stone ward— and his two dire wolves. There is a 3-in-6 chance of him being already present (invisible) in the glade; if not, he arrives from Dolmenwood within 1d3 Turns.

Inscribed spell: Drunic runes describe the arcane spell Dimension Door. See Ley Lines and Standing Stones, p18 for details on learning this spell.

Touching the stone: When touched by an arcane spell- caster of Level 7 or higher, the stone thrums, vibrates, and exudes a violet plasma in which babbling, spectral faces form. These phantoms speak in the Old Drunic tongue and may be conversed with, revealing secrets arts for manipulating space and time (magic practised and jealously guarded by the Audrunes). Conversing with the phantoms allows an arcane spell-caster to reduce the research time and cost of a spell related to these topics (including teleportation magic) by 25%.

The Audrune Morthgwail

An old human man, stick thin and stooped, with missing teeth, goggling eyes, and a white beard to his belly. He dresses in the traditional night-black cloak and hood of his order. Morthgwail wanders the woods around the nodal glade, living in the wilds without domicile.

Demeanour (Neutral): Eccentric, easily enraged. Tilts his head to one side then the other when speaking.

Speech: Toothless whistle. Veers erratically between topics. Woldish, Drunic, Old Drunic.

Desires: To repel intruders from Norstone. To learn magic of shape-shifting.

Combat stats: Audrune (DMB).

Servants: 2 dire wolves (DMB).

Possessions: A twisted elm Staff of Dominion (Animals, p416) with 7 charges.