The Haunting of Calrow Ruins: Background
Calrow Keep was once a bastion of security and justice in a dangerous wilderness. However, three calamities reduced the keep to ruins and paved the way for the rise of the gibberlings .
The first befell the keep nearly a century ago when rampaging horned trolls of the Murkhorn tribe destroyed Calrow’s walls in pursuit of adventurers who stole their treasures Descendants of these horned trolls live to the east in forest caves, plotting the day they can recover the preserved head of the shaman who once lead the pack which is displayed in the stateroom (Area 19) of Calrow Ruins as a trophy. Among the trolls’ treasures was the grim tapestry with the likeness of a hunchbacked, grinning creature in black robes embroidered on its surface. This creature magically trapped within the tapestry is the gibberling brood mother , a twisted, deranged horror of the outer planes. The brood mother feeds on psychic and magical energy—the minds of dead mages and psionicists, and the brash emotions of noble men and women, give it power.
The second calamity befell the keep twelve years ago when the ruler of the keep, the widower Baron Ulrich Nydaridien, offended Lord Mattier de Freh of a neighboring province by refusing the hand of Lord de Freh’s daughter Arista. Baron Nydaridien, fearful of those who sought to usurp him, had taken to consulting the brood mother in the tapestry; it telepathically warned him of foes both real and imaginary while drinking deep of his fear. Distraught, Arista cast her would-be wedding ring, a band of gold clasping an onyx gem, off the parapets. Gravely offended, Lord de Freh laid siege to the keep. Though Lord de Freh was defeated and beheaded for his treachery, the destruction was so extensive that the Nydaridiens were forced to vacate the ruined keep.
Gradually, Calrow Keep was reduced to a minimal retinue of servants and a handful of guards led by the inimitable Ser Paviss who had long been in the service to the Baron. Arista de Freh was spared her father’s fate and made a lady-in-waiting of House Nydaridien, though she never forgave the Nydaridiens for what befell her father. When repairs on the keep were delayed by battles and matters of governance, the Baron moved his court elsewhere and the tapestry was all but forgotten. That is, until Arista returned to the keep in search of her ring. The guileful brood mother promised Arista her revenge, returning the onyx wedding ring which had slipped between the cracks in the keep’s blasted masonry.
There is was imbued by foul energies with the power to turn the blood and body of anyone its wearer touched to onyx. In exchange, all Arista had to do was lead the knight Ser Paviss to the tapestry, and so she did one stormy night. Amidst terrible flickering lights, a nightmarish, slug-like creature crawled from the tapestry’s embroidery and into Paviss’ ear. Arista fled, the knight’s dying screams ringing behind her, to seek her revenge on the Nydaridiens.
Two years ago, the tapestry commanded Arista to arrange for the Nydaridiens to return to Calrow. During their visit, a terrible quake shook the surrounding lands and all but collapsed the keep. Arista was forewarned of the quake by the tapestry, and sought to use the disturbance to end the entire Nydaridien bloodline. Amidst the calamity, vengeful Arista used her ring’s power to turn the Baron to onyx, but she was betrayed by its foul magic. Her task complete, Arista had outlived her usefulness and died alongside the Baron she so despised, turned to onyx herself. Her dying sight was the image of the hunchbacked figure stepping from the tapestry into the world. From the shadows came terrible gibbering, jabbering, and wailing as gibberlings broke up from the tunnels below in numbers beyond counting.