Maskyr's Eye is a village of 20 main buildings located at the foot of the Earthspur Mountains, beneath the shadow of the Glacier of the White Worm.

This small community is known primarily for its farming and horse breeding, and, at present, has no extremely high-level denizens in residence. The vale the community takes its name from is told of in the following tale:

Of old, the Archmage Maskyr explored these lands, which were still new to humankind, and come upon this valley. It was to his liking, and he thought to make a home there. In those days the land around the mountains was controlled by the dwarves, and the king of these dwarves was Tuir, Blood of Helban, who made his throne deep beneath Mount Grimmerfang, which the dwarven people had wrested from Orc King Grimmerfang. Tuir, not wanting to give up any land to these newly arrived humans, gruffly stated that the dwarves would grant the valley to the archmage if Maskyr gave his right eye to Tuir right then and there. Maskyr, to the astonishment of Tuir's court, did so. The bargain was kept, and Maskyr lived happily in the tale that now bears his name.

Maskyr is long gone, disappeared, and presumably slain on some interplanar journey. Of his tower nothing remains, and only his name and the legend of Maskyr One-Eyed survives. The town has one of the finest inns in all the Vast, the Wizard's Hand, rivaled in quality only by the Worried Wyvern in Sevenecho.

"What is most important, of all I can tell thee of the Realms?" Elminster posed, arching an eyebrow. "The awe and wonder and mystery ye find there, of course. For if ye have not these things, what have ye? Mere survival. And while survival is a wondrous thing - sometimes a most wondrous thing - it is but the rock upon which all else must stand. A rock is proud and hard, but also a thing cold and bare. So keep well awe and wonder and mystery - and know delight and excitement all thy days?"

I sighed and asked the Old Mage how much of the Forgotten Realms he had not yet told me about. In reply, Elminster just winked - hence this column's title.

The old sage and I have been pretty busy lately; the steadily growing interest in the Realms has kept us busy answering queries about fashion, everyday speech, military and political matters (and just who really holds power, behind the scenes and various thrones), popular recipes - and many, many other things.

This has made the rambling, testy old mage even more scatter-tongued than usual; I've taken to running several tape recorders at all times during his visits, so that the overlapping tapes will pick up every murmur he utters. Little bits and pieces on topics not easily incorporated into other articles or projects from TSR (such as those people, places, and things we could only sketchily cover in the crammed pages of the boxed Campaign Setting and the FORGOTTEN REALMS Adventures rulebook) I've set down herein, below and in columns to follow.

The Realmslore in this installment can add life and color to any campaign set in Faerun and provides DMs with valuable background information. It can even spark additional adventures for characters who become involved with the topic at hand (or "under the tongue," as Elminster says). I'm afraid I can't reproduce the Old Mage's wry, distinguished tone, flashing eyes, and droll mimicry, but I hope you'll enjoy my written renderings of his ramblings as we explore the Realms together. I'll certainly ask Elminster about topics of particular interest to Network members - if you'll let me know what you want to read about.

Maskyr's Tale

For this first foray, I've collected together all Elminster would tell me of the beginnings of Maskyr's Eye, a picturesque, overgrown little village just north of The Vast, in the lands east of The Dragon Reach. It's just one of many places in the Realms that has much to intrigue and fascinate the scholar and adventurer alike.

Some seven hundred years ago, the archmage Maskyr came to the vale where Maskyr's Eye now stands. In those days, men were few north of the Inner Sea, and they went quietly and well-armed about their business. Maskyr was exploring, looking for a place far from the affairs of men where he could build himself a tower. He found a certain wooded vale to his liking. It was shrouded in mountain-mists when he came upon it one morn. It lay quiet and beautiful, and he decided that he would make his home there.

In those days, the beast-men (ogres) held Thar, and goblinkind were few east of The Dragon Reach. Dwarves held the lands east of The Dragon Reach from where Mulmaster now stands to what is now eastern Impiltur. King among the dwarves then was Tuir, called "Stonebeard" for his grim stoicism and slow humor.

Tuir sat his throne deep under Mount Grimmerfang, where the dwarves had once slain an orc-king to seize control of these lands (just what mountain this was is unknown to men today, kept secret by dwarven elders). Maskyr sought audience with Tuir in his halls one day and asked the Deep King his price for the vale. At his words, there was silence.

Maskyr had learned patience in long years of seeking out and experimenting with the Art (magic), and so he leaned upon his staff and held his peace, cloaking himself in silence and waiting. His eyes met the stony gaze of the Deep King.

Tuir stroked his beard in thought for a time. He could see that this human must command the Art. Yet, he was loathe to give up any land to humans, especially powerful mages who he trusted not at all.

Finally, he gruffly said, "The vale is yours, from rim to rim and beneath the grass as deep as four men stand upon each other's shoulders, so long as ye dig so as to remain within the valley's borders - upon one condition only. Pluck out thy right eye and give it here to me, without hesitation or violence, and the vale is thine."

And to the astonishment of the Court, Maskyr did. The bargain was kept. Tuir, with new respect for this human (he never thought anyone would pay such a price), commanded that no dwarf disturb the archmage's studies nor intrude upon his borders. Maskyr the One-Eyed lived contentedly alone in the valley for several hundred years until he vanished (presumably slain) while on an inter-planar journey.

During that time, the power of the dwarves waned, orcs came again to the northern Vast, and humans came in numbers to hurl back all other creatures and claim the Vast for their own.

Maskyr's Tower stood atop a rocky bluff that rises out of the woods like the prow of a ship, facing northeast to the twin peaks known locally as the Coldstars. Small, rugged, and unadorned, it was soon visited by adventurers who had heard the tale of Maskyr's bargain with the dwarves. But none of them could pass the wards of force that Maskyr had left guarding the towers door and windows, and the adventurers went away empty-handed.

Mankind came north. The land in the mist-dampened valley was cleared for farms, and several adventurers settled nearby in retirement. Every now and again one of the retired adventurers would ride up to the tower and test its wards, seeking some weakness they had not found before. None appeared, and the patience of one man, the warrior Gathen, grew short as the years followed one after another.

At last Gathen rode to Mulmaster (the road by then was a good one as much trade passed through the village) and hired 30 strongarms. They returned with him to the vale and attacked the walls of the tower with picks, bars, and hammers. In two days they breached the wall in one place, and were nearly through in another. Gathen took up his armor and weaponry from years ago and ventured within.

No one knows what fate befell Gathen, called the Swiftsword. He was not seen again. The workers did not follow him. Several who looked within as they enlarged the hole spoke later of "shifting shadows" and "odd, high calls, like a bird or bells, high and far-off?" Just as dusk fell upon the valley, that day when Gathen vanished, there came a great, rumbling roar of riven stone crashing to the ground, as the tower burst apart. Out of its falling stones rose a great dragon, its wings as broad as the tower had stood tall. It flew away northwards without pause, while the tower crumbled into rubble behind it. Some said the dragon was white, some said that it had scales of brassy hue, and others claim that its scales were green, or the hue of electrum. It did not come back.

In the morning many climbed the rocks to look upon the ruin of the tower, and they found it little more than a ring of tumbled rock. Of life, or furnishings, or treasure, nothing could be found. One curious farmer swore he saw a silvery doorway floating high in the air above the ruins at sunset, just for a moment, but he was known to be half-witted and his story was not believed. A few others who looked later and saw such a thing were not believed either. Some of the men from Mulmaster dug among the stones of the tower and found a shaft leading down into darkness. However, the shaft soon lead to water, and the men thought it to have been only Maskyr's well. Most of the men hired from Mulmaster fled soon after the fall of the tower, when they heard the sounds of digging beneath their feet as they poked around the rubble - digging sounds that grew steadily louder.

In the days that followed, dwarves were seen on the site where the tower had stood, And adventurers, particularly young mages who rode alone, began to come to the valley, seeking treasure. There was trouble with the local farmers, who grew tired of being threatened or enspelled to reveal where they had hidden the rich treasures that they must have gained from Maskyr's shattered abode.

The wizard Loathren of Phlan came to the vale and tried to build a tower of his own on the site. He perished when the scattered stones on the bluff rose into the air, whirled around like a cloud of leaves spun about in autumn winds, and fell crushingly upon his encampment. Some said it was Maskyr's work, or that of a curse or magic he had left behind. Others held that the dwarves beneath were to blame, or another wizard who did not wish Loathren to gain Maskyr's secrets and power.

The notion of a curse on the ruin of Maskyr's tower spread. Bards sang of it in their travels, and the flow of hopeful dweomercrafters and adventurers dwindled noticeably. Local farmers began to cart away stones; tall grass and shrubs soon overgrew the area.

There is little left of Maskyr's tower to look at today; many of its stones have found their way into stone cottages and walls around the vale. Locals come in haste to warn away travelers on the road. However, there are a few who are foolish enough to camp on the tower's site for a night or light a fire there. The work of vanished wizards is best left undisturbed, the locals say.

By night the rubble-strewn site still remains an eerie place. It affords a grand lookout over the valley and the road, and twice when rumors of orc hordes have risen strong in the area, riders from Mulmaster have come to the bluff to set up a watchpost. None have ever found any treasure - or, if they have, they have stolen it away unobserved and spoken not of it.

Local legends persist of Maskyr's treasure and great magic, which is thought to be hidden somewhere near where the tower stood. The legends also whisper that Maskyr will return one day and seek out any who have taken so much as a copper piece that was his.

Next time, we'll look at the present-day village of Maskyr's Eye. If you have a map of the Realms, find it on the road south of Mulmaster (we'll look at Mulmaster, too, soon enough). There it sits. There's nothing very special about it. And yet, after we've peeked at its history and its folk and their doings, it'll make a fine setting for characters just beginning their careers - and looking to find adventures in RAVENS BLUFF^TM, The Living City, Calaunt, and Mulmaster.

"The most beautiful place in all the Realms? Why, home, of course."
Dabron Sashenstar of Baldur's Gate, famous explorer; from a speech to The Merchants' League, Year of the Prince

Faerun is a big place, home to millions upon millions of beings. Some have larger and grander homes than others, but to each, as Dabron's words remind us, his or her own home is best loved of all. To the bard Randal Morn, the cave or clearing where he sleeps in the wooded heights above Daggerdale is far grander and more precious than the many-spired palaces of the richest satraps of Calimshan. Elminster of Shadowdale would not dream of trading his humble stone tower for grander Blackstaff Tower, abode of his colleague Khelben Arunsun, in rich Waterdeep. Nor does he covet the Thwer of Ashaba next door, though it was his for the taking for many years. Neither Elminster nor Khelben desire the luxurious, ornate splendor of sprawling Piergeiron's Palace, down the road from Khelben's tower. To a few folk of the Realms, a farm village called Maskyr's Eye is home. We've poked around "the Eye" in the first installment of this column, but Elminster tells me in no uncertain terms that it holds much more to see yet, and that none can expect to understand the Realms who hasn't looked "under every stone, as well as over every stone."

Daily Life

The people of Maskyr's Eye lead slow and uneventful lives, dominated by hard farm work and enlivened by any travelers seen passing on the road. Winters are cold and hard; putting food by is necessary for survival. Unless one is a hunter (and there is not game enough to support another family of hunters), one has little time to explore the woods and mountains around. On evenings when the weather is dry locals gather in the taproom of The Wizard's Hand to enjoy brambleberry wine and beer, and to get news of the world from travelers. In return, locals tell tales of the vale if asked and on some nights the tales grow taller than usual. Bards are very popular with Maskyrvians, who lay down coins willingly to hear ballads and dramatic tales they've heard often before. Several traveling minstrels of the Vast are greeted in the Hand as old friends, in particular the tall, beautiful half-elven adventurer who wears black leather armor, Sshansalue "Wonderharp."

So the days and nights pass. Few travelers passing through the village think of settling there; few locals do more than dream of leaving, or even of marrying someone not of "The Eye." Most folk in the vale are content with their lot; few have the urge to live elsewhere, or to betray their friends and neighbors for monetary gain.

Maskyrvians are not yokels, however; nor are they uncurious about doings in the larger world. Anyone walking about behind the farms by day will be noticed and observed; intruders in a barn or paddock will be challenged. Such challenges sometimes lead to fights. With the mountains and woods so near, and all manner of dangerous folk riding the roads these days, there is a lot of fighting, one way or another. Maskyrvians are not slow to wield blade, club, fork, flail, or pickaxe in their own defense. Thankfully for all involved in such lively forms of social interaction, four clerics live in Maskyr's Eye: Lharathuel Hesmyr, a fourth level priest of Chauntea; her two first level acolytes, Torzhin Hulvesper (youngest son of the horse-breeder Gundul) and Jhenta Sulpir, a young lady of means who fled an unhappy arranged marriage in far-off Teziir; and the Keeper and lone priest of the shrine to Tymora. The Keeper is a "Willing Hand of the Lady" or fifth level cleric, a crippled ex-adventurer named Khonduil Ammargath. He was once a (sixth level) thief with acrobatic skills active in Iriaebor, Scornubel, and points west. Injuring his leg and forearm on the job, he was forced to crawl away from pursuers, and was not able to recover enough to use his old skills again. He is a humorous, lively old man with a love for tales of adventure. He has a knack for turning up when adventurers in the vicinity need healing spells, several hundred feet of rope, or a horse litter to be carried home on.

Tymora's shrine stands on a wooded knoll off the road just north of the vale. Khonduil lives alone in a dirt-floored hut behind it.

The House of Plenty, dedicated to Chauntea, stands next to the inn, and serves the town council as a meeting place when the inn is too crowded with paying guests for them to use its taproom.

An eerie-looking stone altar stands in a clearing in the woods west of the vale. It is a flat-topped boulder festooned with animal bones, rotting pelts, and bloodstains, and backed by a standing stone crowned by a giant stag skull with a full spread of antlers. This sinister looking place is a shrine set up by the local hunters so they could pray to Malar before long, important, or especially dangerous hunts.

There also is a lone standing stone on the southern edge of the vale, looming up at an odd angle above the rubble wall of one farm like a stern, endlessly pointing finger. To travelers who have come this way before, it marks the edge of Maskyr's Eye; to Maskyrvians, it is something sacred to the dwarves, not to be disturbed or even approached too closely. The locals call it "the Dwarfstone," although some ballads refer to it as "Durn's Finger." No dwarves have appeared in recent memory to reveal any use or reverence for the stone, but the legend is clear and emphatic, and the stone remains undisturbed.

Twice or thrice a year, dwarves come down out of the mountains to trade with men in Maskyr's Eye. They stay only four days or so, long enough for word to get to Mulmaster, and for its traders to hurry south. The Stout Folk trade knives, daggers, axeheads, bracers, and short swords of fine make in return for food, wine, clothing, lamp oil, scents, wooden barrels, pitch, and rope. For a few days Maskyr's Eye is a crowded place and those unable to get rooms at The Wizard's Hand either pay handsomely to stay at one of the farms in the vale, or camp by the roadside just north or south of the vale. Much wealth (in the way of goods, if not coin) changes hands, and there is sometimes thievery and violence. The village elder has been called upon to do something about such problems, but as the dwarves deliberately give no advance warning of their arrival, organizing any sort of police force in time is impossible. The nearest cleric able to cast detect lie spells is Glauroth Mahulkyn, a priest of Gond, in Kurth.

Around the vale rise old landmarks known to the dwarves and men alike, such as Mount Wolf, other storied peaks and passes, and the grassy hills known as Beluar's Hunt. The elven warrior Beluar is well remembered in the vale for his rout of orcs of the Bloody Tongue tribe at Viperstongue Ford. Beluar and his companions-at-arms drove the orcs north and east from the battlefield as sunset came, spitting them on lances or trampling them under the hooves of their horses one by one. All that night orcs were hunted down and slain. Dawn of the next day found Beluar riding through Maskyr's Eye to slay the last of the orcs in the road outside the village smithy. The smith later reported that their armor was "terrible work... the metal flawed, impure, and greasy, suitable only for melting down for use in blackwork." (Blackwork is the simple everyday hardware that anyone with strength, tools, and heat enough can make, things like crude hinges, hooks, simple latches, brackets, and handles. One need not be a smith to fashion such things, but smiths make faster and better work of them than unskilled forgers.)

There is a mountain pass due east of the vale, a high and perilous cleft cut by a creek down the slopes of Mount Aergurl, that long rising peak known of old as The Sleeper In The Sunrise. Few humans today know of the pass, and the folk of the vale do not speak of it to outsiders. Orcs once came through the pass to fall upon dwarves in the delves near Kurth, but no armies have passed through it in the memory of living men. To the east of the pass high, frigid valleys fall away into the vast and cold Glacier of the White Worm. The hunters of Maskyr's Eye speak of unnatural cold east of the Sleeper.

Local legends hold that fell magic maintains the glacier, and it is true that an expedition led by the explorer Elbruin Hammertree of Baldur's Gate slew a weird "ice daemon," a sort of giant upright insect wielding a spear, while searching for a route around the glacier some seventy winters ago. Dwarven lore remembers that the dwarven hero Aurgus once single-handedly slew a remorhaz in the pass.

Current Clack

[...]

• A sage in Tsurlagol, Othiiyr Velthrann, claims an unidentified adventurer recently brought Telvaran's Enchanted Blade to him for identifying. This famous lost sword has all the powers of a rod of lordly might, plus more unrevealed abilities. Its present whereabouts are unknown; the human female adventurer left Othiiyr by means of a teleport spell, neglecting to pay Othiiyr for his sagacity. Othiiyr broke the bond of secrecy between sage and client, as is customary when a client fails to pay.

"Where lies the heart of a realm? Its throne, some say. The one who sits upon it, others affirm, trying to appear more wise. Nay, still others say, it is the one who stands, whispering, behind it.

"None of these, I tell you. No temple or castle, no sacred grove or mountain height holds the heart of a land of Faerun. If you seek such a thing, you will find it in the eyes and toil-scarred hands of the farmers and yeomen who work the land, who answer the commands of priest and king, who help those in need, and who raise club, spade, or handy rock to defend their own.

"Go then, and find hearts. When you have done that, you can begin the truly difficult task: finding truths in any heart you have found.

"Search well; a lifetime is scarce time enough to find a handful of truth."

Storm Silverhand, The Song of One Harp, Year of the Broken Helm.

Sayings of the Realms, like the one above, tell us the thoughts and attitudes of the folk of Faerun. They are oft repeated by sages, bards, and tavern-talkers; and they give DMs portraying argumentative NPCs and looking to add local color to a party's six-hundred-and-forty-ninth tavern-stop a lot of verbal ammunition.

In this case, Storm's words suggest a way to study the village of Maskyr's Eye, as it is today. We already know quite a bit about it from previous columns, so let's ride in and explore. Some may find this a long way from spells and swords, but it can serve DMs as a model for many villages across northern Faerun, and we'll give it more attention than any other village probably will receive in this column.

If the narrative seems to ramble at times, well - that's the way Elminster talks, and I've never quite dared to cross swords in earnest, verbally or otherwise, with him. (Why? Well, to quote the Old Mage himself: "The best sort of day is the one ye live to see the end of.")

The Land and People

In the valley below the tower of the archmage Maskyr, farms prospered. Plowing was hard going at first, due to stony rubble well-mixed with the soil. Many small rocks are still turned up by the farmers' plows. The locals use these to build loose rubble walls, wedge-shaped ridges of heaped stones and earth that are soon overgrown with shrubs, quicklimb saplings, and creepers. Such walls make good places to hide treasure that one doesn't expect to need for a while. The greatest problem with such hiding places usually is finding them again later.

Farms on the east side of the road tend to have a narrow frontage, running back from the road to the rising, bare rock of the mountain shoulders in long, thin strips. Almost all are family owned; few hands are hired on from outside the vale due to recurring problems of horse-theft.

The few farms lying to the west of the main road are thin bands that parallel the road, and are well-fenced, for here the rugged blackhair horses popular in the Vast are bred and trained.

Blackhairs are short-legged and broad, with terrific strength and endurance. They are sure-footed on slopes and among rocks, having natural bony plates protecting their underhooves against loose stones. They resemble ponies in build, but may grow as big and broad (though not as tall) as the great chargers favored in the South. They are named for their thick, shaggy coats of black and dark brown, and can fetch up to four hundred pieces of gold when sold fully trained in the markets of Kurth and Hlintar.

Only outlanders pay such prices - no local would expect to pay more than 75 gp for a mount, unless expecting to ride it to war in far lands, or to travel regularly about the roads of the Inner Sea lands conducting trade.

In game terms, a Blackhair is: Int Animal; AL N; AC 7; MV 24; HD 2+2; THACO 19; #AT 3; Dmg 1-3/1-6/1-6; SZ L; ML 10; XP 65. Its load capacity, in pounds (given in unencumbered/half-speed/one-third-speeds) is 200/310/420.

The most highly esteemed horse breeders of Maskyr's Eye are Elephon Stoneshoulder and Gundul Hulvespur. Elephon is tall, shrewd, and laconic; he is related to the noble Stoneshoulder family of Procampur. His Northreach Farm is named for its location north of town. Gundul is a stocky, hook-nosed man of broad humor and hard bargains. Hulvesper Farm lies just south of Maskyr's bluff (which rises out of the woods to the west of the road, somewhat south of the center of the village).

Vines have been planted on the steep hillsides of the eastern edge of the vale to prevent erosion and landslides. They yield only bitter, stunted grapes, much afflicted with "blackweb" (powdery mildew) due to the cold damp of the climate. A thin, yellow-green wine called "sund" is made from them locally, and enjoys some popularity in the vale. It is sharp and sour in both smell and scent, and is very much an acquired taste. It sells for as little as 2 cp for a large skin, or 1 sp for a barrel as large as a man can carry.

Sund travels well, and is favored by some caravan masters and traveling merchants for their own use, although it has little value in trade. (In Calaunt sund is often called "sheeprun" for its supposed resemblance to sheep urine.)

Root crops; carrots, turnips, potatoes, and the parsnip-like garsar (a white, sharp-flavored tuber as long as a man's forearm), grow well in the vale. The local farmers also grow black bramble-berries (which grow large, tart, and glossy black on thorny, rambling vine-like bushes) and wildsage. The bramble-berries make a sweet jelly much used in the vale, and a wine that is either exquisite or undrinkable; Brambleberry wine is undrinkable far more often than exquisite and is seldom attempted. Wildsage is used in almost all local cooking. It lends food a flavor rather like buttered leeks.

Some poultry is kept in the vale, a few farmers raise hogs and cattle for local slaughter and dairy yield, and the vale's hunters bring game out of the surrounding woods.

The full-time hunters of Maskyr's Eye are competent guides; they avoid only the mountain heights (except during spring, when they hunt wild goats and sheep) and the monster-infested area around the Flooded Forest.

The hunters are Torst Skydark and his brother Torvel (both natives of Thentia), and the coarser, shadier Ulcrimmon Alskayl and his many brothers and bastard-kin (their father, Skuulaghh, was a notorious local rake - and a smuggler and thief who is said to have amassed an enormous treasure his offspring have never found).

A traveler stopping at the vale's lone inn, The Wizard's Hand, may well dine on roast stag with wildsage vegetable stew. Sund, beer, and Mulmaster brandy can be had for such a meal, and for dessert, sweet-tarts with bramble-berry jelly, or a bowl of sugarbread soaked in brandy and covered with cream.

Simpler fare on one of the farms would be a thick wildsage stew into which cooked chunks of meat from squirrels, boars, the black-masked bear of the Vast's forests, and porcupines have been stirred. This is eaten with beer and hardbread spread with "bloodlick" (cooked blood and meat scraps, thickened into a gravy and mixed with a little bacon fat into a paste). Dessert is hardbread sliced thin, toasted, and spread with brambleberry jelly or (in summer) wild honey.

Government and Commerce

Maskyr's Eye is governed by an Elder, who has certain limited powers in the event of attacks on the vale, and can pass decrees affecting trade within the vale.

The present Elder is the turnip farmer (first level warrior) Baernoth, a soft-spoken, bearded man of mountainous build and iron strength (STR 17). He is reasonable, careful, and afraid of nothing on the face of Faerun (ML 19). He is well respected in the vale, and expected to serve as Elder for as long as he desires.

The Elder is chosen by nomination and open vote of the Council of the vale, which also can overrule his decrees. The Council must meet to elect an Elder every twelfth Midsummer Eve, or whenever the current elder resigns, falls too sick to fulfill his or her duties, or is challenged by another resident landowner. At any election the Council may dismiss the incumbent Elder and name anyone (not just a stated challenger) Elder by majority vote. The office may be refused without ill feeling. Twice in the past the Council has met and thrown an unpopular Elder out of office. One, the sour-tempered dairy farmer Kaerasz, proved too arrogant and arbitrary in his authority. He remains a resident of the vale, friend to few.

The other, the cobbler and wizard Ssuntyr, proved sixteen winters ago to be in league with drow and worse. As if his underground dealings weren't enough, he also was caught using magic to sicken a neighbor and then compel her to sell her farm to him ere she died. He was driven out in a vicious battle that left another farmer, Thurl Northmane, dead, and two more badly hurt.

Ssuntyr vanished through a magical device that created a portal of fire. Before he stepped through, however, two locals wounded him badly. Hulthoon Maer's axe nearly chopped off one of his hands, and Arbrest Thunwyllun's pitchfork transfixed him.

Each farmer has a voice in Council, so do the village's herbalist and apothecary, Alzhanta (a half-elven female second-level druid), the innkeeper (see below), and the smith Garl "Blackhand" Muirbar. Garl is a broad, gnarl-armed man of few words and slow anger. His appearance suggests that he has some dwarven blood. The assembled Council also settles boundary disputes and decides who will help farmers with brush-cutting at what times, and who will help maintain the trade-road through the vale.

For the past twenty years, the Council's main work has been a public water project. The village's water comes from small creeks running down from the mountains to the forest west of the road, and thence into the Flooded Forest. Irrigation of all vale farms, and the diversion of the streams (three constant and one intermittent) into a pond between the smithy and the inn is now complete. The pond is used for watering horses and local livestock, washing cartloads of root vegetables, and for bathing. Creation of the pond allowed the road to pass over the water on one broad stone bridge, instead of the three (and in spring, four) broad, muddy fords that had made the road in the vale an ankle-deep river of watery mud for much of the year.

The inn at Maskyr's Eye is a low, rambling building of stone and timber, with a thatched roof. The Wizard's Hand was built by Riothar Orlsyr (father of the present innkeeper) some eighty winters ago, after another inn to the south, The Three Dead Orcs, burned down (orcs are said to have had a hand in helping the flames).

The owner and keeper of the Hand is Lhullbannen Orlsyr, a retired human male fourth level fighter of some fifty-three winters. He is reluctant to leave the running of the inn to his massive wife and four beautiful, tomboyish daughters, who he fears are not as particular about things as they should be. Therefore, he is "too busy" to tutor aspiring warriors unless offered thousands of gold pieces by someone he likes.

The Hand has one grand suite which can sleep forty-five or so travelers in comfort, and ten private sleeping chambers. The Hand is well known to travelers in the Vast, and judged to be one of the three best road-inns in the region.

Elminster fell asleep at about this point (I expect his visits here are rare opportunities to relax; I know he sleeps very seldom when at home in Faerun), so we'll close the book on Maskyr's Eye for now.

"It was a thrill, my first handful of gold. More coin than most men ever see in a lifetime of toil! Beautiful, gleaming gold, worked in delicate designs of lost Myth Drannor! Heavy and soft in my fingers as I turned them over and over... it was a joy, that night! And I had won all this with the strength of my own wits and swordarm!

"The next gold gave me a brief pleasure - I'd done it again! Soon, though, the gold, the silver, even the gems failed to excite. I began to understand the hunger of older warriors after magic. At least it carried its own dangers, its own living, waiting thrill.

"For me, adventure grew stale. When I look back now, 'tis not the great triumphs I recall, not the evil dragon dying under my blade, or the lich crumbling to dust as we fought - 'tis the laughter of friends around a campfire, and the feel of my first gold in my fingers. Not because they were gold, but because they were MINE."

Szuszalan "The Warrior Maid"; from Walking On a Swordblade, Year of the Dragon

Szuszalan is the founder of The Company of The Fiery Fane and member of the famous Circle of Steel all-female adventuring band. She is now an aging crone who lives in Goldenfields as a friend and adviser to Tolgar Anuvien. Her words stress the importance-and the fleeting glory and enjoyment-of adventures. In our AD&D® campaigns as in Faerun, adventures can soon grow pale.

"Hmm," said Elminster, as he peered over my shoulder at my computer screen (not for the first time). "Ye realize what ye've done, ye great galoot, d'ye not?"

"Not," I agreed diplomatically, raising my eyebrows slowly, one after another (a trick I learned from Elminster; it still irritates him to have someone else do it back at him). He scowled, and poked the end of my nose with a very sharp finger

"No clever games, ye slyest of scribes! Ye've gone and given these readers of thine a tame campaign setting! These cruel sorts ye call DMs can start characters in the Eye, and now ye're feeding them adventures, to boot! D'ye realize thy responsibility, man?"

"Which heavy responsibility would that be?" I asked cautiously.

"Why, they'll have to have the rulebook ye did with Jeff Grubb to know the first thing about Mulmaster, or Calaunt - or get the Network module LC1 Gateway to Ravens Bluff to explore The Living City. They'll even need the next Network module (LC2 Inside Ravens Bluff) to know their ways about the Vast! What aid are ye planning to give poor beleaguered Dungeon Masters, I'd like to know, when they've used the piddling pair of adventures ye gave them last time?"

"Ah," I said nonchalantly. "Well, actually, ye - oops, sorry: you - remember what I told you about tape recorders? (Hem.) Yes. I have the rest of the adventures you told me about here, and in this column I thought I'd give them to those poor beleaguered DMs you mentioned - hence the intro you interrupted. Next time, we'll ride north to Mulmaster and spend a few columns looking around there. That'll give them at least one city to explore."

"Aye, good, then. That's one city as can keep anyone busy for a time! And after?"

"We might set sail across the Moonsea and take a look around. If a DM needs challenges for mighty Player Characters, there's always Zhentil Keep..."

Elminster's dirty chuckle matched my own. We sat and chuckled together for a while.

"Ye sly rogue," he said, at last. "I've watched ye sliding Realmslore in along the way, thus far - but don't forget there's things to be talked about that can't be done in some sort of campaign setting or endless travelogue!"

"Of course," I replied, hand on heart. "How, given your most gentle of incentives, can I forget? We'll get to diverse topics (and answering queries) soon enough, I swear!" Elminster nodded, winked, lit that incredible pipe of his - and was gone. Whew. On with the column, folks:

Ssuntyr's Revenge

The wizard Ssuntyr was not killed when he was driven from Maskyr's Eye (see issue #57). Ssuntyr was wounded, but escaped to a hidden sanctuary in the mountains near Kurth, where with the aid of potions he healed himself. The regeneration of his hand, nearly severed in the fracas, took a long time to arrange, and cost him dearly. For some years he was forced to adventure and to work magic for hire (in Westgate, Iriaebor, and Teziir, under various assumed names). Now that he is a much more experienced wizard he has decided to work his revenge on the folk of the vale.

Disguised by polymorph magic to appear as a traveling seed merchant, Ssuntyr will come to stay at the inn, and begins carefully and patiently murdering vale folk; employing magic missiles, invisibility and a number of feather tokens of his own devising that bestow temporary magical silence upon the user. When his spells run out, he hides in the woods until they are replenished. When on the prowl, he watches from rooftops and atop the stone walls, cloaked by invisibility, and tries to slay as many of the older villagers (his contemporaries) as possible before being discovered. He confronts each when alone if possible.

His use of concealment and the timing of his attacks (just after the PCs arrive at the otherwise quiet inn) will cause suspicion to fall on the PCs, and hostile locals may well hamper PC efforts to uncover the identity of the murderer. Ssuntyr should be at least two levels higher than the level of the strongest PC in the party, or seventh level, whichever is greater. The spells he has memorized should include hold portal, magic missile (x3) invisibility (x2), web, fly, haste, and dimension door He also has the following spells on scrolls (one spell to a scroll): dispel magic (x3), polymorph other (x2), polymorph self, remove curse and wizard eye.

Ssuntyr wears a ring of the ram with 36 charges left, bears a wand of fireballs with 16 charges left, and also wears a ring of protection +6 (+1 on saving throws). At his belt are two potions of extra-healing.

The DM must play Ssuntyr with careful cunning. The wizard tries to avoid detection, and to frame the PCs, with cold efficiency. He patiently waits for the best chance to slay his chosen victims. He knows that Khonduil has some connection with, or knowledge of, Maskyr's magic (see issue #56), and will want to learn all he can before slaying the cleric. He saves this killing until last to ensure that he can learn everything in an unhurried interrogation, and can search for the mage's magic unhampered.

Carnage On The High Road

Brigands begin to prey on travelers on the road just north of Maskyr's Eye, harrying small groups with arrows from the trees and then emerging both ahead and behind on the trail to slay their trapped quarry in a deadly hail of shafts. No one knows who they are - none survive their attacks - or exactly where they lair. Vultures and carrion-feeding undead begin to gather in the area.

Large caravans and groups of warriors or adventurers are left unmolested, and no traces that lead to any lair can be found.

Individual traders, messengers, pilgrims and minstrels (perhaps including someone who has tutored, aided or befriended the PCs) on the road are simply wiped out. They are found dead on the road, full of arrows. All food and valuables have been taken from the victims, but no mounts or prisoners.

The raiders must post alert lookouts, because no one has ever come upon them plundering a slain victim. They also seem to have eyes and ears in nearby settlements, as no trap laid for them ever has succeeded - they simply refuse the bait.

The Council of Maskyr's Eye has become worried enough to hire adventurers - the PCs - to undertake a large-scale hunt to track down and slay these brigands.

If the PCs accept, they will find trails-game trails, hunters' trails, woodcutters' walks, and the like - on both sides of the road. They cross and recross repeatedly in a seemingly endless network.

The brigands try to keep to these trails, moving around often to avoid detection. They are forty or so hardened, lawless men. Most are deserters from Zhentil Keep's armies or fugitives from Lashan's fallen army. They are well armed with bows and an array of hand weapons taken from victims on the road and in battles far away and some time ago.

They are led by a male drider (see Elf, Drow in the Monstrous Compendium, Volume 2) with 42 hit points, who has the spells and powers of a seventh level wizard, and fights with two axes or his bow and arrows.

In an encounter with PCs, the drider skillfully directs his men to place themselves in front of the PCs without being seen, and works himself around to the PCs' rear. If the PCs seem very strong, the brigands avoid combat, but if they can lead the PCs into an ambush - in one of the small ravines of the forest, for example, or into the boggy edge of The Flooded Forest - they will strike, using magic and arrows at long range for as long as possible before coming to swords' points.

If all else fails (e.g. if the PCs turn back without arriving in perilous terrain, or don't separate to search), the drider attempts to split the PCs up with a ruse - screaming in one place and then calling out for help in another area, or using magic to produce lights, sounds, and illusions.

If the party does scatter, the brigands fall on the smaller groups with ready swords, axes, and volleys of arrows (some perhaps tipped with sleep-inducing poison).

The brigands lair in an old mine to the east of the forests, in the foothills of the Giantspike Mountains. In the shallow tunnels they have stored much food and a variety of treasure - including a wand of wonder, which the drider will use against the PCs if chased this far. The band has prepared at least one rockfall trap.

If the PCs attack here, then fall back to attack the next day, or several hours later when reinforcements arrive, the brigands shift all their food and treasure out of the tunnels. They hide it under the piles of mine tailings, which are overgrown with all manner of noxious weeds, and leave the lair, hoping to take the PCs from behind and trap them in the tunnels.

Further Adventures

Play in the Maskyr's Eye area offers PCs a chance to explore the nearby mountain pass - and the remorhaz-haunted Glacier of the White Worm beyond, with its possible magical origin. The vast Flooded Forest to the southwest offers more adventures.

The mountains hold many abandoned dwarven mines, perhaps hiding gems and rich ores. Drow in the depths and orcs in the heights will compete with the PCs for this wealth - the same orcs that may at any time come boiling down through the pass in yet another great horde, to overwhelm the entire Vast (beginning with the PCs). If things grow too boring, Maskyr could always return to the vale to find PCs poking around the ruins of his beloved Tower.