Black Forks

Black Forks is an abandoned ancient monastery in the southern Verduran Forest. It is built around a strange, deep pool of black water, features strangely bestial architecture and sculpture, and is named for the two-headed forks once used in rites of self-torture by its long-deceased order.

History

The pool at the center of the site long predates the structure, and pictographs on clay tablets depict a slime-covered orb of a creature named the Dreamer in the Depths that was said—though never witnessed in modern times—to dwell in the pool. The tablets also depicted a strange process of hanging over the pool until survivors went mute and gained mystical insight.

The pool was re-discovered by academics at some point prior to 2715 AR, who then built the monastery and began their own excruciating self-torture rituals. Late in 2724 AR, hordes of goblins displaced by violence in the northern Verduran Forest killed the monastery's monks while they hung from its ceiling over the pool. After the goblins dumped the monks' bodies into the pool, the Dreamer in the Depths emerged and began to attack Taldan farms in the Carpenden Plains.

Taldan soldiers drove the creature back with a magical spear tipped with a rune-covered blade, though none of the soldiers returned, the spear was lost, and the Dreamer was never heard from again.

Recent activity

The temple is mostly ignored by locals, though some travelers still stop to examine its unusual architecture, druids hold fiery rituals on its roof, and a more mysterious group of cowled visitors known only as the Tenders wander the halls of Black Forks under a new moon performing silent ritual gestures of their own.