The Halls of Endless Truth

THE HALLS OF ENDLESS TRUTH

This location is a monastery, located and built into the side of a distant mountain (Prumiyat, an allegedly dwarven word with a root relating to the word Prume, meaning “honesty”), deep among the forests and peaks of the wastelands located NW of Runestaff. The former Abbot, now effectively a Mummy Lord (or undead human monk NPC, depending on player level), is sustained by a dwarf-machine contained within the innermost cloister of the monastery that continually casts the spell Animate Dead. A several foot high pile of bones surrounding the pedestal on which the device rests serve as the raw material to keep such a spell active. It looks as an enchanted sextant combined with a pendulum of sorts with a rotating suspended ball of moderate size, the device emits a low tone and a red tinted light. The Abbot himself is a decrepit husk anymore, his flesh is desiccated and leathery, and he goes about his machinations wearing an ankle length red skirt of heavy material (to defend against the cold climate) with a white apron. On the torso, The Abbot exhibits a red vest, made of the same material of the skirt (a thick, heavy fabric similar to flannel) and is piled with rusting and tarnished jewelry chains. From each chain hangs a small pendant, off of neck and wrists and biceps, and every available place where adornment may be attached. His undeath has driven him to a sort of incomplete madness. He understands the nature of the arcane machine that sustains his unlife, but thinks that it was a gift to him so that he may continue to progress in his studies. His students have long-since passed away, and some of their skeletons (animated or otherwise) can be encountered around the monastery. Over the years, the monastery has fallen into disrepair, as there are no other monks left to maintain it. There was once a defined path up the side of the mountain, paved with cobbles and with marking signs and shrines and pilgrims to the sides and walking along the path. Now, the path is grown over, with heavy boughs of fir trees and a deep crust of hardened snow for much of the year. The mountain path to reach the furrowed doors of this place is overrun by wildness in all of its forms. Beasts and monsters make frequent use of the path as a readily cleared highway while they await the scent of prey to flit across their noses. On occasion, the animatory emanations from the dwarf-machine grow stronger, which causes the frost-rimed skeletons of former monks to rise from their rest and wander along the routes they had tread so frequently in life, mimicking the actions of fetching wood and carrying water and scrubbing cobblestones with imaginary tools that have previously crumbled into nothing. Among the boundaries of the monastery, iconography of owls is repeated. Every gargoyle along the ramparts and peaks of the rooves has large, pointed tufts atop a satellite-dish shaped face. There are owl-faces carved along the upper portions of the pillars that support the meeting halls of the monastery and at the peaks of doorframes. Owls, obviously, are a revered entity, and the monastery also contains several mews and rookeries, that while no longer maintained, still have residents.