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Black Star Gaol
🕑 Added 2025-03-20 00:32:24 +0000 UTCBeneath the ruins of the Iron Maw is the Black Star Gaol – the citadel’s small and very well-organized dungeons. Designed to hold four dozen prisoners at any time, the gaol has been abandoned since the fall of the Iron Maw.
The Black Star Gaol was commissioned by the lord of Kaelrendir, who feared otherworldly incursions from the Kale empire. The Fractured Order, a group of eccentric scholars and jailers, designed the prison not only as a holding facility but as a “fortress of research”. They believed studying the anomalies and paranoias of their prisoners could lead to breakthroughs in arcane and planar knowledge. One wing was built with circular domed cells because it was found that captured Kale could occasionally be traced by their kin who would send assassins or aid (but more frequently the former) that would unfold out of the corners of the more traditionally shaped cells.
The fall of the Iron Maw is directly linked to this research – an event recorded as “the unshackling of the blight”. An ambitious researcher tried to tap the energy that summoned these strange unfolding assassins and instead managed to pull through something else entirely – a miasma of raw chaotic energy that corrupted the very air and stone of the prison and citadel above it, driving the inhabitants to madness. The citadel fell and the gaol was sealed magically to prevent further contamination.
But as all things do, the seals upon the prison have begun to weaken with age – allowing odd phenomena to creep into the world. Local farmers and landowners have reported unnatural storms, strange crop blights, whispers in the wind, and shadowy figures “unfolding” from the shadows.
A group of rogue arcanists have taken up residence within the gaol, drawn by whispers of hidden knowledge and the secrets of the Fractured Order. They are attempting to break the seals on the final six circular cells (where the unshackling of blight occurred) to harness the energies for their own purposes.
Unfortunately for all involved, those cells do contain the fractured remains of mad creatures from beyond this world – desperate for freedom after centuries of imprisonment.
This map was drawn for the Gaxx Worx adventure “Wrath of the Sea Lich” (based on an earlier map from the Gaxx Worx adventure “The Heart of Chentoufi”). The text and descriptions in this post are unrelated to that work, and are based on ideas that struck me while I was drawing it.
The 1200 dpi version of the map was drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and is 10,200 x 12,000 pixels in size (34 x 40 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for 10′ squares which work better with the furnishings as shown) – so resizing it to 2,380 x 2,800 or 4,760 x 5,600 pixels, respectively.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2025/03/19/black-star-gaol/
