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The work contained on the following pages is the property and copyright of Wizards of the Coast\TSR inc. and is quotted directly from their site. It has been formatted for viewing on this site by the Scribes of Candlekeep. The article is available for viewing in its original state from the Forgotten Realms Features page on the WotC site: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/main.asp?x=fr/features,3.
Rand's
Travelogue
Part 3 - More Moonsea!
By Rand Sharpsword
Rand Sharpsword, collector of bits of travel and geographical information, brings you further details about the Moonsea. Rand provides these to supplement the information found in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.
Major Geographical Features
River
Duathamper: The River Duathamper is a minor tributary of the Moonsea that
flows through the forest of Cormanthor from the south. A few woodcutters cut
timber from its banks and float the logs downriver to the Moonsea, but the elves
of the forest quickly run the interlopers out.
River Stojanow: The swift, cold River Stojanow flows to the Moonsea from the foothills of the Dragonspine Mountains. Ships and barges carry ore from Dragonspine mines to Phlan and Melvaunt.
Important Sites
Elmwood (Village, 500): Elmwood is a small farming community on the southern shores of the Moonsea. The locals supplement their incomes with fishing and woodcarving, and they sell their goods to passing ships and adventurers at fair prices. Few places in the Moonsea can be called peaceful and serene, but Elmwood is one of them. Constable Thoyana Jorgadaul (NG female shield dwarf Ftr8), an adventurer who retired here years ago, oversees the community. Elmwood owes its security both to its isolation and the simple fact that no one in the town owns anything worth stealing.
The Temple in the Sky: Little known outside the Moonsea region, the Temple in the Sky has always had an eerie reputation. Literally a huge rock floating in the sky, legend states that spells dating back to long-fallen Netheril lifted it aloft. It has drifted around the skies of Faerûn ever since. Eventually the Zhentarim tethered the rock with huge chains to the Flaming Tower, which is a simple, square stone keep north of Shadowdale inhabited by hell hounds and fire giants.
The Temple is a huge, horizontal-egg-shaped hollow rock with landing stages at one end linked by a series of passages, grand temple chambers, living areas, prison cells, and storage caverns to a large innermost cavern.
When Zhentil Keep was ruined and strife shook the Zhentarim, many awed Zhents took to worshiping the beholder Xulqorth, a gigantic eye tyrant. It brought treasure into the Temple that included servitor gargoyles and dragons (controlled by magic items), undead servitor beholders it created and controlled by spells, and even "ghost" beholders that served it due to its possession of certain remains and relics.
A cult (largely of former Zhent troops and mercenaries -- half-orcs in particular) made offerings to Xulqorth the Great Eye (the "All-Seeing and Unsleeping"). In return they received rewards of magic (including touches of the Hand of Healing, an enchanted gauntlet it could operate from afar) and its direction of Cult members in careful raids on, and skirmishes with, fleeing Keep refugees and Moonsea caravans and prospectors.
When these successes aroused the Knights of Myth Drannor to attack the Temple, the Great Eye severed the tethering chains and the rock took flight across the skies. The Temple later returned to the Moonsea, and Xulqorth mastered some means of steering and controlling the untethered Temple's flight and location. The remains of several adventuring bands who have tried to raid the Temple have been found beneath its current location.
Plots and Rumors
Read the other articles of Rand's Travelogue: