Locales: Gerða's Hall

In the rolling hills of central Dakon-Bar legend speaks of a Queen of the Wood and her magical hall beneath them. Like all fairy tales, these have some roots in fact. Gerða is the Queen of the Wood, whose holdings are the great forest of Dragonwood. Beneath the hills, Gerða resides with the King of the Wood, Frey Greenwood, and the wildlife of the forest bends its proverbial knee to her.

The entrance to her hall is located beside an ancient oak tree that is one of the few survivors from when the forest burned in the dragon's wrath during the Great War. A stone grotto leads to a great door made of ironwood that can not be moved by the strongest of men. Behind that door is a carved passage lit with torches that ever burn but do not foul the air even as they cast their light. The passage leads to a great hall built with many pillars. The pillars and the ceiling are carved in such a manner that the great hall seems to be a forest grove. Along the walls of the passage and of the great hall, there are gleaming veins of precious metals and crystal.

There are other passages that lead deeper beneath the hills. None have entered them and returned to tell the tale, even in elder days. Stories abound that they lead to another world, to the dragon's lair, or something terrifying. But the foreword passage that leads from the great door to the hall proper is appointed with benches for weary travelers to rest. There are rooms on either side of the hall that serve the function of such rooms within a castle, such as a wardrobe and an armory.

Tales speak of great celebrations and feasts that lasted for days that happened within Gerða's hall. They speak of heroes welcomed by the Queen of the Wood and of the peace woven between the elves of Dragonwood and humanity. Like all Queens, Gerða is fearsome and powerful. Possessing strange magics, Gerða shapes her hall to her liking by ways that not even the most learned of the elder races understand. It is rumored that the elfin lord Agrimmon was her close ally and friend. The location of his stone halls has been forgotten by men but Agrimmon's work can be seen in Gerða's hall for all of the clever stonework and carvings were the work of his master builders, perhaps even himself.