Elminster's Guide to the Realms

The Skondarr

by Ed Greenwood, illustrated by David Day, (Dragon #291)

Not far from Zhentil Keep is the Skondarr, a cavern network popular for decades with smugglers, brigands, lurking monsters, and adventurers seeking shelter from howling winter storms. Named for Elgarth Skondarr, a long-dead brigand lord of the Moonsea North, this natural series of caverns lies inside the southwestern slopes of Mount Tesh, north of Teshwave and northwest of Zhentil Keep.

Skondarr ruled a large territory, roaming with his band of hardened warriors from stronghold to stronghold, and the caverns that now bear his surname composed one of his larger holds. Just who or what is inhabiting the Skondarr varies over time, as do particular traps and treasures, but a tour of its salient features follows.

As one descends from its mountainside entrance, the Skondarr begins with Dead Bear Cave, a cavern usually choked with fallen trees, boulders, and other debris brought in or washed in by snowslides, heavy rainfalls, and the occasional avalanche. The cave was named for a bear of gigantic size slain years ago by adventurers who blundered right into its sleeping form, and bears have often used this outermost cavern as a lair, when not displaced by more fearsome beasts.

Several adventuring bands that explored the Skondarr recently have reported finding runes or symbols scratched in the sand of particular ledges on the walls of Dead Bear Cave. These are simple markings made with fingers, sticks, or blades, and they change from time to time, seeming to be an active, ongoing means of communication.

The next cavern in from Dead Bear is Durgath's Death, so-called because a garrulous, wild-bearded prospector and adventurer by the name of Durgath met his doom therein over half a century ago when he triggered an unknown trap. Durgath's Death is a limestone cavern studded with stalactites and stalagmites. Although these continue to form as time passes, they have been energetically cut into by various visitors to form many small storage niches for flasks, coffers, daggers, and the like. These storage hollows are obvious to anyone entering the cave, and from time to time some of them have born cryptic labels, such as "Berith" and "Hooks" and "The Best." The containers in Durgath's Death have been found to contain kindling, nails, coils of fine wire from Calimshan, rings, keys, and scrolls.

Beyond Durgath's Death lies another, larger limestone cavern known as The Altar. So far as is commonly known, no formal consecration to any faith has ever been made in this cave, although the reason for its name is clear enough. A huge, flat-topped boulder (suitable for use as an altar or feasting table) lies in the center of the cavern. It is a dark rock, not limestone, and its presence is a mystery.

A cramped but readily climbable, rough-walled fissure in the ceiling of The Altar leads up into the Hidehole. The Hidehole has been used by many as a defensible sleeping and storage area, and it often contains both guards and treasure; it's easy for someone waiting up here to inflict slaughter on climbers with stones or cross-bow bolts. This small, rough-walled cavern contains two features of interest: a water seep that drips drinkable (but horribly mineral-tainted) water into a hollow that can serve as a drinking bowl or washbasin and a ledge high up on the wall, where a man of average height (or any smaller being) who lies flat can rest unseen by persons entering the Hidehole. This ledge has often been used to launch deadly attacks on intruders, and it bears two curious symbols scratched in the rock at one end.

Less agile intruders typically pass on from The Altar to another cavern, reached through a gap in one wall. This third limestone cavern is Coronal's Doom - a curious name because (so far as is known) no Coronal has ever been slain by any creature having anything to do with the Skondarr. Perhaps "Coronal's Doom" was the name of a renegade elf band from Cormanthor that opposed the rule of the Coronals and left messages or items for each other in this cavern.

The walls of Coronal's Doom are lined with many narrow cracks and fissures, most far too small to hide anything but insects and creeping worms. A few have, however, held scrolls and maps from time to time. The floor of Coronal's Doom holds its most prominent feature: the shaft known as Horthal's Neck that leads on to the lower caverns of the Skondarr.

Horthal's Neck earned its name because the once-notorious adventurer Horthal died here some eighty summers ago, breaking his neck in a fall from a rope partway down the shaft. Some say he was the victim of treachery, but others say he fell victim to a trap. The walls of the Neck are studded with scores of storage holes and niches - but many hold deadly traps that await the unwary.

From the floor of Coronal's Doom, the Neck descends over eighty feet before it opens out into the ceiling of Wyvernbone Pit.

The Wyvernbone Pit might once have contained the bones of a wyvern, but humans provided the bones that it's strewn with now. (Some tales insist these remains sometimes whirl up to form flying skeletons that attack intruders.) A long, low-ceilinged cavern rather than a pit, Wyvernbone descends to the short, aptly-named passage of Dunsral's Stair (whose floor consists of a series of step-like ledges, and which is often home to clouds of small, harmless black bats), which in turn leads down into The Vault of the Crown.

The Vault is a tall, upright-egg-shaped cavern bristling with stalactites and stalagmites, with a floor of wet sand. It's named for a curious apparition that appears in it from time to time: a glowing crown of white light - a radiance that takes the shape of a circlet topped with many slender upswept spires of irregular lengths. This phantom crown is intangible, and it moves about the Vault as if someone of about six feet in height is wearing it and taking an interest in intruders and their deeds. The crown or its unseen wearer seem to have no hostile or malicious intent. On rare occasions, many small, star-like motes of twinkling white light emerge from the spires of the crown and drift around the Vault, only to fade away again. These pinpoints of light never leave the Vault and have no effect on magic or creatures they touch (they pass through solid objects, and living creatures feel no sensation from such contacts).

The Vault opens - via a short, nameless chute - into Darkpool Delve. This half-flooded cavern was thought by many to be a flooded dwarven mine, with riches waiting for those who dared to venture beneath the inky waters into water-filled passages below, but in truth it has never been more than a natural sump, and no dwarven hammers have ever touched its bottom or the surrounding stone.

The water is cold and a menacing inky black in hue - thanks to a harmless algae that grows there - but quite drinkable.

Even in its shallowest spots, the water is deep enough to hide an upright human. Although creatures are seldom encountered in these lightless depths, all manner of items - from treasure and useful items to drowned corpses and refuse - are often found here. It most often serves as a dumping-ground for items folk desire to remain hidden.

Elminster's Guide to the Realms