Kaer Levr

Sentinel of the Northern Passage

Stories of mankind's early days in the Northern Realms paint its heroes as larger than life, and may have similarly painted the stronghold of **Kaer Levr** as larger than it actually stood. An ancient fortification built by the Aen Seidhe while they held dominion over the North, it fell into the hands of Trell the Bold, leader of one of the first mass expeditions north of the Pontar River. After slaying its last elven guardians, Trell made Kaer Levr the seat of his power over a nation based in a pass through the Kestrel Mountains for nearly a decade. The end of his brief empire's constant decay came when a landslide allegedly destroyed the castle, killing Trell and his entire court in moments. The location of the fort or even the pass it guarded has since been lost, a ruin surely reclaimed by monsters for the number of would-be explorers who've gone missing in search of it.

## History

“*I'll tell you the story of Caltiel,
the ancient elvish lord;
it wouldn't be a pleasant one,
awash with tears and sword.*”
―An approximate translation of an excerpt from the *Ffwl a Doethion*, an elvish epic poem from the time of the Resurrection.
As with the rest of the Aen Seidhe's history prior to mankind's arrival in the North, little is known about Kaer Levr's early history, as what few records survived the fall of their civilization were mostly neglected, burned as heretical works, or written in long-dead languages. It does, however, receive passing mentions in a few of the most integral histories of the Aen Seidhe which have survived in various forms thanks to their translation over the centuries. In these, Kaer Levr usually appears in lists alluding to the Aen Seidhe's first settlements after the Age of Migration. It was built to guard a pass where the Kestrels met the Dragon Mountains, precluding the need to travel as far south as the Pontar to cross, and ruled by one Caltiel aén Sivhan. Though apparently a learned and generous lord, his charity bankrupted the castle and led his heirs and vassals to betray him. The discovery of his murder threw his realm into chaos and eventually contributed to the Aen Seidhe's downfall, as a great library containing knowledge brought with them from their original world was lost with Kaer Levr.

By the time humanity's expansion reached the North almost two millennia later, the Aen Seidhe had lost the ability to construct stone fortresses like Kaer Levr, and Oxenfurt scholars agree many such castles would have been refuge for little more than bandits. This may explain how Trell the Bold, leading a caravan of starved and frozen barbarians, could wrest control of the castle from the venerable Aen Seidhe. In the 760s, human interest in the North grew in tandem with the southern population and the kingdoms establishing themselves to enforce stability. Numerous pioneer caravans set out to claim land and resources where law had yet to entrench itself, and many unscrupulous characters used promises of freedom in unclaimed territory to advantage themselves. Trell, a hitherto mercenary self-styled 'the Bold', was one such character, pledging the services of his company to take an expedition further north than any had been east of the Kestrels. By the time his true colors showed him to be a thug using his mercenaries' muscle to exploit the defenseless settlers, too much wild land lay between them and civilization to abandon him.

Though more than half of the expedition were left on its path as corpses, succumbing to hunger, cold, or monster attacks, Trell did eventually make good on his promise to reach further north than any before.