The Halls of Endless Truth

**THE HALLS OF ENDLESS TRUTH**

This location is a monastery, located and built into
the side of a distant mountain (Prumiyat, an allegedly dwarven word with a root
relating to the word Prume, meaning “honesty”), deep among the forests and peaks
of the wastelands located NW of Runestaff.
The former Abbot, now effectively a Mummy Lord (or undead human monk
NPC, depending on player level), is sustained by a dwarf-machine contained
within the innermost cloister of the monastery that continually casts the spell
Animate Dead.  A several foot high pile
of bones surrounding the pedestal on which the device rests serve as the raw
material to keep such a spell active.  It
looks as an enchanted sextant combined with a pendulum of sorts with a rotating
suspended ball of moderate size, the device emits a low tone and a red tinted
light.  The Abbot himself is a decrepit
husk anymore, his flesh is desiccated and leathery, and he goes about his
machinations wearing an ankle length red skirt of heavy material (to defend
against the cold climate) with a white apron.
On the torso, The Abbot exhibits a red vest, made of the same material
of the skirt (a thick, heavy fabric similar to flannel) and is piled with rusting
and tarnished jewelry chains.  From each
chain hangs a small pendant, off of neck and wrists and biceps, and every
available place where adornment may be attached.  His undeath has driven him to a sort of
incomplete madness.  He understands the
nature of the arcane machine that sustains his unlife, but thinks that it was a
gift to him so that he may continue to progress in his studies.  His students have long-since passed away, and
some of their skeletons (animated or otherwise) can be encountered around the
monastery.  Over the years, the monastery
has fallen into disrepair, as there are no other monks left to maintain
it.  There was once a defined path up the
side of the mountain, paved with cobbles and with marking signs and shrines and
pilgrims to the sides and walking along the path.  Now, the path is grown over, with heavy
boughs of fir trees and a deep crust of hardened snow for much of the
year.  The mountain path to reach the
furrowed doors of this place is overrun by wildness in all of its forms.  Beasts and monsters make frequent use of the
path as a readily cleared highway while they await the scent of prey to flit
across their noses.  On occasion, the
animatory emanations from the dwarf-machine grow stronger, which causes the
frost-rimed skeletons of former monks to rise from their rest and wander along
the routes they had tread so frequently in life, mimicking the actions of
fetching wood and carrying water and scrubbing cobblestones with imaginary
tools that have previously crumbled into nothing.  Among the boundaries of the monastery,
iconography of owls is repeated.  Every
gargoyle along the ramparts and peaks of the rooves has large, pointed tufts
atop a satellite-dish shaped face. There are owl-faces carved along the upper
portions of the pillars that support the meeting halls of the monastery and at
the peaks of doorframes.  Owls,
obviously, are a revered entity, and the monastery also contains several mews
and rookeries, that while no longer maintained, still have residents.