The Stag Lord's Fort

Hilltop Fortress of Bandits

### Notable Inhabitants

Akiros Ismort, Dovan from Nisroch and Auchs (Lieutenants), Nugrah the Decrepit (Prisoner)

*"By the Bloody Bones of St. Gilmorg, who wants to know?!"*

*-The password to entering the Fort*

The Stag Lord's Fort was the base of operations of The Stag Lord and his bandits. Originally the site of a monastery of Gyronna, the bandits repurposed it and turned it into a hub for crime and banditry, until The Kingmakers repurposed it and used it to help build what would eventually become Castle Gilmorg.

## Description

The Stag Lord's Fort was built atop the ruins of an ancient monastery of Gyronna. It stood atop a cursed hill, within which the undead remains of a dozen or so of the goddess' cultists who acted as an early warning system for the bandits. The fort itself was guarded by a 15 foot tall wooden palisade, around which several bandits would patrol. The fort had a total of 3 watchtowers, each standing about 30 feet tall, and a final crumbling, stone central tower in the middle of the fort standing about 40 feet tall. Inside the fortress itself, there was a cave of rubble cleared out to keep the Stag Lord's pet- an owlbear he captured and then promptly lost interest in named Beaky. The main building was 2 stories tall, with a basement within which the Stag Lord's father, Nugrah the Decrepit, was kept. Graffiti from the cultists of Gyronna decorate the walls around the rubbled stone that decorate the building.

## History

The ruins the Stag Lord chose to build his fortress upon were  once  a  small  monastery  dedicated to  Gyronna, the Angry Hag, goddess of Spite and Scorned Women.  Yet  when the nuns lapsed from proper worship and began to leave their cruel  ways  behind in  favor  of  a  more minimalist monastic lifestyle, Gyronna grew insulted. One night, she caused the dead of  the monastery’s  extensive  graveyard (which surrounded the monastery on the south, east, and west hillsides) to rise up and attack the monks, dragging their  still-living  bodies  back  into  the  graves  and  leaving the building abandoned. The undead here still rose when disturbed, serving as an early warning system. The Stag Lord discovered the site a few years before 4710 AR. At the height of his power, he started the renovation of the site, but slowly started to succumb to his alcoholism before the task was able to be fully accomplished. His father, Nugrah, was locked in the basement and kept alive with very little food or drink, only enough to keep him alive in order to heal the bandits above when needed.

By 4710 AR, the site was half-repaired, half rubble with bandits slowly arriving in force to help bolster the Stag Lord's forces to help carry out Dovan from Nisroch's order to wipe out Oleg's Trading Post in revenge for the death of the Kressle. Approximately 2 weeks before the Kingmakers arrived and took down the Stag Lord, the bandits brought down an owlbear during a hunt, but rather than killing it for food, the Stag Lord took a liking to the strange beast and ordered the bandits to haul the unconscious but still living creature back to the fort. They put the owlbear in this cave and rigged a gate out of an old portcullis they were using at the main entrance—the owlbear had since recovered fully from its wounds, and while it roared and hooted every night (keeping the bandits awake but, strangely, not annoying the Stag Lord, who has taken to calling the monster by the name “Beaky”), the bandits kept it well-fed enough by tossing chunks of elk and other meat through the bars that it hasn’t yet tried to break out of its cage.

The Kingmakers eventually arrived at the site, disguising themselves as bandits bringing alcohol found at Thorn Ford to sneak into the camp. Soon, they broke Beaky out of his cage, and allowed him to rampage through the camp. This quickly lead to a brawl, with the Kingmakers teaming up with Akiros Ismort against the Bandits and the Stag Lord with the Owlbear attacking anyone who would get too close, including the Stag Lord himself. Eventually, the bandits were slain, and the Kingmakers left the site, letting Nugrah to finally die under the earth. They later returned to it, and completed the rennovations of the fort to build Castle Gilmorg, the seat of power of St. Gilmorg, the new capital of the new barony of Kilcela.