Waterfall Keep

Founding date:XX-XX-XXXX. The Waterfall Keep is a mysterious isolated fortress in the mountains south of the lake of the Deril. This fortress is but a mere myth to most and has developed a sinister reputation in the present age. The denizens of the keep occasionally travel to other lands masquerading as envoys from other lands to account for their foreign nature. That being said, the “myths” surrounding the keep come from neighboring lands whom the denizens of the keep capture upon any approach to the mountain range. That being said, the do send out small stealthy raids in the evening to capture these other cultures while they sleep.

## History

### Origins

{Lord} and {lady} Frostgate were a vain and loathsome pair of individuals who lived in the capital of Deril when the country was at its highest power in its history. The Frostgates were a bit of an odd couple and spent their nights furthering the arts of blood magic and necromancy while their days were spent upholding their image of eloquence. Their splinter group that rejected the religions and faiths of predestination. They solely wanted control over life and death. This group could not remain out of the light forever. Eventually their abhorrent treatment of the “low lifes” they grabbed off of the street and theft of the deceased from their graves caused them to be outed as the monsters the had become. These practices were not performed alone. The Frostgates had an entire horde of cultists and servants who followed them onward as they fled the capitol and sailed south to the mountains on the opposite side of the sea. Through the nearly endless workforce of the reanimated deceased, the Frostgates and their followers constructed a massive keep in a trio of mountains which formed an elevated basin. The nature of its location and fog has made this place nearly invisible. Their magic have taken the denizens to the point of nearly being immortal and they have become a race all their own but this constant supply of life energy needed a constant supply of sacrifices. They stared off breeding and farming the captives that survived their escape but as the breeding resulted in health issues of their “stock”, they reinvigorated their old city practices of kidnapping. Now this keep has become a myth throughout the ages from all the disappearances tied to the mountain range and stories from the occasional but rare escape.

### Famous/infamous people/figures

* {Lord Frostgate}: From a dream that opened her eyes to a higher plane of existence and joining in on her husband’s work, started the cult which eventually became the basis of the civilization of Waterfall keep.
* {Lady Frostgate}: First to study the nature of blood and the primal properties it holds

### Politics/Social structure

The society reflects that of the Deril in dress and titles. There is a hierarchy of class all the way down to the levels of servants. The old lord and lady became a king and queen and all the original cult members became lords of towers of the keep. Each lord or lady has an array of serfs and peasants under their command. These titles and roles are constantly kept up as the ones holding the seats are lost or others are promoted.

The city below the keep is a land of peasants, mages and tinkerers. They are driven by the beliefs that formed bought this land together. There are the occasional heretics and blasphemers amongst these lowly people who eventually tire of the indignity they face in their lives.

The lowest stature below even these peasants, are the cattle. Those that are enslaved against their will whether they be captured outlanders or heretics. This is not even a status. They treat them as less than people, breeding them and slaughtering them for meat and blood.

### Legal system

The law of this land is obey your superiors and any transgressions against this will drop one’s status below that of the lowest peasant. Judgement is final and ruthless. If a lord wants someone gone, they are to be part of the food supply.

### Foreign relations

**Envoys**

A common practice is to send envoys out to faint being travelers from other lands than where they travel to. This is the basis of how the denizens of the keep, keep up knowledge of the current outside world.

* {Deril}: These people were the culture from which the cult of the Frostgate’s was initially formed, but in this day and age, the envoys attempt to flip their common ruse of being from the confederation by being from anywhere else.

### Warfare

The only warfare faced was the initial raid on the cult before the keep was a part of the culture.

## Culture

### Customs

**General behavior**

Elegance with a perfect blend of arrogance. the lords of the keep hold themselves as gods amongst men and work to become that way literally. They act with all manner of elegance and class but the envoys are famous for their shifty personas. Their taste for Dovasi flesh is somewhat palpable in their attempts at blending in. While not obvious what it is, it is noticed.

**Intrapersonal**

Lords tend to have pleasant personas and treat each other kindly up front, but this is a front for duplicitous games for power and control. They are incredibly spoiled and demanding of the servants and consider them highly expendable.
Although born low, servants have the potential to rise if their superiors inevitably pass from their own plots and feuds so they also play a game of faces, pretending to be pleasant or happy when they are not. Stress on a servant of the keep can be more than that of a peasant yet every peasant clamors for the opportunity.

Peasants are pure submissiveness amongst those of the keep above. They live simple lives and see the lords as gods, so thusly marvel at them and cower before them. There are the occasional rebels who despise the pageantry and are quickly snuffed out.

Peasant to peasant interactions are like any other city. There are friends, there are enemies, there is police and there is crime

**Courting**

Like the Deril, Marriage is typically between and man and a women due to the desire to preserve bloodlines. That being said, the lords of the keep frequently have fluid sexual orientations and act spontaneously. Marriage is more of a contract to build relationships amongst the keep’s towers. and children are born of duty to the family lines. That being said, the sexual openness outside of marriage and the nature of the lords' extended lifespans, many bastard children are conceived and sent to live with peasant mages to further the science either, as subjects or students depending on the mage. If no one is willing to accept them, they are sent to join the cattle.

**Ceremonies**

The feasts: Every few cycles, families of lords celebrate by eating one of the cattle alive by carving them up while they are chained to a table, thusly triggering the innate healing factor but as their bodies attempt to repair themselves, the lords take their blood too as drink. The point is to take that healing factor while it is fresh in the victim in as many ways as possible. The of a feast comes to an end when the victim is barely clinging to life and someone from the table takes their heart before its last beats and gorge upon it.

**Education**

The children of the towers receive an education at once. For eight quakes they are taught all forms of arithmetic, rhetoric, history, linguistics, and religion with one of the original lords who found sharing knowledge to be his calling. with this regiment of elementary studies, children study with mages from below who teach magic they develope via demonstration.

**Art**

Art takes on forms of highly decorative patterning that tries to emulate fluid forms. The moldings on architectural pieces have flora and leaf like protrusions but tend to be garnished by snaking, serpentine or tendril like forms. The artists of the keep have taken their Derillol counterpart’s ice carving craft and refined it with a smooth type of gray stone in their mountain. Most sculptures are incredibly abstract, choosing to place forms and components of what appear to be random organs and body parts like eyes, ear flaps, hearts, mouths, lungs, teeth, bones, brains, etc. to make intricate patterns or forms.

The fanciful dance music of the Deril had a major inspiration on the favored music of the lords of the keep. It has a slightly grim undertone for orchestral music similar to a waltz.

### Resources

**Natural Resources**

* {Firestone}(coal)
* Quen Root: A highly common vegetable that grows in and on the mountain of the keep.

**Currency**

Trade of ores and metals with other cities when some envoys are sent out with bulk quantities.

**Food**

* The feast ritual is very inefficient in terms of flesh “wasted”. The lords after taking their fill give the leftover meat to the peasantry which is their primary source of sustenance except for the rare successful mage who can afford to purchase their own {cattle}
* Quen Root: The lords could not survive on meat alone and thusly this root is a highly important food source.

**Magical products used**

* Blood: People assume that pain magic is not like primal magics but the members of the cult realized that the blood of others acts the same way as primal catalysts.

**Products**

* Precious metals which are mined below and firestone ore

### Architecture

The keep was built from scratch carving into the mountains of this basin and carving ducts to let the water cascade down 1. forming a shroud of mist and fog and 2. making the obvious path up treacherous. The architecture has a very gothic feel with few smooth surfaces. All the buildings were constructed by/upon their undead servants and slaves. There are seven main towers which, could be keeps in themselves. This is tied to the social structure of the Frostgates’ biggest central tower and the original followers/ families of the followers surrounding. There are also expansive city sized networks of underground rooms and halls build into the mountains themselves which are constantly expanding further and further underground. This also serves as the way to the secret entry and exit points, being that the falls make the keep insurmountable otherwise.

### Natural threats

**Animals/plants**

* {Mountain lion thing}
* {Deathroot}: a plant that appears similar to one of the primary food sources. They are easily transplanted and mixed up which makes their secondary food source a gamble.

**Environmental**

Temperatures can reach extreme lows around the mountain range where this keep is built. The temperatures cause incredible epidemics of frostbite amongst the upper portions of the city under the keep.

**Notable Disease**

* Bone density loss: one of the towers in particular, has become overzealous about achieving immortality through the practice of the feast. The lords of this keep have become incredibly obese and immobile. The effect of this has turned them into massive frog-like beasts who constantly hunger while attempting to keep up with the pageantry of lordship.
* Paranoya: The minds of the lords who have become incredibly ancient have fractured and their perspectives of reality make them incapable of distinguishing friend from foe. Likewise, living on blood magic as a primary sustenance has ill effects on the mind.
* Blood Frenzy: In some lords excessive blood attempts to heal that which is not damaged resulting in malignant tumors appearing on the body. It is a form of nonlethal, painful deformities due to the healing nature.

### Clothing description(s)

Like the elite Deril, lords clothing reflects the multi-layered style with frills and pompetry of collars skirts and cuffs, though due to the lack of attractive plant and wildlife frilly components are composed of bones and fabric.

Servants of the keep are very uninformed with basic but identical attire and uniform masks.

The peasantry below are generally draped in ragged versions of servant uniforms or even so low as to be adorned in just scraps of cloth.

### Science/technology

They have very common technologies comparable to that of the fiefdoms and the Deril like basic metal processing and tool construction. They have basic machines like looms and convenience tools.

**Advancements/inventions**

Mages have taken the processes of medicine to new levels. Surgery and alchemy have become one science amongst them. They treat the body as a machine whose parts can be easily replaced.

### Religion-The power of the blood

They are searching for the secret to break the barrier between life and death. The state of the moon appears to be tied to these.

One major idea is that the moon has a tie to this cycle.

Another idea is that the formless creatures of the abyss and the storm are the key to this higher plane. This has resulted in the drive of one form of magic involving body augmentation.

**Values**

They value anything beyond life and reaching the next phase beyond life and death.

**History of religion**

The Frostgates found the ability to to turn back death and thusly sought to ascend this to immortality and eventually a higher plane.

The cult rejects the Derilliol gods and acept the higher power of life and death as the states they are and bending this is the path to true power. The end goal is to transcend this and become something greater.

**Deities**

* Jo’tan the formless one: The presence from the abyss of the appeared and spoke to Lady Frostgate in a dream which set the couple along this path. Little is know what this being is or if it is even a real entity.

**Holidays**

* Night of the blood moon: The wandering moon of the world eventually finds purchase over the rift and thusly turns the color of blood. The location and the color has taken purchase into the Frostgate’s religion as the night of power.

### Magics

* Body and blood magic has resulted in the production of body augmentation which has become popular amongst some of the lords and ladies they take body parts from other people and even creatures. It has become a source of longevity and enhancement of abilities.
* This body modification has been applied to the undead servants in the form of flesh golems. Many of these servants were willingly put into this state right before death and their existence is fueled by the lives of “cattle”.
* The main source of the longevity amongst the lords is a form of blood magic where consuming live flesh triggers their innate regenerative power which can be taken from drinking the blood and eating the flesh. Generally a life every few days sustains living for a long time and a life a day gives the appearance of eternal youth.

## Geography

### Geographic features

The keep is isolated at the top of a massive trio of closely bound mountains which form a basin for a lake. The three intersections of mountains have waterfalls which mask the top of the keep. Likewise they carved aqueducts through the mountains’ broadsides. Likewise as the falls drop over the basin, the mists become snow in the cold and take flight, cycling through the keep’s lake. The edges have been swept nearly perpendicular to the ground making the keep insurmountable. The mountain trio was once solid but now is an endless network of tunnels and paths.