Sîrnan
Map: Q12
Eltán's hidden Western Fortress in the Yellow Mountains. Built where the Listening Mountains bend South from the Western end of the Yellow Mountains.
Screened by patrols from Paurgiliath Peacekeepers Outpost PK#6, PK#7, and TC#1, very few uninvited guests come calling.
The fortress was originally built to protect passersby from the traps set on Mica's Tower of the Endless Stair by Arch Duke Wings. Eventually it became convenient as a staging ground for Western Operations of Duchy Eltán and the Free Imperia at large.
Built in a high hidden valley, the two passes leading in were covered by avalanche. Secret woodland trails in and out are maintained and heavily guarded. Halucinatory forests, and other hazards, obscure access. Travelers are politely diverted to the nearby screening forts.
Sîrnan is a stronghold of Harnic High Elven culture. Elfsong rings through the valley more often than not, and nowhere has idyllic nature been more effectively integrated into a strongly held settlement. Spontaneous gardens and statues melt into native outcroppings and wild mountain flowers.
Patrols coordinate with those from the Tri-King's Citadel City to the east, watching for buildups of goblinoids or incursions of Desert Folk.
An underground stream wells up here, feeding an improved lake before it exits the valley in a fast trickle just deep enough for canoes. The lake itself makes an excellent landing for skytankers and wet hull Jammers. Often it hosts a highly unlikely amount of shipping for a small landlocked lake. Potentially a sizable armada could dock here, and there are significant repair and provisioning facilities.
The weather is remarkably consistent and decent, particularly for the altitude. A night or two of light snow may come at midwinter, and a day or two of heat at midsummer, but mostly days are in the upper sixties year round.
Fishing is excellent in the lake. Occasionally catfish with what seems to be a horn bump are caught, but by Ducal decree, they are re-released. Similar catfish are common further downstream, though only those in the lake have the horn button.
Beehives dot the high valley, making fine honey from the pungent mountain herbs, and reporting to bee-friend clerics of anything strange in the area. Excellent apples and peaches grow here, and grafts of stock from the white peach trees of Harn have flourished alongside native cultivars.
Native brown bears seem more intelligent than those found elsewhere, and only befriending several who claim the territory as their own served to keep the others out of the hives and orchards.
Grey foxes, not uncommon in the mountains, seem very interested in the goings on in Sîrnan. Almost supernaturally elusive, they pop up from time to time, watching elves at work or play. Local rumor insistently claims that they gather on full moons, singing together in an almost unbearably pure high Elven dialect that reminds lucky listeners of Thalion’s outmoded speech. Many have come to refer to them as Thingol's folk, claiming they celebrate the return of Elves to the West of Endorë, though no coherent mythology has yet endeavored to explain how this might be.
Henges and lone monoliths dot the surrounding countryside, most thickly around the lake. The stones were ancient and crumbling when the Elves arrived, and have been revered as they are rather than restored.
Occasional huge barefoot humanoid tracks are found, usually near the henges. Like the foxes, they could just be the result of druids on a lark, but are unexplained.
The Tower of the Endless Stair is heavily guarded. The guards are willing, but understand that they are mostly there to keep people from hurting themselves. They are under instructions to fall back if someone wielding heavy magic attacks, and to watch and make careful notes of what happens when the invader encounters the traps.
The Endless Stair once rose unsupported through the open air here, made of shining white slabs of marble. The top stair leads to an Extradimensional chamber with the Seat of Power. The stairway was encased in a black stone tower by gnomes at the direction of Mica "Wiley" of the Nine. Later it was trapped, and the traps remain.
Seat of Power
