Ok not a 1 mile hex map, but bound close to it.
It belongs to the details of the Broken Lands
Thanks for all over the years who aided me and supplied information details, and now...finally.... the map of the area is finished.
Barleycorn Monastery (Barleycorn Chot’uul Ghedrem)
by Robin(italic in Gobbleton)
Fully based on the Nightwail canon description(but with repairs of its flaws)
Text in Blue is of calculations and conjectures by me and other fans
Text in black is canon(here and there restored from the flaws it did held)
Barleycorn Monastery (Barleycorn Chot’uul Ghedrem)
The Barleycorn Monastery is prominently displayed in the Night Wail adventure (TSR09303 - HWA1-3. The Blood Brethren Trilogy=Nightwail/Nightrage/Nightstorm).
Depending on arrival in Time Nightwail is assumed to happen somewhere after the meteor fell (1007AC+).
The Monastery is largely destroyed a generation ago by Goblins (thus somewhere around 975AC).
The adventure has some flaws though; Keep in mind that the Route suggested in Nightwail cannot be done due to the river
(the faulty original map was used); use the “Kane Trail” instead (from my 1 mile hex map).
This begins just before the first Ford crossing the Vesubian River.
The Monastery is also more central and NOT on the edge of the Plateau like the text seems to suggests.
Three centuries ago(so 707AC) this small primitive complex housed the two dozen acolytes who followed Viscount Jamion 11.
Jamion’s story, unique in the annals of nobility, began auspiciously with his birth to wellplaced and favored aristocrats,
his happy childhood, and his early ascendance to power after his father died in a horsing accident.
Then came his “new truth".
A vision: Accidentally getting lost on an overland hunting trip, Viscount Jamion happened on a peasant farm.
The farmer lived there alone, virtually a hermit, raising barley and some livestock.
Jamion saw the farmer beating his plowhorse without mercy.
“Mv man. whv do you beat that horse?” He called: “I beat ’im that he don’t make the mistake to think that this life ’re any good.”
Jamion disarmed the farmer, but the incident troubled him deeply for the resf of the trip and in the days that followed.
After many sleepless nights, the troubled noble claimed to see a vision of humanity,
“no man of more moment than a single corn of barley"
Jamion bequeathed his holdings to the peasants that worked them, gave away his property, and took up a mendicant life outside Glantri.
(Fanon suggested Immortal Ariana (Alphatia) from the Dungeon#39 Adventure Fountain of Health) .
Following another vision, he enlisted followers and erected Barleycorn Monastery in the most desolate place he could find: the Broken
Lands.
No doubt the orc and gnolls would soon have made meals of these unarmed monks, except that Jamion’s followers somehow
constructed the entire monastery atop an almost unscalable plateau(the Plateaux of Zyrd).
Only a single thin rope gave access to the mesa from the west.
More importantly, Jamion converted several orc and goblin leaders to his faith.
Under their (and their successor') protection, the monastery survived for three generations.
(a generation normally (RL) is 30 years, as Mystara years are shorter this is about 35 years, so 3 generations =about 105 years).
Two centuries ago(so 807 AC), after the goblin brethren fell from their reign of terror, High Gobliny tribesmen looked for a safe place to confine them.
The monastery proved their only practical choice.
The monks, still following Jamion’s dictates long after his death. solemnly took up the guardianship of these evil beings.
The fall: As could he expected, nature eventually won out over faith, the goblin leaders’ descendants refused to carry on the truce.
They used magic (and other ways to get up the large Plateaux of Zyrd) , raided the monastery, slew and ate all the monks, and demolished the buildings.
By that time the goblins had forgotten that anything lay under the monks‘ shrine.
The goblins did attack and ransacked the ruins around 975AC, killing all monks.
(the original text "about 200 years ago could not be right as this was the time the Brethren came,
so other canon sources were used to derive this date, as of such the 200 years became 20 year instead)
So matters have stood for about 20 years(the adventure start assumed by Canon-adventure at 1007AC).
A ruined monastery, and thusfar unknown catacombs beneath it.(dates given from Canon start of adventure calculated backwards)
Local goblins know of the ruins atop the mesa south of Zyrd Plateau, though they have no idea anymore this was a monastery
1007AC
The trail finally leads to a huge tawny-brown mesa, a freestanding flat-topped pillar hundreds of feet high.
Beyond it, across a wide gulch, stand a few more such mesas and, filling the horizon, the vast Plateau of Zyrd.
Scaling the plateau: No sign of a rope ladder.
This is the west side of the plataux, and as such the bottom to the top of the cliff walls are about 100 feet (from 5900 to 6000 feet altitude)
An accomplished thief or other climber can find handholds and footholds in the amble rock of the plateaux cliffs.
A successful Climbing roll or skill check, or even a Dexterity c(heck if necessary, lets the most agile character reach
the top of the giant mesa, the Plateaux of Zyrd is.
There, near the edge, sits a coil of old rope tied to a thick yew-wood stake.
Once the rope touches the ground, other characters can scale the rock face relatively easily.
On top of the plateaux some almost eroded away trails direct towards its middle...where Barleycorn Monastery lies.
Keep in mind that my earlier research (foreword pages 7-10 ) already proved altitudes on the canon map were seriously flawed.
New corrected altitudes can be found in my map
The buildings: One, a small windmill. stands apart from the rest along the settlement's edge.
The mill‘s grindstone lies in the dirt; only one wall of the windmill stands.
There is nothing of interest here except a few animals.
Barleycorn Monastery consists of five stone buildings in a “beehive” style within a simple palisade wall.
Each structure is a circular dome, about 25’ across, that rises and tapers to a point.
One building holds the ovens where the monks baked ground barley into bred; One is for herbs and healing, the other two were living quarters, now home to a few (immobile and non-magical) skeletons.
What’s left of the sole standing larger building, once the monks’ place of worship, hides the entrance to an underground cell complex.
The Barleycorn monks dug the complex to imprison and guard the Brethren.
The entrance to the underground complex is concealed with a secret trapdoor.
--hidden so well that the Goblin raiders missed it when they destroyed the monastery a generation ago.
Further detailed descriptions can be derived from Nightwail.
Remember, the lower sections are not to be discovered until in the Nightwail adventure Irila Kaze opens the way in!!
