Dragonwatch Keep
by Robin
This map I made several years ago(2011??) after vague fanon maps based on the textual descriptions of the Dragonwatch Keep from the Dragonlord Trilogy by Thorarinn Gunnarson. I made this map from map material by unknown others, as I was in my beginning digital mapping Years.
The inset art I added much later and this is the Ice Castle by Mu Yu-jiang, perfectly befitting the descriptions from the book trilogy to be the Dragonwatch Keep.
Here some additional text I added to the picture, which I used in my (as of yet unfinished) Mystara Monster Manual Compilation (MMMC) Chapter; Dragons
The Great Rain of Fire and its Aftermaths 3000 BC
The Dragons had survived their struggle for life against the Dragonlord, but another catastrophe was at hand. About two centuries after the War of the Dragonlord, the foolish men of Blackmoor seriously misused some of their technological devices, causing a series of tremendous explosions which rocked the planet’s surface, filled the skies with ash and fire, and whose potency was so high to move the planet’s rotation axis. This event was to be remembered by future generations as the Great Rain of Fire.
Destruction on the planet was widespread: Blackmoor and many other civilizations and races were wiped out from the face of Mystara, the seas engulfed whole regions while the ocean floor raised above the water-level to form new lands; earthquakes hit many parts of the globe, with volcanoes and new mountain ranges rising from the earth, while making others crumble. Within a short time, the surface of the planet was changed.
Obviously, Dragons didn’t pass the catastrophe unharmed. Their number already greatly reduced by the past War of the Dragonlord, many of them died because of the cataclysm and its aftereffects. After the Great Rain of Fire, their number was dwindling again and they were now even more a dying race. However, thanks to the help of the Great One and of the three Lesser Dragon Rulers, which sent among them their Dragon Guardians to help and guide their followers, the Dragons managed to survive this umpteenth time of misery. At least, now that the whole planet had been ravaged, they had not to fear other races anymore and they thought they had time to rebuild their number, trusting their might.
One thing did worry the Dragon Rulers: at Dragonwatch Keep, Aryan—the former Dragonlord—died during the Great Rain of Fire, likely striken dead by a surge of technomantic energy; the other human wizards had departed from Dragonwatch Keep on the eve of the great catastrophe, bringing with them everything had been stored inside the building. Now, with the subsequent destruction of Blackmoor, no one was watching anymore the dungeons in which the dangerous Dragonlord Arms had been hidden by Aryan.
Dragonwatch Keep, indeed, was the only Blackmoorian building to resist the Great Rain of Fire nearly undamaged thanks to its powerful enchantments, so the chance that someone could stumble upon it, find the artifacts and use them again was real. So the Dragon Rulers gave a group of Gold Dragons, rightfully considered the more faithful and steadfast among Dragons, the duty to occupy Dragonwatch Keep to ward it and the artifacts it contained from intruders and wrong-doers.
The Gold Dragons did as they were told by their Rulers and they became known as the Keepers; slowly, the castle became also the seat of a great shrine devoted to the Great One, and the valley below the mountainous peak where the keep rested became the location of the great occasional gatherings of Gold Dragons. The Citadel of the Ancients, as Dragonwatch Keep is today known to the Dragons, preserved to this day this religious and historical relevance. (The original name and purpose of the Citadel of the Ancients is unknown, but it seems to have been built by the wizards of Blackmoor to serve as a safe, remote place to keep some of their most powerful creations, things they probably did not dare to keep in inhabited regions. Since everything except the armor of the Dragonlord was removed, it is possible one was these very devices that destroyed Blackmoor. But how could this place have survived the destruction of Blackmoor and the Rain of Fire, when nothing else in the world did? This citadel was originally protected by very powerful magic, the exact means long since forgotten. Perhaps it was magically shielded with impenetrable barriers.).