Seventhspire
by OneEyedZealThis is a sidhe stronghold located near the border of Darokin and Atruaghin, in the forested hills that rise south of Lake Akesoli and northeast of the great plateau. Unlike many strongholds, it’s not a refuge but a bastion, built atop the buried tomb of something dark, foul and malicious that the sidhe only know as ‘the Folly of the Immortals’. Though trapped and asleep for untold centuries, the Folly is apparently still able to summon and compel unwary mortals into seeking it out, and the sidhe of Seventhspire have dedicated themselves to thwarting any attempt to wake the Folly up.
Seventhspire is a delicate-seeming monument of marble and clear-faceted crystal, unflawed and lacking any apparent toolwork, atop a steep-sloped treeless hill. It doesn’t have an outer redoubt surrounding an inner court; it’s effectively one large spiraling gauntlet, that the sidhe can use to harass and exhaust anyone seeking to push through to the central sanctum. Seventhspire’s defenders have pledged themselves not to draw blood or to kill, but that doesn’t much limit their effectiveness–they’ve trained to attack with nets, bolas and snares, to lure intruders into oubliettes, to unleash entangling vines and swarms of paralyzing insects, and similar horrors. Subdued intruders are spirited far away and their spirits and intentions judged; those of good heart have their compulsions broken and their memories fuzzed before being released, those less noble are expediently killed.
Kaith the Rider is one of the most stalwart and experienced sidhe responsible for dealing with captured intruders. He has a merciful heart, and sometimes spares those who his compatriots might see dead; he also looks to insure that those he repatriates aren’t merely abandoned in a strange land, instead taking some thought to releasing them somewhere close to potential new comrades. (Yes, it’s an in-setting justification for the “new PC shows up all alone in the middle of this perilous dungeon” trope that basically every DM ever has sometimes had to fall back on to explain how the new player joined the game mid-adventure. You’re welcome! :))
Morrgu spent much of her youth surreptitiously observing human nations and their ways, especially the Atruaghin Children of the Tiger, and has taken much from their style, demeanor and taste for cold ruthlessness. Though she doesn’t oppose the taboo against bloodshed in defense of Seventhspire, she does believe that captured prisoners could be punished much more severely than is current practice, including unleashing the enervating energies of the undead as a tax on trespassers. She keeps a quartet of wights carefully imprisoned in a small dungeon excavated below her demesne within Seventhspire.
Tocclwynn is a fervent advocate of all forms of the performing arts, both for their own sake and as a morale-booster to entertain and delight the sidhe of Seventhspire. She has regular schemes to acquire theatrical scripts and costumes, musical scores and instruments, dancing outfits, and other tools of the craft from various mortal providers, and discreetly deliver them to Seventhspire. Though Tocclwynn believes her benign deceptions to be error-proof, it’s as much good fortune as anything else that’s kept her actions secret to date, and what might happen if one of her shipments were to be discovered and meddled with is anyone’s guess.