The Glade of Time - Week of Adventures Location 4

This area is located in the Darkearth Plains region, to the west of the Greywater River.  This information was originally posted, as part of the Week of Adventure Locations.The original was posted along with the description of the River Jarl steading of Hearth Home.  The Glade itself is to the west of Hearth Home, past the Ice Lake, and inside the borders of the Great Owl Forest.

Adventure Location: At a point north of the tower of Belue Gorm, just inside the Great Owl Forest, there is a glade of great repute.  It is difficult to find, more so since it relies on magic to keep itself hidden, but if one can locate it, at the center of the glade stands a singular tree, known as the Clock of the Great Druid.  It has been surmised that this tree, and it's peculiar magical properties, are due to magical machinations of the Master of the Silver Order of Druids, located not far away (in the Darkearth Plains) at the Star Tower in the southern reaches of the Aghanz Hills.  The Master of the Silver Order, however, has denied any participation in the construction of the Clock, and further maintains that the Masters and Mistresses preceding him had nothing to do with it either.  Still, the name Clock of the Great Druid remains.

Clock of the Great Druid - in the glade of time

Within the glade, time does not function in the normal predictable way.  It does not even function in any of the known magical ways that those learned in such things could predict or name.  It has the effect of opening up vistas and portals into the distant past, the far future, and everything in between.  Nor does it seem to be limited to the current location of the Glade.  Some anti-spherist astronomers claim that this gives support to their claim that the Valley, and all its inhabitants, are somehow moving through an etheric substance, so that the location of the Glade may change, but somehow the coordinates of the magical time portal do not.  This is rejected by most scholars, however.

The glade is a place where a band of adventurers can go to encounter all manner of unpredictable encounters, from all worlds and all times.  It is not uncommon, as is reported by the few who return, that both past and future versions of a visitor to the glade could be encountered.

One of the curious effects of the effects within the glade, is that it makes communication with certain elder beings, and their servants, possible.  As there is no way to control this, it seems unlikely that this was a desired effect, especially given the wholly damning and destructive nature of encounters with some of those beings, however it has been reported (or at least rumored).  It is possible, however, due to this characteristic of the glade, that the Clock was the construct of the Old Ones, maybe even Ba'a Zarn the builder.  [This is location 4 in the Week of Adventure Locations.]