City of Ohn Ohnan - Week of Adventures Location 6

This adventure location was first described in the write up on the River Jarl Steading of Clearwater.  Clearwater Steading is built right next to the mound of the King's Highway, at the point where the Greywater River passes through a long tunnel to go under the Highway.  At the mid point of this tiled tunnel, there is a side passage . . .

This was part of the Week of Adventure Locations, and it was Location number 6.  It is located along the Greywater River between the Darkearth Plains and the Sildur Reaches.

Adventure Location: As the Greywater flows under the King's Highway, it goes through an impressive tunnel, burrowed out and lined with very thick slate tiles throughout it's massive arch.  The interior height of the arch is nearly 160 feet, higher in some spots (the top surface of the King's Highway, in this area, stands some 300 feet up over the plains around it).  The river banks go right up against the tiled walls of the tunnel.  About half way through, on the western wall, there is a large opening that goes back into the mound of the King's Highway.

Side passage from the Greywater River

The opening is covered over by a massive bronze portcullis that is chained to stone pillars coming out from the tunnel walls on either side.  The opening is easily wide enough and tall enough for a vessel of a modest size to enter.  This sideflow of the river goes on for almost two miles, deep under the King's Highway.

The tiled ceiling and tunnel sides give away to rough rock, and eventually to stalactites.  Among them lurk all manor of subterranean hunters and predators.  Huge, aggressive, and hungry blind fish (of monstrous sizes, some 20 or 30 feet long) live in the almost always black river.  But, if this route is traversed, the explorer/adventurers will be rewarded with the river disappearing under a stone wall, with only inches of clearance. At this point, however, there is a stone jetty, with paths and stairways down deep into the earth, and eventually ending up at a ruined, and abandoned subterranean city.  The city is in a vast, huge, cavern (several miles across), with strange trees and plants growing in the subterranean light that is cast off the monstrous stalactites inside the cavern.

Underground City of Ohn Ohnan

 Legendarily known as the city of Ohn Ohnan, it is rumored to have once been a joint city of Mika-Born and the Old Ones, but it was destroyed by a crazed cult of madmen lead by an EHP of the Lord of Fire.  The ghosts of the Lord of Fire worshippers are rumored to haunt the ruins.  What else lives there now, is for the adventurers to discover. [This is location 6 in the Week of Adventure Locations]

Clearwater - River Jarl Steading (6)

Near the point where the Greywater River passes under a great arch, to run beneath the King's Highway, there stands two fascinating structures. The first, of course is the tall, wide raised up artificial ridge that the King's Highway is built on.  As detailed elsewhere, this artificiality was built by the Old Ones, probably by Ba'a Zarn the Builder.  Up against this raised up ridgeline rises the small castle (steading) of Clearwater.  It is a small castle (measured against the Westroner standard for such things - even a wealthy knight in one of the Baronies might have a larger castle), but it's location (right up against the King's Highway) makes it notable.  Add to this the facts that the upper levels of the steading have a commanding view of the highway up on the ridge, and that the rocky knob that the steading is built on is surrounded by a pool, requiring small (defensible) foot bridges for access, and it is a very important (and defensible - at least against attack by ground forces) strong hold.

Clearwater, surrounded by its protective pool,
and built in the shadow of the King's Highway

But it was pointed out that there are two fascinating structures here - the first being the Clearwater steading (called simply, Clearwater), but the other is the Gazing House.  Up on the raised up mound that the King's Highway runs along, in this area, there is a peculiar structure built of Amberstone.  It is very much like an open-balcony'd and terraced villa, similar to those built in the southern country, but it is ancient.  Certainly built by the Old Ones, it is not known what its original function is.

In the center of the Gazing House, which consists of apartments and balconies, built in a square, around a central open plaza - there is a large (12 feet across) brazier with a pool of water in it that always seems to be catching a drip of water in the center.  There is no source for the drip, just a constant trickle outward from where such would fall.  It has been noted that the brazier, and its contents of water, have magical properties, and once every two months, when all three moons are visible within the water of the brazier, the dripping temporarily halts, and it is said that you can see the future by gazing into the smooth clear pool of water.  In the dug out halls and chambers deep into the mound of the King's Highway that the Gazing House is built on, there are fissures and cracks that open up to deep underground caverns and stretch endlessly.  Here, there seems to be a large culture of lizard men that have a curious rite of shamans worshiping the One Beneath the Waves, and seeking to bring him up out of his slumber to destroy the surface world.

Gazing House, looking down on Sordling,
and the northern run of the Greywater from up on the King's Highway.

The current Jarl of Clearwater is Tewar Dorfsson.  There is a nearby port town called Sordling, built along the Greywater, that serves as the home of the dragon ship fleet of the Clearwater steading. The Huscarls, and many leading members of the household and even fyrd leaders all live (with their families) in the Clearwater stronghold, but most of the rest of the steading's population live in small agricultural communities around the steading and Sordling.  All of them, however, are north of the King's Highway.  There is an uneasy truce with Rookroost, and almost a constant state of feuding with viking parties from Mead Hall

The description of the City of Ohn Ohnan was originally part of this article, when it was written during the Week of Adventure Locations.

Posting update and Schedule

The eight Steadings of the River Jarls are still being posted.  The first five have been done, only three remain:  Clearwater, Mead Hall, and Northwind.  All three of these offer interesting setting descriptions, I think, and they each have an associated Adventure Location (which continues, and will finish, the Week of Adventure Locations).


In generating the Adventure Locations, references were made to locales, encounters, monsters and other elements.  These are planned to be detailed in the next week or two, so more content is on the way.

Further out, the three cities of Khomaes (home of the Diamond Villas, and the Glamor Hall for Bewitchment and Entrancement, and near the Purple Marsh), Werms (location of the Demesne of Planar Knowledge and Magical Petitioning), and Huygen (site of the wretched Black Prison of Volvedma) will need to be detailed with their own postings, and a little bit more about the other features of the Darkearth Plains (aside from what has already been done).  Then it is on to the next in the inter-river regions, between the Greywater and Fa'Ars River.  That area, the Sildur Reaches, includes the two cities of Botts (including the Bardic College of Brandismore, and the Grand Lyceum of Abjurative Sorcery) and Na Kram.  Also the Shadow Woods, Craggy Hills, Fire Mountain, and the curious Tears of Heaven (which is also Giant country).

Still working on the ValleyWiki idea...