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.]

Hearth Home - River Jarl Steading (4)

Hearth Home is the ancestral home of the White Wolf, a very long lived warlock (self-styled) that rules with an iron claw, but is also very protective of his people.  The steading itself is a series of stone mead halls, with a central "great hall" that is actually a multilevel towering affair, with lots of balconies and towers.  It stands atop a great dungeon complex, built years ago by the original followers of the White Wolf.

Great Hall of the White Wolf

The palisade-circled city that surrounds the mead halls overlooks a curious feature of the land.  There was once a lake, with a number of streams and a single river (the Moonharp lake, fed by the Shining River) that ran down into the Great Owl Forest.  Many, many years ago there was a fight in this are between Helgor and the Storm Lady, Othero.  In the battle, Othero fired her bow, Icefinger, three times at Helgor.  All three times, Helgor deftly dodged the frozen missiles fired by the Storm Lady.  But all three of them fell into the Moonharp Lake.  The lake itself was instantly frozen by the first, and the ice made thicker and deeper with the two successive shots.  To this day it stands frozen solid, even in the bright sun of the short, but warm, northern summer.

In the middle of the Ice Lake, which itself is 5 miles across, there stands a rough concentric wall and tower, both made of ice.  These have been constructed by the surviving members of a tribe of Fish Men (Ichor Lang) that lived in the lake at one time. There is a rough truce between the Fish Men and the men of Hearth Home, but that truce does not extend to travelers, or others on the eastern shores of the lake.  The culture and practices of the Fish Men has been described as "vile and disgusting - cursed by the gods" by some skalds and rangers that have encountered them.

Ice Castle of the Ichor Lang (Fish Men)

The Shining River has dried up, for the most part, but the lands in and around it are a sort of marshy territory.  The amount of moisture, and free standing water, in the marsh varies widely during the year, and it serves as a hunting ground for some of the far-ranging Fish Men, as well as other beings that live there, and even more that wander up in search of prey, out of the Great Owl Forest.

South of the steading, almost on the border of the Great Owl Forest, stands a curious tower, nicknamed by wanderers from Hearth Home as the "tower of the world's ending".  It is not known where this nickname comes from, but it could be that the rolling hills that the Hearth Home is part of, finally flatten out, and give way to the very dense Great Owl Forest, and the lands of the tower are at the point where they meet.  Or it could have to do with the sorcerer Belue Gorm who built the tower.  Belue Gorm was obsessed with the long forgotten (by sane men) elder beings that the Old Ones worshiped, especially the Lord of Fire.  The sorcerer felt that the world, since the Old Ones had departed, had fallen into corruption and misuse, and that it was the duty of those who remembered the elder beings from the beginning of time (and before) should seek to recall them to this domain.  In order to do that, at least with the Lord of Fire, Belue Gorm was seeking about a way to bring about the end of most of life within the Valley (and else where) by means of magical fire.  How far he got in his studies, and how successful he might have been, it will never be known, for a war party of Elfin warriors came and laid waste to the tower, and threw down the dead body of Belue Gorm.  It is rumored that the White Wolf was asked by the Fey war party for assistance, and refused.  This story is used to explain the curious rift between the men of Hearth Home and any and all representatives of the Seely court.

Tower of Belue Gorm

In spite of what the Elfin warriors wrought against Belue Gorm, the "tower of the world's ending" still stands, and the dungeons underneath it are unplumbed to this day.


During the Week of Adventure Locations, the writeup of The Glade of Time was originally part of this article on Hearth Home.  This was location 4.