02 - Iron Kingdoms W.. - Captain Spud Is Amazing

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apparently share a past together and have remained
tight comrades.
“Old Thom” Jaspers (male Caspian Exp8): The
Crag started as, survived as, and will always be a mining
town. One of its best known success stories is that of
Thomas Jaspers. Jaspers came to the Crag with nothing
but a pick and a gunnysack in search of riches—and
an escape from the powerful friends of underground
loan sharks in Llael and Cygnar. He spent his first
twelve years in the Crag impoverished and homeless,
but in 574 AR he struck a vein of raw iron so deep it
is still being mined today. Now Old Thom is one of
the richest men in the Crag with over a dozen mining
camps in his employ, and he still occasionally picks up
a lantern to inspect the mines with his own eyes.
Locales of Ternon Crag
Gold Standard: The finest festhall in the Crag,
which is to say they serve hot meals and cold drink,
does not poison their guests on purpose and gives
correct change when paid. The most noteworthy meal
created and served by the owner and chef Drewson
Cabe (male Midlunder Exp5/Rog2) is the ingenious
and startlingly expensive “sand rat filet served over a
bed of Bloodstone lamprey eggs.” The meal is highly
nutritious; some whisper it has invigorating properties
in men and fertility enhancing agents in women.
Pip and Pop’s Trade Emporium: The only
worthwhile trading post in the Crag, the Emporium
is actually run by two young gobbers named
Pipinzonagorann “Pip” (male gobber Exp4/Rog8)
and Popinzonagorann “Pop” (male gobber Bdg5/
Exp3/Rog3). Born as twins in eastern Cygnar, they
have a multitude of skills between them, but together
they are a formidable force of hagglin’, bargainin’,
and tinkerin’. Many travelers enter the Emporium
with a short list of “essentials” and leave with an extra
pack mule laden with “necessary goods.”
Sanity’s Bastion: The largest saloon in Ternon
Crag (and the rowdiest) is Sanity’s Bastion, owned,
operated, and secured by an old war veteran called
Nikolo (male Khard Ftr12). The man is a grizzled
fellow with a tangled beard and a limp. He does not
care to speak of his various scars nor of the expertly
crafted battleaxe mounted above his keg taps—a fine
weapon made of brass and steel and emblazoned with
the royal seal of Khador itself—and certainly not of
the conflict between Khador and Cygnar. The Bastion
is always open except during the frequent dust storms
rolling in from the Marches, and his prices for food
and spirits are fair. Many ruffians and mercenaries use
the tavern as headquarters for their businesses, and
bar brawls are commonplace.
Castle of the Keys
The ruins of an ancient barbarian fortress, it was
supposedly cleared of its original inhabitants centuries
ago by a sect of aggressive Iosan expansionists. Folklore
has it that after slaughtering the barbarians dwelling in
and around this fortress, the Iosans never left. Some
claim they are still there today. Iosan stories—much of
which are fragmented to say the least—tell of a powerful
and binding curse placed upon this “Castle of the Keys”
by the gods of the Divine Court. To this day, the ground
is devoid of vegetation, even the obstinate thicket grasses
common to the area, and it is said an unseen force
lurks here. Some travelers have reported that in the
dusk, lights within the ruined fortress can be seen with
palpable and foreboding silhouettes behind them.
The whole fortress is a cracked and crumbling
place, looming and dark with a cruel history long since
forgotten and where vile things lurk and prey on the
unwise. Iosan curse or not, for leagues around the area
teems with strange-looking barbarians showing signs
very much like dragonblight, and on mostly clear nights
a long shadow is sometimes seen winging across the sky
above the fortress over the outlying mountains toward
the deep black Scarleforth. Whatever these things
might mean, without doubt something more powerful
than men calls the Castle of the Keys its home.
Pillars of Rotterhorn
Near what is arguably the highest mountain in all of
western Immoren is a rock formation so large it baffles
the minds of the throngs of Immorese scholars who
have gazed upon it. At the entrance of the pathway to
the Rotterhorn, eight gigantic basalt pillars—a stone
that must be carved from the Marches bedrock itself—
rise 300 feet from the boulder-strewn ground in a nearly
perfect semi-circle. These enormous cylinders must
weigh thousands of tons a piece and each one is roughly
thirty feet in diameter. Scholars agree these were likely
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