Congrats on rolling a 12!
You tour around those few bookshops in the area and learn the best selection of scholarly tombs can be found in the library of the observatorium. A few silver gets you a day pass –
“Gritgoz tags along with Ernie and trys to read up on dopplers and look for any information which could relate to the lost city of Zerul Guhk” . As your gobo pal finds related books he passes them your way, cutting down on the manual searching considerably.
Gem dragons
A long-forgotten branch of the Draco genus, draco crystallus are primarily hexapods like their more common cousin draco metallus and draco chromaticus. The seem to predate them by some millennia, and there is some speculation that they may be the original prototypical Dragon, from which all other forms ultimately descended. Scholars argue as to the exact original, but most agree it is certainly not Vaul itself.
Many long ago abandoned their wings or let them atrophy, relying instead on their innate mental powers to lift and propel them telekinetically. They are now rare, those few that were known of from prehistory seem to have disappeared from record around the time of the last century war. The details surrounding this disappearance are unclear as they seem to have taken part in the wars.
Details of the dragons abilities and powers range from awe inspiring to unbelievable, and anecdotes of people forgetting their entire lives and skills, having their minds permanently inhabiting the body of their friends, learning secrets from their future selves and falling madly in love with inanimate objects are only a few of the more credible abilities described. Needless to say, when cornered or provoked, the Gemstone dragons were possibly the most dangerous creatures on the face of the planet. Distant, disengaged, balanced, slow to anger, unstoppable.
There are a number of references to an ancient script associated with the Gemstone dragons, much like high draconic but with more intricate runeshapes which was at times adopted by the early church due to its utility for storying words of power and potent spells and glyphs.
The last great scholar and Gemstone Dragon expert was said to be Lord Olimonora Osmore, one of the last great transmuter primarchs, father of the school of wizardry. A rather raucous song ( sung by Brother Lardo the first, who would later found a great house of successful traveling minstrels) describes Olimonora descending into madness and retreating to his castle during the century war as he watched his beloved gemstone companions fight on and vanish. The second verse describes the castle uprooting itself days alter and flying high above the clouds. It was later dubbed Windsoar castle, the bards tongue firmly in his cheek no doubt.
Blackfort
The Legends of the blackfort are many – a pathway to the sunless sea, the seat of an ancient civilisation of enormous humanoids, a defensive structure to prevent kossovian armies roving south, a foothold of deamons on the mortal realm, the last vanity project of a notorious necromancer. It is hard to decipher the truth from the legend.
North of the flood plains and the dread swamp the blackfort remains shrouded in danger and mystery. The huge walled citadel had been built long before the first settlers arrived in the region, and had once been a beautiful slate grey structure, but slowly over centuries it seemed to char and discolour from the base of the stones until it was black as pitch from the foot of the walls to the tips of the towers.
Stranger still was the structure itself, for it appeared like a wall, but served no obvious function and besides, there was little in the way or north-south warfare across the planes. Some authors have speculated it instead was designed to keep something within protected , and keep assailants either out, or perhaps in.
The fort has been abandoned for centuries, but it is felt to be exceedingly dangerous. Most of the walls have fallen with the passing of time, yet few who pick through the rubble return. Adventurous campaigners speak of a huge subterranean structure, and at least one manuscript mentions Thesselar his interests in both deamonic research and genomic fusions (which reminds you of his work which helped propel the Judge project / Throkk )leading him to the fort. Unfortunately, that chapter has key pages ripped out , where his specific interests and findings in the blackfort would have been detailed.