The Pale Ruins

The Drowned Halls

The Pale Ruins? A graveyard of stone and silence. People think there's treasure buried in those halls, but all I've ever found is a feeling—like something is watching, something old. The walls hum when the air is still, and the mist moves like it has purpose. I went in once. Once was enough.

— Harlan Vex, Prospector and Relic Hunter.

The Pale Ruins stand as a haunting echo of a long-forgotten past, their pale stone towers and crumbling archways rising defiantly from the marsh, half-consumed by the encroaching waters. Though partially submerged, much of their structure remains accessible, their halls and corridors winding through a history long since buried.

Before the Rotmire Blight, pilgrims would journey to the Pale Ruins, believing it to be a sacred site where the presence of the gods could still be felt. Here, they listened to the whispers carried by the winds through the hollowed chambers, seeking wisdom, revelation, or solace. Among them, those devoted to Mystra, the Weavekeeper, were most drawn to this place, believing it to be a focal point of divine energy, a vessel through which the gods' presence still flowed.

What sets the Pale Ruins apart is not just their state of preservation, but their isolation. They sit upon a lone island, surrounded by treacherous waters and tangled, mist-choked bogs. The island itself is distant from any safe harbors, requiring careful navigation through the shifting tides and unseen perils of the marsh. Yet, even if one were to find passage, the ruins lie deep within a heavily quarantined zone, their presence all but lost to time, guarded not by walls but by fear of the Rotmire Blight. No sanctioned vessel dares make the journey, and those who do attempt the crossing are either desperate or mad.

Though nature has crept into the ruins—vines twisting through ancient stone, roots cracking the once-grand foundations—there is an undeniable stillness to them, as if something lingers just beyond sight. Towering cylindrical halls stand hollow and silent, their original purpose long forgotten, while vast tunnels wind beneath the ruins, leading to chambers swallowed by darkness.

Massive stone corridors stretch outward, their arched ceilings lined with strange, rusted conduits, some broken and spilling long-dry residue onto the cracked floors. Enormous hollow chambers, circular in design, hold rings of towering stone columns, each marked with faintly glowing inlays that pulse ever so faintly in the deepest hours of night. Vast, windowless chambers bear the scars of heat and energy, their walls scorched and glasslike, as though something immense once surged through them. Thick, rusted doors, some wrenched from their hinges, others sealed with unbreakable locks, bar access to the deepest places within.

Some say the Pale Ruins are a place of power, others claim they are cursed, their halls hiding secrets better left undisturbed. Whatever the truth, few have seen them with their own eyes and returned to speak of it.

Legends persist of relics lost beneath the waters, of chambers yet untouched by time, and of whispers that rise with the mist. The ruins are not wholly abandoned; strange lights have been spotted flickering in the depths of night, and those who camp too close to the shores speak of distant voices carried on the wind. House Harrowden does not officially acknowledge the ruins, dismissing them as nothing more than drowned stone, but some whisper that their silence hides something more. Whether a forbidden history, a forgotten treasure, or something far worse, the Pale Ruins remain an enigma, their secrets waiting beneath the water and stone, for those reckless enough to seek them out.