Stonehell Dungeon

The Third Ascendant Marudek-Amir was a merciless ruler, prone to bouts of paranoid suspicion. The grandson of the man who first unified the Spellbinders of the Tower and overthrew the gods, Marudek-Amir ruled precariously over his subjects. Having neither the charisma nor fair heart which originally consolidated the rule of mankind, he relied on fear and an overzealous police force to keep the flames of rebellion from kindling.

The Ascendant's subjects learned to dread the knock on their doors at midnight, an event that was accompanied by the Ascendant's secret police. Loose talk in a tavern could lead to the sudden arrest of entire families, leaving behind only rumors as to their fate and warnings of the Ascendant's spies everywhere.

As the years of his rule passed, Marudek-Amir's dungeons became overcrowded, his oubliettes filled. Luckily for him, amongst his advisors was a certain vizier, Spellbinder Uras, who dabbled in necromancy, demonology, and philosophy. Seeing the Ascendant haunted by fears of open rebellion birthed from overcrowded jails, Uras proposed a plan to alleviate Marudek-Amir's worries and provide himself with a laboratory in which to conduct experiments into the dark hearts of men.

Spellbinder Uras detailed his scheme to the Third Ascendant and began preparations to bring it to fruition. After a month of scouting, Uras announced that he had found a location suitable for his experiment, the Desolation and the Span. Soon thereafter, one hundred prisoners were drawn from the ranks of the dungeons and carted to the western border of the realm. There, in a small box canyon, the prisoners were forced into a cave and handed tools of excavation. They were then commanded to begin digging. It was to be their task to excavate a new dungeon to serve as their place of incarceration.

Uras believed that man, although adaptable, was a beast at his core. Ideals such as honor, kindness, and altruism were simply fragile veneers created by the needs of civilization. When man was separated from civilized life he would show his true nature: base, cruel, and viciously covetous.

The rules were simple: a prisoner who worked would be fed; a prisoner who resisted would not. Anyone attempting escape was killed. The guards who oversaw the place, many of whom had been assigned to this duty because of their own cruel natures, did nothing to maintain order within the prisoners' ranks. As long as the work proceeded, they fed the prisoners.

Despairing, the prisoners sought to make the best of their situation by any means necessary. When they banded together, it was not to overthrow their masters but instead to dominate weaker inmates and to carve out a prison block of their own. Spellbinder Uras had chosen his seed prisoners for the experiment wisely.