High Vale¶
Contested
This page is named in the Open Question Wood Elf homeland; Vale of Aren and Vale of Avernil: S077 places the High Vale in the "Vale of Avernil", while S073 and S078 call the valley south of Proturas the "Vale of Aren". They may be one valley or two.
The High Vale is a farming region south of Proturas, "in the southernmost part of the Vale of Avernil", and "only 40 miles from the cursed no-mans land of Er'Turrak" (S077). Its villages are small, around a hundred and sixty souls, farmers and low-skill tradesmen, with mines in the hills, and it is the quiet end of the Proturan frontier.
Overview¶
The Vale is Proturas's breadbasket and a place to be from: a human mercenary of the city "grew up on a farm in the High Vale" and "yearned for adventure", joining the Proturan military at sixteen (S074); a High Elf in hiding worked for years for the moneychanger of an unnamed High Vale town, until a child brought him a box with a silver knife in it (S074). The Proturan Border Guard keeps an outpost in the Vale against Er'Turrak, "considered a boring and safe assignment, so only three types serve here: the lazy, the spoiled or the incompetent" (S077). The soldier's first battle was "just a few raiders crossing the border" (S074).
The one town the sources describe is Banbridge, palisaded on the Darkwater, with silver and iron mines near it and "half a day from the forested hills of Mered-Ourin" (S102). From Banbridge "½ day of farmland and ½ day in the forested hills" brings a wagon to the ridges (S047).
Mered-Ourin and the Blacktooth Mountains¶
The forested hills of Mered-Ourin are the Cursed Lands, and the Slatestone Ridge is "part of the Mered-Ourin / Blacktooth Mountains" (S102, S047). Shadows walk the forest at night (S047). Old mines pit the ridge: an iron mine there held the tomb.
The Tomb of Malathar¶
"Tomb of Malathar the Pestilent, located in a tomb within a buried IRON-MINE" (S047). Malathar, a Nexa-Vinian necromancer "of considerable power" and once a high-ranked member of the Circle of Eternity, lay mummified there "waiting for his enchantments to be reborn" until an expedition of Radulf's Relics & Recovery gained the mines, found the tomb six days later and opened it three days after that (S047). The camp they left on the hilltop above, "divided into parts", held nine workers' tents and six for mercenaries, a command tent with a bronze-banded lockbox, pens and a watchtower with a horn (S047). Among the salvage was "an exquisitely carved Obsidian Idol of a large cat. Quite magical. Also, cursed … it attracts Undead … like a giant beacon" (S047). The mummy woke, "not fully restored", and sent plague-rats, screechers and the plague-zombies of his own excavators down to Banbridge for the lifeforce he needed, before escaping by teleportation circle (S047, S058). A dwarven ranger, Dala Stonefoot, had been trying to seal the tomb (S047).
Er'Turrak¶
"The cursed no-mans land of Er'Turrak", forty miles from the Vale's southern villages, is why the Border Guard is there (S077).
Gap
Nothing says what Er'Turrak is, how it was cursed, or whether it is one of the lands "left cursed and blighted" by the Proturan Brigades' scorching of the south (S107). The High Vale's towns besides Banbridge are unnamed, as is the Vale's lord.
Vale of Aren or Vale of Avernil¶
The High Vale lies "south of Proturas in the southernmost part of the Vale of Avernil" (S077). The mini-campaign itinerary (S073) and the factions document (S078) know the great sheltered farm valley beyond the Aren Gate as the Vale of Aren, ruled mostly by the Children of the Light. Whether Avernil and Aren are two names for one valley, or the High Vale is the southern reach of a longer vale of which Aren is the northern, is the matter of the Open Question above.
In Play¶
The Proturan Campaign began with a salvage job at the expedition camp above Banbridge (S047).