LARGONETH CASTLE
| (above) An
inaccurate rendering
of Largoneth Castle as it was during the Great Monster Uprising. |
Largoneth Castle was built by Entharion the Wise back in the misty times at the dawn of the Kingdom of Quendor. When he first emerged from Egreth Forest during the year 0 GUE, he built a tiny hut on the coast of Frobozz, at the western shore of the Shallow Sea (which is an inlet of the Great Sea), between Galepath and Mareilon. Once he had united the two city-states into Quendor and was exalted as the first king of the Entharion Dynasty, his castle was erected on the former site of his hut. It was from this castle that he ruled for the entirety of his reign, and it would serve the as the capital of the kingdom for the duration of the Dynasty up until 660 GUE.
The province surrounding the capital at Largoneth was referred to as Frobozz, although no record of a city by the same name has survived to the present day. Largoneth is near the Lonely Mountain, a local village, and the Old Lingolf House (from where the local Lingolf Garrison guarded the castle. Traditionally, the Captain of the Guard at Largoneth was responsible only to the commander of the Royal Militia and the King of Quendor himself.). With an exception of the Mountain, the hills that stretch out mainly to the west are mostly low, through which the legendary Long Road runs from the west right up to the east gate.
THE GREAT TERROR
During the latter days of Entharion the Wise, some unknown practitioner or group of practitioners somehow accidentally awakened a shapeless and formless manifestation of evil from millennia of sleep. This incredibly ancient and malevolent force came to be known as the Great Terror, or the Unseen Terror. Entharion, by then an old man, realized that the Terror could not be killed, only imprisoned. Knowing that the Terror had power to sense a great work of magic, he conceived a plan to lure the creature into a magical prison by creating the most powerful spell scroll imaginable in those days. Entharion called together the mightiest enchanters and sorcerers and wizards in the land, and together, working day and night, they created a scroll of truly great power—GUNCHO, which was able to open gateways to new worlds and dimensions beyond our own.
Working swiftly and with full urgency, they then constructed a maze-like series of chambers far beneath Largoneth Castle and placed the scroll at the very heart of it. These peculiar rooms, whose cream-colored walls were thing and translucent, were joined by passages that were perfect round and black, seeming to be made of carbon. The layout of these chambers were magically linked to a map, each room and passage distinct upon it.
Discovered in depths of Largoneth, the map consists of a drawing with nine points, each represented by a strange character, with interconnecting thin pencil lines. Although the events of 956 GUE have since altered this map, researchers have assumed the following to have been the original placement of the passages.
B J
! / \
! / \
! / \
! K V
! / \
! / \
! / \
R-------M F
\ / /
\ / /
\ / /
H P
The GUNCHO scroll was placed in a room of living rock that formed Largoneth’s foundations (chamber P). As Entharion knew it would, the Terror came to seek the scroll containing potent magic. Lurking in the shadows of the castle, the magicians waited for their foe to enter the specially created recess deep within the earth where they had placed the scroll. Then, acting in concert with all the powers at their command, they sealed the Terror deep within the room by removing the passage between chambers P and F. There it finally returned to a deep sleep. Concurrently, the seven Servants of the Terror each returned to their own treasure filled lairs in various regions all across Zork (one of which was in uncivilized lands far north of Frobozz). Hidden there for ages, they slumbered until the days of the Terror’s release. To that end, Entharion, at the age of 65, renounced the throne of Quendor to his son Mysterion and spent the rest of his days within the estate as guardian of the monster that slept below. Eventually, however, Entharion died. The Terror was so horrible that none would dare speak of it. And after his days passed what was fact was slowly allowed to become legend and fairytale, and in time the truth of the Great Terror was forgotten for nearly a millennium, when it would be reawakened in 956.
MORE HISTORY
History has recorded that Largoneth castle went through an immense amount of continuous reconstruction during the early years of the kingdom. Because of the length of time involved in erecting such a structure, many different architects were employed over several time periods, which in part explains the many incongruities and varying styles throughout Largoneth. Although most of the castle is consistent throughout, every now and then one is likely to stumble upon a room that seemed to be an architectural jumble, designed almost as an afterthought by three or four different architects years apart. Nestled in a rarely-traveled maze of passages in the castle’s underbelly, it had the appearance of being the center, the focal point of each of Largoneth’s varying styles, almost as if each different era of building had somehow wound itself around to intersect with the others at this obscure point.
THE NEW YEAR'S REVOLT OF DUNCANTHRAX (659~660)
While there is much mystery still shrouded around the New Year's Revolt, historians have been faced with the unavoidable conclusion that the last day of 659 saw two simultaneous revolts against the throne, from both the inside and outside of Largoneth, perhaps in conjunction with one another. Thus it is possible to imagine a scenario that places King Zilbo III in Borphee on New Year's Eve, while fighting of some kind broke out at Largoneth itself. When the loyalist faction of the guard failed to suppress the rebellion, their belief that Zilbo had died, could be indicative of the fact that Zilbo had left for Borphee unbeknownst to the court at Largoneth. This possibility is born out by what we know of the first 31 years of his reign; he seemed prone to rashness and unpredictability. Numerous chronicles note that Zilbo III was deposed and killed during a palace revolt at Largoneth. We have already shown how two simultaneous violent outbreaks led to an unexpected coup at the royal castle, leading many to believe that the king had been killed in the fighting. Thus, the following seems to be the best theory as to what happened during the New Year’s Revolt.
It was the thirty-first year of the reign of King Zilbo III in the year 659 of the Great Underground Empire. Zilbo III had taken vacation to the frequently occupied Royal Palace in Borphee. The thirty-first of Dismembur was the day of the planned revolt. On that final day, Duncanthrax, furious over an alleged shortage of mosquito netting, led the revolution to overthrow the king. It was not for this reason that the rest of the rest of the subjects of Quendor joined him to storm Castle Largoneth, they were just desperate for a more interesting ruler. Conveniently, in the process Duncanthrax declared himself the new king of Quendor upon the alleged removal of Zilbo III. (see the entry on the New Year's Revolt for a much more detailed analysis).
MOVING THE CASTLE (660 GUE)
Long years had caused Largoneth to be disused. Instead of reigning from the capital, one of Pseudo-Duncanthrax’s first acts as king was to move the government of Quendor from Largoneth to Egreth, where the seat of power would remain for over a hundred years. The castle was to be moved as well. The people were pleased by this decree, but they absolutely swooned when he insisted that the job be done without disassembling a single piece of the castle. On several occasions during the moving process, entire legions of workers were crushed beneath the awkwardly moving mobile palace. So within the first six months of his rule, Pseudo-Duncanthrax had caused more unnecessary deaths than the entire Entharion Dynasty combined. Because it would be impossible to reign comfortably from the moving castle, the capital was temporarily located at Borphee.
Despite this tremendous move, Castle Largoneth still remains there to this day which has baffled historians for many generations. While the underground caverns that still held the Great Terror were not touched, it is unknown whether the levels of the castle that are seen today are remnants of the original, or merely a reconstruction upon the same foundation. Regardless, the castle remained deserted for many years, until the evil warlock Krill assumed residence there.
GALEPATH CONTROLS LARGONETH (888 GUE)
Following the fall of the Empire, the governor of Galepath secured the allegiance of the Lingolf Garrison and gained control over the Lonely Mountain and its nearby villages, coastal routes and highway approaches in 888 GUE, thus bringing his territory almost to the border of the old Mareilon Province. Clearly upset that his rival had seized the initiative, and hoping to gain control over the historically important Largoneth site, the governor at Mareilon declared war on Galepath, thus at the fall of the empire reigniting the very conflict that had necessitated Quendor's creation some 900 years before. This was only halted by the efforts of Syovar the Strong at the Conference of Quendor during the early tenth century that temporarily abated this conflict.
LARGONETH CASTLE AS IT WAS DURING THE TENTH CENTURY
The high and proud castle of Largoneth with its dark towers, stood on a cliff rising above the Shallow Sea. Massive walls of smooth black stone surrounded the castle. Huge iron-barred gates stood shut at the east and west side, each guarded by a pair of tall stone basilisks (there were also smaller entrances on the north and south). Two talls towers with a bridging turret stood at the west end of the castle, and an even taller but isolated tower just beside them, cold, black as night and squat as a toad (when it was used by Krill, an evil smoke seemed to emanate from this tower, shrouding the others in a darkening fog). A huge open courtyard lay in the center of the castle’s four main wings, and a low, squat building, some kind of temple, had been built there. Two more smaller towers formed the corners of the eastern wall.
It was impressive and ominous. Castle Largoneth shimmered and shone with a quality of blackness that mere night could not conceal. There were not windows in the towers, no embrasures in the high walls. It proclaimed its purpose with a stark, terrifying harshness that it was not built to keep enemies without, but to shut and seal a great enemy within. On moonlit nights, the black stone gleamed brilliant in its pure whiteness.
As it was the seat of power in Quendor for almost seven centuries, the Castle was full of items of historical interest. It had a remarkable library and portrait gallery, and it was magically connected to other parts of the kingdom through the Hall of Mirrors.
THE REIGN OF KRILL (c. 956 GUE)
Krill and his minions planned to use Largoneth as a base from which to assume world control. During this period he and his misshapen, hairy followers made several structural changes in the castle and used magic to ruin its once-beautiful appearance. They rudely constructed a primitive temple of basalt blocks, and fashioned an enormous idol of a loathsome demon, dark and vile, with dripping fangs and razor-sharp talons, behind an altar (which was usually wet with blood and its velvet covers stained and encrusted with gore). Krill and his hundreds of minions regularly engaged in twisted rituals and human sacrifice to this demon.
The evil warlock quickly subjugated the lands surrounding Largoneth to his power. The once peaceful regions were being held in thrall by the pestilence that had been loosed upon the land. But the Circle of Enchanters was not ignorant. The mage Belboz knew that a powerful Enchanter would easily be detected and destroyed by Krill, so the Guild of Enchanters sent a novice to vanquish their foe. Thus Krill's control over Largoneth ended in 956, when a novice magician defeated at him stronghold in the castle and banished him into oblivion. At the warlock's defeat, his evil tower swayed and collapsed.
Although this Enchanter suceeded, in the process he discovered the Great Terror's prison underneath the Largoneth dungeon and unwittingly disturbed it. This Enchanter managed to break into the tomb and retrive the GUNCHO spell that had originally luried it there, while still keeping the Terror entrapped. It is known that during the final hours of the confrontation, Krill pondered the idea of using the Terror for his own purposes, but the plan came to naught. What the enchanter did not realize was that in the process of resealing the underground passages, a crack, just small enough for the evil demon to escape had been rent. The Terror gradually worked its way through the maze and escaped. It bided its time, mindful of its first defeat. It moved slowly and secretly into the southlands and settled in the swamps of Miznia, in the ruins of Dolo Finis, near the border of Orexia. There it waited and gained strength while its influence crept slowly and inexorably across the world, corrupting all it touched.
AFTER KRILL
Largoneth stood for many years, lonely and deserted, on the coast of the Shallow Sea. Sometime during either the Age of Science or the opening of the Second Age of Magic, Largoneth Castle was converted into the Historic Inn. This popular tourist site did not remain open for long, as the days of the Great Monster Uprising infested the structure with many monsters (as well as many vacancies).