Kraken Bay

From the Writers at Dungeon in a Box with additions from this world owner.

Of all the creatures that dwell in the Greenwold, even the dragon lords fear the might of the ageless leviathan that dwells the deeps of Kraken Bay.

— Phineas Walden Morgan

Kraken Bay is named because it is the chosen home of a great and terrible Kraken. This fearsome creature has called the Bay his home as long as anyone can remember. He tolerates no intruders, wrecking any ships that sail into his home and laying waste to any settlements that try and live on the Bay’s shores. The short memory of man means that he gets to destroy some foolish group every few years. The islands inside the bay are populated by goblins that worship it as a god. Because no-one in their right mind lives within sight of the Bay, that area of land is favored by bandits seeking to hide from the law.

Terrible Beast of the Bay

The kraken has never been seen in its entirety by surface dwellers - but partial accountings from shell-shocked survivors describe an abominable mixture of giant squid and deep sea fish, replete with bulbous eyes, massive tentacles, oozing flesh and needle like teeth of impossible length. Sages have estimated that, laid out from end-to-end, the kraken would stretch longer than Castle Grayhaven.
What is known for certain is that the kraken is ancient by any standards. The earliest known historical record of life in the Greenwold, in fact, is an accounting of a “great monstrosity, a storm of lightning and tentacles… arising from the deep.”
Based on existing lore, it appears that the kraken not only predates arrival of humans to the Greenwold, and may even predate the arrival of the dragons themselves. The chill waters of Kraken Bay are unfathomably deep, and hide their mysteries well.

Knights of the Spire

Because of the danger of provoking the kraken, one of the primary duties of the Knights of the Spire is to ensure that no ship, boat or watercraft ever sail upon the bay, as nothing so sure to rouse the kraken to its terrible wrath. Nevertheless, continual observation by the Knights makes one thing clear - Kraken Bay is far from uninhabited.

The Bay and Goblins

Countless islets are sprinkled across the bay, nearly all of them populated by goblin tribes.The islands of the bay tend to be rugged - with rocky coasts and thick woods - perfect for weathering the frequent storms that sweep the area. The tribes that dwell on them each appear to exist in near total isolation - living in crude dwelling and scavenging or hunting food as they can.
Oddly, they all seem to be unified by similar religious practices - and have been observed taking to the water in crude rafts on rare occasions, actions which seem to be ignored by the kraken.
How and why these goblin tribes came to live with in the Kraken’s domain, and how they’ve come to achieve even the crude level of civilization they possess, are mysteries and yet solved by human sages.
If truth, the goblins live in the bay by the kraken’s design. Despite its monstrous appearance, the kraken possess a tremendous intellect, coupled with a perfect memory and inhuman curiosity. In the name of experimentation it has populated isles with different goblin tribes - exerting its powers and using its servants to subject them to different conditions. It observes the changes to the populations with great interest - working to create “exceptional” individuals.
The kraken brings these chosen into more immediate contact with itself, producing a tribe of “kraken priests” that it manipulates to fulfill its long term goal... sinking the entire coast of the Greenwold and bringing its cities within its watery domain.

Type

Bay

Location under

The Harpy Coast

Included Locations

• Bandit Brakes
• New Regalport