Black Loch

The Black Loch is a small sea set within the Upperdark section of Nexus' Underdark. Many of the Underdark's residents have built settlements on its shores to use the Loch as a supply of drinking water and seafood. Vessels carved of zurkhwood sail across its waters as fishing boats, trade vessels, and pirate raiders.
The most notable of these communities is the Deep Spire, which is an oddity of the Underdark in that it is a mixed community of different humanoids. It is the Loch's center of trade and its peace is kept by two ruling powers, a clan of formidable orogs and the members of a noble drow house, who oversee the Spire jointly.
Many other communities and areas of interest lie either in the Loch itself or nearby with travel there made swift thanks to the Loch's waters, including:

• Brazenthrone, the duergar City of Blades, west of the Loch via river.
• Charwell Fortress, a millennia-old abandoned fortress on the northeastern side of the Loch.
• The Chesterboro Arms, an inn run by the ogre Lim by the western shores of the Loch.
• Cinderfolk Foundry, a duergar outpost used by individuals from Brazenthrone when they travel around the Loch.
• Clogwyn Prison, an ancient dwarven prison flooded 600 years ago by the Loch's rising waters.
• Eel's Maw Stronghold, ???.
• Glogdolp, a kuo-toa village on the Loch's southern shores.
• Halls of the Awakened, ???.
• Lost Catacombs of Auldbaern, the fabled resting place of dwarven king Aron II, who died defending his home from a drow invasion.
• The Nail, an isle to the southwest of Skatha's Rest that served as the Light Gundam's base of operations.
• Ollin's Borehole, an abandoned deep gnome mine now home to a growing colony of myrmex.
• The Ruins of Gyan'dis, a mind flayer colony whose citizens died in mass suicide before it the colony itself was destroyed by Villamax with an earthquake.
• Sanctum of Psor'il, ???.
• Skatha's Rest, a ruined but serviceable meeting hall that serves as the site of the Tideborne Tribe's yearly gathering.
• The Smoldering Abyss, a crevice as well as the deepest part of the Loch that is home to volcanic activity.
• Spyr-Anaisz, a drow town built into stalactites on the northwestern side of the Loch.

While the local wildlife has little interest in boats, it is well known that swimming in the Loch comes with great risk. Most creatures living in the Loch are carnivorous and have a natural instinct to zero in on any land-based creature they detect flailing about for an easy meal. Despite the danger the wildlife presents, there are said to be lost ships and other sunken treasures on the bottom of the Loch that are prone to tempt bold adventurers. These lost treasures have gotten deeper as the years have gone by, as the occasional earthquake will redirect one of the many nearby underground rivers into the Loch.
The kuo-toa of Glogdolp claim that their ancestors were the first to settle the area and named the Black Loch; while some doubt this claim, others believe it given the kuo-toa's general lack of sanity and the fact that the Black Loch is actually a sea rather than a loch.

Type

Sea

Related Plots

• Campaign 05: Uncovering the Underdark