The "Lighthouse"

The "Lighthouse" was an ancient Yishamin biosphere, a labyrinthine self-contained barracks built up around an artifact of immense power and import known as a "Lantern". The Ladies' Hiking Club stumbled into it during the Siege of Bridlip, as they followed invading forces down underneath the town chapel.

History

Purpose

The history of the Lighthouse is somewhat uncertain, and put together piecemeal predominantly by Vega Spritzer as she sought to interpret the art and writings of the inhabitants. As far as she could tell, the Lighthouse was erected in order to protect the "Lantern" -- effectively a prison cell for the left arm of the archlich Naraoth and a "plug" in the flow of the Green Dream into our reality -- from any who would come to defile it, seeking to bring about the apocalypse her capture narrowly avoided at the end of the Autumn Age.
Bishop Olwyn Graye appeared to have been in charge of the Paladinate order that lived in the Lighthouse for more than 1400 years, seeking to maintain order and devotion in the absence of an outside world. Many of the clues about what happened in this place were derived from his journals and official records.

Personal Drama and Downfall

The records of Bishop Olwyn seem to suggest that two of his paladins engaged in impermissible fraternizing, resulting in the birth of twins. This birth and/or the sin giving rise to it somehow offset the carefully constructed and magically maintained balance of the Lighthouse. Over the ensuing millennium, the power of the magical daylight lowered, crops began to fail, supplies began to run low and the structure began to decay. To their credit, although they imprisoned the fraternizing pair and ultimately buried them in unmarked graves, the Paladinate order did care deeply for the children Irma and Jad, and starved to death rather than see them come to harm first.

Jad and Irma

Whatever residual magic lingered in that place seemed tethered to the twins, sacrificing all other bandwidth to maintain their lives even after it was unable to retain their hair, flesh or blood. After more than a millennium of decay, Jad and Irma were the sole survivors of a badly dilapidated Lighthouse, moving about it as abandoned skeletal toddlers, unable to draw enough magical energy to grow up or to care for themselves. Fortunately the residual magicks in the Lighthouse, intended to prevent the decay of mortal soldiers, seemed to have prevented their decay such that they had no strict need for food or drink. They were alive and alert in the Lighthouse when the vanguard of the siege came through.

Individual Contacts

The Ladies' Hiking Club encountered the following notable individuals while investigating the Lighthouse:

• The Hobgoblin Who Got His Dog’s Throat Cut And His Balls Almost Torn Off
• Irma and Jad Galmore
• Bik
• The Illusionary Beholder
• The Tin Can Mage
• "Bob"
• The Silent Man
• General Kuzoh
• Decima Overmere

Type

Military, Base