Castle Never

Castle Never, also known as the Keep of Lord Never, was the stronghold and home of the rulers of Neverwinter prior to the destruction of the city in the 15 century DR.

Location
Castle Never was located in the western quadrant of the city inside of a sharp southward bend of the Neverwinter River just before it emptied into the harbor.

Before the Luskan invasion, Castle Never was considered to be part of the City Core, and after the war it was known as part of the Blacklake District. Duirng the rebuilding efforts of the late years of the 15 century DR, the Castle was considered part of the Protector's Enclave.

Structure
The tall, gleaming towers of Castle Never were the first thing that visitors arriving by sea saw of Neverwinter. It was a stone building of imposing stature, and served as a testament to the city's architectural achievements. The castle was ringed by a circular street, and the city's three landmark bridges&mdash;the Dolphin, the Winged Wyvern, and the Sleeping Dragon Bridges&mdash;radiated out from it to connect with the southwestern district of the city.

The Castle was heavily damaged by the eruption of Mount Hotenow in the Ruining. Half of its towers crumbled, the western wall collapsed, and the courtyards were littered with toppled statues and chunks of fallen stone. Being built on an strong foundation, however, the rest of the castle was left mostly intact. As of 1489 DR, Castle Never was still in ruins, however it would be cleared and largely rebuilt over the following years.

Interior
The interior of Castle Never consisted of long corridors and elegant staterooms and gathering halls. It also contained more utilitarian spaces, such as jail cells and an armory where weapons were stored and forged.

Fires swept through the interior of the castle during the Ruining, leaving it filled with ash and dust that would swirl around any explorers or monsters stalking the quiet corridors. While many of the rooms had collapsed, others remained intact&mdash;sometimes eerily so&mdash;including some of the most fortified areas of the castle, notably armory, great hall, and dungeons. The whole place stank of ash, and the wailing and sobbing of the spirits who perished during the eruption would echo through the halls. The towers and upper floors were strewn with cobwebs by the late 15 century DR.

Atrium
During the height of the Alagondar family's rule, the castle contained an open-air garden and aviary. It contained a lovely collection of flowers and other plants, as well as beautiful birds in ornate cages. Following the Ruining, the plants and birds alike were left to rot, and the atrium came to be overtaken by aggressive myconids that spawned from the spores of something in the plant collection. By the late 15 century DR, they had managed to completely seal the once open roof, trapping the smell of rot and the blooms of fungus inside.

Great Hall
The castle's Great Hall was appointed in marble with a red carpet and was where the throne of the city's ruler was located. The hall contained ancient magical defenses that raised the alarm and sealed the gate if the castle came under attack.

Hall of Mirrors
This long corridor with a massive window on one end was adorned with full-length mirrors, and was used by the royal family to practice posture and appearance. However, this proved to be one of the most horrific places in the castle when Mount Hotenow erupted: first the mirrors shattered, slashing all occupants to pieces, just before searing volcanic gasses blasted through the window and incinerated the bodies. The spiritual wound this left on the victims caused the ash and glass in the room to animate and slowly reenact the event whenever a living being entered the room. At this time, it was also known as the Hall of Ashen Mirrors.

The Vault
The treasures of Castle Never and its occupants were stored in a secure vault known to be one of the most tightly secured locations on the Sword Coast. Portcullises on the windows and an alarm that quickly mobilized the guards were meant to ensure that no thief who got near the vault would escape. As of the late 1490s DR, the door to the vault itself was protected by Mordenkainen's arcane seal.

Neverneath
Also known as the "Endless Maze", Neverneath was the catacombs of Castle Never, containing a fortified dungeon and vast crypts, such as the tomb of Lord Halueth Never. These catacombs were magically protected to maintain the structural integrity of the building above, however the Spellplague altered the magic ward over time, increasing its power and giving it a malevolent sentience and the ability to reshape the corridors of Neverneath at will to confound and trap intruders. The corridors could loop back on themselves, forming infinite loops full of deadly traps and gargoyles that attacked anything that moved. Deep within the bowels of the Neverneath were said to be connections to the Shadowfell and to the Underdark.

Tomb of Halueth Never
Somewhere deep in the castle was the final resting place of Lord Halueth Never. His body lay upon a great stone slab and was protected by a ring of twelve gleaming, enchanted swords that would animate and attack any intruder if they did not follow cryptic instructions written on the flagstones. He was also protected by enchanted statues of his most trusted servants, including those of the original Neverwinter Nine.

Vault of the Nine
The Neverwinter Nine, nine elite bodyguards of Nasher Alagonadar and defenders of House Alagondar, were buried in a magically sealed crypt in the depths of the Neverneath. This area consisted of a circular chamber across and filled with everburning torches, which surrounded an Inner Vault sealed with the sigil of Neverwinter and warded with powerful magic. Inside, the Inner Vault was carved with idyllic pictures of Summer illuminated by dim light radiating from nine marble coffins placed radially around a golden throne.

The Holes
As Castle Never was cleared and came back into use in the late 15 century DR, a section beneath the ruins was dedicated as a prison for criminals sentenced to death for high crimes, including murder and treason (including tax evasion). This dungeon&mdash;which came to be known as the "holes"&mdash;was heavily guarded and held mass executions once each tenday, in which the condemned were publicly hanged. Prisoners were allowed a last meal delivered by friends and family on the day before their deaths, but otherwise anyone caught entering the holes was sentenced to imprisonment in them as well. The prison was only accessible through a single, heavily-guarded entrance located on the main level of the castle, although rumors persisted of a monster-infested secret tunnel that connected the holes to the shore of the Blacklake.

Activities
Prior to the Ruining, the castle was the seat of the lord of Neverwinter. It was where rulers like Nasher Alagondar received visitors in the 14 century DR. By the very late 15 century DR, Dagult Neverember had sufficiently restored the castle to once again hold court there.

History
Castle Never was built following the, by Lord Halueth Never, an elven hero from Iliyanbruen, who erected the keep on the site of a victory against Illusk. When he died, he was buried in the Neverneath section of the Castle alongside statues of his faithful servants, the Neverwinter Nine. The city of Neverwinter&mdash;at first known as Eigersstor&mdash;was founded at the same site in the, by humans from Ruathym.

The castle came to be the seat of whichever lord ruled in Neverwinter, and in the early 14 century DR, it became the property of Lord Nasher Alagondar. The castle was frequented by nobles, civil staff members, guild leaders, and the Neverwinter Nine of the time, as they carried out the day-to-day affairs of the city.

In the, the castle was attacked by agents of the King of Shadows in an apparent attempt to assassinate Lord Nasher, who was saved thanks to the intervention of the Kalach-Cha.

The Castle was subsequently inherited by Lord Nasher's descendants, the Alagondar royal family. Following the events of the Spellplague beginning in the, the enchantment bestowed upon the castle's catacombs and foundations to increase its stability began to warp and take on a mind of its own.

Destruction
Castle Never was heavily damaged by the eruption of Mount Hotenow in the, with much of the structure collapsing or burning. All members of the Alagondar family were believed to have died during in the cataclysm, alongside almost anyone else who was inside the castle at the time. The ghosts of these many dead souls dwelt within the castle from then on, and although these spirits were not always hostile to intruders, they reacted violently to any perceived thief or pretender to the throne. The castle would remain abandoned, haunted, and half-coated in volcanic ash for over three decades, and the the seat of the city's leadership would move first to an inn and then to the Hall of Justice with the arrival of Dagult Neverember in the.

In the absence of any human inhabitants, Castle Never was home to only ghosts until fungal spores in the atrium evolved into territorial myconids and ettercaps from the dungeons moved in to claim the ruins, led by a self-described "prophet" called Ryxfith. Then, Valindra Shadowmantle and her undead Thayan forces arrived, driving the ettercaps into the upper floors and remaining towers. Subsequently, a beholder known as Talgath arrived, which attempted to subjugate the ettercaps and drive out the Thayans, who were unable to kill it no matter what they threw at it. Talgath even managed to trap several of Valindra's ghouls when it collapsed a stateroom on them, and these isolated ghouls soon adopted a macabre existence of dressing and acting like the nobility of old, including holding crude and ugly parties, dances, and games in the rooms of the Alagondar court. While eliminating Talgath became a high priority, Valindra's main goal in the castle was to gain access to the Vault of the Nine, hoping to animate the Neverwinter Nine themselves as undead shapechangers capable of piercing Castle Never's wards and infiltrating Neverwinter's government. Her forces established a sanctum in the outer chamber of the Vault of the Nine while she sought a way to bypass the wards on the Inner Vault. In the meantime, Valindra began using the depths of the Neverneath as a lair for her dracolich, Azharzel, starting in the.

Finally, that same year, adventurers in service to Neverwinter launched a raid on Castle Never intending to oust Valindra once and for all. They successfully fought their way through her undead forces and a giant spider pet, defeated the beholder Talgath, and slew the dracolich Azharzel. This broke Valindra's hold on the castle, but it still remained a haunted and undead-infested ruin. Years later&mdash;circa the &mdash;efforts to begin clearing the castle began, but were immediately stymied by demons and the apparent appearance of Orcus within its depths, along with a reanimated Talgath and an illithilich known as Cthylarr. Orcus would subsequently be defeated and return to the Abyss.

Restoration
By the, despite Castle Never still being a dangerous ruin, Lord Protector Dagult Neverember had publicly announced plans to restore it in hopes of bringing prosperity to Neverwinter, and within a few years, he was already holding court inside the castle. Steep taxes were imposed on wealthy merchants, aristocrats, and adventurers to fund the large number of stonemasons, bricklayers, laborers, and guards needed for the restoration of the castle.

As of the, rebuilding efforts were still ongoing, and the restoration of Castle Never had become Neverember's highest priority. By that year, an area beneath the castle had been made into a prison&mdash;called "the holes" by locals&mdash;where those sentenced to death by Neverember were imprisoned. This included Oppal DeScart, a doppelganger working for Acquisitions Incorporated, who was wrongfully arrested when an orc she was impersonating was witnessed committing a murder.

Following the apparent completion of repairs in the late 1490s DR, Castle Never was known as a secure and impregnable fortress. It also became home to the newly ascended Lord of Neverwinter, Forge Fitzwilliam, along with his foster daughter Kira and his advisor Sofina.

Heist
During his reign, Forge Fitzwilliam reintroduced the deadly High Sun Games, and proposed to use Castle Never's secure vaults to house the enormous amounts of wealth brought into town by rich individuals to gamble on the Games, including Porb Piiradost from Waterdeep and Din Caldwell of Baldur's Gate. However, the Castle's defenses were relatively easily evaded by Forge's former allies, the thieves Edgin Darvis, Holga Kilgore, Simon Aumar, and their ally Doric. First, the druid Doric used her wild shape ability to scout the Castle&mdash;infiltrating it as a fly before escaping as a rat and eagle&mdash;and subsequently the thieves mounted a heist by distracting the exterior guards with an illusion, battling the interior guards by luring them into the armory, and disabling the vault's arcane seal of Mordenkainen with the helm of disjunction. However, this led them to discover that Forge had plotted all along to simply steal the accumulated wealth in the vault, and had already transferred it to a secret dock beneath the Neverwinter Arena to be secreted out of the city by ship. The intruders were ultimately captured by Sofina with the use of the spell Evard's black tentacles, and sentenced to fight in the High Sun Games.

Rumors & Legends
It was believed that some survivors of the destruction of Neverwinter had hid the treasures of the Alagondar family in secret rooms and vaults that were magically protected and would only open to a true heir of the Alagondar bloodline. Among those treasures was the fabled lost Crown of Neverwinter, although this item was subsequently obtained and concealed by Dagult Neverember in the.

Inhabitants
Prior to the Ruining, Castle Never was home to the Alagondar royal family, their faithful servants, and their court. Even during this time, however, monsters such as ettercaps still infested the Neverneath.

In the later years of the 1470s DR, the drow adventurers Drizzt Do'Urden and Jarlaxle had established a camp concealed within the ruined courtyard of the castle, where they rested when they were in the area. This camp eventually began to attract locals who wished to learn from the two masters, and by 1479 DR, this suddenly turned into a haven for young thrill-seekers wishing to train in combat and perhaps explore the ruins without either drow needing to be present. Upon discovery of this group of fans, Jarlaxle sent an agent of Bregan D'aerthe, a magically disguised drow named Xalbyn, to keep an eye on them. Jarlaxle's partner, Kimmuriel Oblodra, likewise sent his own agent, a half-drow psion named Aerlyse, to keep an eye on Xalbyn.

In the late 1470s DR, a clan of gnolls led by a minotaur began exploring the Neverneath, only to become trapped by its malign magics. They established a makeshift home within the castle's dungeons as they searched for an exit, but were soon crazed by hunger and hunted anything that joined them in the catacombs.

Notable Inhabitants
Prior to Castle Never's destruction, notable inhabitants included:
 * Halueth Never, the elven warrior credited with founding the original keep.
 * Nasher Alagondar, the Lord (and later King) of Neverwinter in the latter half of the 14 century DR.

Following its destruction, notable inhabitants included:
 * Ryxfith, leader of the ettercaps in the late 15 century DR.
 * Talgath the Watcher, a beholder who attempted to claim the ruin in the late 15 century DR.

Following its restoration, notable inhabitants included:
 * Dagult Neverember, the Lord Protector of Neverwinter.
 * Forge Fitzwilliam, a conman, thief, and the usurper of Neverember's position in the late 1490s DR.
 * Kira Darvis, the foster daughter of Forge Fitzwilliam who had her own room in the Castle.
 * Sofina, a Red Wizard and agent of Szass Tam who aided Forge in securing lordship over Neverwinter for her own aims.