The Abbey of Chauntea was an abbey dedicated to the Great Mother on the Sword Coast North, which stood from the 6th to the 10th century DR.[1][2] It was part of the community of Bloodhand Hold, later Nimoar's Hold, and was one of its oldest buildings.[2]
Location[]
This abbey was located on the slopes of Mount Waterdeep,[1][3] on the site where the Palace of Waterdeep would later be built.[4]
Structure[]
The abbey was a complex of buildings constructed of stone, each sporting stained glass windows that depicted Chauntea. Surrounding these buildings were glass greenhouses.[1] The abbey itself had a stone staircase, dug into the side of Mount Waterdeep, that led down into an undercroft and the cellar that was used to store seeds and conceal the abbey's treasures. In later centuries this would be all that remained of the abbey, its staircase buried beneath earth just outside the walls of the Palace of Waterdeep.[3]
Activities[]
The abbots of this complex gathered flora that would have otherwise been lost during the Orcfastings War,[5] such as Chauntea's Token,[1] and planted them in their fields so they could be carefully preserved.[1][5] These plants were utterly unique and were in danger of extinction.[1]
Inhabitants[]
This abbey was operated by a group who called themselves the Sisters of Chauntea. These included the Sisters Earthtender and Warm Hearth.[1]
In the centuries following its destruction, the lingering undercroft of the abbey was home to a dozen or more huecuvas and a wide variety of undead plant monsters. The latter had originated from the vast repository of seeds that were once in the abbey's cellar, transformed by the Earthmother's wrath.[3]
History[]
This abbey was constructed in the Year of Waving Wheat, 554 DR, as part of the community of Bloodhand Hold.[2]
In the Year of the Cold Claws, 940 DR, the Second Trollwar broke out.[6] That year Warlord Gharl and his men set fire to the fields in an effort to stop the coming advance of trolls.[7] Smoke went on to shade the sky and it was not long before the fields around the abbey were ablaze, the raging flames devouring all crops in their wake. The Sisters rushed to harvest a sample of each plant in the fields around their abbey, even if it meant sacrificing their lives. Sister Warm Hearth was most concerned about the field of Chauntea's Token being burned, it being most precious of all the plants and guarded by a dryad that attacked anyone who approached it in its immature state.[1]
Around this time, a group of time-displaced adventurers from the 15th century DR came to the abbey and did what they could to aid the struggling Sisters.[1]
However, the abbey ultimately fell to fire and ruin sometime during the Second Trollwar,[2] a conflict which had spanned from 940 DR to 952 DR.[6] On the day of its destruction about a dozen or more priests were left trapped within the abbey's undercroft, hiding from the trolls. Following the abbey's destruction there remained none who knew of its secret undercroft. And in the centuries that followed,[3] the spirits of the abbey's priests who died in the conflagration would haunt the surrounding area.[2][3] No less than seven specific hauntings were accounted.[2]
The most well known of these hauntings was called the "Monks of the Three Candles". At two bells before dawn, a ghostly procession would approach the guardpost of the southern tower. There the spirits of the priests would march up a long-vanished staircase, heading towards the site of the abbey fields that once stood on Mount Waterdeep.[8] A lesser known haunting, named the "Ghost of the Bathing Monk", would occur on nights following a rainfall that managed to fill up a small hollow like a wild bathing pool. The spirit of a man dripping wet would manifest upon the slopes above the Palace of Waterdeep. It would take notice of some far-off danger and then rushes down Mount Waterdeep, dripping water in his wake, before vanishing into the ground at the long-buried site of the staircase to the abbey's undercroft.[3]
Appendix[]
Appearances[]
Organized Play & Licensed Adventures
References[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Lo Pierce (2018). Hero of the Troll Wars (DDAL08-05) (PDF). D&D Adventurers League: Waterdeep (Wizards of the Coast), p. 16.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Eric L. Boyd (June 2005). City of Splendors: Waterdeep. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 116. ISBN 0-7869-3693-2.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Eric L. Boyd (June 2005). City of Splendors: Waterdeep. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 117. ISBN 0-7869-3693-2.
- ↑ Eric L. Boyd (June 2005). City of Splendors: Waterdeep. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 11. ISBN 0-7869-3693-2.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lo Pierce (2018). Hero of the Troll Wars (DDAL08-05) (PDF). D&D Adventurers League: Waterdeep (Wizards of the Coast), p. 2.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Ed Greenwood and Steven E. Schend (July 1994). “Campaign Guide”. City of Splendors (TSR, Inc), p. 29. ISBN 0-5607-6868-1.
- ↑ Lo Pierce (2018). Hero of the Troll Wars (DDAL08-05) (PDF). D&D Adventurers League: Waterdeep (Wizards of the Coast), p. 4.
- ↑ Eric L. Boyd (June 2005). City of Splendors: Waterdeep. (Wizards of the Coast), pp. 116–117. ISBN 0-7869-3693-2.