The Hall of Wonder was a great workshop situated in the Wu Pi Te Shao Mountains in the Utter East of southeast Faerûn.[1] It was dedicated to Gond the Wonderbringer, god of artifice, construction, craft, and smithwork.[speculation][note 1]
Description[]
The Hall of Wonder was a huge, cathedral-like space fashioned of stone, with flagstone floors and stone walls supported by massive golden columns. At the head of the room was a "great furnace". This was an enormous structure of bolted steel plates fronted by a cauldron of molten metal and topped by four chimneys that belched fired and hot gas. Scattered all about the Hall of Wonder were work benches covered in various tools, as well as crates and chests of goods.[1]
Four levels of the Hall of Wonder, topped by an unexpected temple of Chauntea, with a golden pillar in the corner.
In the corners and on the sides were layered levels supported by buttresses and connected by stairways; these ascended four floors high. All along their sides were archways and flaming torches set in sconces. On the lowest level, the vast expanse of the main floor was paved with dark-gray flagstones. In the center was a huge image of a hammer lying horizontally above an anvil, picked out in blue flagstones.[note 2] The second level up had a checker pattern dark gray and diamond-purple flagstones. The third had a diagonal-striped pattern of blue over pink flagstones, with a checker pattern of alternating dotted and rhombus-pattern flagstones. The fourth and highest level had large pale-gray slabs with alternating gear symbols—the holy symbol of Gond—and could be topped with foundations for mystical sites.[1]
The Hall of Wonder connected to the Puzzle Palace.[1][note 3]
History[]
Wormskull hard at work in his section of the Hall of Wonder.
Caught in his workshop, Wormskull shows off his new action figure to Garrulos.
During the time of the Bloodforge Wars (648–657 DR),[2] the Hall of Wonder was the secret base of the mad inventor Wormskull the Artificer, where he designed and built his inventions. During the Nuts and !Bolts (sic) conflict, Garrulos the Occasionally Good came to the Hall of Wonder to confront his brother Wormskull over the theft of the Pearl of Power. In one version of events, the artificer revealed he'd installed the Pearl inside a great machine, creating the terrible Juggernaut. It rampaged through the hall, and Garrulos was forced to destroy it in a bloodforge battle. In another, in which the Juggernaut was not yet built, Garrulos simply found his brother there and they fought a bloodforge battle, but Wormskull was victorious.[3][note 4]
Later, the Hall of Wonder was occupied by one Moro Mitedigger, who sold malfunctioning devices and swindled customers in surrounding towns. The leader of the Legendary Campaign came across some of the victims and heard their story, then went to the Hall of Wonder to stop Moro, with the two waging a bloodforge battle there.[4]
At one point, the workshop was home to a group of dwarf smiths, until Willem Warblade forced them out. Thereafter, they hid in the foothills, angrily cursing the intruder. The Legendary Campaign leader discovered them there, then returned to the Hall of Wonder to evict Willem in another bloodforge battle.[4]
Finally, the great inventor Eldura Moreen worked tirelessly within the Hall of Wonder to discover the essence of the bloodforge. But the leader of the Legendary Campaign resolved that no-one should know the secret of what the gods had wrought, and went there to put an end to Eldura's quest in a bloodforge battle.[4]
Appendix[]
Notes[]
- ↑ Though Gond is not named in Blood & Magic, five other gods of the Faerûnian pantheon are, and the gear symbols on the floor tiles bear a close resemblance to Gond's holy symbol. Moreover, the name "Hall of Wonder" is matched by Gond's title "Wonderbringer" and shared by the Hall of Wonders, a Gondar museum in Baldur's Gate. Hence, this article assumes this Hall of Wonder is similarly dedicated to Gond.
- ↑ This may be intended to be the holy symbol of the dwarf god Moradin.
- ↑ In Blood & Magic, there is a clear connection between the Hall of Wonder and Puzzle Palace, with the two linked in the "Nuts and !Bolts" campaign and linking doors in some versions of the battle-map, suggesting they are part of the same complex. However, the nature of this connection is unknown; they might be joined directly or via a tunnel, a portal, or even an enormous slide. The game map places the former in the mountains and the latter near the coast, but should not be considered accurate.
- ↑ In the Blood & Magic game, two alternate campaigns are provided, one for Garrulos and one for Wormskull. These appear to be mutually exclusive and an official history is unknown.
Appearances[]
- Games
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Tachyon Studios (November 1996). Designed by Brian Fargo. Blood & Magic. Interplay.
- ↑ Brian R. James, Ed Greenwood (September 2007). The Grand History of the Realms. Edited by Kim Mohan, Penny Williams. (Wizards of the Coast), pp. 94, 95. ISBN 978-0-7869-4731-7.
- ↑ Tachyon Studios (November 1996). Designed by Brian Fargo. Blood & Magic. Interplay.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Tachyon Studios (November 1996). Designed by Brian Fargo. Blood & Magic. Interplay.
Gallery[]
