Thousands of years ago, one of the eladrin’s feyspires, Shae Tirias Tolai, slipped from Thelanis into Xen'drik— but when it appeared, the giants were waiting. They pillaged the feyspire, claiming its treasures and taking its people as slaves. The other eladrin lords responded by improving their defensive magic. However, some among them wanted more—they sought vengeance.

The lords of Shae Doresh, the Spire of Dreams, swore to make the giants pay. They transformed their settlement into a mighty fortress, crafting arms, armor, and powerful spells of battle. When their feyspire next appeared in Eberron, they challenged the emperor of the giants, but they had woefully underestimated the power of the titan king. With a powerful ritual, he banished the feyspire to the plane of Dal Quor, where it remained trapped until the cycle of that plane spat it back to Thelanis once more.

By the time Shae Doresh next returned to Eberron, the giants had been laid low. However, the fey had been tainted by their long sojourn in Dal Quor, their feyspire transformed into a haven for nightmares—now called Taer Lian Doresh, the Fortress of Fading Dreams.

Like all the other feyspires, Taer Lian Doresh has continued to drift between Thelanis and Eberron. With each cycle, the fey of the Fading Dream nurture their anger for their own dark transformation. They hunt and kill all who stray too close to their citadel. They despise other eladrin for being weak, and consider the elves to be a debased mockery better wiped away.

The spire exists in a state of flux, simultaneously on Dal Quor and Eberron. Within the fortress, adventurers can meet and physically interact with the spirits of dreamers or quori—though anyone who leaves the spire returns to the plane he or she came from. The Lord of the Fading Dream is no servant of the Dreaming Dark, but he is willing to work with the quori when doing so will spread sorrow across the land.

Lore

Arcana DC 20: Nearly every legend told of the eladrin makes mention of one of the mythic feyspires, the glorious cities of Thelanis, the Feywild. Yet of the seven fabled spires, few tales in the current age speak of Shae Doresh, the Spire of Dreams. When asked of its fate, the eladrin cast their eyes to the ground and grow reticent to speak of the deep past. Shae Doresh has been deemed lost to Thelanis and eladrin both, though whispers of the fey suggest it survives somewhere.

Arcana DC 25: Like all the planes, Thelanis drifts within a cosmic cycle of its own; it becomes coterminous with Eberron every 255 years for a period of seven years. Thousands of years before the humans of Sarlona migrated to Khorvaire, the eladrin suffered the loss of one of their feyspires, Shae Tirias Tolai, when it shifted from the plane of Thelanis to the continent of Xen’drik during one such coterminous period. The giants who reigned on Eberron pillaged the tower and enslaved its occupants, forcing the remaining feyspires to bolster their magical defenses. But the lords of Shae Doresh, Spire of Dreams, refused to cower and wait for the next assault. They sought vengeance for their ill-fated kin, spending the duration of the next planar cycle crafting battle spells and armaments of war. Nursing an unforgivable grievance for their people’s loss, they rebuilt their citadel into a fortress of destruction and demanded the other feyspires do the same. But the other spires could not be swayed from the defensive stance they believed necessary. At last, when Thelanis became coterminous with Eberron again, the lords of Shae Doresh spoke their challenge.

Alone against the giants, the fey of Shae Doresh had no chance—despite their preparations and their considerable magic. Rather than retaliating with bloodshed alone, the titan king enacted a powerful ritual, casting the entire feyspire into Dal Quor, the Region of Dreams. Exiled beyond their ability to overcome, the inhabitants of the feyspire languished for thousands of years in that oneiric realm. In time, dreams gave way to nightmares: The eladrin host and their allies were transformed into embittered shadows of their former selves. When Dal Quor became coterminous with Thelanis again, the feyspire returned to its ancestral home. But Shae Doresh had already become Taer Lian Doresh, the Fortress of Fading Dreams.

Arcana DC 30: The feyspires of Thelanis have been stranded on Eberron since the Day of Mourning, though none know how or why. Taer Lian Doresh is no exception, though its location remains unknown. Rumors claim that the fey of the Fading Dream foster living nightmares within their citadel, turning dark and errant thoughts into substance and unleashing them upon a hated world. Those who have managed to survive encounters with them say that these twisted fey can turn their enemies’ fears against them. The fey of the Fading Dream harbor a secret that they impart only to those who can serve their interests: Taer Lian Doresh now exists on both the material world and in Dal Quor. Dreams may take physical form within its halls, and both residents and visitors alike can interact with the spirits of mortal dreamers. Even the quori, the nightmare denizens of that plane, come and go in the flesh.

The Dreaming Dark

Due to magic enacted during the Age of Giants, most ties between Eberron and Dal Quor have long been severed. Taer Lian Doresh is not a true bridge between the waking world and the Region of Dreams. It overlaps and exists on both planes, but whenever a creature from either exits the feyspire, it returns to its plane of entry. In this way, quori cannot venture beyond the bounds of the citadel into Eberron proper, and denizens of Eberron cannot pass fully into Dal Quor. Yet Taer Lian Doresh still provides a unique opportunity for the Dreaming Dark. The quori have taken keen interest in the feyspire’s unique position and regularly negotiate with Shan Doresh and his diplomats for its use.

Enemies Within: Kalashtar characters or any other servants of il-Yannah who have proven a nuisance to the Dreaming Dark may find themselves invited by the fey to visit Taer Lian Doresh, unaware that the quori have “hired” them to do so. What may seem a unique opportunity to interact with the lords of a lost feyspire might, in fact, be a trap. In exchange for unknown services, the eladrin are merely delivering them into nightmarish hands. As terrifying as the quori are in dreams, their manifestation in the flesh is far worse.

The Shrouded Shages

Governed by Santyriana, the Shrouded Sages are a cabal of mystics who regularly part the veil between planes to discern patterns and prophecies that can be exploited by the Fading Dream. They sift through relics and lore gathered from the world outside, either from equipment their victims carry or in dreams they harbor. Each Sage wears long, dark robes made ragged by centuries of nightmares, while deep hoods conceal their faces. Most appear to be eladrin, but a disturbing handful are smaller in size, suggesting the bodies of gnomes or eladrin children.

Avaricious Acquisition: The Shrouded Sages excel at giving substance to the imagined. When they have identified a mortal whose dreams they wish to cultivate, they arrange for one of their agents to seek that individual out in the wider world and bring them to Taer Lian Doresh in person. Within the citadel, the victim’s nightmares can materialize fully and be shackled for the Fading Dream’s own purposes.

Philters of Fear: The Sages brew a draught specially designed to incite nightmares. Drinking this otherwise innocuous solution draws the spirit of a dreamer to Taer Lian Doresh the next time he or she sleeps. In this way, the fey can communicate with prospective allies and victims. Such draughts are supplied to agents of the Fading Dream specifically for this use. More than one courtier or diplomat from the Five Nations has been interrogated by Shan Lian Doresh himself in this way—only to awaken hours later in bed, sweat-soaked and terrified. In most cases, the subject is made to forget the dream, recalling only shreds of a nightmare that he or she would rather not think about.

Locations

The Whitepine Forest

Seen from above, the Whitepine Forest is pale in hue. The needles of its lush evergreens are the color of jade, and mist clings to the canopy long after dawn. Dusted with snow for the better part of each year, the woods evoke a sense of cold serenity and wondrous beauty. But so dense is the Whitepine that travelers find it exceptionally dark even in daylight hours. Without a guide or a keen awareness, it’s easy to become lost.

Wailing Spirits: The woods immediately surrounding Taer Lian Doresh are haunted by ghosts risen from the victims of the feyspire—usually those who intruded uninvited or were hunted down by the vindictive fey. Banshees are common among them, filling the lonely hollows with their anguished cries. Most express their rage by attacking any living intruder they encounter, while a rare few actually try to warn away adventurers so that they do not suffer the same fate.

Walls of Steam: The region in which Taer Lian Doresh now resides is scattered with warm natural springs and volatile geysers that keep the colder temperatures at bay. From above, the feyspire is concealed by perpetually rising steam. In fact, the seething mists immediately encircling the glade mark the border between planes, where Dal Quor bleeds into the waking world.

The Approach

Though Taer Lian Doresh was reconstructed thousands of years ago into an engine of war, the lofty towers of this dark citadel are still beautiful to behold—at least initially. Like the worst of nightmares, what begins as pleasing to the eye gradually shifts into something disquieting.

Misdirection: As in dreams, a visitor’s sense of direction in the Fortress is permanently upset. There is no north or south; no matter which direction a visitor approaches the city, they face the “front” of the feyspire at all times. Circling around the glade to approach from another direction, even in separate groups, is futile. Intruders will arrive at precisely the same place.

The Soughing Bridge: A high wall forms the perimeter of a great pool, serving the host as both reservoir and moat. The pool contains whatever an intruder fears or whatever Shan Lian Doresh requires: fouled water, corrosive acid, a miasma of poisonous fumes, or even a gaping chasm. Whatever horror one perceives is phantasmal in nature but can kill, if one isn’t careful. On Shan Doresh’s whim, the pool can also harden into a plain of polished mirror, allowing his army an easy exit. A narrow bridge of black marble spans the reservoir, where apparitions inspired by a visitor’s regrets take incorporeal shape and murmur their anguish.

Trees of Sentinel

When the eladrin prepared their citadel for war against the giants, six mighty trees were shaped into defensible forts, then transmuted into iron. Dal Quor has since transformed these trees into mockeries of their former selves, jagged stumps bereft of branches or leaves. Balconies, windows, and arrow slits—carved from the living wood before the transmutation—look down upon the city proper beneath the sharp remnants of great iron trunks. Dryads of the Fading Dream lurk within these angular forts, while eladrin archers regularly watch from the windows.

Towers

Six great towers, each crowned with narrow spires and domed turrets, rise above the city proper. Seen from afar, some visitors perceive them as colossal furnaces, spewing foul smoke into the sky, while others see great columns of bone weeping vile fluid or melting like mountainous candles. Such visions, born of one’s own darker mind, may be tentatively held at bay for those who are expected, but even they find the citadel’s appearance ultimately disturbing. At their most pleasing, the halls of Taer Lian Doresh still seem not quite right, like a sinister face hidden behind a mask of gallantry. Everywhere one looks there seems a shadowed alcove, a drawn curtain, or a door left slightly ajar, daring and dreading to be examined. Depending upon which balcony or window one looks out from, one may see the singular landscape of Dal Quor or a misty panorama of the Whitepine Forest.

Feverish Flux: Many places throughout the city include intermittent squares of fantastic terrain such as mirror crystal, slides, eldritch influxes, and phase mist. If there is a particular terrain type that characters fear or anticipate, it is likely they will find it before long merely by thinking about it.

Grottoes and Groves

Between the greater towers of the feyspire lies an array of smaller structures, fey domiciles, pathways, and gardens. Once well-ordered and aesthetic, this part of the city is now a labyrinth of winding tunnels, savage groves, and buildings that look more like mausoleums than homes. Some eladrin live in this district, but mostly the other fey races make their abodes here. Gnomes dwell in half-buried grottoes, while dryads and banshraes lair among twisted trees and razorlike vines. Galleries of shattered stone and empty plazas bereft of any semblance of flora break up this tangled region. More than one coven of hags vies for territory among the ruins, while quickling errand-runners and satyr heralds rove between this district and the greater towers. An assortment of beasts—some previously unseen in Eberron—have been bred here. Many of these pets remain caged, while others prowl freely and sometimes wander far from Taer Lian Doresh.

The Battle Breeder: A blind cyclops, the only one of his kind to have served Shae Doresh before its long disappearance, dwells in a warren of volcanic rock somewhere beneath the groves. Known only as Sammet the Eyeshot, he is a wrangler of battlebriars and a stablemaster for the Fading Dream’s finest mounts. Although his first instinct is to use the bones of intruders to armor his beasts, Sammet can be mollified with tales of wonders seen or offers of exotic specimens for his menagerie.

Night's Refuge

Situated in the heart of the city is Night’s Refuge, a wide courtyard of tables, chairs, and leafy arbors. Under the open sky (of both Eberron and Dal Quor), this former hippodrome has been converted into a place of gathering, where even food and drink are sold by fey merchants and eerie music drifts through the air like vapor. By Shan Doresh’s mysterious decree, none may be harmed at Night’s Refuge. It is the feyspire’s sole place of sanctuary, existing under a law even dumb beasts in service to the fey recognize. If the characters can make their way to this surreal area, they can find rest and relief from the living nightmares of Taer Lian Doresh. If they have made enemies within the feyspire, they can conceivably share a drink with them here without threat of attack—provided they abide by the state of truce. Some wayward intruders, and even spirits of dreamers, have become too afraid to leave the Refuge ever again. For them, it is both sanctuary and prison.

Adjuvant: Envoy of Blades

When word reached the Lord of Blades that a feyspire had been discovered in the forests of the Lhazaar mainland, he dispatched agents to learn more about it. Upon hearing that it was a place of fleshbound nightmares, he wasted no time in sending one of his most trusted servants: Adjuvant, warrior envoy, who often spoke for the Lord of Blades when the warforged tyrant sought allies against the Five Nations. Adjuvant was tasked with making contact with the Lord of the Fading Dream on behalf of his lord. It took a very long time to find Taer Lian Doresh, but at last he succeeded. Upon entering the Fortress, Adjuvant extended a diplomatic, three-fingered hand in greeting—and was promptly refused exit. There were no discussions or exchange of court protocols. He’d become a prisoner.

The warforged are of great interest to Shan Doresh; they are a young race even by human standards, artificial yet living, and they do not sleep or dream. The eladrin lord allows Adjuvant to wander the halls of Taer Lian Doresh freely—that he might study him when he so chooses—but he does not allow the warforged to find the way out. Shan Doresh’s subjects have been instructed not to harm Adjuvant except in self-defense.

Hook: Prison Break

Adjuvant is a deeply frustrated warforged. He has been ordered by the Lord of Blades to maintain diplomatic relations, but he is a warrior at heart and he has been made a captive. Should he fight his way out—he is sorely outmatched by the numerous and powerful fey—or is finding the labyrinth’s exit merely a test? The predicament is an elaborate puzzle box he must solve; therefore he spends his time studying the feyspire and searching for clues. If he meets visitors such as the player characters, he seeks an alliance.

But in Adjuvant the player characters find a dangerous ally. As a Blade, he is contemptuous of all “breathers” but he realizes he might need assistance to escape. Other warforged could discover that he is recruiting for the Lord of Blades. If the player characters refuse to assist him, Adjuvant almost certainly attacks. Even if they succeed in helping him escape Taer Lian Doresh, the warforged envoy likely turns on them when the Fortress is safely behind. If they do not serve the interest of the Lord of Blades, they are a liability

Amdrashar: Consul of the Dreaming Dark

Since the stranding of the feyspires on the Day of Mourning, the Dreaming Dark has taken a keen interest in them—but none more than Taer Lian Doresh. Although the Fortress’s existence on both Dal Quor and Eberron does not make it a standing doorway between the two, it is a window through which the quori can extend physical hands. Perhaps it can be exploited in their schemes. Recently, it has fallen to Amdrashar of Riedra to investigate Taer Lian Doresh from the vantage of the waking world. Of the few quori granted permission to come and go within its halls in Dal Quor, she is the only one who can exit onto Eberron because that is her point of entry—as one of the Inspired. She is an esteemed Riedran consul, tasked with representing the Dreaming Dark’s worldly interests among the nightmare fey. The Dreaming Dark plays a delicate game, because the quori must defer to Shan Doresh’s laws if they are to retain access to the Fortress.

Like all of the Inspired, Amdrashar appears to be a human of unearthly beauty with vaguely elven features and a fiendish grace. Behind this veneer of elegance lurks a malignant spirit as vile as her plans. Whenever she sets foot within the Fortress of Fading Dreams, her true self—a hashalaq quori—is forcefully separated from her host body, where she can float freely beside it. Only in Taer Lian Doresh can one of the Inspired be encountered as two separate bodies: the humanlike vessel and the quori itself. In this state, the vessel’s mind regains control of its body, though it has been conditioned since birth to obey and defend the quori.

Hashalaq quori usually assume a humanoid form, but their bodies are composed of hundreds of flexible, jellylike tendrils that can stretch or compress into many different shapes. Amdrashar arranges the fine coils of her body to resemble that of a woman in flowing blue robes, with both capillary hair and soft, mesmerizing light issuing from a deep hood.

Hook: Damsel in Distress

Amdrashar can be encountered both within Taer Lian Doresh (in her true quori form, drifting beside her vessel) or without (as an Inspired, quori and vessel combined), studying the nature of the Fortress and its unique planar duality. She does not serve Shan Doresh, but she is considered a welcome guest of the nightmare fey and treats them with outward respect. As a loremaster of the quori, she naturally involves herself in the intrigues of Taer Lian Doresh, its visitors, and its victims. Using her malleable form, she usually wears the guise of a visitor to the Fortress to fool other visitors—perhaps as a Karrnathi ambassador, a Lhazaarite explorer, or a wizard of the Twelve. She typically adopts a demure persona to earn the trust and protection of those she wishes to study and inevitably betray.

Amdrashar enjoys greater freedoms within Taer Lian Doresh than most quori. She can wander the labyrinthine passages above and below the feyspire without expressed permission. If the player characters have ever made an enemy of the Dreaming Dark, Amdrashar can be called upon to eliminate them. When she must kill, she prefers to manipulate others into the murderous act, but if her plans unravel she will do whatever it takes to get the job done.

The Halequinade

When it was clear that Taer Lian Doresh wasn’t going to drift back to Dal Quor, the Region of Dreams, Shan Doresh summoned his royal advisors. Among these was Marrot the Fool, an old friend, court jester, and patriarch of a clan of gnome troubadours known across all of Thelanis. The Shrouded Sages were also consulted and, under Santyriana’s direction, brewed a philter that would incite nightmares in those mortals who drank of it. More importantly, the spirits of these dreamers would be summoned to Taer Lian Doresh as they slept, to bear the scrutiny of the Fading Dream. Their plan was to begin exploring the wishes and fears of everyday people, soldiers, and rulers of Khorvaire and beyond. When the time was right, it was Marrot who volunteered the service of his gnome kinfolk, whose task it became to carry their sweet and soporific draught into the larger world. And so the Harlequinade was born.

On the surface, the Harlequinade appears to be a traveling troupe of comedic performers, minstrels, and sideshow hawkers who provide entertainment for coin. Brightly colored wagons festooned with bells and garish, motley costumes are their hallmarks. As their caravans approach a village, jovial barkers skip ahead and spread word of their arrival and of the sights, sounds, and spectacles they offer. The Harlequinade specializes in madcap antics, buffoonery, and scurrilous music. Yet beneath the mask of comedy, they are still agents of the Fading Dream, purveyors of a nightmare-inducing potion.

The fey of the Harlequinade answer chiefly to their patriarch, Marrot, who remains at his lord’s side in Taer Lian Doresh, but they unswervingly serve the interests of the Fading Dream as a whole. The troupe consists mostly of gnomes, but a few eladrin, nymphs, and satyrs have joined in their sinister brand of merrymaking. Without exception, all members are wyrds, fey from Taer Lian Doresh, and all well remember their “sojourn” in Dal Quor. It is some of that unspeakable horror they wish to impress upon their audience.

The gnomes of the Harlequinade each look a little different, but there is a subtle uniformity to their dress and appearance. Some aspects of their costumes might even be part of their Dal Quor-twisted bodies: what appears to be a gnome on stilts might, in fact, be a gnome with grotesquely long legs; a contortionist’s natural position might be contorted; oversized shoes might be oversized feet; a blood-red, bulbous nose might not be a prosthetic. In addition, all the gnomes of the Harlequinade have a row of sharp, interlocking teeth like a piranha’s.

Hook: To Sleep, Perchance to Scream

Keeping well away from major cities and the attention of other feyspires, Harlequinade caravans travel only to small rustic towns in Khorvaire, falsifying an association to House Phiarlan and its famous Carnival of Shadows to attract paying customers. These pernicious fey have one goal—to recruit nightmares from abroad—but they are still entertainers at the core and enjoy delighting their victims before ensnaring them. Members of the crowd who look powerful or interesting become candidates for the philters of the Fading Dream they carry: The gnomes slip the potion into drinks at the first opportunity or even give it to candidates outright as a sweet confectionary beverage. Then they’ll let the philters, and Shrouded Sages back home, take it from there.

Player characters will inevitably be targeted. All others are fair game for the slaughter, provided the gnomes can catch their victims alone or without risk of garnering the attention of local authorities. The Harlequinade sometimes kidnaps choice victims before stealing away like gypsies. Some of their “hired hands” and sideshow freaks were once delighted audience members.

Bad Dreams

Every wagon or caravan of the Harlequinade contains at least one cache of philters of the Fading Dream. They are bottled in unassuming, colorful glass vials and smell and taste like sweet, peculiar liqueurs, but these sinister gnomes are not above using the philter as an ingredient in the making of sweetmeats for children. Only the Shrouded Sages in Taer Lian Doresh can brew the philters. Whenever a caravan runs out, the Harlequinade gnomes return home for a fresh supply.

Sidgevin, Viscount Vindicator

The Fortress of Fading Dreams numbers more than three thousand eladrin within its ancient and disquieting halls, but none cries for the blood of outsiders more than Sidgevin. Formerly viscount of a small domain just outside of Shae Doresh before it was exiled to Dal Quor, Sidgevin answered his liege’s call to arms against the giants and met the same fate as all the fey in the Spire of Dreams. Now denied sovereign authority of his own, Sidgevin’s frustration and rage has given him an obsessive lust for slaughter and made him Shan Doresh’s personal attack dog. Foregoing fear as a weapon, Sidgevin is one of the few of the Fading Dream fey who would rather slay than torment an enemy. Accordingly, Sidgevin regularly counsels Shan Doresh to avenge and subjugate the mortal world, not merely study and exploit it. This bloodlust has denied him a place among his liege’s elite Knights of Terror, another frustration poisoning his pride.

Sidgevin appears like any regal eladrin warrior, handsome and resplendent in mithral chainmail, the very picture of a forest lord from ancient tales. Yet like all fey of the Fading Dream, his noble personage includes the unsettling aspects of a nightmare. Sidgevin wears his contempt for outsiders like a mask he cannot remove, exuding hate in a palpable rage.

Hook: Throwing Down the Gauntlet

Sidgevin craves violence. He seeks any excuse to shed the blood of his enemies, and to him, everyone who is not part of the Fading Dream is an enemy. The moment he is made aware of visitors to Taer Lian Doresh, Sidgevin makes his presence known— especially to player characters. If they are invited on peaceable terms, he adopts an arrogant civility that poorly conceals his hate, seeking any excuse to be insulted or to hear his lord slandered. In short, he is spoiling for a fight at all times and will seek the permission from Shan Doresh to challenge the player characters. Even under a truce, Sidgevin looks for a loophole.

Marrot the Fool

One of Shan Doresh’s oldest friends is the bard known as Marrot the Fool. He became a court jester when the Spire of Dreams was first shaped in the beauteous wilds of Thelanis, and he has accompanied Shan Doresh for so long that he is the only companion who remembers the eladrin lord’s real name. Before the Age of Giants, this gnome and his riotous clan were minstrels and entertainers across the breadth of the Feywild. They performed for eladrin courts and satyr glades alike; even for dumbstruck humans when the planes became coterminous. When the giants in Xen’drik seized the feyspire Shae Tirias, Marrot ended his ramblings and swore a solemn allegiance to Shan Doresh. The charismatic gnome journeyed with Shan Doresh to help him persuade the other lords of Thelanis to unite against the giants of Eberron. The other eladrin chose to focus on their defenses instead, leaving the spire of Shae Doresh to fight alone. Marrot’s fate was sealed when he gave his loyalty to Shan Doresh, for he has been tortured and driven by the nightmares of Dal Quor like all the rest. In the depths of their anguish, it was Marrot the Fool who could tease a smile out of the suffering fey.

Today, Marrot has become a freakish parody of himself. He wears a mask that resembles his original face which gives him the mirthful and craggy appearance of a grandfatherly gnome. His real face beneath is the same visage, but it is carved like that of a wooden puppet. In his hand he carries a mock scepter that serves as a symbol of his station and as a wand for battle. Its mocking head changes on Marrot’s whim to assume his own countenance or that of a chosen enemy.

Marrot is both mystery and mountebank. He performs tricks that amuse, twist, and suspend disbelief for a people already infused with magic. He makes the mundane appear supernatural and the fantastical appear prosaic. Before exile to Dal Quor, Marrot appeared across the world in children’s stories and faerie tales as a famous clown: a heroic if downtrodden fool who swindled dragons, pranked demons, and immolated kings.

Hook: Surely You Jest

Marrot attends, amuses, and advises Shan Doresh as needed, but he also enacts many independent schemes of his own. Above all, he directs the caravans of the Harlequinade as a puppetmaster from afar, gathering the philters of the Fading Dream from the Shrouded Sages and supplying them to his roving clan. Any plot involving these twisted gnomes ultimately ties back to Marrot. If any of his caravans are destroyed by meddling heroes, he desires from them an introduction! Marrot arranges such a meeting through their dreams, intending to lure them back to Taer Lian Doresh so they can meet face to face.

Marrot has one weakness. He loves well-contrived stories and often features himself in the telling. As a result, tales about him and his adventures—real or imagined—have rippled through many cultures within Thelanis and across Eberron over the ages, evolving as they drift. If any such stories are offered to him, he pauses to listen

Mounting Fear

Due west of Taer Lian Doresh and just beyond the edge of the forest rise the Hoarfrost Mountains and the Mror Holds. Lately, the dreams of the dwarves of Narathun have become troubled. Of all the Mrorian territories, Narathunhold lies closest to Taer Lian Doresh. It presides over the eastern rim of the dwarven realm and looks down upon the Whitepine Forest and the Lhazaar waters.

Shan Doresh has been whispering into the hearts of these geographic neighbors as they sleep, inspiring both greed and paranoia. Consequently, the clan lords have been having dreams they fear might be prophetic in nature—that the dwarves of Clan Toldorath and the Jhorash’tar orcs are planning a full-scale incursion against them. Not coincidentally, both the dwarves of Toldorathhold and the orcs of Jhorash’tar have been having unusual dreams as well.

Paranoia: Shan Doresh is using the Mror Holds as a test of his influence. If he can drive them to war with another clan, he intends to make his next move against the already splintered Lhazaar Principalities and then Karrnath. Heroes with ties to the Mror Holds might be called upon to investigate the troubling dreams. The dwarves of Clan Narathun are known as the best jewelers in the world, and many are convinced that their ages-old feud with Clan Toldorath is about to burst into open war. Priests of Onatar believe that there is an outside influence at work and would offer their favor—and a choice treasure or two from their vaults—to someone who unmasks the true enemy. A diplomatic mission to Toldorathhold might be one way, but there has also been talk of a treasure in the Whitepine Forest worth investigating

As the Crow Flies

In the days before Shae Doresh was rebuilt as a fortress of war, only a handful of scarecrows stood on the outskirts of the city to mark the dominion of the Lord of the Fading Dream. Unlike most scarecrows in the Feywild, they were more likely to warn off intruders than attack them and to act under the ghaele’s peaceable laws and the orders of their masters.

Times have changed. When the fey armed themselves for war against the giants so long ago, the scarecrows were gathered from the surrounding forest and stored away, half-forgotten, in the cellars of the city. During the feyspire’s long exile in Dal Quor, the straw-and-cloth constructs were infused with madness as well as unquiet hate—not so unlike the eladrin and other fey of the city—but also with willful desires uncommon to their kind. When Taer Lian Doresh settled onto Eberron’s soil on the Day of Mourning, the scarecrows were removed from storage and mounted on posts in a ring around the feyspire to once again mark the domain of Shan Doresh.

Now the scarecrows are growing restless. They serve as sentinels as intended, attacking trespassers and other uninvited intruders. Yet the magic bonding them to their creators is unraveling. Not only are the hags who constructed them unable to reliably ‘see’ through their scarecrows’ eyes when enemies approach, but the scarecrows are growing defiant, hostile, and even aggressive toward those welcomed by the fey. Some have harassed residents of the feyspire or gone missing altogether. When the scarecrows were first placed in Whitepine Forest, they numbered less than twenty. Now at least thirty exist . . . that are known of. If the hags aren’t crafting new ones, who is? And why are they wearing pieces of armor from faraway lands? (For more on scarecrows, see “Ecology of the Scarecrow” in Dungeon 183.)

Ladyrook: The most powerful of the scarecrows is a “female” nicknamed Ladyrook who was constructed thousands of years ago by the night hag Santyriana. Not only is she the most cunning among them, but unknown to anyone in Taer Lian Doresh, she has also learned the secret to making more of her kind. In hidden hollows, she uses the clothing, armor, and the entrails of her victims to craft new scarecrows fully under her control. The bodies of these new constructs include some of the trappings and grisly parts from both local and not-so-local victims, giving rise to more questions.

Ladyrook has been sending a scarecrow called Mawkin on treks for choice components that range far beyond the casual reach of Taer Lian Doresh. Mawkin pops up in the crop fields of small villages and hamlets around Whitepine Forest as far as Tantamar and Cliffscrape. There Mawkin has become a true menace to the peasantry by murdering seemingly at random and stealing one organ or body part at a time—a stomach here, a brain there—on Ladyrook’s commands.

The wayward scarecrow doesn’t wish to stop there. In Dal Quor, the errant dreams of mortals have seeded in Ladyrook the desire to transcend her strawbound form and become something truly living. At the time of her creation, a noblewoman’s heart was sewn into her body; now, a pair of eyeballs, a damsel’s jawbone, and a scalp of lush human hair adorn her sack head. She eagerly awaits Mawkin’s return and the latest prizes he will bring her.

The Knights of Terror

Long ago, twelve knights of legend from every corner of Thelanis rode out to the Spire of Dreams to answer the call to war. When the other feyspires refused to join Shan Doresh’s challenge against the giants, these eladrin warriors renounced their allegiances and forged a new oath: to serve the Lord of Dreams alone and to live or die in avenging the lost City of Song and Silence. Neither their great skill nor the armies of Shae Doresh were enough to win the fight, and five of these elite knights were slain in the battle. They were the fortunate ones.

The Titan King deceived all of them with his ritual of exile, and by the administrations of Dal Quor, the surviving seven knights were transformed into something both greater and lesser than the heroes they’d once been. Their courage begat hate, and their valor begat terror. They became the Knights of Terror, Shan Doresh’s chief agents who serve as his hands and his sword in the Region of Dreams. With Taer Dian Loresh now rooted on Eberron’s soil, they come and go from the fortress on quests to which the other fey are seldom privy. If Shan Doresh wishes to send a message, a warning, or a threat, he will often send one of his Knights to bear it. If he wishes to possess something, one or more will be dispatched to retrieve it. If something is to be destroyed, the Knights of Terror will see it done.

Each of the seven Knights of Terror embodies a primal fear of the mortal world. Wherever they go, inexplicable dread flows before them and lingers in their wake. At a glance, each appears to be a creature to which the term ‘knight’ can be applied only superficially. Each is armored, mounted, and mantled like a cavalier of myth, but they are clothed in the dreamstuff of Dal Quor. It drips from their very being and imparts itself upon each viewer. One might appear to be skewered with a thousand blades such that all who look upon him feel excruciating pain, while another inspires despair with the sorrow of her cadaverous form. Despite their appalling appearance, in action one can sometimes glimpse the noble eladrin beneath the veil, bright and fair as storybook elves but twisted and terrible in their wrath.

Knights of Remorse: The Knights’ oath to Shan Doresh binds them completely to his service. They are not enslaved to his will and they do not always agree with him, but after all this time, they remain loyal. He is their commander, their lord, their spiritual father ... but now that their feyspire has returned to Eberron, they once again breathe the air of the waking world and find their desires uncertain.

From their liege, they have learned that the other feyspires of Thelanis are likewise stranded upon Khorvaire. Long before the misery of Dal Quor fell upon them, they served other lords and ladies of the Faerie Court, and their memory is long. When not carrying out quests for Shan Doresh, some of the Knights of Terror have begun to wander alone like lost pilgrims drawn toward the other feyspires out of curiosity and morbid fascination for the lives they left behind. What might their lives have been like had they not answered the call to war?

One of the Knights, for example, has ventured into Darguun and watched the siege of Shae Jordial from afar. The fear engendered by his presence caused discord within the goblin ranks—an unintentional boon for the City of Emerald Lights. Another Knight rode into the Karrnwood to see with her own eyes Taer Syraen, the Winter Citadel, and she slew any who discovered her presence. Shan Doresh does not know of these wanderings yet, and he would not approve. In the end, the Knights will remain true; they will not betray him or serve another master. But these ancient bonds linger in the depths of tortured minds and might yet be used against them. They simultaneously love and hate these memories, and their hate runs deep.

Unquiet Spirits

The spirits who haunt the woods around Taer Lian Doresh are not a unified force. Most of them are wailing ghosts—intruders slain by blade, spell, or nightmare who now fill the night with their cries. Those who came to the Fortress seeking treasure or glory are typically evil, and they turn their fury on the living indiscriminately. Several who ventured to the Fortress of Fading Dreams sought only to discover the source of their troubles or destroy the evil they believed laired within the fortress. When slain by the vindictive fey, their restless spirits fled but they could not go far. These banshees gather in the hollows of Whitepine Forest and drift on the outskirts of the feyspire, where they attempt to frighten away the foolish and ignorant. Without exception, these ghosts are hideous to behold. Their bodies reveal not the wounds that killed them but instead their greatest fears in life. A woman afraid of spiders might appear as an upright carpet of crawling, spectral arachnids, while a soldier who loathed and feared his father in life now resembles him.

Ghostly Succor: On occasion, the spirits attack one another or aid good-aligned adventurers who are in battle against the other creatures of Taer Lian Doresh. One particular banshee is Hashla, a former halfling cleric of Olladra who was hunted and slain by the eladrin viscount named Sidgevin. She retains most of her memories from life and believes that if her remains are found and destroyed, Olladra will bear her spirit to Dolurrh or beyond. To this end, Hashla actively seeks the help of heroes willing to infiltrate the feyspire and locate her corpse. She survived for weeks within the Fortress and can impart her knowledge to willing heroes. Any who slander Olladra or the Sovereign Host in her presence, however, are likely to hear her shriek of death.

Madame Dotuella

Lurking on the outskirts of Shan Doresh’s domain, often waging a personal war against the scarecrows and ghosts that surround it, is a hideous she-thing known as Madame Dotuella. Before the arrival of Taer Lian Doresh, none of the rangers of the Whitepine Forest knew what she was. Some surmise that her stock must be descended from the ogres who first came to Khorvaire’s shores from Sarlona thousands of years ago. Others speculate that she and her kin were a foul mix of human, ogre, and hag. Whatever they were, she was the last of the backwoods cannibals who dwelt in the depths of the Whitepine and butchered any who came near it. Dotuella is the last of an inbred species living with a menagerie of sick livestock derived from cattle cross-bred with beasts, and she is now a legendary terror in the region.

Dotuella was away from her hut on the Day of Mourning, the same day when Taer Lian Doresh returned to Eberron from its long exile in the Region of Dreams. The sudden and overwhelming presence of the Fortress and Dal Quor’s influence absorbed Dotuella’s land and warped her into something viler than she already was. Her own twisted dreams of aristocracy manifested in ghastly ways.

What she is now, none can truly say. What she appears to be is a 7-foot-tall, morbidly obese woman whose body cannot be supported outside the chariot she rides. The beautiful conveyance is gilded and crusted with gems. She often carries a dainty parasol in one hand and is dressed in a superbly ornate ball gown that pillows out the sides of her chariot and is tattered to rags where it drags on the ground. Madame Dotuella’s face is monstrous yet garishly painted, her drooping eyes stare vacantly, her bulk inspires dread. Although her expression remains listless and her mouth opens only to eat, the strange animals who pull her chariot appear to speak for her with her own voice as if she can communicate only through them. The animals themselves change from one appearance to the next. On one day, burro-like beasts serve as her mouthpiece and her ride, while on another day, a pair of large, hoofed canines might have the job. Dotuella is sometimes seen gnawing on bones resembling those of her former beasts, with bits of their hide and fur pasted around her mouth.

Finding the Hut: It has been four years since the Day of Mourning—four years that Madame Dotuella has been displaced from her home. She wants it back and will do anything to recover it, including pleading with and offering to reward a party of delicious adventurers. Dotuella attacks characters only if they refuse to assist her, and she’d rather have their help. The Fortress of Fading Dreams appeared where her home used to be, so she surmises that her hut must exist somewhere inside its walls. So far, the fey have not allowed her entry. Avenging this indignation and finding her home again is Dotuella’s obsession.

The monstrous female possesses sorcerous powers that lend credence to the theory that she has hag’s blood in her veins. She has magic boons to offer and treasures stashed away in the surrounding woods (belongings of those who have failed her). She offers minor rewards in advance to provide incentive, but the best are saved to motivate success. If characters accept her quest, Madame Dotuella gives them a handful of bones—where they came from, she’ll not say—with instructions to place them in her hut to ‘reclaim’ it. What this will do and what implications it might have upon the feyspire, she neither knows nor cares, as long as it allows her to return home.

The hut might change its location within Taer Lian Doresh, but it most often appears within the hippodrome-turned-courtyard known as Night’s Refuge.

The Endgame of Shan Doresh

The cataclysm of the Mourning intrigues the Lord of the Fading Dream—not only its properties but its origin. Whatever energy destroyed the nation of Cyre also appears to have bound the eladrin feyspires to the mortal world of Eberron. For the time being, Taer Lian Doresh’s presence here suits him fine, but he wishes to have control over whether or not it remains. For all the power he drew from the Region of Dreams, Shan Doresh does not wish to return to Dal Quor. His exile is finished. If the Fortress is fated to return, then those who betrayed him long ago must return with him.

To that end, Shan Doresh wishes to learn more about the eladrin of the other feyspires shackled to the soil of Eberron and about the Mournland. He has already dispatched agents to the Eldeen Reaches, Zilargo, Darguun, Karrnath, and dead Cyre. These spies will do whatever they must to study the moves of his ancient kin. Unknown to him, some of the Knights of Terror have begun to venture into these same lands, more out of ambivalent curiosity than any sense of mission at this point.

Shan Doresh is cautious; he knows it is risky to reveal himself or exert his presence too strongly to the other fey lords of Thelanis. If drawing the other feyspires into Dal Quor becomes an impossibility or returning to the Region of Dreams unlikely, Shan Doresh intends to at least make the fears of the eladrin manifest. Regal lords and ladies of the Faerie Court would prefer almost any fate over permanent incarceration—or worse, death—on Eberron, a world of mud and mortal vices. Shan Doresh will bring that about, if his hand is forced.

The Lord of the Fading Dream has great power at his disposal. Not only can he instill horrifying visions in victims and orchestrate their fears from afar, he has the loyal service of his subjects, the thousands of wyrds of Taer Lian Doresh who suffered with him in exile. He has the counsel of Marrot the Fool, Santyriana the night hag, and the Shrouded Sages. The caravans of the Harlequinade roam Khorvaire, recruiting nightmares from abroad, while the Knights of Terror quest for whatever Shan Doresh covets or wishes to destroy. The Paranymph forges pacts with mortal warlocks, enlisting them as pawns in the complex game played by the Fading Dream.

Shan Lian Doresh is patient, and he has both time and nightmare on his side.