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.