Long ago, the fortress had come under attack by the forces of the defiler warlord, Jojimvod the Vile, who shattered its defenses and slew its inhabitants late in the Time of Magic, during the bloody conflict known as the Preserver Jihad.

The fortress’ leader, Abum Takiades - after whom it was named - was a preserver wizard and ally of the Wind Mages (the name given to a wide-ranging but loosely -organized group of resistance cells that slowly emerged from the witch-hunts being suffered by preservers at the time). Abum, a chronicler at heart, was an authority regarding mid- to late Green Age history, and his contacts within the Wind Mages came to rely more and more on his knowledge as the Jihad progressed, trying to determine its source.

Abum died early in the assault, disintegrated by Jojimvod in a spell duel. After their leader’s death, the fortress’ defenders quickly lost their fighting spirit, despite a heroic last effort to rally them by Daldri Takiades - Abum’s wife and the fortress’ sergeant-at-arms. After their defeat, the surviving defenders were rounded up and confined in the fortress’ dungeon. Unable to interrogate his preserver foe, Jojimvod gleefully tortured Daldri instead, followed by Abum’s surviving apprentices and guards, and finally pronouncing a powerful curse over them as they died.

With the fortress secured, Jojimvod set his sights on stealing his opponent’s arcane secrets. The defiler warlord had little trouble finding Abum’s hidden sanctum, but his triumph was short-lived. A booby-trap left on Abum’s spellbook did what the fallen preserver could not, obliterating Jojimvod. With their leader dead and their objective achieved, the defiler’s army withdrew, leaving the Takiades Compound to the mercy of the elements.

In the King’s Ages since the battle, the ruined fortress has played host to many groups, but few remain for very long. There are two reasons for this. First, the fortress’ shattered walls provide meager protection from both the elements and one’s enemies, making it a poor place to seek shelter. The second reason the fortress is rarely inhabited is that the previous occupants never left. Today, the ruined fortress is still haunted by unquiet spirits from the Preserver Jihad. In the dungeon beneath the fortress’ tower, its last defenders still hang from the basement rafters in their accursed undead state, writhing and moaning. Jojimvod, now an Athasian wraith, still pours over his prize, despite the fact that he can no longer read the spellbook.

Map Key:

1) Moat/Silt Sink - This may have once been part of a moat encircling the fortress or simply a stream running alongside the fortress. Today, however, this long depression is approximately 15 feet wide, 20-feet-deep, and filled with silt, making accessing the nearby wall a challenge.

2) Fortress Wall - Most of the fortress’ walls are broken and ruined, but one long section of the inverted walls still stands unbreached. Even that wall’s battlements have long since crumbled, however, making walking on top of it nearly impossible for sentries.

3) Fortress Entrance - This round gate was shattered when the fortress was sacked during the Preserver Jihad. The doorway itself is still relatively sound, but the walls around it are little more than piled rubble.

4) Tower - The fortress’ main tower still stands here, weathered and worn down by the elements, its uppermost floor open to the sky. Though clearly damaged, the tower is easily the most defensible portion of the fortress.

4a) Tower, 1st Floor - The ground floor of the fortress’ tower once served as a dining and meeting hall for the fortress’ residents, but no sign of that use remains today. The tower’s rolling door jammed in place - rolled back into the wall - but a rickety assemblage of bone stands near the doorway, ready to cover the gap and grant a measure of privacy to those who choose to rest within. Buried beneath the blown-in dust and sand that cover the chamber’s floor is a trap door leading down to the tower’s basement.

4b) Tower, 2nd Floor - This floor once housed Abum’s library and his apprentices’ rooms. The library lined the alcoves in the center shaft of the tower, and - except for where the floor above has collapsed - has survived the King’s Ages fairly well, though all of the books are long gone.
The apprentices’ bedrooms are largely intact and serviceable, although they have also been stripped bare over the King’s Ages.
The inside of the central shaft of this floor also housed Abum’s inner sanctum, where he kept his spellbook and many of his more dangerous items. The spellbook survived the blast that killed Jojimvod, but most of the magical items were destroyed alongside the defiler. The secret door leading to the sanctum was damaged in the blast, and is now jammed in place.

Jojimvod, now an Athasian wraith, spends much of his time here, attempting to read the spellbook (which serves as his focus - the item that contains his soul), but when he hears the moaning of the undead below (see the Tower Basement, below), he stops to savor the sound of it. Distracted from his obsession for a time, the former defiler then spends the next few days patrolling the compound and attempting to force open the secret door to the inner sanctum, so he can escape from the tower with it. Soon enough, however, Jojimvod returns to pouring over Abum’s spellbook for weeks on end.

4c) Tower, 3rd Floor - The upper floors of this tower were shattered during Jojimvod’s assault, leaving the third floor as the highest remaining level. As the tallest point in the fortress, the shattered mass of stone that makes up the third floor is a popular place to station a lookout.

4d) Tower, Basement - Before the fortress’ destruction, the tower basement was used as both storage space and as a dungeon, depending on the needs of the residents at the time. When Jojimvod’s forces took the compound, they imprisoned their surviving enemies here before the defiler amused himself with them. With his enemy Abum dead, Jojimvod took his time torturing the survivors before finally pronouncing a powerful curse upon them and hanging the lot of them from the dungeon’s ceiling.

Today, Abum’s apprentices and last remaining guards still dangle from the ropes in the dungeon, occasionally thrashing and quietly moaning to themselves. On nights when both moons are new, however, the accursed undead give voice to their suffering, moaning loudly enough to be heard far beyond the fortress. It is this chorus of suffering that distracts Jojimvod from his studies to patrol the fortress’ grounds.

The dangling undead include Abum’s two apprentices, a half-dozen guards, and Daldri Takiades - the commander of the fortress’ guards and Abum’s widow. While the other undead have long since gone mad in their suffering, Daldri still occasionally experiences moments of lucidity. Should anyone brave the tower’s basement and attempt to speak to her, Daldri might manage to have a short conversation with them before returning to her tortured moaning.

Encounters

Various groups have made camp in the Takiades Compound over the King’s Ages, but few stay for long. Most are driven out by the presence of the fortress’ undead, but those few that can abide the presence of the undead are invariably driven out by their enemies - due to its lack of defensive features. Below are several groups that might be making use of the ruined fortress (1d6):

1) Nikaal - Drawn to its (admittedly scant) defenses and proximity to a local settlement, a caravan of nikaal have settled within the Takiades Compound for the night. Unfortunately, as the reptilian traders begin to play their enticing music, the moons slip from mere slivers to dark orbs. Chaos is sure to ensue when the nikaals’ enthralled visitors are rudely awakened by the moans of the undead.

2) Elves - A tribe of elves calling themselves the Duskweaver tribe have been using the fortress off and on for quite some time now. The elves are always off raiding during the Feasts of Ral - the elven name for that period of time when both moons are dark - so they have thus far remained untroubled by the fortress’ undead.

3) Gith - A small clan of gith - the Flintfangs - have recently been camping in the ruined fortress. The gith initially found the undead beneath the tower extremely unsettling, with many members threatening to leave, but since the clan’s elders met the wraith Jojimvod, the tribe has begun to worship the former defiler as a dark and powerful god.

4) Kreen - A thri-kreen pack - the Jav’thok (or Broken Earth) pack - consider the fortress a convenient place to rest (while the kreen have no need for sleep, they do require a few hours of light activity in a given day to recuperate, recover spells and power points, etc). The most psionically sensitive of the Jav’thok have noticed the psionic emanations created by the presence of the undead, which has made them uncomfortable, but the pack only spends one day (or night) a season at the ruined fortress, so they’ve yet to encounter the undead.

5) Templar-led Slave-labor Team - A work team of a dozen slaves, overseen by 4 guards and a templar - Sitaicaz the Lash - have settled in at the fortress to rest for a day on the way back from a worksite. Both the guards and the slaves are unnerved by the ruins, but the cruel templar is dismissive of their worries. Sitaicaz plans to stay in the ruins until nightfall, but if the undead begin to moan while they are here, the slaves will go berserk with fear, attacking the guards and templar in order to escape the undead-haunted ruin.

6) Raiders - a band from a raiding tribe - the Ashen Phantoms - have been camped at the ruined fortress for several days. The normally fearless reavers are all deeply afraid of the resident undead, but the defiler leading them - Malakar - is determined to not leave before he discovers the ruin’s secrets.