Over the years, Dragonspear Castle has become a name equated with great evil, as dread a name as Hellgate Keep. Once the proud castle of Daeros Dragonspear, a famous adventurer of the North, Dragonspear has become a ruin inhabited by wave after wave of evil creatures. Many colorful but false legends have grown up around the Castle, but here I’ve set down, as best I can, the truth about Dragonspear, as revealed by several great archmages and corroborated by several tomes of lore at Candlekeep. For most readers, this will be the first time the tale of Dragonspear has been truthfully told.
Daeros was a bearded half-dwarf, a magical and rare half-breed of human and dwarf as tall as a human, but with the burly physique and affinity to stone of a dwarf. He rescued and befriended a copper dragon early in his adventures, and after he seized a fabulous fortune in gems used by a beholder in an abandoned dwarf delve to lure prey, Daeros decided to retire. He chose the site of the dragon’s lair: three low hillocks at the western edge of the High Moor, some 200 miles south of Daggerford. The dragon, Halatathlaer, had grown tired of constantly fighting off thieving orcs and goblins, but was loath to leave its home. Daeros gathered humans and dwarves loyal to him and built his castle around the dragon. It was a large and splendid structure, composed of a massive central keep surrounded by a strong ring of four towers (the inner ward). Around the keep was a spearhead-shaped outer wall of nine great towers. Dwarves were welcomed at the Castle, and a city of small stone cottages and delvings beneath them grew rapidly within the walls. Dwarven fighting prowess made Dragonspear a secure fortress and a place of growing influence.

Then the evil mage called upon several dragons he knew, telling them that the copper dragon of Dragonspear slept, near death, and it and its hoard were easy prey. Three young and ambitious dragons heeded and took wing to Dragonspear. They met over the fortress and fought, destroying Halatathlaer and much of the castle before slaughtering each other. The last survivor, a black dragon named Sharndrel, was enraged to find the hoard it had fought so hard for looted so that only coins were left, and barely enough of them for the wyrm to bed down on. It went seeking the triumphant and overconfident Ithtaerus, found him gloating over the best wine of the castle in the upper chambers of the central keep, and blasted him with its acid until his bones crumbled to powder. The castle was left as a shattered ruin, eagerly raided by orcs, hobgoblins, bugbears, goblins, and trolls from the moor until all the dwarves were dead or had fled. The serpentmen even sent a large war party to search it for magic, and they bore away all they found.

The central keep is a blasted shell, the gigantic skeleton of a dragon draped over the broken walls, and the interior floors fallen in. Most of the surrounding inner ward towers stand relatively intact. Travelers fleeing from trolls, brigands, or worse in this area could take refuge in one of these and defend it. Beneath the castle flows an underground river. It runs from an unknown source north into the Misty Forest, and there turns abruptly southeast. It can be entered from a certain cavern in the eastern reaches of the forest, and its main passage is large enough to be navigable by boats, although many lurking monsters, drownhole side passages, and whirlpools make this a dangerous route. The river runs southeast along the edge of the moor, and then turns northeast and passes under the southwest tower of the castle’s inner ward. There it connects with a trapdoor and shaft in the cellar once used for waste disposal. It flows swiftly on to a large and permanent whirlpool and thence drains down to unexplored depths in the Underdark. If one wins past the whirlpool, the river runs on to emerge as a waterfall in a ravine (one of many such clefts in the High Moor), where it flows out into a small pool. The pool drains away into the depths again; Dragonspear Castle is still a popular destination for adventurers and thrillseekers.
Many poke about in the half-revealed dwarven cellars, but anything that can be found easily has been carried away already, and trolls and orcs lurk in the ruins, awaiting prey. Brigands use the castle, and more than one misty night has seen a wild spell battle between rival adventuring bands caused by brigand trickery. The outlaws lie in wait after setting in motion their plan, and hope to seize gear, wealth, and magic from the weakened survivors, or dead victims, of the misunderstanding they’ve brought about. Every season brings new plans for the rebuilding of Dragonspear Castle in the taverns of Daggerford, Waterdeep, Scornubel, and Baldur’s Gate, but somehow such plans come to naught. Some say it is the castle’s ill luck, caused by the great evil of the Baatezu. Others blame covert work by brigand “lords”, the Zhentarim, and the Cult of the Dragon, all of whom either want the castle for their own or want it to stay a ruin.
