Golden Griffon Keep
 Golden Griffon Keep is a large fortress town built on an outcropping rock formation surrounded by miles and miles of hills and rocky expanses. From afar, it is clear the great cliffs that support Golden Griffon Keep did not come to be naturally. Parts of the rocky cliffs show signs of intense heat, the rock and salts in the walls are crystallized and brittle. Many dwarven stone smiths and architects agree that Golden Griffon Keep should have fallen on itself a long time ago, the great rock should not be stable enough to withstand the passage of time, and yet it has. The rock formation is strangely sturdy; it is magical to the core; the blood and fire of dragons sculpted it. Golden Griffon Keep is almost one thousand years old, its past is the stuff of legends and myths told from mothers to children generation after generation. One of such tales hints about the origin of the great rock where the town is. When the world was young and the lesser races did not roam the land, dragons and giants were the lords of all. Their reigns lasted for millennia. The only force stronger than their might was the hate they felt for each other. It is told that the ancient dragon king Zardunnar'is once fought a horde of giant warriors in the skirts of a great mountain. Zardunnar'is was hard to reach, he flew all around the mountain top, breathing fire and avoiding the spears the giants threw at him. They fought for years, that is what the legend says. Giant strikes and dragon fire were so intense that they started crumbling the mountain down. Chip by chip and rock by rock the mountain side diminished until only the very heart of the mountain itself remained. The stone outcropping was later settled by the first travelers. Upon inspecting the carbonized stone and crystallized sand in the cliff walls, the ancient traveller decided to built his keep on the top of the rock. Golden Griffon Keep is a natural fortress. The town is divided in three main wards, each of them separated by a hundred feet cliff. The different wards are only accessible through a single elevator in each ward. The elevators work with a complex pulley system that raises a wooden box, the elevator takes less than five minutes to reach the next level. In times of war, the elevators are brought up to impede enemy forces from storming the town. The cliff walls to the first ward are one hundred feet tall, making an invasion attempt a complicated task. In the event of an army taking the first ward, the soldiers are instructed to fall back to the second ward, which is another hundred feet up. Any conscripts not able to fit in the last elevator trip are thrown ropes to climb up if they can. These are things the people of Golden Griffon Keep are trained to do, but in fact, the town has never been taken, not even the first ward. It is a source of pride that such a prosperous and powerful town has never fallen. Foreign armies have sieged the town countless times to no avail. The inhabitants have underground larders that can last for years. There are also secret tunnels that reach an underground network of passages that connect caves, mines and other settlements. Malacor Stormwind is the current leader of the keep. The highest part of the rock, the third ward, is where the main keep is. An external twenty feet tall wall stands between the last elevator and the keep. The keep has its own inner wall. Were it stormed, the soldiers can still fall back to the basements or the great tower as a last means of defense. The basements have a secret that leads deep down to the underground passage system. Important Areas
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