Stillwater Station

In the days preceding the Day of Mourning, Cyran battlefield commander Rhysimor Maceck led his platoon on a scouting mission into a cliffside cave complex on the southern shore of Lake Cyre. The cataclysm that razed the nation that fateful day collapsed the entry tunnel, trapping the veteran dwarf warlord and his platoon underground.

After several harrowing and deadly weeks in the caverns, in which he lost his soldiers one by one, Rhysimor emerged into the dead-gray light of the Mournland. The sole survivor of his unit, Rhysimor tracked his way back to the main battle group, only to find the still-warm remains of his former comrades sprawled on the cracked earth.

Rhysimor eventually escaped the Mournland and spent several months trying to bury his past by accepting mercenary work in Breland, Thrane, and as far away as Xen’drik. But in his heart, Rhysimor never left his homeland, and he longed to return to Cyre.

And so he did. For another year, Rhysimor led expeditions into the Mournland, recovering artifacts and hoping to unravel the mystery of the Day of Mourning. His secret hope: That the damage to his homeland could somehow be reversed; that Cyre would one day rise again from the ashes of the cataclysm.

In his travels through the Mournland, Rhysimor discovered he was not alone in his quest. Others had opted to remain in Old Cyre, driven by sentiment, obstinacy, or madness. Among these fellow travelers was a minor scion of the House of Making, the lady Hana Aurora d’Cannith. Originally from the now-ruined city of Eston, former seat of power for House Cannith, Hana was also obsessed with uncovering the cause of the cataclysm. Leveraging what resources she could from her aristocratic heritage, she devoted herself to arcane studies and exploration of the ruins of Old Cyre.

Traveling together along the abandoned lightning rail line south of Lake Cyre, the two discovered the station called Stillwater Station. Incredibly, the station was relatively undamaged by the cataclysm and in fact housed several lightning rail passenger and freight cars. In addition, the station had a working ground well that reliably brought forth fresh, clean water. The original denizens of the stopover community, however, were nowhere to be found.

And so Rhysimor and Hana began establishing a base of operations. Using conductor stones from the abandoned railway line, Hana combined arcane magic with certain Cannith magical technologies to erect a defensive perimeter. Her unique blend of magic produced an energy field that usually kept the Mournland’s most fearsome predators at bay.

Soon Stillwater Station began attracting attention from the many scavenger groups that would pass through the area. Hana and Rhysimor enforced strict rules to encourage fair trade, and many disparate groups found mutual benefit in a permanent market within the boundaries of the Mournland proper. With the arrival of the half-elf herbalist and alchemist called Lyric, the founders established a limited system of agriculture by cultivating fields of modified thornweeds in the sandy soil.

Currently at more than 100 residents and counting, Stillwater Station is composed of a dozen or so new and repurposed structures centered on the main station. Aside from the warforged domains of the Lord of Blades, it is the first and only permanent community in the Mournland—a ramshackle barter town on the most forbidding of frontiers.

Some of the principal merchants of Stillwater Station are listed below. Most basic goods and services can be obtained, or at least approximated, somewhere in the station market. Prices and inventory can vary greatly, depending on recent trade.

The Station Free Market: A former Karrnathi fighter, Chann Illiescii led scavenging expeditions for various sponsors before burning one too many bridges, with one too many shady deals. Now pursued in the free lands by several wronged parties, he runs the Station Free Market—a large stall that occupies two entire lightning rail cars. Chann sells basic adventuring gear, items, tools, rations, and an astounding array of random detritus.

Scabs’ Smithy: Once a respected Cyran weaponsmith, Weston “Scabs” Yeardley was gravely wounded and terribly disfigured on the Day of Mourning. He now buys, sells, crafts, and repairs weaponry—mostly items scavenged from the battlefields of Old Cyre. He has constructed a functional smithy from the ruins of an existing forge on the station grounds.

Scabs has a carefully guarded secret: The coal in the abandoned forge has been somehow altered by the arcane energy of the Mournland and is apparently inexhaustible—it burns, but does not burn out. When he can arrange transport, Scabs intends to escape Stillwater with the magic coal and make his fortune in the civilized lands. Scabs buys and sells basic armor and weapons.

The Abode: A recently arrived resident of Stillwater, and wartime friend of Rhysimor Maceck, Hamish Jod is a well-connected merchant and arms dealer with connections to outside groups interested in the plunder of the Mournland. A tough, wiry halfling, he has multiple contacts in Karrnath, New Cyre, Morgrave University, and House Cannith. He also keeps a backdoor connection with the Emerald Claw, with whom he is occasionally willing to do business—if the price is right.

Hamish is constantly attended by two bodyguards—identical twin female Valenar elves who owe him a blood debt. The Abode, easily the most impressive structure on the market platform, deals in exotic and masterwork weapons, magic items, artwork, cultural artifacts, and other high-end valuables.

Lyric’s Herbs and Serums: The mysterious halfelf cleric Lyric is a talented alchemist and herbalist, and she is considered by most to be the third founder of Stillwater Station. Lyric developed the magical technique by which Stillwater residents can harvest edible thornweeds. Lyric is a mute, so far as anyone knows, and she communicates through her constant companion, a young changeling orphan called Devlin.

The Rail Station: Stillwater’s sole tavern and inn, the Rail Station occupies the bulk of the main station building and is run by Stillwater’s founders Rhysimor Maceck and Hana Aurora d’Cannith. It is the central meeting place and social spot for the community, and its common room serves as an indoor market and town hall.

Rhysimor and Hana have rebuilt and floored the station’s rafters to serve as a barracks-style room with fourteen beds total. The inn has three private rooms to let—refurbished storerooms on the ground floor. Rhysimor and Hana keep their own quarters beneath the station building in a series of converted cellar rooms with multiple emergency exits to the outside. The community’s precious water well is located in a walled courtyard at the rear entrance of the inn.

Haven: The place called Haven is Stillwater’s most carefully guarded secret. In fact, only the town’s three founders—Hana, Rhysimor and the Lyric—know of its unique nature. Ostensibly the town’s nondenominational temple and infirmary, it is a small structure of stone and mortar on the perimeter of the walled courtyard behind the main station building.

Here Hana and Lyric attend to the sick and dying. When the founders discovered this portal, they pledged to keep it secret and employ it surreptitiously. They fear that if the true nature of Haven were to become common knowledge, Stillwater would quickly be overrun by powerful agencies looking to exploit such a valuable resource.

The Surroundings

The landscape around Stillwater Station proper suggests that the area was once, long ago, home to several small lakes, ponds, and waterways. The soil is hardpacked or sandy, and petrified driftwood can be scavenged in many nearby locations.

The Glass Dunes

A few hundred yards north of the station stretches an expanse of dunes that have been partially turned to glass by the events of the Day of Mourning. The eastern portion of this area was largely unaffected, but to the west the sand becomes increasingly littered with shards of glass. On the western end of the field, the sand has been wholly fused into giant glass dunes. Intact surfaces are sheer and slippery, while other mounds have shattered into treacherous piles of razor-sharp slivers.

Toward the northwest corner of the dunes is a cave complex formed entirely from glass. None know whether these caves existed before the cataclysm or were somehow formed in its wake. The caves have recently been cleared and occupied by the Anand, a congregation of doomsday cultists originally from Q’Barra. The Anand send splinter groups far and wide in search of artifacts presaging the ultimate demise of Eberron. But, as always, their methods and purposes are inscrutable, and Stillwater’s founders are eyeing their new neighbors warily.

The Thornwood Fields

With the help of resident herbalist Lyric, the residents of Stillwater Station have established a limited system of agriculture. Lyric has alchemically engineered a variant of the thornweed plant that grows throughout the Mournland. The plants produce a tough, fibrous material, similar to bamboo, that can be hardened for use in construction, stripped and braided into rope, or boiled into a tasteless but nutritious mash.

Residents of Stillwater take turns cultivating and harvesting the thornweed fields south of the station proper. The thornweed fields are also watched over by the shifter cleric Sen-Tulchinne, whose resolve to commune once again with the land of Cyre is matched only by his tenuous grip on reality.

Memorial Gulch

The bodies of the dead do not decompose in the Mournland, so the residents of Stillwater have opted for alternative funereal methods. Unable to bring themselves to inter warm bodies, Stillwater residents instead arrange the dead in dignified seated and standing positions in a narrow gulch about a mile east of the station. Most of the bodies here are of soldiers—Cyran and Karrnathi predominantly—cleared from a nearby battlefield. But any who die in Stillwater, or whose bodies are otherwise recovered in the vicinity, are taken to this macabre memorial to abide in eternal vigilance.

Occasionally, the dead have been known to move about of their own volition, but they return to their posts eventually. Or so reports the sole living resident of Memorial Gulch, the feral goblin Caggle, a retired Darguun scavenger who has appointed himself the official gravekeeper of Stillwater Station. Caggle has hollowed out a small, squalid den near the gulch and spends his days in one-sided conversation with his neighbors.

The Flats

Adjacent to the station are a series of alkali flats—the remains of a small, since-evaporated lake. The hard dry ground is ideal for camping, and so the flats are used as a stopping-over place for groups of travelers too large to make camp within the station grounds.

Even the most ruthless and warlike of the scavenger groups recognize the value of a permanent community for barter and trade within the Mournland. As such, keeping the peace is considered a priority in the station, and by extension, on the Flats. The lake bed harbors strange bedfellows, indeed. Darguun goblins and Valenar elves. Kraken Bay pirates and House Deneith sellswords. In a busy night on the Flats, one might see an official Karrnath expedition bartering with independent poachers operating out of Thrane or Breland. Or a party of warforged from the interior trading water for metal with dinosaur-mounted halflings from the Talenta Plains

The Perimeter Stones

Around the perimeter of the town, the founders of Stillwater have arranged a series of thirteen lightning rail stones scavenged from the old rail lines of Cyre. Magically altered by Hana d’Cannith, the stones function as a protective energy field, albeit one of unpredictable utility. The circle seems particularly effective at repelling the largest and most dangerous of the living spells that wander the Mournland. The sentient spells, unable to pass beyond the ring of stones, linger for a few hours or days, slowly circling the town, before eventually drifting away.

The energy field occasionally blocks creatures, as well. In fact, the perimeter stones once repelled a gargantuan mutated bulette intent on devouring Stillwater whole. However, smaller magical creatures and living spells have been known to pass through the barrier and attack the town. Hana often examines the various individual perimeter stones, trying to understand and better control their power.

• n a secret joint operation, representatives of House Sivis and House Orien arrived recently in Stillwater to establish a speaking stone connection, and ascertain whether it is at all possible to make economic inroads into the Mournland. They are posing as scavengers and tomb raiders, but already have a set of prototype augmented speaking stones set up at a secret location in the Flats.
• The ominous figure known only as the Herald is a tall, sunscorched human evangelical who wanders the ruins of the Mournland and occasionally passes through Stillwater Station. He encourages all “warmbloods” and “fleshlings” to accompany him back to his master, the Lord of Blades, where they can be remade into new “elevated, inspired beings of steel.” The Herald’s message puzzles longtime Mournland travelers. Has the Lord of Blades come across a new magic or technology that can transform the living into constructs? If so, why is the Herald still human? Or is he just another mad Mournland casualty?
• The wall of heavy fog that encircles the Mournland usually hovers about 5 miles away from Stillwater Station, on the shores of Lake Cyre. Occasionally, however, the fog blows in from the lake and shrouds Stillwater Station entirely for a few hours or sometimes days. When this happens, the residents of Stillwater hunker down and wait out the shapes and forms that move through the mist with otherworldly howls.
• Torque, a warforged merchant affiliated with the less militant communities in the Mournland, regularly brings items into town for trade. Often these are more-or-less edible foodstuffs, cooked and smoked carcasses of strange creatures, which he trades for wood and scrap metal. Brusque and menacing, he refuses to converse about anything other than the terms of trade. One day, Torque brings a collection of documents and artifacts that apparently refer to the cataclysm of the Day of Mourning. Where did these items come from? Can Torque be convinced to guide adventurers back to the source?
• Ikar’s Salvage, a large group of bloodthirsty scavengers and outlaws who wander the territory north of Stillwater Station, have on occasion attempted to menace and intimidate Stillwater. After several tense staredowns, Ikar has been told his group is no longer welcome in Stillwater Station. Ikar has so far opted to leave the town alone, but Rhysimor and Hana worry that he might return someday to attack the settlement in hopes of making it his permanent base of operations.