Hezvix

Built in the Demon Spawn War (8972 GE - 9493 GE), Hezvix was a fortress designed by Demogorgon's top builder, a maralith engineer named Skinaere. It was a staging depot for Demogorgon's push into Zyrath and northward into Sava'loth.

Skinaere believed that there were offensive fortresses and those designed to hold strong, the center of gravity for the keeps and bastions around it. She had Hezvix built as one of the latter. A master at building layered defenses, Hezvix has a series of walls and towers built close together, should one fall, they are under immediate threat of the next higher wall.

In addition to her skills in civil engineering, Skinaere was known to be a consummate torturer. Whenever she built something, she made sure it had a dungeon. In the war with the Covenant, Hezvix's prison saw so much torture and agony that today it is sealed off for the psychic trauma it causes; probably worse, it is also the lair of ancient wracked spirits, groaning spirits and ghosts of terrible power. It is such a dangerous place, that every year Krumisbar sends a team up to inspect the prison's wards. No friend of the Umahanbad Oligarchy, owner of Hezvix, the holy advisors and their contractors put aside their differences when it comes to securing Skinaeres Sanctum.

After the demons were driven back to their abyssal worlds, Hezvix was left to the wilds. Massive in size, once holding a garrison of 40,000, it became the home of beasts, monsters, and bands of gnolls, hobgoblins and giants. More than each other, these residents feared what might come up from Skinaeres Sanctum.

In 901, the Bloodbeards were teleported to this ruin. Former citizens of Phlehorn, these were criminals deemed to dangerous to to crown. Phlehorn's king, then under the charm of a demon artifact, ordered them sent to Hezvix. After establishing a pecking order, these exiles turned to clearing their new home of beasts and monsters. Finding store rooms with ancient weapons and armor leftover from the God Era, they met their foes in full battle gear.

Proving to hard to secure by so few, Hezvix was abandoned. The exiles went east, founding the settlement of Naram-Gunal. Two decades later, they returned, adding Hezvix to the holding of the Umahanbad Oligarchy.