Welcome to Grismoor | Insomnia

In this article series, we’ll be revisiting and reviving the Insomnia project, a book designed to bring horror to your D&D game.

Our third and final setting is the one you’ve probably been picturing in your campaign from the start: a gothic medieval city, infested with Bram Stoker-equse vampires, werewolves, and other bloodthirsty fiends. Grismoor is designed to be as drag-and-drop as possible for any fantasy campaign setting, but the familiar trappings of fantasy also gave us ample room to take risks and craft something truly unique.

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Much like the post-war setting of Eberron, Grismoor is defined by the traumas of its recent past. However, Grismoor isn’t in a process of reconstruction; rather, it’s deteriorating under its own weight, and the whole city might come crashing down. This is the context for your monster hunt: each monster threatens not only to kill you and your compatriots, but to destroy the entire city around you.

Grismoor is inspired by an infatuation of mine: the ruins of enormous ancient cities. How do cities and civilizations just collapse? What breaks the final straw and simply causes people to abandon them? How does it feel when your entire civilization collapses around you? Could it happen again?

Grismoor

Near the southern tip of Illinois lies the ruined city of Cahokia—at its peak, more populated than contemporaneous Paris or London. It lies buried in colossal mounds, a civilization’s collective grave. History is rife with such shining cities, places held aloft by human ambition and ingenuity, but all of which faced the same fate. When the vital arteries of food, water, people, and wealth falter, a civilization shudders and dies, leaving abandoned streets and ruined monuments; or perhaps, a series of colossal mounds.

The medieval riverside city of Grismoor hangs on just such a precipice. After years of disasters, known far and wide as the Seven Curses, the city is perhaps one final catastrophe from outright collapse. A grim fog of uncertainty plagues the citizenry, who have already begun to depart in search of opportunity elsewhere. Perhaps a panicked evacuation will leave the town abandoned, or perhaps a final curse will burn the city once and for all.

Rise of the Cape City

Grismoor rests on a cape in the Riverrook, a plateau of rich farmland neatly positioned as a trade hub for river traffic and a crossroads for caravans heading westward. Its location alone has afforded the city decades of prosperity. Silver mines and black soil produced coinage and cornucopias for the city—both are emblazoned on its crest.

At Grismoor’s pinnacle, it rivaled the kingdom’s capital for grandeur, but fell slightly short of its population. The city’s mercantile class grew wealthy and founded an array of guilds, each of which sponsored its own private militia. Together, these forces, known as the Patchwork Knights, secured the isolated city from without and purged criminality from within.

None benefited from the city’s rising prominence more than House Douvaine, the noble family entrusted with its administration. Its seat of power, Castle Douvaine, is a magnificent gothic structure festooned with gargoyles and battlements, towering over the Riverrook and the city surrounding it. Perhaps tellingly, the first of the so-called Curses of Grismoor was the sudden death of Lord Douvaine, the steady hand at the city’s helm. Before long, more curses would follow.

The Seven Curses

Over a decade of misfortune and disaster has blighted the city of Grismoor and brought it to the brink. The trade city has deteriorated into a shadow of its former self, its magnificent promenades and proud spires crumbling into ruin with each passing year. Perhaps half of its residents remain, out of stubbornness, obligation, or a misplaced sense of hope.

Though seven curses have befallen Grismoor, only five are detailed below, so that you can refine the city’s history to suit your campaign and your tastes.

The Malformed Prince

Old Lord Douvaine’s reign came to a tragic and sudden end. Though the official declaration cited the cause of death as a heart attack overnight, whispers from inside the castle told of a bloody scene and inexplicable magic. No public funeral was held, and after a week of mourning, the lord was interred in the castle catacombs.

Unbeknownst to all but a few caretakers, the heir to House Douvaine was a secret prince, hidden away within the castle walls until adulthood. The young heir—and current lord of Grismoor—is a monstrously deformed creature, hideous to look upon and vile of temperament. Some say he is prone to fits of delusion and ferocious outbursts. Others say he is faintly timid, like a wild animal. All this is hearsay, however, as none of the public have seen their new lord. Whispers of the Malformed Prince circulate unabated, while Castle Douvaine remains deafeningly silent.

The Barren Mine

The mines around Ashridge have always afforded Grismoor a bulwark of wealth and work to stave off hard times. When foreign wars or domestic upsets interrupted trade, the silver and coal mines pumped enough wealth through the city to sustain its industries. Recently, however, silver yield began to slow, culminating in an abrupt halt within a span of weeks. Miners worked tirelessly to find a new vein in the labyrinthine tunnels beneath Ashridge, to no avail. When the mine closed, Grismoor’s most critical lifeline was severed and its signature coins immediately became scarce.

The Drowning

Great levees rise on three sides between Grismoor and the wide, capricious Riverrook. Every Spring, great rains flood the river, with some years bursting its banks and spilling out into swathes of farmland and even nearby settlements like Kaldstowe village. The earthenworks forestalled the river’s advance for generations, until a terrible storm raged over the city for over a week. As frantic workers filled flour bags with gravel to reinforce the lowermost levees, the water burst through and consumed entire neighborhoods in a single terrible wave. Higher ground and the city’s inner wall spared the rest of Grismoor the same devastation, but uncountable lives were lost in the flood. The water never fully receded in the “Drowned Quarter,” as the Riverrook’s course now sweeps through it like a canal.

The Moss Blight

When a farmer first noticed crimson moss speckling his fields, he didn’t think much of it. Heavy rains routinely flood the Riverrook and bring sediment to low-lying farms, improving the soil and dredging some river-bottom scum to the surface. It would be gone with the next rain. However, his crops soon withered on the vine and turned gray in the field. Then it spread.

Like a ravenous giant, the Moss Blight consumed entire counties of produce over the course of a season. By the harvest season, Grismoor was spared mass starvation only via regular shipments from the 1212 barge, which makes monthly runs down the Riverrook, filled with wheat and vegetables.

Each year since has been a die roll for farmers. If the crimson moss appears on their fields, the season is already lost. Perhaps some fields will be spared, but the Blight is unforgiving, and looms large in the minds and stomachs of Grismoor.

The Godfist

Salvation came in the middle of the night with a booming crash. Not ten miles outside of Grismoor, an enormous stone from the heavens impacted the countryside, leaving a wide crater and a hill-sized boulder. Beneath a skin of ash, the entire stone shone a brilliant silver. Priests declared it a miracle, a Godfist sent to save the ailing silver industry, and an army of disaffected miners got to work cracking the dense ore and melting it down.

It took only hours for them to fall hideously ill. The blackened, blistered skin, violent illness, and confusion gave way to inevitable death mere days later. Anyone who touched the Godfist suffered the same fate: a terrible affliction that no magic could remedy or detect. Even their clothing and bodies caused the illness, albeit more slowly, so a great pyre was erected overlooking the crater, and all that touched the stone was incinerated.

Even after the curse was apparent, a pair of foolhardy silversmiths worked to forge in excess of a hundred cursed coins from the metal. They perished for their efforts, as did their children who inherited the coins, but a few coins eventually entered circulation—silent assassins that kill indiscriminately, the final curse of the Godfist.

Sidebar: High and Low Fantasy Grismoor
Grismoor is designed to fit seamlessly into any corner of your fantasy world, whether magic is omnipresent or extraordinarily rare. If you focus a campaign on Grismoor, the GM decides whether the setting as a whole is high-fantasy or low-fantasy, and adjusts the available player options accordingly.

Landmarks in Grismoor

Though characters can spend months exploring the winding cobblestone streets of Girsmoor itself, the noteworthy landmarks extend far beyond the city’s walls and into the villages and hills that once allowed Grismoor to thrive.

Ashridge Mines

In the weeks before the Ashridge Mines were sealed, the frantic search for silver veins tunneled into a vast chamber. Ancient cobblestones laid underfoot and cyclopean rooms were carved from the chamber walls, with corridors and shafts plummeting deep into the earth. The sprawling maze of tunnels and rooms continued for miles. At a loss with their discovery, the miners called the forgotten necropolis Hagrazat, or the Catacombs of Hagrazat, in reference to an allegorical kingdom consumed by fire and forgotten by all.

Exploration of the ruins was cut short when the mines were unceremoniously closed and its entrance sealed. However, rumors of the catacombs spread like wildfire, embellished with piles of gold and magical trinkets, and adventurers were soon to follow. Within months, new entrances to the mines had been tunneled in secret, and expeditions into the depths began.

Few have returned from these descents. The chaotic network of mineshafts already possessed a host of hazards, but became positively deadly once the mine was closed and subterranean monstrosities took up residence. Those that reached the depths of Hagrazat spoke of an extravagant metropolis, once perhaps belonging to chthonic giants, and the rare piece of antiquity worth a fortune above. However, they also told of an unseen entity enveloping the halls and infecting their thoughts, as if the darkness itself had gone stale and malevolent.

The Barracks

Nestled within the narrow, winding streets of Grismoor stands a bastion of respite for travelers known as the Barley Barracks, or simply “The Barracks.” This imposing establishment was once home to the city guard, but now acts as a base for the Patchwork Knights, as well as a tavern and inn. The interior is still dominated by military rigidity and adorned with the shields and sigils of the city guard’s various regiments, but now features a small bar and dozens of tables in neat rows. Above, the rooms are as spartan as ever, but are by far the cheapest in town. Without fail, when a new face comes into town on the 1212, they find a room at the Barracks for a few silver pieces.

Blackened Bell Tower

The blackened bell tower of St. Lyon stands at the heart of Grismoor, a mournful spire looming over the cityscape. Though it once rang on the hour, the bell has been silent ever since a grand fire swept through it. The flames scorched the wooden stairs, charred the stone in upward streaks, and warped the bell until a great crack emerged in its side. St. Lyon has never been repaired.

However, the bell tower still issues an ominous, discordant knell on full moon nights, a haunting tune without a ringer. Perhaps, the spirit of the old bell ringer still haunts the tower, or else someone else treks up the flimsy, burned stairs to ring the bell to mark some solemn occasion. Regardless, the denizens of Grismoor have learned to ignore the tower and its hunting bell and its moonlit dirges. With so many abandoned buildings in Grismoor, it matters not who dwells in St. Lyon’s tower.

Castle Douvaine

Were it not for a few loyal bannermen standing watch on the battlements, Castle Douvaine would appear utterly deserted. The drawbridge remains raised and its portcullis closed, as if a siege were imminent, while the city around the castle proceeds unabated. Rot and disrepair on the structure has already begun: the castle’s banners flutter in tatters and ivy has laid siege to its walls, embracing them in an emerald cloak.

Within, the Malformed Prince must enjoy an austere lifestyle, as only a few rations are delivered up the wall via ropes and pulleys each day. A similar system delivers guardsmen up and down the wall, though more staff leave the castle with each passing year. Perhaps a secret passage allows the prince’s most valued agents to travel unseen, or perhaps they cross the moat assisted by magic.

Rumors of the castle’s state and the prince’s sickening “experiments” are an evergreen topic of conversation in Grismoor taverns, though the grisly details of any given story dampen the mood somewhat.

The Drowned Quarter

Once part of the city’s most vibrant quarter, the Merais and Riverside neighborhoods now lie partially submerged in the murky depths of the Riverrook. Buildings in the so-called Drowned Quarter still stand in the persistent flood like skeletal remains, eroded and marked with dingy waterlines, even as their foundations turn to silt.

Grismoor’s inner wall and newly-erected gates cut the Drowned Quarter off from the rest of the city, but enterprising citizens have yet taken to offering gondola services through the flooded thoroughfares as a swift replacement to carriages. The jaunt is a haunting one, however, as shadows in the water and creaking within the abandoned homes suggest that something dwells in the still, dark waters. Whether spirits of the drowned or horrors of the deep linger in the Drowned Quarter, few dare to see for themselves.

Godfist

By night, a constellation of dull red embers speckle the dirt of a crater nearly a mile wide. At its exact center stands a silvery mound over a hundred feet tall bearing the pockmarks and scratches of pickaxes: the titular Godfist, sent by the heavens as a bane to Grismoor. Even standing in the Godfist’s presence or visiting its hallowed crater invites a mysterious illness that no magic can remedy. Shrines dedicated to various deities dot the crater’s perimeter, but they go wholly unobserved, as any pilgrimage to the Godfist means certain death. Only the grass has begun approaching the crater’s edge, being mangled more into a thorny weed with each foot it gains on the crater.

Instead of the Godfist itself, Grismoorians travel to the nearby Pyre Hill to pay their respects. Hundreds of cairns litter the hill, each a makeshift gravestone for those claimed by the Godfist’s curse. A sense of confounding melancholy presides over the place, as the mute stones offer no solace or answers, only questions, to those still living.

Kaldstow Village

The riverside village of Kaldstow is ridden with Mossblight. Great crimson piles of infected crops have been heaped in empty fields and left to rot, permeating the entire village with the humid stench of fungal compost. Worse, the moss itself leaves a stain on anything it touches, so the entire village is tinged with red streaks upon the wood and soil. It is an ever-present reminder of the existential plague that consumes their town, body and soul.

A mirror of their village, the Kaldstow townsfolk have developed a sickly aspect: gaunt faces, bulbous growths, and yellowed pupils. Perhaps their food contains traces of the Mossblight, or perhaps something else has infected the remote village.

Beyond the village are fields of low-lying swampland alongside the Riverrook, and the occasional hermitage rising on stilts above the shifting water level. A trio of hags infamously dwell at the confluence of the Riverrook and the Riverraza, a day’s ride south of Kaldstow, and offer twisted wishes to those who visit.

Villisca Estate

This villa’s crumbling architecture and rusting name on the wrought iron exterior gate betrays its once-esteemed and affluent past. At one time, this building would have been the tallest structure for miles, a great mansion overlooking barley and wheat fields. Yet as Grismoor expanded around it, the building remained, steadily becoming a relic out of time. The grim façade is boarded up and rotting, with vines and weeds choking the estate’s condemned structure and surrounding courtyard. What little paint remains has withered into great chips and begun to flake away, allowing exposed boards to rot into chasms within the walls. Perhaps the only thing that has survived the ravages of time is the marble gargoyle—just as menacing as when it was carved—at the center of a fountain overlooking the mansion’s entrance. Its avian eyes seem to follow with disdain anyone who draws near.

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