Coldhorn Fortress

A massive ruined complex of monolithic grey granite construction high on the northern wall of the Coldhorn pass, Coldhorn Fortress has stood on this site in one form or another since the days of Thule, the savage times between the comet strike and the emergence of the Cumaean Empire. Its current above-ground ruins are a daunting complex of barracks, workhouses, towers and redoubts overlooked by a somber, half-collapsed central building buttressed in snow for eight months out of the year, and the labyrinth of passages underground have claimed many unwitting explorer and unwary travelers' lives over the millennia. Though many nooks and crannies underground likely remain forgotten or simply inaccessible. the aboveground buildings and chambers have all been stripped down to virtually nothing. Indeed, only their massive size and unyielding weight has likely prevented the stones themselves from being stolen and repurposed over the years.   The fortress is famous for its association with the mythic figure known as the Winter King, possibly a hero of the days of Thule or even the Lost Era, though the evidence for such great age is contested by some scholars. King or no, the area is rendered inhospitable to most sentient life for about 1 week out of the year when the Great Northern Storm rages, from the end of Niphonel's month through the middle of Ycibiel's, the darkest times of the year. The winds have ice-blasted the visible stone of the fortress into a strangely smooth, brittle and oddly resonant crust that can be rung like a bell with the right materials, and serves to superconduct sound in odd ways. Other, more mundane rumors speak of nomadic trader caravans in warmer months and a migratory white dragon in the heart of winter, though it seems hard to believe even a dragon could survive exposure to the force of the Great Northern Storm for very long.   Exactly when it was first reduced to a ruin is as much a mystery as who first built it or when it was built; since the mountains themselves arose primarily from overpressure in the crust after the Comet Strike, it cannot predate them. Prevailing theory holds that it was built in the days of Thule by the regional warlock-kings and taken by the Cumaean Conquest promptly after, meaning that it may have been in operation for less than fifty years or so, and a ruin for 25,000 years after. Whatever the explanation, its construction was clearly magical, possibly even Cacogenic, as nothing resembling mortar remains between the massive stones and their fittings remain as tight as the day they were constructed, where they haven't been shattered or blown apart by unknown forces. Erosion seems to have little effect other than to heighten the odd glasslike 'skin' on the black granite, itself a subject of a great deal of scholarly inquiry.