[A to Z April] U is for the Upper Snarl (locale)

The Upper Snarl

A hard three-days ride from Coldtreath, high in the mountains, there is a cave. The entrance is massive, nearly 100 feet across and the same deep. Three tiers or steps each over five feet tall act as a stairway in the mouth of the Snarl.

(Get the color map here or the black-and-white version here.)

The Snarl itself is all smooth, worn stone on floors, walls, and ceilings. No one is quite sure what formed the Snarl; lava tubes, water, or some massive beast’s tunneling–all are distinct possibilities, yet each one has a distinct flaw. Throughout the Snarl, one finds rooms that are near-perfect half-domes, carved or worked out of the surrounding rocks. These chambers are close enough to perfect to be hand-crafted, yet are clearly worn stone.

Whatever its origins, the Snarl has proven time and again to be a deadly maze of tunnels. Wandering creatures who have taken refuge in the Snarl are often to blame, but it is believed that recently the so-called Abyss of Spiders has widened and intersected a portion of the Snarl. This has allowed deadly spiders of all sorts to enter the Snarl and wander its passages.

There are multiple levels to the Snarl, reached not through stairways or passageways, but through holes broken through the floors into chambers below. So far as is known, the Snarl has never been fully explored. It is not known what creatures may exist below; neither is it known what piles of treasure may be found amongst the remains of previous adventurers.

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Last year's "U": U is for Urosh, Temple of
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