Castle Never sits on the northern bank of the river, in the Blacklake District that takes up Neverwinter’s nortwestern quadrant. It used to be the seat of its government, and home to its ruling family. The cataclysm wrecked it and killed almost everyone inside. The surviving servants decided to seal its crypts, vaults and grounds, hoping that a worthy heir might make use of them one day.

The castle’s ruins are still a towering landmark, and its foundations are still solid. While many interior chambers were destroyed, some are still intact and a lot of the interior is at least navigable - most notably the underground bits. Now it houses several groups who compete with each other for territory.

The book doesn’t give you maps, leaving those as an exercise to the GM. There’s enough going on here that it could be a full megadungeon and the focus of the campaign… or it could be “downsized” to the site of a single targeted delve for groups who want to keep their focus elsewhere.

Surface Areas

The surface portion of the castle is partly ruined but still contains a large number of navigable areas. There are some places of interest that should feature in whatever map you draw for it, like the locked armory or the odd places detailed below.

“Drow” Encampment

This used to be a campsite in a hidden spot in the city, near Castle Never. It was originally set up by Drizzt and Jarlaxe around the time of the cataclysm, when they were here investigating the Thayans and trying to stop their plan. They come back every once in a while to attempt to tie off those Thayan loose ends, usually without much success.

The location of the encampment was recently discovered, however… by their fans. These eager youths and would-be adventurers have made the spot into a permanent “DrowCon” of sorts. They train together, challenge themselves by delving the castle, and hope to become good enough to join their idols’ entourages once they return. Neither of the two celebrities have been back for a while, but Jarlaxe has heard of these events and has sent some of his Bregan D’Aerthe agents to mind the place and keep a watch for promising recruits from among the fans. They are Xalbyn the quick-witted rogue, Kimmuriel Oblodra the quiet and focused mage, and Aerlyse the half-drow psion who spies on the other two for Jarlaxe. Xalbyn hides his drow heritage with a Hat of Disguise.

The book makes an effort to take this place seriously… but I just can’t see it as anything but comic relief. It would be a funny place to use whether there are Bregan Spies on the party or not. If there are, then I’m guessing the three stooges here don’t know about them. Jarlaxe seems very fond of keeping his underlings in the dark.

Hall of Ashen Mirrors

This is a hallway inside Castle Never. It has huge windows and used to be lined with mirrors, being a popular spot for young Alagondar heirs to practice their regal posture. When the cataclysm hit, air pressure shattered all the mirrors, filling the place with flying glass and killing everyone inside right before a pyroclasm came in through the windows and turned the corpses to ash.

Now the hallway is very, very haunted. When living people enter, it will reconstruct itself, and the reflections in the mirrors will re-enact the events that happened just before the explosion. The replay ends with the explosion-and-pyroclasm combo, just as deadly as it originally was. Anyone lingering here for too long is gonna have a bad time.

Surface Factions

These groups make up the inhabitants of the castle’s above-ground portion. They’re all hostile to each other, though some are more amenable to befriending the PCs.

Ghosts

Since the castle’s destruction was so sudden, pretty much everyone who perished in it ended up becoming a ghost. They can be found all over the interior, and are a varied lot. They’re not automatically hostile, and PCs who approach them correctly might strike up some extremely useful conversations with them. However they tend to talk in riddles both because they like it and because their sanity might have been a little damaged in the last 30 years. And if the ghosts come to believe the characters are just there to loot the ruins, they will become hostile.

Thayan Forces

Castle Never is Valindra’s second major focus in the city of Neverwinter (the first is Neverdeath Cemetery, as we saw earlier). On the surface, her forces are engaged in a small war against those of Talgath, which consists of a tense standoff with occasional battles. There’s at least one residential area that became isolated due to cave-ins after a battle. The ghoul troop that got trapped inside passes its time wearing the former inhabitants’ clothes and pretending to be nobility, waiting for a rescue that will never come. The PCs will probably stumble upon them first. Other undead patrols can probably act as random encounters.

Talgath, Watcher of Castle Never

Talgath the Beholder has recently moved in. He wants to be king of the castle, starting with the ettercaps on the upper spires and working his way down. He pays little attention to humanoid intruders like the PCs, unless they get in his way.

Valindra sees Talgath as the greatest threat to her goals in the castle. She’s sent people to kill him several times, but Talgath has defeated them all. Not only is he a powerful monster in his own right, he also makes extensive use of his charm ray to keep a small army of minions. He brought in a coven of harpies and a pack of displacer beasts from outside, and has charmed many of the assassins sent to kill him as well.

Independent Communities

The castle’s atrium was boarded up long ago, and the heat and darkness have turned the garden within into a fungal paradise complete with a village of very territorial myconids.

Its upper spires have been taken over by a group of ettercaps who used to live in the dungeons but were pushed out and up by Valindra. She ignores them these days, but Talgath is currently trying to enslave them. Their leader says he had a prophetic dream where a group of outsiders would deliver them from the beholder, which makes them more likely than usual to befriend the PCs (and give them that quest).

Underground Areas

The castle’s underground areas are structurally intact. The things that make them dangerous are of another nature entirely.

Neverneath

The castle had a sizable dungeon area underneath it, protected by strong wards that let it survive the cataclysm intact. Radiation from the Spellplague pocket at the bottom of the Chasm has altered the wards, however, making it so they actively trap any who enter the dungeon, causing its corridors to shift and close around these intruders.

Space here is all wonky. A straight corridor can lead you through a circuitous route full of loops and circles. A door might lead you to a different place than it did the fellow PC who was just in front of you. The place is filled with self-resetting traps, and inhabited by a large pack of gargoyles who love to attack anything fleshy they find. It also houses a small force of desperate gnolls that stumbled upon it several months ago and haven’t managed to escape yet.

Vault of the Nine

Below Neverneath lies the Vault of the Nine, where those legendary bodyguards have been entombed to honor their meritorious service in life. If you’re using the subplot where Valindra plans to reanimate them, her forces are already here and have turned the vault’s many outer chambers into their base of operations, filling it with guardian undead. If she manages to animate the Nine, she will order them to kill and replace all of New Neverwinter’s leadership, including Neverember.

Player Tie-Ins

Why would the PCs want to mess with this place?

The Neverwinter Noble has the most reasons for wanting to do so. The ghosts are likely to be their direct ancestors, for starters! The fabled Crown of Neverwinter is also lost somewhere inside the castle, and it’s likely the most definitive proof of legitimacy for anyone wanting to claim the throne. Legend says the crown’s magic properties only work for someone of the line of Alagondar, and that anyone else who tries to wear it gets simultaneously burned and frozen.

Reaching the Vault of the Nine would also be a desirable goal for the Noble even if Valindra’s forces are not down there. It could be possible to call the Nine back into service through their oaths to the line of Alagondar, and if the noble can do so that would be another excellent proof of their legitimacy.

Oghma’s Faithful would also love to explore this place and find its many lost historical secrets. They might be mostly interested in interviewing the ghosts and finding any sealed off libraries, but finding a safe path to the Vault would also be a worthy goal even if they wouldn’t actually want to loot the place.

Even the Devil’s Pawn might benefit from talking with the ghosts, as it’s quite possible one or more of them have had to deal with a similar problem in life.

For everyone else, Neverember is always hiring adventurers stupid brave enough to delve the Castle in search for the Crown or any other relics and documents that might help increase his legitimacy. He also wants it to be clear of monsters so he can move in.

The Crown of Neverwinter

We get stats for the Crown, and it’s indeed a nifty item (level 15, head slot, strong protections against mental conditions and a nice bonus to social skills). The stats do not include the genetic lock from the legend, so it’s up to the GM whether those stories are true or not. The people certainly believe them, in any case.

If the GM likes the idea of the Crown but doesn’t want to bother with the Castle, the crown might be placed in another place that’s more relevant to the campaign. As a lost artifact, it could turn up anywhere for any number of reasons.

Impressions

I like the dynamic with the different factions here. There’s a lot going on in this castle and as in any megadungeon the situation here feels a lot less stable than even the one in the city outside. PCs who come in here are definitely going to have a drastic effect whether they have themed ties to the place or not.