## Ruins of the Grendleroot The mountain known as [[Blackclaw]], home to the ruins of the Grendleroot, rises at the center of a remote valley. The land around the mountain is actually an impact crater formed millions of years ago when a mysterious celestial body crashed to the world—killing nearly every living thing on the planet, and leaving the mountain behind. For millennia, humanoid explorers and settlers have sought out the mysteries of the mountain, and have attempted to tame a strange magical energy found within it. The races that once dwelled in Blackclaw are left to your determination, depending on the needs of your campaign, but might include dwarves, duergar, gnomes, goblinoids, orcs, dark elves, and other traditional dungeon races. For some of those who explored or settled in Blackclaw, the strange energy of the mountain led to remarkable levels of creativity. For others, it added fuel to the arcane magic they practiced. Monsters have also ceaselessly sought out the mountain, though no one knows what calls to them from deep inside Blackclaw. But for eons, intelligent and monstrous creatures alike carved out lairs, tombs, sanctums, cities, temples, and vaults throughout the mountain. And then disaster came to Blackclaw. Two centuries ago, tens of thousands of unbreakable black metal spires erupted within the rock of the mountain, spreading through it like the roots of weeds. Most often taking a form resembling enormous claws or teeth, these spires destroyed subterranean cities, collapsed caverns, buried vaults—and uncovered previously lost ruins that had gone unseen for thousands of years. In the aftermath of the destruction, survivors came to call these spires “the Grendleroot”—a name passed down by the residents of a subterranean gnome settlement known as Violet Falls. For centuries, the gnomes had suspected that the mysterious power lurking deep in the heart of the mountain was a god that they called “the Grendle.” When the spires tore through the mountain, the gnomes named them the Grendleroot. Refugees from Violet Falls passed that name and lore along, and it stuck with the explorers who would become the founders of Deepdelver’s Enclave. With the coming of the Grendleroot, the permanent settlements of Blackclaw were abandoned. Now only the adventuring explorers of Deepdelver’s Enclave dare to construct new settlements in the mountain, and only they dare to explore the mysteries of its hidden depths.