09-10-2006, 09:13 PM
Explorations of Castle Karstaag
By Nelos Zek
Dedicated to the lost explorers of Solstheim
[1ST]T[/1ST]here have been many disputes on the history of Morrowind, not many records were written until the arrival of the Imperials. Lately, many have investigated areas of Morrowind in hopes of digging up ancient history.
One such of these areas is on a northernmost island equally off the coast of Vvardenfell and Skyrim, the isle of Solstheim. This island has had disputes over ownership between Morrowind and Skyrim for quite a long time now. I felt it should be safe to enter, but just in case I brought 10 others with me, five of whom who first accompanied me to Red Mountain, the others feared too much to journey to Solstheim.
West of Skaal Village, the capital of Solstheim, is a castle made entirely of ice called Castle Karstaag. This castle was said to have been formed during the first Bloodmoon, a strange nordic prophecy, when a large iceberg broke out at sea as it neared Solstheim, forming a now destroyed giant glacier even more westward and the smaller half landed in the middle of the top of the island.
This castle used to be inhabited by a giant named Karstaag, hence the name, but he is presumed dead by the nords after the Mortrag Glacier exploded and no more raids of their livestock have occurred. The castle is now full of the Karstaag Rieklings, very hostile twords invaders.
The castle has also been a place for werewolves in the past, and also some say Grahl live underneath, but these were probably old tales to scare children. Some say they witnessed a werewold massacre Rieklings inside, but I also think of this as false. We have heard of a secret entrance through the roof, and there was a tower located at the top of it. Entering, we found a Riekling guard who was absolutely terrifying. We subdued him eventually, but not before he cut off poor Varron's finger. We huddled the room looking for a way, but found nothing but a Daedric artifact hidden in a crevice.
As we stood in the small tower, planning, I guess our body heat started warming up the room and Hlormarus fell through the floor, of course tipping off the Rieklings below to our arrival. Anyways, after Hlormarus was rendered limb from limb the Rieklings attacked us and we dove into the woods. They hacked and slashed at the trees and I think I heard some of my fellow collegues screams. After, a nord appeared and killed off the Rieklings, and then he tried to attack us for "disturbing nature". Another one of my collegues was in the Mage's Guild and cast a shock spell, and then he exploded. I think that was the legendary nature guardian in Nordic legends.
There is another door to enter the castle besides the main one. After looking around one can find an underwater entrance, but it's a long swim, and two of our men drowned before getting out. We entered and found a long expanse of caves. After nearly catching frostbite in those cursed caves though, one would leave as we did and explore a barrow instead.
We then tried to dig up information about the castle in Skaal Village but were driven out by their chieftain and the honor guard. We instead decided to study the castle once more, so again we went into the tunnels. After journeying the tunnels we found a large banquet hall, in dissarray of course, and the nearly unrecognizable corpse of Hlormarus. The castle is mainly divided into 3 chambers, the banquet hall, the bedroom, and the throne room. We beleive the blue fire in the torches is what keeps the place frozen for in an attempt to light a fire with one of those we instead made the place even colder. This shows an ancient magic for one of the destruction elements to take on the charecteristics and form as another one, for example shock magic lighting a fire, or this strange blue fire freezing things.
It is not known whether Karstaag possesses any magic to perform the magics witnessed taking place in this castle, but we beleif it used to be the home of some long since dead mage. There were also some chests containing some pretty trinkets, probably left from the mage or stolen by the Rieklings in raids.
This book is not acknowledged as truth by the temple but is allowed for free sale in the general markets.
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