Where the River Wyd bends west to crawl out of the Bitter Reaches, at the foothills of the Gray Walls sits the keep Gaunt Wydyr.
Passingly ruled by Her Sovereign Grace Mauraeda Enjkiess, the 21st Duchess of Wydyr, Gaunt Wydyr sits on top of older ruins dating back to the time of the Archons.
Gaunt Wydyr was founded centuries ago as a forward frontier outpost by the western Poxnos clan which later allied themselves with the Staray clan and was thus spared humiliation and defeat during the formation of Great Staraya.
The growth of Gaunt Wydyr over time followed no one’s plan. It is now a baffling, multi-layered labyrinth of keeps, curtain walls, and covered bridges that confound the new visitor.
In the southern part of the city around Gaunt Wydyr lies the Poxnos Quarter which is home to clan loyalists who maintain ties with the throne to the west and consider the Duchess a useless idiot. Some want Queen Daentrella to overthrow the Duchess and install a more active ruler.
The Duchess Mauraeda lives an insulated and decadent lifestyle while rarely leaving the safety of her keep. She is obsessed with luxury and heavily addicted to a specific vintage of wine imported from Rath Talorr to the south. She feels entitled to Starayan protection while she largely neglects the day to day governance of her Duchy.
The only member of her ruling council who doesn’t always tell her what she wants to hear is the Great Druid Yarro, and his advice is regularly ignored; thus, Yarro spends most of his time away from court and in his Great Grove deep in the Shrouded Weald.
Gaunt Wydyr was built upon the older ruins preceding human incursion into this area. The older ruins, Archonic in origin, reach deep into the mountain sides of the Gray Walls. Of the subterranean layers beneath Gaunt Wydyr, the upper levels are mainly cellars, wine vaults, armories and a secret exit to the River Wyd.
Below that is an extensive maze of clan crypts. Portions of this maze have been walled off.
The deepest levels are filled with corridors where past nobility fled during palace coups and died lost and alone; this area is haunted by spectres, wraiths, and other ghostly undead.
It is rumored that below the deepest levels lie ancient foundations holding dark secrets belonging to the Archons. The darkest rumor of all is that there is also a warded entrance to the Qliphoth Realm of Lilith, and that her beautiful servants are within the walls of Gaunt Wydyr even today.