Editing Once Giants Lived in the Earth (section)

==Rumors==
*IC #162
*"Staying in one of the private apartments in this keep there is a gem-merchant. He will pay more than the resident trader for gems and jewels, for he has the luxury of being able to travel to far lands and get higher prices than those whose trade is strictly local. His wife has attracted much attention also, for she is a beautiful woman who is festooned in some of the jewels and gems which he offers for sale."

*"There are tales of orcs and goblins in the woods on the slopes of the mountains beyond the Keep, but in truth, what woods and mountains are not troubled by such humanoids, the unhappy lurkers who are remnants of evil armies of eras past?"

*"Another merchant was said to have been attacked hereabouts. This, for clarificatory purposes, is a different trader than the gem-merchant. This merchant matters little to what I am about to tell you, for he is said to be deceased. However, his wife is apparently being held prisoner by humanoids. His kin, or perhaps hers, will pay a hefty ransom for her recovery. The tale differs slightly in its particulars."

*"A visiting priest has moved to the Keep recently and taken up residence. He is a friendly, jovial fellow by all reports, although he has never stayed at this Inn. He is said to be generous and open-handed, and to offer loans at no interest. This has won him many friends."

*"Ah! At the tavern next door, a few black-clad foreigners have been telling tales of the foreign city from which they hail. This place is said, allegedly, to be suffering from sort of plague or uprising of the undead. Valiant adventurers and stalwart clerics are apparently in need there. These dark-garbed travelers are, they claim, recruiting such men so that the city fathers will give them what amounts to a finder's fee."

*"There was a man who stayed at my inn last night but left a few hours before you arrived. He said that he was traveling south and east, away from the mountains. He had serious but not life-threatening injuries. He told some crazed tale of being drubbed by some sort of lurking druid or other form of pagan."

*IC 602/621
**There have been rumors that an itinerant elf was lost in the marshes to the southeast of the Keep.  The elf was said to be questing for an abandoned wizard's tower which he intended to plunder.
*IC 603
**From the body of Inler, the bandit boss, a treasure map of some sort. A crude drawing and some notes point the way to a mountainside complex dubbed "The Hovel of the Vile Coyote." The language appears to be some bastardized form of Common which is (or was) perhaps an unhealthy dialect spoken by an isolated sept of loons. From what little Gaxon can gather, the Vile Hovel is a place of death, danger---and riches. Looking at the pictures and comparing them to the party's map, he becomes confident that the lair depicted is located about three-quarters of the way up the south/southeastern slope of the tallest peak in Hex 2109.