Bédenes/1st edition/9

= CAER BEDENES = Caer Bedenes sits on a dramatic basalt slab that rises alongside a branch of the Beden Stream. The keep occupies every bit of the higher eastern part of the pinnacle. This forbidding site overlooks the stream, the forest to the north, and the settlement below. In Corani times, a small watchtower stood here; all that remains is a barely discernible stair cut into the steep eastern face, long since obscured by brush.

The rough stone construction of the keep betrays its rapid construction. The gargoyles and grotesque filigrees that make it clear this is an Agrikan holding are crudely carved; only their height above the village conceals the poor craftsmanship. The stonework is maintained by the order's bonded-master mason and the squad of miserable slaves he keeps chained in a pit outside the keep.

The keep protects the House of Ordeals, which sits on the basalt platform to the west. This edifice was completed after the keep and is better constructed.

As there are no privies in the keep or House of Ordeals, many patches of the walls are stained and stinking from the night soil dumped over the battlements and out the windows.

The arrow slits in the keep's walls include wide openings at the bottom from which the order's alchemical weapons can be dropped (see Warriors of Mameka, COL #4452). The alchemical weapons are stored in the arsenal in the Akarata's tower.



GROUND FLOOR
[[File:caer-bedenes-ground-floor-01.jpg|600px|alt=Ground floor map of Caer Bedenes.
 * Note: Elevations on all plans are relative to the courtyard of the House of Ordeals.]]

Between the keep and the House of Ordeals is a 40-foot-deep fissure crossed by a drawbridge. A winding path from the village below hugs the stone face of the pinnacle and passes beneath the drawbridge as it climbs to the House of Ordeals and the entrance to the keep.