The ruins of Minas Iaur (S. "Old Tower") and Bar-en-Uinendil (S. "House of the Uinendil") were ancient remains in the sunken city of Lond Daer.
Minas Iaur ruins in T.A. 1640-1650[]
Minas Iaur ruins in T.A. 1640-1650:
Refer to Lond Daer §Terrain surrounding the ruins, #15 & #16.
First Basement[]
- Storage Room. The only staircase up was in the northwest corner. It is no longer identifiable. The rubble is too high to allow sight or passage to the southern part of the room.
- Rubble. Most of the ceiling has collapsed here, burying the remains of the staircase and the stored goods. No useful trace of them survives.
- Drainage. Water from the depression on the surface seeps in through this corner of the storage room.
- Central Corridor. All the doors have rotted to dust.
- Storage. Another section of the storage room, blocked from the first by the fall of the ceiling. There are two amphora in the corner.
- Armory. The ceiling is partially collapsed. The armory was looted millennia ago.
- Side Passage. Served the servant quarters.
- Servant Quarters. Now quite bare.
- Cold Storage Room. A few bones remain scattered about the floor.
- Shaft for Secret Elevator. An emergency exit into the doorway is Sheer Folly to detect.
Sub-basement[]
The sub-basement of Minas Iaur became the deepest and dankest prison of Lond Daer, although it once was merely devoted to cisterns for the water supply of Vinyalondë. Thus, no one bothered to search it when the salvaging after the Wrath of Ossë was performed. None of the survivors knew that this was the secret location of Tar-Telemmaitë's precious mithril room. There were no documents, and the King carried the secret to his grave.
Maran the Silent was Telemmaitë's most trusted agent, and he was given the task of guiding the mithril room safely back to Númenor. During the storm that ravaged Lond Daer, he went down to the sub-basement to watch over his charge, and was trapped in the collapse of the tower along with three prisoners. The air and food held out for a dreadfully long time. Maran became quite insane, but remained committed to his mission, never quite realizing that he had died.
Maran was a man of great determination; he has forced the spirits of the prisoners to assist him, and bent the mission of the guard constructs to his will. With his limited knowledge of the Essence, Maran has maintained the traps in the sub-basement, though he imagines that he has done so physically. His physical appearance is also subject to his will. Maran will probably greet any visitors as his long awaited rescuers, at least initially. Fluent Adûnaic will be necessary to maintain this illusion. An extremely glib, perceptive, and quick-witted person might just be able to talk Maran into leaving. If not, he and his unwilling servants will defend the inner prison with savage intensity.
- Elevator Shaft. A 40' drop from the basement level.
- Low-ceilinged Central Chamber. Four suits of fine Númenórean full plate stand astride the two doors out of the central chamber. They have suffered from corrosion.
- Three Smaller Cisterns. They stink and teem with foul-appearing, but harmless, nematodes.
- Cell. The entry to the cell is barred by a portcullis, but the mechanism has not been maintained.
- Common Cell. Used for those condemned to rot in the dungeons until they died. There are many mannish bones but no obvious treasure within. The very perceptive may notice that the left wall is covered with faint miter-encrusted lettering.
- Torture Chamber. The steel door will be unlocked unless Maran flees within. The lock is Extremely Hard to pick. Within are an elaborate set of mithril “Instruments of Persuasion”.
- Inner Prison. The inner prison door is identical to the one giving entry to the torture chamber (#6) and is kept locked. The iron frame of the cot within is largely intact.
- Cistern. A cistern similar to those described above (#3) only larger and deeper. However, anyone willing to dive into the mucilaginous, maggoty muck is likely to discover quickly something unusual….