| History and Location | Seasonal Life and Daily Details | Archives and Timeline | Lakehome Home | Background and Magical Attributes | Environs | The People |
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The Lake is fed from above by the rains and snows in the region, as well as by some glacial runoff during the summer. It is fed from below by hotsprings on the lake-floor. This gives it something of an inverted temperature profile - the surface is colder than the bottom. The parts of the lake nearest the springs are warm enough to swim in, even in the middle of winter, although the dive through the cold surface is daunting.
To the north, the terrain drops off steeply, plunging 100 meters vertically in only twenty or thirty meters of horizontal run. The path up is narrow with several switchbacks. It can be negotiated by beasts of burden, if one is careful, but no cart or wagon can make the trip.
There is a little spill from the lake that splashes down on the eastern side of the little valley into a pool, and then a small creek which runs north along the eastern edge of the valley to join the Veneon river.
On the southeast edge is a marshy region which runs right up to a cliff wall. This is the only part of the valley wall which is actually a cliff; the rest is steep, but not actually cliffs.
Peasant settlements have sprung up both to the west of the lake on a flat portion of ground and also below the lake on the eastern side of the little valley.
Above the stairs is an overhang protecting a cave which drops back to join the shaft. This is Osprey's aerie, where he will leave his cloak and shift to osprey form before launching himself out to fly above the lake. The aerie opening on the lake side is small enough to prevent most humans from entering, and is inaccessable without flight anyway. From the inside, levitation or flight would be the easiest way to get to the aerie, although one could climb.
The shaft is only about twelve feet across where it breaks the surface and has room for only the stairs. It drops more or less straight down for forty or fifty feet and then begins to wide out in a rough, wide cone. The effect is like a hill jutting from the lake floor, with a spike of rock extending from its top to the surface.
Tunnels begin to branch off once the stairs reach the "hill." The stairs continue down quite some distance below the lake floor to more or less the lowest point in the covenant, Terrus' lab and sanctum. From that point, only a few small exploratory shafts go any deeper, and few are being driven for fear of offending the dwarves further.
Osprey and The Twins each have a sanctum and lab located beneath the lake. Osprey's is relatively near the stairs, while the twins is out near the "hillside," closer to the water. When new magi arrive, space is carved out for them as needed.
Near the Twin's Sanctum and Lab is the Lake Portal.
A few common areas have been created as well; the library and the kitchen. Near the kitchen are the servant's quarters. There are few enough magi that when they need to meet, they can do so in the kitchen.
Near the kitchen is a deep pool, into which water seeps from the lake outside. This provides water for most of the Covenant's needs. If more water is needed, someone can go up the stairs and fetch it from the lake.
Waste water, night soil and garbage are disposed of near the kitchen into a pit which seems to descend forever. Where it goes or how deep it is, noone knows, but forty years of trash have gone in and one still cannot see any sign of the accumulation.
There are a maze of tunnels honeycombing the "hill," and in fact when new spaces are needed for rooms, often a tunnel is simply expanded.
Hidden away at the end of a maze which is not likely to be expanded into rooms is the scrying pool.
At the end of another maze is one end of the Covenant's Hermes Portal. The other end is in a cave on the shore.
On one of the lower levels of the Covenant is the silver mine, a rich lode of high grade ore. So rich, in fact, that the Covenant has never had any monetary worries since its discovery. The Magi, are in fact, extravagantly wealthy. The only institutional reflection of this is in the laboratories which are all well equipped. (+1 to all Lab Totals.) Individual magi are free to spend nearly as much money as they want, but so far, the magi's tastes run to the frugal.
The aura is strong in Terrus' lab and adequate in most other places in the tunnels. By the time one reaches the lakeshore, it has vanished.
In the marsh is a stand of reeds, which provides a consistent source of Vis. Each Spring reeds may be gathered which provide 3 Pawns of Creo Vis. Each Summer, 3 Muto Vis may be gathered, each Autumn 3 Herbam Vis, and each Winter 3 Perdo Vis.
When it looked like a village would form in the valley, Osprey created the Flute of Fog, which creates a dense fog when played. This flute is used to cover the entrance and exit of wagons or people or what have you into and out of the cave.
The building of it was quite an adventure. The Twins experimentation nearly killed them, but they persevered. The finished portal has two side effects. The first is that anyone passing through from the dry side to the lake side has the benefit of the Lungs of the Fish automatically. However, anyone passing from the lake side to the dry side finds themselves very thirsty after passing through.
The pool is a bowl like depression, into which water drips slowly from the ceiling. The pool is a source of pure Aquam vis, 12 pawns each year, which accumulate at the rate of roughly one per month.
As long as the pool is not emptied (ie. at least one pawn of its original vis remains), it functions as a scrying pool like the spell Enchantment of the Scrying Pool, except that the only viewpoints that may be taken are from the lake itself. This could and would prove invaluable should Lakehome ever be attacked from the surface.