The Shadebarrow is an ancient druid burial chamber located to the southeast of Westruun.
History
The druids of the sun-worshiping Dawn Circle used the ancient henges on this site for rituals, but due to their support of Zan Tal'Dorei in the Scattered War, the tyrannical Trist Drassig slew the druids in their shrine in an act of such great cruelty that it drew the attention of Orcus, the Demon Prince of Undeath. After the Drassig line ended with Trist Drassig's death, the trade unions of Westruun laid claim to the now-vacant land. They in turn sold it to the eccentric, history-obsessed lord and baron Sevil Howthess, who renovated it to house his own tomb. He and supposedly his treasure were sealed with various protective measures. However, when Howthess disturbed the site, Orcus began rallying an army of undead deep within the Shadebarrow, and those whose bodies were laid at the defiled ritual site became restless undead.
Before the Critical Role show started, Vox Machina once traveled to the Shadebarrow on a mission from Drez Vina. There they defeated an iron golem, extracted the arcane cortex from its chest, and returned it to Drez to fulfill their contract.
Aside from presumably Drez Vina and Vox Machina, by 812 PD, no one but the few surviving grandchildren of Baron Howthess, living in obscurity, remembered the exact location of the tomb, but historians and treasure seekers occasionally found the spot atop a grassy hill.
At some point before 836 PD the firbolg Camellia Springshower was touched by the dark energies of this now-corrupted place of power, becoming a blighted druid.
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