The Brothers Gray is a gang of cutthroats and murderers.

The depraved brothers prey upon those homesteads and travelers that venture too near the valley of the Chaos Scar. Survivors have been few and far between, and an entire posse of guardsmen sent from a nearby barony disappeared without a trace while following the halflings’ trail toward the valley. (Whether these disappearances were due to an ambush by Brothers or other monsters wandering free of the valley is not known.) Whatever the case, as long as the Brothers Gray can strike targets with impunity and melt back into the hostile wilderness, their depredations are likely to continue.

Centuries ago, a powerful goliath sorcerer named Voran Earthmane constructed a keep in the middle of a rank swamp where he could conduct his arcane research in peace. Voran conducted many experiments in the laboratory beneath his keep, mostly centered on the creation of magic items that harnessed the power of the Elemental Chaos. One of his achievements was a staff that drew strength from earth, and he called it the staff of earthen might.

When the great meteorite fell from the heavens and plowed the Chaos Scar, it destroyed Voran’s keep, along with many other features of the terrain. The swamp drained away, leaving only a desolate, dry ruin in its wake. Only the ground floor of the keep and the laboratory beneath it escaped destruction, but even these meager remains were buried in the wake of the meteorite’s fall. Voran himself escaped the obliteration of his home, but with his life’s work in shambles, he collected those of his belongings he could find and departed the area for lands unknown, and his name and legacy faded into history.

A few weeks ago, a tribe of bullywugs called the Muckrakers, drawn by the evil siren song of the meteorite, uncovered the ruins of Voran Earthmane’s keep and moved in. The bullywugs’ poisonous and corruptive influence has hastened the ruined keep’s deterioration and damaged Voran’s staff of earthen might. The damaged staff has opened a small portal onto a sea of elemental mud in the Elemental Chaos, allowing a steady tide of the muck to fill the ruins.

Over the past few weeks, the mud has filled much of the laboratory beneath the ruins with a thick layer of sludge; creating a sticky wallow that is ideal for swamp-dwelling bullywugs. Content with their new home, the bullywugs have begun to look to the lands beyond the valley. A rich bounty of loot and murder lies just beyond the King’s Wall, and the rapacious bullywugs will certainly not be able to resist such a temptation for long.