The only known surface access to **Gloomdeep** lies in a jagged cavern mouth high in the Northern Crags. Once a goblin trade tunnel, it now serves as the **Ashen Vigil’s fortified gateway** into the necropolis. This camp — called the **Ashen Gate** — is both supply station and bulwark. Every cart of rations, every crate of oil, and every recruit destined for the Emberhold passes through its gates. It is also here that the Vigil burns any revenants or plague-ridden creatures that wander too close, keeping the corruption contained.
- **Outer Palisades** – Timber and stone barricades ring the cave mouth, forming a small fortress. Spiked stakes and rune-etched wards discourage beasts from approaching.
- **The Watchfires** – Massive braziers burn day and night on platforms above the palisades. Their light serves as both ward and signal; if they dim, it is a warning of attack.
- **Supply Yard** – A cramped courtyard where wagons unload food, firewood, oil, and weapons. The Vigil insists all supplies be burned with smoke before entering the inner camp, to “purge hidden corruption.”
- **Gate Chapel** – A small shrine where Torchbearers consecrate the dead before they are carried below. Its altar flame is said to have burned continuously since the camp’s founding.
- **The Ash Tunnels** – The Vigil has bricked and fortified the upper sections of the cave tunnel, turning them into narrow killing corridors lined with pyres and arrow slits. These lead down to the sealed **Ash Gate** proper, the Vigil’s controlled breach into Gloomdeep.
- **Frontier Bastion** – Soldiers rotate here every few months, keeping the defenses manned and the Watchfires lit.
- **Quarantine Rituals** – Anyone entering from Gloomdeep is stripped, examined, and ritually burned with blessed smoke before being allowed to return to the kingdom.
- **Constant Tension** – The Ashen Gate is often besieged by drakes, beasts, or the restless dead. At night, faint wails echo from the cave, chilling even hardened knights.
- **Logistical Hub** – Supplies for the Emberhold are lowered through the Ash Tunnels in guarded caravans, while wounded are carried back for burial or consecration.
- **Order of Last Light** – Condemns the Ashen Gate’s existence, arguing that any breach into Gloomdeep invites catastrophe.
- **Mage Guild** – Maintains a quiet presence here, using supply runs as cover to smuggle fragments of rune-carved stone or plague-tainted relics back for study.
- **Crimson Standard** – Sometimes escorts supply caravans to the Gate but otherwise avoids it, considering it cursed.
- **Goblins of Gloomreach** – Despise the Vigil for desecrating their ancestral city and accuse them of prolonging the plague by keeping the gate open.