The Dread Fortress

First appearance: Skypiercer Part 1

The Dread Fortress is the seat of the Grandmaster’s power and her home. It is a giant orc skull of rock, burning-eyed and broken-tusked, squatting in a sea of lava at the very center of The Void. It can be seen from every realm in the Void, and visitors swear it follows you. Inside its mouth lies a damp, sprawling underground castle that has been a tyrant’s lair, a construction site, a holiday showpiece and, most of the time, the place where champions wait to find out how they are going to die.

Description

From the outside, the fortress is a monolith shaped like a humanoid orc skull, with one broken tusk and eyes full of fire, rising from hundreds of miles of scorching lava field. Volcanoes rumble around it, and steam from the lava drifts against its walls. It is so visible from every direction that travelers have used “the great orc skull and its flaming lava eyes” as the compass rose of the Void. Its light is bright enough to cast a distant spire’s shadow.

Visitors enter through the skull’s open mouth and descend into a subterranean castle. The air is cool, the stone halls drip with dew and lava condensation, and the walls are hung with portraits of the Grandmaster. Among them is the portrait of a man with a golden shield: Faucius Golden Shield, her father. Deeper down are meeting rooms, feast and dining halls, a banquet hall, a kitchen big enough to fill an entire floor, and at least 200 empty rooms “up above.” The fortress is divided into thirds, and it also has dungeons, caverns and a sewer system.

The heart of it all is the throne room: an iron-and-wood door (on some days, giant wooden doors), a throne of metal and bone with red velvet seats, a hearth, a purple rug and a stone face of the Grandmaster carved above the throne. By the Season 3 Finale the Arbiter had his own chair beside it, and goblins have been known to perch on top of the throne.

The rest of the castle is a rabbit warren of oddities collected over the years:

Living quarters: the Grandmaster’s bed chamber (with a David Copperfield poster), her master bathroom with new marble sinks and tile floors, and, later, her private bathroom.
Service areas: a pitchfork closet with a golden handle that doubles as a pantry for rice and dry goods, a brewery, an armory, a printing press, a gym (weights, no Pelotons) and an attic full of goblin winter clothes, photo albums, a box of crowns and, inexplicably, a horse.
Leisure and training: a koi pond room, a small black room with a stage, the chinchilla room (a training simulator), training pits and a labyrinth with no toilets.
Behind the scenes: a lobby and prep room where champions wait, the locker room where fallen champions are revived, concession stands, a portal relay room with five gates and an arrivals-and-departures board, and Stuart’s hot little closet full of screens in the basement.
The Arbiter’s spaces: a scholarly wing called “the Realm of the Arbiter,” a screening room, an office, and a secret lab full of cadavers.
Doug’s twelve refrigerators of cheese.

The staff include Thea, Stuart in IT, Claude the janitor, a great many goblins and servants, and the unionized Chinchillas. The Grandmaster also keeps a standing army.

The fortress has also turned out to be awake. In Season 7 the skull spoke for the first time, and revealed its name was Seavold. Nobody had ever asked. It explained that it is only a head (“just a noggin, some good teeth”), called the champions “an ant” and dismissed the match as “a farce.”

History

The Shadow King’s Seat

The fortress has been an orc-skull rock for as long as the story goes back. In the flashbacks of Skypiercer Part 1 it was the home of young Elusia, who had her own chambers there and called its walls unscalable and unbreachable. They didn’t keep her safe. On the Night of the Long Shadow her uncle Agdrel killed her father, Faucius Golden Shield, in the throne room. In the Ceremonial Chamber, the Knights of Chaos gave their lives in a blood rite to send Elusia out of the Void to safety.

Agdrel ruled from the fortress as The Shadow King for 300 years. When Elusia finally returned in Skypiercer Part 3, she found her home in ruins. The Ceremonial Chamber had become Agdrel’s trophy room, and the banquet hall, with its magical night-sky ceiling, lay wrecked. The great wood-and-iron throne room doors were broken and the red carpet burned. Hallways lit by magical lanterns still led past kitchens, game rooms, servants’ quarters and guest rooms, and deep within the fortress sat the laboratory of The Arbiter. After defeating the Shadow King in Skypiercer, Elusia took the fortress for herself and rebuilt parts of it. She sometimes claims she built the whole thing herself. That’s a joke, though some in the Void may believe it.

The Grandmaster’s Home (Season 1 and the Early Deathmatches)

By the time the Deathmatches began, the fortress was described as a “subterranean castle,” as in Playtest 1. S1 Ep1 set out the classic tour: down through the skull’s mouth, past portraits of the Grandmaster, meeting rooms and the feast halls, to the iron door of the throne room. It was a grand place, if not a well-stocked one. Food, it turned out in S1 Ep2, is hard to come by there. Somewhere inside, the Arbiter brought fallen champions back to life (S1E4). For S1E12 the whole place was decked out for the holidays with wreaths, garland, lights and a tree.

Fate of the Arbiter and Season 2

When the Faithful marched on the fortress in Fate of the Arbiter Part 1, they crossed the lands between it and The Eastern Outpost, including a broken stone bridge. They entered through the skull’s mouth into cool, dank halls lined with Elusia’s portraits, and found an illusion waiting for them in the throne room.

Season 2 put the building itself to work. The kitchen, a two-level hall of crumbling stone with a balcony, trophy-covered walls, barrels of mead and a wall clock, became the arena for Asena v Ralzamon. In one corner sat a deep, dark, seemingly endless pit, and the Arbiter threw Ralzamon into it. Later episodes featured a gong solo in the Dread Fortress, the Grandmaster’s bed chamber and pitchfork closet (S2E10), pantries and a fridge in the lower third of the castle (S2E11), and a sewer system and toilets, along with her master bedroom and a bathroom with new marble sinks and a tile floor (S2E15).

The sewers mattered more than anyone expected. In The Hall of Fates, Toddleheim, Locket and Flynry made their way through miles of pipe and acid sewage full of “magical waste,” oil and toxic waste, past a smugglers’ chamber, a drain chain, service rooms and a gated tunnel, to a dead end under the floor. Meanwhile the Arbiter held court in an ice-covered throne room he called “my throne room,” a shadowy mirror of the fortress he had conjured for himself.

During the Battle for the Crown, the Arbiter’s coup made the fortress a war zone of halls, stone steps, armory and printing press. He made plans to move his own statue into the throne room. By Round 3 the redecoration was underway, and a water bed had been parked in front of the throne. At the GCX Orlando 2022 live show, it was joked that the fortress had been brought “from further North Orlando” and was getting a new wing added, without permits.

Renovations (Season 3)

Season 3 was the season of the contractors. The Arbiter, wearing sackcloth and chains as punishment for his coup, worked at a paperwork desk in the throne room (S3E1). In S3E3, one room under renovation had a pool of water in the middle, a sink overflowing into it, and a demolished load-bearing wall. It was described as “a place we’ve seen a person die once or twice.” By S3E4 the hallways were still cracked, but the kitchen was finally done, and a basement offered free cowbells. S3E5 added a closet behind the throne, a basement full of plush d20s and a goblin-renovated kitchen. Other discoveries that season included a berry bush behind the castle and the Grandmaster’s craft workshop below the dungeon.

In Into the Mirror, deep stairs led down to the locked Hall of Fates, also called the Hall of Mirrors. Its mirrors are a deception: an otherworldly entity that eats souls.

Darkness Again (Season 4)

At the close of the Season 3 Finale, the Shadow King returned and the fortress went dark again, “as it once was the first time that you entered.” Through Season 4 it stood amid constant volcanic eruptions, reachable only by magic. The throne room was redecorated in his theme, the halls grew filthy, musty and candlelit, and the Grandmaster was a captive in all but name. She still ran the Deathmatches for him from inside her own home. The throne room gained a grill (S4E7) and a giant map table of the Void (S4E8). The fortress also had a long hallway, pillars and a prep room for champions, along with echoing halls and dungeon-like lower levels.

The Season of Fate (Season 5)

In the Season of Fate, the vision of a timeline in which the Arbiter ruled, the fortress became the Lord of Fate’s seat. S5E1 found it silent and “straight-laced,” hung with blue tabards and pictures of “what used to be the Arbiter.” It now had a front office, an air-conditioned interior and the Lord of Fate’s portraits everywhere, along with protesters outside and a back locker room (S5E6). The Lord of Fate’s bedroom wore Halloween decorations. Thea’s old bedroom had become an office, and the attic held its famous horse (S5E10). Far below the dungeons, caverns held a “hallowed hall” where the chinchillas were kept.

S5E12 added a library, a downstairs brewery, mega screens throughout, a dungeon bathroom and a basement closet holding Thea’s costume stash. Thea later nailed planks across the kitchen door. The Acolytes watched from hard metal chairs, and the usual candles and fur rugs were swapped out for drabness at the finale. In Vythorn’s Return Part 4, the upper halls stood abandoned and cobwebbed, and in the dungeons below, the vision had Elusia in a cell.

The Season of the Trials (Season 6)

In Murder at the Dread Fortress, the castle became a crime scene. Down through the hot and humid “sulking mouth” were a bloody carpet, a reception hall with a diamond mosaic floor and a stage, the banquet hall with its long tables and chandelier, the kitchen downstairs where Tim lives, and the magic department and IT. That same episode saw Thea created from a worm that had sucked up the blood of the arena, murdered, and brought back by the Arbiter. The rest of the season showed off the Arbiter’s screening room and office, concession stands, a courtyard, the chinchilla cage behind heavy doors, Thea’s sign shed, and the Grandmaster’s stash in the kitchen.

Pieces of a King

Pieces of a King gave the fullest tour yet. It took in breweries and training pits, Grimnar’s office and Nehebka’s chamber, and a courtyard with a gallery. It also visited the domain of dread called “the Realm of the Arbiter,” the scholarly wing where he presides over a retinue of knights and researchers. Stolas’s equatorial had a galaxy door, an eye-orb doorkeeper and a ceiling that looks out on the Void. There was also the portal relay room and the goo pit, a resurrection tube full of goo.

The Season of Vigilance (Season 7)

Season 7 revealed even more of the castle. The chinchilla room, the koi pond room, the brewery, an intercom, a lobby where champions wait and cows grazing “right outside the fortress” all turned up in S7E2. Stuart’s screen closet appeared in S7E3. In S7E4 the throne room briefly became a chess table, and Doug’s twelve cheese refrigerators came to light. A labyrinth was under design by S7E5.

Then, in S7E6, the skull itself finally spoke as Seavold, and the Arbiter’s secret lab of cadavers was exposed. The same episode left Thea polymorphed into a T-Rex, and by S7E7 she had wrecked a hallway so badly its foundation needed repair. S7E8 closed out the tour with the Grandmaster’s private bathroom.

Notable Figures

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: grew up here, was sent away from here, and has ruled it since defeating the Shadow King.
The Shadow King: ruled from its throne for 300 years, and again in Season 4.
The Arbiter: keeps a laboratory, a scholarly wing, an office and a chair beside the throne.
Seavold: the skull itself, only recently on speaking terms.
Thea: the Arbiter’s assistant, created and murdered here, and the reason one hallway needs a new foundation.
Stuart: IT, from a hot little closet full of screens.
Claude: the janitor.
Tim: lives downstairs by the kitchen.
Doug the Pug: owner of twelve refrigerators of cheese.
Chinchillas: unionized residents of their own room and cage.
Grimnar and Nehebka: kept an office and a chamber here during Pieces of a King.

tags	place
aliases	Dread Fortress, The orc skull, The subterranean castle

The Black Tome

Explorer