Goldfields: A once prosperous village of rich farming and freshwater fishing, only dry lake beds, 20 abandoned farms and a dozen cottages remain. Many of the buildings still seem to be in reparable condition. The last of the local residents left the village in the Year of the Spur (1348 DR), after foolish Zhentish magical experiments caused the spring-fed lakes to dry up. Zhent records found in Dagger Falls claim that a substantial colony of dopplegangers in the service of the Zhentarim lairs here, but the Freedom Fighters have not yet verified if this still is the case.

Goldfields

The fishermen and farmers of abandoned Goldfields were known for their ingenuity, until a foolish Zhentarim mage caused Tear Creek and the three small village lakes to go dry in the Year of the Spur, leading to the abandonment of the village. The mage had been in the hills south of Goldfields, near the spring that had been the source of Tear Creek doing experiments of a no longer known nature.

One of the experiments went awry, not only killing the wizard but also causing a tremendous explosion on the hill near the source of Tear Creek, sealing the spring. The creek's waters found another path, underground, and Tear Creek now flows about 50 feet beneath the ghost town, emerging again as a new spring from a hillside above the old creek bed some 3 miles/5 km north of Goldfields, where it flows on into the Tesh, as it always had.

The creek and the three lakes (the Zhentish who hale from the Moonsea area considered them to be ponds) dried up within a few day's time and come back to life only briefly, when summer storms bring down rain enough to cause flash floods. Within less than a year after the creek and lakes dried up, the last villager had abandoned Goldfields.

During the latter years of the Zhent occupation, some of the abandoned cottages and farmhouses served as shelter for Zhentish soldiers and for orcs and other monsters in the service of the Zhentarim. A dozen fishing cottages - some of them in ruin - still stand on the shores of the small dry lakes, really little more than large ponds, that an earlier generation of Goldfields residents created with a trio of bridge dams on Tear Creek. The bridge dams all are intact, although the gears to open the dam gates are permanently rusted into their last position. There are 20 farms spread across the relatively flat Tear Creek Valley east and west of the village, most still intact, although some are ruins. Only four of these farms, one a ruin, are shown on the village map.

Goldfields once had a tavern, an inn and a shrine to Chauntea. The shrine was gutted by Zhentish soldiers in the Year of the Behir (1342 DR). The small inn - the Bountiful Sheaf - burned to the ground in the Year of the Bridle (1349 DR), when a band of orcs in Zhentish service camping in the ghost town found several barrels of sour beer in the inn's cellar and had a celebration that got out of hand. The Three Lakes Tavern still is intact and could, at some expense, be restored.

Map of Goldfields

1 - Three Lakes Tavern.

2 - Ruins of the Bountiful Sheaf Inn. Only the overgrown foundations remain.

3 and 4 - Occupied Fishing Cottages.

5 - Ruin of the Chauntea Shrine. Parts of the walls and the roof still stand, charred and overgrown, but it would be easy to bring them to collapse.

6, 7 and 8 - Occupied Farmhouses.

9 - Bridge Dams. The dams still are sturdy and reliable, but the gates and gear works are forever rusted tight into the positions they were in when Goldfields was abandoned.