Autumn at the Moathouse

View from the moathouse.

Back in October I spent a weekend in Hommlet with my family and took the time to hike out to the moathouse. It's not in good shape, just a weed-strewn pile of rubble at this point; even the giant frogs have abandoned the place. But the larch trees are still prevalent and were in full fall splendor so I snapped this photo from the crumbling remnants. I was standing on what would have been the bastion in the northeast corner looking out over the swamp.

Since a lot of you have been wondering about Gygax's affinity for larch trees--aka tamaracks--I thought I'd share this photo; the larches are the orange-ish trees beyond the cattails and reeds. Their fall color is typically more yellow than this in my experience, but I suspect that there's still a fair amount of elemental evil in the soil around there that's causing this coloration.