NOTE: This is mainly for the Blackdagger Ruins before the Elemental Evil Crisis. For further information to what it becomes during the Elemental Evil crisis, please go to Drowned Shore.
The Blackdagger Ruins is a location in Neverwinter Online. This lost bastion is the lair of the Blackdagger Bandits and later the Cult of the Crushing Wave.
History
Years earlier, a pair of pirate brothers from Luskan, Malus and Traven Blackdagger, had set up a bandit kingdom north of Neverwinter. The Heroes of Sleeping Dragon Bridge were put in contact with a local Harper cell to put a stop to the Blackdagger Bandits, who operated out of the ruins of the former Cragmire noble house and were disrupting trade along the High Road. The heroes started by putting a stop to the bandits' shipwrecking operations along the coast, leading to a meeting with Melkhor Goldseeker, who had recently opened some mines and unearthed some ancient ruins. The Blackdagger Bandits had kidnapped his niece for ransom and took over his mines.
After rescuing Goldseeker's niece, the Harpers put the heroes in contact with their spy in the bandits' ranks, allowing the heroes to track down both Malus and Traven Blackdagger - revealed to have been transformed into undead by the Thayan necromancer Kallos Tam - and destroy them, putting a stop to organized banditry along the High Road and earning the friendship of the Harpers.
After the bandit's defeat, trade increased on the High Road. The Emerald Enclave began guiding travelers, and the Neverwinter Guard garrisoned the lighthouses on Raven Cliff Beach. However, a sudden tidal wave devastated the region and was swiftly followed by an invasion of aquatic monsters and cultists of Olhydra, known as the Cult of the Crushing Wave, led by the prophet Gar Shatterkeel, who conquered the Blackdagger Keep as their lair. The Harpers soon arrived to aid the Emerald Enclave at what had now become known as the Drowned Shore.