Surang, and the Last Watch

 FOR, FIRMAMENT

A pitch, I guess, for a mega-dungeon game? 

The Last Watch is where the River Lithan roars off the side of the World Above, to plummet to unknown fate below. 

It’s the farthest finger of the Duchy of Defiance, among the Ringing Mountains that hem in the World Above. 

A forested valley, known best for deer twice the height of men, and clannish locals, who lay snares for the excise-men on the roads. Firs are stripped of their branches, and carved into boar-headed men, and in their hands are placed rusting old flintlocks and bottles of peach schnapps.

The Lithan, at the moment, is dry - the Sun King holds it down to a trickle. Dead shellfish and unfortunate trout pile on the glassy river-bed. 

Inner Defiance is dying of thirst. The people of the Watch rely on vicious storms which wash in from the World Below.

Young villagers will kill, to defend their water-sumps. 

UURFERK

There are a few villages in the valley of the Watch - the largest, Uurferk, is built upon a ridge halfway down the valley. It is a grey, fish-shaped tangle, with two main streets and a bridge over the chasm left in Lithan's shadow. 

The people there are staunch Defiants, and print pamphlets calling for Regicide and freedom for all. The people of the hill-villages care little for the Uurferkish fervour. 

The local militia, the Blackbirds, claim they’ve killed over a hundred Royalists. This is somewhat implausible. 

The provost, Jer Salomea, is obsessing over the construction of a lightning rod for the town. She is convinced that the lightning strikes which have bedevilled the town are the work of some witch or other, living among the people of the hills or the cliffs. 

Below the town, the Storm Drain Gallery, a strange little market for the archaeologists and scribes of the city - they’re enjoying a brief flowering, since literacy has been made legal after the Duchy’s rebellion against the Sun King. Come down here, to a green-tiled walkway in a damp sump, and purchase previously forbidden texts, wrapped in silk to keep off the damp. 

The Storm Drain’s proprietor is called Oktawia-sans-Tongue, for perhaps obvious reasons. She will trade Inscriptions, for artefacts and curiosities of the Watch. They say she writes to a contact in the Office of the Duchy, back north in Madrevel. Rumour is, they’re using her to look for something. 

THE CLIFFS

A narrow road, a day outwards from Uurferk, takes you to the precipice of the world. On each side, the Ringing Mountains reach for the vaults of the heavens, wearing mantles of snow and fir-forest. 

The silence where the Great Fall would once have been is deafening.

The cliffs descend, black rock hovering above the clouds, for about three hundred feet, then run out. If you were mad, you could try and climb to the underside of the World Above. 

There’s villages out among the horsts and grabens, down among the undergrowth. Strange little ones, with names in an old language. The people keep themselves to themselves, but they’ve been seen parading around with cut-off animal heads on their shoulders.

Don’t mention that, though. 

SURANG

A day and a half along the narrow road, you come across the first curtain wall, blown down with gunpowder. 

Surang was once a fortress where Knights would meet, and trade warnings of injustice and tales of chivalric deeds. Then, it was a bastion of the Royalist forces, once the Knights were outlawed. 

Many were cast off the great precipice, to Exile and uncertain doom in the World Below. 

Then, the Duchess' forces came out from the interior, and it was a warzone. The abatis and cannon-craters of the battle still scatter the parade-ground and the outer courtyard. 

Now, it’s a blasted out wreck filled with looters, holdouts of both sides, returning knights, and a lot of very weird shit. 

And, probably, a lot of very valuable shit.

Surang is one of the largest castles in the World. It’s one of those mind-boggling constructions of the early Chivalric Era - two concentric outer walls, a ruined castle-town, an inner donjon, and miles of subterranean corridors and oubliettes. Six towers, and a pitched roof above a great hall that occupies as much space as all of Uurferk. And, of course, the Precipice. 

They still can’t get the main gate open - it’s buried inexplicably under a waterfall of cooled lead. 

Your options are the old well in the parade-ground, scaling the outer wall to break into the old gate-keeper’s apartments, or sidling along unstable rock and getting in via the precipice door. 

Get in, avoid everyone else, and get out rich or mad. 

The City of Brass

In the Lady’s Ward of Sigil, there is a campus, upon which stands a ramshackle building. It is encrusted entirely with dark spires, oddly placed balconies, dramatic porticoes and massive, filthy windows.

This is the Municipal University of Sigil, founded in ages past by a group of very rich Guvners and certain planar academics, who chose to remain tastefully anonymous. 

It was once one of two great educational institutions in the city, along with the Tzunk College of Academic Arts, a flashy and garish place founded by a Prime archmage called Tzunk, who was obscenely rich and entirely tasteless. 

It is often said the Cage has no universities left, despite the very obvious fact that the Municipal University still stands. Tzunk’s College was inherited by The Fated through an obscure contract clause upon his death in the Plane of Fire – while the Municipal University has suffered a fate perhaps more akin to undeath. It is a slow decay, a loss of funding, a dwindling student base, and an increasing amount of professorial positions dominated by out-of-town liches with tenure.

Entire wings have been shut and the hearths put out to conserve heat and money. The remaining students cluster in the central building to learn nonsensical courses like physics, chemistry, and literature.

For History and the Arts, one would be better served by the ancient Bardic Colleges of Arborea and Elysium. For Economics, the courses offered at the Exchange in Tradegate are unparalleled, if expensive. And all the best lawyers are trained in Dis.

This is all, of course, an utter digression.

Certain radical scholars yet gather in the dusty halls of that ancient and much maligned institution, to discuss a theory – there are only really three cities in creation.

It is such a maniacal and sweeping statement as to astound – but there is method in this madness. For all of recorded history, these three cities have been constants. All others are their imitations and their shadows. Each holds a claim to being the first city ever built, and each distorts around it the weft of history and politics. They are arranged pleasingly: one on an Outer Plane, one on an Inner Plane, and one at the very centre of everything – perspectivally speaking. They even follow the rule of three.

The cities are Sigil, Dis and The City of Brass.

And Brass is the one I want to talk about.

CITY ON THE SEA OF FIRE

The City of Brass is the biggest city on the Inner Planes. It is probably the second-biggest city in all creation – Sigil is definitively more populous, but Dis eludes the conventional census. It sprawls across a massive artificial island that spikes up from the wind-swept, ashen shore of the notorious Sea of Fire.

The Sea is not magma, as many suggest, but an elemental liquid which is fire. It breaks all the rules of physics and logic, and mentioning this will paint you as a Prime quite quickly (or a crude, as the Inner Planars would put it).

Here, the Sea of Fire sweeps up against the mind-boggling expanse called the Desert of Ash, a plain of ash in every tone from grey to black that swirls, churns, shifts and burns, ever changing in size and deadliness.

The lack of water is absolute – open water in either of these locales is more likely to become a steam explosion than salvation.

What better place to build a city? It is, of course, made of Brass. Or at least, the famous parts of the old town and the docks are. The slums are baking stone, and the fortresses are steel, heated cherry red by the flames.

A powerful enchantment lies across this place, laid by the ancient founders. The heat here is almost unbearably cold for the locals – and only dangerously hot for outsiders, as opposed to instantly fatal.

From here, the founders and rulers of the city – the powerful Efreeti – base their power, conduct their trade, and proclaim their rule over the entire Plane of Fire. None of the other Genie polities are so bold.

The Efreeti are apparently a natural occurrence – like all genies, they are formed when a soul left adrift becomes saturated with elemental energy and creates a body from will and concentrated elemental power. The Efreeti are raging fire and shifting smoke.

Among themselves they are, I am told, as kind as may be expected from any folk. But the face they present to visitors to Brass is one of power, decadence, and brutality. Perhaps there are those Efreeti who wear the mask too tightly, and forget how it can be removed.

The Efreeti are ruled by their Grand Sultan, who resides within the vast and opulent Charcoal Palace, within the district known as the Furnace. The Grand Sultan, whoever they may be, has not provably left the Furnace in the last ten millennia. Efreet do not age, so perhaps the same flaming hand has guided Brass all that time? Or have a hundred scandalous successions come and gone?

Cynical foreigners wonder aloud in the cafes of The Plume: is there even a Sultan at all?

Whatever the case, the Sultan’s laws reach across the city, and far across the Sea of Fire, to the City’s distant colonies upon shores of magma and coal. The punishment for each and every infraction is common knowledge: Slavery.

Brass is built on it. Dis is built on suffering, yes, but it is the esoteric suffering of those judged sinful. Not so in the City of Brass, where the hot metal collars clamp the necks of the innocent and the accused. 

‘The buildings may be brass,’ goes the saying ‘but the foundations are bone.’

Of the three million people reportedly living in Brass, at least a million are slaves. Nowhere – even in the lower planes – is such an unparalleled crime against liberty committed. It should not fall to me to tell you, this is unacceptable. Many in the multiverse – not least the marids and djinni who oppose the Efreeti – would see this injustice ended. But the Efreeti are powerful, and Brass is even stronger than them.

The sufferings of the enslaved are inescapable in Brass, and every interaction with the city is viewed through that lens. The markets, cafes, and boulevards are choked with slaves. For those coming from the almost ungoverned streets of Sigil, the change is unsettling.  

(If your players are anything like mine, they’ll want to topple the Efreeti and free all the slaves. Let them, if they put the work in. Make it the whole campaign, if they want.)

Some of those self-same heretical scholars whisper a story: That Brass is no mere city. That Brass is alive, that Brass has within it a mind – perhaps similar to the L__y of P__n, but of course, not too similar.

The words of ancient elementals carry strange implications. A dead god of fire, magic and metal. A screaming delve. A magmatic titan, cast to the shore in the eons when the gods were young. A foundation built not just on the bones of slaves, but also on the bones of gods.

Does that ancient voice still speak? Do the efreet hear it?

Who truly rules the City of Brass?

The Dead Fens

The Dead Fens are a vast, cold wetland along the basin of the River Vok. They lie in the distant north of a country called Wurmgar. It stands entirely in the shadow of Grave Ridge, a huge hilly region said to contain the bones of an ancient god.

The fens are known for a few things:

1. Constant fog, apparently produced by a curse laid by a vengeful druid in eons past.
2. Red and black flora. Thick beds of fleshy looking moss, obsidian sedges and stands of carmine reeds.
3. Hideously dangerous fauna. Skitterjaws, catoblepas, giant poisonous dragonflies, screw-worms and ghouls, worst of all.
4. ‘Godbone’, some kind of organic material that is usually found in huge spires or craggy boulders.

Reports that the godbone spires resemble ribs, or the boulders seem to be teeth and fingerbones fit for a titan, are likely exaggerated.

There are only three places worth visiting in the entire Fen.

Tzorovik – No local would ever admit their city is in the Fen, but the bulwarks and sluices protrude far into the region, and the whole northern side is overgrown with that abominable red moss. The Tzoroviki are in denial.

Tzorovik has been many things. It started as a mining outpost, both for copper and godbone. Both materials are present in the city’s construction, and the hills nearby are pockmarked with deep, winding mineshafts.

Next, it became a military city. Half the Wurmish army is still barracked in the vast, dilapidated Copperhill Barbican, that looms on the hills above the city. Battlements and, rusting, obsolete ballistae abound.

Finally, and most recently, it has become a cult city. Specifically, it is home to two cults: The Children of Thulgan, a ‘family’ of feral, animalistic ghouls that hunt the populace at night, and the Church of Vizkov, a shiny new messianic religion that are also ghouls, just better dressed.

Femur Camp – Built precariously upon the crux of three godbone spires, Femur Camp is home to bonedraggers, reckless fools with guns and pickaxes who are attempting to haul the godbone back to Tzorovik. The only entrance to Femur Camp is a ropeladder – it has exactly one spare room to offer to travellers, and no tavern to speak of.

Godbone is prized for durability, and can be distilled by alchemy into a number of useful products – such as fertiliser. Wurmgar relies on this fertiliser to have its meagre fields feed a growing population. As such, successful bonedraggers make a lot of money. There are not a lot of successful bonedraggers.

The leader of Femur Camp is called Malkus, a Bugbear with a missing eye. He is supposedly some kind of druid, and uses toads to spy on his subordinates. Some people say there’s a screw-worm hiding behind his eyepatch he unleashes on anyone who attacks him.

The Cave of Teeth – A limestone cave carved into a high wall above a particularly reeking segment of wetland. Some jester has placed godbone teeth in a high arch, and a low wall, making the cave resemble a giant, yawning human mouth. The Spirit of the Dead Fens, a calculating creature called Toothblood, slumbers within. She resembles a stretched ox with a horned centipede head, and hooved centipede legs.

Toothblood offers pacts and deals to those who visit, which the people of Tzorovik often avail themselves of. She can turn any liquid within a mile of the Dead Fens into poison, or cure any disease, in exchange for a life, sacrificed in the pool in her cave.

1d10 Encounters on the Dead Fens

1. 1d6 Screw-worms - These red, spiny worms start out the size of a finger, but eventually grow to the length of a forearm. They're notorious for drilling their massive mouthparts into unsuspecting limbs as they inject a numbing agent. You don't notice the pain, and if it stays there for a whole day, your leg goes dead and it starts chewing it off. Pulling them out is incredibly painful, but they'll release their grip if exposed to fire. 
2. A Catoblepas - A creature resembling a huge, rotten aurochs with a pendulous neck and stinking, matted fur. Its breath is supposedly fatal, or at least horribly painful, at forty paces. They dislike bright light, which is rarely a problem under the constant fog-cover of the Fens. 
3. 1d6 Foglings - Strange little spirits that resemble grey, long-limbed, hairless children that sit waist deep in the water, playing childish games with skulls and fingerbones. If you befriend them by winning at their games, they'll follow after you in the fog - clouding your movements from your enemies, and parting it for you at an oppurtune moment. If you anger them, they'll try to drown you by pouring fog into your lungs. 
4. 1d8 Bonedraggers - Masked and hatted people in overalls, lugging pickaxes and waving pistols. Their 'uniform' is a scrap of black cloth pinned to the shoulder. They're liable to be jumpy, suspicious and really, really excited to not be here. 50% chance they're lugging a huge chunk of cut godbone, upon which they're even more jumpy. 
5. 1d12 Swamp Naiads - Translucent, aquatic insects the size of a dog. They bury themselves underwater in shallow mud, then burst out and bite round your ankle, like a chitinous landmine. They never ambush alone, if they can help it. Utterly blind and disturbingly durable.  
6. A Deathless of Vizkov - An armoured knight, riding a struggling horse through the Fens. They're likely on some important mission. Their cape carries the hexagonal emblem of Vizkov. The horse, beneath the barding, is a zombie, and the knight, beneath the armour, is a ghast, just a well-dressed, perfumed one, with makeup and stitches. 
7. 1d8 Children of Thulgan - These ghouls lope along on all fours, wearing ragged remnants of clothing. They've clawed away half their own faces, revealing their distended ghoulish fangs. They are liable to greet you politely, call you cousin, then try and eat your entrails. 50% chance they're accompanied by an utterly animalistic ghast they lead on a chain. 
8. 1d4 Buzzing Things - Venomous, armoured dragonflies the length of a horse. Primary prey of the Skitterjaw, these huge things spend 10 years gestating as Swamp Naiads, before crawling to the top of a godbone spire and molting into a giant, hideous dragonfly. They only live for a year, but in that year, they cause mayhem. They fly faster than a horse, and their long, segmented tails end in a stinger that injects a hallucinogenic poison. 
9. Toothblood's Thrall - An unfortunate elf, who made the mistake of crossing Toothblood. He wanders the fens, alone, clad in rusting mail, challenging everyone he meets to a duel. His entire head and face have been ripped open by a nesting colony of screw-worms, leaving him blind, but Toothblood's wrath keeps him staggering along. His blood is deadly poison, and the swamp water he dips his blade in before a fight is too. 
10. A Skitterjaw

The True North

 

Where does cold come from? What a fascinatingly naïve statement. Everyone knows cold comes from the North.

No, not the north, that mundane direction. I mean the North. It’s what’s off the top of your maps, there. I’ve been there once – should I tell you the story?

Travel far enough north among the sea ice, and you’ll come to an island, green among the white. The locals call this place Ilulissat.

There’s a thriving town here, full of generous people and warm drinks. The hall on the shore is a place where the most beautiful music is played, the most insightful philosophy is considered, and the most inspired learning is done. To marvel in awe for a day is worth the trip alone.

Pitch your tent on the beach, anchor your ship in the cove, and treat everyone you meet with kindness and respect. Then, walk to the northern side of the island.

There you’ll see the sea run out, and the ice sheet float off forever into a sky of eternal night. You’ll see two winding bands of colour, the Great Auroras, green, purple and blue above you, red, orange and gold beneath, through the cracks in the ice. The sound of the endless falling of the sea is immense.

On that endless plain of cracked, floating icebergs and endless, ethereal twilight. You shall see such things. Everyone you meet will be extremely muscular-

What?

Why is everyone there muscular?

Well… I don’t know everything, do I? I suppose you’d need to be muscular to, uh, understand the Northy Mysteries?  Just shoosh and listen.

*ahem*, Everyone you meet will be extremely muscular, and all shall be on the same path as you – the path to consider the Northy Mysteries, the ancient secrets of cold, twilight and stars.

But there are dangers, too! There are many great beasts, driven from southern lands by callous hunters, who make their way along the Twilight Sea. And darker evils still – be wary you of the Eclipse King, greatest of all Vampires!

 

1d12 Encounters in the True North  

1. Ripped Philosopher – They’re up from Ilulissat on a little trip to see the stars. They’ve brought their telescope and their books on the meaning of life. They’d be glad of your input into the anthology of opinions they’re writing. Probably have some booze in the barrel they’re sitting on.
2.  Star Whale – A jet-black, star dappled whale, swimming down from the Higher Aurora. It is curious and intelligent, and will probably have some valuable information on the Northy Mysteries, if that’s your kind of thing. Can also carry you places, in exchange for a song. 
3.  1d6+2 Muscular Warriors – Proud, philosophical, gullible. Will want to arm wrestle you. They’re from all over. They’re heading to some games in Ilulissat. Their leader is a champion spear thrower.
4.  1d4x2 Aurora Knights – Two factions, alike in dignity, of sentient solar wind, who each view their aurora as their kingdom, and the other aurora as their polite yet dastardly rivals. They swirl into beautifully crafted armour of brittle ice, twice the height of you, then sail down on ships of frozen mist to wage choreographed war. They’ll pay extravagant sums of raw elements to anyone who can sketch their enchanting battles.
5.   Seeker of the Garden – This traveller clearly hasn’t been here long, since they’ve not yet achieved the familiar muscularity of the other denizens. They seem lost, babbling on about how they are looking for a shimmering garden of plenty, here among the ice. Could such a place exist?
6. Living Gale – Not a true Ælemental, since it’s only moving air, but perhaps a cousin. Capricious, distracted and petty. It will follow travellers and make sure to blow bad smells their way.  Any attempt to get rid of it will result in vicious reprisals and flying chunks of ice. It’ll get bored on its own, eventually.
7. Whalers – They normally catch mundane whales in the sea farther south, but they’re here on a contract from an academic in Ilulissat. They’ve converted their ship into a shaky dirigible – they sail with moonlit harpoons held forward; eyes ever open for the cruel flanks of the Necromancer Whale.
8. The Necromancer Whale – Actually, it’s a Narwhal. It floats, twisting and bucking, horn held forward to impale. It is surrounded by the ghostly spirits of those whales it has felled in combat, and flanked by an army of muscular zombies. All narwhals are like this, but they’re just better at managing their anger than this one.
9. 1d6 Star Wanderers – Pallid, long limbed folk with black, reflective eyes and no noses. They wear strange cloth of red and gold, cubical hats, and are often accompanied by gadgets of humming wires and ticking gears. They sometimes have small, useful constructs for hauling and mining, which they will sell to you for a price in raw elements such as magnesium.  
10. Plant Tender – A frost-marked ceramic giant, pock-marked with copper openings. Its internal chambers are filled with hot, clean water, and it wields a giant rake. It is one of eight, but the twisting crackling movements of the Twilight Sea have thrown it clear from it’s hidden home. It is melancholy and incredibly strong.
11. Ælemental of Pure Cold – Cylindrical, shimmery pillar of utter chill and stillness. Often contains cryogenically preserved people and animals from ancient times. Can freeze anything, in exchange for a proportionate amount of heat as payment. Heat is like drugs for it. It requires a torch to freeze your drink, a bonfire to freeze that bear chasing you, and a whole forest’s worth of wood to freeze your aging, leaving you immortal, if eternally chilly.
12. The Eclipse King – A rotten, wiry man, swaddled in furs and rich silks, with massive crystalline fangs. Each of his eyes is an eclipsed star. Should you make eye-contact, save or go permanently blind. He lives in a gigantic iceberg castle filled to the brim with frostbitten ghouls and giant, vampiric walruses.

Tolkrah

 

Tolkrah, the Capital of Thorumaa, is one of the largest urban centres in the Deep Kingdoms. Across its long and storied history, it has been many things – an Orog hamlet by the River Tolek, neutral ground between rival clans, a trade depot for a rising kingdom, a citadel for an embattled republic, and finally, in 1698, the foundation stone of an Empire.

If the Thorumaans were a more sentimental folk, statues of the first emperor would stud Tolkrah like gems. But they beheaded the first emperor, and struck his name and image from the records. The people of Thorumaa take governance very seriously.

Corruption is kept low by the promise that your immediate successor will personally behead you if it is discovered.

It is not without reason that Thorumaans are joked to have an obsession with beheading.

The Nation

Surface visitors come to Thorumaa, expecting the regimented culture and quiet public places of Zarumaa high above – orcs are orcs, so they say.

Orcs are not orcs, however. Many a travel journal has commented that the local Orogs dress just as sharply as their Zarag cousins above, but where the Zarumaan society is disciplined and polite, Thorumaa is insubordinate and confrontational.

Orders are constantly questioned, authority is challenged whenever it can be – children make fools of parents, and soldiers make demands of their generals.

Thorumaans say, ‘this is all, as it should be’.

In a nation that went through 8 failed governments before the Empire, questioning the legitimacy of the people in charge has been built in for years.

The Politics

The simple fact is, the Thorumaan system is completely incomprehensible to sunwalkers. The institutions are given names in Tradespeak that do not fit their true nature – truly, the titles of Thorumaan government are untranslatable.

The name ‘Empire’ is something of a misnomer. It calls to mind a militaristic state with an autocratic head and a loyal army. Whereas, Thorumaa currently has 3 Emperors and 2 Empresses, all acclaimed by different sections of the army. This is normal, and is expected.

Two of the Emperors are even married, each equally as powerful as the other. The other three tend to form a ‘voting bloc’ against them, although this is another term that doesn’t apply well.

The toregar, the advisors to the Emperors and Empresses, were originally translated as senators, generals or dukes, in equal measure. None apply correctly.

Certainly, most toregar are involved in the military. Some are most definitively great orators and politicians. Some wield disproportionate influence. Some positions are even hereditary.

However, there are just as many pacifists, silent logisticians, political irrelevancies and promoted peasants among the toregar ranks. 

There is no handy guide for their meanings, no explanation for why the system is such chaos.  To understand the system, to comprehend it’s mad workings, is to be Thorumaan.

To require an explanation is to paint oneself as an outsider.

This is why ‘Tolkran’ is an adjective referring to something excessively complicated, and typically involving a great deal of administrative detail.

The City

Speaking of excessively complicated: Tolkrah itself.

Its history is as excessively varied and incomprehensible as that of Thorumaa, and the winding labyrinths of its districts reflect this.

Consider, in the Deep Kingdoms, travel from one place to another is not as simple as on the surface.

Supplies are scarcer, routes are less reliable, and the fauna ranges from troublesome to lethal, and worse besides.

Cities are not designed to welcome you in from the long road – they are designed to be hard for deep-earth demons or aggressive fauna to invade. Combine this with the necessity of saving space, and you end up with cities like Tolkrah -  put bluntly, a habitable maze.

The most navigable districts for outsiders lie around the River Tolek, where the great black palaces of the many current and former Emperors reach for the cavern ceiling, studded with beheaded statues and ragged banners.

Following the river’s flow, one eventually reaches the nice districts – sometimes referred to as ‘downriver’. Downriver holds all the banks, the embassies, and other such frivolities. They’re kept well away from where the actual governing happens. 

The coming of the vis-rail has only just opened the Underdark to the experience of things like cafes and leisure shopping, and these flourish, like fungi, downriver.

A Tolkrah coffee house is a differing experience from a café in Upper Iskadar. For a start, you’re not lounging on wicker chairs on a sunny afternoon. You’re huddling in a narrow booth, around a small table, sitting next to a steam vent for heat. It’s equal parts sauna and salon.

The drinks, too – coffee and tea are rare and highly expensive imports.

More common is boiled water, gella, a hot, greenish drink made from boiled roots, or turstahk, the local liquor. It is made from a particular root that might be a cousin to ginger. Turstahk is dark green, and oily. It is only drunk in small shot glasses, not due to the alcohol content, but due to the hideous flavour. It is acerbic, strong and catches the throat, and reportedly has notes of fungus and ash.

It’s a source of never-ending confusion for tourists that the locals willingly drink such a disgusting liquid. Thorumaans assign the drink medicinal properties, and its health benefits are a common folk myth among the people of Tolkrah. Many Orogs still end the day with a small drink of turstahk. 

Away from the river, the districts twist and turn and wind into themselves. Streets become stairs and vis-driven elevators. The average number of rooms in a house goes from about 8, down to 1. The fashionable hearths of the innercity are replaced with crudely installed steam vents to keep out the cave chill. In this humid environment, lichens, fungi and cave flora bloom. Visitors have called this part of Tolkrah ‘the greenhouse’.

The symbol of Thorumaa – the cavekkan, or ‘bat-wolf’ – can be seen in facing pairs over every heavy stone arch, or curled around the top of every load-bearing pillar. The real things can be seen stalking every twisting back-alley or stair lined pit.

Thorumaans revere the cavekkan for their capability to work in massive packs when necessary, and to tear each other limb from limb for food, when necessary. Adaptability, action, and a grasp of where they lie in the local power structure. All desirous things for a toregar or emperor.

They also eat the cavekkans in great numbers, because bat-wolves are no match for smart people with traps. This appeals to the Thorumaan sense of irony.

Travelling against the river’s flow, one might find the districts of boilers and forges which heat the city, and produce the metalwork which Tolkrah is famous for. Here, in the forges, the swords which carved out Thorumaa were made. 

The swords of famous heroes are brought back and hung from gate-posts as a form of ‘retirement’ for the blade

The boilers are the most isolated part of Tolkrah. In a world that mostly relies on Vis (a suspension of so-called “mana” in water, to simplify heavily) Tolkrah’s industry is uniquely steam-driven. The heat and humidity of the city comes from here. Tolkrah is a powerful industrial organ, responsible for arming Thorumaa’s relatively massive army (as large as a small surface country’s military, which is way more than any of their neighbours can afford to support.) 

Here, metal is smelted, reagents are reacted, water is boiled, waste is processed and finished products churned out the other side in a never-ending stream.

The Bilges

The physical, magical and gaseous waste of all this industry is funnelled down to a series of claustrophobic caves that lie below Tolkrah. These are the Bilges. The Bilges are haunted by oxygen-deprived vagrants, slithering, fungal things, and the repulsive Voidlings called ‘Mozgriken’, the Choke-and-Choking-Ones.

Mozgriken are hideous nightmare things from the Void-Between-the-Stars – they appear in places where there is a high saturation of unbreathable gases. 

They appear to be gnome-sized things, with lumpy, purply-grey skin, long, wet hands, and a nest of purple, pulsating tentacles in place of a head. They can suffocate you from a distance, exude flammable gases and render themselves down into oily smoke, to better infiltrate your house and choke you in your sleep.

Even in the face of the Mozgriken, though, the most nerve-wracking thing in the entirety of the Bilges, is a Golem. A golem is a clay shell filled with a Sun-Spirit by secretive rituals, and set to tirelessly fulfil a set of instructions. On the surface far above, Golems are treated with fear and reverence, as the Maker’s holy, indestructible soldiers.

The Tolkrans realised it didn’t need to breathe, and shoved it down in the Bilges to operate machinery. It’s maintained by the local Temple of Altum Petram, the Aspect of Earth. In truth it is so durable, and so rarely bothered, that maintenance is often unnecessary. To keep its internal flame from igniting flammable gas, or being extinguished by smothering gases, it has a domed helm of tempered glass mounted to its clay skull.

As with all Golems, the true name of the motivating Sun-Spirit is unknown, but it has accepted the nickname Glare-glass.

The Imp's Head

In Sigil's Hive District, there stands a building. It's three stories tall, covered in Sigil's traditional architectural 'blades', and stained with pigeon shit. It's not accessible from the street where it sits: other than a row of grimy windows, it has turned its back on Barb Street, like the sullen Hivers within.

Walking down a dark alley, always flooded, due to brokendown gutters, one might see a heavy, dark door, made of wood, painted black. The door is covered in thick, yellowy moss, and heavy strands of razorvine curl around the frame. Above the door, there's a crude piece of iron sculpture resembling the screeching head of an Imp.

If one were to knock, a small door viewer would slide open, with a rusty squeal, and you would see two balefully glowing orange eyes in the dark space beyond. This is Rozoknar, he is a Hamatula (Barbed Devil), he's the doorman, and the bouncer. Once Rozok's satisfied that you're not Hardheads, or Paladins, he'll open the door and let you in.

Inside, is the Imp's Head. The main bar is dimly lit, even at peak, due to the sheer level of grime on the windows. About sixty feet away, across a crowded room, stands the bar, a scraped, singed construction of heavy, dark wood. Above the bar, a sign in barely legible handwriting: No Change In Silver.

Behind it, stands the bartender; Kor Clotbur, an orangey Tiefling with alarming sabretooth fangs, and a massive scar across his throat. He speaks with a growl and a lisp. Kor constantly glances down at the massive crossbow he keeps behind the bar, not that he needs it to thrash a rowdy patron. Any casual observer can tell - he's built like a brick shithouse.

The main floor of the bar is crowded with round tables, at which sit the clientele: a barmy collective of Cagers, ranging from filthy, unshaven Hivers all the way round to perfumed visitors from the Market Ward. And let me tell you, that's a hell of a walk.

It's not like the bar has much to offer: the roof leaks, and everywhere you have to watch your steps for brass buckets full of dirty rainwater. The liquid sold as beer does not taste like it, aside from the alcohol content. Some accuse Kor of mixing the rainwater with grain alcohol. There's no band, not even a single bard on the empty stand in the corner. Water occasionally leaks up from the flooded basement, and on windy days there's always a fine rain of plaster dust from the ceiling.

Still, the bar is always full. Whispered and growled conversations fill the air, and there's always a broad selection of semi-famous patrons.

Willum, the sole employee of the P.I.C., sits in his own booth by the bar. He seems to be the only person drinking actual lager. No one dares sit across from him, unless they need something, or they're an idiot.

Bert, an elderly Human Athar with a specific grudge against the Raven Queen, the goddess of death. He'll buy anything claiming to increase longevity or prevent death, and many a crosstrader has peeled him with fake powders. His jacket's covered in jangling charms, and he's usually pouring some tincture or paste into his 'beer'. It's a wonder some basher hasn't sold him Purple-Worm venom, yet.

Seven-Times-Blessed, an Aasimar and disgraced lawyer, from some Material Plane or another, who offers advice and will represent a body in the City Courts, free of charge. She's incongrously cheerful and charming.

Hrogg, a smug Orc and member of the Doomguard. He comes here after a long day of knocking down walls and peeling off razorvine. He'll cheerfully challenge any visitor to a game of three dragon ante, but he'll get violent if he loses any money.

Brenca, a Wood Elf, and disgraced ex-paladin of Corellon. She'll not say what caused her to be disgraced, only that she's an Oathbreaker, and no, she won't help with your problems.

Aventa, a Human merchant from the Lower Ward who's going through a strange patch recently - she quit her Faction, the Free League, and has been cold and distant with her friends.

Colcook, the right hand creep of Shemeshka the Marauder, Sigil's most notorious crime boss. He's a hornless Tiefling, which is certainly disconcerting. He sits in the corner, drinking red wine, smirking at nothing and staring at the other customers. Kor would like to throw him out, but any slight against Shemeshka might result in his bar being burned to the ground.

And many other odd characters besides.

The Dark of It

Of course, the Imp's Head has a secret, and it's linked to that sign above the bar.

The Imp's Head is a bar for shapeshifters. The patrons - aside from Willum and presumably Colcook - sit around the bar in their true forms - only shifting back if they hear Rozok open the door.

Bert's a werewolf, and he knows he's headed to the Lower Planes for the feral violence of his youth.

Seven is a literal angel, albeit one disgraced for showing mercy to an escaping legion of Baatezu.

Hrogg is a wereboar, and while he doesn't necessarily keep that a secret, he likes the camaraderie of the Imp's Head.

Brenca's a changeling, who moved here from the Feywild after some traumatic event or another. She's not lying about being a paladin, though, prepare to be smited if you pry.

Aventa's not Aventa at all, but a Doppelganger called Salia, who was present when Aventa was murdered in a mugging. She briefly took on the woman's life to try and minimize her friends' grief, but she can't seem to find a way to escape the persona.

And Willum? Well, nobody bothers asking.

Kor knows about his patrons' true natures, and is entirely supportive. He himself is no face-changer, but his wife was a changeling, and she made him promise to open a place where those who the Cage doesn't trust, could come to trust each other.

He has, although the place barely stays above water. Both literally and figuratively.

Still, if one of your PCs is a shapechanger, mention that they've heard a rumour about a bar where their kind are welcome. After all, it can be good to have a place where you can be yourself.

The City of Cordiss

Cordiss is a city within the part of Aclas referred to as 'The Peaceable Lands', the territory within the Icon's Ward, a magical defence, which prevents the terrain-shifting, geography altering curse of the Mercurial Wilds from spreading further. 

Cordiss lies on the warm southern coast of the region known as Arvinia. It's a populous, well known city, although, its geography is odd: to its west, lie the expansive and lightly populated Ukalnos Hills, and to its east, the tiny Kingdom of Dienda and the nigh-wilderness of the Petran Clanlands. 

Sharing a region with the Diendans (Humans, mostly) and the Petran Genasi, both of whom are fairly pastoral, isolationist cultures, might cause an amateur historian to ask:

Just how exactly did Cordiss become such a major port, with so few opportunities nearby? 

The answer lies in the past. Until 8171 of the previous calendar, (1838 years ago) there was a region to the south-west of Arvinia, which was often called The Kingdom of Leaves, the reasons for which are lost to time. The former inhabitants of the Kingdom of Leaves (a culture known as the Xiey) travelled and settled in Arvinia when the Mercurial Curse took their homeland, and Cordiss lost it's purpose as the 'Gateway to The Kingdom of Leaves'.

Still, Cordiss is the most convinient stop on the route to the Xiey's new homeland, the Realms of Xieyac, so it hasn't completely fallen into obscurity. And it's a world-class destination for gambling, drinking and drugs, which counts in its favour. Still, it's glory days are behind it.

The Gateway to Xiey

Sure, Cordiss, formerly the greatest port in the world, has been reduced to a glorified trade stop, but that doesn't stop the Cordisians from reveling in past (and future) greatness. And with the coming of the Vis-Rail, the Cordisians hope that soon, their city will be connected to the world again - as of the current moment, the only ways to access Cordiss are a gruelling overland trek, a massive detour through dangerous waters at Cape Stane, or an expensive aerostat flight from Cilos to the north.

The Cordisians are notorious across Arvinia, for having a near-supernatural ability to deny the state of their city; if you ask, Cordiss is at the peak of it's history, a centre for art and culture (which to be fair, it is) and a major organ for shipbuilding and alchemy (which it isn't).

The Cordisians themselves are mostly Human, with a large minority of Hylen (Elves) and more than a few Earth Genasi. They have a very distinct and flamboyant sense of fashion, featuring a lot of warm colours and probably more than a few feathers.

The city is divided roughly in three: the docks is the oldest and most beautiful part of Cordiss, where the art galleries and theatres reside, alongside the towers of the Great Families, lit brightly in a startling array of reds and pinks, with great silk banners and incense burners on chains hung from their gantries and windows. The docks are also home to the city's large Xiey community.

In the centre, between the other districts, lies the gorge district, named for the deep chasm which cuts through the city, carrying the River Cora on its meandering path down to the Underdark. Some Cordisians say their city has a future as an access point to the Deep Kingdoms, although like everything else in this city, it may simply turn out to be a hazy dream on the horizon. The gorge district is the poorest of Cordiss' districts, and those wishing to bypass it may follow the Grand Bridges, a series of bridges that cross the district without ever forcing wealthy Cordisians to set foot in the mucky streets.

Finally, the Rib District, which contains the eponymous structures. Here, the debauchery and excess Cordiss is otherwise known for occurs in full swing.

The City of Ribs

Cordiss is perhaps best known for the bizarre structures it is built around: nine massive, curving spires, made of some pale, unknown mineral. They stand 30 stores tall, arranged in a rows of five and four, like a massive ribcage that the city sits within. 

This has gained these structures the imaginative name of 'The Ribs.' 

Ever the enterprising types, the Cordisians have integrated the Ribs into their city, building buildings against and up the damn things. The most famous restaurant in Cordiss, the Glass Gate, sits halfway up a Rib, and offers an (almost) unparalled view of the Far Gulf. On a clear night, you can see the lights of the Xieyan ports and the island of Far Dultirr sparkling in the distance.  

More importantly, the Sanctum (high temple) of The Prince, the Aspect of Revelry, is to be found in this part of Cordiss - his Hierophant (highest priest) can often be found in the city's bars and clubs - their identity is a mystery, but their drink preference is common knowledge. Some say that The Prince was a Cordisian in his mortal life, but his apotheosis was so long ago know that few can say for sure. 

The most surprising use of the Ribs, in the eyes of visitors, is as the city's Air Docks: visiting aerostats (airships) are encouraged to tie themselves to the various structures that protrude from the Ribs, clustering around the pillars in high winds or bad weather. This is highly inefficient, but it makes a real impression on rich tourists. 

Of course, it's not just visitors that dock on the Ribs. The Fourth Eastern Rib is off limits as a mooring for Cordiss' pathetic, outdated, military aerostat fleet (they're more useful as mobile billboards than war airships). 


On the other hand, the Fifth Western Rib is the sole mooring point of a single aircraft: the massive, triple-decker aerostat, known as the Pride of Cordiss, which, of course, is a massive aerial casino. Small launches stand ready at all hours to carry would be gamblers up to the dizzying heights of the Pride, where all the biggest deals are made, fortunes are won and lost, and the Heads of the Great Families might be found in their private suites. 

The City of Art

Cordiss has a reputation across Aclas as the 'place to be' when it comes to art. It's isolation only adds to it's mystique.

'You see,' says an underpaid painter in a garret in Iskadar, 'only real artists undertake the commitment to travel there. I went last year. It was amazing. You have visited, haven't you?' 

In the heart of the docks, under the watchful gaze of the tower of the Deglano Family, sits the Grand Museum of Fine Art. This beautiful building, four floors and three wings, is a classical example of Cordisian architecture, and the passion project of the Deglano Family, who paid for it. Thirty galleries, panelled in dark wood and tastefully decorated, with tall windows looking out over the chaotic rooftops of Cordiss.  

The Grand Museum contains the combined artisitic efforts of hundreds of years of Cordisian history, and hundreds upon hundreds of pieces from all across Aclas - which are most definitely not stolen. Especially the culturally significant ones. 

The most famous piece contained in the Grand Museum is not Gerbano's Woman with Sword, nor is it Cubrac's famous depiction of the Battle of Eltur, no, it is an ancient, wall-sized mosaic, displayed proudly in the largest of the galleries. 

This mosiac depicts a moment of massive religious and cultural significance to all of Aclas: the moment that The Maker (considered by some to be the god that created Aclas) struck down the World Serpent, a vast monster that was progenitor to all Draconic creatures. 

(To clarify, this event is not a myth. Ancient Celestials - who never lie - confirmed that it literally happened that way. The only part in question is whether the Maker or the Serpent were gods.)

The mosiac itself is made of thousands of pieces of polished stone, painstakingly arranged to depict the Maker with her golden sunburst head - she is impaling her silver chisel into the Serpent's chest, and she is raising her silver hammer to finish the job. The Serpent's scales - depicted in a dazzling rainbow of colour, to contrast the plain silver and gold of The Maker - are rent asunder, and its bright, carnelian blood falls in dramatic waterfalls to the bottom of the piece, where the first Dragons, Kobolds and Hydras can be seen pulling themselves from the pools of blood.

It has an inscription, although the culture whose language it is written in is long dead, so the meaning remains a mystery.

The City of Smoke

Still, Cordiss isn't entirely a wonderland of high culture. There's definitely a lot of low culture here too. One of the biggest Bardic Colleges in Arvinia exists here, as does most of the drug-trade going in and out of Xieyac.

Xieyan mages are known for a unique school of botanical magic - usually used to grow crops, but occasionally also applied to the creation of potent herbal drugs. Some of these, for example, the highly addicitive Kamor Spores, plague the Cordisian population with addicition. 

Furthermore, other than the drug trade (which isn't necessarily illegal, just immoral) there's a fuck of a lot of organised crime in Cordiss. Most of which is organised by the Great Families. The Deglano, the Sfera, the Decassa and the Do'Cordisi play out a proxy war through gang leaders and catspaws. Many a young Cordisian has bled to death in a gutter as a consequence of an ill placed remark, at a social function that they could have never attended. 

The Guts

Darker things than criminals stalk the streets of Cordiss at night, however. Citizens have reported seeing creatures in darkened alleys, some the same size as the city's omnipresent monkeys, some as big as a horse. No concrete description exists, but they are fleshy, amphibious, and overequipped with teeth. None have killed a Cordisian, yet, but it only seems a matter of time. 

As to these creatures' origins, no-one - not even the Great Families - are in the know, except for the city's clergy. The Church of the Maker built nine temples here in the 1200s, and they stand to this day, one having ascended to the position of Sanctum of The Prince. The secret purpose of these temples is to mask nine golden 'nails' that the Church drove beneath the city, to absorb the magic that exists below the city. (Gold absorbs magic).

As you might have expected, the Ribs aren't just a 'geological formation'. They literally are the ribs of a titanic, dead monster, whose body is mostly petrified, and which Cordiss is built on top of. 

In 1247, clergy exploring the undercity of Cordiss discovered a series of tunnels that seemed like giant, petrified intestines. It was only when they found a stone heart the size of a ship, that they realised what they were standing in. 

In 1288, explorers found a patch of unpetrified wall, dripping black ichor. It pulsated with the force of some hidden organ. 

Land was hastily bought, holes dug, and a financially crippling amount of gold poured into them, to form a circle of 'pins', absorbing the creature's ambient magic. And as far as anyone's aware, it worked. 

But as these dark shapes slither out of the undercity, and more and more cats, dogs and horses disappear, except for a puddle of blood, the city's clergy look to the ground below their feet as a chill passes over them. 

What could they do? If the beast awoke?