Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Sandbox Locales for the Last Point of Light Mini-Campaign

There are more to be added from. Longtime readers will note the co-opting of contest entries—for the greater good naturally. (Thanks Trey, Robert and Michael for this round.)

Ir-Byit (Hex 13.13)
Invariably just called “the Towers”--or more frequently the pedestrian “Town”--the large plasti-steel walled urban core of 5000 sits packed into a compact blue-hued square of pylon-like tower-houses and long, covered arcades. Close to the walls are idyllic melancholic parklands harboring the handful of ancient buildings still in use as lodges of the Valley’s myriad secret societies. Great fields of rubble and broken shells of buildings mark the former extent of the ancient city.

The Fecund Pit of the Lurid Tolahks (Hex 07.14)
This dread cave-pocketed hole is a short if steep two-mile hike down the exterior ridgeline from the Marchwarden outpost of Watchfort Baker. The troglodytic Tolahks were greatly feared a generation ago when their raids ravaged the western villages of the Valley. That the Tolahks would return the gnawed skulls of villagers in the dead of night back to the Watchfort only increased the mounting terror. When bloodnettle flaggelants threatened to trek their grisly gods-fear and sweaty, stained backs into Ir-Byit proper the Marcherlord took the unprecedented action of going on the offensive. Since that terrible pyrrhic victory only a few long melancholy howls have been heard from the Pit since.

The marchwardens still talk of those the chilling dark of the dark outer pit-caves and the short battle glimpses of the gleaming white vaults beyond—and the hidden wealth undoubtedly stashed within those ancient confines.

Glories Past
Shining Ysbhalla, Hex 07.15
From the Scroll of Eytre the Mindhealer:
“What child of the Valley doesn’t know the story of Shining Ysbhalla, fallen ancient capital of Man? It’s spires can still be seem—as can the shadow that crouches among them like a toad in weeds. This is the god or demon-thing called the Thinker, and Ysbhalla belongs to it and its only worshippers, the Soft Ones. Who hasn’t wondered at the giant and macrocephalic shape that crawls through Ysbhalla? Who didn’t tremble in their youth at the hearth-tales of the elders of once-men, flabby, pale, and elastic as a slug or river mussel, who crawl through Ysbhalla’s streets gurgling obscenities and consumed with lust for women who may still stand upright?”

The Obelisk of the Electric Brain, Hex ???
A fragment from Godspawn by Pakah the Yellow:
“Of the many disciplines mastered by the Electric Brain, perhaps the most horrifying was the secrets to life itself. In the great nutrient vats beneath the Temple of Human Achievement, the Brain has tinkered over centuries to create new forms of life, vile combinations of man, machine, and animal. Pushing the outer limits of science and human imagination, these obscene monstrosities were created for the purposes of sexual satiation, torture, and other diversions best left unnamed. In the vast breeding pits and menageries entire generations of unthinkable beasts, many of whom were sentient, lived in died in squalor.

Yet, those unnameable horrors desired for freedom, as all men inevitably do. Many of their revolts were quashed by the Electric Brain and its servitors, but a fair number succeeded as well. Passing through the complex underground mazes that permeated the ground beneath the city-state, tribes of beasts not born from natural evolution slipped into the wild lands outside of the Valley of Endless Luxury.”

The Pyramid of the God-King Syrinx, Hex ???
Doom-Ballad of Moes the Many-Voiced:
“The Old Ones prophecied, and lo it was so! It was Midsummer's Eve in the year of the Unending Worm, and the Seven Eyes of Thon the Beholder stood high in the sky, directly over the capstone of The Pyramid of the God-King Syrinx. Day and night became one.”


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