The Campaign Builder's Guild

[ic=The Aurelian Tundra]The cold and haunted north of the Cadaverous Earth consists largely of the Aurelian Tundra or 'Golden Plain' so named for the near perpetual sunlight of its uppermost regions.  Beneath the midnight sun of the Tundra stretches a desert every bit as barren and desolate as the sun-baked vastness of the Slaughter-lands.  Subject to the warped, unstable energies of the Skyscar '" a sickly, lurid aurora that shimmers with a ghastly luminescence over the frigid plateaus and gleaming glaciers '" the north is a place of alien ruins and frozen mysteries.  As the swollen sun continues to bloat the glaciers slowly thaw, revealing long obscured secrets, the primordial monuments of now distant aeons.

Cities of the Golden Plain

Buried amidst snow drifts or tunnelled into the living rock, or else cloistered amongst the austere, angular mountains of the region (the Murmuring Mountains, so named for the weird winds that whistle through them) are the bizarre, gargantuan cities of the Golden Plains '" forsaken places of ice and cyclopean towers, where naught but beasts and hungry spirits dwell.  Uncanny statues of inhuman creatures are here evident: the heroes of the long-forgotten Polyp Dominion before even the Cestoid Imperium, when humanity was enslaved by now extinct fungi-overlords, and of demoniac warlords who led their hordes through the ruptures where the Skyscar now glimmers, and of inscrutable elder gods.  Treasure-hunters occasionally venture into these abandoned cities in search of artefacts left over from the long defunct civilizations of the north, but few return.

Thawing Monstrosities

Deep within the heart of the northlands, encased in thick layers of ice, odd and strangely nebulous forms can be glimpsed, obfuscated by panes of frost.  Long sealed and occluded in their glacial tombs, these vague forms now begin slowly to thaw, as the huge and sickly sun overhead beats mercilessly down.  Long locked in stasis, the beings trapped within the ice begin to stir '" for, despite their deathly cast, these entities have merely slumbered in a millennia-long hibernation.  They groan and flex their enigmatic, amorphous limbs, and blink with clustered eyes blinded by the searing white of the tundra, glowing with horrible brightness beneath the unsetting sun.  The true nature of these beasts remains mysterious.  Demons?  Daevas?  Servant-creatures of whatever alien architects dwelt in the ruinous cities of the tundra?

Whatever their origins, those creatures that have emerged from their icy tombs have proved themselves highly dangerous.  Men are found gorily disembowelled, or flensed of skin and muscle; others have had less comprehensible things done to them, their corpses found with their flesh liquefied or with rasping wounds as from barbed radula, or missing neat, bloodless chunks, cleanly removed to expose bone and viscera beneath.  Some who wander into the frozen waste return deranged and giddy with a lunatic fervour, until their brains burst and their skulls split open, giving birth to shadowy, mewling larvae.

The Skyscar

Glistening like a bloody gash across the bleached sky of the far north, the Skyscar is a dimensional weakness, a place where the space between spaces has been ruptured, where otherworldly and entropic realities are bleeding through.  It was here, possibly, that the original breach between the Earth and the Hells was made, the rift that began the Membrane Wars in antiquated aeons.  Though the breach has been patched '" sutured '" the Skyscar remains: a malignant, shimmering aurora from which Hellish energy seeps.

Demons can no longer cross physically through the Skyscar, but their essences swirl malevolently in the chill air, half-present and invisible, flickering in and out of quasi-existence.  Any who ventures into the Skyscar will be subjected to its soul-corroding fluctuations, will be assaulted by hungry spirits looking for doorways into the world.  Some of these demoniac entities manage to inveigle their way through the thinned boundaries of reality and into mortal vessels: these horrific beings are at first bound to the flesh of their hosts, gradually asserting more and more control until they can manifest completely, bursting free from their victims' fleshly husks like grotesque butterflies from chrysalises.

The Tundrafolk

A hard-bitten, grim-faced, weatherbeaten people, the tundrafolk of the Aurelian Plain are cold-toughened savages made brutal by the harshness of the north.  Fur-clad cannibals of a hundred bickering clans, they roam the blank, desolate places between the Skyscar and the Northern Baronies, the southern edges of the Aurelian Tundra, hunting aurochs, herding yaks, and descending in ragged hordes to raid the fortified settlements that dot the largely temperature north.  Skilled in the shamanistic arts of skinchanging, augury, and weather-whispering, the cunning, flesh-eating witches of these northern tundrafolk aid their warriors on their jaunts, summoning fog to hide their approach or blizzards to harass or delay enemy forces, or assuming the shapes of wolves and wolverines, running and fighting alongside human clansmen in battle.  They are skilled also with the elements of blood and ice; some worship the mad, dreaming gods of the sea, while others revere the abominations that roam the northernmost wastes.

Further north, clustered in peculiar communes along the icy coasts, lurk the crustacean philosophers called the Oorls, whose esoteric wisdom is much coveted.  They crawl about in the glyph-etched shells of giant nautili, like hermit crabs, chittering to one another in their complex, staccato tongue.  A few half-mad scholars occasionally make the long pilgrimage to the Tundra to seek counsel with the Oorls, though few know of their existence at all.[/ic] [ooc]I'm planning on perhaps putting Abysm (my entry for the Novemberish context) to the extreme south, so the borders of the world will then be clearly defined: the Suppuration to the east, the Skyscar to the north, Abysm to the south, and the Fevered Ocean to the west.[/ooc]

Ah, the Polyp Dominion- that seems new, and fascinating.
I like this environment/area writeup.

Good work!

--
>>"heroes of the long-forgotten Polyp Dominion which before every the Cestoid Imperium, "
Minor grammar issue.

>>"Whatever their origins those creatures that have emerged from their icy tombs have proved themselves highly dangerous. "
Whatever their origins, those creatures that have emerged from their icy tombs have proved themselves highly dangerous.
(added comma... recommend change those to 'the' but I think I see what you're getting at with 'those')

It sounds very at the mountains of madness-esque.

The titles are also very evocative.

>>Further north, clustered in peculiar communes along the icy coasts, lurk the crustacean philosophers called the Oorls, whose esoteric wisdom is much coveted. They crawl about in the glyph-etched shells of giant nautili, like hermit crabs, chittering to one another in their complex, staccato tongue. A few half-mad scholars occasionally make the long pilgrimage to the Tundra to seek counsel with the Oorls, though few know of their existence at all

I like the crustacean philosophers. Lots of possibilities with them.

[ooc]Thank you very much for the response and the edits - they've been incorporated.[/ooc]

Hmm, I'm not sure I like the Polyp Dominion. It feels like they are crowding the past a bit, now, with both the polyps and the cestoids in the coveted niche of "ancient monstrous long-dead empire".
Other than that I'm as always envious of your work. Some great ideas and an even greater execution of said concepts.

[ooc]The Polyps will not feature centrally - they're RIDICULOUSLY old, so there really aren't many remnants of their civilization left - only those sequestered in the Murmuring Mountains (which are, as Light Dragon points out, pretty damn close to the Mountains of Madness).[/ooc]

Yeah, the thawing monstrosities and ancient cities is pretty damn close to Lovecraft's Mountains.
EDIT: in a good way to be sure.

[ooc]Yeah, I think what I'll do to help differentiate them more is to write up some very specific monsters distinct from Lovecraft's...[/ooc]

Quote from: Cataclysmic CrowHmm, I'm not sure I like the Polyp Dominion. It feels like they are crowding the past a bit, now, with both the polyps and the cestoids in the coveted niche of "ancient monstrous long-dead empire".

Quote from: SteerpikeThe Polyps will not feature centrally - they're RIDICULOUSLY old, so there really aren't many remnants of their civilization left

I personally kind of like the idea of one ancient monstrous long-dead empire coming to power by overthrowing an even more ancient, even more long-dead (and even more monstrous, who knows) empire. It kind of gives a continuity to the place, and also adds in some of the Lovecraftian vibe that humans are just pawns in the machinations of great, ancient forces that can barely understand, let alone do anything about.

I don't think it's necessary to actually make any extra effort to differentiate it. It is unique in itself.

[ic=Two New Cities]Erebh, City of Abysm, City of Basalt Towers, City of the Fell Breath

Far to the south, beyond even the Shadowglass Steppes where the elementals wage their unfathomable wars, teetering precariously on the lip of the Great Rictus '" Abysm, the Hungry Void, the World-Wound '" lies Erebh, City of the Fell Breath, a place of narrow, rambling buildings perched on the edge of the chasm and spilling over, clinging to the cliff-face, windows shuttered against the endless, unplumbed black below.  Tall, basalt towers of unknown construction tower over the city '" grim monoliths presiding like featureless sentinels, their doors sealed shut, their featureless walls presenting no clue as to their purpose.

The city's economy is centered around the mushroom farms that zigzag down the cliffsides, on the quarries of obsidian, onyx, and basalt, and on the alchemical gases collected by the miasma-harvesters.  Glowing crystals of eldritch power are mined from the lower depths by adventurous souls in scuttling or fluttering vessels like iron insects; these forays are dangerous, leading to frequent encounters with feral phetorii or the pale, abhuman gloomkind who haunt the lower reaches and raid the fungus farms.

Abysm itself is a subject of speculation, of wonder, of religious inspiration.  Scholars gaze upon it with their glyph-graved instruments; priests offer it sacrifices, hoping to appease whatever deity they claim resides in its fathomless depths '" Apollyon the angel of destruction, or the Leering Beast, or Yaggathoth with her million flickering tongues.  Some claim that the jinni '" the mystical vulnerae woundfolk '" first emerged from the pit, others that the Great Rictus is a portal to one of the Hells, or a gateway to the prison of the Chained Ones.

Whether or not gods or demonkind truly reside in Abysm's deepest reaches, it is widely believed that something does '" there are too many reports of gigantic appendages glimpsed in the black, or of glimmering, cyclopean eyes peering up from the darkness, to wholly discount such legendry.

Marainein, City of the Wasting God

Once one of many prosperous city-states of the Gloom Coast in the far south of the Cadaverous Earth, Mareinein is even more decrepit than the other Twilight Cities, its manses decaying, its monuments eroded, its once bustling marketplaces lethargic.  The thousand towers in their multitudinous colours have faded and peeled; the flames in the lighthouses have grown dim and sickly.

The city is ruled, nominally, by the being called Yzsch, more commonly known as the Wasting God '" a once powerful entity worshipped as a deity incarnate, now grown leprous and diseased, confined to his prodigious temple-palace, babbling senile, nonsensical edicts, the rantings of a demented mind.  Unfathomably old, the decaying god is attended by a retinue of priests, the true rulers of Marainein, who 'interpret' his deranged ramblings as they please.  The priests of Yzsch attend the Wasting God with enamelled goblets, with which they catch the putrid excretions of his hideous sores.  From this rancid issue they derive a puissant alchemical elixir, a quasi-divine draught which endows them with unnaturally long life: the most powerful priests are many centuries old, some well over a thousand, though they scheme constantly against one another, employing eunuch assassins and esoteric curses in a brutal, baroque power-game.[/ic] [ooc]Both cities lie to the far south, beyond the Firesong Marches and the Shadowglass Steppes (off the map on the first page).[/ooc] [ic=Preview -The Esurience]Also known as the World's Navel, the Sea's Gullet, the Eternal Maelstrom, and the Perpetual Tempest, the Esurience is an unending storm centered round a massive whirlpool in the center of the Fevered Ocean.  A constant play of lightning wreathes the cloud-blacked sky above the Esurience while an unceasing anticyclone many miles wide swirls above the maelstrom itself, which takes the form of a sublimely vast oceanic vortex.  The exact cause of the Esurience is unknown, but many believe that at its bottom is a hole in the ocean floor, perhaps even a portal to some other plane, through which the Fevered Ocean is slowly but inexorably leaking.  If this theory is correct then given a long enough timeline the Ocean will eventually be entirely drained.  This would, amongst other things, result in the death of most of the Earth's algae, which would severely impact the world's oxygen cycle.

The Esurience poses a tremendous navigational hazard for any ships attempting to cross the Fevered Ocean.  Sailing around it would greatly increase the length of a trans-oceanic voyage, and sailing through it is incredibly perilous.  As a result the Esurience has greatly discouraged overseas exploration to the west, barring the inhabitants of the Twilight Cities from any other continents or island chains which might lie beyond.  Legends persist, of course, of paradisiacal lands on the other side of the Fevered Ocean, and every few years a ship sets out from the Serrated Coast in hopes of reaching these fabled shores.  None have ever returned.[/ic] [ooc]The Skyscar, the Suppuration, Abysm, and the Esurience now form the boundaries of the Cadaverous Earth - I rather like the idea of the world being bordered by these titanic pseudo-natural phenomena of relatively mysterious natures, otherwordly portals and psychic bleeds and huge pits that might lead to the Hells or to stranger places, zones where reality begins to ebb and chaos intrudes...[/ooc]

How do you envision the transition between the Fevered Ocean and the Abysm?

You got some great 'never-heard-before' words. Never heard of esurient before. Maybe it comes from you studying english :p
I love Marainein; mysterious, decrepit and decadent. I can see the poor citizens of the city following any of a number of nonsensical and twisted laws. Is it part of your plan to create more maritime trading hubs?
Erebh seems to be full of potential with its miasma and monstrous abysmal beings and woundfolk, gloomkind and phetorii (whatever all that is).
The Esurience is cool. I don't know if the whirlpool is a bit overkill; a storm is cool enough as is.

Your eternal storm has a real life equivalent by the way (sort of). Might have been inspiration for you, or else it could become it: Catatumbo Lightning

[ooc][blockquote=Ghostman]How do you envision the transition between the Fevered Ocean and the Abysm?[/blockquote]I was thinking about this one and I'm torn between having a gap between the edge of Abysm and the shore, and having the sea spill over into Abysm, Scar-style.  I'm leaning towards the former, since the Esurience already empties the sea. [blockquote=Cataclysmic Crow]love Marainein; mysterious, decrepit and decadent. I can see the poor citizens of the city following any of a number of nonsensical and twisted laws. Is it part of your plan to create more maritime trading hubs?[/blockquote]Exactly - Marainein is intended as a southern maritime trading partner, and goods going to Erebh would probably travel through Marainein as well.

I wasn't familiar with the Catatumbo Lightning, although that's really cool... I was thinking more of the Great Red Spot of Jupiter.[/ooc]

Quote from: SteerpikeI was thinking about this one and I'm torn between having a gap between the edge of Abysm and the shore, and having the sea spill over into Abysm, Scar-style.  I'm leaning towards the former, since the Esurience already empties the sea.

What would this gap be? Something like a land bridge?

[spoiler=A Suggestion]Maybe that corner could be perpetually covered in thick mist, so wide and dense that no glimpse of the sea could be seen from the Abysm and the horizon would be completely obscured when looked from the sea or land? You could state that ships sailing into the mist simply disappear and are never seen again - or perhaps they are sometimes found floating adrift with the crew and passangers inexplicably missing...[/spoiler]