Paxillan
“There is a dreadful realm, vastly unknown, whispered as a terrible legend or fabled myth among the denizens of the shadowlands but If you’re reading this account then you are one of the unlucky few that have discovered the grim reality. The nameless realm exists and you are forever a part of it. A place of gluttonous consumption where everything you can imagine is ever hungry, fighting against entropy itself while the watchers above observe unceasing. Any place else would have been better than this for you are beyond the sight of the Arbiter, stolen away at the moment of your death. Whether the Arbiter knows not, or does not care that you were stolen here, is unknown. One thing is for sure, you bring anima and everything wants it”
The “sky”
There is no day or night cycle here. A disk of light will arise always in the south. No one knows why yet but it always rises at the same time, or what passes for time here. Some clever souls that arrived here long ago created a twenty hour clock to determine diskrise, always at 8th hour. The disk rises to the top of the dull grey sky, and then will go one of three ways. If it goes west, you have an hour before the darkness. If it goes east, you have almost until the next diskrise, setting at the 19th hour. If it goes north, a rare occurence, you stay below ground, for the hungering winds will come from the north, washing south. The disk will set erratically if it goes north, without consistency. The most startling feature of the sky however, is the many thousands of eyes that look down on the realm when it’s dark. All shapes and colors, blinking occasionally, always staring. Good luck getting used to this.
The anglers deep:
Stay in the light, the shadows themselves will consume you. They move and stalk the lightless areas of the deep chasms, attacking with predatory behavior to rend apart the forms of souls caught in their grasp. If the light disk sets, you must have a torch. If you traverse the caverns and holes where no disklight shines, you must have a torch. Make it from whatever you can get to burn for if the light goes out, so do you. Many have tried exploring this place for reasons beyond the understanding of me, but they do and more stolen souls arrive, eager to find a fabled safe haven on the other side. Maybe the idea has merit, maybe it’s just the big lure that pulls in the fish.
The mountains of teeth:
Watch your step here. Fall in a cave and you’ll be swallowed into the mountain for these things of rock and stone are sentient and looking for a meal. Occasionaly they will uproot and wander, sometimes a few hundred paces, sometimes far beyond the horizon. They scuttle on many thousands of legs, altering the landscape by the weight of their mass, sometimes settling on communities of lost souls, burying them alive under the weight of a mountain. Beware the mountains with skewer trees, as these trees seem to have some sort of symbiotic relationship with the mountain, skewering prey and passing them from tree to tree like a bristling wave of toothpics, to a central devouring pit. In return the mountain protects the trees by vomiting boiling acid or puffing scorching steam at any would be threat, a defence mechanism in which the trees themselves are resistant to.
Lakes, ponds and the rain:
There is a saying about the water of this place
“Do not go into the water today
Or it will simply take you away
You thought you could just cool your feet
But the water was looking for something to eat”
Ponds are fast. When They’re alerted to your presence, they flow like water but uphill, around walls and objects and they do not tire. Keep your duster sticks close and strike as the water reaches you. It hates the cordoran compound on the cloth end of the stick and will often relent after a few strikes. Just keep your guard up as ponds can leap or ‘reach’ out and grasp you rather swiftly. Lakes are slow, often unmoving at that, but your cordoran sticks will be useless here. The lake will pull you in and consume your anima before the sticks have an effect, even then only driving a part of the lake mass away. The rain is the worst of the liquid predators. Each drop is but a part of a giant sentient whole, falling on you and finding a devouring purchase in your mouth, eyes, nose, ears, rendering your form into a slurry of anima and dissolving garment if you have so chosen to wear such a thing. When the red storm cloud appears, seek shelter immediately as it heralds the rainfall. When it passes and the white cloud appears, the threat is coming to an end, just stay hidden, as the white cloud will pull the rain back up into the sky and everything that has been consumed will go with it. Water is not your friend here. Soul towns ring their perimiter barriers with cordoran compound and maintain such a defence against the water that hunts.
The entropic wind:
If the disk in the sky goes north, the winds will come south. When they do, get cover, deep cover. Most soul towns, smart towns rather, dig deep shelters to hide from the wind. Lasting until the next diskrise, the winds consume anything in their path. Mountains harden up and retract the skewer trees upon their slopes, water sinks into hidden caverns, most things that exist here, hide. The corrosive consumption of the winds is strong enough to cause damage to buildings in soul towns and sometimes breach defences, allowing many types of predators to break in. Many have tried to study the winds to gather some sort of knoweldge but few experiments are successful. Nothing yet discovered can deter the wind. No soul has ever survived it, even in experimental gear, and no-one has ever discovered the northern source. A few theories lean towards the breath of the watchers above, blowing on the realm as a pair of distinct, white eyes appear above the disk just before it sets, then the wind comes, kicking up dust like a giant sandstorm.
The pursuing tornados:
Predatory tornados may be a strange one but out in the flat waste they are rather abundant. If you chose to venture out of the mountains and the trees that hunt you, hoping for better pastures on the plains, you will eventually run into one of the most relentless predators of the dreadful realm. A survivor of the tornados warned that they were pursued for days, hiding and eluding the funnels only to find it hot on their tails the moment they left cover. If they catch you, they simply spin your form around and around so fast, your anima leeches away.
The haunt:
The most dreadful presence of this realm, the haunt is a creation from beyond comprehension. A dreadful silence heralds its approach, no wind, no sound, as if the very airwaves themselves go into hiding. If you see a green mist somewhere in your vicinity, chances are pretty good the thing has seen you and is on the hunt. Survivor testimony of the things attacks are hard to discern but those that have seen the form beyond the mist speak of a many headed entity, bearing skulls, beaks, long faces and multiple mouths. Others spoke of many arms, some ending in hands, others in mouths, weapons or branching limbs that made further appendages. Skeletal frames, tails, scales and eyes that stare out from knees, elbows, even ears have all been mentioned. The true form of the haunt may never be known as some say it may very well be formless or random in appearance. Never the less, if the silence descends, go far, get cover, stay low or you will be hunted.
If our characters ever went here, the would be little in the way of heroics or grand story lines, just survival on a day to day basis.
