Jun 5, 2014

Places to Go: The Far Lands of Necrocarcerus

The Far Lands

Caught between the Lythmarch, the Wastes and the Rail Lands, the Far Lands are only nominally loyal to the Guardians or AUC. They serve as neutral territory for rogues, heretics, projectors and the undead to congregate and scheme with one another freely. The Far Lands are the graveyard of a thousand mad schemes to conquer or escape Necrocarcerus, and long-abandoned ruins dot the landscape.

Pinion of the Flame-Tyrant

The half-submerged skeleton of an enormous turtle lays in the middle of a salt fen that is all that remains of a desiccated sea. Chained to the top of a beryl plinth rising from its shell is a man wreathed in flames shining brightly enough to be seen from the edge of the basin. His name and origins are lost in history, but when it rains his screaming echoes across the landscape. The salt fen is studded with cyclopean pillars tipped with grotesque gargoyle guardians, and inhumanoids prowl beneath the thick willow canopy. The no. 888 Spire-to-End-of-the-World train runs weekly along the inner edge of the basin and is notorious for its breakdowns and sudden unexpected delays.

Rocket Fields of the Transhegiromantics

The Transhegiromantics were a heretical sect that believed they could return to the living worlds by shattering the dome of heaven and then egressing through the hole. They did not reckon with the Perfected Spiders, who caught their first missile volley and sent it raining back down on the prideful ballisticians. The rockets for their planned exodus were mostly destroyed, but the Mahayana, the Great Vehicle of Salvation and flagship of the fleet, survived its builders. It sits awaiting a crew daring enough to brave the wrath of the sky-spiders. The site is now inhabited by a clan of primitive coal-wights who worship Agni-Ratha, a wingless draco-lich who sleeps curled around the Mahayana's engines for warmth.

The Intraperegrinate Orb

A humongous sphere of brass that rolls slowly across the landscape. As it goes, automatic tentacles pluck nearby Citizens into its depths, where they are installed in psy-creches that add them to the hive-mind operating the sphere. A few lucky individuals manage to resist integration, or escape through the hellish labyrinthine psy-scape of the hive mind back into their own bodies. The Rolling City has a massive well of nepenthe at the centre of it, and anyone who could wend their way through its depths could tap into the memory of thousands of Citizens now blankly imprisoned within the sphere.

End-of-the-World

End-of-the-World is the only AUC-controlled megaborough in the entirety of the Far Lands, and thanks to its rail connection to Freedom, it may not remain in their hands for long. End-of-the-World is where you go to get lost, whether because someone is hunting you, or because someone will come hunting you soon enough. Most of the borough is a fortified mass of ramshackle construction and winding alleys wedged in between abandoned monumental bunkers built in a previous epoch and sealed with ancient magic. Rumours abound that the High Asmarch, sovereign ruler of End-of-the-World, and Lyth are in negotiations to hand the city over bloodlessly when Lyth's legions strike forth once more.

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