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.”
