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<blockquote data-quote="Daztur" data-source="post: 5859578" data-attributes="member: 55680"><p>The compilation and map are up to date.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Land of Mortar</strong></p><p>Additional Information About Hex 22.25</p><p></p><p>Note: this post is inspired by several different posts from the 2ed Monstrous Manual read-through thread. All of the text and many of the details are mine.</p><p></p><p>The reason that the ancient buildings of the Forgotten City-State are so strangely untouched by the passing of centuries is the strength of the mortar that was used to fortify the clay of its pueblos: the bodies of the elemental creatures known as sandlings. No known substance makes stronger mortar, but not even it can last forever and as the buildings begin to crumble the sandlings are being released one by one.</p><p></p><p>When the winds blow through the city, drifts of sand claw at the buildings and the tens of thousands of sandlings still trapped in its mortar wake and struggle to be free. </p><p></p><p>The old masters who collected and imprisoned the sandlings are gone now but they once gathered them from lands far to the south where they lay in a desert that had once been a city old beyond even the imaginings of elves. It was built long ago when the aboleths whose fossilized bones can be found in the Grey Mountains yet swam. It was the capital of a vast empire and its glass tower of living iridescent glass soared higher than any balloon of the Shuttered City.</p><p></p><p>For reasons that no longer matter, this ancient empire fell and the towers fell with it, lying across the desert like the spears of a vanquished army. Slowly, slowly, in the days in which the first dragons broke the world like an egg with their birth, the towers eroded away into swirling sand. But some of the sand still remembered what it had once been and some of the power of its creators yet remained, so the builders of the Forgotten City-State gathered it to reinforce the clay of their homes. Only the sandlings remember what they had once been and they lash out in rage that for every memory of the shining towers they retain, ten thousand has by robbed from them by the hand of time.</p><p></p><p>Hooks:</p><p>-What will the sandlings do are more of them are freed?</p><p>-Is there any way to learn of the memories of the sandlings? They are not intelligent as human reckon such things, but could they yet retain knowledge of the lost empire of the south?</p><p></p><p><strong>The Whispering Sisters</strong></p><p>Additional information about hex 29.14</p><p></p><p>Note: chutup mentioned this cult in his write-up about Shuttered earlier in this thread but here's more information about them that he wrote up before. I was waiting for chutup to post about them but they're interesting enough that I got a bit impatient. It has been lightly edited by me and the last paragraph is mine.</p><p></p><p>Of the many esoteric cults that inhabit the City of Shuttered Windows (29.14), the Whispering Sisterhood is one of the most feared. As the name implies, all full members of the cult are women, though men may join as subservient acolytes. The Sisters worship the goddess known only as She Who Waits, though in the highest echelons of the cult it is said that her true name is sometimes spoken. According to the heretical mythology of the Sisters, the goddess She Who Waits was once the concubine of the great god Alberon, who today is patron of the City. The Sisters claim that after Alberon slew the vile Tiamat and brought plenty to the lands of the Long Night, he was consumed by pride and cast aside his faithful consort. Soon he sought to woo another spiritual being, the Green Lady who is said to be the mother of all elves. To ensure the Green Lady's favour, Alberon caused She Who Waits to be imprisoned beneath the earth, and her image struck from the memories of men.</p><p></p><p>So it is said; but all this is blasphemy to the good people of the City of Shuttered Windows. What is known of the Whispering Sisterhood is that they act in secret, in dark alleyways and behind closed doors in the halls of power. Many of the Sisters take on the cover identity of a whore or madam, and rumor has it that men may be drugged and kidnapped in certain of the city's shady brothels. When they awaken they may find themselves in caverns beneath the city, or on lonely hilltops in the countryside nearby - unwilling sacrifices in one of the Sisterhood's foul rites.</p><p></p><p>As with many cults, night cattle also play a role in the rituals of the Whispering Sisterhood. Supposedly, they deal exclusively with Drogo the Baldfaced, (29.01) since no honest cattle-trader would knowingly sell to them. In the most holy and ecstatic ritual of the Sisterhood, the sacrifices must be a night bull (representing the upper world) and a man and woman newly wed (representing Alberon and the Green Lady). The unfortunate couple are stuffed inside the night bull's stomach, and the whole is roasted before being cast into a bottomless pit as an offering to She Who Waits. By breathing of the smoke that floats up from the pit, the hierophants of the Sisterhood are sent into a trance. For seven days and nights they convulse, all the while whispering the words of their black goddess - words of prophecy, words of doom.</p><p></p><p>Due to the failure of the Sisterhood's many enemies to root them out, some say that their sacrificial pit is located beneath the lower vaults of the local dwarven Hoard (33.00) and that its only entrance lies within the well-guarded premises of the Hoard. But if that is true, why would the dwarves risk so much to shelter such a cult?</p><p></p><p>Hooks:</p><p>- What brothels are actually fronts for the Sisterhood? What other places do they control?</p><p>- Who in the halls of power answers to the Sisterhood, and why?</p><p>- What's in the caverns beneath the city, and does anyone go down there?</p><p>- Where is the bottomless pit where the sacrifice takes place? Is it really under the Hoard's Vault? Why would the dwarves protect them?</p><p>- What prophecies have been handed down by She Who Waits?</p><p>- Where are Alberon and the Green Lady now? Are they a tangible presence in the setting, or merely figures of myth?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Daztur, post: 5859578, member: 55680"] The compilation and map are up to date. [b]The Land of Mortar[/b] Additional Information About Hex 22.25 Note: this post is inspired by several different posts from the 2ed Monstrous Manual read-through thread. All of the text and many of the details are mine. The reason that the ancient buildings of the Forgotten City-State are so strangely untouched by the passing of centuries is the strength of the mortar that was used to fortify the clay of its pueblos: the bodies of the elemental creatures known as sandlings. No known substance makes stronger mortar, but not even it can last forever and as the buildings begin to crumble the sandlings are being released one by one. When the winds blow through the city, drifts of sand claw at the buildings and the tens of thousands of sandlings still trapped in its mortar wake and struggle to be free. The old masters who collected and imprisoned the sandlings are gone now but they once gathered them from lands far to the south where they lay in a desert that had once been a city old beyond even the imaginings of elves. It was built long ago when the aboleths whose fossilized bones can be found in the Grey Mountains yet swam. It was the capital of a vast empire and its glass tower of living iridescent glass soared higher than any balloon of the Shuttered City. For reasons that no longer matter, this ancient empire fell and the towers fell with it, lying across the desert like the spears of a vanquished army. Slowly, slowly, in the days in which the first dragons broke the world like an egg with their birth, the towers eroded away into swirling sand. But some of the sand still remembered what it had once been and some of the power of its creators yet remained, so the builders of the Forgotten City-State gathered it to reinforce the clay of their homes. Only the sandlings remember what they had once been and they lash out in rage that for every memory of the shining towers they retain, ten thousand has by robbed from them by the hand of time. Hooks: -What will the sandlings do are more of them are freed? -Is there any way to learn of the memories of the sandlings? They are not intelligent as human reckon such things, but could they yet retain knowledge of the lost empire of the south? [b]The Whispering Sisters[/b] Additional information about hex 29.14 Note: chutup mentioned this cult in his write-up about Shuttered earlier in this thread but here's more information about them that he wrote up before. I was waiting for chutup to post about them but they're interesting enough that I got a bit impatient. It has been lightly edited by me and the last paragraph is mine. Of the many esoteric cults that inhabit the City of Shuttered Windows (29.14), the Whispering Sisterhood is one of the most feared. As the name implies, all full members of the cult are women, though men may join as subservient acolytes. The Sisters worship the goddess known only as She Who Waits, though in the highest echelons of the cult it is said that her true name is sometimes spoken. According to the heretical mythology of the Sisters, the goddess She Who Waits was once the concubine of the great god Alberon, who today is patron of the City. The Sisters claim that after Alberon slew the vile Tiamat and brought plenty to the lands of the Long Night, he was consumed by pride and cast aside his faithful consort. Soon he sought to woo another spiritual being, the Green Lady who is said to be the mother of all elves. To ensure the Green Lady's favour, Alberon caused She Who Waits to be imprisoned beneath the earth, and her image struck from the memories of men. So it is said; but all this is blasphemy to the good people of the City of Shuttered Windows. What is known of the Whispering Sisterhood is that they act in secret, in dark alleyways and behind closed doors in the halls of power. Many of the Sisters take on the cover identity of a whore or madam, and rumor has it that men may be drugged and kidnapped in certain of the city's shady brothels. When they awaken they may find themselves in caverns beneath the city, or on lonely hilltops in the countryside nearby - unwilling sacrifices in one of the Sisterhood's foul rites. As with many cults, night cattle also play a role in the rituals of the Whispering Sisterhood. Supposedly, they deal exclusively with Drogo the Baldfaced, (29.01) since no honest cattle-trader would knowingly sell to them. In the most holy and ecstatic ritual of the Sisterhood, the sacrifices must be a night bull (representing the upper world) and a man and woman newly wed (representing Alberon and the Green Lady). The unfortunate couple are stuffed inside the night bull's stomach, and the whole is roasted before being cast into a bottomless pit as an offering to She Who Waits. By breathing of the smoke that floats up from the pit, the hierophants of the Sisterhood are sent into a trance. For seven days and nights they convulse, all the while whispering the words of their black goddess - words of prophecy, words of doom. Due to the failure of the Sisterhood's many enemies to root them out, some say that their sacrificial pit is located beneath the lower vaults of the local dwarven Hoard (33.00) and that its only entrance lies within the well-guarded premises of the Hoard. But if that is true, why would the dwarves risk so much to shelter such a cult? Hooks: - What brothels are actually fronts for the Sisterhood? What other places do they control? - Who in the halls of power answers to the Sisterhood, and why? - What's in the caverns beneath the city, and does anyone go down there? - Where is the bottomless pit where the sacrifice takes place? Is it really under the Hoard's Vault? Why would the dwarves protect them? - What prophecies have been handed down by She Who Waits? - Where are Alberon and the Green Lady now? Are they a tangible presence in the setting, or merely figures of myth? [/QUOTE]
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