Location idea resource

[Tonguez]

The Tower of Black Ice.

From the Journal of Anduras Porric, Merchant of Tahmine

Day 3
It is three days since we entered the Rothos Pass, four days of relentless climbing through rock and snow. We knew that crossing by the glacier would be a risky venture, but are assured that the profits beyond are worth the effort

Day 4
The weather turned bad within hours of making the pass, a terrible howling blizzard, sharp with ice and bonechilling cold. Such is the way of these most tricky mountains

Day 6
My companions are dead! Some taken by the terror of the demon wind, others fallen into crevices as we fled trying to escape its grasp

Day 9
I am alone. Lost upon the mountains and soon I will die. The glacier itself is to blame. This is no common geography we have faced, it is a tower of black ice risen from some nightmare place.

"An accursed place is this! Woe betide any that should find my bones.

Next The Lardworks

 

[Buttercup]

The Lardworks

Orc towns are disgusting, no doubt about it. This is no doubt due to the vile habits and tastes of the inhabitants. Take the town of Smashrock, for example. It stinks like an open sewer, and given the casual violence that saturates every interaction, it's amazing the inhabitants haven't wiped themselves out.

Now one of the most disgusting places of business in Smashrock is the Lardworks. Orcs like greasy food, and they aren't over particular in their sources. The Lardworks supplies cheap cooking fat not only to the inhabitants of Smashrock, but to the whole region. Old and sickly farm animals of every variety are brought to The Lardworks to be rendered down. They also pay good silver for dead animals, so many an orcling spends his or her free time wandering the countryside looking for carrion they can steal from the buzzards.

Orcs being what they are, though, the environment around Smashrock has been degraded to such an extent that few farm animals can survive any longer, and even carrion is in short supply. The local warlord, Grulbeak, has recently come up with a solution, whoever. (Grulbeak is part owner of the lardworks, so he obviously had some motivation to keep the place productive and profitable.) For the last two months, Grulbeak's men have been leading chain gangs of prisoners to the lardworks. At first, most of the locals figured they were slave labor. But none of these prisoners have ever come out. And several of the best orc cooks (a relative concept) have noticed that the quality of the lard has changed recently, being richer, and slightly less off-tasting.....

Next up: The Goblin's Girlfriend

 

[CaptainCalico]

Seven leagues west of Nyos Festra a strangely twisted outcrop of rock marks the ford in the river Ressaris. In certain lights many claim that the shape of a hunched female figure can be seen in the rock. The orcish slave-drivers call it “the Goblin’s Girlfriend” and loudly tell crude jokes about a goblin sorcerer who used a polymorph spell to deceive a water nymph. According to the tales when the nymph discovered just who (and what) she had gifted with her charms she curled up and turned to stone out of sheer embarrassment.

Despite these jokes, none of the orcs will take their caravans across the ford after dark……..

Next: Coppervale

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

Perhaps the thread would do better if you supplied a location description instead of complaining.

Yeah, I've never contributed anything to this thread before, so I deserve the sarcasm. >

Coppervale

Among the gentle hills and valleys well east of Nyos Festra lays Coppervale. This desolate place was once a bustling hub of trade and the inhabitants became wealthy mining the ore that was found in abundance there. It is said their greed became their undoing. The majority of the city dwellers worked the mines and received a pittance in return. The members of Council of Landowners were the ones made wealthy by breaking the backs of the common folk. Workers were only allowed to work the mines if they lived in Coppervale, and one was only allowed to live there if they rented their housing from The Council.
A few uprisings were attempted, but they never succeeded in upsetting The Council’s chokehold on the town. During one such uprising the workers laid down their tools and refused to work. In response the Council had the mine openings caved-in and magically sealed. The workers in the mine were told that food and water would be sent down into the shafts after a suitable amount of ore was sent up.
In near darkness the miners toiled for nearly a year. This crushed the spirit of the workers and no more uprisings occurred. The Council ignored safety precautions and always demanded that the shafts be dug deeper. More copper at any cost was their mantra.
One fateful day the ground underneath Coppervale collapsed and took the city with it. Only a few buildings surrounding the edge of the colossal crater still stand, they comprise the Coppervale Ghost Town. The sinkhole that swallowed up the city, The Council, and the workers is at least a mile deep and many hundreds of feet across. It is said that you can still hear the screams of the workers, echoing up from the darkness.
Bold treasure hunters sometimes venture into the pit, hoping for untold riches; none ever return. As such, it is unknown what exactly dwells in the sinkhole’s depths.

Next: The Outpost at Kandarai

 

[Buttercup]

The Outpost at Kandarai

If you can make it to Kandarai, you'll be ok. Everyone who has ever traveled with a desert caravan in any capacity knows this mantra. If you can make it to Kandarai, you'll be ok. Just avoid the clutches of the sand demons for a little farther, and the Outpost will take you in, and protect you, along with your camels and your belongings. If you can make it to Kandarai, you'll be ok. Ignore your thirst. The Keshni nomads might have crept into your camp during the night, dumped all your water and slit the throats of your camels, but if you can just make it to the Outpost at Kandarai, the oasis will provide water and blessed shade--shade! Ignore the sand in your mouth, in your boots, in your clothing. Ignore the blistering sunburn, and your parched lips. If you can make it to Kandarai...if...you'll be ok.

Next up: Wireworm Gorge

 

[thol]

Wireworm Gorge

On the eastern edge of the Balthor Wasteland, an immense rent in the earth seperates its hostile steppes from the grassy plains of Carfael. According to legend, the crack in the earth was caused by a missed blow from the sword of Lor, the god of war, as he battled Zhaina, the goddess of death, in the Battle Amongst the Clouds. In ancient times, it was known as Lor's Scar, and later as the Doom of Zhaina, but these days it is known as Wireworm Gorge.

The Gorge gets its modern name from the curious folk who inhabit the cliffs on either side of the chasm and purvey their services. They get the name Wireworms from their method of ferrying travelers from one side of the Gorge to the other; through a series of pulleys and wires. These folk are at home among the airy lofts high above the Gorge floor, working their way across the wires in special harnesses of their own design. They run giant wicker and metal baskets back and forth to transport people, animals, and goods. Animals and objects as heavy as a horse can be moved across with no trouble, although anything larger, such as a wagon, must be disassembled first.

The service comes at a hefty price, and can be paid by coin or by barter, if you have what they want. If not, the only alternative to a traveller is to go 70 miles north and cross at the Gully Bridge, or 100 miles south and cross at the ford where the Gorge begins. For trade caravans going to the Spice Cities beyond the Wasteland, their fee is paltry compared to the potential profits saved by cutting the journey by a week's time. And although it makes many caravan owners nervous to see their profits suspended so high above the Gorge, most bury their fears amongst thoughts of the riches they can reap once they return to Carfael.

For their part, the Wireworms do quite well, although most have no idea what becomes of all their fees, as living in cliff caves can't be very expensive, or luxurious. Somewhere within those caves, perhaps, is riches beyond that of the Spice Cities themselves. No one shall likely ever know, as they guard their homes with ferocity, as the evil wizard Shandalar once discovered. He now lies somewhere in the shadowy depths of the Gorge floor. And so will anyone, they say, if they think the Wireworms are to be trifled with.

Next: The Kings' Glade

 

[orsal]

The Kings' Glade

The Kings' Glade

Over two thousand years ago the orcs of Barbak invaded the woods of Gilthaneli, then as now an elfin realm. There was much blood shed in the great battle, culminating in the confrontation between the elf King Lithram and the orc chief Ghurp in what was previously considered a nondescript clearing in the forest. Ghurp’s death by Lithram’s own sword demoralized the orcs, and those few who did not flee were massacred. Nilga-mur, the high priest of Corellon Larethian, then declared that the very glade in which the elf-king saved his kingdom would protect the reign of his heirs. Since then every new king of Gilthaneli has been coronated in that same glade, known as the Kings’ Glade in recognition of its function. And as long as this tradition continues, Lithram’s dynasty will continue to rule in the woods of Gilthaneli.

Next: the Port of Sharhargeh

 

[Tonguez]

the Port of Sharhargeh

Located inside the dead crater of a volcano and protected by a natural bay the Port of Sharhargeh is the ideal starting point for over-seas journeys to Spice Cities (with the west east monsoon winds) and southward to the great city of Bishnagar, the lands of the Hilala Horsemen and from there the Ivory Coast, including the islands of Pemba, Gaima and Mafia. Amongst its freights are diamonds, saphires, ivory, cotton, indigo, horses, slaves, cardamom, pepper, dates, wine, myrrh, and frankincense.
The area is protected by a well armed and ferocious navy and piracy is all but unknown in the vicinity patrolled by the sleek 'red ships' of Sharhargeh.

But what is most amazing about Sharhargeh is not its port, nor ships, nor trade. None of these suprise the unprepared as much as the fact that the port of Sharhargeh is populated and run almost entirely by Gnolls! Savage creatures yes, but they have turned their natural pack instincts to more civilised endeavours - a plutocracy of trade houses and shipping masters, each pack alpha constrained by the Covenant of Sharhargeh.

Next: Miseries Hole

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

Miseries Hole

It is said that misery loves company; that is no truer than at Miseries Hole. Some say that the nondescript hole in the ground, surrounded by the remains of a well, used to be the center of a small village. Nothing is there now; neither a house nor hovel stands beside that vacuum of happiness - that leech of dreams.
The story goes that a brutish and paranoid man came home one night from the tavern drunk and angry. His wife woke from her sleep to see him carrying their infant son out of the house. She caught up with him in the center of the village, at the well, and demanded to know what he was doing. In slurred speech he ranted that the baby boy was not his, that it belonged to one of her lovers. She pleaded with him that this was not true, and in fact it wasn’t, but he was beyond reason. Without preamble, he threw the baby down the well. Shrieking in terror his wife jumped into the deep well after her child, only to break her neck on the stony walls before she hit the water.
The husband was found by the well in the morning, sleeping off his drunk. It was not long before the village-folk discovered what had happened. The man was hanged, the bodies were fished out of the well, and life went on. But the well became an epicenter of woe and despair, though who’s to say that it wasn’t already? It is impossible to know for sure.
Years later the well was poisoned during a conflict between kingdoms. The people of the village sickened and died and soon the village also died and rotted away. It is said that a crusading knight stopped for the evening and camped by the well and that in the morning he was found cold, lifeless and bloated as one who has drowned and washed ashore; however he was not wet. A priest, so the story goes, was on a pilgrimage and thought to slake his thirst at the hole. His companions watched him take a drink, grow melancholy, and then admit he had no more faith left before he fell forward into the depths of the well, never to be seen again.
The stories are countless, but all are the same. Death and sorrow to any who tarry too near to Miseries Hole. So thick with the spirits of the dead are its waters that one can feel their cold, their anguish as he looks over the edge. You can hear them, moaning piteously if you only lean a little closer. But what is the point, I’m tired of telling this tale and those deep, black waters look very comforting…

Next: The Bleaching Plains

 

[der_kluge]

Miseries Hole

Next: The Bleaching Plains

Damn, well written, Bran Blackbyrd!