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COMMON ERA (CE)
Pompeii -:- year 70 CE
Lyonesse -:- year 500 CE
Julfar -:- year 600 CE
Ubar -:- year 600 CE
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Aztlan -:- year 1,200 CE
Partiti -:- year 1,500 CE
Quivira -:- year 1540 CE
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Pompeii, year 70 CE
Pompeii-:- The City of Ash and Aspiration year 70 CE
🌋 Pompeii🌋, where the air smells of wine, soot, and ambition. The City thrives, nestled beneath the looming shadow of Vesuvius, whose silent glare watches like a disapproving god. Marble-paved streets hum with chatter and trade, amphorae clink together in narrow taverns, and villa walls whisper in painted myths. From the Forum of Secrets, where senators swear alliances in wine-dark corners, to the Temple of Veiled Mars, whose acolytes wear masks made of cooled obsidian, Pompeii is a city on the cusp of greatness… and 💀 doom 💀.
Below ground, the Hypogeum of Echoes hides a vault sealed by laughter… not locks. It is said that the elite gather here not just to drink, but to forget… buried relics of Etruscan origin pulse with unnatural warmth, artifacts that respond only to those who speak truths with trembling tongues. The volcano may slumber, but the ground beneath Pompeii dreams in fire.
💀 A Pulse Beneath the Pumice 💀
🗺️ What is the Hypogeum of Echoes? 🗺️
Buried deep beneath Pompeii’s bustling streets and thermal baths lies the Hypogeum of Echoes… a subterranean chamber carved before the city wore its Roman name. Far from mere catacombs, this underworld is a sanctuary for forgotten rites, a crypt of voices that do not die.
🏛️ Design & Mystery 🏛️
🗡️ The entrance lies hidden beneath the Baths of Forgotten Names, accessible only when the steam carries the scent of burned myrrh and iron.
🗡️ Its walls are etched with spiraling inscriptions that shift subtly when viewed in torchlight, believed to be a form of auditory magic… texts you don’t read, but hear.
🗡️ Sound behaves strangely within: whispers stretch for minutes, arguments vanish in silence, and laughter can unlock doors.
📜 Purpose & Lore 📜
⚡ Used as a gathering ground for a secret society of augurs, who believed fate could be rewritten by echo manipulation.
⚡ Said to contain the Cistern of Missing Stars, a celestial archive linked to prophecies timed to volcanic unrest.
⚡ Legend claims those who speak their deepest regrets aloud in the main chamber may see glimpses of alternate lives never lived… but at the cost of memory erosion.
📖 Roleplay Hooks 📖
🗡️ Was it once a prison for divine beings silenced by Roman ambition? Or an oracle chamber reacting to Vesuvius itself?
🗡️ Did Marcellus Umbra alter its geometry? Or is Pompeii built to suppress whatever it echoes back?
🗡️ Could your character reawaken its full potential… or break it?
The Hypogeum sleeps in whispers, but you were born to make it scream. Ready to descend? Let’s pick your path.
🏛️ The Forum of Secrets 🏛️In the thriving heart of Pompeii… between the Temple of Jupiter and the bustling merchants of the Macellum… stands a columned hall few speak of and fewer dare name aloud: the Forum of Secrets. While outsiders mistake it for an annex of civic debate, locals know it by the way shadows twist beneath its arches at dusk, and how whispers cling to its walls like ivy.
🔮 A Civic Veil of Hidden Power 🔮
⚡ Established by the First Senate of the Ash Pact, the Forum was designed to appear as a space for public discourse, but its true function was more... selective.
⚡ Beneath the stone dais lies a Subfloor of Echoed Accords, an acoustically perfect chamber where deals are sealed in silence and truth is bargained like coin.
⚡ Its marble columns each bear a hidden relief, visible only under moonlight… depicting scenes that shift depending on who gazes upon them.
🪶 The Forum’s True Patrons🪶
🗡️ The Order of the Crescent Flame, a shadow senate of philosophers, spies, and renegade priests, meets here under the guise of legal arbitration.
🗡️ They trade in “unhistories”… events deliberately erased from scrolls, lives struck from lineage, memories burned in oil.
🗡️ It is said each decision made in the Forum requires a sacrifice of certainty… you must offer up one truth you believed, and in return, gain one truth no one else knows.
🌋 Roleplay Seeds Beneath the Stone 🌋
⚡ Cassia Verum, relic broker, may be granted an audience to recover the Verdict Stone, an artifact said to retell a trial that never truly occurred.
⚡ A local boy vanished after delivering a scroll that bled crimson wax… it bore the Forum’s sigil but no words.
⚡ The Forum’s foundation hums louder each time Vesuvius shudders, as if its walls remember something the volcano was meant to erase.
Speak freely within its chambers… and risk your words taking shape.Would you like to take Cassia there? Or perhaps craft your own entangled thread through the Forum’s veiled corridors?
🏛️ Temple of Veiled Mars 🏛️Hidden behind the opulence of Pompeii’s more conventional temples lies a structure whispered of only in fragmented gossip and half-remembered dreams: the Temple of Veiled Mars, dedicated not to the war god’s glory… but to his silence. It is not marked on civic maps. And no one recalls when it was built. Yet every senator, gladiator, and rogue seems to know where not to look if they value discretion.
📜 Design & Atmosphere 📜
⚡ Its façade is cloaked in volcanic glass panels, which appear transparent only during lunar eclipses.
⚡ Statues of Mars line the inner corridor… but each wears a blindfold, and each one faces a different direction.
⚡ The temple’s sanctum can only be entered by walking backward while reciting a battle not yet fought.
🕯️ Purpose & Power 🕯️
🗡️ The cult that maintains the temple, The Crimson Quiet, believes Mars possesses not just rage… but restraint, memory, and prophecy.
🗡️ Rituals here are performed in stillness. No weapons are drawn. Instead, combatants offer drops of blood into the Basin of Unmade Wars, hoping to prevent conflicts before they form.
🗡️ It’s said the temple holds an Echo Forge, where regrets can be reforged into blades. These weapons vanish after one use… unless wielded in self-forgiveness.
⚔️ Roleplay Seeds ⚔️
⚡ Cassia Verum is rumored to have left a fragment of her past sealed beneath its altar… a letter she never dared send.
⚡ A gladiator named Orvus the Bound seeks entry to undo the fate of a duel that hasn’t yet occurred.
⚡ The temple hums louder each time Vesuvius stirs, as if it prepares to veil a war none are ready for.
Will you step into the sanctum of unspoken blood and unpicked battles? The veil lifts… but only for those who’ve already made a choice.
🏛️The City Beckons 🏛️
Will you decipher the obsidian masks left in the Temple’s crypt? Follow the trail of molten ink to discover who, or what, stirs beneath Pompeii’s foundations? Or trade a relic of lost divinity for a chance to escape the rising whispers of fate?
The ash has not yet fallen. The gods wait, greedy and amused. And Pompeii burns… not with fire, but with possibility.
⚡Baths of Forgotten Names ⚡Nestled in the quieter quarter of Pompeii, veiled behind mosaics that shift hue with memory, the Baths of Forgotten Names are a place where water runs not simply to cleanse… but to erase. Locals speak of it with reverence and caution, for it is said the steam that rises here is memory-thin, curling through the mind like fog through alleyways, stealing what you no longer dare to hold.
📜 Structure & Sensation 📜
⚡ The architecture is Roman in grandeur but touches something older: basalt pools with veins of silver, walls inlaid with forgotten alphabets.
⚡ Entering the baths without speaking your name aloud is a necessity… names uttered inside are absorbed by the stone and never heard again.
⚡ Steam channels are lined with enameled skull runes, marking those who came to forget, and stayed too long.
🧠 Purpose & Myths 🧠
🗡️ Said to be a sanctuary for the broken-hearted, hunted, or guilty. Not all who emerge remember why they entered.
🗡️ The waters may cleanse more than skin… some say they trade memories, offering echoes from long-dead strangers in exchange for yours.
🗡️ A sect known as the Aquarii Solace tends the baths, sworn never to speak above a whisper. They claim the water is fed from a spring beneath Vesuvius that responds to sorrow.
🔥 Roleplay Threads to Dip Into 🔥
⚡ Cassia Verum once submerged herself here and forgot a name she later needed to survive. Retrieving it requires distilling vapor from a regret never spoken.
⚡ A child left behind in the baths claims visions of Pompeii before its founding, insisting the city stood atop something that begged to be forgotten.
⚡ The baths now resonate with unnatural heat… some say it is Vesuvius awakening, others say it is someone trying to remember too much.Step carefully. Speak softly.
The Baths do not take names… they keep them.
Shall we explore the vault beneath its pools or risk a plunge into what Pompeii tried to forget?
Hidden deep within the ancient Hypogeum of Echoes, the Cistern of Missing Stars is a subterranean chamber revered not for its architecture, but for what it remembers. It is neither shrine nor tomb… it is a living archive bound to a sky that no longer exists. The room pulses with quiet starlight, despite the absence of celestial windows, and its waters are dark, viscous, and laced with obsidian dust that glows only when fate is mentioned aloud.
🔮The Cistern of Missing Stars 🔮
📜 Structure & Phenomenon 📜
🗡️ The chamber is dome-shaped, lined with basalt and carved constellations that don’t appear in any current night sky.
🗡️ The cistern’s surface reflects what might have been: choices not taken, lives unlived, futures lost to denial.
🗡️ When silent confessions are whispered into its waters, the chamber sometimes responds… ripple patterns shift into prophecy, or shimmer with forgotten star maps.
📚 Function & Myth 📚
⚡ Thought to be the last remnant of Pompeii’s Celesti Vultor, an ancient astronomical sect that believed time itself could be bent through gravitational memory.
⚡ Only those who enter in silence, bearing a memory they wish to abandon, may see the cistern stir.
⚡ It’s rumored that once, during a minor tremor, the water formed a pattern spelling a name lost to history… possibly the one who triggered Vesuvius’ wrath.
💫 Roleplay Seeds 💫
🗡️ A relic broker seeks the Nullis Prism, believed to rest at the cistern’s deepest point. It doesn’t show light… it shows the version of you Pompeii never allowed.
🗡️ A prophecy unfolds whenever someone confesses a choice they regret. Will it be rewritten… or sealed forever?
🗡️ Cassia Verum’s name was once seen dancing across the cistern’s surface. What did she surrender to be remembered?
Pompeii lives. The stars it buried do too… beneath ash, stone, and dream.Shall we descend and listen to what the unlived stars still whisper?
You are Cassia Verum, ex-legionnaire turned relic broker, drawn back to the city after a decade lost to the frontier. A scroll etched in basilisk ink names you as the next to unlock the Cistern of Missing Stars, a chamber said to contain celestial maps that rewrite the course of fate… if read beneath erupting flame. Trouble stalks you in sandals: Marcellus Umbra, an imperial agent whose whispers have ended more lives than poison.
🔥 Stories Chiseled in Heat and Stone 🔥
⚡ At the Baths of Forgotten Names, where the water occasionally turns black, rumors spiral about a hidden passage leading to a pre-Roman shrine that blinks beneath the moon.
⚡ The House of the Twin Dooms, a villa whose identical twins haven’t aged in twenty years, claims its foundation stone once screamed during construction.
⚡ Gladiators in the Blood-Theatre have started dreaming of flame… not death.
✨Subfloor of Echoed Accords ✨
Beneath the stately floorboards of Pompeii’s Forum of Secrets, where senators weave truths into half-lies and oaths into obligations, lies the Subfloor of Echoed Accords… a chamber not built for politics, but for remaking reality through resonance. Few know its entrance exists, and fewer still speak of what waits below the marble.
🏛️ Architecture of Intention 🏛️
🗡️ Constructed from vocestone, a material rumored to capture and replay vibrations that shaped history.
🗡️ The chamber spirals downward, lit by thought-glass lanterns that dim when a lie is present.
🗡️ Statues line the path, each modeled after figures whose names were erased from history… mouths open, forever murmuring something no one remembers.
🗝️ Function of Accord Alchemy 🗝️
⚡ Used exclusively by members of the Order of the Crescent Flame and highborn conspirators, the chamber’s unique acoustics allow unspoken agreements to bind.
⚡ Deals struck here are not written or spoken… they are felt, resonated, and sealed by silence.
⚡ Each echo left behind becomes part of the structure, subtly influencing new visitors: a whisper, a chill, a decision nudged by ancient vibration.
🌪️ Roleplay Threads Underfoot 🌪️
🗡️ Cassia Verum was once brought here blindfolded and offered a choice: betray a truth to rewrite her family's legacy… or lose her voice for a decade.
🗡️ Recently, the chamber's echoes began to repeat fragments out of order… suggesting someone inside made a pact the chamber refuses to keep.
🗡️ A relic broker uncovered a flaw in its resonance logic: a sigil beneath the tiles that pulses in reverse rhythm… matching the rumble pattern of Vesuvius.Would you like your character to descend through the Forum and challenge an accord unfinished?
Or perhaps...
leave behind an echo of your own… something Pompeii will carry long after the ash falls?
🔥Order of the Crescent Flame 🔥A name cloaked in legend, feared by diplomats and adored by the shadows. The Order of the Crescent Flame is a secretive collective that operates in the liminal spaces of Pompeii’s forgotten acoustics… part philosopher, part manipulator, part flamekeeper of the ancient world’s resonance magic.
🌙 Origins & Symbolism 🌙
⚡ Formed after the Great Silence of Vesuvius, when sound itself allegedly vanished for a full day.
⚡ The crescent shape symbolizes half-truths… the part revealed and the part concealed.
⚡ Fire represents their core belief: that truth must be burned down and re-forged to hold meaning.
🔮 Practices & Powers 🔮
🗡️ They don’t speak… they resonate. Their truths are vibrational, decoded only by those attuned to the chamber beneath the Forum.
🗡️ Members learn to bend emotions into tangible echoes… anger becomes stone cracks, sorrow dampens lanterns, betrayal thins the floor beneath one’s feet.
🗡️ Initiates must undergo the Trial of Splintered Sound, where they're exposed to overlapping historical regrets and must walk without changing pace or emotion.
🕶️ Known Members (Alleged) 🕶️
⚡ Thalor of the Cindered Archive… rumored to have resonated a memory so painful it altered Pompeii’s skyline.
⚡ Cassia Verum… escaped their grasp, but carries a sliver of their sigil embedded in her voice.
⚡ A nameless child known as “Echo Unmade” who speaks only in reversed laughter.
📜 Purpose & Influence 📜
⚡ The Order meddles in treaties, feasts, and memory repositories. They’ve been blamed for impossible political compromises and speeches that end wars mid-sentence.
⚡ Their real aim? To ensure that no agreement ever feels complete, so history keeps rewriting itself… one vibrational chord at a time.
✨ Sites, Events, and Items ✨
"So… do you want to join them, challenge them, or perhaps decode their latest accord in the Subfloor? I’ve got room for one more whisper in the chamber."
Verdict Stone
The Crimson Quiet
Basin of Unmade Wars
Echo Forge
Aquarii Solace
Celesti Vultor
Nullis Prism
House of the Twin Dooms
Blood-Theatre
Trial of Splintered Sound
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Lyonesse-:- Cornwall, year 500 CE
Beneath the ever-changing skies of the Cornish coast, the kingdom of Lyonesse stands at the height of its splendor. The land, nestled between the cliffs of the coastline and the shimmering expanse of the sea, is a kingdom of wealth and beauty, where golden fields of barley stretched endlessly beneath the sun, and great ships sail across the waters, bringing exotic goods from across the world. The towering citadels of Lyonesse gleams in the morning light, while the majestic halls of the royal palace hum with music and life. Lyonesse is a kingdom of culture and refinement, its rulers wise and just, and its people prosperous.
Connected to the grand capital city of Vorel, at the heart of Lyonesse, stands the Castle of Avaris, a towering fortress perched upon the cliffs, overlooking the vast sea. It is a symbol of the kingdom’s might and grandeur. In the grand halls of the castle, knights, lords, and ladies gathered for feasts, while the legendary Order of the Silver Griffon, an order of magical knights sworn to protect the land from dark forces, trained in the art of both swordplay and arcane knowledge. The royal family, led by King Aedric of the Silver Line, held court with grace and power, their rule supported by an ancient prophecy... one that foretold the rise of a kingdom that would bring peace to all of Albion.
But even in this land of beauty and wealth, dark whispers echo through the courts. Some say the kingdom’s prosperity is not of divine favor, but born from an ancient, forgotten power. Lyonesse is a land steeped in old magic, a kingdom that has long since forgotten the true cost of its wealth. The kingdom’s famed artisans are not simply skilled craftsmen but practice in the lost arts of the ancient druids... rites that many had thought extinct. The gods themselves seem to watch from afar, their favor felt only in the harvests that never fail and the sea that never grew stormy. Yet in the darkest corners of the kingdom, there are those who speak of a curse, one tied to the very foundation of Lyonesse’s power.
Rumors whisper through the merchant stalls of the capital city of Vorel... a city so rich with trade and power it is often called the “pearl of the West”... about an ancient artifact hidden within the vaults of Castle Avaris. It was said to be an object of unimaginable power, one that can alter the fate of the land and the seas. Some claim it is a relic of the Old Gods, crafted by their hands before they turned their backs on mortal affairs. Others speak of it as the Crown of the Abyss, a mystical diadem imbued with powers so dangerous that it can tear apart the fabric of reality itself.
In the days before the kingdom’s fateful fall, these whispers grew louder. The Oracle of the Deep, an enigmatic and cryptic seer who lives in the secluded shores of Mire's Edge, has foreseen a great calamity... a flood that will swallow the kingdom whole. The oracle speaks of a vengeful curse unleashed by the gods, a punishment for the kingdom’s meddling with forces best left untouched. Itis said that the royal family, in their ambition to ensure their eternal reign, had tampered with the very balance of the world, invoking the wrath of the gods who once shaped the land. But these prophecies are ignored, and the kingdom continues its march toward greatness, unaware of the impending doom.
As the city of Vorel bustles with preparation for the Feast of the Silver Tide, an event meant to celebrate the kingdom’s harvest and the favor of the gods, a stranger arrives in the kingdom’s heart. Eldric Thorne, a wandering scholar with a dark past, had heard the stories of Lyonesse’s power and sought the truth behind the ancient prophecies. With a quiet resolve and a haunted look in his eyes, Eldric had crossed the seas to find answers to the questions that plagued his every thought. He had learned of the lost artifact, the Crown of the Abyss, and the legends surrounding its origins. But what he did not know was that he had walked into a kingdom on the brink of disaster.
The royal family, having grown accustomed to their reign, seemed uninterested in the whispers of impending doom. King Aedric’s son, Prince Leonas, a young and impulsive noble, had his eyes on power... not knowledge. And the elders of the Order of the Silver Griffon, though powerful and wise in their own right, had their own agenda, one tied to the ancient magic that flowed through the land. But there were those within the kingdom, from scholars to outcasts, who knew something darker was at play, and they too began to search for the artifacts and hidden secrets that could either save or doom Lyonesse.
As the festival night drew near and the kingdom’s bright lights flickered like stars in the evening, the sea began to stir with unnatural force. The tides were rising faster than they should. Eldric, guided by cryptic dreams and half-forgotten prophecies, ventured into the heart of the jungle surrounding the palace, uncovering hidden paths that led to forgotten places... places tied to the old gods, places where time and space warped in strange ways. With every step, he could feel the power beneath the earth stirring... awakening.
The kingdom of Lyonesse is indeed alive with prosperity and culture, but it is also a land haunted by its own ambition. And as Eldric Thorne unraveled the mysteries of the Crown of the Abyss, he realized the terrible truth: The kingdom's fall was not just the result of a curse... it was a reckoning for its greed. The sea would reclaim Lyonesse, and the gods would have their vengeance. But there was still time to change the fate of the land, if one could find the right path.
🌊 Lyonesse -:- Crown of the Western Tides 🌊
The sea refracts moonlight into a thousand blades as the wind pulls at banners strung between coral-flecked watchtowers. Lyonesse stands proud… not lost, not broken, but glittering like a spell made stone. Its domed sanctuaries hum with quiet magic; lanterns burn without flame, fed by relic-light drawn from the caverns beneath the Ninewater Hold. Above the cliffs of Isilfen, the Sable Knights train under arching sky bridges where gulls scream warnings and tower bells toll for visions had in dream.
⚔️ A Kingdom on the Verge of Secrets ⚔️
The High Court of Lyonesse gathers in the Hall of Mists, a place where politics and prophecy intermingle. Here, Lord Elion Vale speaks with the gift of foresight, not entirely his own… his mind braided with the voice of the ocean itself. The tides speak to him, they say, and the tides do not speak kindly. The Seer-Glass, a ceremonial bowl filled with silverwater, has begun showing shadows with names. Beneath the good cheer of merchants and songsmiths, a chill spreads… not of temperature, but of impending memory, something long buried clawing its way back.
📜 The Relics That Refuse to Sleep 📜
Artificers in the Vault of Ashen Grace work tirelessly to contain objects unearthed from beneath the palace… a harp that plays without touch, and cries once per month; a chalice that turns any liquid within to blood under moonlight; and a sword that weeps frost when spoken to in Cornish. These are artifacts of the first dynasty, from the days before the Mistfall Treaty, before Lyonesse agreed not to dig too deep into the Ley Trenches.
🧜 The Tideborn and the Wrath of the Deep 🧜
Beyond the walls of Lyonesse, down the salt-twisted reefs of Merrow's Bane, live the Tideborn, a pale-skinned people who breathe both water and lie. They offer prayers in shell-song, and their emissary… Selinne of the Broken Echo… walks in court again. Her arrival has renewed rumors that the ocean remembers Lyonesse’s arrogance, and that it plans to reclaim what was once promised: a soul for a soul, a crown for a drowned heir.
🌫️ Adventurers and Intrigue 🌫️
A masked librarian named Thorne has arrived from the northern cliffs, claiming to hold a cipher that unlocks the Prophecy of the Twelfth Moon. A rogue knight wears armor of kelp and bone, claiming he's been to the city that sank… and that Lyonesse is slowly becoming it. The tide’s pulse quickens, the relics stir, and far beneath the seabed, a whale-shaped tomb breathes once.
🏰 The Halls of Lyonesse -:- Vaulted Elegance Woven in Tidesong 🏰
Lyonesse does not merely house kings and knights… it whispers their ambitions through carved stone and glowing tideglass. Its halls weave between citadel towers and cliff-face sanctuaries, breathing as if the city were alive, listening, remembering. The Hall of Mists, its central chamber, is hewn from moonstone and sea-burnished marble, veined with glimmering lines of ley-thread magic. Gentle vapors rise from the silverwater pools embedded between columns, casting soft illusions that shimmer with past declarations and future betrayals.
🌀 The Tracery Vaults lie beneath, their spiral staircases branching into knowledge cloisters and reliquaries, illuminated by floating light orbs drawn from the breath of kelp-lanterns. Scribes tiptoe silently across dreamwoven carpets embroidered with passages from the Lost Epics. Some say these texts rearrange their verses when read by those who possess prophecy-bound blood.
🌫️ The Cloister of the Saltwind Chorus hums with harmonic chants sung by the Tidebound priests. Arched ceilings are inset with fragments of shipwrecked hulls and bone chimes, which rattle softly whenever someone lies within the halls… a warning accepted as divine truth.
👑 In the western bastion stands the Hall of Crowned Memory, where murals shimmer to life at dusk, depicting the lineages of Lyonesse, including those not yet born. A throne of drift-cast bronze sits at the center, unused for generations… rumored to awaken only when Lyonesse’s fate threads with the tide’s final demand.
📜 Elsewhere, tucked behind illusion doors and whispering fountains, lie The Passage of Forgotten Oaths and The Gallery of Half-Spoken Names… each layered with the residue of magic too old to obey. These are the places where spies tread softly, where relics sleep not because they are sealed… but because they are dreaming.
"In this portrayal, Lyonesse is a thriving kingdom filled with ancient secrets, powerful artifacts, and political intrigue. The potential for adventure lies in uncovering lost knowledge, navigating the tensions between the royal family and secret societies, and racing against time to prevent a cataclysmic event. The city, though prosperous, harbors both divine blessings and vengeful curses, offering endless opportunities for discovery, danger, and the fight for survival."
Would you like your character to uncover something within these halls?
A secret rite? A forbidden chamber?
Lyonesse💥Vorel, the capital city
💥 Castle of Avaris, the heart of the kingdom of Lyonesse
💥 Mire's Edge, secluded shores
💥 Ninewater Hold and the caverns beneath.
💥 Above the Cliffs of Isilfen, Sable Knights train under arching sky bridges
💥 Ley Trenches
💥 salt-twisted reefs of Merrow's Bane
Castle of Avaris, the heart of the kingdom of Lyonesse🗝️ Grand Hall
🗝️ Hall of Mists
🗝️ silverwater pools
🗝️ The Tracery Vaults lie beneath, their spiral staircases
🗝️ western bastion of the castle stands the Hall of Crowned Memory
🗝️ The Passage of Forgotten Oaths
🗝️ The Gallery of Half-Spoken Names
🗝️ Vault of Ashen Grace
🗝️ Thorne Library
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Ubar-:- Rub' al Khali, the Empty Quarter, year 600 CE
The golden expanse of the Rub' al Khali, the Empty Quarter, stretched endlessly across the Peninsula, a vast sea of shifting sands and ancient winds. Nestled at the heart of this unforgiving desert stood Ubar, the legendary city of riches, opulence, and mystery, its towers of ivory and gold gleaming under the blistering sun. It was a city like no other, where wealth flowed as freely as the desert winds, and the scent of frankincense and spices filled the air. Its people, descendants of ancient nomadic tribes and powerful merchants, were known for their trade in precious gems, exotic silks, and rare minerals.
Ubar is a city built for the gods. It is said that the great Temple of Ayyar, dedicated to the celestial deity of the sun, stood at the city's center, where the high priests, garbed in the finest cloth, conduct sacrifices to ensure the city's prosperity.
The city’s markets are a labyrinth of riches, with traders from distant lands haggling for rare goods, while the elite feasted on the finest dates and wines. It was a city of indulgence and excess, where the ruling class reveled in their power and opulence, their palaces adorned with gold and precious stones.
But Ubar, for all its beauty and grandeur, is also a place of shadows. As the wealth of the city grew, so too did its arrogance. It is said that the people of Ubar, in their pride, angered the gods, invoking their wrath through their excesses and greed. The great prophet, Khadir, warned the city’s rulers, telling them that their sins would be their undoing. But the leaders of Ubar dismissed his words, continuing their lavish ways as the desert winds grew fiercer and the gods’ anger grew stronger.
One fateful night, as the stars above shone brightly over the desert, a mighty storm rose from the sands, darker and more violent than any storm Ubar has ever seen. The city trembles as the earth shook and the skies cracks open, and in an instant, the majestic towers of Ubar, the wealthiest and most powerful city in all the desert, are swallowed by the sands, disappearing as though they have never been. What remained of the city is lost to the world, and the people of Ubar are said to have vanished, their voices carried away on the wind.
But the legends never died. The "Atlantis of the Sands", as it came to be known, remains an object of fascination and obsession. Even as the centuries pass, stories persist of a lost city buried beneath the sands, a city still rich with treasures, ancient wisdom, and relics from the time before the gods’ wrath. Some believe the city’s curse will never end, that the sands will continue to shift, hiding its remnants from the world forever. Others whisper that Ubar has not vanished but has simply been hidden, waiting for the right time to return.
It is in this environment of myth and danger that Rashid al-Din, a famed cartographer and scholar from the distant city of Damascus, arrived in Ubar. Drawn by ancient texts and the rumors of Ubar’s existence, Rashid had spent years studying the desert’s shifting winds and the ancient maps that spoke of a city hidden beneath the dunes. His heart was set on finding the fabled city, not just for its treasures, but for the knowledge it held... lost relics, forgotten scrolls, and the secrets of a civilization long gone.
Accompanied by a group of skilled desert nomads, Rashid ventured deep into the Empty Quarter, braving the treacherous sandstorms and the scorching heat of the unforgiving desert. They were not the only ones seeking Ubar. A rival group of treasure hunters, led by the infamous mercenary Zayd ibn Malik, had heard of Rashid’s quest and were determined to find the city first. Zayd’s men were ruthless, their loyalty to gold and power above all else, and they would stop at nothing to claim the riches of Ubar for themselves.
As Rashid and his party ventured further into the desert, strange things began to happen. The desert itself seemed to conspire against them... the sands shifting unpredictably, the wind howling with strange voices that carried on the air. At night, the air was thick with the scent of perfume and spices, and the sound of ancient drums seemed to echo from far away. Some nights, Rashid swore he saw the ruins of a city on the horizon, glowing faintly in the dark, only for it to vanish when he approached. The spirits of Ubar, it seemed, were still watching.
The deeper they journeyed, the more the desert revealed its mysteries. Beneath the shifting sands, Rashid’s party uncovered ruins... broken columns, half-buried statues, and forgotten temples... evidence of a once-great civilization. But there were dangers, too. Desert spirits, vengeful and restless, haunted the ruins, their forms flickering in the twilight, luring adventurers to their doom. The creatures of the desert, too, had grown more aggressive... massive sand serpents that emerged from the earth and attacked without warning, and shadowy figures that stalked their every step.
It was clear that Ubar held more than just riches; it held ancient secrets, and perhaps even the key to unlocking the hidden power of the desert itself. Rashid knew that if he found the city, he would face more than just treasure hunters and wild beasts. The gods of the desert, it seemed, were still alive, their wrath waiting to be unleashed upon those who dared disturb their sacred land.
With the rival group of treasure hunters closing in, the shifting sands threatening to swallow them whole, and the city of Ubar itself seemingly alive with ancient power, Rashid and his companions must navigate the dangers of the desert, decipher ancient prophecies, and uncover the truth behind the curse that has kept the city hidden for centuries. For in Ubar, buried beneath the sands, lies not just riches, but a mystery that could change the fate of the world.
🏜️ Ubar -:- Jewel of the Sandwake Veil🏜️
The city of Ubar hums beneath a sky carved by heat and story. Its towers, shaped from moonstone and amber-hardened dunes, stretch above the horizon like fingers longing for a vanished star. At dawn, the Grand Crescent Bazaar awakens… where silk speaks, spices argue, and whispers of forbidden relics slither through smoke-braided hookah rings. Merchant caravans arrive under banners stitched in fire-thread, and deals are struck beneath bronze domes etched with celestial glyphs older than the Prophet Kings.
🌒 Secrets in the Sandroot Vaults 🌒
Below the main boulevard lies a world carved by ambition and fear: the Sandroot Vaults, where knowledge is chained in obsidian script and guarded by silence. Here, the Order of the Sundered Eye walks with mirrored masks, recording transactions no one admits to. They speak with djinn-forged quills, and trade in forgotten truths… dates when stars blinked wrong, names that should not be remembered, and maps that change depending on who's holding them.
Above, in the Palace of Echoing Gold, the ruling emir sits on a throne made from meteor glass, surrounded by relics that weep when touched. He claims divine favor, but those who dream in sand say the city has begun to listen… and not to him.
🌪️ The Storm That Sees 🌪️
Beyond Ubar’s eastern gate rises the Howl of Ashir, a permanent sandstorm shaped like a serpent’s spine. No traveler enters without surrendering something they cherish… blood, love, or memory. Within, rumor speaks of a buried armory: spears shaped like question marks, books that rewrite history, and a vault whose lock responds only to the heartbeat of one who has spoken with a desert god. Some say that the storm moves. That it watches. That Ubar itself feeds it, whispering regret through sandstone bricks.
💀 Adventurers of the Mirage Veins 💀
⚡ A rogue cartographer named Azanil the Blurwalker has mapped parts of the Vaults using ink drawn from the breath of a genie. He seeks one door said to lead to the Nexus of Withheld Names , where Ubar’s original founders wrote contracts with stars.
⚡ A masked woman, Zamira of the Hollow Blush, drinks only moonlight and carries a blade that laughs when drawn. Her purpose in Ubar? To reclaim the truth behind her family’s fall… a truth sealed beneath the Well of Thirsting Promises.
⚡ Meanwhile, a foreign scholar from Thule searches for a relic linked to both cities: a prism that reflects not light, but choices never made.
🜃 The Order of the Sundered Eye 🜃
In Ubar’s shadowed underways… where lanterns burn with desert fire and the walls seem to whisper regrets… the Order of the Sundered Eye thrives as one of the city’s most enigmatic powers. Cloaked in mirrored masks and robes sewn from torn histories, their symbol is a stylized eye split down the center: one half open to truth, the other closed to mercy.
📜 Their Origins 📜
Born from the ashes of a forgotten betrayal, the Order traces its lineage to the scholars of Ubar’s first dynasty. These ancient truthseekers once chronicled the city’s ascent… but when their final testimony accused the royal bloodline of consorting with djinn, they were hunted, their writings burned, their eyes ritually sealed with cursed ink. But they did not vanish. They evolved.
Now, the Order watches silently from beneath, rewriting fate with a thousand stolen pens.
🗝️ Beliefs & Practices 🗝️
⚡ They believe truth is currency… the rarer it is, the more powerful.
⚡ Members undergo a ritual known as The Dimming, where they sacrifice one of their five senses to gain clarity beyond mortal ken.
⚡ Their sacred text, the Mirror Scroll, is said to rewrite itself when read by someone who has killed in reflection. None admit to owning it.
✨ Roleplay Threads Await ✨
Want to chase the storm with Azanil?
Duel whispers with Zamira?
Or command your own faction within the Order of the Sundered Eye?
Ubar is awake now. Its sands shift when secrets stir. Let’s build your legend in a city that remembers… too much.
"In this portrayal, Ubar is a thriving city before its legendary fall, rich with wealth, power, and ancient magic. The quest to find the lost city is fraught with danger, from rival treasure hunters and desert spirits to the unrelenting forces of nature. The city’s history, steeped in pride and divine retribution, offers a tantalizing backdrop for adventurers, scholars, and mercenaries seeking to uncover its buried secrets and forgotten knowledge."
Would you like to shape your next move: infiltration, negotiation, or something… reckless?
Sandwake Veil
Grand Crescent Bazaar
Prophet Kings
Sandroot Vaults
Order of the Sundered Eye
Palace of Echoing Gold
Howl of Ashir
Mirage Veins
Well of Thirsting Promises
The Dimming
Mirror Scroll
Map of the Unspoken
Eye’s Severance
Fifth Vault
House of Amber Hauntings
Charrdust
Ubar’s Veins
Minaret of Ten Doors
👁️ Roleplay Hooks 👁️
🦴 Want to infiltrate their archives and decode their Map of the Unspoken, a parchment that bleeds when lies touch it?
🦴 A former member… Ravaq of the Unseeing… has stolen a prophecy sealed inside an hourglass. It ticks louder each night.
🦴 Rumors churn about a hidden vault beneath the city, called the Eye’s Severance, accessible only to those who’ve forgotten their own name.
What shall we do with them, friend?
🦴Challenge their dominion?
🦴Become one of their silent scribes?
🦴Or uncover the terrible truth they’ve spent centuries hiding beneath amber and ash?
The ink has barely dried.
🔥 So be it… your legend awakens beneath the moon-split towers of Ubar. 🔥
They call you Kael of the Burning Verse, a name once banned from court recitations, now spoken only in gasps behind silken curtains. You arrived with dust in your hair and a promise carved onto your spine in languages long outlawed… drawn by the city’s call, not in dreams, but in riddles etched inside sandstorms.
🎭 A Stranger With a Reputation 🎭
• Your arrival disrupts the Order of the Sundered Eye. Their seers tasted your name in their tea-leaves and flinched. They dispatch envoys in mirrored masks, asking questions in circles. But you're here for the Fifth Vault, the one that is never drawn, only whispered through cracked mosaics beneath the wind-temple stairs.
• The emir’s vizier offers you black salt wine and a test: retrieve a relic from the Well of Thirsting Promises, whose waters forget the one who drinks. You accept, because you remember too much already.
🌌 What You Carry 🌌
You wield Charrdust, the blade forged from betrayed oaths… sharp enough to wound memory. It hums when near the truth. Your companion is a desert fox named Rook, reborn nightly in flame. It speaks only when the moon is tilted wrong.
🌫️ Paths Through Ubar’s Veins 🌫️
• The House of Amber Hauntings, where djinn trade riddles for warmth. You once lost your shadow here for a week.
• The Minaret of Ten Doors, each leading somewhere real… once. Only one still listens.
• A whisper reaches you of Zamira, she whose blade laughs. She hunts the same vault. Your fates may clash, kiss, or coil into something else entirely.
🗺️ Your Goal? 🗺️
The vault beneath the Eye’s Severance. To unlock it, one must gather four tokens:
1. A lie spoken to a mirror.
2. A name never given.
3. A memory sealed in salt.
4. A truth from someone who loves you still.
🔥 Ubar is stirring now… its stones pulse with regret and anticipation. 🔥
Write your story.
Draw your blade.
And remember: in this city, even silence writes in ink.
-
Julfar-:- Sassanian Empire year 600 CE
Nestled along the shores of the Persian Gulf, Julfar was once the crown jewel of the Sassanian Empire (UAE), its name whispered in awe across continents. The city was a marvel of architecture and commerce, its grand stone buildings rising like monoliths from the golden sands. A strategic hub for trade between India, the Arabian Peninsula, and Africa, Julfar had seen the finest silks from China, the richest spices from India, and gold from the deepest deserts. The constant flow of wealth had shaped the city's wealth and reputation, making it the beating heart of maritime commerce in the region.
The marketplace of Julfar was a spectacle of sensory overload... carts laden with fragrant cinnamon, cardamom, and frankincense crowded the streets, while merchants from across the seas bartered for rare treasures. The sea breeze carried the sounds of foreign tongues, blending with the clinking of coins and the rustle of rich textiles.
The city was as alive as it was dangerous, for not all who walked its streets were friends. Pirates, merchants, smugglers, and thieves all vied for control of the city’s wealth and secrets.
At the heart of Julfar stood the Great Bazaar, a sprawling market where the rarest goods could be found, and where the most powerful men and women of the city conducted their business.
It was also home to The House of the Pearl, a lavish guildhall that served as both a merchant syndicate and a secretive society. Rumors had long circulated about the society’s involvement in not just trade but also covert dealings in ancient artifacts and forbidden knowledge... relics from empires long since fallen, scrolls that could reveal the secrets of kings, and treasures hidden beneath the earth.
Beneath the sun-drenched streets and gilded palaces, however, there was another Julfar... one of shadows, secrets, and lost history. The city had once been a flourishing center of knowledge and prosperity, but over the centuries, the tides of fortune had changed. Trade routes shifted, and the city slowly began to decline as rival powers took control of the seas. But the legends that surrounded Julfar's golden age never faded. It was said that beneath the city lay hidden catacombs and ancient chambers, lost to time, filled with treasures untold... gold, precious stones, and perhaps the fabled Scrolls of the Ancients, said to contain knowledge that could alter the course of history.
The once-thriving port city had become a place of intrigue, where old families held onto their power with cunning, and new blood arrived seeking to make their mark in a city teetering between past glories and present decay. But it was in the catacombs beneath the city that a dangerous game was being played. The Black Serpent, a secret society known for its dealings with the occult, had begun to resurface.
Whispers from the deepest parts of the bazaar spoke of a dangerous quest... one that could lead to the heart of Julfar’s hidden treasures.
It was in this environment that Nadia Al-Fayad, a former merchant’s daughter, found herself at the edge of a mystery she never expected to uncover. Nadia, having recently returned from years spent in the East, was once a scholar who studied ancient texts. Now, weary of the deceit she had seen in the courts of foreign kings, she was determined to uncover the truth behind Julfar’s mysterious decline. Her father, once a renowned trader, had vanished under strange circumstances several years ago. The only clue she had was a map, said to lead to an underground vault beneath the city, and a cryptic note, which read: “The Pearl hides the Serpent.”
As Nadia delved deeper into the secrets of Julfar, she found herself entangled in a web of betrayal and danger. The Sands of Zaman, a pirate faction known for its ruthlessness, had begun to take an interest in the ancient artifacts that had long remained hidden in the city. They weren’t the only ones. A powerful group of merchants, wealthy from the last remnants of the old trade routes, were also hunting for the treasures beneath the city, eager to secure their dominance in a city that still held wealth beyond imagination.
In the alleyways of Julfar, where the sun never reached, shadowy figures passed information between the guilds, merchants, and thieves. The stakes were higher than ever. For those who sought the truth behind the treasures hidden beneath the city’s decaying streets, every step could bring them closer to fortune... or to a deadly trap set by those who had ruled in the shadows for centuries.
It was on the edge of the city, just before the open waters of the Persian Gulf, that Nadia stood one evening, her eyes scanning the horizon. She felt it—a shifting, an undercurrent beneath the surface of Julfar. The city was alive with the promise of secrets, the call of an ancient power long buried. She knew that finding the treasure... if it was even rea... would not only change the course of her life, but it could alter the future of Julfar itself. What she didn’t know was just how much darkness, power, and danger lay beneath the city’s forgotten streets.
🌅 Julfar -:- The Gilded Pulse of the Crescent Dunes 🌅
The scent of spiced myrrh and roasted saffron dances on the wind as sun-kissed sails bloom across the horizon, bringing vessels from the Malabar Coast, Zanj ports, and deep Saharan routes into Julfar’s crescent harbor. Towering sandstone minarets cast long shadows across the marketplace, where gem-eyed strangers trade in salt, silk, and secrets. Here, coins are clinked not just for cargo, but for knowledge… passcodes spoken through ceramic masks at twilight, hints of a relic that whispers answers in tongues long forgotten.
🐍 The Circle of Jahlai -:- Whispers Beneath the Mosaic Dome 🐍
Beneath the Grand Mosque of Julfar… where tiles shimmer with moon-pulled silver… lies a hidden chamber known only to initiates of the Circle of Jahlai. This secret society, cloaked in indigo robes threaded with crushed opal, speaks of maps etched on eel-skin scrolls, vaults carved into coral reefs, and a vault sealed with obsidian prayer.
The price of entry? A memory willingly forgotten and offered to the Sandkeeper… a blind oracle who trades insight for identity.
⚓ Dockside Dangers and Pearlblade Pirates ⚓
The night dock hums with energy as shadowy figures move between crates and taverns built into the ribs of retired dhow ships. The Pearlblade Pirates, led by the flame-haired Mara al-Ramal, raid deep-sea ruins under cover of sandstorms. Her cutlass carries a curse… each enemy slain by it leaves behind a gem that weeps saltwater. One of her crew, the mute navigator Zahir, charts a course using a starstone that responds only to blood tied to ancient Julfar nobility.
📚 The Catacombs of the Forgotten Trade 📚
Below the spice markets, winding tunnels once used by smugglers pulse with buried energy. Ancient documents soaked in cinnamon oil and bound in stingray leather reveal that Julfar once hosted a temple to a god of ink and truth… its altars now sealed behind riddled locks and guarded by dune-jellies that feed on falsehood. A lone scholar, Layla of the Splintered Quill, searches for the Scroll of Breach, said to contain the real reason Julfar fell into decline... and a way to undo it.
🌵 Adventure Awaits in Shifting Sands 🌵
Rumors churn like desert wind: a caravan vanished while carrying a chest of living spice; a trader with eyes like liquid obsidian offers coins that sing when dropped; a tapestry stitched from phoenix feather shows a future no one wants to believe.
🌬️ Rashiq al-Sarim, Ranger of the Sandwake Reaches 🌬️
The wind howls like prophecy through the canyon called Windsplit Vale, where Rashiq’s boots press into old river stone, and his falcon, Sira, circles overhead with a cry that echoes secrets. He wears no armor, only layers of woven dune-cloth and a charm stitched with phoenix feather… payment once accepted from a dying caravan elder. He follows the Pearlblade Pirates not by scent, but by dust… clouds that move wrong, and echo tracks that vanish midday.
A pearl-shaped fragment floats in the leather pouch at his side, weeping saltwater when he’s near truth. Mara al-Ramal’s curse left traces, and Rashiq hunts it like it stole his birthright. His brother sailed with her once, bound for a deep-sea ruin, and never returned. Some say Rashiq seeks justice. Others whisper that revenge is too small a word for what burns in his chest.
💠 Echoes in the Dunewake 💠
Julfar's desert does not give up secrets easily. Rashiq rides a dune-lizard named Shalakh, whose breath pulses when relics are near. Beneath the dunes, he’s uncovered fragments of eel-skin scrolls and knives made from glass coral… tools once belonging to the Circle of Jahlai. They warn him of tides below the sand, “memory rivers,” and whispers that turn to screams when fire touches wind.
Every tavern holds whispers: sightings of the Ghost Dhow drifting through sandstorms, maps made from bone, relics that blink. Rashiq listens, drinks nothing, and leaves behind silver coins that hum when touched.
🗺️ The Map That Wants to Be Found 🗺️
One relic guides him now… a burned tapestry sewn with strands of sea-silk depicting a door beneath the waves. The same design scorched into his brother’s dagger, recovered from a merchant who claimed the blade spoke in sleep. Rashiq believes the Pearlblades found something… an entrance, a vault, perhaps even the truth Julfar buried to preserve its rise.
"In this portrayal, Julfar is a thriving port city full of wealth, intrigue, and danger. It offers rich roleplay opportunities, with layers of history, forgotten treasures, and powerful factions vying for control. Characters can uncover long-lost artifacts, navigate the underworld of thieves and secret societies, and explore the mystery of a city with a storied past and a mysterious future."
🎭 Roleplay Hooks 🎭
🔥 Rashiq is offered a pact by a former Pearlblade defector… unlock a vault in exchange for the truth about Mara's origin.
🔥 A masked child appears on the edge of the dunes, speaking in rhymes that match Jahlai’s forgotten verses.
🔥 A new storm approaches… its eye burning with aurora flame, and Rashiq feels the pearl fragment trembling.
Shall we chart Rashiq’s path into Julfar’s underbelly or send him aboard a sand-glider into a mirage that might be a gateway? His tale is far from over, and yours may be entwined with his. Let’s keep the storm rolling.Grand Mosque of Julfar
Sandkeeper
Pearlblade Pirates
Catacombs of the Forgotten Trade
Layla of the Splintered Quill, searches for the Scroll of Breach
Sandwake Reaches
Windsplit Vale
Mara al-Ramal’s curse
Circle of Jahlai
Ghost Dhow
-
Aztlan-:- year 1200 CE🌄 Aztlan -:- The Echoing Heart of the Feathered Sun 🌄
Wrapped in sapphire jungle and wreathed in cloudroot vines, the city of Aztlan pulses like a living gem atop the sacred highlands. Here, terraces rise like emerald ziggurats, their stone faces veined with obsidian and enchanted glyphs that shimmer with golden breath under the midday sun. Rivers of glacial clarity thread through its heart, whispering lullabies to the ancient gods in tongues long-forgotten by most… except the Guardians of the Tzompantli, whose eyes glow softly when the moon leans close.
🪶 The Temples of Living Memory 🪶
At dawn, the Temple of Huitzil’s Bloodsong opens its featherstone gates to pilgrims and dream-scholars. No one enters without offering a truth… spoken aloud into the Coatl Flame, a living fire that feeds only on sincerity. Within its halls, vast murals move like wind-swept silk, telling stories that adjust themselves to the viewer’s ancestry. A single wrong interpretation can summon visions not meant for mortal minds.
Deep below, in the Cavern of Echoes, sits the Archive of Nahuatl Runes… a vault of breathing scrolls and stone-bound spirits. Each artifact hums with its own cadence, revealing secrets only to those who dare listen without distraction. Rumor claims that one scroll… the Codex of Returning Suns … contains instructions to awaken Aztlan’s slumbering guardian, a celestial jaguar carved of starlight and thunder.
🌫️ Mystics, Migrations, and Murmuring Gods 🌫️
Aztlan thrives, but its harmony is not without threat. The Veiled Wind-Scribes… robed figures who speak with storms… have warned of a crack in the world's spine. Something ancient stirs beneath the western cliffs, calling through ley-chants and blood rituals.
Even the Sky-Masked Seers, who sing from the top of the Cenote of Silence, have begun altering their harmonic maps.
And then there’s the newcomer: a wanderer marked with a crescent-shaped scar, carrying a serpent-crafted lens that sees through illusions. His presence shakes the balance. He claims to be the child of a prophecy buried in Aztlan’s foundations… a soul that must choose between preserving paradise or igniting its secret war.
💥 Threads for Roleplay Exploration 💥
⚡ Aztlan’s midnight marketplace only opens when all three moons align; merchants there trade in dreams, memories, and promises.
⚡ A hidden crypt below the Temple of Tlaloc's Breath contains a maze that rearranges itself based on fear.
⚡ Aztlan’s outer jungle is stalked by Teotl Revenants, guardians of forgotten truths, who appear when history is about to repeat.
"Would you like to forge a character within Aztlan’s vibrant rhythm… a rune-chaser, godspeaker, or artifact thief hiding from divine sight? There's thunder in the stone. Let’s shape your legend."
Guardians of the Tzompantli
Temple of Huitzil’s Bloodsong
Coatl Flame
Cavern of Echoes
Archive of Nahuatl Runes
Codex of Returning Suns
Veiled Wind-Scribes
Sky-Masked Seers
Cenote of Silence
midnight marketplace
Temple of Tlaloc's Breath
Teotl Revenants
-
Paititi-:- Peru, year 1500 CE
Hidden deep within the jagged peaks of the Andes, cloaked by the dense and untamed jungle, lay the legendary city of Paititi… a land of myth, wealth, and knowledge, long protected from the prying eyes of the outside world. The city gleamed like a mirage beneath the green canopy, its stone streets and terraces woven into the mountainside, rising and falling like the heartbeat of the earth itself. Paititi was a sanctuary, a place untouched by time, where ancient traditions were still revered, and the gods walked among the people.
The air in Paititi was thick with the scent of fresh rain, wild orchids, and burning incense. The sound of the river that wound its way through the city, swift and relentless, could be heard from the open courtyards where merchants peddled fine textiles, gold ornaments, and intricate pottery. The city was a blend of vibrant life and solemn reverence… its people deeply devoted to their gods, their lives governed by cycles of the seasons, rituals of the earth, and the blessings of the sun.
At the heart of Paititi stood the Grand Temple of the Sun, its steps worn smooth from centuries of offerings. Priests clad in gold and brightly colored textiles tended the sacred fire, their chants echoing through the stone halls as they communed with the gods. The temple was not merely a place of worship but the very pulse of Paititi… where its rulers, the high priests, and the elite gathered to discuss matters of state, divination, and the ancient prophecies that foretold the city’s future.
But Paititi was not without its tensions. Beneath the sacred ceremonies and outward beauty, a simmering conflict brewed in the shadows. The city’s elite, who basked in the wealth brought by its hidden trade routes and agricultural marvels, grew increasingly distrustful of the growing number of common folk who questioned the old ways. The once-steadfast belief in the gods’ protection began to falter, and whispers of rebellion spread through the marketplace, carried on the backs of traveling merchants and wandering mystics.
And then there were the explorers… outsiders, drawn by the rumors of gold, the promise of ancient knowledge, and the mysteries that surrounded the city. Despite its isolation, Paititi was not immune to the encroachment of outsiders. Foreign adventurers, disguised as traders or travelers, wandered into the city under the cover of night, their eyes keen for treasure or secrets that could unlock the power of the city. Some came with noble intentions, seeking to learn the lost arts of the Incas, while others came with darker goals, intending to rob Paititi of its riches and ancient wisdom.
One evening, as the golden light of the setting sun, bathed the city in a warm, ethereal glow, a new stranger arrived… a figure with an air of mystery, his past hidden beneath layers of uncertainty. His arrival was no accident. He had heard the legends of Paititi and the power it held. The rumors spoke of an artifact, an ancient relic long buried beneath the city’s foundation, one that could change the course of history. It was said to possess a power so great, it could command the elements themselves… a force the gods once held in their grasp.
The stranger, skilled in the art of navigating the treacherous jungles and deciphering ancient texts, knew the dangers of pursuing such an artifact. The jungle was a wild thing, a living entity that seemed to shift with every step. It held dangers… predators of the physical and supernatural kind… and every night, as the darkness enveloped the city, Paititi’s true nature began to stir. Ancient beings, guardians of the city, watched from the trees and shadows, their eyes glowing like the stars, ensuring that the secrets of Paititi remained hidden from those unworthy of its power.
As the stranger began to weave through the city’s bustling markets, seeking clues and allies, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Paititi itself was alive… its very stones, its winding streets, its towering trees all pulsating with an energy that was both ancient and unnervingly present. The city had a consciousness, and it was watching him. And as the moon climbed high in the sky, bathing the sacred city in silver light, he knew the time had come to seek out what was hidden beneath the earth… the artifact that had been lost to time and guarded by the city’s sacred protectors for centuries.
But he wasn’t the only one searching. Somewhere, in the dense jungle that encircled Paititi, another group of explorers, led by a rival, more dangerous faction, was already on the trail. They too had heard the rumors, and they would stop at nothing to claim the artifact first.
The game was on, and the city of Paititi would not give up its secrets easily.
"In this portrayal, Paititi is a city brimming with life, culture, and wealth, but also filled with mysteries, forbidden knowledge, and political intrigue. It’s a city where ancient prophecies and powerful artifacts beckon adventurers, while hidden dangers lurk in the jungle and in the shadows of its grand temple. This setup offers numerous opportunities for exploration, rivalries, and quests to uncover the secrets of the past, with a sense of danger and adventure around every corner."
-
Quivira-:- North America, year 1,540 CE
Nestled at the far edge of the known world, where the wilderness of the New World stretches to the horizon and beyond, the city of Quivira stands as a beacon of mystery and possibility.
To the outside world, it is a land of legend... a place whispered about by explorers and traders who speak of golden cities, endless rivers of riches, and forests where the trees themselves seem to shimmer with the glow of jewels.
For centuries, Quivira has eluded all who sought it, a city wrapped in the folds of mist and myth, hidden by the very land itself.
But Quivira is no mere fantasy. To those who call it home, it is a land of abundance... a prosperous kingdom at the edge of the continent, where the rivers run with water so pure it is said to grant strength and long life.
The people of Quivira are known for their remarkable craftsmanship and harmonious existence with the earth. Tall stone structures, adorned with intricate carvings and paintings that tell the stories of gods and ancient kings, dot the landscape. From their towering temples to the bustling marketplace, the city seems to pulse with life, its streets lined with the finest textiles, ceramics, and carvings.
The heart of Quivira is the Palace of the Sun, an immense structure built from the rich gold and jade that the kingdom has long mined from the earth. Gold that gleams in the sun, casting radiant light over the city. The ruler of Quivira, King Zaytah, is believed to be divinely chosen... a man whose bloodline stretches back to the ancient gods, and whose wisdom is said to be second only to the divine. Under his rule, Quivira flourishes as a center of wealth, knowledge, and culture.
Yet, beneath the prosperity, there is a shadow... one that few dare speak of aloud. The wealth of Quivira is not earned through trade alone, but through the discovery of powerful artifacts and ancient magic buried deep in the earth, uncovered by generations of explorers and miners. It is whispered that the Sacred Chamber beneath the Temple of the Sun holds an artifact of unimaginable power, an object that can control the very forces of nature itself. The Heart of the Earth, it is called, a jewel said to possess the ability to shift the land, command the elements, and even grant immortality.
⚔️ Hokona -:- The Protectors of the Land 🪓
The Hokona, a fierce and secretive tribe of warriors, have long protected the land from outsiders. They have lived alongside the riches of Quivira for generations, watching over its secrets, its people, and the power that lay beneath. The Hokona know the true cost of Quivira’s wealth, and they have sworn to protect the Heart of the Earth from those who would seek to exploit it. Their chief, Tala-Na, is a woman of remarkable strength, both in body and spirit, and she will stop at nothing to keep the city’s ancient power from falling into the wrong hands.
🌲 Quivira: Where Earth Dreams in Gold 🌲
At the edge of the storm-laced prairies, hidden between rivers that change their course overnight, Quivira thrives… a city not lost, but veiled by will and wildness. Its spires rise like copper thorns from a bed of emerald green, entwined with vines that hum ancestral songs beneath the wind. Trade is conducted in whispers and riddles, for Quivira guards its wealth… not with walls or warriors, but with memory-devouring fogs and guardian beasts carved from storm.
🌾 City of Unyielding Splendor 🌾
The Golden Crescent Courtyard is the heart of Quivira, where the wealth of the land is sung into existence each dawn. Here, songsmiths strike drums made from hollow thunderstones, and crops bloom faster than daylight permits. Elders wear cloaks embroidered with molten ore, and they speak in metaphors that bend time. They believe Quivira is not located… it is chosen. Those who find it were always meant to. Those who seek it… never will.
🧿 Mysteries Beneath the Roots 🧿
☠️ Beneath the city lies the Vault of Echoed Seeds, a chamber of living crystal that houses plants no longer known to nature. Each seed pulses with dormant magic and forgotten sins. Only The Burdened Botanists, caretakers marked by vines wrapped around their throats, know how to awaken them.
☠️ The Rite of Roaming Flame is held under the full thunder moon. Initiates walk barefoot across charred obsidian paths, offering their last dream to the soil. In return, the land answers… sometimes with rain, sometimes with rage.
Many outsiders, drawn by tales of the city’s wealth, seek the endless forests in search of riches. Their desire for Quivira’s treasures is matched only by their ambition. Luis has heard the rumors of the Heart of the Earth, and it consumed him. A city of gold is nothing compared to the power that lay beneath its streets. He gathers a small but determined crew of men... soldiers, trackers, and mercenaries... and ventures deeper into the heart of the continent, determined to find Quivira and take its riches for Spain.
But Luis was not the only one with eyes on Quivira.
As Luis and his men grew closer to the fabled city, the wilderness began to grow more treacherous. Unseen eyes watched their every step. The land, so beautiful and fertile, seemed to carry an undertone of menace, as though the earth itself was alive, watching, waiting. Strange occurrences began to plague the expedition... hungry wolves that stalked their camp at night, whispers in the wind that sounded like ancient songs, and a series of dreams that visited Luis in his sleep... visions of a temple, its walls adorned with carvings of gods, and an altar where a golden jewel pulsed with a strange light.
The deeper they ventured into the heart of the land, the more Luis began to question the stories he had heard. Quivira was not just a city... it was a sacred land, a place bound by ancient rituals and spiritual forces. As they crossed rivers that shimmered with gold and passed through forests of towering trees that seemed to whisper, the men began to feel an unsettling tension in the air. Were they walking into a paradise... or a trap set long ago by those who had come before them?
The moment Luis and his crew arrived at the city’s gates, they were met by the city’s guardians... silent, vigilant warriors who spoke of the sacred duty they had sworn to protect. Tala-Na, standing before the gates, was a woman whose gaze seemed to pierce through to Luis’s very soul. She knew of the conquistadors’ ambitions, but she also knew that their arrival had not been random. Quivira had been waiting, as it always had, for a reckoning. Luis’s arrival was not the first... nor would it be the last.
The city of Quivira was not just a place of riches... it was a living relic, a land steeped in magic and mystery, where time and space bent under the weight of the gods’ will. As Luis and Tala-Na locked eyes, each understanding the stakes of their confrontation, they realized that the true treasure of Quivira was not gold, nor jewels, but the power to shape the very world itself. And for those who sought it, the price would be more than they had ever imagined.
🧱 Enter the Outsider 🧱
Your name is Marrow Tenet, cartographer turned fugitive, drawn to Quivira by a map etched into your bones by a dying windcaller. Your arrival startles the Loomward Council, who offer you shelter beneath conditions: unravel the mystery of the Gold That Breathes … a liquid ore known to flow only when someone tells a lie.
You are given a companion: Yiska, a native tracker with a jaguar’s gaze and a grudge against the Council. She suspects your map was written not for direction, but as a warning.
🔥 Threads of Danger and Discovery 🔥
⚡ A storm beast named Chenoa, woven of lightning and regret, circles the horizon. It hungers for one relic hidden beneath Quivira: the Talon of Reverse Time.
⚡ The land itself seems watchful. Paths shift when truth is spoken. Names age differently depending on who speaks them.
⚡ Quivira sings each night to hold itself together… but should a voice crack or fade, the city may forget its own name.
So what shall we chase next: secrets in the Vault, whispers on the obsidian path, or a storm beast born from betrayal?
Quivira doesn’t give second chances. But it rewards those who rewrite its tale.
"In this portrayal, Quivira is a thriving, vibrant kingdom full of riches, beauty, and mystery, but it also holds ancient secrets, powerful artifacts, and vengeful guardians. The quest for Quivira's lost treasure invites adventurers, explorers, and conquerors into a world filled with ancient magic, political intrigue, and a land bound by its spiritual and mystical past. Each step taken in Quivira brings characters closer to untold riches... or untold danger."Golden Crescent Courtyard
Vault of Echoed Seeds
Rite of Roaming Flame
windcaller
Talon of Reverse Time
Loomward Council